Boss Me_Alpha Billionaire Romance

by C. J. Thomas

  Another drop in the bucket, I guessed.

  I went back downstairs, dressed in the clothes I’d worn on the flight over. He glanced at me, still on the phone. Putting a hand over the speaker, he asked, “What about what’s upstairs?”

  “What about it?”

  “Don’t you want to take it?”

  “Why would I? It’s not mine. None of this was about me. What gives me the right to take anything you provided?”

  Aaron rolled his eyes, going back to his phone call. I wondered just how important his business really was—probably very if we were going back so suddenly. Still, it wasn’t important enough for him to tell me about it. I wasn’t important enough.

  After hanging up, he looked at me again. “Last chance to take anything you want,” he said.

  “I came with nothing, I leave with nothing. I don’t want anything from you. You don’t owe me anything.”

  “Oh, my God. Are you playing this game with me right now? Now, of all times?”

  “You’re the one playing games. You were the one who told me you’d stop putting up roadblocks. If this isn’t one, I don’t know what is. If you wanted somebody to use and push around, you should have looked elsewhere. I’m not interested.”

  He sighed, throwing his hands into the air. “Fine. You’ll find out everything you need to know very soon. Get in the car or don’t come with me at all. Have fun being stuck here.”

  I couldn’t argue with that, and followed him outside. It had all been so beautiful, so magical. I hated leaving so suddenly. I turned in my seat to watch the chalet grow smaller and smaller in the distance, my heart aching at the thought of never seeing it again. Aaron could bring some other woman who would inevitably fall for his romantic façade.

  I had the distinct impression that things would never be the same between Aaron and me again, and my heart ached with that thought, too. I couldn’t trust him, and he sure felt like he couldn’t trust me.

  Where would we go once we got home? Where could we go without trust?

  With the way he behaved, I felt like he hated me. I wouldn’t put myself through that, no matter how I felt for him. I had to respect myself.

  I thought again about those women, the very ones I’d been thinking about just before I met Aaron. Women like Emery—smart, kind, beautiful women who settled for men who treated them like garbage, when they could have done so much better. Women who didn’t appear to love themselves enough to demand more.

  I never understood, before sitting in a car in the Azores, how a woman could be tempted to stick by a man like that.

  It was a very different ride back to the airport. The tension in the car was so thick, I could hardly think straight. I tried to notice all the beauty around me, wanting to imprint it in my memory. I wanted to look back on it later. I wanted to remember being in the middle of paradise.

  It all slipped past, though, the whole thing sliding away like an illusion. Maybe that’s what this whole trip was, I thought. An illusion. I let him trick me. Make me vulnerable. And perhaps I even tricked myself into believing what I wanted to be true.

  The thought weighed heavy on my heart as we got out of the car beside the jet. I climbed aboard, then gasped when I saw we wouldn’t be flying alone.

  “Who are you?” I asked, looking around at the men and women in business suits. “Are you on the right jet?”

  “If this is Aaron Bello’s jet, then yes. We’re in the right place.” One of the men shook my hand. “I’m Patrick, one of Aaron’s attorneys. This is my team.”

  “Attorney?” I felt, rather than saw, Aaron enter the cabin. I turned to him, more questions fighting for control of my brain than ever. “What’s going on here?”

  I heard Patrick chuckle and felt like the stupidest person in the world. What did he think of me? That I was just some floozy Aaron fooled into traveling with him? Shame burned through me.

  “Well, now you know,” he said. “I’m in trouble.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Aaron

  I hated that she found out that way, but I didn’t want to field a million questions in the car, either. Anything she wanted to know, she’d get answers to while on the jet. I couldn’t keep it a secret from her anymore. And as much as I wanted to protect her from this, I knew she deserved to know the truth.

  Patrick had been good enough to get copies of all the papers mentioning my name, and I settled in to read the stories. “You sure you want to do that?” he asked, peering at me from his seat. I only glanced up at him. He fell silent, so the look on my face must have been enough to show him how serious I was. I needed to know everything if there was a chance of beating the allegations.

  “So, let me get this straight,” Kenzie murmured. I didn’t look at her, too absorbed in the papers to pay much attention. It felt like the world was crumbling around me. “Aaron was accused of insider trading?”

  “That’s right,” Patrick said. I only half paid attention, their words fading into a low hum in the back of my mind.

  As the story stood, it appeared that I’d made a purchase in MangaCorp and Triton Industries not long before the two corporations got together on a deal that made billions of dollars for both sides.

  That much was true, and I was willing to admit to ordering the stock purchases.

  What wasn’t true was the allegation that I knew of the deal before the purchases. How could I have known?

  “Jesus,” I muttered, scanning the paper. “Like I have time to do all this back-door shit. I mean, really. I don’t even socialize with anybody from either company or on either board. Why would I have this inside information?”

  “It’s not up to the media to know these answers,” Patrick pointed out. “They only report the story they’re given.”

  “Or sensationalize it,” I replied. “Forget the facts. Let’s just speculate and use it to sell papers.”

  “Is that what this is? A lot of speculation?” The skepticism in Kenzie’s voice was enough to make me lower the paper. I looked at her, my eyes boring holes.

  “What else could it be?” I asked.

  “How would I know?” she retorted. There were times when she behaved like a spoiled teenager, and I wished she wouldn’t act that way in front of other people who I happened to respect.

  “Yes. It’s speculation, of course.”

  She relaxed. “I’m sorry.” She turned to Patrick. “I apologize, but this is the first I’m hearing of any of this, so you can understand my confusion.”

  “Naturally,” Patrick replied mildly. He was used to my habits and didn’t question why I would keep something so huge from her.

  I sighed. “I didn’t want you to know about it because I was sure my lawyers would mount a defamation suit before the story got this big. I didn’t know it was already so close to breaking. I had hoped to tell you about it when everything started to calm down and they were sure I was out of the woods.”

  “But you’re not,” she almost whispered.

  “No. I’m so deep in the woods, I can hardly see daylight.” I could tell she trusted me, which went a long way toward soothing my fevered brain. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the situation, and everything I’d worked to achieve was on the brink of collapse.

  How the hell did Reed know anything about my portfolio in the first place? How could he have gotten his hands on the materials necessary for the allegations?

  “What sort of evidence does the SEC need to mount a case like this?” I asked.

  “A lot more than what’s currently been presented,” Patrick assured me. “They’re not the papers. They take these things seriously and won’t pursue something full-force unless they have a degree of certainty.”

  “You’re not a great liar. How do you manage to make a career as a lawyer?” I asked. “If there’s enough evidence for the Wall Street Journal to print a front-page story, there’s enough for me to at least be brought up on charges.”

  “Charges that will never stick.”

  I wasn
’t sure I believed him. If I was convicted, it wouldn’t be the first miscarriage of justice in history.

  “Did I do anything wrong? I mean, really. I think I know enough about my portfolio to know for sure, but it’s not like I make the purchases on my own. My broker’s the one who handles those things.”

  “Trust me on this,” Patrick said. “You’re fine. It would be one thing if you made the purchases close to the announcement of the deal, but you didn’t. You didn’t know about the deal. I mean, MangaCorp and Triton aren’t exactly no-names.” He turned to Kenzie. “Had you heard of them before?”

  “Who hasn’t?” she replied. “They’re as universal as Apple and Microsoft.”

  “Exactly.” He smiled. “I could see if they were obscure before the deal. I could see how somebody might question your timing. All you wanted to do was diversify. I’m sure there has to be a record of you communicating with your broker, right?”

  His words gave me renewed hope. “We always communicate via email.”

  “Thank God for that,” he said. “The brokerage’s email server should have logged your back-and-forth. I’m sure we can pull any emails pertaining to this. No problem. See? This is looking better and better.”

  I tapped the stack of papers. “So what about this, then?”

  His face fell. He didn’t look so confident anymore. “You know as well as I do how vicious the court of public opinion can be.”

  I glanced at Kenzie, whose face fell the way Patrick’s had. She understood what he meant.

  They’d crucify me. They already were, pulling no punches.

  “You want to know more about me?” I asked her, pushing one of the papers her way. “This writer knows all about my youth, where I grew up, my family’s history, how my siblings and I lived with my aunt and uncle. Everything. Don’t ask me how they found out. Trying to paint me as somebody who came from nothing and would stop at nothing to gain money and power. A psychological hang-up, I guess.”

  Kenzie reached for the paper without breaking eye contact. I read her body language—she wanted to know more about me. She couldn’t help herself. And who could blame her?

  “I warn you; some of it is pretty ugly.” She nodded, accepting that, and started to read.

  I looked at Patrick. “How long do you think our countersuit will take?” He’d had something already planned before this broke, but the story was too big for what he’d put together. We needed a bigger response.

  “We need to talk to your broker, first of all. We’ll do that as soon as we land. I have to get the brokerage’s records. Once we have that, I’m extremely confident that we’ll have a strong case on our hands.”

  I glanced at Kenzie, the newspaper hiding her face. I mouthed the name Reed, then shook my head.

  He understood. I didn’t want Reed’s name mentioned in front of her. She’d already been through enough of a shock without finding out her ex-boss was behind it all. She hadn’t even asked who the defamation suit would be filed against. I blessed her lack of legal acumen.

  When she lowered the paper, her freshly tanned face was paler than I’d ever seen it. “This is bad,” she whispered.

  “You didn’t need to tell me that,” I pointed out. “But yes. It is.”

  “I’m with you.” She nodded resolutely. “And if anybody asks me anything, that’s what I’ll tell them.”

  “No,” both Patrick and I answered at the same time, so loud the rest of the legal team stopped chattering to look our way.

  “No,” I repeated, more quietly. “It’s not a good idea.”

  “Don’t talk to the press at all,” Patrick added. “Don’t even look at them. Keep your head down and your mouth shut. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but silence is always better than words, even when you have the best intentions. Trust me.”

  “Okay,” she said, her voice soft. “I just wish I could do something, is all.”

  “Your support means a lot, and knowing that you believe me is a relief,” I admitted. I never thought about it before, but the concern that she wouldn’t believe me had been very real. Another reason I’d kept the truth from her. With all the evidence piling up against me, how could I think otherwise?

  “How could I not believe you? I know you wouldn’t do anything like this. I mean, taking such chances, and for what? Just a little bit of money? You don’t need to do that. You don’t come across as a greedy man.”

  I chuckled sourly. “You’re right. I’m not overly greedy.” I glanced at Patrick, smirking. “And I wouldn’t be that stupid.” A thought hit me like a ton of bricks. I hadn’t considered it before. “My stocks.”

  Patrick’s face fell even further. “I was wondering when you would think about them,” he said.

  “How is the company? Oh, shit. How much money have I lost?” I accessed my company’s stock reports on my phone, my heart clenching when I saw how far the price had plummeted. “The passengers are fleeing the sinking ship,” I murmured.

  Of course, Reed had thought about that. Even if he couldn’t get me convicted, he’d see to it that my stock value bottomed out to the point where I lost everything.

  I looked at Patrick. “You’ve got to fix this, and fast. I can’t afford to lose any more.”

  “I know, and it’s something we’re keeping tabs on. We’ll plug the holes before the ship sinks any further. Don’t worry.” I knew he meant well, but I was getting tired of him telling me not to worry. I would have loved to see what he would have done in my shoes.

  Waiting to arrive was brutal—I wasn’t a patient man by nature, so sitting in one place on the jet was torture. I wanted to forget. I wanted Kenzie to help me forget. I couldn’t do that to her, and I didn’t think she would go along to the bedroom even if I asked her to. Not with so many others right there. She wasn’t that type of woman, and I could respect that.

  Wasn’t that what I liked about her, that she had standards?

  After what felt like a million years, the jet taxied on the tarmac. I was the first person down the stairs, making a beeline for my limo. I gave strict orders to my driver to let Patrick’s drivers follow him. I wanted all three cars to arrive simultaneously.

  I turned to Patrick before getting into the limo. “I’ll wait for the rest of you to get out, and you can block for us.” He nodded, understanding perfectly.

  “Where are we going?” Kenzie looked puzzled. It was her expression of the day, I realized with a twinge in my chest. I felt sorry for her—I owed her a lot more than what I’d given her up to this point.

  “To the office,” I explained. On any other Sunday afternoon, the office would be empty. Today, I wasn’t so sure.

  We sat next to each other in the limo. I breathed a deep sigh of relief—nothing had improved, but at least we were alone together. I could relax, loosen my tie, and think straight.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asked. “Won’t the media be looking for you there?”

  “Probably, but I can’t be away. And I can’t run, either. Had I known the story would break so fast, I wouldn’t have left in the first place. Now it looks like a purposeful move. I have to run defense.”

  She fell silent. I shuddered to think of the conclusions she drew in her head when I brought up the trip. She wouldn’t let me off easy, I warned myself. I knew I’d face questions once we got back to the city.

  Big, ugly questions.

  My priority was getting us out of the car and into the building in one piece. After hours of waiting to see me, the press would be voracious. I explained what we would likely face once we arrived.

  “Patrick and his team will surround us,” I said. “You should walk behind me—I’d put my arm around you to shield you, but that might read as intimacy. I don’t want to add more fuel to the fire, for your sake.”

  “I understand.”

  “Are you ready for this?”

  She gave me a sad smile. “Are you?”

  “What do you think?”

  We pulled up to the buildin
g, flashbulbs going off in all directions. I could feel the energy from the mob pressing against the limo, and it wasn’t pretty. One look at Kenzie told me how she felt about it—her body trembling from head to toe.

  “It’ll be all right. It’s just a few hundred yards to the doors, through the courtyard.”

  “The length of three football fields,” she murmured. I had to chuckle grimly. She had a way of putting things.

  “So let’s put on our cleats and get the hell out there,” I replied, flashing her a smile. I had to show her I wasn’t worried about it, that it meant nothing to me. They meant nothing to me. They were only vultures, animals. I was above it all.

  I saw Patrick cross in front of my door, holding his arms out on both sides. His team of attorneys and paralegals did the same, creating a wide berth for Kenzie and me.

  He opened the door, and I stepped out with Kenzie following close behind.

  The sound of a hundred questions was like a roar. One on top of the other, their voices seemed to blend into one ear-splitting wave of sound that threatened to push me to the ground.

  I withstood it, forcing my way through. My legal team did a great job keeping the paparazzi away, and we hurried in one big cluster through the doors and into the lobby.

  Only then could I breathe easily again. “Thank you for that,” I said. I shook their hands, ignoring the muffled roar just outside the windows. Lights flashed as cameras snapped shot after shot. As if there was anything worth capturing.

  When I turned to find Kenzie, she was gone.

  “Where did she go?” I asked. One of Patrick’s partners told me they’d seen her flee for the stairwell. If she thought running up two dozen flights of stairs in heels was a good idea, more power to her.

  I couldn’t deny the way it stung, and how embarrassed I was that it appeared she’d run away from me.

  “We’ll take care of this,” Patrick assured me again, as he and his team turned to go. I got on the elevator, determined to make a beeline for Kenzie’s office. I had to soothe her a little since I was sure Reed’s jealousy over my stealing her was where this all started.