Page 17 of His Little Angel

“Nothing,” I spit.

I stare at the skyline, thinking about how quickly Mila could misread me. How easy it would have been for her to see me as… jealous. Possessive. A fool. A man chasing something he doesn’t even want to have.

I am none of that. And yet the line between me and that man is blurry as hell. I don’t want her to think I’m anything other than professional.

I sip the coffee again, grimacing. I tell myself: this is my new normal. She’s leaving. She’s making her choice. I have nothing to claim.

An hour passes. I can’t fucking take it. The rational part of my mind is a whisper, drowned out by this poison slithering through my veins.

I get up to pace the hallway, checking the main floor, the side offices, and the kitchenette to see if she’s here.

She’s not here yet, and with a growl, I move to walk back to my office. Girlish laughter stops me—it’s coming fromsomewhere in the break room. Usually, I don’t give a shit about gossip, but I could swear I heard Mila’s name.

I creep closer. A group of employees on an early lunch break are gossiping like teenagers in high school.

“She did… a body shot?” one of them whispers.

“She—Mila? Really?” Another giggle. “With her boyfriend, maybe?”

My blood boils.My Mila. My quiet, tight-lipped, uptight, meticulous Mila… doing a body shot? With another man. My mind fires off sparks of rage, disbelief, obsession, jealousy, horror.

It seems like my nightmare is materializing—the family curse that haunted my father is now haunting me.

I step into the break room. All heads snap up. Their laughter dies. They look at me like I’m a bloodied-mouth monster that just crawled out from under the floorboards.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I hiss.

They look at each other, but not one speaks.

“I said. What. The fuck. Are you talking about?”

Finally, one of them stammers. “L-Lindsay from marketing… she was at a bar yesterday. Mila—she saw her with… with a man. We shouldn’t have been gossiping, we’re sorry…”

“Who. Was. He?”

“He’s the son of some oil tycoon,” someone mumbles.

Oil tycoon. Another man. Laughing withmy Mila.What’s inside me currently feels like it has teeth, and those teeth are tearing me from the inside out.

“No more gossiping. You’re here to work, not to act like tweens,” I bark at them. They all nod, heads down, not looking at me.

The walk back to my office is rushed because I know if I don’t get there fast enough, I’ll explode. The employees will see the devil I hide beneath this Burberry suit.

I’m losing it.

I keep telling myself I’m not, but I am. I fucking am.

She’s nothing but my assistant.

That’s the line I repeat like a prayer.

My assistant.

My employee.

Replaceable. Temporary. Rotating staff.

But the second I think of her with another fucking man—