Dirty Rich Betrayal

by Lisa Renee Jones

  I start to cry. Damn it, I can’t cry before I see my father. “I shouldn’t have answered.” I hang up. I want to call back. He calls back. I hit decline and set my phone down, rubbing my palms down my jeans. Don’t pick it back up. Don’t talk to him. His voice, that rough masculine timbre, God, I love his voice so much. It’s just perfect, the way I thought he was.

  I grab my black Chanel trench coat, which I bought myself with my first bonus check from the Bennett firm, earned fair and square with hard work. Once I’ve pulled it on, I settle my purse strap on my shoulder and pick up my phone as it rings again. I’m about to turn it off when a text buzzes and I dare to read it: Mia, I love you. I can’t even breathe without you. Come home.

  Home? I type in my first text response to him through all of this. I never had a home with you. I just thought I did. And that hurts. You hurt me. You can’t fix it.

  I turn off my phone and stare down at my naked ring finger. I inhale and stick my phone in my pocket. I hurry out of my new apartment, that will never be home but at least it’s mine, and rush down the narrow stairs leading to the street. It’s not a fancy building, but it’s in a safe area. I’ve barely settled at my table when my father walks in. I wave at him and he heads in my direction, and in jeans and a T-shirt that hug a fit body, his brown hair still thick at fifty-five, he’s still a catch, but today he looks weary… definitely weary.

  I stand when he approaches and he gives me a hug. “I need some caffeine. Give me a quick minute.”

  I nod and he walks to the counter, scrubbing his jaw as he does. Weary. Stressed. Worried. Those words go through my head over and over until he’s sitting in front of me. “What going on with my daughter?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  He narrows his eyes on me. “You always could read me, heck you read everyone. That’s why you’re a damn good attorney.”

  “Yes. What’s wrong?”

  “I took a loan to grow the business that I’m struggling to pay back. I went to the bank to try to get a loan to pay back the loan. As crazy as that sounds. No go on that. It sucks. The business is growing, but these homebuilders pay at ninety days. I just don’t have the cash flow to float the money, which is a common problem for companies growing.”

  “I’ll help. How much are the payments?”

  “No. I’m not having that rich fiancé of yours thinking your father is taking advantage. That’s not happening.”

  “Dad, I’ll help. Not Grayson.” I have it on the tip of my tongue to tell him about the breakup, but something holds me back. “How much?”

  His phone buzzes with a text. He grabs it and looks at it. “That’s the bank. They want to see me again. You won’t need to help. This has to be good news.” He squeezes my hand. “Sorry to run off.”

  “Can you call me afterward?”

  “Yes, but don’t worry. All is well. This is good news.”

  He doesn’t believe it’s good news. I see it in his face. I watch him leave and there is a knot that expands in my belly. I press my hands to my face. I wasted a week crying and I just started sending out resumes. I need a job. “Mia.”

  I look up to find Ri, or rather Riley Montgomery, standing above me. He’s rich. He’s powerful. He went to school with Grayson and hates him, yet they cross paths too often and Grayson believes this is no coincidence. “What are you doing here, Ri?”

  “I got your address off a resume floating around, but you didn’t answer your door. I walked in for coffee and here you are.” He motions to the seat. “Can I join you?”

  No, I think. “Why?”

  He sits down, his dark hair a rumpled mess that somehow still looks planned on him. Everything about this man, including his good looks, feels planned. He’s tall, and good-looking, and today he’s in expensive jeans and a T-shirt that probably cost a few hundred bucks. That’s how he operates. He flaunts his money, while Grayson does not.

  “I want to hire you,” he says. “I’ll up your pay with Bennett by twenty-five percent and give you a fifty-thousand-dollar sign-on bonus.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re a star in the making, and if Grayson managed to lose you, I’m happy to sweep in and take advantage. We’re growing. We’re expanding nationally. We need talent.”

  “Expanding nationally. Like Bennett. How very Grayson of you.”

  “I assure you, Mia, that nothing about me resembles Grayson. You have twenty-four hours to decide.”

  “I’m not fucking you. I’m not doing anything to hurt Grayson.”

  He laughs. “Do you want that in your employment contract?”

  “No. I don’t want the job.”

  He smirks. “Think about it.” He slides a card in front of me. “My personal cell is on there. It’s a good offer. And if Grayson is really gone from your life, if you’ve left him behind, why wouldn’t you take it?” He stands up and starts walking.

  I watch him exit the coffee shop and there is no part of me even slightly tempted to take his offer. I grab my phone, turn it on and text my father: Call me after your meeting.

  Feeling the need to do something, to get out of this chair, I leave Ri’s card on the table, push to my feet and hurry out of the coffee shop, my path taking me back to my building. I don’t let myself read the text messages from Grayson. Once I’m back inside my apartment, I sit down at the kitchen table and start working on resumes again. I have a few interviews. I have money saved because Grayson never let me spend any of my earnings. He was good to me, but now I feel like a kept woman. Isn’t that how it works? A rich guy takes care of you and then you look the other way? Except I didn’t want his money. I wanted him.

  I start working, sending out resume after resume with custom cover letters, and I try repeatedly to reach my father with no luck. It’s several hours later when there is a knock on the door. My heart starts to race. Did Grayson find me? I will myself to calm down and walk to the door. “Who is it?”

  “Delivery.”

  “What delivery?”

  An envelope slides under my door. I frown and open it to find a picture of a man with a scar down his face with a note on top:

  Mia,

  I thought you’d want to know the kind of person your father borrowed money from. Don’t be too hard on him. This guy is good at convincing people he’s legit until they default.

  The job offer stands, as does the sign-on bonus.

  —Ri

  My throat is dry. My heart is still racing. I walk to the table and sit down and start reviewing the information in the envelope and it’s terrifying. I press my fist to my forehead and then before I can stop myself, I dial Grayson. “Mia?”

  I just sit there, with his voice radiating through me, that voice, that wonderful, perfect voice.

  “I love you, Mia. Come home.”

  Home. My home with him. “You know that I have to do what I have to do to survive, right?”

  “What does that mean?” he asks.

  “It means I still love you, but I have to survive. I have to make decisions—”

  “Mia—” I hang up and I grab the card Ri included in the folder and dial.

  “Mia,” he greets me.

  “Email me the offer.”

  “And that’s how I ended up with Ri,” I say, finishing my story.

  Grayson studies me as he has the entire time I’ve been talking, more stone than man, his expression unreadable. Abruptly, he stands up and I’m on my feet with him in an instant, not about to let him walk away. “Grayson—”

  “Why didn’t you come to me?”

  “I was going to when I called, but then I had this realization.”

  “What realization, Mia?”

  “That if I took your money, it would seem like I was using you, and too many people use you. We might have been over, but I didn’t want us to end with me holding a hand out. That’s not who I am and I guess I just needed you to know that I was real.”

  He pulls me t
o him. “Damn it, woman. I wouldn’t have thought that. You know I care about your father. Some part of you knew, even then, that I’d do anything for you.”

  “Because you will doesn’t mean it’s right for me to ask.” I swallow hard. “And everyone does. I see how people want a piece of you.”

  He tangles his fingers into my hair. “And what about you, Mia? What do you want?”

  “You. Just you.”

  “Ask me what I want.”

  “What do you want Grayson?”

  “Everything this time, Mia. I didn’t have it last time, or you wouldn’t have left as easily as you did.” He doesn’t give me time to tell him no one could have more of me than he did, than he does. His mouth closes down on mine, and that chair, our perfect fucking, talking, us chair, is calling us.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Grayson

  I pull Mia down in the chair, resting against the cushion as she settles her head onto my chest. I have not laid with this woman in my arms like this in what feels like an eternity. And so I hold her now, and damn it, I should never have let her go. I should have known that she would never betray me with Ri and her reasons for going to work for him, well, as much as I hate them, they also represent so many of the reasons I love this woman. My money is nothing to her. She’s proven that every day of our lives together. She didn’t even keep the ring and damn it, that gutted me, and that’s exactly where my head goes. The day I’d found out she’d taken a job with Ri and the day the ring found its way back to me…

  Three weeks without Mia.

  It might as well be the three thousand years it feels like. I can’t sleep. I can’t think. I can’t fucking breathe. I toss my pen down on my desk and stand up, walking to the window, staring out over the city without really seeing it. I just see Mia’s pain. “Coffee and a protein bar,” Eric says from the doorway.

  I turn to find him kicking the door shut and walking my direction in a pale blue pinstriped suit which he only wears on “lucky” days. It’s his deal uniform. I’d normally ask what’s in the pipeline when I see that suit. Right now, I don’t give a shit. “Since when do you bring me coffee?” I ask.

  “You need something, man, and I figure caffeine is about as close to good as I can give you right now.” He stops beside me and hands me the cup, then reaches into his pocket and hands me the protein bar. “And you need to fucking eat.”

  I take the damn bar and stuff it in my pocket, but I don’t ignore the coffee. I take a sip. “What do you have for me?” I ask, certain him and his blue suit are here on business.

  “The bids on the hotel properties were accepted. We officially have locations for the Dallas and New York City Bennett Hotel launches. The firsts of many. Once we ink, I’ll work on getting the Dallas law offices moved to the property.”

  “And we make money on the property where we run our firm,” I say. “You’re brilliant, Eric. I’m quite certain your bonus will buy you a new lucky suit.”

  “Try a new lucky Jaguar or ten.” He inhales, his mood shifting. “We need to talk.”

  I narrow my eyes on him. “Talk?”

  “About Mia.”

  Tension radiates up my spine. “What about Mia?”

  “She took a job.”

  My lashes lower and I turn away. She’s officially gone. She’s not coming back to work here. “Where?”

  “That’s the part I’d rather leave out of this equation.”

  I cut him a sharp look. “What does that mean?”

  “Ri,” he says. “She went to work for Ri.”

  Those words punch me in the chest so hard that I want to punch the window, and that’s not me, that not how I operate. “Is she fucking him?” I ask, the anger I can’t control radiating in my voice.

  “I don’t know, man. I wouldn’t have thought she’d take a job with him. Not Ri. She knows how much he hates you.”

  I love you, she’d said on the phone days ago. More like she fucking hates me. “Leave,” I order softly.

  “Grayson—”

  “Eric, man, I love you, but get out of my fucking office. I need to be alone.”

  “Right. I understand.” He turns and heads for the door. He’s just exited when Nancy, my forty-two-year-old, quiet, always smart assistant appears in the doorway, proving she’s not smart right now. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be about to speak to me. She shoves her black-rimmed glasses up her nose and clears her throat. “Courtney is here. She’s a—”

  “I know who she is,” I snap because of course, I know Mia’s best friend. I look skyward and then say, “Send her in.”

  I stay where I’m at, needing control in a way I normally assume in less obvious ways. Courtney walks into my office and shuts the door. She’s wearing funeral black, her blonde hair a mess, which tells me she’s a mess, which isn’t like her. “I know about Ri,” I say.

  She reaches into her purse and closes the space between us and I’m aware of her hand in that bag, waiting to deliver another blow. “She gave this to me three weeks ago to give to you and I didn’t. I thought she’d take it back, but I can’t hold on to a hundred-thousand-dollar ring.” She pulls her hand from the bag and hands me Mia’s ring box.

  “Two hundred thousand,” I say, not because the money matters to me, but because of the impact of Mia giving it back. She never wanted my money. Fuck. She’s perfect, and in this moment I know the war is lost. She’s gone. I’m not getting her back.

  I take the box.

  Courtney opens her mouth and shuts it. And then she turns and walks toward the door. A minute later, she’s gone and the door is shut and my mind goes where I don’t want it to go. The timing of the news about Mia with Ri and this ring are hard to ignore, no matter what Courtney claims about the timing. Mia’s made it clear to me that she’s with Ri now and I know she knows that’s the end for me, for us.

  “Grayson?”

  I blink back to the present to find Mia looking up at me. “Yeah, baby?”

  Her eyes soften and warm. “God, I missed you calling me that. I just missed you, period. Please tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “You could have sold the ring to help your father.”

  “Sell my ring? I wouldn’t sell my ring. It’s—special. It was—”

  I tangle my fingers in her hair and pull her mouth to mine. “I know you wouldn’t. I doubted you, too, though. You know that, right?”

  “You thought I went to Ri to hurt you.”

  “Yes. I found out you went to work for him the same day Courtney brought me back the ring.”

  “But I gave her the ring the day we broke up.”

  “She didn’t bring it to me.”

  “She brought it the day you found out?”

  “Yes. She did.”

  She sits up and climbs on top of me, her hands going to my cheeks. “That must have felt like a ‘fuck you’ and it wasn’t. I would never—”

  “I know. I should have known there was more going on than met the eye, but damn it, Mia, you should have known I wouldn’t fuck around on you. We were not as strong as I thought.”

  “Don’t say that. Please don’t say that. I thought we were perfect.”

  I turn her over, and lay her on her back, pressing my leg between hers, and I lean over her. “So did I. Maybe that was the problem.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We’re human. We’re flawed. We can’t be perfect. We need to remember that this time. We need to know that it’s our flaws, our imperfections, and how they come together to be perfect that makes us perfect. But we have to see the flaws and deal with them to get to perfect.”

  “And what were our flaws?”

  “That’s what we need to figure out, baby.” I stroke her cheek. “That’s what we need to figure out, and if we do, we’ll be stronger. We’ll be better this go around.”

  “Promise me because I suddenly feel like the room is spinning like we’re uncertain.”

  �
��I promise you that there is nothing uncertain about my love for you or my intention to keep you this time.”

  She strokes my cheek. “I promise you that there is nothing uncertain about my love for you or my intention to keep you this time.”

  I push off the chair and take her with me, carrying her to the bed, where I plan to hold her tonight and every night going forward, but I know that means dealing with our flaws. I know that means admitting we have them.

  A long time later, I lay in bed with her in front of me, holding her close, and I think of that ring. I’m going to give it back to her, but not until I know she will never take it off again, and right now, I don’t know that and I don’t think she does either.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Mia

  I wake to a dark room, the heavy, warm feeling of Grayson holding me, and the spicy wonderful scent of him that I’ve missed so very much. I smile, snuggling closer to Grayson, and he tightens his grip around me, that safe feeling I told him he makes me feel in full force right now. My lashes flutter and I slip back into that half-slumber state of pure bliss where I get to enjoy who I’m with and where I am without getting out of bed. Only I don’t stay awake. I’m just too relaxed and comfortable and I feel the inevitability of sleep as the world goes dark.

  The next time I wake I become aware of my surroundings, there’s a dull light peeking beneath the curtains and a shift of the bed behind me. “Grayson?”

  “You rest, baby,” he murmurs next to my ear, his breath a warm trickle on my neck. “I need to go make some phone calls.”

  “Do you have to go?”

  “I’m not going anywhere for long,” he promises. “You sleep. I’ll be back here with you when you wake up.” He kisses my neck and then he’s gone.

  I stay where I’m at, listening to him dress, and a few seconds later, he appears on this side of the bed in a pair of sweats and disappears into the bathroom. If this was a year ago, I’d go back to sleep. I’d feel safe and secure, and really, I do now—I do, at least, when Grayson’s with me, but he’s not. He’s up. He’s moving. He’s leaving the room and right now, this morning, I feel like we’re dealing with those flaws that he named. Flaws. I really hate that word.