Page 56 of Her Filthy Cold Billionaire Boss

And he let me be part of the very pain that had shaped my adult life.

An hour later, Ruby’s battered Civic pulled up. She leaned across the seat, grinning like she’d just found a hundred-dollar bill in the couch cushions. “Get in, loser. We’re going home.”

I slid into the passenger seat. The interior was warm, the radio cranked to some early-2000s pop song that used to be our road trip anthem. Ruby reached out and touched my hand, then put the car in gear and hit the gas.

We drove in silence for a while. I watched the road, the fields, the blur of the world as it slipped past, hot tears going cold on my cheeks.

Eventually, Ruby glanced over. “You okay?”

I shook my head. “No.”

She nodded, as if this made perfect sense, then turned up the radio and started singing along, badly and loudly and without any shame. I let her fill the silence with sound, with memory, with the only kind of comfort I could stand.

The tears started coming heavier somewhere around the county line. I didn’t try to stop them. I just pressed my forehead to the glass, watched the world distort through the blur, and let it all go.

I didn’t know where I was headed, or if I’d ever find my way back.

But at least I wasn’t alone.

Chapter Fourteen

Gareth

It was supposed to feel like a relief.

That was the first lie I told myself. That after she left, after I forced her out with the truth. I told myself I’d finally be able to think again. That the house would be clean, efficient, sterile, as I’d built it to be. My family was gone, ushered out and put in vehicles, too drunk to even know what was happening. My plans had been foiled.

The air was still. The rooms were still. Every surface shined. But nothing was right.

It started in the ballroom, because of course it did. I found myself standing under the cold glare of the chandeliers, hands in my pockets, jaw locked.

The floor gleamed where we’d danced, the faintest trace of her perfume still caught in my lungs. She’d blushed in my arms, like it was the most humiliating thing in the world to be touched. But she hadn’t said no. She never said no. Not once.

I remembered her body, the taste of her skin, the sound of her breath when I pressed her against the bed and dared her to make a sound.

I remembered how she made me forget every rule I’d ever written.

The echo in the ballroom was sharp enough to cut skin. I almost wished it would.

Like a dead man walking, I made my way into the library. I should have been working; I was always supposed to be working. But all I could do was sit at the long table and stare at the book she’d reached for. How I’d helped her, and I wondered if the note I’d written her was still tucked between the pages.

Aching inside, I made my way to my office. There were post-its in her handwriting all over the desk, reminders about vendors and invoices and “don’t forget to hydrate!” with a little smiley face that made my stomach twist.

I tried to rip them up, but my hand refused. I left them there, in a neat stack, and told myself I’d get rid of them tomorrow. I thought about how I’d bent her over the desk, how it took every ounce of my self-control not to take her then and there, and how she’d responded to me.

On the windowsill was one of her hair ties, thin, black, stretched almost to breaking. I picked it up, rolling it between my thumb and forefinger until I nearly dropped it. I put it in my pocket without thinking, and when I realized what I’d done, I told myself it was just to keep the place tidy. That was the second lie.

She would have laughed at me for being sentimental. Or maybe not. Maybe she would have just looked at me with that steady, searching stare and waited for me to flinch.

I hated that she knew me so well. I hated that she was right.

Still wandering, I heard whispers in the corridor. Staff, of course, there were always eyes and ears behind the walls. I walked past the kitchen just as someone said her name. I stopped, silent as a hunting cat, and listened.

“She’s not coming back,” said the housekeeper. “He chased her out like he always does.”

“No,” said another, “this time’s different. He’s… he’s not himself.”

“Five says she’s back by Tuesday,” said a third, and there was a murmur of agreement and disagreement.