Page 379 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 1

"I don't..." He cleared his throat. "I don't think I'm supposed to take you there."

He wasn't supposed to take me there?God, James.Had he seriously told Ian where he could and could not take me? I didn't want to lie to Ian, and I certainly didn't want to get him in trouble. But I needed him to take me to Isabella's. "I have lunch plans with her. I don't want to be late."

Ian glanced out the window at the diner that I had just come out of.

Crap. Why am I such a terrible liar?I was even worse when I was angry. I tended to speak before I thought it out.

"Penny, I'm going to take you home."

"Ian, please. I need to talk to her."

"James doesn't want you to be in contact with her."

Why? Because he doesn't want me to catch them making out?I swallowed hard. That wasn't fair. It was just a picture. There was so much behind a captured image. I looked down at my hands. "What, did he give you a list of places where I'm not allowed to go or something?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that with you."

I spent a lot of time with Ian. Whenever I was in the car with him, I usually lowered the partition and chatted with him. I considered him to be a friend. But he wasn't. He was polite and courteous to me because James paid him to be. Ian wasn't my friend. He wasn't even my employee, he was James'.

"Okay," I said and looked back out the window. I felt like a petulant child. James had a way of making me feel like that. But he was right. I shouldn't be going to see Isabella. There would never be a reason for me to go see her. Ever.

***

I got out of the car without saying anything and walked toward the front of the apartment building.

"Penny, I'm sorry."

I turned around and looked at Ian.

I shrugged. "If you're not allowed to take me there, then you're not allowed to take me. It's fine."

"Look, I'll take you if you really want to go. James doesn't have to know." He stared at me, wanting to know if I'd keep the secret. He was putting his neck out for me. Maybe he thought of me as more of a friend than I realized.

"No, that's okay. James knows best, right?" I gave him a small smile.

"You really don't want to see her anyway. Trust me. She's not...nice."

He knows her? I hadn't even thought about it before. "Did you work for James when they were still married?"

Ian nodded. "Yeah, he even kept me on the payroll when he went to teach at the University of New Castle for a year. So that I wouldn't have to keep my job with Isabella. We didn't get along very well. He probably did it because he knew Isabella would fire me." He laughed.

"He knew he was only staying there for a year?" I asked as nonchalantly as possible.

"Well, I mean, he came back before a year so I had to start back up again a few months early. With you." He smiled. "But, yeah, he said he'd be back in a year when he left."

James had told me he was taking a break by teaching. He had never put a date on it though. He had never told me that his plan was always to come back to New York. I thought we had decided to make our fresh start here together. I had that same eerie feeling that I had when we had just met. That he was the hunter and I was the prey. I folded my arms across my chest, suddenly cold. Why did it feel like I still didn't know him?

"Are you okay?" he asked.

I had gotten lost in my thoughts. I nodded my head and smiled. "Yeah. I'm just feeling a bit tired. I'm going to go take a nap."

He nodded.

I walked into the building. The wave of air conditioning made me shiver. It was freezing. It felt like I was in the middle of a New York winter.

"Penny!" Cliff called as I made me way to the elevator. "I have a package for you."

Oh God.But when I turned around, it was a box sitting on the counter, not another manila envelope. I let a sigh escape from my lips as I walked over to Cliff and lifted up the box. "Thanks, Cliff."