The Rule Book (Rule Breakers #1)(50)

He sighed and pushed around the spaghetti on his plate. “You’re smart and beautiful and I like spending time with you—I don’t know if I can put a label on that. I haven’t done this in a really long time, so I’m out of practice with the whole dating thing.”

“I like spending time with you, too. And I don’t need a label—I’m not in high school.” Praise Jesus, hallelujah. “But I think we need to have some rules.”

His brow lifted a fraction, but a smile still played at his lips. “The rule breaker is opting for rules? I think I’m having a stroke over here.”

“Quick, where’s your Life Alert button?”

His lips twitched. “Maybe I should invest in one. Wouldn’t want to be left stranded if I broke a hip.”

“You could wear it around like Flavor Flav’s clock necklace.”

“I…” He paused shaking his head. “I have no clue who that is.”

I groaned and rolled my eyes. “I have so much to teach you, Mr. Starr.”

His nostrils flared at the use of his name, and he sucked in a deep, jagged breath. “Is that so?” He liked when I called him that, it was clear. Maybe I took a little too much satisfaction in knowing this.

He swiped his thumb across the expanse of his lower lip and gave me an appraising look. “You’re right. Rules are probably a good thing.”

I motioned to him. “You’re the rule master. What do you propose?”

He paused for a minute, taking a sip of his wine and dabbing his mouth with his napkin. “I’ve never done anything like this—I really don’t know the proper protocol. But let’s keep it simple. One: no one in the office can know. Two: we can’t be together at work again. It’s too risky. And three: no attachments.”

“No attachments?”

“I can’t commit to anything serious. Not with the company still early in its creation.” He looked up from his plate, and his eyes took on this sad quality that I’d never quite seen before. “If you can’t handle that, we can pretend last night never happened. I don’t want to pressure you.”

“I appreciate you being upfront.” This was a lot to take in. For a split second, my thoughts flickered to my dad. Was this how it started with his mistress? Just an office fling that turned into a brand new family? I shook away that idea. This was a completely different situation—there was no other woman. But was this arrangement something I wanted? For once, I would give anything to be as meticulous as Zoey, equipped with lists and spreadsheets of pros and cons for every minute detail of life.

If I were to create one right now, it’d look something like this:

Pro: Brogan Starr wanted me.

My inner fourteen-year-old self, who practiced kissing on my JTT poster, was majorly fist-pumping at the moment.

Con: this was essentially a fling.

I mean, the word was off-putting enough. I wasn’t a disposable coffee cup to be tossed in the garbage as soon as someone had their fill. Plus, people had different expectations when it came to flings—someone got more attached than the other, and someone always got hurt. Something told me I wouldn’t come out on the winning end of this deal.

Pro: A fling with Brogan was way better than not having him at all.

That was self-explanatory.

Con: an expiration date already in place with the person who gave my paycheck.

No money meant no chemo payments. And even though Brogan promised that this wouldn’t get in the way of work—I didn’t see how this wouldn’t bleed into everyday interaction in the office.

Pro: Brogan

Again, self-explanatory. Because come on—hot, smart, tattooed man who could command a board room did something to me. There weren’t that many times where I could say that my ovaries took the front seat in decision making, but this rare occurrence wasn’t something I could ignore.

Con: Brogan was a nice guy (normally an excellent thing).

A lot of girls underestimated the effect of a nice guy. Sure, bad boys were appealing—who didn’t like a dangerous guy that would promise nothing but sin and heartbreak on the back of their Harley? But a nice guy, that was dangerous. Those were the guys that you’d want to bring home to mom. The type to bring you breakfast in bed and pick up tampons from the supermarket on his way home from work because you’re busy stuffing your face with ice cream and crying over the unfairness of Rose losing Jack in Titanic (there was totally room on that piece of driftwood for the both of them). Yes, the nice guys were the real danger, because something told me Brogan wouldn’t be someone I could recover from quickly, if and when this ended.

Okay, I was sick of coming up with negative aspects. Yes, he was my boss. Yes, this was probably really stupid, maybe more stupid than my teenage near-head-shaving incident, but dammit, if I couldn’t make poor choices with my money, I might as well dabble in dating suicide.

I realized I’d left him hanging as I lost myself in my mental pro and con list. When I looked up from my plate, Brogan sat staring, brows furrowed, swirling patterns with his fork into the marinara sauce on his plate. “I think this arrangement might work,” I said.

Brogan set his fork on the table and looked visibly relieved at my response. “Me, too.”

We’d both finished dinner at this point and worked our way to the kitchen to rinse our dishes and put them in the dishwasher.