Page 111 of The Heartbreaker

He sat behind the desk, looking dapper and professional in a black suit, baby-blue tie, crisp white shirt, and a lustful expression that screamed sex.

God help me.

“We need to have a conversation.” I set my purse beside me after I took a seat in one of the chairs and clenched my fingers as I held them in my lap. “I figured it was best to have it in person.”

“Fuck, you look gorgeous.”

His eyes were locked with mine, but I felt his stare on my entire body—a skill I had no idea how he’d mastered, but he was brilliant at it.

“Stop trying to distract me.” My voice was low but sharp enough that he knew this chat could go in many different directions.

He smirked. “Why would I do that?”

“Because I’m pissed at you, and you know your words do things to me, and I need you to hold off while I get all my anger out.”

A smile pulled at his lips, and he rested his arms on his desk. “And you’re mad because?”

I was only trying to play mad.

What I really was, was a storm of emotions that were currently erupting in my chest, forcing tears that I was attempting to hold back. They were feelings that had started at my apartment and built during the entire drive over here.

“Every month, on this day, like clockwork, I get an email letting me know my student loan payment is due,” I said. “And every month, I log in and see a balance that’s completely overwhelming and how my payments are barely decreasing. The payoff from the club certainly helped knock some of it down, but the remainder was still extremely painful to look at.” I pushed my palm against my chest, the simmering ache almost unbearable. “Therewasa remainder, I should say. Now, the balance is zero.”

A day I had dreamed about since I’d started my undergraduate degree, wondering just how many years it wouldtake to pay off, and again when I added a master’s degree to my mounting debt.

I was only at the beginning of my payment plan. I had so many more years to go.

The smile didn’t fade at all when he said, “Why are you telling me all of this, Addison?”

“Because I sorta went bananas when I looked at my account. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was positive there was a mistake, that I was seeing something that wasn’t really there, or that I’d logged in to the wrong account. So, I rushed into Leah’s bedroom, pulled her out of a Zoom, and made her confirm that what I was seeing was the truth. And by the smile on her face, I knew something wasn’t right. That there was far more to the story than what I was looking at, which took about two seconds to figure out.” I recrossed my legs and leaned forward. “I then texted you, and now, I’m here.”

“You’re here to say what?”

The tears were rimming my eyes, and I couldn’t stop them. I wiped my eyelids, trying to come up with something, anything to say, but the words I’d thought of on the way over here were no longer in my head. They’d dissolved. And anything that surfaced in my mouth didn’t feel worthy enough to speak.

“Ridge, I …”

“Come here, baby.”

He held out his arms, and that was all I needed to see to haul myself up from the chair and rush around his desk and collapse in his lap. My arms circled his neck, my face buried by his throat.

“I can’t believe you did this for me.”

“I would do anything for you.”

That wasn’t the first time he’d said that to me, and it wasn’t that I’d doubted it before, but every day that passed, he proved it more and more.

Still, paying off my debt was a level I never could have imagined. And I never would have allowed it if I’d been given a choice.

“How do I thank you? How do I even come up with something that’s strong enough to say to you or worthy enough to show you how much I appreciate you?”

“This is enough.” His voice was so calm.

I gently pounded his chest. “But this”—I swallowed, the spit thickening, my tongue feeling too large for my mouth—“is too much, Ridge. What you did is?—”

“Nothing is too much for you.”

His arms were locked around me like the mornings when I woke up next to him, every inhale full of his delicious scent.