The Money Talks (Adult BWWM Billionaire Romance Book 1)

by Cherry Kay

  “A lot of my friends got into drugs and partying,” he continued. “There was so much coke around all the time, and we were pushed so hard by our parents that we were always on the verge of exploding from the pressure. Whenever we had a chance, we did just that, only we got drunk, snorted coke, and had sex with as many girls as we could.

  I managed to avoid the drugs, and I never really drank that much, but there was something about being with a woman that made me forget all about who I was supposed to be and what I was supposed to become. It’s like an addiction, Tiffany. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

  “Have you talked to anyone about this?”

  His emotion seemed genuine, but she steeled herself against yet another ploy to get her to forgive him again. “If you really have a problem, then why not see a therapist?”

  “It’s not that simple,” he replied. “When you operate in the circles I do, you can’t trust anyone with your innermost secrets. There’s no way of knowing whether or not a psychiatrist will turn around and sell your secrets to a journalist. It’s happened to people I know, and I didn’t want to risk the exposure. Besides, I’d convinced myself I deserved it. A lot of guys sleep around, Tiffany. I just had to be more creative in how I found girls because I couldn’t afford to do it in public.”

  “You lied to them,” said Tiffany. “Just like you lied to me, you told them a fantasy that was designed to get them into bed, and then you dropped them when you got bored of them. That’s not okay, Thomas. It’s not normal.”

  “I never lied to anyone,” he said. “I manipulated circumstances to put me in their path, but I never showed them a false sense of who I was as a person. Other than my last name and the true wealth of my family, I never pretended to be someone I wasn’t just to get a girl into bed.”

  Tiffany shook her head and looked out the window. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. I really don’t.”

  “The important thing is that we figure out how to protect you from this woman,” said Thomas. “I know I’m probably the last person you want to be around right now, but we’re both involved in this, and I have the resources to protect you and to help you stop this person from targeting you.”

  “What am I supposed to do then?” asked Tiffany. “Are you going to move in with me or give me one of your body guards or something?”

  “No, I think you should come stay with me for a while,” he replied. “I’ve been living at the mansion again. There’s plenty of guest rooms and you could stay as far away from me as you like. I won’t try to take advantage of the situation, I promise.”

  “I don’t know…” she said, drifting off into thought.

  Tiffany weighed her options. She had nothing keeping her to her apartment, and with no job to go to, it wasn’t like she had a real need to be in the city. Living with Thomas would make it difficult to search for jobs and go to interviews if any miraculously popped up, but then again, it wasn’t exactly convenient for her to be hiding out in her apartment afraid that she might be attacked by some psycho female stalker every time she left her building.

  “Only until we figure out who’s doing this,” she said. “This is not about you convincing me that you’re a different person, or about us getting back together.”

  “I’ll be a perfect gentleman,” said Thomas. “I want you to know that I wish it were otherwise, but I understand the situation that brought us here, and I know that there’s little I can do to remedy it.”

  They rode in silence for a long time. Thomas asked the driver to take them out to his estate, and instead of boarding the helicopter as they had last time, they stayed in the car and Tiffany whiled away the time staring out the window and wondering how long it would take before she could have some semblance of a normal life back.

  At this point, she didn’t care so much about finding a job or keeping her nice apartment; she just wanted to be free from the constant fear of wondering if someone was watching her or trying to pressure her into doing something she didn’t want to do.

  Since meeting Thomas, it seemed as though everyone in her life was trying to manipulate her in order to get what they wanted, and she didn’t want to be a part of it any longer.

  The city eventually thinned out and became more rural. After only a short while, they started passing extremely large homes that peeked out from behind tree-lined roads. The only other cars that passed them were either sports cars or luxury SUVs, and Tiffany felt a distinct sense of not belonging.

  These people spent more money in a day than she would earn in any given year, and if Thomas and his story was any indication, none of them seemed to have a solid grip on the reality of what it was for most people trying to get through their lives. The lived cut off from the rest of the world, wrapped up in the security of their wealth, and it was a mindset that Tiffany felt she could never truly understand.

  Tiffany’s parents had grown up poor, and had worked hard to be able to help pay for her college education. Both her mother and father had known the pains of being black in a white person’s world, yet still they’d persisted in making a good life for their family. Driving through this neighborhood of opulent mansions and estates, Tiffany took strength from the knowledge that her parents had fought hard to make her into a strong young woman who didn’t need to rely on others to take care of her.

  She told herself that this situation with Thomas was only temporary, and that she’d find a way to bounce back and stay in the city even if it meant moving into a cheaper apartment and finding a roommate.

  The car pulled up in front of the house and Tiffany opened the door before the driver could get to her. She might have to accept Thomas’s help, but that didn’t mean she was incapable of doing anything for herself. It was a bit of a petty move, to be sure, but she didn’t care one way or another.

  Thomas led her into the house and showed her to her room. She remembered the general location of his bedroom from her previous visit, and she was glad to see that he had stayed true to his word and put her on a different floor and on the opposite end of the house. She didn’t think he was going to sneak into her room at night or anything quite so ridiculous, but she recognized that he had listened to her and helped reassure her that his intentions were largely motivated by a desire to help and protect her rather than to abuse the situation in order to get her into bed again.

  Needing a moment to herself, Tiffany asked to be left alone. She went into the attached bathroom and looked in the mirror. She felt far more exhausted than she looked to herself, and she didn’t know how much longer she could go on like this.

  She splashed cool water on her face and scrubbed away her make up with a hand towel. It was getting to be late enough in the evening that she was tired of having it on her face, and she decided that she didn’t need to look her best for dinner with Thomas that night. There was nothing romantic about the time they were about to spend together, and if that was the case, then she was going make herself comfortable.

  She hadn’t brought a change of clothes, but if she had, she would have changed into a pair of jeans and an old comfortable t-shirt. There was something about being in the mansion that made her feel she had to be someone other than herself, and everything in her rebelled against that notion.

  Tiffany went back into the living room and opened her purse. She had her phone and a few basics that she always carried around with her, but not much else. She’d need to either go back to her apartment soon or have Thomas send someone to fetch her laptop and some clothes.

  The phone bleeped twice and the screen lit up with a new message notification. Someone had sent her an email, and she picked up the phone hoping it was from one of the companies that received her application.

  Tiffany punched in her passcode and clicked the email app icon. Her heart froze when she saw that the sender was a string of random numbers and letters instead of a name. The email consisted of one line and an attachment.

  Maybe this will change your mind. –Nadia

  Han
d shaking, Tiffany clicked on the attachment and waited as her phone loaded the document. It seemed to be rather large, and she hoped she hadn’t just made a stupid mistake by allowing her stalker to install some kind of virus on her phone.

  The document unpacked into a large PDF, and Tiffany scrolled through pages of contracts and legal documents that at first she couldn’t make sense of. The files were difficult to read on the small screen of her phone, but after a few minutes she started to get a clearer idea of what she was seeing.

  Somehow, Nadia had gotten hold of various internal memos and documents that painted a very clear picture of what had happened to her old company. If what she was reading was even remotely true, then it meant she had proof of who was really behind the embezzlement and ultimate collapse of her firm.

  With this information, she could go public and possibly save her reputation. It could even lead to her company finding a way to file a lawsuit that could put them back in operation. If she played her cards right, Tiffany might even see a promotion and a raise out of it.

  The only problem, and the one she intended to deal with right that minute, was that the documents clearly indicated one person as the mastermind behind her company’s downfall. While his name wasn’t explicitly written on the documents, Tiffany recognized enough of the shell company’s names to know that Thomas Belmont and his company were responsible for the loss of her job.

  It would almost be unbelievable had Thomas not already gone to ridiculous lengths to manipulate her. This just proved that he would stop at nothing to in his efforts to push her back towards him.

  Tiffany stalked out of the bedroom and marched down to where she thought the dining room was. She intended to find Thomas Belmont, and she planned to get an answer out of him one way or another.

  Chapter13

  It took her a minute to figure out how to navigate the big house to get where she wanted to go, but after a few wrong turns she made it to the main floor and the large dining room that had places set for two. Thomas was already there sipping on a drink and reading the newspaper, but no food had yet been brought out and he appeared to be waiting for her to join him.

  “Ah, there you are,” he said when he saw her arrive. “I was just going to send someone for you. Hungry?”

  “Are you responsible for what happened to my company?” she asked. “Don’t lie to me, Thomas. I swear I can’t handle any more lies from you.”

  “Whoa, back up a second there,” he said, laying the folded newspaper down over his plate. He stood up and took a step towards her, careful not to come too close. “I don’t know what happened to your company, and I don’t know what it is that you think I did, but I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Explain this then,” she said, handing him the phone.

  Thomas took the phone from her and scrolled through the pages of documents. He paused every now and then to zoom in on some detail that he read carefully, but he soon understood what it was she had become so upset about. His face grew tired and he shook his head in confusion.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with this,” he said. “It’s true that I own all of these companies in some form or another, but I didn’t authorize any of these purchases or actions.”

  “The fucking paper trail is right there,” she said. “How can you possibly stand there and lie to my face like that?”

  “Think about it, Tiffany,” he said. He put the phone down on the table. “What would I want with a marketing firm? We have several of the world’s most prestigious agencies representing our brands around the world. Why would I buy your firm? What could I possibly have to gain by purchasing it and breaking it up like this?”

  Tiffany crossed her arms over her chest. “You don’t think I’ve seen what kind of depths you’ll sink to in order to control women? I don’t know what you thought you could gain by this, but it’s not going to work. I want you to call someone to take me home right now. I won’t stay in this house another minute.”

  “Tiffany, please,” he said. “Give me a chance to explain this. What was done to your company is completely illegal. We’re talking about a poorly covered up attempt to both discredit me and hurt you at the same time. I’m too good at this, and too careful to ever do anything so stupid. I’ve never done business this way, and I have no intention of ever doing so.”

  Tiffany threw her hands up in frustration. “How could this happen without you knowing it? It’s your company, for fuck’s sake.”

  “It’s unfortunately a lot easier than you want to believe,” he admitted. “Moves are made from within companies all the time, and it’s often done because someone is trying to skim a little extra for themselves, or because someone is working to undermine a CEO like me. If my board of directors ever found out about this, I could be pushed out of my own company, Tiffany.

  This is dangerous information you’ve been given, and I think it makes it pretty clear that someone wants to hurt me and that you’re just collateral damage.”

  “I didn’t ask for this,” she said. “I only wanted to find someone nice to go on a few dates with. How did I end up in this situation?”

  “Let’s take this discussion to my study,” said Thomas, collecting her phone and guiding her down the hall.

  She went with him mostly because she felt so tired and weak that she didn’t know what else to do. She was so far away from the city that she couldn’t exactly afford a cab to take her home, and that meant relying on Thomas to have someone drive her. She knew he’d do it if she put up a fight, but after the day she’d had, she had little energy left to fight with.

  The study was warm and comforting with floor to ceiling bookshelves dominating two walls and a large bay window that faced out over an open expanse of well manicured lawn. A large wooden desk sat in front of the window, and several leather wingback chairs were arranged around a circular coffee table.

  It was in one of these chairs that Thomas guided her, and he then took a seat next to her, perching on the edge and leaning in to speak in quiet tones.

  “I am not this evil person you’re making me out to be,” said Thomas. “Did I abuse my wealth and power to make it easier for me to meet women? Yes, and I’m deeply ashamed of that. I have not, however, stooped to the level of destroying your company just to drive you towards me. I would have to be absolutely insane to do something like that, and I think you know me well enough to see that I’m not like that.”

  “I don’t know what’s real or not anymore,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.

  Thomas lifted his hand and reached out, hesitating a moment before placing it on her shoulder. She didn’t brush it away, and so he leaned in closer.

  “I want to fix this for you,” he said. “I have to figure out who’s responsible for this or I’ll risk losing everything, but it’s not okay that they’ve placed you in the center of everything. You don’t deserve to have this happening to you, and I want to help you.”

  A tear formed in the corner of Tiffany’s eye, and she sat silently as it tipped out and rolled down her cheek. She’d run out of anger, and she now just felt small and helpless. All of this corporate intrigue was too big for her, and she didn’t know how she could ever face it alone. She needed Thomas more than she wanted to admit, and to make matters worse, she hated herself for enjoying the comfort of his touch.

  “I can’t live like this anymore,” she said. “It’s all too much.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you’d lost your job?” he asked softly. “I would have helped you find a new one. I still can find a new one.”

  “You can’t just swoop in and do everything for me,” she said. “That’s not your right. You’re not my boyfriend or my partner or whatever it is we were for a few days there. You’re just a guy I used to fuck, and I don’t need you trying to fix my life.”

  Thomas removed his hand from her shoulder and shifted back in his chair. She regretted her angry words immediately, and more tears followed the first. She wanted so much to do things on her ow
n, but she needed Thomas for more than just his ability to track down whoever was doing this to her.

  What she wanted was a man to hold her and tell her everything would be alright, and the only man she still wanted to do that was Thomas.

  “Tell me what to do,” said Thomas. “Just say the words and I’ll have someone take you home, or I’ll put you on a plane back to your family. You want to leave the country for a while? I’ll pay for a trip to Fiji where you’ll be safe until I can figure all of this out.”

  “I want you to hold me,” she mumbled beneath the tears.

  She’d spoken so quietly that Thomas didn’t react for fear that he’d misheard her.

  Tiffany leaned in towards him and was relieved when he reached out and put his arms around her. Shifting to the edge of his chair, he held her in his protective embrace and kissed the top of her head.

  “I won’t let anything bad happen to you,” he said. “I promise I’ll protect you.”

  Tiffany looked up and kissed him, tasting the salt of her tears on her lips as they met his. Thomas responded with a light touch of his hand on her cheek, and he pulled back to kiss her on the forehead.