“Where’s the footage?” I pushed a fingernail against the bottom of her eye. “Tell me!”
“It’s—on my laptop. The password is Meghan.” Her face twisted into a grimace and tears started to pour out of her eyes. “My laptop is on the table by the couch…”
“Don’t you fucking move.” I stood to my feet and kept an eye on Meghan as I grabbed her laptop.
“Chrissy—I’m so sorry. I wanted to be your friend, but…” A sob stifled her words.
“I don’t want to hear your fucking sob story.” I knelt down on the floor and put the laptop on her chest.
I opened the laptop and found what I was looking for. The footage was in a folder on her desktop. I deleted it and checked to see if she had a cloud account—it wasn’t even set up. I left the laptop on her chest and found her cell phone. She didn’t fight when I grabbed her hand and used her fingerprint to unlock it. I deleted everything from it as well. I still didn’t trust her, and I knew enough about computers to know that the stuff could still be recovered in the right hands—unfortunately, it was too valuable to risk giving her an opportunity to do that.
“I’m taking these.” I closed her laptop and stood.
“Wait—I need my laptop for school.” She sat up. “And—you can’t take my phone!”
“Consider it a small price to pay for what you did. You could go to prison for trying to blackmail Greyson—and he’s got enough money to make sure that happens. Is that what you want?” I narrowed my eyes at her.
“No!” She shook her head back and forth.
“I’m sorry I was such a lame friend.” I walked to the door and slammed it behind me.
My heart was beating hard in my chest and my pulse was racing when I got back to the car. I couldn’t believe I had actually attacked Meghan—and watched her melt into a ball of tears in front of me. It was—kind of exhilarating, even if I was something that I never imagined myself doing. I was going to miss my first class, but I couldn’t let Greyson worry. I also had concerns that Meghan’s laptop or phone could have tracking software on them. I was afraid that she would try to call the cops or something once she regained her composure. I drove to the beach and walked out onto the pier—a few seconds later, her laptop and phone were in the ocean. There was no way anyone would recover anything off them—if they were ever even found.
Hopefully, Greyson will be proud of me for handling this myself.
16
Greyson
I was still angry when I woke up. I planned to spend the day at home—possibly even day drinking—but after Chrissy left for school, I realized that was never going to work. I still had a business to run. Lauren could manage it without me most of the time, but we had canceled meetings the previous day. I didn’t want to get further behind by canceling more. I put my anger in the back of my mind long enough to get ready and head to the office. I had no idea what I was going to do if the footage actually leaked—or what kind of damage control I needed to do before that could happen. I was used to handling shit for my clients—but there was too much panic to make the right decision when it came to myself. I certainly didn’t want to have to make a call to Candice Banks—but there was a possibility it was inevitable.
“You made it in.” Lauren looked up at me as I walked through the front door.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Anything yet?”
“I don’t think the group that hit those celebrities accessed your cameras.” Lauren turned her monitor towards me. “I talked to Ricky and he said those guys—they do things remotely and are really good at hiding it.”
“What does that mean?” I sat down next to her desk.
“Well, the person that did this didn’t use some sort of hack—they had your password. I pulled the logs and it looks like someone accessed them a few days ago.” She tapped her screen. “They weren’t trying to hide what they were doing.”
“Weird…” I tilted my head slightly.
“It gets weirder.” She exhaled sharply. “I pinged the location and the person who accessed your cameras—they were on your property.”
“That’s impossible…” I shook my head back and forth.
“Is it?” She raised her eyebrows. “Check this out—this is from the day they were accessed.”
Lauren pulled some footage up and started playing it. I saw Chrissy, which wasn’t a surprise—she was supposed to be home based on the time. What I wasn’t expecting was for someone else to show up. I didn’t recognize the girl that walked into the house, but it didn’t look like Chrissy was thrilled for her to be there. The girl walked around like she owned the place while Chrissy followed behind her with an upset look on her face. It even looked like they got into some sort of argument before Chrissy slammed the front door.
“Chrissy didn’t mention this to me at all…” I stared at the screen. “Who the fuck is that girl?”
“I don’t know, but you might want to find out. The cameras were accessed right after she left, which means—she probably has the footage.” Lauren nodded. “Unfortunately, we don’t know what she did with it. She could have easily sold it to someone that actually knows what they’re doing—or, she could be the one trying to blackmail you.”
“We need to find out her name.” I sighed angrily.
“Her name is Meghan.” I heard Chrissy’s voice and turned to see her standing in the doorway.
“Chrissy, what the fuck?” I stood up immediately. “You let someone into the house—and you didn’t tell me they were there?”
“I’m sorry, Greyson. I had no idea she would do something like this! I thought she was just—really annoying. I got her to leave—it just took a little bit.” Chrissy looked down at the floor.
“Well you just need to go to school. I’ll find this—Meghan—and deal with her.” I growled under my breath.
“I handled it.” Chrissy lifted her head slowly. “The footage is deleted—and I threw her laptop in the ocean.”
“Wait…” Lauren’s head snapped back. “You did what?”
“You need to start from the beginning.” I motioned for Chrissy to have a seat.
Chrissy started a little further back than I expected and told us that it started with Meghan taking her keys so she could drive the Porsche. I wasn’t happy to hear that, considering that anyone behind the wheel was a liability to me, but that part wasn’t important. Chrissy described how she suspected Meghan—and got a full confession. That part was a little alarming, but I might have done the same thing if I was in her position. When she finished her story, I wanted to believe it was over—but I still had some lingering concerns.
“Okay.” I nodded. “Chrissy, I want you to go home. We’ll discuss this later.”
“But…” She tilted her head slightly and I could tell she was offended. “I—fixed it.”
“Maybe, but for now…” I pointed at the door.
“Fine.” She nodded and left the office.
“Please tell me you’re not upset with her after what she just told you.” Lauren looked at me with concern on her face.
“I don’t know how to feel right now.” I exhaled sharply. “I’m still processing it.”
I want to be furious, but Chrissy isn’t the one I should be mad at right now. She’s just getting the brunt of it.
“This is what I’m going to do…” Lauren leaned forward and started typing. “I’m going to leak this story to the press.”
“What the fuck?” I blinked in surprise.
“Not everything.” She smiled. “I’m going to use the press to our advantage. I’ll drop a few hints—let people know that some explicit footage might exist of you—probably with a stripper to make it sound believable.”
“It’s believable that I’m out fucking strippers? Great. Do you think it’s a good idea to draw attention to this?” I felt a little concern rise up in my throat.
“This is the best way to find out if anyone else has the footage. Trust me, the reporters will be all over this—because I’m going t
o suggest Ricky Bonds might be in the footage too.” She chuckled. “That will definitely get their attention.”
“We might want to clear that with Ricky first…” I reached for my phone.
“I already did. I was thinking about it earlier. He’s so happy you straightened things out after the paparazzi got those pictures of him with Emily Smith that he was eager to help.” Lauren nodded.
“If that wasn’t enough, I’m sure we’ll have another Ricky Bonds problem to fix soon enough.” I laughed and nodded. “Okay, this might work. If nothing else, I might get a few clients if they think I’m going to take them out to shag a few strippers.”
“Free advertising, right?” She shrugged.
My anxiety settled down a little bit once Lauren laid out her plan. I handled my meetings and waited—waited for the phone to ring—waited for anything. There was a brief moment of concern when a paparazzi claimed he was going to release the footage, but one call to his boss confirmed that he was just trying to get his claws in the hype. By later in the afternoon, it was clear that we had sent them on a chase for something they weren’t going to be able to find. Lauren’s research into Chrissy friend—or former friend—revealed that she was just a middle-class kid who had never been in trouble.
“I guess she just saw an opportunity and took it…” I exhaled sharply.
“These are the risks you’re going to have when you have a teenager living with you.” Lauren shrugged. “I tried to give you a warning.”
“Obviously I should have listened.” I sighed and shook my head.
“I took the liberty of clearing all your security camera footage off the server, so there’s no chance of this happening again. I also stopped them from recording—that was fine when it was just you in your Fortress of Solitude, but you can’t record everything that’s happening now…” She gave me a slight smirk.
“That’s for the best.” I nodded in agreement. “Thank you.”
“Oh, and while you were busy today—we got a call from three of those kids you were interested in meeting with.” Lauren turned her monitor. “I set up appointments—but you’ll have to meet with their parents first, since they’re still students.”
“Thank you.” I looked down at the floor for a moment. “I’m probably going to regret this—because I think everything will fall apart if I do it—but how would you like to try being an agent instead of my assistant?”
“I didn’t go to a fancy university or play a sport. How in the world am I going to be an agent?” She scoffed at me.
“You do all of the work already, don’t you?” I tilted my head slightly. “I’m sure you could handle it. You would just have to hire your own assistant…”
“Hmm.” She seemed to be pondering it. “My friend Tiffani is looking for a job—she’s usually more organized than I am.”
“Great, well she sounds like a great assistant to replace you—but who are you going to get to be your assistant?” I chuckled under my breath.
“You need to go home and apologize to Chrissy for not being nicer to her earlier.” Lauren narrowed her eyes at me. “If you’re lucky, she might still like you enough to accept it.”
“Okay, I’m leaving…” I nodded and walked towards the door.
I did need to apologize to Chrissy. My reaction wasn’t appropriate. I lashed out because she was in front of me—not because she deserved it. If it wasn’t for her, there was a good chance I would have paid Meghan off and anything could have happened after that. She might have kept her word and deleted the footage—or got greedy and sold it to someone else. None of it was Chrissy’s fault. She didn’t expect someone she called a friend to betray her. I reacted like her Daddy when she needed me to react like I was the man who loved her—and would do anything for her. Finding the balance between the two was more difficult than I realized. Even if I was stepping into the Daddy role, I should have been more compassionate. I should have at least hugged her.
Hopefully I didn’t mess things up. I really have gotten too attached to lose her.
“Chrissy?” I pushed open the front door. “Are you here?”
“Of course I’m here.” I heard her voice echo from the living room. “I was told to go home—that’s what I did.”
“I’m sorry.” I walked to the door of the living room. “I didn’t handle that like I should have.”
“No, but I think it was a wake-up call.” She exhaled sharply and stood.
“What do you mean?” I tilted my head slightly.
“I was horrified when I realized that it was my fault this happened—but I didn’t just sit back and accept defeat.” She shook her head. “I figure it out—I handled things. I thought you would be proud of me for doing it…”
“I was proud of you.” I sighed and looked down at the floor. “I still am, I was just in shock.”
“You reacted like my Daddy, which is fine. That’s the role we agreed you should have. I guess I was just expecting a different reaction—because I didn’t handle the situation like a girl in need of a Daddy.” She shrugged. “I wanted you to see me as more than that—and you didn’t.”
“I do now.” I walked up and took her hand with my good one. “It was a mistake…”
“I don’t think it was a mistake.” She looked down and sighed. “I think it was clarity—and that’s okay. It just wasn’t what I needed right then.”
“Are you not able to forgive me?” I tilted my head slightly. “Please tell me I didn’t screw this up that badly.”
“I need a little time to think.” She exhaled sharply. “I don’t hold grudges—that isn’t the kind of person I am. I care about you, but I’m worried that we’ve made so many lines between us that we can’t keep them straight anymore. I don’t want there to be any lines—I don’t want the thought of a video of us together to freak you out so much that you put your hand through a television monitor…”
“I was worried about you—and how your family would react…” I blinked a couple of times as the realization hit me. “But you don’t care about that.”
“No.” She shook her head back and forth. “I really don’t. My mother was barely there for me. She did the bare minimum, which—was okay. I understood why, but she doesn’t have the right to judge me for who I fall in love with. I never cared that you were my father’s best friend or that you were an older man than me. I knew what I wanted the moment I saw you—I just didn’t realize exactly how bad I would end up wanting you, or what kind of things you would introduce me to.”
“You liked being a brat too—sometimes.” I felt a lot of emotions churning inside me, but I struggled to control them.
“I did and that won’t change, but these lines—you’re my Daddy when I’m bad, you want me when I’m in your arms…” She was struggling over her words. “That’s why you snapped at me like I was some kind of little girl, but I didn’t handle the situation like a child. A little girl would have come to her Daddy and begged you to fix it. I fixed it myself.”
“You’re right.” I nodded. “You did. My reaction was the wrong one.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “It was.”
Chrissy walked to the stairs and headed up to her room. All I could do was watch her walk away. I had been a fool. I kept trying to find a line when there didn’t need to be one. She knew what she needed, and I could have provided that whether I was her Daddy or her lover. I fell too far on the side of the former and it might have cost me my chance to be the latter. I poured myself a drink and sat down on the couch. I wasn’t sure where we would be when the smoke cleared, but there was no way we would ever be the way we were. She needed the accountability, consequences with discipline—that hadn’t changed—but she also needed someone to love her the way she needed to be loved. I needed to be able to offer passion as well as guidance with no line between us.
I hope I get a chance to prove that I can.
17
Chrissy
I wasn’t ready to lock Greyson out of my heart, but I needed
time to think about our future. I thought about it a lot after I got back from his office, and the time that passed didn’t make it any easier. I lusted after him before I felt the connection, and I fought to keep him when I realized I could call him Daddy. I was still a girl that needed a Daddy—still a girl that wanted to be a brat sometimes if the need arose—but I couldn’t build the rest of my life on that kinky desire. I needed a man that could be proud of me and look at me as more than a bad girl that needed to be punished, but it wasn’t all I needed. Greyson opened my eyes to that, yet when I was ready to be the woman standing in front of him—I was still a bad girl who screwed up and needed to be sent home to wait on her Daddy.
I’m not sure what will hurt worse—being apart from him or being with him knowing that he’ll never look at me the way that I need him to.
Meghan’s blackmail attempt might have been a blessing in disguise. It allowed me to really see myself through Greyson’s eyes for the first time. It was fun and games before that. I teased him and got my punishment when I deserved it—but, I still thought it was just that—fun and games. I didn’t think it defined the entirety of our budding romance—the one I was ready to cave into entirely—the one that I believed was turning into love. The foundation was unstable from the beginning. Greyson was consumed with hesitation—I was consumed with fighting against it. The roles had been reversed.
The brat inside me—that bad girl I promised to eradicate when I got to college—was no longer the driving force behind my actions. It was something I could tap into when I wanted, but maturity had replaced her. Greyson helped me do that, but it seemed that we were against the glass ceiling of our relationship. I didn’t know how to break it. Greyson didn’t have the strength to do it. All we could do was stare at each other through the glass and admit the truth—it was there for a reason.
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