Darius rested his elbows on the desk and buried his head in his hands, sighing again. He knew he'd upset Erin by telling her about Pearl, but from an emotional viewpoint, he wanted to stop her from harboring any fantasies about him. Though he couldn't deny he'd occasionally felt the urge to form a relationship with her outside of their professional one, he knew it was more important to keep things between them professional.

That was why he'd told her about Pearl moving in with him. Darius knew Erin would overthink this matter and that it wasn't exactly fair to either her or Pearl for him to do this, but he'd still done it.

Another reason for his decision was that Darius didn't think Erin had any right to get angry over the fact that he was sharing his abode with another woman, especially because he and Pearl were literally only staying in the same house.

Nothing would happen between them, whether physical or emotional. His final reason for doing this—it was almost negligible—was tha