The Carrero Effect - Falling for the Boss (Billionaire CEO) novel Chapter 91

I think back to my childhood room in Chicago, I never really felt like it was my home. I never connected with the city, or the people; my own mother … always on edge.

Sarah had been a force to be reckoned with, she was shy and small, and looked vulnerable. So, I swooped in to protect her, in a way that I needed someone to protect me. Except, she wasn’t really that vulnerable at all. She let me believe it, so that I had a purpose, a focus. That’s what I did … I fixed things, helped others have better lives than me, organized things to make it all so safe and steady and predictable. Much like my mother does for her homeless shelter patrons. I was trying to fool myself, trying to detach myself from my own life. It’s why I excelled at my job, distancing my own needs and emotions, and robotically taking control.

Is that what my mother does? Are we more alike than I care to admit?

Jake flipped the tables on me when he brought my own life, my own flaws, and insecurities into the picture. He didn’t want a brainless PA to do his bidding, he wanted involvement from me. A two-way friendship. To delve into my life and fix things, that others failed to do. This insane need in him to pry and figure me out, like a kid with a toy. The first time someone took control of my problems and wanted to hear them.

He is a child sometimes, hardly surprising that I posed as a challenge and an adventure. I was probably the first young female to grace his presence who didn’t want to bed him, who hadn’t fallen at his feet drooling. It was probably refreshing to not have a girl swooning demurely all the time. I was real; we bonded as friends and got to know each other. Not posing a threat to one another at all and catching me by surprise.

That’s how he got in, by being the one man I have ever met who didn’t want anything from me at all. He didn’t desire me, he didn’t frighten me, his easy, laid back manner, forcing me out of my formal mode. Always pushing the boundaries further into laxness.

I crossed the line, not him, I fell in love with him and in turn I gave him a free rein to chase me as another conquest. He is a hot-blooded male, and that’s what he does. I removed the rules to our friendship by kissing him, and opened a can of worms, sending us both spiraling into confusing, blurring the lines of what we are, causing chaos between us. I only have myself to blame.

* * *

Marcus returns mid-afternoon, his short shift for the day over and offers to take us both for a late lunch, which shocks me. The fight between them forgotten and replaced with giggles and hugs like it never happened.