Semua Bab Her Father’s Billionaire Best Friend : Bab 41 - Bab 42

Tom’s office smelled like old paper and the faint lemon polish he favored—comforting and impossibly ordinary, and that ordinary was what made the rest of it feel like a betrayal. The way the afternoon light fell on his desk made him look smaller somehow, like the room had swallowed some of his shoulders. He stood when I came in, an automatic, fatherly instinct that pulled at something in my chest. “Claire,” he said, and there was that familiar lift in his voice that always made my insides steady. “You didn’t have to—” “I wanted to,” I said before I could let politeness cushion it. There was no choreography left for small talk. Behind him sat the same leather chair I’d climbed into as a child when I wanted to hide from growing-up things. The world outside the glass felt complicated and loud; inside was the center of the noise. Marcus hovered in the doorway like a sentinel—hands folded, posture coiled, the faint bruise still visible at his jaw. He offered a quick nod that said he was