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“I thought so,” she says. “So did he for a long time. But then, just like that!” She snaps her fingers. “He did a turnabout. Chance always promised he’d take care of me once he went public or when he got bought out—”
“Please don’t tell me he didn’t keep his word.”
“I believed him.” His betrayal still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. “Phoebe wasn’t as trustworthy. She demanded I get his promises on paper. I asked him numerous times, but I was afraid to push too hard.”
“Why?”
“If you don’t have faith in the person you’re with, you have nothing,” she says.
“I see your point, but when it comes to dollars and cents, sometimes, loyalty goes out the door when there are multiple zeros behind numbers.”
“Are you speaking from experience?” She arches her eyebrows.
“I am. It’s a lesson my father instilled in my brother and me, but that still didn’t prevent us from getting blindsided by an unscrupulous manager. He stole millions from our band. My cousin Jagger had to step in after we fired his ass. Jagger also hired a team of ruthless lawyers who went after the asshole.”
“Did they recoup the money?”
“He’d burned through a lot of it, but lucky for us he had assets—expensive cars, houses, boats, and collectors items. We didn’t get back all the money he stole, but we got a lot back and, more importantly, his ass is rotting in jail.”
“At least you got vindicated.”
“I couldn’t believe someone we trusted would pull the wool over our eyes,” I say. “After that incident, I was a lot more careful of the fine print on a contract. When Rhys and I decided to go into business together and created SCORE, I made sure we had a solid contract. Even though he was walking into the partnership with little financial backing, his father created our golden ticket. A contract ensured our partnership would always be on equal footing.”
“Rhys is lucky you’re so upstanding,” she says. “I wasn’t as lucky. I learned the hard way.”
“You got nothing?”
“Not a cent.”
“Chance is a lowlife.”
“I’ll never be able to know for sure, but I’m certain Mariah influenced him—”
“I disagree, Arianne.”
She frowns.
“The guy never had the balls to put your agreement in writing. Someone pulling those annual sales has an army of lawyers working for him. How complicated can it be to draft a contract since he knew full well without you, he would never have half the success he had?”
Sadness morphs her beautiful features.
“How long were you together?” I ask.
“I was working at Glach Tech for five years and we were together for four of those years.”
“You have your answer,” I say. “He was stringing you along. Maybe Mariah was the catalyst, but he had devious intentions well before your cousin showed up at his door. He planned on screwing you over from the get-go.”
“I should’ve listened to my parents and Phoebe. He made millions because of me and I have nothing to show for it. I didn’t expect he’d give me half of his profits, but you don’t go from six million to eighty million by chance. Phoebe suggested I contact a lawyer. I did. And I told Chance I would come after him. He promised he’d bury me in legal papers and it would cost me far more than I had. I backed off.”
“Don’t let these photos upset you.” I point to my screen. “Those two are a match made in hell. No matter how lavish the wedding, it will never make up for their downright appalling personalities.”
She looks at me funny.
“What?” I ask.
She tells me about Mariah’s recent trip to Philadelphia, about her new publicist and how her cousin freaked the hell out over the selfies we took with Cesar and Diana. The photos of us dancing salsa didn’t go down very well either.
“Mom is certain the royal wedding news is to trump the fact I was trending so much on social media, it drowned the news of her engagement,” Arianne says. “You and I both know we were having fun that night, but to the outside world, those photos ignited a lot of interest and rumors—”
