My Dashing Billionaire: A Clean Billionaire Romance (My Billionaire A-Z Book 4)

by Katie Evergreen

  She knew he had been out with his parents last night, so she hadn’t expected to hear from him then. But she’d sent a few today, just to check in and make sure he was okay. She got the feeling he wasn’t overly keen on spending time with his parents. Selfishly, she knew, she hoped that they hadn’t warned him away from her anymore that they had done already. Their relationship was just blossoming, and it didn’t need any more complications.

  The thought of Edward being in a relationship with her made her giddy, and a huge smile spread across her face. Surely their love for each other was enough? It didn’t seem fair that something like class and culture could get in the way.

  Everly couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so content. Her mind felt still and calm, and her work imitated this. But here, in her room, she had come out of herself. Her drawing of Edward was done in a flurry of wrist movements so fluid that she barely felt the scratching of the lead.

  She hopped off the chair and walked to the door, pulling it open to Rory’s crestfallen face.

  “What on earth’s the matter, Rory? Come in, come in.”

  Rory sped in and started pacing the soft carpet, one hand holding what looked like a newspaper, the other running through his hair over and over again. Everly closed the door behind him, sweeping old sketches from her bed and patting the mattress.

  “Rory, sit down, you’ll wear a hole right through to your room!”

  Rory plonked himself down, his head in his hands.

  “What’s happened?” asked Everly, growing concerned. “You looked so happy earlier. Do you want to talk about it, or were you just after some company?”

  She could see the tip of Rory’s ears and they looked bright red. Maybe he was coming down with a fever. She pulled the desk chair over to the bed and sat opposite him, waiting for him to lift his head and speak.

  “I don’t want to be the one to show you this,” he said, finally lifting his head and looking up at her with huge green eyes.

  “Okay… show me what exactly?” she said, a nervous twitch fluttering in to her right eye.

  He held out the paper he had been holding and Everly took it, unraveling the tightly-wound roll Rory had twisted it into. It took a while for her brain to comprehend what her eyes were seeing, but when she did she dropped the paper to the floor as if she had found snakes inside it. Her hand flew to her mouth.

  “What? No!” she mumbled through her fingers, feeling the first few tears roll down her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry, Everly,” Rory said. “You seem like such a lovely person, too. He’s not quite the guy we thought he was, hey? It’s a good job you didn’t know him for long, or you could have had your heart well and truly broken. But for now, we need to work out how to stop people going after you for this…”

  He pointed at the front page of the paper, so obvious now that it was spread over the carpet. The headline splashed across the top of the page read Royal Rumble. Beneath it were two photos, quite obviously taken from a distance with a telescopic lens camera. Although they were blurry, the pictures quite clearly showed Edward. In the one on the left of the page he was kissing Everly, right in the middle of the auditorium of the Royal Opera House.

  It was the picture on the right which truly threatened to stop Everly’s heart, though. In this one, Edward—her Edward—was kissing Jennifer as they sat together in what looked like an intimate dining room. Everly could see Jennifer had her arm around his shoulders and was kissing his cheek. No wonder she had seemed so happy.

  Everly felt a stab of pain in her chest.

  “Does she know?” she asked. “Jennifer, does she know?”

  Rory shrugged.

  “I haven’t seen her since I picked up the paper.”

  He lifted the pages and folded them, reading the article aloud.

  “Cheeky royal leaves nothing to the imagination, urgh, what is that even supposed to mean?” He skimmed a few lines. “Edward Harrington has always gone against his parents’ wishes, but this time it looks as though they may all agree. All except the mystery brunette who looks to be luring the Duke away from the family life that he so desperately wants. How does his betrothed, the exquisite aristocrat Jennifer Huntingdon-Smith, feel about his betrayal?”

  “Betrothed?” Everly exclaimed, the word meaningless in the storm of emotion. She wiped the tears away but they just kept coming. What did the paper mean, betrothed? Was he already engaged to Jennifer? It didn’t make sense. And why were they being so mean to Everly? She was now forever going to be tainted as the mystery brunette and homewrecker. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Now people would hate her for being promiscuous and unladylike, even though those things were so far away from Everly’s own sense of self that they hadn’t even crossed her mind.

  “Where did he take you?” Rory asked, squinting at the picture.

  “The Royal Opera House. It was just the two of us. He took me to see La Traviata then we had the most romantic dinner. I thought… I thought he felt…”

  She hiccupped a sob with the last few words, quite unable to comprehend what she was feeling. It took her a moment to find her words again.

  “If I had known he was already betrothed to Jennifer then I never would have gone with him. But he seemed so genuine, so open and honest. I can’t…” Her hand flew to her mouth once more, unable to stop the sobs that we’re now wracking her body. “He told me he loved me.”

  Rory uttered some words which could have turned the air in the bedroom blue had it not already been black with despair.

  “He didn’t seem the sort,” he said. “Still, I guess it takes all kinds of folks to make this wonderful world we live in.”

  Everly didn’t question what Rory meant by that. She knew he was just trying to make her feel better, but she didn’t understand how Edward could have lied so easily. Especially given his tragic past. She hadn’t thought he was the sort either, whatever the sort was. But then maybe she had never really known him.

  Everly heard a chime from her phone. The sound that only a few minutes ago would have sent her heart soaring now sent her stomach plummeting. It chimed again, and then again.

  It must be Edward, trying to wangle his way out of this mess, she thought, trying to ignore it.

  Then it started to ring.

  “Do you want me to answer, and tell him exactly what I think of his cheating ways?” Rory said, pushing himself up from the bed.

  Everly shot out of the chair and stood her ground.

  “No…” she yelled, startling Rory. “Sorry, no, I need to deal with this alone. But thank you for letting me know what you found. Thank you for being there for me.”

  She tried to guide Rory to the door, taking the paper from his hands so she could read the article more thoroughly. She needed space to come to terms with what was going on. Rory seemed dejected when he got the message, shuffling reluctantly out of the room.

  “I’m just down the stairs if you need me. And if you change your mind, I’m happy to give Edward a piece of my mind. I can be quite the—”

  “No, thank you,” Everly cut him off before he tried to turn the air blue again. “But thank you, really, for not dropping me as a friend when you read this.”

  “Of course not, Everly. No-one is to blame here but Edward. Now go give him what for.”

  He smiled kindly at her and headed back down the stairs. Everly wondered if Jennifer was at home, and whether she should go and speak to her first. She would apologize for the misunderstanding, she would explain that she didn’t know Edward was already taken. No wonder Jennifer had been so horrible to Everly, she must have seen the doe eyes she’d given Edward every time he’d been in the room.

  She slumped down onto the bed and opened the paper again, reading the story carefully. It felt like someone was ramming a knife into her heart every time her eyes scanned the image of Jennifer kissing Edward, with both sets of parents looking on. She wiped away tears with the back of her hand and read on.

  The article was awful, she
felt like they had tainted her character in ways that she could never undo. And at the bottom of the page was an interview with an unknown source close to the Duke who spoke of how Everly had been all over him since she had been chosen as one of the final five. A grainy photo of her and Edward standing too close together in the kitchen was splattered next to it. Everly’s veins felt like they were swimming with ice, the photo must have been taken the night she thought she saw someone in the garden. She hadn’t been imagining it after all.

  She wasn’t a scarlet woman. She wasn’t a homewrecker. Yet this is what they had labeled her as. How could she show her face in London again? People would surely recognize her. She slammed the paper down onto the bed and stormed over to her phone. Maybe she was ready to give him what for.

  She had five messages and two missed calls, all from Edward. He must have known he had been caught out, yet something about being caught out didn’t quite ring true.

  Everly’s hand shook as she opened the messages and started to read.

  22

  Do not read today’s papers.

  I need to see you.

  Please talk to me.

  Nothing I said was a lie.

  I’m going to try to call you. Please answer and hear me out. I know you probably hate me right now, but just hear what I have to say.

  He was right, she did hate him. More than that, she was bitterly disappointed—in herself and in Edward. But a nagging doubt in the pit of her stomach made her stop before she fired back a furious reply. Chewing her bottom lip, she dialed his number and waited for him to answer.

  “Everly, oh thank goodness,” Edward said, his voice flooded with relief. “Please listen to what I’ve got to say, before you shout at me.”

  There were a million emotions thundering inside her, and a million things she wanted to say, but kept her mouth closed.

  “Listen,” he went on, breathlessly. “Everything I said to you that night was true. All of it. I would never have taken you out to the opera, or anywhere for that matter, if I was already in a relationship. I just couldn’t do that, not to you, not to anybody. I know you have no reason to believe me, no reason to doubt those newspaper stories. I can’t prove the truth, I just have to hope that you trust me.”

  He paused to take a breath but Everly stayed silent, waiting for him to finish.

  “The dinner,” he spat. “The one in the papers. That meal was organized by my family and Jennifer’s family. The Huntingdon-Smiths are well known, they have a certain amount of money and status and my dad took it upon himself to matchmake, to set me up. I had no say in the matter, I didn’t even know it was happening until I arrived. And I certainly had no say when Jennifer kissed me on the cheek. We barely spoke to each other all night, I made sure I kept as far away from her as possible…”

  He choked back a sound that might have been a sob.

  “Look, there is nothing, and never has been anything going on with myself and Jennifer Huntingdon-Smith. She’s a student. I met her when I met you. Or perhaps before, during the first few weeks, but I honestly can’t remember. She means nothing to me except as a young artist who I am mentoring. The press has got it all wrong, they’re just trying to create a scandal. Please, Everly.”

  He paused for breath again.

  “But listen, that’s not really why I was calling.”

  “What?” Everly replied. “That’s not why you’re calling? You mean there’s more? Have the papers called me worse things than a homewrecker? Or is Jennifer not the only one you’re seeing?”

  She hated the anger in her voice, but she couldn’t switch it off. She was about to say more when Edward interrupted her.

  “I’m concerned about your safety,” he said, and Everly took a step backward, hitting the bed and sitting down with a thump.

  “What do you mean, my safety?”

  “I don’t want you to panic…”

  “Well perhaps choose your words a bit more carefully next time?” she said, her heart a trapped bird flapping frantically behind her ribs. “Am I in danger?”

  There was a pause.

  “I don’t know,” he said, eventually. “It’s probably nothing, but that night you thought you saw a person in the garden, you were right. Somebody was there.”

  Everly scratched her head with her free hand. Her long glossy hair felt limp and lackluster.

  “I know I did,” she said. “Whoever it was took the photo at the end of the newspaper story. Someone probably scaled the fence at the back of the garden.”

  “They didn’t scale the fence,” he said. “The gate was unlocked. And the only people with keys are me, and whoever is living in the house. There’s a key on the hook by the door.”

  Everly took a moment to let his words sink in.

  “You’re saying somebody let them in?” she asked. “Into the garden. Into the house? Is that what happened to my print on the first night?”

  “I think so. Like you saw, the picture hook was still in the wall. The other pictures stayed up. I thought it might be a freak gust of wind, or a jolt from a closing door or something. Now I’m not so sure.”

  “But why would they target me? And who would target me?”

  Everly crawled back on the bed, leaning against the headboard and pulling her knees up as far as they would go. She heard Edward blow out a sigh.

  “Maybe it’s because of me?” he said.

  “But we hadn’t even been out when my picture fell off the wall,” she replied. “Nothing had happened.”

  Edward cleared his throat.

  “Well… something had,” he said. “Almost. There was that moment, right before, in your room. I don’t know if you remember?”

  Everly snorted down the phone, glad of a moment’s reprieve from the seriousness. How could she ever forget that almost-kiss?

  “Do I remember? Of course I do. I remember not being able to breathe afterwards. I remember feeling like my head was going to spin around so fast it’d fall off. Oh, I remember.”

  She smiled to herself and heard Edward breathe a light little laugh himself.

  “Good. I’m glad.”

  “Edward?” Everly said. “There’s something else too.”

  “What?”

  “The drawing that Madame Baudelaire had of you, that day when I ran out of her office. It was mine. I sketched it that morning. But I threw it in the trash just before we left for the Mason.”

  Everly heard Edward draw a sharp breath.

  “You drew that? It was amazing. But I thought…?” His words faltered, perhaps not wanting to bring Jennifer back into the conversation again. “I thought somebody else drew it.”

  “No, it was mine. It is mine. Someone must have gone back into the studio and taken it from the trash.”

  They were both silent for a moment. Outside the house, Everly could see that the snow was still falling. There was a thought forming in her head like a snowball rolling into an avalanche. On the phone, Edward was speaking.

  “The photograph. The broken picture. The stolen sketch. Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Everly?”

  “I think I might be. That it’s someone here. Someone who’s living here at the house?”

  There was a sigh on the other end of the phone. Everly didn’t know what to say.

  “I think I might know who it is,” he said dejectedly. “It’s pretty obvious, honestly.”

  “Me too,” she whispered. “Jennifer.”

  Could somebody really be that cruel? Was there really somebody living under this same roof who was deliberately going out of her way to make sure Everly was hurt? Everly couldn’t bear to think about it, the pain of it was worse than a physical injury.

  But there was anger there too. She pictured Jennifer’s smug smile, her sneering rudeness, and those cold, wicked eyes.

  “I’m not going to move out, if that’s what she’s after,” she said. “I won’t be pushed out by anyone, especially somebody who thinks they’re better than me.”

  She could
hear the scratching of stubble over the phone and could just imagine Edward rubbing his hands over his strong chin. She wished he could be with her now. She found that there was no anger left inside her for him, there was just a deep and powerful longing. If he was here with her, his strong arms holding her close, her head resting against the wall of his chest, then everything would be okay.

  “Good,” Edward said. “I don’t want you to move away. I think you’ll be okay now she feels like she’s got her own way, that I’m seeing her and not you.”

  A rustle of a newspaper muffled Edward’s voice, he must have been looking again at the damaging article. Everly sighed. She didn’t think she could cope with seeing Edward and Jennifer together, even if she knew it was a lie.

  “Maybe we make our relationship even more secret for now,” Edward said. “That way Jennifer feels more secure, and she will stop targeting you—even though there’s absolutely no danger of me being in any kind of relationship with her. There’s only a week left of the competition, and after that we can be free to do whatever our hearts tell us. I just want to keep you safe, my love.”

  Everly’s heart soared with happiness. Edward hadn’t lied to her. He hadn’t taken her on a date which meant nothing. He wasn’t in a relationship with Jennifer. And he still called her his love. Despite the happiness of this realization, she still felt a ball of dread at the thought of Jennifer sabotaging her work.

  No, it was more than that. She was trying to sabotage her whole life.

  “I need to go, Edward,” she said. “I need to get on with my work, to think. And I need a coffee.”

  “Are you sure you feel okay? I can come over if it’d help?”

  Everly almost agreed to his offer without thinking, then she forced her lips together. She breathed deeply through her nose, shaking her head.

  “I’ll be fine. We need to keep our distance for a while, like you said. Although, just thinking it is making me sad.”

  “Me too.” Edward’s voice sounded distant. “We can do this though, can’t we?”