“I know. I knew you wouldn’t. They’re trying to make it look like you were the one who stole the money.”
“Yeah. Fuck.” He hesitated. “If it helps, Chrissy, this is almost all Bianca’s doing. I just hate what this will do to you and Jack and your mom.”
I started crying again. My poor mom.
“What about you, though? Can you prove that you didn’t do this, with all the money coming from your projects?”
“Come on,” he said, standing up and taking my hand again. “We have to talk to Chad and Steve.”
He pulled me into the conference room where Chad and Steve, those hot guys from the bar that night, were wading through piles of printouts. They two of them met each others’ eyes, then Chad started, “Look, guys, there’s some money missing—”
Adam tossed the folders down in front of him and Steve. “I know. This explains it.”
If it had only taken Adam five minutes to read, it only took these guys about one. They zipped through it, traded folders, and zipped through it again.
“Holy shit,” Steve finally said. “The boss was having an affair that got too expensive? And the mistress was blackmailing him for more. Too fucking classic. And trying to pin it on the new guy. Unoriginal.”
Chad kicked him and gestured back toward me.
“Oh, yeah,” Steve said. “Sorry. If it helps, there’s no record of anything like this happening before. This seems to be his first go-round.”
“Thanks,” I said sarcastically. “That helps soooo much.”
“He was having an affair with Bianca,” Adam said. He sat in one of the chairs and pulled me onto his lap.
“Your Bianca?” Chad said incredulously.
I hissed at him
“Sorry,” he said, holding up his hands. “The woman formerly known as your fiancée whom you dumped for being a crazy manipulative bitch?”
“That’s better,” I said.
“Okay,” Steve said, running a hand through his hair. “This is a fucking mess, but the good news—sorry, Chrissy—is that most of the mess is on the personal side. The business can be saved, but the board will probably ask for a change in leadership.”
“So my dad will get fired from the company he founded?”
Steve hissed in air between his teeth. “Yeaaaahh. Probably.”
I sighed. “Seems fair. As long as Adam doesn’t get blamed.” I rested my head on Adam’s shoulder. “I don’t know how to tell my mom.”
“I don’t think that’s your responsibility,” Adam said, looking at me with a frown. “Let’s just see how it plays out.”
Chad gestured toward Gary’s office. “Does he even know the audit is happening?”
“I think he was distracted by Bianca telling him that Chrissy and I were dating,” Adam said, looking up at me.
“I guess I better go talk to him.” I didn’t know what I would say. I didn’t want him to yell at me about Adam, but I guess he didn’t know that was the least of his problems. “Should I tell him any of this is going on?”
Steve and Chad exchanged glances. “It’d make our lives easier if you didn’t, but we will report it all to the board in a few days, so it will be public then.”
“I’m going to tell him,” I said. “I’m furious at him, and he screwed up, but he doesn’t deserve to be ambushed.”
Adam stiffened, but I was already off his lap and on my way to my father’s office.
****
I didn’t see Adam before I left the office, so I went home. I went right to my room and flung myself down on the bed. I wished I hadn’t gone to the beach house, but Dad shuffling money around would have come out anyway. What I wished wasn’t happening was my dad having an affair. I already hated Bianca for what she had tried to do to Adam, and I hated her worse now, but even the most manipulative woman couldn’t have an affair all by herself.
I prided myself on being an adult, but I lay there and cried over my mommy and daddy, because they were probably going to get a divorce. I felt like I was six again. The feeling only intensified when I heard the voices coming from downstairs. My parents were in the kitchen, and from the tone of their voices, I was guessing that Dad was telling Mom about his day.
At least I didn’t have to tell her.
Hey. I can hear voices and I don’t want to ring the doorbell. Can you let me in? No reason to sneak through the back now, right?
Sure. Coming.
I was happy to have him there, but—I don’t know. He was a huge part of what was happening with my family right now. After about one second of thinking like that I had to remind myself that it wasn’t Adam who’d had the affair or laundered money to make it look like Adam had done it. That was all on Dad. If Adam hadn’t discovered it, someone else would have.
“Hi,” I said softly as I opened the door. Adam stood there with his hands in his pockets, looking haggard, like he hadn’t slept in days.
“Hi.” He looked at me steadily for a few seconds. “Want to come out and sit on the porch?”
“Yeah.”
I kept the light off. It wasn’t quite full dark yet, but summer twilight, and it felt nice to sit by him in the dimming light. We sat in silence for a long time before he said anything.
“I guess they’re talking about it in there?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I sighed. “At least I didn’t have to tell her. He came clean as soon as he got home. I hate this so much, but I do believe that this is the only time he’s done anything like this.”
“Have you told Jack?”
“No. I thought I’d wait until I knew more. Like if—” my voice broke a little “—if they’re going to get a divorce.”
He put his arm around me and pulled me close. I rested my head on his shoulder and felt a little better.
“Chrissy,” he said quietly. “Do you blame me for this? You said today that you didn’t want your dad to be ambushed—is that what you think I did?”
“I don’t know. Did you? That Chad guy said he wasn’t even told about the audit.”
“No, he wasn’t, but part of that is that he was too busy yelling at me for dating you.”
“Yeah. Doesn’t seem like such a big deal now. What will happen to Bianca?”
“She’ll get fired. I didn’t like her, but she was a good marketing exec. It’ll be nice not having to see her every day, though. I don’t know if she’ll go to jail—it’s out of my hands now.”
The door opened and Adam and I looked back toward it. My dad was coming out, but he stopped short when he saw us.
“I talked to the company lawyers,” he said. “If I pay the money back before the end of the month, there’ll be no legal action. Probably be ousted as CEO, but I can still work for the company.”
“It sounds like a good deal, Dad,” I said.
“It’s humiliating,” he snorted. “Might just take early retirement.”
“Can you afford that?” I asked. “After you pay the money back?”
He sighed, and he looked older than I’d ever seen him. “Probably not. Chrissy, I’m sorry you were the one to find out about—about what I did. Not the money, but the other. It wasn’t worth it, and I would have ended it, but I never meant to put you through that.”
I didn’t answer him. I wasn’t sure how I felt toward him right now, but what he’d just said had come way too close to “I’m sorry I got caught” for me.
Instead I said, “What are you and Mom going to do?”
“She’s still thinking about it.”
Adam stood up and looked at my dad. “And what about Chrissy and me?”
“You’re not exactly my favorite person right now,” my dad growled. “I should throw you off my property.”
Adam just looked at him.
“Fine,” my dad said. “Do what you want. You’re going to anyway.”
Adam looked down at me and gave me just a hint of a smile. “Sounds like his blessing to me.”
Chapter 16 – Adam
“Where are we going?�
� Chrissy demanded.
“You’ll see,” I said. “At least, you will if you ever get that sexy ass in the car.”
I’d asked her to meet me at my condo after work, which was kind of rare these days, because she didn’t want to leave her mom home alone in the evenings. At least, not every evening. So it looked like our early days of wild fucking at the drop of a hat—they definitely weren’t over, because I couldn’t do without her for more than a day or two, but they were more difficult to arrange.
There were a few nights when I stayed in Chrissy’s room where I’m sure Linda knew, but she pretended not to. On the other hand, after she’d kicked Gary out, I hung around and did man-chores for her, like mowing the lawn and changing the oil in her car, so maybe it was worth it to her to look the other way.
By the end of the summer, things had calmed down a lot, both at the office and at Chrissy’s house. Gary had moved out for a while, but it kind of looked like he and Linda were going to patch things up. Chrissy, Jack, and I all had pretty mixed feelings about that, but we tried to support Linda as much as we could.
I kind of felt sorry for Gary. Linda wasn’t quite 50, and she was in great shape. Gary should have been counting his blessings that a woman like her would have him at all, not screwing things up by cheating on her. Linda wouldn’t be single long if she didn’t want to be. But if I’d messed things up with Chrissy that badly, I’d do anything to get her to give me a second chance.
I was pretty sure Linda was still considering it.
“What are we doing?” Chrissy said, a cute little pout on her face. “Mom and I are supposed to be packing tonight.”
“I owe you a dinner, remember?”
“You do?” She thought for a second, then she laughed. “Oh, yeah! From way back in June! You cheated by buying gourmet sandwiches!”
“I didn’t do that tonight, but you might wish I had. I’m not sure my chicken bacon ranch is as good as the restaurant’s.”
She smiled at me. Damn, she had a great smile. “I’ll take my chances.”
We drove to the same place I’d taken her that night, that bluff outside of town that overlooked the desert. It seemed like a long time ago, but it was really just a little over two months. I spread out the blanket and helped her lower herself down.
I was as dazzled by her as ever. Somehow that bratty little girl that had followed Jack and me around had turned into the woman I wanted to be with more than anything. She was so much more to me than just my best friend’s little sister.
Instead of unpacking the food, I sat next to her and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed back, opening her soft lips to let me in. As usual, my excitement went from 0 to 60 in about a second, but I had planned to take it slow this time. I hoped I could.
I pulled her onto my lap without breaking the kiss. God, she felt fucking good in my arms. And sitting on my lap put her a little higher than me, so she controlled the kiss, taking it deeper, hotter. I slid my hands under her cropped t-shirt and spread them out over her breasts. They were perfect, high and firm, and they fit in my hands like they’d been made for me.
She moaned and dropped her head back, letting her long blonde hair fall down her back. That put her tits right at mouth level, so I made my way down there, pausing to kiss her neck, licking the curve that led to her shoulder. Her shoulder was smooth and soft and round, so I bit it.
She yelped and laughed. I lifted her tits to my mouth and licked them softly, then pulled one into my mouth and sucked on it. Chrissy grasped my shoulders and made little sounds in her throat. I unfastened her shorts and thrust my hand in under her panties.
“Fuck,” Chrissy moaned. She started thrusting against my fingers. I kept sucking her tit as I slid my middle finger into her pussy. She was scratching at my shoulders now—I was going to have marks there tomorrow. Awesome.
“Come on, baby,” I murmured. “Take it. Take everything.”
She came on my hand, contracting around my finger. Then she collapsed against my shoulder, and I held her close while she came down.
I stroked her hair and down the side of her neck and her bare arms, but I was still hot and hard. I started kissing her neck again, just to feel her skin against my mouth. I grasped her waist and splayed my hands across her ass.
“Come inside me, baby,” she whispered. She slid off my lap and lay back on the blanket and slid her shorts off. I pulled my own shorts off—I really hoped nobody else decided to walk by while we were up here—and lay on top of her. My cock brushed her thighs, but I ignored it for a moment and grasped her wrists in my hands and pinned them over her head.
I just stayed like that for a moment. She looked up at me and I looked down into those beautiful blue eyes. “You’re so beautiful,” I whispered. She smiled, and I slid into her.
She hooked her legs around my waist and we rocked together. I tried to keep my eyes on hers, but it felt so good one or the other of us sometimes had to squeeze our eyes shut. I let go of her wrists and slid my arms under her, pulling her close to me, and she wrapped her arms around me. It was like we were one person, and I thought as we both built toward our climaxes that I had never felt so close to someone in my life.
Finally she started to come again, and her contractions around my cock pulled me over the edge too. We lay like that for a long time, my face buried in her hair, her hand stroking my back.
Then her stomach growled. We looked at each other and laughed.
“Well, you did promise me dinner!” She smiled when she said it.
“Your wish is my command.”
I slid off her and straightened my clothes, then started unpacking things from the picnic basket. I looked doubtfully at my own chicken-bacon-ranch sandwiches. Oh, well, surely they were edible, at least. I pulled out the chips, salad, and wine and arranged them as artfully as I could between us.
“You think your mom’s going to be all right after you go back to school?” I handed her the paper plate I’d piled her food on.
She took it and bit into her sandwich. “Hey, this isn’t bad. Yeah, I think she will. She might let Dad move back in. They’ve been going to counseling.”
“Yeah, she told me. That’s good—at least they can figure out what went wrong before they try to move back in together. So, when do you have to be back in your apartment?”
“Sunday is the move-in date for campus apartments.”
I took her hand and kissed her fingers. “I’ll miss you.”
She sighed. “I’ll miss you too.” She looked away from me, out over the desert. “Is this the part where you say you don’t want me to be your girlfriend anymore because long-distance relationships are too hard?”
“You sound upset.” And okay, I’m an asshole, but I was thrilled. I honestly wasn’t sure she cared about me as much as I cared about her. But she did sound upset about the idea of us breaking up. “Oh, hey, is that a tear? Don’t cry! Chrissy—at least let me answer the question!”
“Fine.” She sniffled and took a deep breath, like she was bracing herself.
“I don’t want to break up, but I don’t want you to be my girlfriend anymore, either.”
Her head whipped back around to face me. She glared. “So what, your booty call? Your friend with benefits? Please.”
Okay, here it was, the moment we’d all been waiting for. This time I was the one who took a deep breath.
“Well…I can’t promise I’ll never want a booty call. You have a fantastic booty.”
She rolled her eyes.
“And, Chrissy, I do feel like we’re friends. I tell you pretty much everything.”
She sighed. I shifted so that I was kneeling next to her on the blanket.
“But I don’t want you to be my girlfriend anymore. I was thinking more like…fiancée?” I took her hand again. “I love you, Chrissy. Will you marry me?”
As she goggled at me, I reached into the basket, moved the dessert over, and pulled out a ring box. I opened it so she could see the diamond
inside it.
“Holy shit!”
I laughed. “What do you think, Chrissy? I know this next year will be hard, but we can make it work. We could get married after graduation, if you want.”
She knelt up so she was facing me, though she was still several inches shorter. I wrapped my arms around her waist. She put her hands on my cheeks.
“I love you. I think I’ve always loved you, even when you only thought of me as your best friend’s little sister. I would love to marry you, Adam.”
“You know where we should get married?” I said, feeling fucking giddy. “At the mansion.”
“Oh yes,” she said. “So many good memories there.”
“Mm hmm. That’s where I discovered Mansion Adam.”
“I remember him! He was fun and sexy and happy. I liked him.”
“That’s how I feel when I’m with you, Chrissy. Like Mansion Adam. Like the real me. Only with you.”
I kissed her and started to lower her back onto the blanket. “Hey, wait,” she laughed. “Don’t I get to try on the ring?”
“Oh, right.” I still had the box clenched in my hand. “Here…”
She took it from me and slipped it onto the correct finger. It looked perfect there. Like she shone with diamonds. Like she was mine.
“Okay, now we can make out!” She reached for me.
“No, wait…” I pulled out my phone and started pushing buttons.
“What are you doing?”
I grinned at her. “Texting Jack, of course!”
Thank you reading!
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Bound by the Billionaire
Copyright © 2017 Juliana Conners; All Rights Reserved.
Chapter One – Paige Matthews
The holiday windows at Saks Fifth Avenue usually filled me with Christmas cheer, but tonight the twirling sugar plum fairies did nothing to calm the category-five hurricane twisting its way around my stomach. I should have known better than to take a cab through Midtown the week before Christmas. The invitation to the masquerade party said eight o’clock sharp, but thanks to the sloth-slow traffic, I would be late. That was the last thing I needed or wanted because I was about to go undercover for a story I knew would kickstart my journalism career, something I desperately needed.
Loved by the LumberJacks_A MFMMMM Reverse Harem Romance Page 92
