Page 327 of Tormented Billionaire Romance Series

My sister narrows her eyes at me, but that only causes the collected tears to drop, so she goes. I wait until she’s in the office and the door is closed and then I turn toward Zach.

“I don’t know why you came, and I don’t care anymore,” I tell him. “She may have been taking things too far, but what you did was so far over the line I don’t even want to be in the same room with you. Just go,” I tell him. “Go home and find another naïve woman to prey on.”

He says, “I’m sorry if I went too far, but—”

“Unless you’re going to tell me you have an STI and I should get myself tested, there’s nothing you can say I’m the least bit interested in hearing,” I interrupt.

He says, “No, I don’t have an ST—”

“Great,” I interrupt again. “Now get the hell out of my store or I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”

He stands there a moment, his mouth moving like he’s saying something, but he doesn’t speak a word.

“Look at my face,” I tell him. “Does it look like I’m playing with you?”

Zach scoffs and sputters, but in the end he leaves. He’s nice enough to use the door.

My hands are trembling and my mouth is dry, but I don’t waste any time getting to the office. I open the door and before Naomi has a chance to part her bright fuchsia, over-glossed lips, I’m asking, “Okay, so what the hell was that?”

CHAPTER14

TURNCOAT

ZACH

The news never broke. I was waiting for my phone to explode with phone calls. I was even prepared for the unflattering yearbook photos of me as a teenager for the sake of twisting the blade, but it didn’t happen.

I got to the hotel after everything fell apart at Grace’s shop, but there was only one hastily-penned message waiting for me at the desk.

“Marly called. Says it’s urgent.”

Twice in one day, dealing with Marly: That was too much. The next day passed, and even if she had the secret to existence, I wasn’t ready to hear her voice. It takes about a week of hearing every day how I’m already a ghost at my own company on top of the fact Grace won’t return my calls before I pick up the phone and punch in Marly’s number.

“You’re an idiot.” That’s how she greets me.

“I was right on the verge of starting to miss you again,” I chuckle. “You called,” I say. “What do you want?”

“It’s not going to matter now,” she says. “You blew it by blowing me off.”

“Oh come on,” I say as I look at myself in the hotel bathroom mirror, searching for my self-respect. I haven’t spotted it yet, but I’ll keep looking. “You can’t stay mad at me,” I tell her. “Now is this actually important or did you just want to rehash everything for the millionth time?”

“It’s good to see you’re taking this seriously,” she says. “If you took your company seriously, you would have returned the call within five seconds of getting the message. I was even kind enough to call the hotel so I wouldn’t chance to interrupt whatever stupid gesture you were in the middle of with your stranger.”

“If this is another conversation where you go on and on about how I’m betraying the soul of the company, I think I can make do with the ones we’ve already had,” I tell her.

“Funny you should mention the soul of the company,” she says. “First off, there’s no way you can save your position. It’s not going to happen. Maybe if you’d called me back earlier, we could have done something, but that’s done and over and we need to start looking ahead.”

“Ahead to what?” I ask. “And what do you mean I can’t save my position?”

“It was never about the girl,” she says. “It was never even about taking the company to Mulholland. They’ve been looking for a way to get you out of there for years, Zach.”

“Is there a part of this conversation I didn’t have figured out the first time we sat down in the room with them?” I ask.

“You know not everyone’s been on board with your approach to your employees,” she says.

“This again?” I ask. “We’re a multibillion dollar company. Everyone in that room could retire off the salary they make in six months. The reason we’re so successful is people who come to work with us want to keep working with us.”

“Yeah,” she says, “I saw the employee training video. You came into money so fast you never learned to think the way they think and they hate you for it, Zach. They hate it for what they think it’s done to the company and they hate it because it hasn’t blown up in your face yet.”

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