Page 48 of Adonis: The Cost of a Billionaire's Heart
I paused. It would’ve been the perfect time to say exactly how I knew Jadarius was an ain’t shit ass nigga. How he was the type to scam for a living and still be broke. But I kept my tongue in park.
“I know a money grab when I see one,” I answered instead. “He’s trying to hide it by acting like he’s coming for a relationship with his son when we both know he doesn’t want to be a real father. He wants money, not Mason.”
“I really hope you’re right.”
As much as I didn’t want to bring my emotions into an already dramatic situation, I couldn’t stop the question burning on my tongue from coming out of my mouth.
“Was any of this real?”
Simora stared at me, her chest slowly inflating with a deep breath as she considered her answer. “Parts of it . . . I don’t know. It’s hard to answer,” she said, her shoulders rising and falling with a stiff shrug.
“What’s so hard about it?”
“Because none of this was ever supposed to be real in the first place, but the lines . . . they got blurry to the point where I don’t know when I stopped pretending to l?—”
I cut her off before she could finish her sentence. “It is what it is now. The best thing that could’ve probably come out of all of this is the fact that it gives us a public reason to sever the ties of our engagement,” I said unemotionally.
“So, it’s over,” she said quietly. “The contract is void?”
“Yes,” I answered, reaching for my briefcase to avoid her eyes. “But since the week has ended, my assistant will transfer the remaining of the agreed-upon payment.”
“And the insurance for Mason?”
I looked at her coldly for a second before averting my gaze again.
“I see,” she replied, taking the hint. Her voice was perfectly neutral. Too neutral. “I’ll gather my things.”
I watched her slide the ring off her finger and place it on the table before turning away. I should’ve said something. Apologized. Took some of the blame for enlisting her in my plan from the beginning. Thanked her. Told her being inside her meant everything to me, that she meant everything to me. But the words were wedged in my throat.
I wasn’t ready to accept the truth—that I was in love with her. Instead, I lied again. “My driver will take you to the penthouse to get Mason when we land, and then he’ll drop you both off at home. Because of this shit, I’ll be tied up in meetings all day.”
It was weakness, pure and simple. I thought I’d be able to take that shit on the chin and move on, but I was running from what I felt in her arms. But I still didn’t have all the facts, and I didn’t know who to believe. As the jet landed, I told myself it was for the best. Love was a liability I couldn’t afford, no matter how big my pockets were.
But the lie sounded empty, even to me.
The sleek,black truck I’d gotten accustomed to riding in over the last week dropped me and Mason off around the back of my apartment building, trying to avoid the mob of paparazzi hovering around the front. The flashing lights had my anxiety at an all-time high. I would never get used to strangers with flashing cameras who purposely invaded my space just for clickbait, quick paydays, and likes. Richards’s pitying look followed me as he walked us up to the door, clutching my bags as I kept Mason’s sleeping body tethered to mine to shield him from all the commotion. My head remained high even as my heart broke in one hundred different ways inside my chest.
My phone hadn’t stopped buzzing with calls and texts from my family and a couple of friends I hadn’t spoken to inmonths, voicemails from unknown numbers wanting to set up interviews, and notifications from one viral post after another, each with millions of views on social media accounts I rarely used. Everyone wanted to know if it was true—if Mason was really the son of a murderer? Did I know about the connection all along? Was I the gold-digging baby mama of the man who’d murdered my billionaire fiancé’s father? What did all this shit mean for our upcoming wedding? I scoffed. It was all bullshit. I didn’t answer any of them. It wasn’t the fact that my life had been put under a microscope. It was that my son had been caught in the crossfire. All I’d been trying to do since the day he was born was protect him, and even though he was safe in my arms, I felt like I’d thrown him to the fucking wolves.
This is what you get for flying too close to the sun, Icarus. Girls like you don’t get happy endings.
Mrs. Wilson met me at her door with concern etched on her kind face.
“There are reporters,” she acknowledged, nodding toward the street. “They started arriving a little over an hour ago. I didn’t tell them anything, and my son has done a good job of keeping them off our floor.”
Panic arose in my throat as I clutched Mason’s sleeping body tighter. “Thank you.”
She patted my arm. “If you need to leave, I’ll have my son drive you wherever you want to go.”
I hugged her with one arm while fighting back tears. “You’re an angel, Mrs. Wilson.”
Inside my tiny apartment, I laid Mason down in his room before promptly closing the blinds and curtains and sinking onto the couch. Everything looked exactly as I’d left it: Mason’s drawings on the refrigerator, his toys in a woven basket by the TV, and a stack of past-due bills and junk mail on the counter. My real life. Yet I felt like a stranger.
The headlines had me going crazy. I felt myself inching closer and closer to the edge of saying something I’d probably regret on social media, but that would probably only make things worse. I couldn’t stop peeking out of my window every few minutes, praying the paparazzi would leave to chase behind someone else’s gossip.
Of all things to come out the way they did, I hated that it had to be about Mason’s father. Most days, it already felt like I was God’s punching bag. Motherhood had taken me through one maze after another to find my way through it, and it still seemed like I found myself fumbling through it every other day. Now, with the media on my back and prying into my past, I couldn’t seem to catch a break.
To get my mind off things, I checked my bank account—the final half of the deposit was there. Not surprising. Still, I was right back where I started, only fifty thousand dollars richer. No job. No full year of insurance for my son. And now, a reputation in ruins and a baby daddy who’d been a ghost for the past four years that was seemingly back from the dead. I hadn’t been able to shake the chill in my bones since those pictures of Mason were released online, but I never expected Jadarius to reach out, let alone blow up my life for a tabloid feature.
