Page 24 of The Boss

“Juliet—” He takes a deep breath. “I’m going to ask again: why didn’t you tell me?”

“I-I didn’t want you to worry about me when you’re having to worry about everything else,” I whisper.

“I need you to understand something you’ve clearly spent the last ten years avoiding. Your safety is important, your well-being is important. I don’t give a fuck what else is going on, but you are important to me,” he says seriously.

I gape at him.

“Clearly, you didn’t believe that before, but believe it now,” he smirks.

I swallow.

“Juliet, something like this can’t be ignored. This is serious.”

“I know,” I reply.

“Has Drew found anything?” he asks.

“Not yet.”

He groans. “I need to keep you safe. I can’t—no, I won’t let anything happen to you too.”

“Okay, I barely leave your house.”

He grumbles at that, and I know it’s because I said ‘your house’.

“I only go over to Vanessa and Mateo’s and leave to run errands or go hang out with friends, which we both know isn’t more than once a week.”

“You staying at home doesn’t protect you. Do you not remember the day my sister arrived? We were attacked that day. Things can happen at any time. Whoever this is needs to understand a certain message.”

“And what’s that?” I whisper.

“That Juliet Tran is my responsibility and is being protected by me.”

“Okay, how do you expect to do that?”

He walks back to his desk and looks down at everything. Placing his hands on the surface, his knuckles turn white.

Taking a deep breath, he looks up at me. “I think I need to make people believe you’re mine, and doing anything to you will directly be a shot at me.”

“How do you expect to do that?” I reply, walking closer to his desk.

“I think we should date.”

I stare at him, my mouth wide in shock.

“Giovanni Esposito, are you okay? Because it sounds like you just said we should date?”

“Did you just use my full name?”

“Yes, I did. What the fuck, Giovanni?” I yell.

He huffs out a laugh.

“You just suggested that we date because I’m getting messages from an unknown number. Do you know how that sounds?”

“It makes sense to me,” he replies with a sly smile.

“Explain, because it doesn’t make sense to me.”