You & Me Make Three: Barrington Billionaire's Series: Book Three (16 page)

“When his father and his family found out they didn’t want anything to do with him. They weren’t there for him emotional or financially. And not only that, they worked to make sure she never got another job in the field again. They purposely set out to ruin her. The sad thing is she never went after them for anything. Not one penny. She didn’t even collect unemployment when she left. Morgan decided to do it all on her own.”

“She certainly sounds amazing. But that doesn’t explain why you had her followed.”

Oh, sweet Tessa. Don’t you know by now that Hendersons fuck up everything they touch?
“It was time someone taught that family a lesson.”

Dean raised a brow and asked, “Is that why their stocks are dropping faster than they can recoup?”

“Yes.”

“Shaun. That’s a dangerous game to play. I mean I do that shit all the time to acquire a company, but you’re making this personal. The one who has something to lose doesn’t seem to know what you’re doing either.”

“I made sure not to link her to what I was doing. But just in case, I hired Bennett to keep a close eye. I thought he was better than slipping up like this.” Shaun planned on given Bennett a piece of his mind when he saw him next. But right now he had bigger things to worry about, and that was fixing things with Morgan.

“It really doesn’t sound like Bennett. His men don’t make mistakes like that.” Dean’s face showed concern as he spoke.

Shaun had no issue calling Bennett out on what happened in front of Dean. He might like the guy because he saved their lives, but right now he sucked.

Pulling out his cell, he dialed Bennett’s number.

“What’s up?”

“Your lackey screwed up.”

“Care to give me a bit more information, Shaun, or did you call just to blow off steam?”

“Bennett, your guy got made. And not by me, but by Morgan. Great job.”

“My guys don’t make that kind of mistakes.”

“Listen, you cocky bastard. I saw him myself right outside of the office building so don’t tell me what they do and don’t do.” Shaun didn’t want to hear excuses. Bennett’s mistake may have just cost him Morgan.

“Shaun, I don’t have any men at Poly-Shyn. If you’re serious, I need a full description now, and I’ll alert the team.”

Fuck.
“Double up, Bennett. I think the guy knows he was made, and if he’s not yours, she could be in trouble.”

“Where is she?” Bennett demanded.

“I don’t know. Going home I guess.”

“Wait, let me track her phone.”

I hate that it’s possible to do such things. But right now, thank God for advanced technology with remote tracking.
He needed to know she was safe. That was why he started all this. And now it was blowing up in the worse possible way.

“Shaun, her phone is in the building. Are you sure she left?” Bennett updated him.

“Yes. We saw her walk out of here about ten minutes ago.”

“I’ll get some men over to the house and also have them scope out the neighborhood for that guy. Text me what he looked like, and I’ll blast it out. Until we know who he is, I think you should also have someone close by.”

“I don’t need any fucking babysitter, Bennett. Just find her and keep her safe. Understood?”

“Roger that.”

“Shaun, find her, and then tell her you love her,” Tessa said.

Love her? Who said I love her? I’m just worried about her and Tyler; that’s all.
He turned to Dean. “We are all on alert until we hear back from Bennett.”

“Agreed. Now go find her, Shaun.”

Shaun nodded, headed out the door, and hopped in the waiting limo. He dialed Loras’s number and gave him the heads-up on what was coming.

“She’s not home yet, but I’ll text you once she arrives,” Loras said before disconnecting the call.

The limo darted between traffic heading to her house. He’d never before felt such panic. Not even when Dean was going after Tessa. Could Tessa be right? Could this be love? He had nothing to compare it to, but whatever it was, caused him physical pain. It was like a knife in his chest.
She’s okay. She has to be. Morgan, just go home where you belong. And so help me God, if anything happens to you or Tyler, I will kill the bastard with my bare hands.

M
organ slammed the car into park and made a mad dash for the house. The entire way home she cursed Shaun in her head. He’d hurt her, and she’d never forgive him for that.

Her father was standing on the porch when she got there. By the look on his face he wanted to talk. She didn’t. “Not now, Dad.”

“Yes, Morgan. Now.”

She looked up at him. “You have no idea what Shaun did. Trust me, if you had any clue you’d—”

“I know, Morgan. I already knew. Now get in the house where you’re safe,” Loras said, and she saw him looking past her as though watching for something.

“Dad, Shaun’s men can watch me all they want. He might be a jerk, but he’d never let anyone hurt me.”

Her father looked at her as he said, “That wasn’t one of his men. So until he gets here and we figure out what really is going on, you stay inside.” He opened the front door and waited for her to go inside.

Thirty-six and still treating me like a little girl. You’re lucky I love you so darn much, or I’d tell you no.
She’d never disrespected her parents, and she wasn’t about to start now. She trotted past her father and went to sit in the living room. Plopping herself into the overstuffed lounge chair, she let out a heavy sigh.

“Oh dear, you look like you’ve been crying,” Elisabeth said as she entered the room.

Yep. All the way on the train and the drive here. I must look like hell. I know I feel like it.
“I’m better now. Just needed to get it out of my system.”

“I don’t blame you after what Walter did.”

“I wasn’t crying over Walter.”
Why would I? He’s nothing to me, to us. He’s out of our lives and can’t hurt me. Unlike Shaun Henderson.

How she wished that was the truth. No matter what, Walter’s lack of interest in Tyler did hurt her. If it didn’t, she wouldn’t be human. But it was a different kind of pain than what she was feeling right now.
I never loved Walter, but I did love Shaun. Damn . . . I do love Shaun.

It was a realization she wished she didn’t need to face. It was past. She loved him, but that was before she found out he wasn’t around her for the reasons she’d thought.
Oh God. I even made love to the man. How could he bring me to his house and . . .
Tears started coming down all over again.
Why Shaun? What did I do to you that made you do this? Did you trust me so little that you had me watched like this? Couldn’t you have just asked me what you wanted to know? I would’ve told you. But no. You needed to hire people to watch and report back. I feel so. . . so violated.

Elisabeth came over and wrapped her arms around her. “There. There. It’s okay. Shaun will be here soon, and you’ll see, everything will be okay.”

He’s coming here. No.
“I don’t want to see him, Mom.” It was too soon for her to be able to have an adult conversation. Her emotions were all mixed up right now and crying in front of him was only going to let him know that he’d won.
And I don’t want him to know how much I care. He’s not going to get the last laugh on me.

She heard her father coming into the house, speaking to someone. The voice wasn’t Shaun’s.

“Morgan, this is Bennett. He works for Shaun.”

I don’t want to meet anyone associated with him. Not a friend, not family, and not someone who works for him doing God knows what.
“Are you one of his goons spying on me?”

“We are providing security, yes.”

Hmm. Security. Funny. I’m not at risk. Unless you consider Shaun ripping my heart from my chest and walking all over it a risk.
“I don’t want or need it.”

“I would like to think so, but from what we see, you do.”

“Really? Good, then when Shaun gets here I want you to protect me from that jerk.” Morgan got up; she couldn’t just sit back and let them all control her life, her actions. That is exactly what Shaun did when he hired people to watch her. He took away her rights. Her freedom.

“If need be, I would, but he’s no threat to you, Morgan. He has never been.” Bennett stood, blocking her from leaving the room.

“You don’t know him.”
I never would’ve thought he was capable of this either.
“He is having you watch me for no good reason.”

“I wouldn’t say that, Morgan. But I will let him explain to you what the driving force behind his actions is.”

There was nothing Shaun could say that would ever make her feel his actions were justified.
Not telling me what you were doing is no different than lying to me.
No way was she going to open herself up to him so he could hurt her a second time.
Once is more than I can bear.

“I have already told him I never want to see him again, and I meant it.”

“I can’t do that,” Shaun’s voice chimed in from behind Bennett.

“I’ll be on the porch if you need me,” Bennett said as he excused himself from the room.

“You can go with him now, Shaun. I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.” Morgan didn’t care that she was about to air her dirty laundry in front of her parents. She had nothing to be ashamed of.
Falling in love with someone under false pretense makes me the victim. Letting you back into my life would make me a fool. And I’m no fool, Shaun Henderson.

“Morgan, I want you to sit and listen. After you hear what he has to say, then you decide what you want to do,” Loras said.

Has everyone gone crazy? Why does everyone think I need to hear anything he has to say? What if he lies to me? What if I believe the lies and he only hurts me again later? I can’t risk it. It’ll hurt too much. I already cut it off. Better to keep it that way.

“Dad, you’re supposed to be on my side. Why are you standing by Shaun?”

“Maybe because what he has to say is something I wanted to do for a long time. Not the way he did it, but trust me, Morgan, I’ve felt the same damn way ever since that bastard decided he didn’t wa—”

“Loras. Don’t forget we have little ears listening, and we don’t want that ever said in this house,” Elisabeth reminded Loras, and everyone else as well.

Tyler was very attuned to what was said and picked up on everyone’s emotions. Morgan should’ve remembered that earlier as she spoke to Bennett. Since it seemed all was quiet in the kitchen, she hoped he had his headphones on listening to one of his DVDs instead of their arguing.

The last thing she wanted was her son to be hurt. Right now he hadn’t been affected. She wanted to keep it that way. “Shaun, this is just another reason why we shouldn’t talk.”

“No. That’s a reason why we should speak quietly.”

Don’t play games. You know I don’t want to see you, so why force it? There are a million women who would love to be with you. Go find one of them and leave me alone.
“I don’t need to come up with any reason, because I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Your father even knows we need to talk. So stop being stubborn and sit and listen.”

She looked at him then her father.
I hope you’re happy, Dad. This is not what I want, but I don’t seem to have a choice now, do I?

“Fine. Say what you want to say, then you can go and leave Tyler and me alone.”
Just like we were before we met you.

Shaun knew she was pissed off. He was the one to tell her, but how it came about was wrong. How was she ever going to trust him again? He’d kept something huge from her, and no amount of apologizing was going to change that.

“Morgan, what I did was not to hurt you, but to help you and Tyler.”

“Bull,” Morgan said plainly, meeting his gaze. Her normally sweet honey brown eyes were dark and filled with anger.

“When I found out what Walter did, how he . . . walked away from his responsibilities, I wanted to teach him a lesson. One he’d never forget.”
Crush him, make him wish he’d never been born. Not going to tell you that.

Morgan looked at him long and hard. He wished he could read her thoughts, but from her expression he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“I don’t remember telling you about that. How did you know? Did you have me investigated?”

And this is getting worse. Why didn’t I listen to Bennett? Oh, because I don’t listen to anyone. And look at me now. I’m kicking myself in the ass and hoping she’ll understand why I did it.

“Standard procedure with a new hire.”

“I might be new in HR, but that type of information isn’t included in a background check. Want to try again or is lying what you do best?”

No one had ever called him a liar. What he did wasn’t lying as far as he was concerned. It was withholding information which was totally different. “We had some concerns with our contract division. Someone was altering them without Dean’s or my recommendations.”

“What I did was an improvement. Not something to cause concern,” she said, trying to defend herself.

“Any form of tampering is a concern to us. You have no idea what this family went through last year. Tessa was kidnapped, and Dean was shot because of an employee tampering with the business. So don’t tell me when it’s appropriate to protect people you care about and when it’s not.”

Morgan nodded. “Sorry. I forgot about that. I can see why you might need to go to extreme levels of security now. But did you honestly think I was going to do any harm then? Or now for that matter?”

“At first, I honestly had no idea what to think. You walk off the street and into a job with more access than I ever would’ve granted you. But it hadn’t been my decision. If it had been, you wouldn’t have gotten the job.”

“Thanks for the honesty.”

“Tell me you’d have done things differently.” Shaun challenged her, knowing full well how she’d answer. He knew Morgan was responsible, and she never would’ve turned over such information without checking out the person fully. Of course, some questions had been unprofessional; that was only because of the roadblocks they’d encountered.

“You’re right. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t have hired me either. But that doesn’t explain what this has to do with Walter.”

“We found out that he was blackballing you, so you would never be able to get a job in contracts again. That’s not the only thing he didn’t want. Well, you know. But he wanted you to suffer. For what reason I wasn’t able to find out, but to me, it didn’t matter. I only needed to know he wanted to hurt you. And from there, I was going to hurt him more than he ever thought possible.”

“You should’ve told me and let me tell you how I felt, let me decide what action to take. But instead, you pulled all control away from me. You made this about you and not about Tyler and me.”

“You’re too damn nice and never would’ve retaliated.”

“So your explanation is you did this behind my back because you think I wouldn’t have wanted it. Am I correct?”

Shit, she’s good. There’s no answer I can give that won’t make me sound like the asshole I am.
“Yes.”

He could see she was trying to process all the information he had thrown at her. When she finally spoke, the anger was gone, replaced with pain. And not just pain from learning what Walter had been doing, but more importantly what he’d done to her. Everything in him wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her until she forgave him. Truth was, he knew this was going to take more than that to get her to trust him again.
I am a jerk. A straight up jerk. I could’ve handled this so many different ways, but I chose to do this my way. Ignoring how she was going to feel when she found out. Yep. Total jerk.

“I can’t stay here talking about this right now. I need to be alone.” Morgan got up and headed for the doorway leading to her apartment.

He heard her sob as she turned the corner.
Damn it. I made her cry. I never wanted to hurt you.
“Morgan,” he called out to her, but she didn’t respond.

He started to follow Morgan but Loras stopped him, giving him a pat on the back. “Give her time, Shaun. She’ll come to her senses. Right now she only sees one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“The pain. You broke her heart, Shaun. Now if you love her, you’ll give her space to heal and then try talking to her again,” Elisabeth said. “I know how much she cares about you. Just give her time and it will be okay.”