Page 49 of Between Love & Ruin

“Thanks for the concern, but no. I don’t think so.”

“But doesn’t she have a boyfriend?”

I scowl. What a way to ruin my mood. He is such a buzzkill.

“Yes, but soon he will be an ex-boyfriend.”

“How are you so certain?” he questions, and I know he is just trying to get on my nerves. Too bad, I won’t let that happen yet.

“Because I know she will never look at him the way she looks at me.”

He stops in front of the office gates, propelling me forward slightly.

“Respectfully, you are one cocky bitch, sir.”

“Disrespectfully, I do not care, Roy. Stop trying to piss me off.”

He chuckles as I get out of the car, but the way everyone in the office looks at me the moment I step in gets me suspicious.

I ignore the stupid looks as I enter the elevator, but before the doors can close, Myra enters, looking too mad in the morning.

“What’s wrong, Myra?” I ask as I press the buttons to take us to my cabin.

“You are asking as if you don’t know,” she says, looking at me with a piercing gaze. “How long will I keep cleaning up your mess?”

“Well, I pay you for that, but a little context to what ‘mess’ I created this time would help a lot.”

She slams a newspaper in my chest and I glare at her before taking a look at what the hell this is.

It is the celebrity section of a popular newspaper, one mostly circulated among the business people, and in the top section, it is a photo of me and Sienna from yesterday when Mark was in the restroom and I had held her hand.

The context for this photo has been completely fabricated, with the headline in bold: “Has the bachelor billionaire found the love of his life?”

“Who took this? ” I ask.

“That’s not the question,” she yells as we get out to go into the privacy of my room. “The question is why it was taken. What were you doing in public holding hands with the girl who is in a relationship and is supposed to be just your business partner?”

“First of all, calm down,” I say as I settle down in my seat. My fingers flex as I try my best to control the anger coursing through my veins. It isn’t like Sienna and I were doing anything, but the fact that someone felt comfortable taking our pictures and selling them and publishing them like this is disgusting. I am not new to my privacy being invaded.

Worse things have happened to me, but Sienna is not someone I play about.

“How can I calm down, Dominic? You say one thing and do the exact opposite of it. I know you hired me for cleaning up your mess. But this is… isn’t she in a relationship? Why would you do it with a person who is committed?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose to calm myself down. I swear to god if someone mentions her boyfriend one more time, I am going to lose my shit.

I know their relationship isn’t really a relationship. And we only held hands for less than two minutes. That doesn’t mean I cheated.

“Stop pushing yourself into something you have no clue about, Myra. This photo.” I hold up the newspaper, and her eyes flare up again. “It is fabricated. Yes, I was holding her hand, but her boyfriend was there. At the time of this photo, he was in the toilet, and I was merely assuring Sienna about something like a friend.”

The word ‘friend’ doesn’t sound good when I say it in the context of me and Sienna, but that is also the truth about our relationship at the moment. A bitter truth that is bound to change soon.

I will make sure of it.

“Are you sure you are not lying to protect her image?”

“If protecting her required a lie, I’d tell it. If it required something worse, I’d do that too. But none of that changes the truth.”

Her eyes narrow as she looks at me.