The Screwup: A Billionaire Fake Fiancée Romance (The Holbrook Cousins Saga Book 2)

by Alina Jacobs

  "Well, I'm sorry I'm not like your old boyfriends, crusty, dip-sucking real men," he snapped at her.

  "Stop making it about that, Carter. I know Stacy is lying. You know it. Once she has the baby and it clearly isn't yours, so will everyone else."

  "How does this help me now?"

  "Carter, we'll fix this."

  "No, we won't. You aren't taking this seriously. Stacy was your friend, so this is your fault. Maybe I never should have met you."

  "That isn't fair."

  "But it’s the truth. Isn't that what you were just telling me—to accept the reality of my situation? Well, the reality is that you brought Stacy into my life. If I had never been involved with you, none of this would have happened. Maybe my father was right."

  "Right about what?" Allie said quietly.

  Looking right at her, Carter said, "Right that you were no good for me."

  She felt so hurt that she didn't even say goodbye, just grabbed her coat and walked out. He was right, though. This was her fault. She had dredged her own shit and dumped it in Carter's life.

  When she returned to her apartment, she tried to take her mind off of things and work on some of her projects. As her computer booted up, her phone beeped with another message from Bryce. It was a picture of a gravestone that had her name on it. She shivered. She wasn’t going to let him intimidate her.

  But she still double-checked the locks on her door.

  66

  Carter

  After Allie had abruptly left, Carter felt terrible.

  "Are you ready to go?" Grant asked him.

  Carter looked at him, confused.

  "We're going to New Cardiff," Grant said. "I told you last night, or rather this morning, when you arrived home."

  "I don't want to go," Carter said, closing his eyes and letting his head tip back on the sofa. Margot snoozed on his lap. Grant grabbed Carter's arm and hauled him upright.

  "Kate and I have to meet with Walter, and you aren't staying here by yourself."

  When they arrived at the Holbrook estate, Walter gave Carter a strong hug then went with Grant and Kate into the study.

  Carter walked Margot around the grounds. Through one of the windows, he saw his father and mother. They looked shocked; apparently, Grant hadn't informed them he would be there.

  Jack opened up the French doors onto the terrace and gestured for Carter to come inside.

  Carter stood there, facing the disappointment of his parents.

  "I didn't do it," Carter said after a moment. Jack and Nancy exchanged a look.

  "Quite frankly, we don't believe you," Jack scoffed. "You don't have the best track record."

  "And you have terrible taste in women," Nancy added.

  "I thought you liked Allie," Carter replied. "She spent a lot of time on the wedding and on random projects for you."

  Nancy looked chagrined. "She brought Stacy into your life. She's been a terrible influence on you."

  "No, she hasn't. I'm a better man because of her," Carter said.

  "Obviously you aren't if there are random women accusing you of being the father of their unborn children," Jack stated.

  Carted shook his head.

  "I don't understand why you both hate me so much," he said, "Especially you, Dad."

  "Carter," Nancy pleaded.

  "You know," Carter told them, "I think I should cut you off."

  "Excuse me?" Jack said.

  "None of you cares about me."

  "That's not true, Carter," his mother said.

  "Yes, it is!" Carter yelled. "You can't stand me!"

  "Fine, then go forth and be disowned. No more money in your account, no financial help, no private planes, no cars, nothing," Jack spat.

  "Jack, no!"

  "No, Nancy, I'm tired of him. Carter just screws up all the time, and he can't take anything seriously. I should have done this a while ago."

  As Carter stormed out of the room, Grant ran into him in the hallway.

  "I was just disowned," Carter said abruptly.

  "Disowned?"

  "Yes." He turned and walked toward the front door.

  After a moment, Grant hurried to catch up with him.

  "You aren't disowned," Grant said. "You guys had an argument. Just go apologize."

  "I'm not apologizing," Carter said with a scowl. "I told you that my parents hate me."

  "Carter—"

  "Stop it, Grant! You don't know anything about this family. You weren't even here until a couple of years ago. They hate Allie. They think she's like your crazy birth mother, Danielle."

  "They know she's not like her," Grant retorted. "Let me grab my father. We'll sort this out."

  "Don't bother," Carter spat. "I'm done with this family."

  "Where are you going?" Grant asked as Carter headed down the drive.

  "None of your business."

  As Carter walked toward downtown New Cardiff, he tried to calm down. He's attempts were thwarted as his phone beeped and he received a text message from Vance with a picture attached.

  Allie doesn't want to be with you

  This is her and her boyfriend

  They got back together

  Carter was confused for a moment, but then the picture loaded, and he felt as if he had been hit by a truck. It was a picture of Bryce, Allie, and Margot all together.

  "This can't be happening," Carter whispered to himself.

  Between what Stacy had told him and this picture from Vance, it had to be true that Allie was back together with her ex. There was evidence from multiple sources, and Carter couldn't ignore it anymore.

  This was why Allie had been so cold toward him.

  Heartbroken and still reeling, Carter walked into the town and passed by Ginny's shop. Maybe buying something for Margot would cheer him up.

  He opened the door to the shop, and Ginny came around the counter and gave him a big hug.

  "What are you doing here? I didn't know you were in town," she said. "How are you holding up?"

  "Allie and I are broken up," he said softly.

  "It seems like you two break up every couple of weeks," Ginny said skeptically. "So forgive me if I don't believe you and Allie are done for good."

  "She's back together with her boyfriend."

  Ginny frowned. "I didn't hear anything about that."

  "I have a picture."

  Ginny inspected the phone.

  "Who sent this?"

  "Vance."

  Ginny gave him a questioning look.

  "A coworker," he stated.

  "Hm." She looked at the phone, then she plugged it into the TV hanging on the wall. The picture was scaled up on the screen, and Ginny peered at it.

  "This is Photoshopped," she said after a moment.

  "How can you tell?" Carter asked, shocked.

  "See here around the dog? This is an old picture, and the dog was photoshopped into it."

  "Where would Vance find a picture of her?"

  "Facebook? I don't know, but it's definitely fake. It's not even that great of a Photoshop job," Ginny said, unplugging his phone.

  He tried to call Allie, but she didn't pick up, so he texted her and hoped she would read it.

  Ginny watched him critically.

  "I don't know what's going on, but you need to get to the bottom of this," Ginny said as he left.

  Carter nodded numbly. He had a sinking feeling that he had missed something terribly important and it was going to blow up in his face.

  67

  Allie

  After receiving the messages from Bryce, Allie couldn't ignore him anymore.

  Bryce was so fixated on revenge, not just on her but Carter as well, and the death threats were starting to sound more like promises.

  Allie logged into the Holbrook servers remotely and scrolled through Carter's notes on the Halcion Drone project. A safety write-up of the worker who had died had been submitted the day after his death for an incident that had supposedly happened weeks before. She
hadn't really noticed this before because they were so focused on the embezzlement.

  "That's strange," she said and looked through more pdfs until she found the information she was looking for. The worker had never been written up before. Allie did a quick Google search for the employee. He had actually spoken at several conferences about safety, so why had he suddenly committed a safety violation and then have a fall only weeks later?

  She clicked through the folders, looking for email messages. She had been through them before, but now she looked through the backups that the IT department made in case someone accidentally deleted their emails. Hidden in an archive folder, she found an email the employee had sent to Trent about the strange invoices. It seemed Carter wasn't the only one to discover embezzlement. Trent had scheduled to meet with the employee to explain, and it was the night of the fall.

  She sat back in her chair. Trent was a murderer. She had to tell Grant. She needed to go to the police.

  Someone knocked on the door. She slid off the bed. Was it Carter?

  Her apartment door burst open, the metal locks bouncing off of the floor, and Bryce and his brother barged in.

  Bryce smirked as he saw the shock and fear register on her face. She tried to grab for the gun under the bed, but Bryce tackled her and wrapped his hands around her throat as Trent grabbed the gun.

  Allie tried to fight Bryce, but he was too strong.

  He's going to kill me, she thought as Stacy walked into the small apartment.

  "Oh thank God! Stacy, help me!" she gasped out. She could barely breathe. "Stacy, help!"

  "You ruined my life," Stacy said.

  "No, I didn't! I've gone above and beyond for you!" Allie said as Bryce wrapped her wrists in duct tape.

  "You kept trying to get between me and Carter," Stacy continued.

  "But you're engaged to his grandfather!" Allie said.

  "She's a sexual being," Bryce told Allie with a leer.

  "What do you want?" Allie asked. "You want money? I don't have it. The Holbrooks don't care about me, and they won't give you money, anyway."

  "I don't want money," Trent said. "I want revenge. You ruined my life and my brother's life. You ruined everything because you couldn't keep your head out of matters that had nothing to do with you."

  "You murdered someone," Allie said flatly.

  "Because, like you," Trent said, "he was sticking his nose where it didn't belong. Now you and Carter are going to pay."

  "Don't hurt Carter. I want him," Stacy wailed.

  "How can you be so obsessed with him? You're carrying my baby!" Bryce yelled and slapped Stacy, making her shriek.

  Stacy rubbed her cheek and pouted.

  "It's not even yours," she said.

  "Well, it's mine or my brother's," Bryce replied, and Trent smiled and jerked Allie back against him.

  Allie watched the interaction, stunned.

  "I thought you said it was Carter's," she said to Stacy.

  "It wasn't." She flipped her hair.

  "I know you're too stupid to have put that video on the laptop," Allie said to Stacy, glaring at her.

  "We had a man on the inside," Bryce stated. "He hates Carter almost as much as we do."

  "It was Vance, wasn't it?" Allie asked darkly.

  "Carter is my soul mate, and once you're out of the picture, he's going to be with me forever," Stacy declared.

  "I am so sick of hearing about Carter!" Trent yelled, picking up Allie's laptop and throwing it against the wall.

  "Honestly, I think I should just kill you too," Trent threatened Stacy.

  "You promised you wouldn't hurt me or Carter," Stacy said. "Besides, I'm engaged to Harris Holbrook. If anything happens to me, he's going to know."

  "Doubtful," Trent said as he dragged Allie upright and started maneuvering her toward the door.

  "I wrote everything down," Stacy said. "It's hidden, but they'll find it if I die."

  Bryce swore, then he grabbed Stacy and threw her against the wall.

  "Where is it, Stacy?" he growled. "We can't have loose ends."

  "It's in Harris's condo," she whimpered.

  "Then that's where we're going."

  68

  Carter

  Carter's anger at his family competed with the nagging worry about Allie. He tried calling her again.

  When he returned to the city later that afternoon, he went back to the penthouse and began to pack.

  "That's it," he told Margot. "We're leaving." He typed out his resignation letter and attached it to an email to Grant. He would send it after he was far away.

  But he didn't know where to go exactly. Should he reenlist? Find a job as a security guard somewhere?

  What about Allie? He checked his phone again. Still nothing. He texted Liz. She wrote back immediately.

  I haven't heard from her in a few hours

  I think she was at her apartment doing some work

  Carter tried to calm the worry in his gut. She was just absorbed with her projects. Maybe he shouldn't even go see her if she couldn't even bother to respond to him. But what if something had happened?

  Carter picked up the dog and his backpack. Margot whined and wriggled in his arms, and Carter wondered if it was an omen.

  "You're paranoid," he told himself, walking to the subway. As he stood on the platform for the train that would take him in the opposite direction of Allie's apartment, he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that he needed to at least go see her before he left.

  "Fine," he huffed as he hiked up the stairs and back down on the other side to the opposite platform. "I'll go see her."

  As he stood outside of Allie's apartment, he buzzed her unit. No one answered, so he waited until someone was leaving and snuck inside.

  "She's just ignoring you," he told himself as he climbed up the stairs.

  He realized how wrong he was when he arrived in front of her apartment. The door was swinging free, and the locks were broken. Carter set Margot and his bag down as quietly as he could and pulled out a knife. Margot started growling, and Carter made a motion to silence her. Then he eased the door open.

  No one was there.

  The apartment was in disarray. Her phone lay cracked on the floor, displaying flickering images of all the messages he had sent her. The small table and chairs were tipped over, and her laptop lay cracked on the floor next to the dented wall. Carter righted the table as Margot sniffed around. He carefully picked up the laptop and tapped the keys. Part of the screen was broken, but he could still read the login screen that came up. He knew Allie's password, and he typed it in, and the documents she had been looking at before the laptop was smashed came up.

  "Holy shit," Carter muttered as he read through the notes she had made. "Trent killed the worker in the Halcion Drone factory?" He continued scanning and saw Bryce's name.

  "That's the guy! That's her ex that Stacy said Allie was back together with!" he exclaimed. As he read on, Carter realized Allie thought Bryce was somehow involved in the murder too.

  "This is insane," Carter muttered. He looked around the apartment. Someone must have found out that Allie was onto them.

  Where was she?

  "Stacy," Carter muttered. "She seems to know an awful lot about what's going on." He grabbed the laptop and Allie's phone and put them in his bag. Then he whistled for Margot and headed for his grandfather's apartment.

  "Good evening, Mr. Holbrook," the doorman said as he let Carter into the building. "Shall I call your grandfather? He's out at the moment."

  "No, thanks. I'm just picking up a shirt for him. He said you wouldn't mind letting me in," Carter lied.

  "Of course," the doorman said. Carter tipped the man after he let him into the apartment.

  The lights were out, and Carter prayed he was alone. Not sure where to look or what he was even looking for, he headed to the master bedroom. The French doors out to the balcony were open, letting in a slight breeze. In the waning light from the open doors, Carter started pawing
through Stacy's things. Her drawers and closet were as messy and disorganized as she was, but stuck in with her collection of skimpy lingerie, he found a flash drive.

  Margot whined, and Carter heard the door open and Stacy's voice.

  Oh no. He grabbed the dog and hid in the master bedroom closet.

  Trying not to breathe, he set his phone to start recording just in case.

  As he strained to listen, he heard two men and… Allie? What was she doing here?

  69

  Allie

  "Where is it?" Bryce yelled to Stacy.

  Allie's old roommate whimpered and ran to one of the drawers in the master bedroom and started pawing through it.

  "I'm finding it." She sniffed, pulling at her torn clothing.

  "You'd better give us the evidence. And you," he said, shoving Allie so that she fell to the floor. "You're going to pay."

  Her heartbeat echoing in her head, Allie tried to stay calm. She did not want to become hysterical, but things were looking worse and worse.

  She felt the panic rising in her chest as Stacy handed Bryce the papers. He backhanded Stacy and she huddled on the ground next to Allie, and they watched as Bryce flipped through them.

  Then Bryce pulled out a knife. "You see this?" He waved it in front of Allie's head. "This is how you die. I’m going to fuck you, and then I'm going to gut you."

  His brother took a fistful of her hair and pulled her head back. Bryce kicked her in the stomach then undid his pants as Trent dragged her to the bed. Her stomach hurt so much, Allie couldn't even gasp out a protest.

  "You know what we're capable of," Bryce told her. "You know we killed that worker for messing in our business."

  I need a miracle, Allie thought, but she knew there was none forthcoming. There was no one. She was on her own, as always.

  As she watched Bryce advance on her, someone charged at him, knocking him back through the open doors that led to the balcony.

  "Carter?" Allie managed to croak. Carter had Bryce in a headlock then stabbed him with a large knife.