by Ali Parker
“I didn’t betray you.”
“It’s time for you to leave now.”
“Grayson don’t do this. I’ll give you a few days to calm down and then we can talk. I want a chance to explain. Right now, you’re angry and you’re not listening to me.”
I laughed. “Angry, that’s one word. I was thinking furious, or maybe irate. It doesn’t matter what I feel at this point. You’re fired. You need to leave the premises.”
“I can’t leave things like this,” she whispered.
“You can leave on your own two legs or we can have you dragged out of here by security, causing a big scene. Your choice, but either way, you’re leaving,” I said firmly.
She took a deep breath. “You’re making a mistake.”
I shrugged. “I already made the mistake. Now, I’m fixing it and that starts by having you removed from my life.”
She stood up, her eyes filled with tears as she looked at me, then slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry I ever met you.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
She choked back a sob and walked out of my office, leaving the door open behind her. I watched her hold her head high as she walked out of my life. I sank back into my chair, letting it all wash over me before slowly getting up and closing my door. I didn’t need anyone witnessing my current condition.
Chapter 26
Grayson
I’d been in the same bad mood for a week. Ever since I fired Hannah. It was weird to fire your fiancée and end an engagement at the same time. Now, if only there were some way for me to divorce my asshole brother who was still working for the company. I still couldn’t believe how stupid I had been. I had thought I was being the clever one by convincing Hannah to marry me and have my child. That’s what I got for being so cocky I supposed.
Jack was a sneaky bastard, pretending he had no interest in becoming the new head of Bancroft Estates. What a load of garbage. He wanted it just as badly as I did. The only difference was I told him I wanted it, as I was the oldest of six brothers and deserved it. I was the CEO. I was the one making money hand over fist for the stupid company—not him.
Whoever had the first heir won. That clause put into my father’s will was a slap to the face. He had to know how competitive his sons were. I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t have just given it to me—his rightful heir?
“Mr. Bancroft.” My secretary’s voice streamed through the intercom.
I glared at the black phone sitting on my desk. “What?”
“Your last appointment has been held up.”
“Cancel it. I’m not waiting around.”
“Sir, he said he’ll be about thirty minutes late.”
“And I will already be gone. Reschedule it. Please,” I said, trying to remind myself she wasn’t the cheating lover.
“Okay,” she said, and the room went silent again.
I hadn’t been able to get Hannah off my mind. I missed her and that pissed me off. It wasn’t supposed to be anything more than an arrangement on paper to secure my company. Now, I had no fiancée, no chance at beating Jack to my inheritance, and no one to run the company I bought from Hannah. I slapped a hand on the desk before picking up my phone.
“Please tell me you can come out for a couple hours?” I begged my best friend, Justin Roth.
Justin chuckled. “I don’t know. I’m sure I could. The kids are at a sleepover.”
“Good, meet me in an hour,” I grumbled and hung up.
I didn’t have to tell him where. We always went to the same bar that served the best appetizers in the city. I had kept my secret plan from him, but now I wanted to tell him. I needed a sounding board. Justin would give me great advice, I’d move past Hannah and never look back. I hoped. I didn’t like the way I felt. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I knew I didn’t like it.
After taking care of a few last-minute tasks, I headed out to the bar. I was halfway through my first drink, waiting on a plate of stuffed mushrooms when Justin walked in, looking like the happiest man alive. I hated him for his happiness. Three kids with twins on the way. It wasn’t the life I wanted, but I wanted that settled and content feeling.
“Hey, thanks for getting me out of the house. There’s some kind of pampering party happening at my house. No place for a man to be,” Justin said with a grin.
“Glad I could be of service,” I mumbled.
“Damn, what the hell happened to you? Your fiancée dump you already?” he teased.
I took a long drink, set down my empty glass, and nodded. “In a nutshell, yes. More like I did the dumping, because she’s a liar and a cheater.”
His eyes went wide. “Oh shit. I’m sorry. What happened?”
I took a deep breath. It was time to come clean. I’d kept the details of my sudden engagement a secret. I didn’t want to admit to what I had done, knowing how much Justin was the kind of guy who fell in love and loved for life. For some reason, I was a little embarrassed and ashamed by what I had done. He was a good guy, and I felt a little lacking whenever he was around. It didn’t matter anymore. Justin would think I was a jerk, but he’d get over it soon enough.
“It wasn’t a real engagement to begin with. I mean it was, but it wasn’t. Her company was going bankrupt. I bought it and agreed to let her stay on as the CEO if she married me and had my baby,” I blurted out, feeling the weight of my burden lift from my shoulders. It felt good to finally tell someone.
Justin blinked. No words—just blinking. “What? Fake? What?” he asked, clearly confused and shocked.
“You know about my dad’s clause in the will. I had to do something and fast. I asked Hannah to marry me—just on paper, not like a real marriage. She agreed to the arrangement. Things were going pretty good.”
He nodded. “You seemed happy. I saw the pictures of you two together. That didn’t look fake.”
I shrugged a shoulder. “The pictures were staged. I mean, yes, we went out, but we wanted the paparazzi to get our picture, showing us happy together to help stop the rumors she was only marrying me for my money.”
“Oh. What happened?”
“I found out she and Jack went to college together and have a past. She says they were only friends, but the way they were together made me think it was more than that. Plus, I know how she was with me.”
“Because she slept with you, you assume she slept with Jack?” he asked.
“Well, yes, I mean, she’s a beautiful woman. She’s passionate and Jack isn’t exactly ugly. They were in college, why wouldn’t they sleep together?”
He nodded. “I guess I could see why you would think that.”
I hated hearing confirmation of my suspicions. “I caught them together at lunch. She told me she was meeting a friend. She lied about where she was going. I found out where Jack was having lunch and showed up at the restaurant, confirming my suspicions. I watched them from outside. She was laughing and having a grand time. I know they were colluding. She was going to screw me over. Jack put her up to it. He had to have offered her something better than I did. I was the butt of their joke.” I seethed.
Justin’s drink was delivered. He took a drink, not saying anything. I knew he would be pissed. I was beginning to think he wasn’t going to say anything at all. Maybe I had crossed a line.
“First of all, dick move. Second of all, she agreed to it, so whatever. Then, let’s talk about what Jack could have offered that was better than marrying a billionaire and having a child who would be set for life,” he said dryly.
“You don’t think Jack is trying to screw me out of the inheritance by working with Hannah to set me up for failure?”
Justin grinned. “I think you have an active imagination. Let me guess, you and Hannah have hooked up a few times?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “What does that have to do with it?”
He smiled. “Because, you’re acting differently. You aren’t your normal aloof self. You’re actually pissed at the idea she was going to throw you over for yo
ur brother. We all know that has happened before. All of you have burned through more women than I can count. You’ve swapped women and usually either laughed about it or punched the brother and moved on. You’ve never cared before.”
“I don’t care.”
“Bullshit. You do care. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be sitting right where you are, all torn up about it. You followed her to a restaurant, to spy on her, because you suspected she was up to something and now, you’re jealous. You’re jealous because you think she’s sleeping with Jack,” he pointed out.
“Jealous. I’m not jealous,” I argued.
He raised one eyebrow. “You sure about that?”
“I’m mad that Jack is going behind my back.”
“You don’t know that. I know Jack and that doesn’t sound like him,” Justin said, pissing me off even more.
“He was flirting with her at my mom’s house and then he secretly calls her and asks her to meet for lunch? And then, get this, he tried to get Hannah to admit the engagement was fake.”
Justin sighed. “Okay, maybe your little brother is messing with you a little.”
“Hannah tried to explain it away, telling me she was on my side and loyal to me. She even tried to tell me she had real feelings for me,” I said, my voice dropping a little lower.
Justin looked surprised. “Really?”
I nodded. “She said she thought we had something real even if it started out fake.”
“And?”
“I told her she was wrong and that I felt nothing for her. What else would I say?” I asked with irritation.
Justin shook his head. “Oh, I think there was plenty for you to say.”
“Like what? I fired her from her job and broke off the fake engagement. I want nothing to do with her. She’s dangerous. She can have Jack and whatever it is he promised. I’ll find another way to get the Estate. Jack doesn’t deserve it.”
I waited for Justin to spew his usual words of wisdom. I was left waiting. He didn’t say anything. He drank, he perused the menu, and he pretended I hadn’t spilled my guts to him.
“You know, maybe you wouldn’t care so much if Jack had tried to screw you over in some other way,” he finally spoke.
“What do you mean? I’m pissed he’s trying to screw me over in general. It isn’t cool.”
Justin smiled. “But what makes it really bad is that he’s using Hannah to do it and, according to you, she’s a willing participant.”
“What are you trying to say?” I growled.
He shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe you care about the person involved and it isn’t so easy to walk away.”
I glared at him. “You’re supposed to be here cheering me up, not trying to give me love advice.”
“Love? I never said the word love,” he said innocently.
“You’re trying to imply I have feelings for her. Right?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “Those are your words, not mine.”
“I don’t. I don’t get into all that mushy stuff. I’m not like you.”
He smiled. “Maybe you are.”
I shook my head. “I’m not. I don’t let myself care about women in general and this is exactly why. They can’t be trusted.”
Justin laughed. “My wife is the only person in this world I completely trust.”
“Hey! What about me?” I protested, a little insulted he didn’t trust me.
“I trust you with most things, but there are some things I only trust her with. I think you’d be surprised at how much it means to have the trust of a woman, as well as to be able to trust another person with your heart. It doesn’t make you weak. It makes you braver and stronger,” he said in his usual lecturing tone.
That was the Justin I was waiting for. I knew he’d have some advice on the matter. “I don’t think so,” I mumbled.
I had broken my rule once and let myself get a tiny bit close to Hannah. I had let her in, just enough for her to fuck with me. I was never going to break my rule again. I was never going to fall in love and let myself be vulnerable to another person. It was too dangerous. As it was, it may have cost me my inheritance. The slightest mistake could end up having big consequences.
Hannah had been a stark reminder of what it meant to let myself care just a little. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I wasn’t about to make that mistake again.
Chapter 27
Hannah
I was pouting, sulking, and feeling horrible in general after what had happened with Grayson. He said he didn’t care about me, but I couldn’t believe that entirely. I had seen the look of anger on his face when we walked out of that restaurant. I kept replaying the many different ways that could have gone if only I had told him about Jack’s invitation to meet. I should have told him Friday and I definitely should have told him on Saturday. Oh, and of course, I could have mentioned the little detail on Sunday morning when I left his house to meet Jack.
But I didn’t, and now I was sitting in my apartment feeling completely miserable. I had no job, no future, and no man. I could have survived without the man part, but somewhere from that first meeting with him until Sunday morning, I had found myself falling for him. It shouldn’t have happened so fast, especially given the circumstances of our very strange relationship.
It shouldn’t have, but it did. My heart wasn’t listening to my brain and now I was going to suffer for who knew how long. I had picked up the phone to call him at least a hundred times. He wanted nothing to do with me. He had made that very clear on Monday. He had cut me out of his life with one very wide incision.
I hated that I caused another person anger, hurt, and sadness. He may not have felt the last two, but I knew damn well he was pissed. He’d made that completely obvious. I wasn’t a malicious person. I wanted him to understand that. It didn’t matter, I reminded myself. He didn’t want me in his life or the company. I hadn’t been officially fired, but I was sure it was only a matter of time. He was covering his ass legally and making sure he could fire me without me suing him. I wasn’t that vindictive.
I stretched out on the couch, my remote in hand as I flipped through the channels for another round. There was nothing on—at least nothing that interested me enough to distract me from thinking about Grayson. I couldn’t believe he felt nothing for me. That had to be a lie. I had seen the look on his face, felt it in the way he touched me. Was he really that disconnected from his feelings?
As much as I had told myself not to let the man into my heart, he went and did it anyway. I tried to convince myself it was about the sex. I was confusing love for lust. It was a common problem a lot of people had. I wasn’t the first. It was hard not to get the feelings all mixed in when the man gave me the best orgasms of my life. We had connected on a level I had never experienced before. I had to believe he felt something in those moments of ecstasy that went beyond the standard climax. I had felt it in my very soul.
“Get over it, Hannah.” I groaned.
He didn’t feel it. He said as much. It was a business deal to him and nothing more. Period. End of story. Sitting around and bellyaching wasn’t going to fix anything. I had screwed up. I tried to fix it. He didn’t want to hear it. Move on, I told myself.
A knock on the door snapped me out of the pit of gloom I was basking in. I considered ignoring it. I didn’t know who it was and I didn’t care. I wasn’t exactly up for receiving company in my yoga pants, ratty T-shirt, and my unwashed hair piled on top of my head. I was not the poster girl for my makeup line at that particular moment.
Whoever it was wasn’t going to go away. I growled and got off the couch, padding in my bare feet across the light-blue carpet in my home, then peering through the peephole. It was Amber. I unlocked the door and pulled it open.
“Oh my God. It’s worse than I thought,” she mumbled as her eyes roamed over my appearance.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’ve been fired and dumped in the same week. I deserve to look like hell.”
> She laughed. “There’s hell and then there is this,” she said, waving her hand at me as she walked inside, not bothering to be invited in.
“Did you come here just to insult me? You could have texted,” I grumbled.
“Nope. I came here because I knew you would be doing exactly this. No more pouting,” she said, slapping the side of the reusable grocery bag she was carrying.
“What’s that?” I asked.
She walked to my dark cherrywood dining table and set the bag down, pulling out a bottle of wine. “Wine, brie, and bread. The sinful trio of goodies you can only eat when you’re at a posh party or moping around your house.”
I looked at her like she was crazy. “That makes no sense.”
“I don’t make the rules, girl. I simply follow them. Come on, get me a couple glasses.”
“Fine,” I muttered heading for the kitchen, grabbing a couple glasses and then small plates.
“I need a knife,” she ordered, sending me back to the kitchen.
I returned with the demanded utensil and watched as she cut the bread and scooped cheese on two plates before pouring two healthy glasses of wine. We took our goodies and headed back for the living room, each of us sitting at opposite ends of the couch.
“Thank you,” I murmured, taking a drink of the rather good wine and letting it fill my empty belly.
“You’re welcome.”
“So, what are you really doing here?” I asked her.
She laughed. “I came to see you. We need a ladies’ night. It’s been too long, and I had a feeling you could use some company. I’ve barely heard from you all week.”
I sighed. “Because I don’t know what to say or do. I’m feeling a little lost right now.”
“I know and I’m sorry. Let’s forget about him and all that drama.”
I groaned. “I wish I could. I’ve been trying. I keep telling myself it is for the best, but it doesn’t feel like it. I can find nothing good about what happened.”
She shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know. There’s the fact you aren’t under his thumb anymore. I mean that wasn’t cool.”