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“Mr. Van Halen, I…I.”
“Come Katrina. We have something to discuss.” He grabs my wrist in a tight grasp, hauling me behind like I’m a horse being led to cliché slaughter. Everyone in the room is staring, including the band who has stopped playing. No one says anything, they just watch the multi-billionaire drag me through the large conference room.
I don’t know what I did wrong. Griff is disgustingly attractive. I mean extra attractive. I mean any warm-blooded woman would fall to her knees for anything he wants. Anything. I know his dark brown hair curls when he doesn’t have it severely cut short and gelled down. His brown eyes have specks of diamonds sparkling in a stormy lightening-filled sky. His strong, square cut chin has a slight dark scruff, as if he wasn’t attractive enough already.
“Mr. Van Halen. Please, Mr. Van Halen. I don’t know what I did wrong?” Tears flood my eyes, I follow behind him, almost running and tripping after his long, fast, determined strides, trying to control my fast breaths. He’s my boss. Why is he doing this? “Please, Griffin.”
He ignores my pleas, still hauling me behind him. He races me out the conference rooms, down the hall to his office. Griffin throws the door open. My father jumps up from where he sprawls, tossing his cigar onto a bunch of files on the desk and his hands slapping, trying to put out the smoldering papers. He steals frantic glances at Griffin, who slams the door closed, releasing me and I stand behind and to the side of Griff, my trembling hands clutched in front of me. My breaths loud and excited in my fear of what was happening.
“Griff, what are you doing? Why did you bring Kat here?” I can tell he’s lying. He gets all over friendly and talkative.
“You know why. Tell her.” He grunts out, glaring at my father. “Tell. Her. Our. Agreement.”
“What agreement? What are you talking about?” I look from one man to another. First my dad and then Griffin and back to dad waiting for him to speak.
“Well, Kitty Kat.” He blusters and then stops, looking down at the mess on the desk. “Um.”
I set my hands on my hips, glaring at him. “What’s going on, Dad?”
“I got into a little trouble.” He mumbles, casting a quick gaze at Griffin. He knows about this, whatever this is.
“Trouble? What kind of trouble? What is this about?” I’m tired about all this runaround he’s doing and lay my fists on my hips.
“Money trouble.”
“Dad, how can you have money problems? You’re a billionaire for fuck’s sake.”
“Language.”
I run my hand through the hair on the top of my head, fluffing the back of my long curls, and lean toward him, my hands raised into fists. “That’s what you’re bothered by? My language? Well, here’s fucking more. What the fuck did you do?”
He won’t look at me, his shoulders hunch as he pretends to shuffle and stack the files back into some semblance of order. “Dad.”
“Well. You see. It’s like this. Um.” He throws a glance at Griff, pleading plain on his face. Griff raises his hands in front of his hard face and shakes his head back and forth. He knows what’s going on but won’t help in any way.
I wait, crossing my arms in front of my chest, a force of nature he knows will wait forever. I can be either patient or the most impatient when needed. Right now, patience is what is needed.
“Max, since you’re too much of a fucking coward to tell her. I will.” His gaze is steel as it settles with disgust on dad, who puts his hands up as if in a plea for him to stop.
Griff ignores him, “your father stole three million from the company.” There’s a slight smirk on his face as if he’s holding in a secret even if his eyes are still steel.
This is bad. I mean really, really bad. Life-altering bad. My heart seizes for a moment, then starts galloping wildly like an out-of-control horse.
“We made an agreement to keep him out of prison.”
Prison?
I gulp and wait for the rest of the bad news to drop. I look to my father but his gaze is on the top of the desk, his hands shake, eyes tightly closed now as if waiting for a guillotine to drop.
Griff moves over to his desk, standing in front of the immense monstrosity, like the lord of the manor. He sets his palms flat, leaning forward, weight on his hands, veins on his forearms pop out, the smirk still on his disgustingly handsome model-like face, his gaze dark and hooded with a secret he’s about to reveal, “You. I get you.”
Her mouth hangs open in shock at my words but her eyes darken, her cheeks turn red as a rose and her eyes hit the floor, not looking me in the eye. She appears to gather her fortitude, her blue eyes raise to mine, an ironclad determined fierceness brightens her eyes.
“What do you mean? I’m yours.” Her eyes are so expressive, gleaming with both desire and fear. It’s as if she can’t decide which to go with.
“To stay out of prison, he has agreed for you to come with me for three months.” I bite my bottom lip, my tongue swiping over at the thought of what the three months can entail.
“The two of you can’t decide where I’m going to live.” She shouts, throwing her arms in the air, then leaning forward, resting her palms against the top of the desk, her face full of the anger as only a pissed off woman can have. “I won’t do it.”
