Melody Anne's Billionaire Universe_The Billionaire Trap

by Dominique Eastwick

  She had to focus. Her sister was dangerous. “Do you want to hurt him?”

  “I want to hurt her,” she said between gritted teeth.

  “We need to go out. Come on. Grab your purse and your coat.”

  “I don’t wanna go.”

  “Sarah, this isn’t a choice. You come with me, or I stop paying your rent.”

  “Fine.” She pouted, digging through a pile of clothes in the corner.

  “I’ll wait for you in the car.”

  Rubbing her face, she gripped the steering wheel for dear life. Why the hell hadn’t she seen the sign of Sarah’s mental instability sooner? Breanne shot off a text to Dr. Etch. They needed to admit Sarah. She had been warned this might happen. She’d been stupid to believe Sarah wouldn’t stalk again. Last time, no one got hurt, and she had been a minor so her record was sealed. She had coddled and enabled her sister’s behavior. She would call Connor later and ask to meet with him as soon as possible. How could his disdain be any worse?

  “Where is your coat?”

  Sarah climbed into the car, put on her seat belt, and sighed. “I lost it.”

  Turning in her seat, Brea reached for her ski jacket. “Put this on.”

  “There is blood on your coat.” Sarah touched the brownish smudge.

  “I had a little accident last month when I went skiing.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t go skiing.”

  “I said I went with Kimberley, who doesn’t ski. I put in a few runs.” She backed the car out but turned to face Sarah before moving more. “Is that a problem?”

  “No.” Sarah shrugged into the coat. “I’m going to the hospital, aren’t I?”

  “I think it’s for the best. You can’t hurt people or yourself if you’re in there.”

  “You don’t hate me, Brea?”

  “I could never hate you.” She squeezed her sister’s hand and focused on driving. “You keep the coat while you’re there. That way maybe you can go for walks outside.”

  Her sister smiled. “It smells like you.”

  Three hours later, her sister had a bed in the psych ward. She had begged, pleaded, threatened, and finally cursed at her sister until it became obvious there was no choice but to stay. The doctor suggested it would be better for Sarah to remain here with no visitors for the first week or so. They needed to get her calm and, from what they saw, Brea wasn’t a calming agent.

  Leaving the hospital, she called Connor only to have her call go straight to voice mail. Her texts went unanswered. So, she headed back to her sister’s. She at least could get the apartment cleaned up and organized. After all, everything else in her personal life had gone to shit.

  She awoke on the sofa the next morning feeling hungover without the pleasure of getting drunk. Her phone vibrated on the coffee table. She rolled over and tried to ignore it by putting a pillow on her head, but it continued. Picking it up, she saw Connor’s name. “Connor?”

  “You wanted something?” His voice was hesitant, but there was a small glimmer of hope in it.

  “I need to talk to you. Today, if possible.”

  “When?”

  “Whenever is convenient. Perhaps you could come here?”

  “You’re inviting me to your place? Doesn’t that break some sort of rule you have. I might get my hopes up and start talking about the future again.”

  “I need to tell you everything. And I think you’ll wash your hands of me once we’re done.”

  “Why not just tell me here over the phone? After all, over half of our relationship has happened this way. Why not the official breakup?”

  “I think you deserve this face-to-face.”

  “I’ll be there in thirty-five minutes.”

  “Don’t you need the address.”

  “I always had the address, Breanne. I just respected your desire for me not to be there.” He cut the connection, leaving her to sit and wait for his arrival.

  She opened the door before he reached the steps of her townhome. “Come in.”

  “You look awful.” He searched her face. “Maybe it won’t be as bad when you say it out loud.”

  “It’s bad, and it got worse yesterday.” She led him into the living room.

  He did a quick glace around, but she doubted he actually saw anything. If he had, he might have noticed the pictures of her and her sister.

  “Please sit. This is hard enough without you standing over me.”

  He did, but he kept his coat and gloves on. “Better?”

  She bit her lip and took a deep breath, closing her eyes to center herself. “Where do I start?”

  “At the beginning.”

  “I met with my sister yesterday.”

  “You said as much on the phone.”

  “And I confronted her about the man she was seeing who left her at the altar…”

  “In Vegas.” He placed his elbows on his knees.

  “Yes, and she was telling the truth.”

  “I don’t see…”

  “Or she believed she was.”

  “What does this have to do with me?”

  “She says the man is you.”

  “I’ve never met your sister…” His eyes focused on a picture over the fireplace. He stood up and shoved the photo of Sarah and her at Breanne. “Who is this?”

  “That’s my sister, Sarah.”

  “No, that’s Sarah Baxter. An intern we fired.”

  “Sarah has her father’s last name.” She took the picture and touched Sarah’s image. “Sarah told me you two were in love.”

  “Sarah’s lying.”

  “Yes and no.”

  “So you think I’m lying?” His voice rose to a near boiling point.

  “No.”

  “We can’t both be telling the truth.”

  She put up her hands, trying to calm the situation. “She believes she is telling the truth.”

  “But she isn’t.”

  “No, she isn’t.”

  “She’s delusional.”

  “Yes.” And with that one word she had to admit just how sick her sister was.

  His facial features softened, and he took a step toward her. “Oh, Brea.”

  “Please don’t comfort me. I have to tell you more. Can we walk outside for a bit? It’s stifling in here.” The truth was she felt the walls coming in on her.

  “Of course.”

  The kindness in his voice was almost too much to take. She locked the door behind them and indicated a pond through the bare trees. “There’s a walking path through there.”

  “Lead the way.”

  They walked for ten minutes in silence until they came to a bench. She sat down and stared out at the iced-over water. It was easier not to look at him. “She’s been stalking you. She discovered that if she goes to the building across from your apartment, she can see into your bedroom from the roof.”

  “What?” he bit out in angry disbelief.

  “She watched us the other night. She didn’t know it was me.” She fidgeted with a thread on her left glove. “She has a very unhealthy attraction to you.”

  “So it seems. But I promise you, I never did anything untoward to her.”

  “I know because she did this once in high school with a teacher.” A teen crush, she’d thought at the time. A silly mistake a young girl makes. Even the teacher didn’t think it should ruin her life.

  “She’s done this before. Where is she now?”

  “I admitted her into Heatherhill.”

  “Oh, baby, that couldn’t have been easy.” He sat next to her and tried to pull her into his embrace.

  “There’s more.”

  “Of course there is, but short of telling you I had very little contact with your sister…” His eyes narrowed as he searched her face. “I don’t believe in coincidence.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “So explain how you came to be in the company of your sister’s stalker affection.”

  She looked away.

  “Tell me, B
rea. It was no mere chance you meeting me up on the mountain. You hunted me down.”

  “Yes. I wanted to find out more about the man who broke my sister’s heart.”

  “A sister who by all accounts is a nut-job liar? That sister.”

  She winced. “Yes, but I still love her. And she was hurting. I wanted to—I don’t know what I wanted to do. I just made a huge mess of everything.”

  He jumped to his feet, standing over her. “You wanted to make me pay. Say it.”

  “Connor, let me explain.”

  “Say it!” he yelled.

  “Yes, I wanted to make you pay,” she yelled back and watched him recoil in horror. “It was an impulsive and stupid desire to avenge my sister.”

  “You don’t do anything on impulse.”

  “I did this time, and it bit me in the ass.”

  “What did you hope would happen? I would rescue you, and fall in love, so you could break my heart?”

  She struggled to breathe as her chest tightened. After all, this is what she knew would happen. Preparing for it hadn’t made it any easier to take. She deserved every curl of his lip, every snarl, and evil glare he threw at her. “I didn’t think it through.”

  “Didn’t matter. You succeeded all the same.” He turned and started walking back toward her house.

  Following him, she reached for his arm, but he threw it off. “Wait, Connor. Let me explain.”

  “Explain what, that I was a chump?”

  “Never that. I knew over pancakes you hadn’t done what she said you had. You spoke open and honestly.”

  “And yet you continued this charade?”

  “I would have walked away. That was my plan. Just walked away and never seen you again. There was no damage done. Except to my forehead and a pair of skis.”

  “But?”

  “Then I did something selfish. I kissed you.”

  “Wasn’t part of your plan? How the hell did you expect to seduce me if you didn’t kiss me?”

  “I don’t know.” She reached for him again.

  “Now, that I believe.” Connor shrugged off her hand. “Well, lady, you got me hook, line, and sinker. What an idiot.”

  “Connor, please listen. Just give me two minutes more then I will never contact you again.”

  They had made it back to her street. “Fine.”

  “Besides the way we met, everything after pancakes was real. You weren’t conned beyond helping someone who didn’t deserve it.”

  “I won’t make that mistake again.” He couldn’t even look at her.

  “I have something for you.” She reached into her jeans back pocket and pulled out an envelope. “Please take it.”

  “What is it?” Connor focused on the extended large envelope.

  “Everything you need on my sister in case you want a restraining order against her.” She swallowed hard. “But if you need me to testify, I will.”

  She placed it in his hand, leaned in, and kissed his cheek and whispered, “If you believe nothing else, I love you.”

  Turning before she could read what was on his face, she walked away. Away from the life she was never meant to have to begin with. When you base a relationship on deception, it’s bound to end poorly. She was on the second step of four leading up to her door when a hand on her arm stopped her. She turned to see him put a finger to his lips.

  He pulled her around out of the sight of the window and the door. “You locked your door.”

  Appalled, she belatedly noticed her door ajar. She had locked it. Only one person knew where the extra key was. “Stay here.”

  “Excuse me. No.”

  She took a few steps so she could see in the doorway. Her light-pink ski jacket lay just inside. “It’s Sarah. I don’t know how she got out but it’s her.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “See my coat on the floor? I lent it to her yesterday.”

  “I’m still not letting you go in by yourself.”

  “If she sees us together she’ll lose what little sanity she has at the moment.” Sarah was not well.

  “I’m not letting you walk into danger, ever. So don’t ask that of me.”

  “Then stay out of sight, okay?”

  “Okay.” Though not happy, he didn’t argue further.

  She pushed the door open. Swallowed at the destruction in the room. “Sarah?”

  A crash from upstairs had her jumping. “You bitch!”

  Breanne went to the bottom step. “Sarah, come to the steps.”

  Standing against the wall, out of sight of the staircase went against everything Connor believed in. He wanted to get Breanne out of here and call the cops. Sarah was unstable, and Breanne was in denial as to how dangerous this situation could be. They had fired the girl a few weeks before because his manager had stated she wasn’t playing with a full deck. In the weeks building up to Sarah’s release, she had become unreliable, and when told she wouldn’t be going on the Vegas trip with others on her team, she lashed out and slapped her manager, accusing her of sleeping with Connor. At the time, Denise had told him the slap and accusation had been to discredit her. But, now, he knew it had been a genuine belief on the part of Sarah.

  “Sarah, please talk to me.”

  “How could you, Brea?” The voice of his intern wafted down the stairs. “You knew he loved me, and you stole him away from me.”

  “No, Sarah, I didn’t.”

  “Liar.”

  “Remember how I taught you to catch a lie. Read my face.”

  “You knew I loved him.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re the reason he didn’t marry me.”

  “No.”

  “But…”

  She took one step up. He mouthed for her to stop. To stay put. He might be angry, but that didn’t mean his other feelings had changed, and protecting his woman was at the top of his list.

  Breanne placed her hands in the air. “If he didn’t marry you, I am not the cause.”

  “But he wants you now.”

  “No.”

  “Lies. I found this.”

  What the hell was this? He thought.

  “You left this in your pocket. It’s his card with his private cell number and room number. Even I didn’t have his private cell number.” Sarah’s voice broke and shook from anger and sadness all at once.

  Breanne remained calm and collected. “What does that say to you, Sarah?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come down, please. Looking up at you is hurting my neck.”

  The sound of footsteps descending the stairs had him backing to the other side of the bookshelf. He didn’t want her seeing him just yet. Breanne was handling this, and he had to let her.

  “You love him.”

  “Yes. I couldn’t help it.” Breanne positioned her sister so Sarah’s back was to him.

  “Does he love you, too?”

  “No, he might have, but not now.”

  There was silence for a second then Sarah grunted, “Good. Because you tried to steal him from me.”

  “I wanted to avenge you. But I realized he didn’t have a girlfriend, nothing serious. So your stories didn’t match.”

  “He lied to you.”

  “It’s very hard to lie to me.”

  “No no no. He’s mine,” she cried, stomping her feet.

  Stepping from the corner, Connor announced his presence. “Sarah.”

  “Connor.” Sarah’s demeanor softened.

  He walked past her to stand next to Breanne. He wanted to make sure Sarah understood because her mind would warp it, otherwise. “Sarah, I don’t know what I did to make you believe I was interested in you other than your work at my business.”

  “You personally thanked me for helping you. You didn’t thank anyone else.” Such a little thing that had this unstable girl spinning tales in her head.

  “I thank everyone, Sarah,” he assured her.

  “Then you made sure to take a picture with me at the Christm
as party.”

  “I’m the boss. I took pictures with many employees.”

  She was starting to get rattled. Breanne eased her over to the sofa. “Sarah, sit down, please.”

  “But he asked me to Vegas. Said he would follow.”

  “Your manager decided who would go to Vegas, and I was never going.” He put an arm around Breanne. “My heart belongs to your sister.”

  “But she said you didn’t love her. She wasn’t lying. I could tell.”

  “No, she wasn’t. It was what she believed was true.” He could feel Breanne shaking. “Sarah, can we take you back to the hospital? Both your sister and I want you to get better.”

  Sarah nodded, but she seemed defeated. They led her like a child into his car. Breanne sat in the back with Sarah, and no one said much of anything the whole trip after she gave him the address. He stayed in the car while Breanne dealt with checking Sarah back in. When she returned, she refused to make eye contact. Only when he pulled into his garage did she come out of her stupor.

  “What are we doing here?”

  “We’re going to have a long heart-to-heart. Then I’ll order us lunch. We can make love while we wait for the food then follow it up with another round of lovemaking.”

  “But…”

  “Let’s not do this out here. There is someone always listening. Besides, you owe me this much.” They remained quiet until they entered his apartment. “Do you want some tea?”

  “Please.”

  He pulled the envelope with the evidence against Sarah from the pocket before hanging his coat in the closet. Dropping the evidence into the trash bucket, he said, “I don’t think we’ll need this.”

  She fumbled and grabbed it out of the trash.

  “I’m not going to get a restraining order on your sister. And after what I saw, I don’t think she is going to hurt anyone.”

  “I need to look into the other boyfriends she claims to have had. I worry I missed others and perhaps…”

  “We don’t always see what is right in front of us. Especially when it’s someone we love.”

  “You have experience with this?”

  “I don’t, but Lance does. His mother is a piece of work. A real bitch, and he’s spent his whole life trying to gain her approval. The funny thing is this woman he is obsessed with. His Cinderella is everything his mother’ll hate.”