Bait: Alpha Billionaire Romance Boxed Set

by Colleen Charles

  “Who gave your mother the authority to hire and fire?” Grantham asked. “Who gave her authority to go near my business?”

  “Uh, you did, Dad,” I said, taking in my dad’s genuinely confused and frustrated expression. His brow furrowed and he pursed his lips into a tight line. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you for weeks about it. Mom rolled into the office in all her Michael Kors-clad passive-aggressive glory. She said you’d elected her to make sure I didn’t fuck up again.”

  Grantham Banks actually gasped.

  In all my years working for Dad, I had never seen him unhinged by anything. Not the untimely collapse of a business deal, nor the bankruptcy of one of his early companies. I had literally never seen him like this. It scared the living shit out of me.

  “You didn’t give her approval to do that?” I asked. Even though I already knew the answer, the question still fell from my lips to drop in the vicinity of his shoes along with my stomach.

  “Of course I didn’t.” He shook his head. “Your mother doesn’t have a clue about business.”

  “You can say that again. She brought Jasmine back. I had her escorted off the premises, by security, but she keeps cropping up every time I turn around.”

  “Jasmine,” he spat. “Christ. Not my finest moment.”

  “Yeah, it’s like your worst enemy and your best head have teamed up to combat your success and implode your thirty-year marriage.”

  Irony was strong in this situation. I wouldn’t put it past Jasmine to seek revenge against my father. Especially if he’d made the woman empty promises he had no intention of honoring. But my mom had pride and I seriously doubted she knew anything about the affair.

  “That bitch is trying to ruin me,” Dad said. “And no one gets away with hurting Grantham Banks. No one.”

  He took a step back and leaned against my nightstand. He shook his head, then felt the frown lines on his forehead, running his fingertips through the grooves.

  “She’s a vicious bitch, which is why I fired her and was willing to face your wrath over that very decision. Jasmine was such a tyrant in the office it had turned into a potential lawsuit situation. And now she’s taken Charlie down with her. Everyone believes that Charlie did something unethical during her tenure at Banks Realty. It’s a blatant fucking lie, and I won’t stand for it.”

  Dad ignored me, just kept fondling his frown lines and mumbling under his breath. Thinking. Plotting. Strategizing.

  “What are you going to do about this?” I asked as I rose from the comfort of my mattress and risked the blood rushing to my aching head. I tucked the headache away, filing the pain for later dissection. I walked to my closet, ripped it open and started throwing on clothes.

  “We’re going to Banks Realty, and we’re going to make your mother say my name.”

  “Let’s not spill any blood when we nail her to the cross,” I replied, slipping on an Armani suit. “This is a new suit; blood spatters would ruin it. It was a splurge.”

  Grantham ignored me again. He possessed a ruthless charm and polished sophistication that paired well with my sarcastic easy-going ways. He clicked his fingers for me to follow, then marched out of the door, carrying the weight of his power over his shoulders like a cloak.

  Chapter 17

  Charlie

  Wildair had a light but cozy atmosphere. The rows of tables were set against the backdrop of brick-faced walls and the wood-ensconced fluorescent lights overhead created an ambiance I couldn’t get on board with. Quaint. Romantic.

  There was nothing wrong with the restaurant. The food had blown my mind and taste buds – spicy chopped tuna on toast and crispy squid with green onions. Perfection which melted in the mouth. But the hot man sitting across from me wasn’t him.

  Callum sat tall and proud, doing and saying all the right things. Treating me with respect and admiration. Like I mattered. And yet, I felt… nothing. No racing pulse or tingling in my limbs. No itching in my lips to latch them on to his full ones. No urge to tug the corners up into a stunning smile like the one he’d been gracing me with since he’d picked me up outside my apartment.

  I shouldn’t have done this. A selfish act because I wanted to forget someone who was simply unforgettable. I should have known better, and now I wasn’t putting my best foot forward with a man I truly liked.

  Callum tipped his wine glass in my direction, and I clinked mine against it, the pinging sound echoing through my troubled heart.

  “To a fantastic evening,” he said.

  “I second that.” I nodded and drank deeply from the glass, hoping the expensive vintage would fortify me for the night ahead. Pulling from the recesses of my soul, I plastered on a more pleasant face, determined to show him a good time. After all, no one else had visited me to lend a shoulder or an ear since Anne Banks had blown my life wide open. The least I could do is treat Callum like the friend he was. The dry wine coated the back of my throat, and I welcomed the numbing sensation that spread through my limbs.

  Callum had been the perfect gentleman from the moment he’d picked me up, right through dinner. He’d filled my awkward lapses in conversation with funny tales from his childhood, making me laugh and forget my heartache for a few precious moments. I especially enjoyed the time he’d fallen out of a tree while spying on the neighbors because he’d been convinced they were undercover FBI agents.

  He was awesome, handsome, anything a woman might want. But he wasn’t Nolan.

  I drained my glass and just couldn’t plaster on my fake smile a moment longer. It was time to raise the white flag.

  “I really enjoyed this,” Callum said and poured more wine into his own glass before offering to pour into mine. “I didn’t think I’d ever get the opportunity to officially court you.”

  “Court me? This isn’t Amish country; that’s in Pennsylvania,” I said, then laughed to turn the snap into a joke. His gaze speared me with his desire, and I just couldn’t hold it. To do so wouldn’t be fair because I didn’t feel the same. My wounds were raw and oozing.

  He chuckled too. “I know. You’re just so beautiful, Charlie. So intelligent. I wanted nothing more than to ask you out the minute you appeared at Banks Realty. But Jasmine was clear on her no fraternization policy. I didn’t dare lest she spear me in the heart with a wooden stake.”

  I turned my head and looked out of the front windows of the restaurant. I’d been chasing Nolan around in my brain for too long. Nights of dreaming about him, about being in his arms. Days of watching him from afar or spending moments close to him that’d been too precious for words to articulate. And now… I’d never be over him. Not completely. Not while I was in New York, where everywhere I turned I’d see his face.

  I twirled the stem of the wine glass between my fingers. Nolan Banks. Why couldn’t it have been real instead of some rich fabrication molded to look like love? Why did I always choose the men who would hurt me, rather than cherish me? I spent my entire life trying to outrun my past so I could feel secure and good enough, and along came Nolan to blow my tenuous self-esteem to smithereens. For a split second, I’d actually thought he could care about me for a lifetime.

  “Charlie, I know that this is a difficult time for you,” Callum said, breaking through my painful musings to bring my attention back to him. I lifted my eyes from the red liquid twirling in my long-stemmed glass.

  I focused on his chiseled face. Wishing. Hoping. But nothing sparked to life inside me. “I’m fine,” I said. “Promise. I’m just, uh, my mind was on The Grant Project. I’d really hoped to hit it out of the park for some single parents, and I can’t even get to the plate.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s going ahead as planned, so ultimately, the single parents of the community will have that as a choice of a safe place to live with their kids. You don’t have to worry about it. Chase Bradenton has got it under control.”

  Callum didn’t mention Nolan’s name, but I could almost feel it sitting on the tip of his tongue. He probably had questions. Maybe h
e wanted to know whether I’d truly been brokenhearted or whether the rumors of a fake engagement were true.

  I would’ve had questions in his position. I could only pray that he wouldn’t ask them because I didn’t want to lie, but I didn’t want to tell the truth either.

  “I, uh, I can’t believe I’m about to say this,” he stuttered, blushing to the roots of his spiky hair. “I know it’s not even over yet, but I want to see you again. As soon as you’ll let me. There’s a new exhibit at The Met, and I’ve been wanting to catch it. Care to join me sometime next week? I know you’re not ready for something serious, but we could keep it light and fun for a while? Sound good?”

  My heart went cold. It was the way he said light and fun. Charlene de Monaco seeped serious out her every pore. I couldn’t imagine dating this man or any other and keeping it light or fun. All in or all out. I didn’t want to even be on a date with him. I wanted to be in Nolan’s apartment, wrapped in his sheets and his arms.

  I scraped my chair back and rose, my white linen napkin floating gently to the floor below. A stark reminder of how sullied I felt. Like a big, fat imposter in a designer dress at a trendy restaurant. I didn’t belong.

  “I’m sorry, Charlie, was that too much too soon? We can take it slow. I won’t ask you out again until you’re ready.” Callum held up both palms to placate me. It had the opposite effect.

  “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come out with you, Callum,” I said, my whisper barely carrying across the table. Panic rose from my gut and traveled up the back of my throat. I could barely draw breath, and I needed to escape the confines of the restaurant.

  He leaned in to hear me better. “Why not? You don’t like me?”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s something else. It’s, uh, it’s that I don’t think I can like anyone right now. I don’t think I’ll be able to trust anyone ever again.” I stumbled back, then paused to straighten the chair. “Not that you’re not trustworthy. You are. A true catch. I’m just afraid I’m not good enough bait. Thank you for a lovely evening,” I said, choking the words out.

  “Charlie, wait,” Callum said, rising from his seat. “At least let me make sure you get safely inside a taxi. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you on my watch.”

  Chapter 18

  Nolan

  “I need to leave soon, Dad,” I said, standing beside my father in the lush boardroom. The mahogany table felt cold and rigid against the palms of my heated flesh. I gripped the beveled edge with my fingertips and hissed in a breath. Even though I didn’t want to be here, this was my real estate development company and now was the time to man up.

  Department heads were arranged around the table. An emergency meeting at night was almost unheard of unless I’d managed to get myself in trouble. That hadn’t happened in a while. Not since the night I’d met Charlie in person for the first time. And that was a fluke due to Jasmine’s melodramatics.

  “You’ll leave when we’re done,” Grantham replied, rifling through a file of papers he had in front of him.

  My mother sat at the opposite end of the table, like we were here for Thanksgiving dinner, her nose in the air, reeking uptown class. And defiance. Her haughty expression didn’t surprise me at all. When times got tough, she dug one claw in and pointed the others at anyone else but herself.

  Callum rushed into the boardroom, cell phone in hand. “Sorry,” he said on a pant. “I was on a date, and I just now got the text. Wouldn’t want to have my phone light up when the woman across from me was so special.”

  He grinned at me as he slid into a leather chair on the opposite side of the table, and I gave him a blank stare in reply. Why would I give a fuck where he was when the text came in about this meeting?

  “I called you all here to bring an issue to your attention. Several issues, actually,” Grantham said, tucking his hands behind his back and puffing out his robust chest. He exuded confidence, and the suits hung off the edge of his every word since he was rarely in the country. I took the opportunity to scan their faces and rested my gaze on Mother. Her beautiful face had turned ashen. Sickly. With all bloom gone from her cheeks. I stared at her for at least a minute, but her eyes were locked on my father, and she never made eye contact.

  “Mrs. Banks has made her presence known around the office,” Dad said, “and I want to make it clear to all of you that neither she or Jasmine St. James have any say in what happens at Banks Realty in my absence. Nolan runs this leg of the company. Period.”

  My mom straightened and opened her mouth but must have decided against it because she clamped it shut again.

  Dad didn’t notice her fidgeting or didn’t care. “From now on, all directives will come directly from myself or from my son, or his appointed assistant. Otherwise they’re to be ignored. Is that clear?”

  Every person seated at the table nodded their consent. Some looked openly relieved, and I wondered just how far my mother had pushed when I wasn’t in the office or out of earshot.

  “You think you can discount me so easily, sweetheart?” my mother said, finally losing her shit. She slammed her chair back and stood with her fists pressed into the table. “I helped make you who you are, Grantham Banks. You were nothing but an arrogant army sergeant when we met. I refuse to be ignored.”

  I stroked my forehead and shut my eyes for a second. Of course this would digress into an all-out verbal war of wills between two equally stubborn and privileged people. They’d been together so long and had so much disposable income it seemed as if both of them had lost touch with reality. But this was between her and my father.

  I’d waited too long to get Charlie back as I allowed her to labor under the delusion that I’d manipulated her for my own selfish gain. I’d lost my chance to truly make it right, but I had to try. Dad erupted behind me, dismissing my staff with a wave of his meaty hand. They rose from their chairs and strode toward the two exits. Once my dad nodded in my direction, I moved to join them. This was between the two of them, and I was no longer needed.

  Reaching the elevator, I punched the button for the ground floor, and the doors slid closed. Before they could meet in the middle, a large hand snaked out to stop the flow of movement and Callum stepped into the car with me. Shit. Could this night get any worse? He probably wanted to debrief me on his hot date. Ever since Charlie’s eyes had fallen on the other man, I’d hated his guts.

  “Sorry to hear about your break up,” Callum said, his lips twitching into a smile. He leaned back against the wooden guard rail with his hands behind his back. What the hell was he up to with his trite words and his smug expression?

  “Why do you think I’ll discuss my personal life with an employee,” I replied and pushed the button for ‘G’ a few times in an angry snit.

  “You don’t have to, Nolan,” Callum snorted. “Your personal life is an open book reported on daily by the gossip rags. But I don’t have to read that drivel because I heard it all from Charlie at dinner.”

  I turned on him, grabbed him by the lapels of his stupid, striped shirt and rammed the other man against the back wall of the glass elevator. I didn’t give two shits if someone from below was watching the entire scene unfold. “What the fuck did you just say?”

  “I went on a date with Charlie. She couldn’t stop talking about how much she hated you and what you did to her. Not that I blame her. Everyone here knows that Charlie would never embezzle money and that farce had your mother’s name written all over it. Imagine how she feels knowing that the man who was supposed to want to spend the rest of his life with her sold her down the river for his overinflated ego.”

  I balled up my fist and raised it, lined it up with his nose. I’d break him for talking about her like that. I’d bend him over my knee and snap him like a fucking twig. I sucked in deep breaths to calm myself, then gradually loosened my grip. It wasn’t worth it. He wasn’t worth it.

  But she was.

  Callum reached up to smooth the wrinkles from his cotton shirt. T
he elevator pinged, and I turned so I could march out the car and the glass doors of the office building. My steps quickened. Charlie had gone on a date with another man. She wanted to move on before I had the chance to explain the situation to her. I couldn’t let her go like this.

  I sprinted to the waiting car and slipped into the back seat. I gave my driver Charlie’s address then spent the next twenty minutes drumming my heels on the baseboard. I would make her see reason. I’d done what I’d done with positive intent. For her own good. She had to know that.

  I practiced my speech in my head, over and over again. My confession, the truth about my feelings, the need for her. If she rejected me after this, I’d curl up into a fucking ball and sob like a baby. Because from the moment I’d been within one foot of her in person, I’d been gone.

  Long gone.

  The town car slid to a stop at the curb of her apartment. Pulling the door handle open, I didn’t even wait for my driver and jumped out, slamming it shut behind me. The steps were the only thing between us, so I took them two at a time. I banged on her door with closed fists.

  Please, God. Let her be home. Let her have gone home after dinner with Callum and not out clubbing and trying to find someone else to help her forget about me.

  “Charlie, it’s Nolan. Please open up. We have to talk.”

  I wasn’t above begging. Pleading. Offering her one of my kidneys or my first born child. Of course, she’d be the mother of all of my children so that probably wouldn’t entice her at all. Footsteps approached the door, and I held my breath.

  The bolt drew back, the door creaked inward, and Charlie’s roommate appeared, wearing a frown.

  “Where’s Charlie?” I asked Melissa.

  “She’s at JFK, Nolan. The taxi picked her up like ten minutes ago.”

  “What?” I ground my teeth and spat the question. “Where is she going?”

  Melissa shrugged. “She wouldn’t tell me, but I would assume home to Atlanta. She said she’s never coming back. I’m supposed to box up her stuff and ship it once I here she’s made it there safely.”