Breaking the Rules: A Billionaire Romance

by Sarah J. Brooks

  Her job was now front and center in her priorities, and as much as she still cared about River; that would just have to take a back seat until everything else calmed down. They needed to bring some sort of resolution to the trouble that was going on. It was impossible for Mariah to imagine anything could get better unless she could convince River to have a meeting with Kimberly and talk some sense into her.

  Kimberly held the key to making everything better for River. If she had ever cared about River at all, Kimberly needed to step up and make an effort to fix things. During the flight to Atlanta, Mariah tried to think of a scenario that would make Kimberly step up and admit what really had happened. But there wasn’t anything that came to mind. Kimberly was much more protected if she didn’t say a word, and if Mariah had been Kimberly’s publicist, that would have been her advice to her client.

  Mariah got a great idea. She knew that no one was going to willingly meet up with each other. But what if Mariah just set up a meeting for the governor, Kimberly, and River without any of them knowing? Maybe then things would finally get discussed.

  Mariah dialed the number to the governor’s office.

  “Hi, my name is Mariah Waves. The governor said he would do a story with me, and I was just trying to set up a time.”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. The secretary obviously didn’t have Mariah’s name anywhere around because Mariah had made up the story. But one of the things she had learned in her PR career so far was that people hated when they missed things. People inherently wanted to do the right thing, and if they thought it was their fault that something was missed, it was more likely you could get an appointment. It was just one of the tricks her father had taught her about the business.

  “I’m sorry ma’am. I don’t have any information on this,” the secretary said.

  “Oh, gosh. Um ... well, I was in there on the day the governor made his announcement. Silly me, there was so much commotion, I’m sure you don’t remember telling me to call back. But the governor said he would do my school newspaper interview.”

  Another long pause was followed by the secretary putting Mariah on hold. Most likely, the woman was checking through her notes to see why the piece of information she needed was missing.

  “Um, yes, here is my note. We can set something up for next week. How does Monday at noon work?”

  “Oh, yes, that would be great. Will the governor want me to come to his office or was he still going to come to the university?”

  “Oh, the university will be great. Is it in the communications room like normal?”

  “Yes, yes, in the communications room,” Mariah said as she made herself a note to call her friend at the university and reserve that room.

  “Great, I’ll see him then. Thank you,” Mariah said as she quickly hung up.

  By the time she had finished her call, the taxi driver had pulled up in front of the police building in Atlanta. With the flight and wait time, it had only taken Mariah five hours to get to River. She was pretty impressed with herself and how quickly she was handling his little emergency.

  Before heading into the building, Mariah made a call to April at River’s office. If her plan was going to work, Mariah was going to need to convince April to bring River to the meeting. Mariah couldn’t have her fingerprints anywhere on the arrangement.

  “We have a meeting at the university Monday at noon. It’s just a little information question and answer session with some students. I thought it would be nice for River to see how much people still love him,” Mariah said to April.

  “That sounds perfect. I’ll put it on his calendar.”

  “Thanks so much,” Mariah said, and she was about to hang up when April pulled her back in.

  “Have you talked with River? I haven’t heard from him since yesterday. I’m worried.”

  The true concern in April’s voice was evident, and Mariah couldn’t bear to let her worry another second longer. She wasn’t going to tell April where River was; only that she had talked to him. Perhaps that would help put April at ease.

  “Yes, I talked to him this morning. I think he’s feeling a little better. He just needs some time to work things through. I’ll tell him you are worried.”

  “Thank you, see you Monday,” April said as they both hung up the phones.

  Mariah walked into the police building and felt her legs weaken at the sight in front of her. There were dozens of officers moving around feverishly. The place seemed like one of the busiest precincts in the world; at least, to Mariah it did.

  She looked around at the different counters to try and figure out which one she should walk up to. There were long lines at a few counters and no lines at all at the others. Mariah decided to just make a guess and walked up to the first available police officer.

  “I’m here for River Anders,” Mariah said to the officer at the front desk. “I think your commander or chief or somebody called me.”

  The woman didn’t ask Mariah any questions but quickly left the front desk. As Mariah stood there waiting for the woman to come back, she heard a loud noise from next to the counter. When she looked over, it was River being let out from a door just on the other side of the counter.

  “The other party decided not to press charges. He’s free to go,” the chief said as he shook River’s hand and then returned behind the door.

  Mariah had her hands on the large amount of cash in her wallet, and she slowly released it at the news. It had been very nerve-wracking to carry so much cash with her on an airplane. Mariah was terrified someone was going to think she was a criminal of some sort.

  River looked like he had the crap beaten out of him. His eye was all bloodied, and it looked to be the same eye he had reportedly had busted open when he was in jail before. There were a couple small bandages holding a small cut closed. He had dark circles under his eyes, even more pronounced than the last time Mariah picked him up from jail.

  “Well, you look like shit,” Mariah said.

  This time, she didn’t run up and hug him. She kept her distance and tried to remain as professional as possible. She really didn’t know where she stood with River anymore, and she wasn’t about to get her heart broken by him. Distance was her best friend.

  “You should see the other guy,” River joked.

  “Does he look worse than you?”

  “Probably not,” River laughed. “Let’s go home. Thanks for getting me. I’m not sure where my wallet went. I think it's back at the strip club.”

  Mariah winced when she heard that River had been in a fight at a strip club. That certainly wasn’t going to look good when it came out. Any sort of fighting would be bad enough, but while at a strip club, it just seemed downright lower-class.

  “A strip club?” Mariah let out under her breath. “Were there any pictures taken during the fight? Any video? What are we dealing with here?” Mariah said as she went into full PR mode with River.

  “I’m not sure.”

  Mariah rubbed her hand on her forehead with exhaustion. River was making her job much harder than it needed to be. It would be much easier on her if River would just go to work and then go home and stay out of trouble in between there.

  “Why were you in Atlanta? Did you have business to do there?”

  “No.”

  Mariah waited for River to give her some sort of explanation. Certainly, there had to be a reason he had flown all the way to Atlanta from Portland. If it wasn’t for business, maybe it was for pleasure. But would River really fly across the country to go to a simple strip club? There were plenty of clubs in Portland if that was what he wanted to do.

  “So you went all the way to Atlanta just to go to a strip club and get your ass kicked? River you just got released from jail. How on earth did this seem like a good idea?” Mariah asked as she felt her own blood pressure building.

  River didn’t even respond. Mariah had no idea why he was so far off the rails from his normal life, but she certainly wasn’t ab
out to let things keep going the way they were. Whether River liked it or not, Mariah was going to save his company and him. She couldn’t just sit back and let him destroy everything he had worked so hard for. Her only hope was that she could help him, and he would be able to see that it had been useful. Because the alternative was that she would help him, and he would hate her for it.

  Chapter 20

  RIVER

  Things certainly weren’t going as planned for River, and he couldn’t help feeling like the worst was yet to come. Calling Mariah was pretty close to the last thing he ever wanted to do. But calling April or Edward would have been much worse.

  Life had never been that hard for River before. He simply worked hard, and things worked out for him. River struggled in his life; he certainly hadn’t had things handed to him, but he had never dealt with the kind of ongoing stress that he was dealing with at that moment. The public relations nightmare that was his life just wouldn’t go away.

  He messed up in admitting he had been at a strip club; that certainly wasn’t something he wanted Mariah to know. But at that point, he was pretty sure she hated him anyway for the way he had treated her the other day at his house.

  Even River didn’t know why he had been so rude to Mariah that day. She was such a sweet and kind woman; he knew that she was only trying to help him. Yet the only thing he could come up with was anger. He didn’t know it at the time, but anger had become his new best friend over the last couple of days. It was an emotion he knew well, but that he had always been able to control.

  Really, everything in his life River had been able to control up until the moment he got that phone call. The call from that mystery man saying that he was going to release information. The caller hadn’t wanted a bribe or hadn’t offered River any way to save himself or his son from the condemnation of public scrutiny. River never received another call from that person and still to that day had no idea who they were.

  River was angry. He felt the anger inside of him like a virus that he couldn’t get rid of. There was so much anger and rage it was hard to keep it in. He hadn’t realized what was going on that first night when he had yelled at Mariah to get out of his house. But as the days had passed and the anger had not gone away, River was positive that he needed to make some changes. The problem was, he had no idea what changes he needed to make. River was used to dealing with himself being out of control. He had certainly helped to deal with friends and co-workers when they went off the rails, but River had no idea how to help himself.

  One of the changes that he absolutely wasn’t going to make was to get rid of Mariah. He needed her around, both for his company and for him. She actually had the ability to make him feel calmer when she was around, and that was exactly what he needed. He hated how he had treated her the other day and really hoped that she would let him make it up to her. Well, he also needed to make up to her for the entire day out of her life that she took to come get him from Atlanta.

  As they made their way back to Portland, River sat quietly next to Mariah and worked through how he could apologize to her. Obviously, he wanted her to understand that it wasn’t her that he was angry at, but he just couldn’t seem to get the words to come out the way he wanted them to.

  Talking to women had certainly never been a problem for River before. He always talked to them without a problem. But ever since he met Mariah, River had a newfound understanding for what men always feared when they tried to communicate with a woman. The way she looked at him—the way she seemed to wait for him to talk; it put so much pressure on him that he didn’t know how to react.

  “On Monday, you have a meeting at the college. It’s just a little social thing to get your face out there and try and get you back on track. April has all the information,” Mariah said.

  She didn’t look up from her laptop and didn’t make an effort to flirt with him or be overly friendly. River felt the coldness in her demeanor, and he assumed it was because of the way he had treated her.

  “Thank you,” River responded as he searched his mind for more words to say.

  Unfortunately, he just couldn’t find the words he needed. Everything that he thought about ended up sounding utterly stupid in his mind so he didn’t bother to say it. He decided that staying quiet would be the best choice.

  River succeeded in sitting quietly for almost the entire flight back to Portland. There was a brief moment where he asked if she wanted something to drink. Then another where he asked if she needed to get out of the seat and stretch, but other than that, River and Mariah didn’t talk much at all on the flight.

  It was a weird feeling to be around Mariah when she wasn’t talking. She always talked so much when they were together. Even when River was in jail, he loved calling her and listening to her ramble on and on. It calmed him and helped him focus on getting to go home soon. When River talked with Mariah, he focused much more on his plans for outside the jail.

  The flight landed, and River opened the car door for Mariah and then ran around to the passenger side. It had only been a few days before that they were in the same car, and she was driving him home from his 60 days in jail. He held out a tiny bit of hope that he could convince her to stay at his house again.

  River couldn’t help seeing the humor in the moment. He really hadn’t learned his lesson at all from his time in jail. When Mariah had made that statement to him earlier, it didn’t sink in all that much, but as she drove him home again, he finally saw the humor in it. Mariah probably thought River was some sort of hardened criminal that just happened to be able to run a company. She certainly wasn’t looking at him with the desire she had looked at him with before.

  “Thank you again for helping out,” River said as he reached for Mariah’s hand.

  She pulled it away and put it onto the steering wheel almost immediately. It was very clear that she didn’t want to have any sort of intimate relationship with River any longer. He was comfortable leaving women or ruining things to the point that they didn’t want to be with him. It was the normal way that River worked. But it didn’t feel right with Mariah. River wasn’t ready for her to make an exit from his life.

  Sure, he made it seem like he was only dating women casually because that was what he chose, but the truth was, casual dating was all he could handle. He wasn’t equipped to take on the emotional responsibility of a woman’s heart. At least, he should be commended for knowing when he should back down and for making an effort not to break women’s hearts.

  Normally, this was the point when River would wish a woman luck on her career and say he was excited to remain friends with them. But he couldn’t exactly do that with Mariah; they were tied together for the time being, and he needed to work through the uncomfortable feeling, at least until his business deal with Wholesome Foods was finished.

  “Okay, here you go. Remember, talk with April about your Monday meeting. I’ll meet you there. Take some time for yourself and relax, and for goodness sake, please don’t get arrested this weekend.”

  Mariah was clearly not interested in coming inside for a drink, or anything else. She didn’t make eye contact with him, and she didn’t even put the car into park as she pulled into his driveway. River decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to even ask her.

  It was his fault she had distanced herself from him. He was a mess, and she didn’t deserve to be around a guy like him. River would just move forward with his plans and do the best he could with Mariah as his public relations specialist. A professional relationship was fine with him; certainly, he had many of those with lovely ladies. River didn’t have to have anything more with Mariah.

  The more he tried to convince himself that he could keep a professional relationship with Mariah, the more he felt like he was wrong. Even as she sat in the seat next to him in that car, River knew that he couldn’t keep things professional. He liked feeling her naked body way too much to give that all up. But he would take a step back for the time being and allow Mariah to make the new boundaries.
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  “Thank you again. I’ll see you on Monday,” River said as he made his way into his house.

  ***

  The Monday morning meeting wasn’t something River would have planned for himself, but he was excited to get the opportunity to talk with some college kids, though, and woke up early to get ready. He made a list of things they could talk about and even practiced a little motivational speech that he thought the college kids would enjoy. April had explained that it was just a class of business students who wanted to talk about getting started in business and those things. It sounded like the perfect opportunity for River to get back out into the public eye.

  He was adamant about not making a public statement, but teaching some kids seemed like a great way to move forward. River even thought that he might put together a technology group for the college and see if anyone was interested in that. River successfully used technology in his company that many other startups were now copying. He had knowledge to share and was really damn excited to get to share it.

  As he walked into the communications room at the university, River was not exactly sure what was going on. April, Edward, Kimberly, and her husband, the governor were all sitting in the room. There were no college kids in the room. Even Mariah wasn’t there.

  River paused at the door as he took his time, looked at each of them, and tried to decide just what was going on. None of them seemed surprised that there weren’t college students in the room. River started to realize that he had been set up.

  “What’s this?” River said as he felt his anger building.

  “I don’t know. You invited me,” the governor responded. “This jerk is so out of it, he doesn’t even remember inviting me. He had his PR girl pretend to be a student and lure us here, and now he’s pretending like he had no idea.”

  The governor was on his feet and moving toward River as he yelled and spewed his idea of the truth. River wasn’t afraid of the governor at all, but he did back up and hold his fists behind his back in an effort to control his own anger.