Page 50 of The Billionaire's Masquerade Ball

Chapter 13

“Idon’t like this,” Wyatt muttered to Cynder as they waited in the large conference room for Olivia. He was shifting nervously in his seat, practically twitching.

“Stop it,” Cynder said, smacking his arm. “You need to be cool or this whole thing is dead before it starts.”

“Xander isn’t going to be happy. I should never have gone along with keeping your secret. It’s too far now.”

“You said it. We’re too far in now. Roll with it, Wyatt.”

He sighed. “I still don’t understand why this is even an option. What could be so bad about the Foundation—”

“Sh! Here she comes.” Cynder was glad for Olivia’s timing so she didn’t have to wiggle out of answering.

Even with Wyatt, she wouldn’t spill Xander’s secrets. With a little digging after the cemetery, she found more of his history. He had been married to Sarah, but under the name Alexander Smith. Looking too hard felt like a violation, but from what she could see, Xander bounced around foster homes as a kid, married Sarah young, and then lost her and their twenty-one-week-old daughter Ryder when a procedure to save Sarah from pancreatic cancer failed.

It was a devastating history and Cynder cried while reading the articles she found online, holed up in an empty conference room. She didn’t know what else Xander faced in his past or why he didn’t want to tell his story, but he had chosen to honor Sarah and Ryder through the Foundation, but without sharing his own story publicly.

Cynder didn’t want to examine why she felt so fiercely protective. She told herself it was because they were connected by grief. That day in the cemetery, she had felt a bond go up between them. But more than that, she knew that her feelings toward Xander had shifted over the past week to something beyond. More than a simple bond over a shared experience. More than friendship. More than simple attraction. More than like.

She loved the way he could make her laugh, but then command the attention of everyone in a meeting with a look. He was both hard and soft and she found herself drawn to both sides. They weren’t opposites or contradictions, but the two parts made up a whole. When she looked into his eyes, she melted a little, and she had to physically restrain herself from leaning into his touch when he was near.

No matter the reasons, she was willing to do whatever it took to protect him. Because he surely wasn’t going to want to keep her around after this.

Wyatt stilled beside her and followed her lead, standing as Judy ushered Olivia in the door. Cynder tried not to think too hard about Olivia’s perfect features and how good she looked in her suit. She tried not to think about the fact that she had gone on a date with Xander. She tried not to wonder if he had kissed her.

Cynder moved to Olivia and held out a hand. “Please, come in and sit. I’m Cynder.” She held out the chair at the head of the table for Olivia. Let her feel like she has the power. Olivia sat, but warily. She placed a manila folder on the table.

“Where’s Xander?” Olivia asked.

Cynder waved a hand. “Don’t worry about him. He asked us to get started. I think he had a call come in from Japan. Time zones and all—he had to take it now. I’m sure he’ll join us in a few minutes.”

Cynder didn’t even know what time it was in Japan or if Xander even did business there. But she bet Olivia probably didn’t know either. Xander was actually hiding out somewhere else in the building where he wouldn’t be seen. Wyatt looked down to hide his smile. When he looked back up again, he had on a poker face. Cynder hoped she could count on him to keep it together.

Olivia narrowed her eyes. “I thought Xander said you were no one.”

Cynder gave a light laugh and waved a dismissive hand. “I’m relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things. I’m just an employee. But he did trust me enough to speak with you. I understand you have some concerns about the Sarah Ryder Foundation.”

Olivia smirked and tapped her fingers on the folder in front of her as though weighing her options. Cynder needed to see inside that folder. “I wouldn’t call them concerns exactly.”

“What would you call them?” Cynder forced her voice to be open and even, her face pleasant. It took a lot of effort to hide the disdain she had for Olivia.

“How long will Xander be? I could wait.”

“We could do that,” Cynder said, ignoring the not-so-subtle look Wyatt gave her. She kicked him lightly under the table and pulled out her phone, pretending to check email. In her mind, she was counting the seconds.

Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three—

“Fine. I have things to do and I hate waiting.” Olivia shoved the folder across the slick tabletop to Cynder.

Cynder clicked her phone off and leisurely opened the folder, placing it so that Wyatt couldn’t read the draft of an article Olivia had written. If he was bothered by this, he didn’t share it. Olivia only had half the story. She hadn’t found out who Sarah and Ryder were, only that the Sarah Ryder story was false. But she didn’t need to know that she had missed the real story.

Once Cynder knew that no real information about Xander’s past was in the article, she handed it to Wyatt. He read it a few times, as though searching for what Cynder found so bad.

“You did a very thorough job of investigating,” Cynder said, hoping she sound impressed, not angry. This is where she normally would have added some kind of insult, like—for someone who usually covers the gossip columns.

Olivia’s smile was predatory. “I know. I wanted to give him a chance to respond, but he’s been blowing me off.”

“I’m sure he hasn’t meant to,” Cynder said. “It’s been a very busy week for him. You understand.”

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