AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“For fuck’s sake,” Rylee muttered under her breath. She cleared her throat. “Yes, Mom. I’m seeing Memphis Foster.”
“He’s a criminal, Rylee. He was mixed up in the scam that almost bankrupted me. How could you?”
“Jesus, you’re dramatic. He wasn’t mixed up in it. In fact, he’s the one who got you your money back, so you should be thanking him.”
“I just don’t know what to say. How did you even meet him?”
“I got hired to teach him and some of his friends how to play poker. We just hit it off.”
“And now you’re going tomarryhim?”
Rylee leaned against a tree and lifted her head toward the sky, praying for patience. “I want to. If he asks. But he hasn’t yet, so calm the fuck down.” It was petty of her to throw the f-bomb in but sometimes she couldn’t help herself. Her mother was the one who could get under her skin faster than anyone.
“Listen, Mom, I need to go. We’ll talk again soon. Tell Aunt Vicky to stop meddling.”
“I’m worried about you, Rylee. You don’t just marry someone you met a week ago.”
“So, we’ll get married in a year after we’ve lived together for a while. For now, we’re going to spend the next three weeks at his house in Vegas having a lot of sex. Now I really have to go.”
She jabbed at the screen to end the call but not before she heard her mother’s offended gasp. It made her grin.
Chapter 3
Memphiswalkedintotheconference room at the Pink Sapphire and dropped into a chair. Andrew was ten minutes away, so that’s how long he had to calm himself down enough not to punch the bastard in the face. He’d trusted Andrew as his right hand in the business for years, and he’d almost ruined everything.
Of course, had things gone the way Andrew wanted them to, Memphis would be on the fast track to prison while Andrew took his place at the head of the company.
While he waited, he looked at his phone and saw a message from Rylee. He sent a note to his assistant asking him to monitor the news coverage surrounding him and Rylee and make sure they didn’t need to do damage control. He didn’t respond to Rylee because he needed to focus on his anger right now and she softened him. It was a good thing, and he intended to spend the rest of his life availing himself of her softness, but today he needed to focus on fixing the problems he clearly had in his company.
There was a knock on the door, and he called for Andrew and Jeremy to enter.
Andrew looked disheveled, his shirt was wrinkled and unbuttoned at the top. A tie was stuffed haphazardly in his jacket pocket instead of being knotted around his neck. His hair looked like it hadn’t seen a comb yet today and he sported a five o’clock shadow where he usually looked clean shaved.
Memphis waved a hand at the empty chairs around the table.
“Have a seat.”
Andrew cleared his throat and shook his head. “I’m good with standing.”
Memphis steepled his fingers together. “And I’m not. You nearly sent me to prison with a straight face. You’ll sit your ass down and listen to me.”
Andrew’s shoulders slumped, and he pulled a chair away from the table. Jeremy plopped his briefcase on the table and sat.
“You have ten minutes to tell me everything before I rip into every corner of your life to find out what else you’ve been hiding from me. If I’m satisfied with what you tell me, we’ll cut all ties and I’ll never think of you again. You fuck with me, and I’ll spend the rest of my life making yours a living hell.”
Jeremy leaned toward Memphis. “Maybe you should go a little easy on the threats there, Memphis. We still have to go to court and the potential Arizona charges haven’t been taken off the table yet.”
Memphis held up a hand to silence him. “No. I won’t stay quiet. He either tells me everything I need to know, or we go scorched earth and find what we need the hard way.”
Jeremy shook his head but leaned back in the chair and faced Andrew.
“Mr. Foster would like to know if there are any other nasty surprises waiting for us when we do a full audit of company records.”
Andrew dropped his head. “No. The Miller group was the only deal I went behind your back on. I swear.”
“You didn’t just go behind my back. You fucking forged my signature. Are there any other employees I need to fire? Who helped you? I want names. All of them.”
He eyed his former best friend, looking for signs that he was holding back or lying. It occurred to him he should have let Rylee sit in on this meeting. He was good at reading people, but she was better.
