An Accidental Date with a Billionaire

by Diane Alberts

  “Yeah, because I wanted a fresh start, I wanted a life where no one knew who my parents were or what they’d done.” She pushed her hair out of her face, more than likely blinking rapidly in an attempt to hold back tears. “I didn’t want people to know my shame.”

  She might as well have punched him in the gut with a spiked fist. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t… “It’s not your fault, and it’s not your shame,” he said, breaking his rule and looking at her. He shouldn’t have, because he’d been right. It killed him. “You didn’t steal that money. They did.”

  “I spent it, though. God, did I spend it.”

  He reached for her hand. “You didn’t know.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she snapped, slipping out of his reach. His hand was so damn empty without hers inside it. He fisted it, digging his fingers into his palm until it hurt. “Sins of the father, and all that. I might have been a kid, and I might not have known where all that money came from, but I will always be guilty by association. I will always be judged for what they did.”

  “Not by me,” he said, his voice cracking. “Never by me.”

  “But by everyone else.” She swallowed hard, for the first time losing the shield of anger she’d been clinging to, and what could only be described as fear was in her eyes. “Could you walk into a room of your peers, with me, the daughter of two federally convicted embezzlers, on your arm?”

  He frowned. “I wouldn’t give a damn.”

  “Not even when I’m judged as guilty, and you are, too, by association?”

  He opened his mouth, closed it.

  Bad public opinion could be catastrophic to his company.

  Damn it, he’d worked hard to get where he was, and he had done so by keeping his hands and his nose clean. To be attached to a family that had done the complete opposite…

  What would it do to him?

  “Exactly,” she said, tears welling in her eyes.

  “No one would know who you were,” he hurried to assure her, his words as hollow as his heart, because they weren’t enough.

  “Yeah, because it was so hard for you to figure it out,” she shot back.

  Swallowing, he tried to reach for her hand again. “We don’t even know what he found out. For all we know there’s nothing of your past in there.”

  Again, she jumped out of his reach, not welcoming his touch. “You’re still pretending you didn’t read it?”

  Her rejection speared him through. “Sam—”

  “Fine. I’ll play along. Let’s pretend that you didn’t read it.” She gestured to the envelope, crossing her arms so tight she should have cracked. “Do it now. See if you got your money’s worth.”

  He shook his head, his heart twisting.

  “Open it, or I walk out right now,” she said, hands fisted.

  He took a step toward her, anger rushing through his veins at her ultimatum. He tried to calm it, tried to shut it down, but it ignored his commands. “That’s not fair.”

  “Life’s not fair,” she countered. “See what he found. Maybe you’re right and my secret is safe.”

  Jaw tight, he snatched it up angrily, ripping the papers out of the crisp envelope. He skimmed the words, hoping to find no details of her life, for her sake, but the cover page alone summed up everything she had already told him, and then some. His heart sank.

  “Well?”

  For the first time in as long as he could remember, he was at a loss for words.

  She laughed, clearly not needing any. “See? Told you.”

  “Still, no one would know who you are or care enough to dig into your past.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Every single woman in your circle feels like they have a claim on you, and I assure you they would investigate my past even faster than your detective the second you claimed me as yours in public. Why do you think I told you that we wouldn’t work?”

  “Fuck that and fuck them.”

  “So you’d be okay with publicly attaching yourself to a family of embezzlers,” she asked, searching his face for something he wasn’t sure she really wanted to find. “You’d go to a ball with me, even knowing everyone would find out the truth, and hold your head high, even though your investors might bail because of me? Even though, if the truth came out, I could affect your company, your life, your choices?”

  “I…” He trailed off, his throat aching with the words he wanted to say but couldn’t.

  She stared at him, tears welling in her eyes.

  It wasn’t that he was ashamed of her, or that he wouldn’t be just as proud of her as he was before the truth came out. It was that he was a business owner, with hundreds of people depending on him for his livelihood, and she asked him a serious question that required thought, something he couldn’t rush through, damn it.

  This decision would impact more than just himself, so he owed it to his employees to give them more than a split second before promising himself away to the daughter of two criminals.

  “This is why I refused to get attached or to open myself up, but you just kept pushing for me to let you close, even though it was a horrible idea,” she said, swiping her hands under her eyes. “You just kept being you and making me fall for you.”

  “Sam,” he said, too little, too late.

  She shook her head, stepping farther away from him.

  The added distance resonated inside him, in places he’d never explored.

  “It’s over,” she mumbled.

  He caught her hand, refusing to let go this time. “Sam, I—”

  “Don’t bother trying to explain or make any of this better. None of this is ever going to be better.”

  “But maybe—” he started, not willing to let her go.

  Not until he had a chance to think, damn it.

  She grabbed her coat off the couch. “Just let it go, Taylor. You did something I could never forgive, and this is done.”

  He stumbled toward her, tripping over his feet. “Wait—”

  She shook her head. “It’s done. We’re done.”

  Pain stabbed through his body.

  “I don’t want you to go,” he said, chasing after her. “We can figure this out—”

  He reached for her arm, but she yanked free. He scrambled after her, his gut twisting and his chest aching. Losing her was not an option.

  He’d never known happiness, not until he held her in his arms, naked in his bed, and laughed at something so hard they both cried. Not until they danced in a living room with no music, just because.

  Not until he had her.

  His fingers slipped through her arm, grasping nothing but air. “Sam—”

  “Stop!” she cried, stumbling back again, almost falling in her desperation to escape him. “It’s over, the date is over. I don’t want to be with you anymore. Just let me go!”

  He stood still, choking on emotion and unspoken pleas for her to stay as she bolted to the elevator and pushed the button frantically. When this started, he promised not to press her for more than she was willing to give.

  One promise he’d made to her had already been broken. He wasn’t about to break another.

  The doors opened, and she fled into the safety of the metal box as if the devil himself chased after her. As soon as the doors shut and he was alone, he let out an angry yell, picked up the closest thing to him, and chucked it against the wall. It wasn’t until the vase shattered, until water and broken petals trailed down the drywall as his chest heaved with each staggered breath, that he realized the uncomfortable truth.

  The devil she ran from was him.

  Chapter Twenty

  Three days. That’s how long it had been since she left Taylor’s apartment and sworn to herself never to go back. Six calls. That’s how many times her phone had rung, and she had refused to pick up because, if she did, she might forget what she shouldn’t. Four knocks. That’s how many times he’d come to her place, begging through her locked door to be let inside, to be given a chance to prove that she
hadn’t made a mistake in trusting him, that he wanted to be with her, no matter her past. Every time she ignored him was harder than the last.

  Each unanswered call hurt more, too.

  What made it even worse was that she’d love to open that door or pick up that phone, because she wasn’t really all that mad at him in the first place for what he did. She’d walked away to protect him…

  Not to hurt him.

  He’d been scared…but determined to take a risk on her. Putting everything he worked so hard for on the line for a girl he’d been having sex with was inconceivable, and she couldn’t let him do it. Things would have ended eventually anyway, and she loved him too much to let him ruin his life for her…especially since he didn’t, and wouldn’t, love her.

  She’d hoped that over the course of the weekend she might get over him, but it hadn’t happened. She loved him and couldn’t be with him. You didn’t just get over that.

  It took time.

  She glanced at her phone, frowning at the lit-up screen. It wasn’t him. She picked up her phone, swiped right, and held it to her ear. “Yes, Mother, I’m fine.”

  Izzy sighed. “You can’t blame me for checking.”

  “I know.” She smiled, playing with a pen on her desk. The pen reminded her of Taylor’s persistent theft from his secretary, which stole the smile right off her face. She dropped it, rotating her desk chair so she faced the other way. “And I love you for it.”

  “Of course, you do.” Izzy sniffed. “Are we on for dinner and dancing tonight?”

  “Dinner, yes. Dancing, no.” She rubbed her forehead. “Nice try, though.”

  “Come on, I’ve been trying to get you to go out with me for years. We’re both single and hot, so we should be out there having fun. This could be the night where we get drunk, get stupid, flirt with some guys, and dance our asses off until the last song plays.”

  She frowned. “I don’t want to flirt.”

  “Then don’t.” Izzy groaned. “But at least dance and drink with me.”

  She hesitated, thinking of her bleak night at home, alone and likely curled up in bed, crying over Taylor. It wasn’t until she lost him that she admitted to herself that she loved him, but that didn’t make the pain any less real. That pain, that crippling loss, was taking over her life.

  Taylor, meanwhile, was busily hitting up the social scene.

  Not only had the papers shown him at the gala with Julie, but they’d gone to another event for the fight against childhood cancer. He was burying himself in parties and having a social life, while she was hiding at home in a bathrobe with a box of chocolates.

  No more.

  “Fine,” she gritted.

  Izzy gasped. “Seriously? Like, seriously?”

  “Don’t make me change my mind,” Sam warned.

  Laughing, Izzy let out a little squeal. “I won’t give you a chance to, because we won’t be talking again until I pick you up. See you at seven, wear a sexy dress, love you, bye.”

  Smiling, she said into the dead line, “Love you, too.”

  There. Take that, Page Six.

  She spun her chair back around, frowning at the webpage on her computer that showed Taylor walking out of the museum event with his jacket undone and his hair mussed. Had someone touched his hair, run their fingers through it? Had he moved on to a meaningless one-night stand already? Had she been the only idiot to go and fall in love after promising not to?

  It certainly seemed that way.

  “Ms. Matthews?” a deep voice said from behind her.

  She tore her eyes from her computer and stood in surprise. “Mr. Harper, hi. I’m sorry, I must’ve forgotten that we had an appointment—”

  “We don’t,” he said, grinning and sitting down. “I just stopped by to thank you.”

  She sat back down, her gut twisting because if he was thanking her, he’d probably accepted the offer Taylor had given him. She’d lost. Again.

  “I spoke to the buyer for my company, as I’d decided to take him up on his generous offer, and before I could accept my terms as-is, he asked if I had your plans on me.”

  Sam stiffened. “What? Why?”

  “He said he wanted to use them when he backed my company and brought it into the next century. He’s generously agreed to front the money to get me where I need to be so I have a fighting chance at saving Harper Enterprises. He told me he’d be there to help me every step of the way, and that if I stuck to your plan, I might succeed. If I don’t, he’ll write off the loan as a failed experiment.”

  Her heart pounded hard, echoing in her ears. What was Taylor up to now…? “But why would he do that? What’s the catch?”

  “There isn’t any. He told me he wanted to expand his services and that I was the first company he was going to try this new partnership technique on.”

  Confusion muddled her brain. “Partnership…?”

  “Brilliant, right? He also asked me to pass along his card.” He reached into his pocket and handed it to her. She accepted it gingerly with shaking fingers, remembering the first time Taylor had tried to give her his business card. “He said to come see him if you have any questions or concerns about the process, and he let me know that he’d be in touch with you personally.”

  Sam stared down at the card, mentally tracing his name.

  “I’m very excited about this future endeavor,” he said, rising to his feet again.

  She stood, forcing a smile. While she was confused as to what Taylor hoped to gain from this whole thing, this was actually a huge deal for Mr. Harper, and she couldn’t help but be happy for him. “As you should be, this is huge.”

  “I have you to thank for this,” he said, shaking her hand. “Well, you and Mr. Jennings. He said it was your impassioned speech you gave him the other night about saving my company that ultimately changed his mind about liquidating it and reassigning my employees.”

  “It was nothing.” Actually, I had no idea about it at all. “I’m happy Harper Enterprises will live to see another day, sir.”

  “Me too.” He pushed the chair back into place. “I better go tell Martha. She’ll be so happy.”

  The smile on her face was real, despite the ache inside her—ugh, she’d have to talk to him, now that he bought Harper Enterprises. “I bet. We’ll talk later.”

  He waved and walked away while she sat at her desk, staring at the tiny piece of rectangular card stock. She tapped her fingers on her thighs, debating the best course of action. An email? A text? A short, professional phone call? Email. Definitely email. She pulled her keyboard out, fully intending to take the coward’s way out of speaking to him.

  Dear Mr. Jennings,

  It has come to my attention that you used my plan to save Mr. Harper’s company without my consent—

  She backspaced that whole sentence.

  Dear Mr. Jennings,

  Thank you for your attention to the Harper Enterprises case, and your unwanted help—

  Again. Delete.

  Dear Taylor,

  I love you. I miss you. Fuck you.

  She aggressively deleted that one.

  “Sam!” her boss, Jessica, called, waving at her excitedly.

  Sam jumped out of her skin, quickly closed the email, and stood with a racing heart. She’d never seen her stalwart boss so…so…happy. “Yes—?”

  “I just got off the phone with Mr. Jennings from Jennings Consolidations. When he called me at home this weekend, I almost hung up on him, but when he informed me that he was buying Harper Enterprises and asked for permission to contact you with any questions pertaining to your business plan, I could have kissed the man. What a great move, for us and Mr. Harper.”

  “I—” Sam started.

  “Mr. Harper was certainly pleased with the end results. With Mr. Jennings’s financial backing and expertise, hopefully this works, and we will be able to convince him to help more companies stay solvent or accept a buyout, whichever is best for them.”

  Her heart picked up
speed, because she was right. It was a huge move for everyone.

  “I even got him to agree to consider more cases such as Mr. Harper’s in the future,” Jessica said in a rush. “I’d like you to be his personal contact in all of this. If we catch his interest with another company, you can draft the reports, since he liked your style so much.”

  Sam swallowed hard. “Uh…”

  “He said he attended a few galas and got some backers over the weekend, but he wants to go to the Mertz Fundraiser tomorrow evening to make an official announcement. I told him I wouldn’t miss it for the world, but I thought it would be a good idea for you to go, too, to help represent us in this new endeavor. Mr. Jennings wasn’t sure you’d be able to make it, but I told him I couldn’t imagine you missing it. The color scheme is red. You have something red to wear, right?”

  She forced a smile, not really seeing any way around this. Either she could admit she didn’t want to go because she’d slept with their new friend, and ruin her chances at helping people, or she would have to come up with another believable reason not to—AKA lie.

  And she didn’t like lying.

  “He did say not to feel pressured to come along. He was very adamant that you not come if you didn’t want to,” Jessica added, studying Sam a little too closely. “Do you?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Sam said through clenched teeth masked behind a smile. Despite her feelings for Taylor, this was a huge step for their company and so many others out there who needed a little help. “Honestly, I’d love to come.”

  “Excellent.” She smiled even wider. “Do us proud, Sam.”

  “I will,” she promised, her heart picking up even more speed at the prospect of going out with Taylor in public. Why had he done this? Was this some sort of message to her? Did this mean…? No. It meant nothing. Nothing had changed. She was still her, and he was still him.

  The second she was alone, she pulled the email up again.

  If they were going to go out, she wanted a moment or two alone with him first before getting thrust into the midst of her coworkers and his.

  She stared at the greeting, forcing herself to leave it as-is, and added:

  Dear Mr. Jennings,