Oops… My New CEO Saw Me in a Towel Chapter 06
The warmth of the car thawed me out, and my brain started working again. It hit me – what was Harrison doing on a back road near campus?
He said he was on his way to see Mia. Recognized me from the hallway that day, figured he’d check.
Perfectly reasonable explanation. Sure. I totally bought that.
Then he asked what happened – why I was sitting in the rain, alone, crying my eyes out.
Maybe it was the warmth. Maybe it was his face. Maybe it was the way sitting next to him felt inexplicably safe–like nothing could touch me. Whatever it was, I told him everything.
I’d never forget that afternoon – rain hammering the windshield, a man I barely knew sitting beside me, telling me quietly that my whole life was ahead of me, and one bad breakup wasn’t the end of the world,
I finally understood why girls fell for older men.
Harrison drove me to campus. At the gate, he reached into the back seat and handed me a takeout bag for Mia.
Back at the dorm, Mia took one look at me and panicked. I
brushed it off with a few vague sentences, then sat back
and let her curse out my ex for the rest of the afternoon,
What happened in the car with her uncle – I kept that to myself.
After that day, Harrison kept showing up around me. I had to return the jacket – washed, pressed, no excuse to keep it. Then I owed him a thank-you, so I treated him to street tacos.
One thing led to another, and somehow we kept finding reasons to see each other.
The night Harrison and I actually got together – and the night I discovered that beneath all that ice was a man who could flirt me right off balance – was right around graduation. Mia had dragged me out to celebrate my
thesis, promising to “help me live a little.”
Translation – a club packed with hot guys.
“Mia, I want to go home.”
She wasn’t having it. One look at her face and I knew this little outing had never been about me. She’d wanted
to come,
Between the pouting and the guilt trips, I caved and stayed. It was harmless enough -until some guy draped his arm over my shoulder halfway through, and my skin crawled,
My phone rang at the exact same moment.
I checked the screen. Harrison. Guilt hit me out of
nowhere. I shoved his arm off and bolted outside to pick up.
The second I answered, his voice came through-low,
clipped, barely controlled.
“Come out.”
I froze. “Mia’s still inside.”
A short, cold laugh. “I’ll deal with her later.”
Before I even processed what was happening, I was in his car.
No driver tonight – Harrison was behind the wheel himself. I snuck glances from the passenger seat. His jaw was set, his knuckles tight on the wheel.
Yeah. He was not happy.
Being a grown man looked exhausting. I was still figuring out what to say when he beat me to it.
“Having a good time in there?” That tone. That look. Was he… jealous?
The thought hit and I shook it off fast. Get a grip, Stella, What are you even thinking?
But in the next second, Harrison reached over and caught the hand I’d been using to pick nervously at the seat belt.
“Stella, you’re so dense, How did you even get into Edenbridge?”
My mind went blank. He pulled me closer, and those eyes
the same ones I’d looked into a hundred times – were
burning with something I’d never seen in them before.
“Stella, I’m done waiting. I’ve been patient, I’ve been
careful, and I’m terrified that by the time I’m done being a gentleman, I’ll have lost you.”
My brain short–circuited. Fireworks. Absolute chaos behind my eyes.
“Don’t be afraid of me. Don’t push me away, I mean every word,“