Scandals.
So, it would be application after application until I heard something.
Zoila came into the sitting room and placed herself in front of me. She had an envelope in her hands.
“Have you called him yet?” She gave me a pointed look. Between her and Mom, they were going to drive me crazy.
“No.”
“So, that’s it. You’re just going to stay at the Chronicle and allow the man to get away from you?”
“Zoila, I’m embarrassed, and I still don’t know what to do.”
She frowned at me and handed me the envelope. “Look at this.”
“What is it?”
“Open it.”
I took it and opened it. I pulled out a document titled Job Specifications for Investigative Journalists. It was for the Chicago Tribune. As in Pulitzer prize-winning Chicago Tribune.
“They won’t accept—”
She silenced me by holding her hand up. “Don’t finish that. There’s no reason why they won’t accept you. I looked on their website, and they are expanding. They are looking for ten new journalists to start in their new department in the summer. Billie, for God’s sake, and for the sake of everything, please apply. You are writing about pets. Think about it, you chose a dead-end job over Chad, and now you are writing about pets. I’m putting my foot down. As your best friend I have to do something. Guys like him don’t come around every day, so please think about what you’re doing.”
All I could do was stare, and that bubble popped and landed me right on my ass.
It was a bubble of fear.
She was right. She was so right.
Both she and Mom were right.
I looked down at the paper in my hands and thought I would apply. But there was something I had to do first.
It was nearly eight, but I wasn’t going to allow the time to stop me.
I stood up and grabbed my jacket.
“What are you doing now?” Zoila frowned.
“Going to see Chad.”
“Really? You aren’t just saying that to get me off your back?”
I shook my head. “No, and thanks.”
I gave her a hopeful smile and left.
I didn’t have a plan, but I had an idea, and that was as much as I needed right now.
One thing at a time. Chad first, then I’d think about work.
Chapter 14
Billie
The butler let me in and showed me to the planning room.
I would have made some comment about having an actual planning room, but when I saw it, I understood the need for it.
I was in the home of an architect who loved to design unique buildings.
This was the room he did his thinking in.
It was a massive room, more like a hall, and on the walls hung pictures and drawings. Pictures of every country and the monuments and scenes they were known for. Like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Taj Mahal in India, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben in England, and many more.
The drawings were designs of buildings he must have designed; they were everywhere. But where was he?
I looked around and walked over to the French doors, and that was when I saw him. He was standing on the balcony outside.
It was cold out, but he wore a T-shirt.
He leaned against the wall and gazed ahead at the city lights off in the distance.
I took a few minutes to watch him and absorb the perfection of him.
Like that first time, he stole my breath away.
And here I was at his home, hoping … hoping to apologize. At the very least.
If our situations were reversed, I didn’t think I would be very forgiving. It would have hurt me deeply to know that he chose a job over me. The way I must have hurt him.
Eddie had near enough done the same to me.
Different situation entirely yet similar because he chose his career, and that was where he wanted his focus.
I’d done the same thing to Chad because I was scared I would have nothing, and I’d turned away his help because of my foolish pride.
Pulling in a deep breath, I pushed the door and stepped out onto the balcony, grabbing his full attention.
He looked completely taken aback to see me. He straightened and looked me over.
“Hi, um…” I foolishly hadn’t even bothered to rehearse what I was going to say to him. I should have at the very least come up with a good opening. Something more than Hi and Um. “Hi,” I started again and fought past the fog of uncertainty that settled over my mind. “I came to apologize.”
“What for?” His voice came out cold and flat. So unlike the warmth I was used to.
“For what I did.”
“Oh, that. It’s perfectly understandable that you would stop seeing me, so you could keep your job.” He shrugged.
“It’s not, and I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted.”
“You look angry with me,” I breathed.
“I’m not angry; it’s just clear we’re two people who want different things.”
“No, that’s not true.”
“Okay, let’s do this. Let’s see what’s true and what’s not. If I asked you to leave your job and be with me, what would you say?” He stared at me long and hard.
For the first time in maybe years, I thought about what I wanted. I thought hard about what I wanted, and my mind was suddenly clear.
It was because of who was asking the question.
“I’d say yes.” I told him. My answer surprised him.
He continued to look at me like he was trying to figure me out.
He blinked several times, then focused back on me. “You would?”
I nodded. “I would say yes, Chad.”
“If I asked you to jump on a plane now and go to Paris with me, what would you say?”
“Yes.”
He stepped forward and inched closer to me.
“If I asked you to be mine, what would you say?”
“Yes.” He held my gaze. “Are you …asking?”
“I’m asking, but it depends on what you want too.”
That was something I could answer effortlessly. “I want you.”
Emotion filled his eyes, and they sparkled.
He moved forward and cupped my face. His touch felt so good. Like everything I’d ever needed. It wasn’t hard to guess why.
It was because he was everything. Everything I’d ever wanted and so much more.
“I want you too.”
“You have me, all of me.” It was so easy to say.
“Then be mine, Billie.”
“Yes.” So, I guessed this meant I was leaving the Chronicle. And I didn’t feel scared anymore.
He smiled down at me and pressed his lips to mine in a soul-searching kiss that curled my toes.
I gasped when he picked me up and giggled when he proceeded with me down the hall to the bedroom.
“Chad, you are crazy.” I laughed.
“Yes, crazy for you. Now kiss me. I missed your lips and the rest of you.” He kissed my laughter away and the clothes off my body.
We tore each other’s clothes until we were both naked and in a hot, sexual tangle of heat, ready to consume each other.
His touch immediately felt different to me. Like I was his and he was showing me he was mine too.
It was a wonderful feeling I couldn’t get enough of. I couldn’t get enough of him.
He lay me down on my back, and when he plunged into me, that felt different too. It was just as wild as before, but there was something more powerful and spellbinding. Something more enchanting that captured my heart and my soul.
All pieces of me belonged to him, and I knew in that moment that I would only ever feel this way with him.
The best part was that was exactly what I wanted.
Him.
Love. That was what this was. I’d heard many people say you’ll know it when you feel it. Since I’d never felt it, I’d thought that was bull.
/>
It wasn’t though. It was real, and this was real. It was us.
And I wanted more.
More of him. So much more of him.
More of us.
Chad
I trailed a line of kisses up my goddess’ body.
I couldn’t remember what day it was, but I knew I should have been at work a few hours ago. By my foggy recollection it was Wednesday. At least I thought it was.
We’d been in bed for days, making love for days. All day, all night.
All the time.
We took a break yesterday, so Billie could resign from the Chronicle. She wrote an email on her phone and sent it. I’d heard the thing buzzing nonstop, but we’d both ignored it.
She’d assured me that she’d already told her mom and Zoila she’d be with me, and she’d check in when she got the chance. So anyone else trying to reach her was someone she didn’t want to speak to. Aka, work.
The phone buzzed again, and this time, she slid off the bed, and I watched in keen fascination as her beautiful naked body walked over to where her phone was sitting on my desk. She picked it up and switched it off, then set it back down.
She looked back to me with a smile. A smile I could fall into and get lost in forever.
Her hair hung to the side in a flow of waves I loved, flowing past her pebbled caramel tipped nipple.
She smiled when she saw the way I looked at her.
“Come back to me. You’re too gorgeous, and I can’t keep my hands off you, baby.”
I reached for her, and she moved with a bounce in her step back to me, her heavy breasts bouncing, too, with each move.
I grabbed her tiny waist and pulled her into my lap, so she could straddle me.
“I can’t leave you today,” I told her.
“What about work?”
I teased her nipple and decided to lay her on her back, so I could suck her.
“I’m not leaving you.” I couldn’t.
She ran her hands through my hair as I took the diamond-hard nipple into my mouth and licked over the tips, working it to life.
She moaned when I started sucking hard, like I could taste her, and moved her leg to wrap it around my waist.
I could see this was going to be a great start to the day. My girl and I getting lost in each other, riding passionate waves of indulgence for as long as we could.
My plan was to make her drunk on love, so when I moved her in with me, she wouldn’t even know how it happened. By then, it would be too late. She’d be here with me, and I had no plans to let her go.
I’d moved over to her left breast and started sucking when my phone rang.
It was Maurice. Only he, Mom, and Billie had the number for that phone. Dad and Patrick had the number for my other phone. That number I gave out as my business contact.
So, when that phone rang, I knew it could only be one of the three, and since one of those people was with me, and Mom would be teaching her evening ballet class, I knew it was Maurice.
And it would be important.
I lifted my head.
Billie reached out and stroked my face.
“Get that. How about when you come back, I pleasure you instead?”
What an offer.
“I’m holding you to that.”
“You don’t have to. It’s already on the schedule.” She giggled.
“Alright, Billie, like Billie Holiday. I’ll be quick.”
I grabbed the phone and answered it.
“Chad, thank God. I thought you weren’t going to answer.” Maurice sounded panicked.
“What’s happened?”
“A lot. I need to see you. I’m on my way to you now.”
“Really, Maurice? Must you come here?” I winced at the thought of not being with Billie and working.
“Chad, it’s Patrick. I found an offshore account with millions in it, and the deposits are from this S guy. But that’s not the worst part. I think I know who S is. I think it’s Alessandro Salvatore.”
My eyes widened, and it was like something fit together in my mind.
Alessandro Salvatore. That name, it was on the news.
But… I’d seen the guy.
That was the man Patrick had been speaking to that day in the park.
Chapter 15
Chad
I sent Billie shopping with my credit card and told her to take her friend.
Thank God, she didn’t protest.
Maurice arrived just as she was leaving. I introduced them, she left, and we got down to business.
Maurice showed me two offshore accounts in Patrick’s name. One in Bermuda and the other in Switzerland. Both in excess of four million dollars.
Each transaction came from one main account with a US IBAN and SWIFTBIC code. And they were all listed as S.
Except one transaction on the Bermuda sheet that was listed as A. Salvatore. I didn’t know why it was different, and that wasn’t the worry.
“What do you make of this?” It all spelled criminal in big bold letters for me, but I wanted to hear Maurice’s take on what sort of criminal he thought my brother was.
“Looks like money laundering. I think Patrick is a pawn of sorts. He sets up the account, and the transactions go to him.”
“What about the New Town Complex?”
“It’s real estate. Luxury apartments, whether sold or rented, help clean dirty money. It’s a guess, but I can’t think of anything else that makes sense. The whole complex is worth billions. Imagine a mafia-type guy getting his hands on something like that and putting his money through the system. Luxury apartments can do that. Alessandro Salvatore has been on the news a lot lately.”
“Yeah, and the last guy who reported sight of him ended up dead with his head in the dumpster. This is no mere guy, Maurice.” I frowned. “Fucking Patrick. He’s such an asshole. What the fuck are we supposed to do now?”
This was it. The bad feelings I had been getting were all valid because Patrick had aligned himself with some big bad mafia don who could kill on his word.
“I don’t know. I think you should tell your father, and then he can make the decision on what to do.”
“Dad won’t listen to me. He’ll think this is crazy.”
“What about the evidence? It’s all there.”
“Maurice, I doubt he’ll listen. The offshore accounts are one thing, but believing that Patrick’s teamed up with this guy is another. Nothing short of a picture of the two of them together will work.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.” Maurice nodded.
“You can’t follow them around.”
“Hey, you forget I have my ways. I’ll find a way. But we have to do something. This was never about simply building luxury apartments.”
He could certainly say that again.
God, what a mess. What a damn mess.
Billie
I felt like a new woman.
Jobless… or rather searching for a job, but still a new woman.
It was Monday again. I’d just submitted my application to the Tribune, and I had my fingers and everything crossed that I would hear back from them.
I was trying to be positive and going out on the limb to believe that if they met me, they would like me.
Positivity was me, and I felt good for it.
I took the whole weekend to go over my application and make it on point.
By the time I was done, I was satisfied that I’d given my best and presented myself in the way I wanted.
I was on my way to meet Chad. Actually, going to Arnauds. I’d baked those oatmeal cookies he loved and wanted to stop by and give them to him.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Miranda again.
The woman hadn’t stopped. Aside from my resignation email, I hadn’t responded to her messages. Didn’t see the point.
I did read them though. She was full of apologies and full of shit.
If it wasn’t her apologizing she’d upset me, it was her saying she’d put the request b
ack in for my raise.
Well, the job I just applied for paid more than double what she was offering in that raise, and some of the other jobs I’d applied for paid just over that amount.
All I wanted from her was a reference, and if she refused, I’d take her to court on it. I was serious.
I was way serious, and I couldn’t believe it was me, The new woman who was me didn’t care that I was about to enter the Arnaud building, a place where Chad’s family would be.
The other day, when he’d wanted me to meet him here for lunch, I got all wary and cautious because I didn’t know what his family would think of me. This morning, I decided I didn’t care.
So, here I was with my little box of cookies.
I stepped into the elevator to go to the fifth floor, where Chad’s office was located.
His was the last office at the end of the corridor.
I stepped out of the elevator when the doors opened and looked about me. There was no one here. The floor was quiet too, not like downstairs in reception, where there were lots of people going in and out of the building.
I proceeded down the corridor and looked ahead for Chad’s office.
By the time I turned on the end, I heard raised voices, so I stopped and listened.
I was here unannounced. The last thing I wanted to do was walk in on some argument, which was likely with the tension still in the air about the New Town Complex.
Chad had told me he had until next Thursday to come to a decision on what he was voting.
That was as much as he would say, although I suspected there was more at work.
More at work that didn’t concern me.
I was confident I’d have a job in the next two months, and if I didn’t, I had savings I could add to Mom’s. Worst case scenario, we’d stay at my apartment until Christmas. That was eight months’ worth of rent between us. Surely, I would have a job by then, and a new place, which I was starting to believe was Chad’s.
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