Page 18 of My Brother's Billionaire Best Friends

I make it back to my office without running into anyone, which is either luck or divine intervention. I shut the door behind me and sink into my chair, elbows on my knees, fingers digging into my hair.

Fucking idiot. You said you wouldn’t. You promised.

Phil told you. Jack warned you a second time. Gavin’s practically iced her out to avoid more temptation and here you are—porking in a fucking supply closet like a high schooler with a new girlfriend.

This isn’t like me. I don’t do messy. I don’t do careless.

I built my career out of saying no. No to risk. No to drama. No to everything that looked like it could crack the perfect shell I spent goddamn years building from nothing. And I just let all of it unravel because she smiled at me and bent over a fucking desk.

God.

My hands are still shaking. It wasn’t just lust. I know that much. It was her. It’sher.

Something about her makes me forget who I am. Where I came from. How hard I’ve worked to be more than the guy who never finished college, who got laughed at in his first pitch meeting, who wore secondhand suits until his third raise.

Around her, I don’t feel like a CFO. I feel like a man. Hungry. Stupid. Raw.

I pull out my phone and stare at it like it might give me answers. I almost text her something dumb. Something likeyou okay?ordid you mean it?

But I don’t.

Instead, I open the budget reports and pretend to read them. I click through emails and ignore every one. I rehearse lines in my head—ways to play this off, clean and casual. But nothing feels clean. Nothing feels casual.

It felt like need. Like something we’d both been starving for. And now I can’t stop thinking about her. How soft her skin was. How sweet she sounded.

The knock on my door startles me.

I sit up straight. “Yeah?”

Jack sticks his head in. “Quick check-in on the gala budget?”

“Yeah. Come in.”

He walks in and shuts the door behind him. Raises an eyebrow. “You look like you’ve been hit by a truck.”

“Just tired.”

Jack nods like he doesn’t believe me, but doesn’t push. We talk numbers for ten minutes. He signs off on the adjusted projections. Then he stands, stretches, and gives me a look. “By the way…Parker.”

My chest tightens. “What about her?”

“She’s been doing good work.”

“Yeah.”

“She’s also been catching a lot of stares.”

I don’t reply.

He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed. “Gavin’s doing his best to stay removed. I get it. Phil’s watching like a hawk. I get that too.”

I rub the back of my neck. “You have a point?”

Jack’s voice is quiet. Calm. Too calm. “If we’re going to be smart about this, we need to stay on the same page.”

I meet his eyes. “You think this is about loyalty?”

“I think it’s about consequences and our other best friend.”