Page 54 of Billionaire Retreat

I shook my head.

“Ok, then I’ll go.” He abruptly stopped pacing and leaned against a pillar. “I had Richard offer you the insurance commercial job. It wasn’t a coincidence. I wanted to see you again so I told him to hire you. He didn’t just happen to “share” with me that you were in town. I had him bring you here.”

His confession didn’t surprise me. I’d already put that together.

“So, is that why your mom was at the casting for the entertainment specialist job? She didn’t think Richard would do a good job?” I asked, stalling.

“Pretty much. She wanted to make sure Jackson and I weren’t around any girls that would cause a scandal.”

That had been my initial thought. It made perfect sense and it explained so much. I bet Richard had picked me against his aunt’s wishes and had deliberately paired me up with Griffin to shake things up. Well, he certainly accomplished that.

But that’s not what this conversation was about.

“I guess now it’s my turn.”

“I guess,” is all he said. I couldn’t read his expression.

“After the island, our encounter on the island, I was depressed and so I left to lick my wounds, so to speak. I went back home and I...” I stopped, not knowing what to say or how to say it.

“You realized who I was and that you could get very good money from my family?”

“No! How could you think that?” I said.

He shrugged. “It’s the most logical conclusion. You were a broke actress. I’m set to inherit hundreds of millions over what I already have now. What conclusion would you come up with?”

He was right. All conclusions led to me being one gold-digging you-know-what. But I thought Griffin knew better than that. Apparently not.

I tried to speak calmly and keep my voice from shaking, but I was visibly upset. “I might have been a struggling actress, but I have some dignity.”

“Yes, enough to take $250,000.”

“If I had only had to worry about me, I would not have taken it,” I said angrily.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he said staring at me.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them. “I was pregnant. With your baby. That’s why I took the money. I didn’t ask for it but when your mom wouldn’t take it back and I saw you with that woman and that child, I don’t know... I thought that I was doing the right thing. I knew I would need money and like you said, I was just a broke actress.”

I expected him to yell at me or say something, anything. His silence was killing me. He was staring off into the distance as if I didn’t even exist anymore.

“Griffin?”

“Get out.”

“What?” I hadn’t expected that. He looked at me and his eyes were cold, flat and emotionless.

“Get out,” he repeated simply.

“I tried to tell you earlier—I swear I did.” I didn’t understand why he was angry and then I thought back to the conversation we had about his sister Nora.

“Go,” he said softly. He walked to the door and held it open. “Get out.”

I wanted to fight him. I wanted to yell at him. I wanted to do something, but I did what I thought was best, which was nothing. I walked past him, determined not to show how much pain I was in and I walked out the door. He slammed it behind me, so hard that the noise it caused scared me to the point that I let out a startled cry.

As the elevator came for me, I tried to tell myself to not cry. I tried to tell myself that everything would be fine. I’d done what I was supposed to do. And now it was time to go home.

I reached for my phone and realized I’d left it in Griffin’s place. I would have just walked away, but I didn’t have a way to get home. I’d left my wallet and everything in Griffin’s place.

I marched to his door and banged on it, not caring if my banging disturbed the neighbors.

“I left my phone and my wallet,” I said when he answered the door looking angry.

Without a word, I barged around him and found my phone ringing in his bedroom. I grabbed it and my purse.

At least now I can answer my phone without worrying about him finding out my secret, I thought to myself as I answered, walking past Griffin. The secret was officially out in the open, but for some reason, I didn’t feel any better than before. I got into the elevator and I tried not to think of the pain I felt, that made it hard to even breathe.

I wiped away tears and tried to keep my voice cheerful as I spoke into the phone, “Hi, Mom. How’s—”

“You have to come home—”

My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. “Why? What’s wrong?”

Her cellular reception was going in and out. “Mom... Mom?”

“Hon... hospital... come home,” were the last words I heard before the line went dead.