Page 90 of His Good Girl

“I wouldn’t want that.”

His eyes moved over my face, lingering on my mouth with a heat that made me tremble. “And if you decide this was a mistake, you tell me. Tonight. Tomorrow. A month from now. You willnot be punished. There will be no consequences. You will not lose your position because I crossed a line with you.”

“We crossed it,” I corrected.

His lips thinned.

“I mean it,” I enunciated, because I needed him to hear me. “I want this too. So much.”

“I know,” he murmured, his expression flashing with a fierce resolve and pain all at once.

He released my hair slowly, as if his hand did not want to obey him, then stepped back. The distance was only a foot. It felt brutal. Cold air slipped between us where his body had been.

I hated it immediately.

Callum bent and picked up my notebook from the floor, handing it back to me with a composure so imperfect it almost made me laugh. His hair was slightly mussed where my fingers had burrowed into it. His mouth looked less resolute than usual. His shirt had a wrinkle where I had gripped it. The sight made me feel reckless, triumphant, and humbled all at once.

Then he straightened fully, and the office returned around us.

“Now,” he ordered, his voice still low enough to scrape along every nerve I had, “you are going to go home and take a cold shower.”

My breath caught.

“And you are going to have a normal evening,” he continued. “You are going to eat something. You are going to sleep. You are not going to spend the whole night punishing yourself for wanting whatever this is between us.”

My throat tightened.

“If you are not back in the morning,” he went on, “I will understand. I will make sure you receive a year’s severance, and officially, you decided the position wasn’t a good fit. I will never mention this again.”

I stared at him. “Callum?—”

“Let me finish.”

The command landed soft and stern at once, and my body responded before my pride could object.

I went quiet.

“If you show up tomorrow because you want the job, but you do not want this to happen again, that is also fine. You will come in, you will do your work, and I will treat you exactly as I treated you yesterday morning. Professionally. Fairly. At a distance. You do not owe me anything because I kissed you.”

The fact that he said it plainly, almost harshly, made my eyes sting.

“And if I do want it to happen again?” I asked quietly.

The office went very still as Callum’s gaze darkened.

“If you want more, then you will come tomorrow wearing a black pencil skirt.”

My pulse jumped.

“A black pencil skirt?

“Yes.”

Heat rolled through me, slow and deep and destructive.

It was absurd. It was only clothing, just a skirt I either owned or could buy, but in his mouth, it became a choice I could wear into the room. It became a signal. A way to say yes in broad daylight while everyone else saw only work clothes.

My hands tightened around the notebook.