Page 59 of Dearest Protector

“Maybe she’s not ready because she’s still healing from her losses and her accident,” she said thoughtfully. “But she certainly looks at you like she feels the same way.”

“She looks at me like she adores me because I’m herfriend,” I said, nearly grinding my teeth because I was really starting to hate that F word. “That’s it, Mom. That’s all there is at the moment.”

There would never be more until I could tell her the whole truth about our past.

Had it occurred to me that I could just stay silent about it?

Well…yeah.

Ariel didn’t remember a thing about what had happened.

It would be easy to just let it go and pretend like it had never happened.

I’d thought about that solution for all of five seconds or so, but I wasn’t the kind of guy who didn’t own up to his mistakes…eventually.

The truth would eat me alive, and it would erode any relationship I had with Ariel. Hell, that was already happening. I wasn’t the guy she thought I was, and that gutted me every single day.

I wasn’t about to inform my mother that Ariel and I were not only friends, but that we lusted after each other, too. Shewasmy mother for Christ’s sake.

“And in the future?” she asked curiously.

“Mom,” I said in a warning voice.

I didn’t want to get into what my future with Ariel might look like right now.

I just wanted to see her wide awake and done with this fucking surgery.

“What?” she said innocently. “You can hardly blame me because I want both of my boys to be happy. It’s obvious to me that Ariel cares about you for all the right reasons. I think Ian seems to think so, too, and she is Katie’s best friend. Katie wouldn’t be that close to Ariel if she wasn’t a genuine person. She seesyou, Ben, not your money. Even though she was frightened about the surgery, she was trying to keep her cool for you. Because she could sense that you were uncomfortable, too.”

I wanted to deny that Ariel truly saw me because she didn’t know everything, but in some ways, she actually did see me.

My wealth and power meant nothing to her.

She had absolutely no issue with getting in my face if she thought I needed a lecture on something or if she thought I needed to be protected from some unknown foe.

To her, I wasn’t the figurehead of the largest tech company on the planet who had almost an unlimited amount of money.

I was simply a person she cared about, and someone she never wanted to take for granted.

She’d probably never know how rare that was for me or how much it meant to me.

It was one of the many reasons I needed her so damn much.

I took a deep breath and let it out before I asked, “You think she was trying to protect me? Hell, she just looked terrified to me.”

“Probably because you see her, too. You sense her emotions, even when she’s trying to hide them. But I like the fact that she seems to put you first. She cares about howyou’refeeling. I don’t think she cares about your billionaire status. There’s an absolute devotion in her eyes that can’t possibly be faked, no matter how much you profess that you’re just friends. To be honest, I was relieved. I had a feeling you weren’t telling me everything, and Ian has been disappointingly silent about most of your relationship with Ariel. Katie hasn’t said much, either. Tell me everything I don’t know about her,” she prodded.

I would have laughed if I wasn’t so uptight.

My mother hated to be kept in the dark, and obviously, no one was talking enough for her.

I started to tell her some things about that she didn’t know because I needed the distraction.

My mother already knew the basics, but I told her more about Ariel’s accident and all of her shattered dreams.

It helped calm me to talk about Ariel, and I had a feeling my mother knew it would stop me from checking my watch every other second.

“That poor girl,” my mother said when I finished. “She’s so young to have so many bad things happen to her. I’m glad you were there for her, Ben. I know her heart must be broken over the ballet, but Katie has shown me Ariel’s artwork. It’s brilliant. She has so much talent.”