Page 60 of Taken By My Grumpy Pakhan

I’d been avoiding him since the conference room. Matter of fact, I’d avoided everyone after nearly screaming down the whole place before Rose said something about the building being soundproof because of the manner of information that flowed through it. I felt myself relax for the first time after walking around with the feeling of every whisper being about me. I made a mental note to give Kazimir a piece of my mind for his deception.

However, my decision to give Collin a wide berth stemmed more from Kazimir’s threat to chop him into pieces and feed him to the fishes; hence, even after I relaxed knowing my secret was safe, I still couldn’t relax around him.

There was also the question of our date. Even if I thought Kazimir wouldn’t make good on his threat—which I strongly doubted—I still didn’t want to deal with rejecting him.

“Can you excuse us for a moment, Col?” Rose batted her lashes at him. “We need to indulge in girl gossip.”

Caroline’s eyes doubled with panic. “Please don’t leave me with them.”

“I’m sorry, Caroline, but you know how your friend is. Can’t risk it,” Collin said.

He stood, said his goodbyes to the girls, and gave me a wink before sauntering off.

“He’s totally into you,” Rose said the moment he was out of earshot.

I groaned, slouching into the sofa.

“You don’t like him?” Caroline asked. “He’s quite a catch.”

“Yeah,” I nodded in agreement. “But Collin’s just not my type.”

“Pity,” Rose said, staring at his retreating figure. “He’ll get over it.”

“Back to you, missy.” Rose turned to Caroline. “Care to explain the reason you’re covering your neck in detail?”

Caroline shrunk into her seat, but when she found Rose had no intention of dropping it, she eventually opened up.

“We had sex.”

“We already know that bit,” Rose deadpanned, waving the waiter over. “What we want to know is how it happened.”

“A dirty martini for me,” she said when the server arrived, leaving us to place our orders.

“I’ll take the French 75,” I said.

“And I’ll have straight vodka.” Caroline groaned, pulling herself up. “And keep it coming, I’ll be needing it.”

I chuckled at her evident despair while Rose smiled widely. “Get on with it.”

“It started during dinner.”

As Caroline divulged the details of her night, I couldn’t stop the wave of guilt that washed over me.

Here they were, being completely honest and divulging private details of their lives to me, while I sat, lips tightly clamped with the heaviest secret.

I wished I could be more open; heck, I wanted to let them in on more details, but I didn’t want to get burnt.

I felt our friendship was safer with no one holding a debilitating secret over the head of another. The floor was even and we were all good.

“So, you think the night was worth a commitment?” Rose asked, sucking on her straw.

“I don’t know.” Caroline shrugged. “He did say he wanted to be exclusive, but I’m still thinking about it.”

I swallowed the question in my mind; it didn’t feel right to probe when you had secrets.

“But do you think you’re tilting towards a yes?” Rose pressed.

“Yeah. He treats me nice, he’s really sweet, he has money and the sex is great. I just need to put my head in order before diving in.”