Once Upon a Billionaire

by Jessica Clare

  That hurt so much.

  She dragged out her tiny coin purse and began to dig through it, looking for something. Sure enough, sandwiched between a few Bellissime coins, she found a loose happy pill. She always kept one at hand in case of travel emergency, and it didn’t matter if it was covered in lint or expired—she popped it into her mouth and swallowed it dry.

  “Can you take me to the airport?” she asked the driver.

  “Yes, madam.”

  “Thank you, kindly.” And Maylee gave him a teary smile.

  ***

  The day had been pure and utter hell.

  By the time Griffin emerged from the royal palace after the wedding and all the obligatory waving to the crowd, he was in a foul mood. The wedding itself had been a series of last-minute disasters. There were the expected issues with fittings and servants rushing everywhere, compounded with photographers and paparazzi determined to break into the grounds of the palace and police guards just as determined to pick them off before they made it up the marble steps.

  The streets had been so crowded that the royal family hadn’t been able to make it to the tiny Bellissime chapel, and Alex had been so upset that she’d insisted her wedding occur inside the palace itself. So they’d had an impromptu wedding right at the base of the queen’s throne, the first in Bellissime history, much to HRH Sybilla-Louise’s dismay.

  Maylee hadn’t returned with his ceremonial jacket, and she was nowhere to be found. Annoyed and tense, he’d snapped at his mother’s equerry until the man located the suit, which had been dropped off with one of the drivers. Maylee had vanished, and Griffin felt a nagging bit of worry. She must have been sick and gone back to the hotel. He hoped she was all right. The thought of that sunny smile dampened by the flu made him feel a pang of sympathy. He’d get her some chicken noodle soup on the way home, he decided, and sent the order downstairs to the palace kitchens.

  By the time his cousin was safely wedded and all photographs and public appearances were done, Griffin felt wrung out and exhausted. He didn’t care about having sex with Maylee that night. She was sick, and he was tired. He simply wanted to go back to his room and hold her. Tangle his fingers in those glorious curls and tell her all about the brutality of his day. Listen to her sweet, drawling voice as she comforted him. Snuggle up against her delicious, curvy body.

  His dick decided that it cared about having sex, though. Just a little. He adjusted his pants surreptitiously in the back of the sedan, eyeing the bagged container of chicken noodle soup on the floorboard that the kitchens had prepared for his ride home. There was a piece of white sticking out from under one of the seats, and he reached down to grab it.

  When he realized it was a used tissue, he nearly dropped it in disgust, but the black smears on it made him pause. It looked like mascara. His heart gave a funny clench and he lifted the Kleenex so the driver could see it. “What is this?”

  The man gazed in the rearview mirror. “Looks like a hanky, my lord.”

  Sigh. “No, what is it doing in the back of my sedan?”

  “The madam must have dropped it before she headed to the airport, my lord.”

  He stilled. “Airport?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Griffin gritted his teeth. For once, he hated the rules that the well-trained staff of the monarchy followed, especially the “do not converse with the family.”

  “Why did you drive my assistant to the airport?”

  “She insisted, my lord. She was crying quite a bit.”

  “Crying? Was everything all right?”

  “I don’t know, my lord.” The man’s gaze in the rearview mirror was carefully neutral. “She left a few things in the car and I wasn’t sure what to do with them. They’re in the trunk.”

  “I want to see them.”

  They pulled up to the back of the hotel and Griffin hopped out, clenching the wad of tissue in his hand. “Open the trunk,” he demanded, and knocked on it in case the man was going to take his sweet time obeying.

  A moment later, he heard the pop of the trunk release, and Griffin opened it, looking inside. Maylee’s fascinator was there, and the sight made his heart stop in his chest out of fear. What on earth was wrong? What made her cry and take off her hat and abandon him today? She was his assistant, damn it.

  He picked her hat up, as well as a newspaper. Underneath the newspaper, there was a box of condoms. He picked it up as well, mystified and frustrated. She’d gone through with her flirty words and picked up the condoms. What had changed?

  The driver came around to the back and gave Griffin a curious look, holding out his bag with the containers of chicken noodle soup. He must have seemed strange, clutching a woman’s feathery hat, a newspaper, and a box of condoms, but he took the soup from the man and paused. “Why did she want to go to the airport?”

  “She didn’t say, my lord.” This time, there was a hint of reproach in the man’s face, as if it were Griffin’s fault.

  And that irritated him. “Thank you,” Griffin said abruptly. He turned and stalked into the hotel.

  When he passed the security guard posted at the elevator to his floor, he asked the man, “Did my assistant come back here earlier today?”

  “No, my lord. Shall I ring the front desk—”

  “No.” He tried to raise a hand to stop the man, but he was still clutching the box of condoms. Hell, he probably looked like an idiot. “Thank you.”

  Griffin tossed his assorted parcels when he got back to his room and immediately headed for their adjoining door. Maylee’s room was just as she’d left it, her suitcase and clothing still in place, bags of souvenirs at the bottom of her closet. He picked up her suitcase and opened it. It was empty of everything except a small bag filled with hotel soaps and shampoos.

  She’d left all her things behind. He didn’t understand. She’d left him without a word—abandoning her job—and she’d been crying.

  Had a family member died? Was that why she’d been in such a hurry? Concern for her shook through him, and he thought of his soft, sweet Maylee devastated at the death of her mother or one of her grandparents. She had such a good, kind heart. It would crush her.

  He immediately checked his phone to see if there were messages. Nothing. Perhaps she’d been too upset to leave one. Griffin pulled out his cellphone and checked it twice, then tried leaving himself a message to make sure it wasn’t malfunctioning.

  Then, he dialed the front desk. “I want a driver here in the morning—a new driver,” he amended, thinking of the reproachful look the chauffeur had given him. “And I need someone to come up and pack my bags in the morning. And I need my plane chartered for a flight out in the morning. Did you get all that?”

  “I’m sorry, my lord, did you say you need your bags packed—”

  “Just do it,” he snapped, and hung up. Great, now he was feeling more helpless than usual. He’d fucking pack the things himself. Grabbing a suitcase, he flung it on the bed and began to shove clothes into it. He stopped when he’d only made it through his jackets and there was no more room in his suitcase. He only had two more and over half of his closet to go. How the devil had Kip managed to squeeze all of his clothing into these things?

  Frustrated, he sat down on the edge of the bed and raked a hand through his hair. It was slicked down with gel as his usual style—Maylee had protested it this morning but he’d insisted, since he didn’t want to draw attention to himself—and his fingers caught in it. Damn it, he didn’t even like his own hair anymore. He needed Maylee to show him how to fix it again so he didn’t look like an idiot.

  As he stared ahead, combing his fingers through his hair, his gaze fell on the newspaper. He’d picked it up without giving it a second thought since Maylee had left it in the car, and he’d just now noticed that the pages seemed to be curled and left open at a particular spot.

  Griffin picked up the newspaper and flipped pages. It fell open to the middle, where someone had clearly been reading.

  The tw
o-page splash was full of pictures of him. Him with Maylee, him with that blasted Saxe-Gallia princess.

  Lord Verdi sows some wild oats with one of his American mistresses.

  Dried tear-stains rumpled the paper, and Griffin suddenly knew why his assistant had abandoned him.

  Chapter Twelve

  The flight back to New York was interminably long. Griffin spent most of it on phone calls. First were the cancellations of the rest of his Bellissime appointments. He was scheduled to stay in the country for at least another week, and had to make his excuses to everyone, most of all his mother. Then there were calls to Kip to arrange his travel home, a car to pick him up, and a million other things that seemed to pile up everywhere he turned.

  How had Maylee managed to keep it all straight? He found her Post-it notes stuck to his laptop, and grew frustrated all over again.

  She hadn’t trusted him in the slightest. That irritated him and wounded his pride. He’d been at her side every moment of the trip. When did she think he’d have time to go philandering about on her? Hadn’t he let her wear his family’s jewelry? Didn’t she realize what a privilege that was?

  He’d give her a day or two to let her emotions calm down, he decided, and then he’d talk to her. Once she realized how foolish she was being, she’d return to him and he’d take her to bed. Then, she’d feel silly she ever doubted him.

  Griffin slept on the plane, pleased with his plans. He returned to his townhouse, greeted a rather spotty Kip, and waited for Maylee to contact him.

  A few days later, however, he hadn’t heard from her, and he was rather concerned. Was she not aware that he’d followed her home from Bellissime? He searched for her phone number, but it was nowhere to be found. Blast, that was rather irritating.

  So he texted Hunter. Tell your assistant to call me. It’s important.

  A few minutes later, he picked up the phone. “Maylee?”

  “Hello, dick.” That was not Maylee.

  “Gretchen,” Griffin greeted, his lip curling with dislike. “Why are you calling me?”

  “You told Hunter to have his assistant call. Looky there, we’re on the phone. Magic, right?”

  “Where’s Maylee?”

  “She quit.”

  “What do you mean, she quit?”

  “I mean, she quit, you asshole. She just emailed me and asked me to forward her last check to her apartment. Said she couldn’t work for Hunter anymore. What did you do to her, you prick?”

  “You really should quit calling me names—”

  “You really should stop being such a total dickbag—”

  He hung up on her. Griffin stared at the phone for a minute, and then picked it up to call back.

  “Hello,” Gretchen said in a sweet voice.

  “Just give me Maylee’s address. I’ll go talk to her myself.”

  “I want to know what you did to her first. Were you mean to her?”

  He sighed. “I was not.”

  “Really? Cause I don’t believe that.”

  “All right, I was mean to her in the beginning—”

  “That I believe—”

  “—but then we grew to like each other.” How did Hunter ever get a word in edgewise?

  “That I don’t know that I believe,” Gretchen said. “It would take a lot to make that nice girl quit, but you managed to do so in the space of a single trip. I mean, do you know how often Hunter snarls at her? And she just sucks it up and takes it. But then here you come in, and we find Maylee’s packed up and run off.”

  I’m a Meriweather. We don’t run and hide from our troubles. You can be as mean to me as you want, Mr. Griffin, but I’m going to do my job to the best of my ability, no matter how nasty you are.

  “If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, you cannot possibly make me feel worse than I already do.”

  “What if I told you that she’d called me up, bawling her eyes out?”

  His breath caught in his throat. “She did?” His poor, sweet, sunny Maylee must have been so hurt. He felt like such a royal ass.

  “Well, no. I was just curious what you’d say if I told you that.”

  He hung up on Gretchen again.

  A moment later, his phone buzzed with an incoming text. Maylee’s address is here. She listed the address and followed it with a YOU’RE WELCOME.

  It killed him to type thank you, but he did anyhow.

  ***

  Maylee’s building was repugnant. Griffin frowned to himself as he headed up the steps, eyeing the tinfoil in several of the windows. Air conditioners dripped condensation from above, leaving trails on the brick and making the entire place look as if it were weeping. He didn’t blame it. The building was a hovel.

  He knocked on Maylee’s door, and there was no answer. Concerned, he headed down to the first floor and looked for the apartment of the landlord. He found one door that was less beat up than the others, took a guess, and knocked.

  A dirty man in an equally dirty undershirt glared at him. “What do you want?”

  It took everything he had not to hold a handkerchief to his nose in disgust. “I’m looking for Miss Meriweather.”

  “She left.”

  “What do you mean, she left?”

  “She moved out.”

  Frustration made Griffin’s nostrils flare. “Are you lying to me?”

  The man crossed his arms and glared back at Griffin. “You calling me a liar?”

  He was, actually. But he wasn’t going to get anywhere accusing this man. So he pulled out his wallet and opened it . . . and frowned because it was empty. Goddamn it. “Wait right here,” he told the man.

  Ten minutes later, he’d borrowed cash from his driver and returned to the landlord’s door. He peeled several twenties off the stack and held them out to the man. “I want to see her apartment.”

  The man regarded him as if he were a dirty pervert, and for a moment, he felt like one. But he thought of the newspaper she’d left behind, and the clues it had offered him. Perhaps she’d left other things as well. Perhaps this man was lying to him because Maylee had asked him to.

  He had to know.

  So he followed the sleazy landlord to the back of the building and watched as the man opened a rickety door with a set of keys. He pushed it open and gestured at Griffin. “Don’t make a mess in there, buddy.”

  Griffin grimaced. Did he think he was going to jerk off on Maylee’s things? He made a mental note to see about buying this building. Hunter would know how real estate worked. Right now, Griffin’s main thought was getting that landlord out of here. If he would take a couple of bills and show a woman’s apartment to a stranger, Maylee wasn’t safe here.

  He walked in to her apartment. It didn’t take much, considering it was one small, dirty windowless room. He was appalled at the sight of it, the cracks in the walls, the water damage in the corner of the ceiling. There was no bathroom, no closet, no nothing. A mattress lay on the floor, the only thing remaining in the room. Despite the small dankness of the place, it was clean.

  He couldn’t imagine his sunny Maylee here in this pit.

  “Do you want to stay here alone for a while?” the man behind him asked. “I can look the other way for the right price.”

  Griffin gave the man a scathing look, ignoring his question. “She left nothing here?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “She left in a hurry. Probably got fired from her job.” He snorted in derision.

  Griffin’s jaw tensed with anger. “Thank you. You’ve been most helpful.” He turned and stalked out of the hole of her apartment, angrier than ever.

  You can be as mean to me as you want, Mr. Griffin, but I’m going to do my job to the best of my ability, no matter how nasty you are.

  She’d put up with everything to succeed here, and he’d somehow destroyed that—and her heart—in one fell swoop.

  Angry at the world, but mostly at himself, Griffin went back to his sedan. As he got in and waved the driver to return to his townhouse, he began
to text Hunter.

  Tell Gretchen I’m a dick. And ask her if I can please have Maylee’s home address. Her home in . . . wherever in God’s name she would have gone back to. Arkansas? Louisiana? One of those places where they all talk like she does.

  Soft, sweet, and adorable.

  Griffin ran a hand down his face. He really was a fucking prat, wasn’t he?

  ***

  “The Brotherhood’s going to be light one member tonight,” Reese said as he lit his cigar. “Jonathan ran off on one of his half-cocked trips again.”

  Griffin frowned at his cards. He’d been waiting for Jonathan to show up so he could talk to him about their joint dig. But he found that he didn’t give much of a shit at the moment. Maylee’s missing presence was gnawing at him like an ache. He could talk about archeology any time, but now he just wanted his girlfriend back.

  Was that what Maylee was to him? Griffin scowled at his hand of cards, not even seeing them. Girlfriend seemed like the wrong word. It was too frivolous, too silly for how he felt at the moment.

  All he knew was that he needed Maylee, and she was gone because he’d hurt her. And he needed to fix it.

  Logan eyed him from across the table, frowning. “You going to bid, Griff?”

  Griffin stared at his cards, still not seeing them, and gave up. He folded and waved a hand at the table, and Cade and Reese tossed their chips in after Logan.

  The basement door opened, and Griffin looked up, his heart slamming. He wanted to see Hunter tonight . . . but more than that, he wanted to see Gretchen. Maybe they would know something.

  The person he’d been waiting to see walked down the stairs—Hunter. The scarred, broody billionaire shrugged off his sport coat and tossed it onto a nearby chair, and then sat down at the table.

  A moment later, lighter feet thumped down the stairs. “Save me a spot, baby!”