The Unknown Billionaire (Captured by Love Book 6) (16 page)

Marilyn didn’t respond. She simply turned her back to him and smiled at Simon, who tightened his arm around her as they crossed the road back to her office.

Jarryd stared at them, his heart being wrung dry as he forced himself to hold back the tears that pooled in his eyes.

He wanted to yell, to run after Marilyn, to fight Simon for her. And he also wanted to sit on the pavement and bury his head in his hands.

Ah, but he’d be much better off hitting something. And he knew just where to go.

He had a new project in the suburb of Kingsgrove. His company was going to get rid of the old, small house on a big site and build a modern duplex. Work wasn’t supposed to start on it until next month, but he might as well start now.

He sped home to grab one tool from his garage—a sledgehammer.

*****

J
arryd swung wide and banged the sledgehammer against the wall separating two of the bedrooms in the old house. Sections of the brickwork gave way, creating a big hole.

After three weeks of knocking down walls by himself every afternoon, this was the last non-load-bearing wall that he could hammer down with his hand-held tool. He supposed he could start yanking out the floorboards next. It wouldn’t give him the same satisfaction as hitting something, but it would still be a good outlet for the anger he felt at the hopelessness of his situation.

Funny how he’d never felt so low when his finances had never been so high.

A billionaire.

And he couldn’t have the only thing that really mattered—Marilyn’s heart.

His phone rang loudly and he trudged to the table where he’d left his personal belongings. He wouldn’t pick up if it was his parents or other buddies outside of Marilyn’s circle. He was getting sick of people asking him how he was doing. Or rather, he was sick of giving the same lie that he was fine.

He snorted. Marilyn was right. He
was
a liar.

An eyebrow rose in surprise when he saw the caller. “Hello, Olivia,” he greeted.

“Jarryd, hi. I thought I’d let you know that the Tramwells have accepted Grant Ace’s offer. We lost.”

He smiled. Well of Brilliance was now Marilyn’s. Good. “Thanks for letting me know, Olivia.”

“It wasn’t the money,” Olivia continued. “Lorna Tramwell told me that we actually offered a quarter of a million dollars more. But they were swayed by the six-episode
Biz Q&A
guest panellist exposure that Grant Ace had thrown in with their bid. They think the show is the exact platform they need to promote their various new businesses.”

“Really?” he asked in dismay. Damn. Patrick was entrenching himself as the Grants’ friend and business partner, and he didn’t like it one bit.

“Could you come to the office tomorrow morning, Jarryd? And bring Carl Peters with you, if he’s available?”

“Any particular reason?”

Olivia let out a loud sigh. “It’s to do with Margaret and the question you asked me the last time we met.”

His heart beat faster. “Okay.”

“Can you be here at eight thirty?”

“Yes.”

“Good. See you tomorrow.”

He hung up, and for the first time in three weeks, he was looking forward to something other than bashing down walls.

M
arilyn watched as the respective lawyers for Grant Ace and Well of Brilliance strutted out of the Tramwells’ boardroom after finalising the paperwork, leaving her and Lorna Tramwell alone.

It was a done deal. Well of Brilliance was now a subsidiary of Grant Ace and she was satisfied with this big win.

“I’m really glad to be working with you for three months, Marilyn,” Lorna said. “Unless you plan to delegate the handling of the takeover to someone else.”

“No, I want to be hands-on with this,” she responded, smiling at the attractive middle-aged CEO of Well of Brilliance. “We’re glad that it was our offer you accepted.”

“Well, appearing as guest panellists on
Biz Q&A
was the clincher,” Lorna said with a laugh. “It made your offer impossible to refuse.”

Marilyn chuckled. “We were lucky that Patrick was willing to help us out with our bid. We owe him a lot.”

“I hear you yourself will be appearing as early as next week?”

“Yes. It will be great timing for us to mention that Well of Brilliance is now under Grant Ace’s wing.” Frankly, she’d rather not go on
Biz Q&A
at all. She wasn’t ready for any attention to be placed on her after everything that had happened. But this wasn’t about her, and she was a professional.

“To be honest, I was leaning towards Grant Ace even without the
Biz Q&A
addition,” Lorna said softly. “I didn’t want to deal with dishonest people, but my brother insisted we focus on the numbers since the allegations against Jarryd Westbourne and the Greeves are unproven. I’m glad I was able to convince him that the rare opportunity of us each appearing on three episodes of
Biz Q&A
was worth the quarter-of-a-million-dollar difference between your bids.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that. And we really must give special thanks to Patrick,” she said in a too-bright tone, the mention of Jarryd’s name rattling her a bit.

“Yes, you must,” Lorna said teasingly. “Anyway, as you know, there’s a big transaction that we’re trying to close. Now that Grant Ace officially owns Well of Brilliance, I can reveal to you the person interested in four of our highest-quality loose diamonds ranging from seven to ten carats, plus ten one-carat ones. If the sale goes through, it will be the first major transaction for Well of Brilliance under its new owners.”

“Great! So who’s interested in them?”

Lorna told her the name of a shipping magnate based in Australia. “He’s currently in Canada, but he’s coming home in two weeks to finalise the purchase. He’ll also be commissioning us to design two rings, a necklace and a pair of earrings using those diamonds as a wedding anniversary present for his wife. He’s agreed on the final sale price of three and a half million dollars, excluding the custom design for the jewellery, which we haven’t quoted on yet.”

“Excellent.”

“And you know what the other good thing is?”

“What?”

“The diamonds
didn’t
come from a Greeves Minerals mine,” Lorna said gleefully.

Marilyn forced out a genuine-sounding laugh.

*****

M
arilyn dropped her handbag on the kitchen counter and grabbed a bottle of cold water from the fridge. She was glad it was Friday, the end of an exhausting week. With making sure her business brokering company was running smoothly without her at the helm, and learning the detailed ins-and-outs at Well of Brilliance, she barely had time for anything else.

That was a good thing. Being extremely busy took her mind away from her still-aching heart. Unfortunately, nothing distracted her whenever she came home to her empty house.

Tonight would be different, though. She’d be having a girls’ night in with her friends—the first time they’d be together as a group since Christmas Eve—and she couldn’t wait.

She still constantly wondered if any of them had been in contact with Jarryd, but she knew they wouldn’t even breathe his name in front of her unless she brought the topic up herself. Maybe she’d satisfy her curiosity once and for all by asking. What harm would it do, right? She could always put an end to the conversation whenever she liked. They wouldn’t mind.

Her doorbell rang and Marilyn hastened to answer it. She shrieked in excitement at seeing Jade, Lexie, Cassie, Erin and Natasha all standing there, each sporting wide grins and carrying dishes in their hands. She hugged the women—her best friends even though they weren’t the buddies she’d known the longest.

“I’ve missed you!” she told them.

“You were the one who didn’t want to see us,” Natasha chided, returning her hug tightly.

“Well, I’m glad you’re all here. And look at all this food! I just realised how hungry I am, although I still need to put that pre-made cannelloni in the oven. I literally just got home.”

“I think we have more than enough to eat,” Jade said as they all walked to the kitchen. “Don’t worry about the cannelloni. We can heat it up later if we get peckish again. We should eat now before these grow cold—and before the four of us pregnant women get cranky from hunger.”

“I agree,” Lexie said, with Cassie and Natasha echoing her.

“I’m not pregnant, but I’m gonna get cranky too if we don’t start eating soon,” Erin said. “All the delicious smells were wafting in Lucas’s Land Rover and my last meal was only a light salad during lunch.”

“No prawn dish tonight, right?” Marilyn asked, winking at Natasha.

“Definitely not,” Natasha said, shivering at the thought. “They still make me gag.”

Marilyn chuckled as she took plates from the cupboard. “You all came in one car, I take it.”

“Yes,” Jade answered. “We didn’t plan to come here together, but Lucas insisted I get Drew to take me here since Drew doesn’t mind working overtime. So I offered to pick up the other girls as well since we have a driver.”

“And how’s Lucas? Actually, how are all your men?” Marilyn asked as they arranged their dishes on the dining table.

“They’re good,” came the short answers.

That intense desire to know if any of the guys had spoken to Jarryd hit Marilyn again, but she kept her mouth shut. It was too early in the night to start talking about the man she was trying so hard to forget.

The next two hours were happy ones and Marilyn wondered why she’d wanted to be left alone for so long. She’d missed this time with her buddies, and she was even missing the guys.

“Gavin’s still on leave, Tash?” she asked. “Is he keeping his word not to work for all of January since he never had a break last year and worked on Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve?”

“Yes,” Natasha answered. “He’s been good, except he told me today that he
has
to go back to work straight away for a particular case, even though there’s still five days to go in January.”

“Must be something really important.” Gavin had had to decline to work personally on the matter her dad had asked him to look at.

“I think he’s helping Carter again with a police matter. I have to talk to my brother and tell him that my fiancé is still supposed to be on leave. Or you can tell your husband off for me, Cass. He’s more likely to defer to you than to his little sister.”

“As if we could pry those two best friends apart when they’re working on a case together,” Cassie answered. “You know, I think the reason why Carter’s not ready to quit the police force is because he’s torn between joining Gavin’s private detective agency and working for your family’s electrical services firm. So he’s staying put in his current job because he can’t make a decision.”

“What’s your preference for him?” Natasha asked.

Cassie shrugged. “I want him to always be safe, and he’d be safest working for Garrett Electricals. But I know he loves being a detective, so I guess I won’t mind if he does decide to join Gavin. They look after each other well.”

“Did you know that Gavin and Carter saw Lucas at work earlier today?” Jade asked.

Cassie and Natasha shook their heads.

“They were going out for coffees and I wanted to join, but they didn’t want me to go with them,” Jade said.

“Maybe because Lucas didn’t want you drinking
coffee
,” Erin quipped.

“Well, I’ve hardly had any caffeine since I got pregnant. Luckily, I’m not craving it at all. But no, it didn’t look like a strictly social outing. I did ask what they were going to talk about, but Lucas said it was a boys-only thing.”

“Boys only, huh?” Lexie said. “So they keep things from us too, hey?”

Erin chuckled. “Whenever Brad asks me what we girls talk about during our girls-only get-togethers, I finish answering him in a couple of minutes. And then he’ll say, ‘But what else did you discuss in more than four hours?’”

Lexie snickered. “I know. Rick is just as intrigued. They must think we talk about them.”

“We do!” the others said.

Marilyn laughed along, but her curiosity had been piqued and she was having difficulty ignoring it. “Hey, do you think they’ve talked about Jarryd? Actually, has any of you spoken with him at all?”

The laughter quickly died as the girls confirmed that they hadn’t.

“What about Lucas, Jade?”

Jade shook her head. “We all got the same text from Jarryd where he asked us to give him time to work things out. He said he’d explain eventually. Lucas is a bit angry with him—we all are—so we haven’t contacted him at all. We’re waiting for his explanation.”

Marilyn looked at her other buddies, who nodded their heads.

Then she burst into tears.

Oh, for heaven’s sake! She had been doing so well! Why on earth did she have to ask about him?

“Hey,” Natasha murmured beside her, rubbing her back comfortingly.

“Sorry,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I didn’t mean to bring him up. I was just curious.”

“You can let it all out,” Lexie said soothingly. “We’re here.”

That broke the dam that she’d thought she’d already emptied. She sobbed softly for several minutes while her friends lent her their strength by sitting quietly by her side.

When her sobbing stopped, she blew her nose on some tissues. “Sorry, I’m okay now.”

“No need to be sorry,” Natasha said. “You have every right to cry.”

She smiled. “We should have more dessert. I have chocolate ice cream in the freezer.”

“I got it,” Erin said, jumping up from her seat and walking to the cupboards to get some bowls.

“I’ll help scoop,” Cassie said, going to the fridge and grabbing the tub of ice cream. “Just talk loudly so Erin and I can hear you from here.”

She laughed. Her girlfriends were truly wonderful.

“I take it you haven’t heard from Jarryd either?” Natasha said gently.

“Actually, I’ve been hearing from him every single day since Christmas Eve.”

Everyone looked at her, their mouths hanging.

“He’s been calling you?” Lexie prodded.

“At first. But I never answered, so he resorted to sending me two or three texts a day. Then he turned up at the café outside my work about three weeks ago, when I was meeting Simon. I told him exactly what I thought of him and... well... I threatened to hire a bodyguard if he approached me again. That was the last I’ve heard from him.” And, she hated herself for it, but she felt some disappointment whenever a day had ended and there had been no communication from Jarryd.