Plush Book 3: A Billionaire Romance (7 page)

BOOK: Plush Book 3: A Billionaire Romance
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“If you stay, isn’t that going to be kind of awkward? I mean, Cooper
is
the CEO. It’s not like you will really be able to avoid him forever.”

“I know. But if I don’t keep the job, at least for awhile longer, I won’t be able to find another job and I’ll get back in debt again.”

Bryce seemed to be listening, but he had an odd expression, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to say. He’d never been guarded with me in the past, but I got the distinct feeling there was something he was holding back. Maybe he just didn’t want to say the wrong thing and make me feel any worse than I already did.

I waved my hands and tried to laugh it off. I didn’t want to be having this conversation anymore. “Let’s drop it. I’ll figure it out.”

Thankfully, the server made her reappearance at that moment and set down plates in front of each of us. I’d been pleased to find a large selection of vegan-friendly menu items, and happily dug into my soup and sandwich combo. Everyone was so busy eating and enjoying the food that conversation dwindled away. The only thing breaking our silence was comments about how good everything was.

Somewhere between emptying my soup bowl and starting on my sandwich, a little nagging voice started up in the back of my mind. I was looking at Clay and trying to figure out where I knew him from. There was something else, something not related to Bryce. But I couldn’t place it exactly. I didn’t know where the sudden suspicion came from, but something about the way he looked had an edge of familiarity. I’d seen him, prior to the first time we had been introduced over dinner and drinks with them a few weeks before. I just didn’t know where…

As I wiped my mouth and set down my napkin on my empty plate, it hit me.

He’d been at the Plush fragrance event I’d been to, where Cooper and I had been photographed making out.

But why had he been there? And why hadn’t Bryce mentioned that he’d been there?

The whole realization struck me as odd.

“So, Clay, remind me again, what it is that you do?” I asked. It was a good change of topic, as well as a little sneaky recon.

He cleared his throat and took a sip of his iced tea. “I’m actually in the tech game myself,” he said.

I nodded, hoping he would proceed and I wouldn’t be forced to dig.

“Clay’s being modest. He’s a genius,” Bryce filled in, his eyes full of admiration as he looked over at Clay, who was obviously more subdued.

“That’s really cool. What kind of stuff do you do?”

“Mostly consulting, at this point. I branched out on my own a few years back.”

He didn’t elaborate, so I dropped it. We waited for the server to come drop off the bill and I tapped my fingers along the tabletop, mentally debating whether or not it would be wise to ask if Clay had been at the Plush launch party. I was burning up with curiosity, but I didn’t know how to ask—or if I even should. Maybe Bryce didn’t know that Clay had been there? Maybe he’d been on a date with someone else? I knew they were committed, and had recently purchased a condo together, but still…people cheated all the time.

That was a life lesson I knew all too well.

When the server came, Bryce snatched up the check before I could get my fingertips on it.

“Absolutely not, Allie. It’s my treat. I’m the one who invited you out.”

“Thank you,” I said, forcing aside my questions and letting myself relax.

Twenty minutes later, I was back at my apartment, having said goodbye to Bryce and Clay at the cafe. I’d barely laid my head down on the couch, before I was zonked out.

When I woke up, it was dark outside the windows. I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and checked the time. It was seven p.m. I was suddenly wide awake from my afternoon nap and decided to go in to the office and get some work done. I knew Cooper would be gone for the evening, and I had a key card to let myself in at any time, so I figured it would be a good time to go and be productive without any distractions. In the back of my mind, I was also well aware that whoever had hacked the system the day before may have been plotting another attack and I would rest easier knowing the data was all safe and accounted for, even though I figured Cooper would have already seen to it that someone was watching the data like a hawk, 24/7.

I got on Cherry Bomb and drove downtown. I parked in the garage and hurried to the Brighton Enterprises tower. As suspected, everything was dark and quiet as I slid my key card into the front door of the building. I rounded the corner to the elevator banks and waited for a car to descend. It was almost eerily quiet as I stood there, the sound of me nervously tapping foot echoing around me.

Finally, the elevator arrived and I punched the button and rode up.

As soon as I stepped off, I realized I’d made a mistake. I’d accidentally pushed the button for the floor that Cooper’s office was on, not the IT department.

“Smooth, Allie. Get your mind off of him for two seconds…” I chided myself under my breath.

I spun around again and was about to board the elevator, to go down one floor, when I heard a sound down the hallway.

I stopped, frozen in place, at the sound of voices drifting from somewhere nearby.

My heart raced as I instantly recognized one as Cooper’s, but the other voice, I couldn’t place.

It was definitely female…and giggling…

That son of a bitch.

Chapter Nine

The elevator doors slid open but I stepped away and let the doors close again, without me inside.

If that two-timing filth thought he could fuck me in the morning and then bring some hoochie up less than twenty-four hours later to bang in his office after hours, he had no idea who he was messing with.

I’d put up with a lot of shit from men in the past. My most recent ex, Marx, had been crowned the king of douche bags—or so I’d thought.

He might have some competition now.
I crept down the hall towards the voices, staying as close to the wall as possible. The hallways were only halfway lit up, as if in some kind of energy saving, night mode. Light enough to see, but there were shadows that made it a lot easier to sneak around.

“Oh, Mr. Brighton, you
are
a bad boy,” the female voice trilled.

“You
are
a bad boy,” I mocked under my breath. Hot waves of rage coursed over me as I heard Cooper’s throaty laugh in response. My hands fisted at my sides and it took a whole lotta willpower to keep from sprinting the rest of the way and tackling whoever the bitch was that was daring to flirt with Cooper.

Logically, I knew I should be far angrier at Cooper, but the sound of her voice was like nails on a chalkboard to me and drove me to a new peak of anger that I hadn’t imagined myself capable of before.

“Now, now Tessa, all I’m asking for is a little discretion,” Cooper said.

I held back a gag. A horde of scenarios were whipping through my mind as I crept closer and closer to the voices. I needed to see who he was talking to, to see what they were doing, but a part of me also wanted to turn and run. The idea of finding him fucking—or about to fuck—another woman would be more than my fragile heart could take. Especially knowing that this morning, we had been together and it had been so intense and full of meaning.

At least, for me...he probably hadn’t even showered yet. Yuck!

“All right, I promise to keep our little meeting a secret. Now, tell me, what can I do for you, Mr. Brighton?”

Whoever this woman was, she could teach a master’s level course in seduction. Just the sound of her voice and the carefully placed inflections were probably more than enough to get most guys crawling on their knees.

I cringed with the next steps, closing in on them.

“Well, I’ve heard about you and what you’ve been up to, and I wanted you to tell me more. Maybe we can help each other out.”

“I can do that,” she purred. “Let’s go into your office, so we can…chat.”

I held my breath and peeked around the corner. Recognition hit for the second time that day, as I found myself staring at the retreating form of Tessa Greenwood. I remembered her striking beauty and charm from my brief stint at Spotlight.

I whipped back around the corner and ducked out of sight again, right before the door of Cooper’s office closed.

I pressed my eyes closed tight and counted to three before releasing the breath I’d been holding. I repeated the process again, trying to head off the impending panic attack that was rapidly building inside my chest.

A click triggered my internal alarm and I dashed back towards the elevators without stopping to look back. I got on the first elevator and pounded the buttons to get the doors to close. I knew I was in no condition to ride home. My eyes would be blurred with tears, so I resumed my original plan and went down to my office. I used my key card again to get into the IT department and thankfully found it empty.

I went to the staff lounge and made myself a cup of hot tea. My hands were shaking as I added honey from the bottle in the cupboard. I took a sip, barely noticing the scalding effect on my tongue, and then traced the path to my office.

Only once I was safely tucked inside my own silent box did I release the tears that had been building since fleeing the floor above.

“Fuck him,” I said, wiping away the tears before they could even make it past my lower lashes.

I nodded, as if agreeing with myself—briefly contemplating whether or not I should check myself into some kind of mental hospital—and turned my attention back to my computer.

I set aside my cup of tea and started to pull up the database, peeling away layer after layer to see if anything had been compromised since the early morning hours.

It looked untouched.

Well, at least one thing was working right, I told myself.

I tapped my fingers along the edges of my desk and my eyes rotated to the ceiling. I wasn’t sure that Cooper’s office was directly above mine, but it was somewhere nearby. As I listened, I swore I could hear footsteps. My imagination went back into overdrive, wondering what was going on up there.

First, the actress, and now Tessa?

Maybe Cooper was one of those sex addicts.

I shook the thought away and tried to refocus on my work.

“Allison.”

My head snapped up so fast, I feared that I’d inadvertently given myself whiplash. I found myself face to face with Cooper-fucking-Brighton as he stepped from the shadows and into my office.

“Holy shit, Cooper, you scared me to death!”

“Apologies.” His voice was dry and held no emotion.

It was like talking to a cyborg.

What the hell was he even doing down here? Wasn’t California Barbie upstairs, waiting for him to fuck her senseless?

Maybe he already had.

Damn, that must have been one hell of a quickie!

I cringed at my own train of thought.

“How did you even know I was here?” I demanded as he stepped closer to my desk.

“You used your key card at the door,” he replied, as if that answered my question.

“Okay…and?” I prodded.

“I get alerts on any after-hours activity so that I know who is coming and going, and when,” Cooper explained, sighing as if he was teaching a particularly slow student.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes at his explanation. Of course he was tracking all comings and goings. He wouldn’t be the world’s biggest control freak if he wasn’t.

“Well, for your information, I’m actually here to work.”

“So am I,” he said, his face unchanged.

“Right. That’s what you were doing. Working,” I scoffed and dropped my gaze while I mindlessly shuffled the stack of pages in my hands, desperately hoping that he would give up and go away.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

I forced my eyes back to his and steeled myself for the flood of rage he would hurl at me once I busted him. “Cooper, let’s cut the bullshit. I saw you with your blonde bimbo upstairs in your office.”

He stiffened and his jaw locked in place as he thought for a moment.

“Not that I owe you an explanation,” he said, leering over me. “But that was Tessa Greenwood. She worked at Spotlight,” he said.

“I know who she is, Cooper. I used to work there, remember?” I injected as much scorn into my voice as possible. I was being mouthy with him, but I didn’t care. My body was flooded with venom and I had to release some of it. “That she was up in your office, just the two of you, in the dark, after everyone has gone home was more my point. We’re both adults here, Cooper. Don’t insult my intelligence.”

He leaned forward and braced himself against my desk, bearing down on me and forcing my attention. I raised my eyes and nearly reared back at the look of fire in his dark eyes. He was angry. I could see it within every fleck of gold and copper, as if his brown eyes were slowly heating to a molten metal.

I did my best not to shrink away from the waves of anger that were radiating off of his impressive form. I held his stare and kept my lips tightly pressed together, ready with a quick comeback to whatever he was about to say next.

But then, something shifted in his eyes and he straightened. He stood before me and tugged his suit jacket as if it had gone askew.

“Have a good night, Allison. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

With that, he swept from the room and disappeared into the shadow-filled hallway outside my office.

I waited a few minutes to ensure he was gone before releasing my breath and flopping back in my chair.

“What the fuck was that?” I whispered to myself.

My heart was still racing long after he was gone. No matter what I did to calm myself, it seemed to make little difference. My body was still reeling from the encounter and my mind was still racing to figure out what had happened.

It was hard to believe that he’d been fucking Tessa in his office. For one thing, it hadn’t been nearly long enough. Cooper was a man who liked to take his time. Then again, perhaps he’d received notice that I’d used my key card and he cut things short to come and talk to me. But why? He hadn’t said anything of importance. He hadn’t really said much, period.

The whole thing was so weird and jarring that it took me at least another forty-five minutes—and another cup of chamomile tea—to settle back down to the point where I could continue working.

BOOK: Plush Book 3: A Billionaire Romance
13.19Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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