The Billionaire Bargain 3 (3 page)

He
stood on the other side of the desk, seething down at me, and my own
anger allowed me to meet his gaze with a matching fury.

As
I shot to my feet, my legs and my voice both shaking with rage, I
grabbed his lapel and yanked him even closer toward me. “How
dare you say I don’t care about the company when—”

My
hand was on his lapel.

“When…”
I repeated.

My
mouth forgot what it was saying.

My
hand was on his lapel, and his mouth was so close to mine, and we
were both breathing so hard, and his pupils were dilated and he just
smelled so good and I wanted to grab him and kiss him and say that I
never wanted to leave him and that I never would again, never—

Grant’s
eyes went cold again. “No need to get hysterical, Miss Newman.”
He plucked my hand from his lapel gingerly, as if it were a fly he
had found in his soup. “It was only business. I don’t see
what you’re getting so emotional about. You wanted it over.”
He smiled, and I shivered at how empty and dead an expression it was.
“So it’s over.”

He
stalked to the door and pulled it open, revealing a cluster of
employees who had been eavesdropping just outside. They froze mid
ear-strain before scattering back to their cubicles and copy
machines. Great. Just what I needed: more fuel for the gossip
inferno. More fires to put out.

Grant
turned back, silhouetted in the doorway, and my pathetic, traitorous
heart leapt into my throat, but all he said was, “Best to move
on, Miss Newman.”

He
shut the door carefully behind him as he left, as if nothing at all
had just passed between us, but some part of me wished he would have
slammed it instead. At least then I’d know he had some feelings
left, that maybe he still cared about me. But clearly he didn’t.
What he’d said was true: it
was
over.

Kate
had taken one look at the expression on my face and dragged me out of
the cafeteria. Now we were in a smoky little dive bar where the
cigarette fumes were stronger than a tobacco plantation on fire,
hiding at the corner booth with ripped red plastic seats and a
nicotine-stained plastic palm tree strategically hiding our faces.

Above
us, a blinking white light made me feel like I’d been dragged
into a police interrogation as Kate pushed a ginger ale across the
table at me—it was the middle of the work day, after all—and
demanded that I first drown my sorrows (for whatever value of ‘drown
your sorrows’ you can get with a ginger ale) and then spill my
guts.

“—and
then he was like, ‘so it’s over,’” I
finished. “Like I’m being completely unreasonable to just
want a cordial work relationship!”

I
wasn’t being unreasonable, right? We’d had some good
times, but I wanted more and he didn’t, so the best thing for
everybody had been for me to pull back, hadn’t it? Why did I
have to keep second-guessing myself?

I
took a swig from my bottle, trying to pretend the bite of the
Jamaican ginger was the bite of alcohol.

“I
can’t believe he’s acting like this,” I went on,
stoking my rage to avoid thinking about my pain. “Okay, I threw
him for a loop, but obviously he’s fine, the company’s
going to bounce back fine, why the fuck can’t he get over it?
Why does he have to shut me out? What’s with the fucking
Ice-Man act?”

Kate
stirred her own non-alcoholic drink and tried to suppress a small
smile.

“What’s
with the Mona Lisa face, Katie? And which part of this is amusing to
you?”

“Sorry.”
She shook her head. “It’s just…don’t you get
it? He’s never been dumped before. Ever. He obviously doesn’t
enjoy having his pride get kicked in the balls. Especially not in
public.”

Kate
smirked again but I didn’t have the heart to join in. There was
no way I could tell her about the money. Or the fact that I was
sending it back in full.

“But
the engagement wasn’t even real,” I reminded her. “So
why can’t we just go back to having a nice, boring,
professional work relationship?”

“Oh,
girl,” Kate said sympathetically. “The thing is, you
gotta remember that Grant Devlin? The one constant thing about him,
besides his hotness? It’s the fact that he’s a huge
fucking asshole. He always
was
a huge fucking asshole. He always
will
be
a huge fucking
asshole. Somewhere there’s probably some mystical prophecy
about him being the once and future huge. Fucking. Asshole.”

“I
know,” I said, shaking my head. “But I really thought I
saw another side to him…”

“You
saw excitement,” Kate said, placing her hand over mine. “You
saw adventure, and money, and hot sex, and you let yourself think
that was another side, because you’re a good person and you
assume everyone else is as good as you. And you let yourself fall a
little in love. But I bet that, before you know it, you’ll
realize that you miss the adventure and excitement more than you miss
him.”

“Maybe,”
I said with a sigh. “But right now, I just miss him.”

And
I did, more than I ever thought possible, even after I had admitted
to myself that I loved him. I missed the warm of his lips, the
shelter of his arms. I missed that slight sly smirk, and that shy
boyish grin. I missed the dark storminess of his eyes when he was
consumed with passion, and that sunlit sea blue when he was
unexpectedly tender. I missed the way he said my name, his voice
lingering on the sound of it, long Australian vowels making me sound
like a gift, like a treasure, like someone else entirely.

Kate
raised an eyebrow imbued with more skepticism than a room full of
atheists. “And you don’t miss the whirlwind dashes
through gala balls and the limo rides and the designer dresses, not
one little bit.”

I
rolled my eyes. “Fine, I miss that a little, too. I’m
only human!”

But
even my self-deprecating humor rang hollow to my ears. What was the
point of all that stuff without Grant? He was the one who had made it
exciting and fun. He was the one who had made it worthwhile.

“So…any
idea on how you’re going to go forward?” Kate breached
the subject tentatively, but with a resolute cast to her chin that
told me she wasn’t going to let me wriggle out of an answer
with vagueness. “Knowing what it’s going to be like from
now on, working with Grant.”

I
sighed heavily and swigged the last of my ginger ale. “Find
another job, I guess,” I said, trying to speak casually and not
like the bottom was dropping out of my stomach.

I’d
never been married to the idea of staying with Devlin Media Corp
forever, but it was the first place I’d really been valued for
my education and skills, and not my ability to maintain a smile while
scooping fries in a bucket for a screaming customer. And it wouldn’t
be easy to find another job in this economy, especially with the
reputation I’d given myself to save Grant… A wave of
despair threatened to wash over me, but I willed it back. I’d
gone into the trenches of job interviews before; I’d do it
again.

“I
can’t see him every day,” I admitted to Kate, and it felt
as if something broke inside me, just a little, as I said that. “Even
if he were being civil right now. It would still hurt too damn much.
And since he’s not being civil—since he hates my guts and
doesn’t feel like hiding it—well. I just can’t.”

“He
has no right to treat you like that,” Kate said quietly. “He
can be angry, fine, but you don’t deserve how he’s
treating you.”

“I
don’t blame him,” I said, and I was astonished to find
that I was speaking the truth. For all my earlier anger towards him,
the person I was really angry at was myself. I buried my head in my
hands. “I made a fool of him in front of everyone.”

“Lacey,
have you met Grant?” Kate asked. “He has a high-profile
romance fall apart once a week. Sure, he’s never been on the
receiving end of the dumping, but you didn’t lock him outside
your hotel room in his underwear like that Russian model, or dare him
to moon the mayor like that Brazilian heiress. It’s not like
the public hasn’t seen him totally humiliated a zillion times
already. Okay? Grant is definitely overreacting here.” She
hesitated. “Oh, God. Unless he’s…I mean, it’s
almost like…”

“Almost
like what?” I said from the shelter of my hands. “Like I
irrevocably fucked up and hurt him more than anyone else ever
before?”

Kate
gave me a little shove. “Almost like maybe the jerk actually
has some feelings for you too, dummy.”

I
peeked out at her from between my fingers. “You have got to be
kidding me.”

“What’s
to kid?” Kate asked. “You’re pretty, you’re
smart, you’re fabulous as hell. I don’t want you to get
your hopes up or anything…but damn, girl, usually when a guy
pulls a bitchfest like this, it’s because somebody’s
reminded them they have a heart, and they’re not liking the
feeling of it getting stomped on.”

I
pondered her words. Could it be true? Could Grant really have had
feelings for me? I felt regret begin to blossom in my chest, heavy
and unrelenting. What if—if only—

No.
No. I clamped down on it, squeezing that thin sad wondering voice
into nothing more than a whisper. It didn’t matter what Grant
had felt for me then—he hated me now. And there was no use
wondering where our relationship could have gone, because I’d
chopped a tree down over that road and declared it closed.

As
Grant had said, it was all over.

• • •

Unfortunately
the universe showed no signs of slowing down time to accommodate
feelings breaks, so I had to ditch Kate and the ginger ale after only
half an hour and get back to the office pronto. There was a big
executive meeting, and I couldn’t afford to be a mess in front
of Grant. I needed to show that I had caught up, that I was on the
ball and un-intimidated.

I
had reviewed all my presentation materials, double-checked my online
calendar to review the time, sent e-mails confirming the main points
others would be presenting, even considered sending Tina out to the
water cooler to eavesdrop on gossip before realizing that I was
over-thinking things, and also that Tina would be a terrible spy. I
set off towards the boardroom, as prepared as I could possibly be.

…well,
there was one more thing…

I
checked my watch, and satisfied that there was just enough time,
ducked into the executive bathroom. I pulled my lipstick out of my
satchel, and quickly applied a fresh coat. There. Battle armor donned
and ready.

“Hello,
Lacey.”

“Aaaaaaaah
holy—er, hello, Portia,” I mustered in reply to Grant’s
decidedly un-fairy godmother. I steadied myself against the bathroom
counter and forced myself to smile back pleasantly—although I’m
afraid the result was much more like a terrified baboon rictus—at
Portia’s reflection where it had popped up behind me.

What
the hell was it with this woman and ambushing me in bathrooms? Did
she use them as her evil portals? Was she the ghost of someone who
had accidentally drowned in a toilet? Being long-dead
would
explain a lot about her cold-bloodedness.

“How
are you doing, my dear?” asked Portia, or rather, asked the
skilled actor I knew must be impersonating Portia, since Portia
herself would never show actual human emotion to this extent. Her
eyes were wide. Her lips were pursed. Her brow was actually
furrowed
in concern
. “I’ve
been so concerned about how you’re holding up under all this
pressure.”

“Fine,”
I managed after a few stunned seconds, trying not to openly gape at
the robot faultily programmed to portray a Portia-like being—that
still made more sense than Portia being nice, right? She’d
never supported my relationship with Grant, even knowing it was a
hoax all along. “Um, I mean. You know. Fine.”

If
this had really been Portia, she would have taken this opportunity to
issue a stinging insult about my capability for stringing words
together into a sentence of comprehensible English.

But
the genetically modified shape shifter currently wearing Portia’s
skin just smiled sympathetically—an actual smile! It stretched
the length of her lips and everything!—and said, “It’s
difficult, isn’t it? Oh, the press are such animals. And they
never stop to think how you might feel, do they?”

I
listened intently for the sound of the Twilight Zone theme music. It
stubbornly refused to play. “Uh, no? I guess?”

“I
think you’re holding up marvelously, myself,” she said,
giving me a supportive little squeeze of the arm. “Shockingly
classy. And your parents?”

“What
about my parents?” I demanded, suddenly sure I knew where this
was going. Portia had found out about all their hippy-dippy nonsense,
and this nicey-nice act was just to throw me off-balance before she
hit me with a really cutting one-liner about their organic toilet
paper or something.

Portia
just blinked innocently, looking like butter wouldn’t melt in
her mouth. “Are they well? I do hope they’re well. It can
be so stressful, when a young person you care for is first
encountering the rocks and shoals of fortune.”

“Uhhh,
they’re fine.” Now I was really thrown for a loop.
“Holding up great. Eating a lot of quinoa.”

“Really?”
Portia said with so much enthusiasm I was worried she might burst a
blood vessel. “I’ve heard simply wonderful things about
that. You must ask them to pass along some recipes for my chef.”

“Er…okay?”

“Well,
I must be going!” she trilled. Honest to God trilled. And then
she clasped my hand earnestly. What the hell was this? “My
dear, I wish you the very best.”

She
must be more relieved than I ever thought possible that Grant and I
were kaput. Sure, it wasn’t the best PR move for Grant and the
company, but he was free and clear of me now and I was no longer a
financial liability nor a smudge on their good family name. No wonder
Portia was in such a good mood. Too bad I wasn’t.