To sit amongst the men who’d bought and saved my company was a humbling yet enlightening experience. I watched with disgust and heartbreak that it had come to this. Seeing the faces of those I trusted as they lied, stating that I’d approved their shady and unprofitable jobs to get my ass fired—or put on trial—was overwhelming.
I felt like I’d let my father down the most. My dad had built this company from the ground up with my mother’s support, but she’d died before I was old enough to know her, so I wasn’t sure what she would think of this entire situation. I’m pretty sure they were both looking down on me with the same pity I felt for myself.
I’d felt Alex’s eyes on me more than once, and no matter how badly my tears wanted to surface, I wouldn’t allow it. I could cry about it later. Was I emotional? Fuck yes, I was, and I wasn’t ashamed about it. I was a human being who’d been through the wringer, and I also happened to be reasonably in touch with my emotions; fucking sue me. Unfortunately, women in my position didn’t have the luxury of being emotional creatures, and God forbid it happened in the presence of a man lest we be branded as difficult.
In a business setting, an emotional woman was a handful of things: hormonal, unstable, fragile, incapable, or a mess. It was such fucking bullshit, and for whatever reason, the universe had seen fit to make Alex a spectator to every last emotional bomb that was set to blow up in my face. I’d about had enough of that, too. I was an overly capable, well-educated woman. Hopefully, he’d get a glimpse of that side of his new partner at some point.
The lawyers were extremely clear that I wasn’t at fault for any of Stone’s wrongdoings after Mr. Monroe annihilated these thieves. Alex had uncovered the most critical pieces to their lying puzzles, thank God, and that information saved mine and Theo’s asses—fraudulent paperwork that’d slipped right past us.
If only I were an extreme businesswoman who micromanaged everyone instead of trusting them not to screw me over. If I hadn’t trusted them, perhaps I would have uncovered that they’d hijacked my finance department and paid them under the table to change the job bids so I would approve what I thought was profitable. The more Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Monroe spoke and pulled out the truth from these sons of bitches, the more shocked I was that it could’ve happened.
Thank God it ended with their confessions about how they manipulated things so Theo and I would never find out. It took Daniel Kyle trying to grow a set of balls by stealing Sphere to prove Alex’s instincts were correct and catch the bleed in my finances. Stone was saved, but my personal life? Broke as a joke. So, I wasn’t going to stand in that room and high-five the CEO badasses who shoveled the shit out of my company—no way in hell. We handled business, and now I had to move forward while being behind on all my bills.
Then there was Alex, a man who seemed to give a shit suddenly. I didn’t expect to see that expression on his face, the sympathetic one. It was as if he saw how personal this was for me—it was my dad’s company, and no matter how stiff a businesswoman I became to run it, I’d failed my father. Somehow, Alex seemed to care in one way or another. Feeling his empathy made me lose it, and I sobbed in the comfort of his arms as if he were Theo. That cryfest was not meant to happen around the man who seemed to only witness the worst in me; that was meant for the drive home.
The defenses I put up in his presence came down when he pulled me in his arms, and I felt the comfort of the powerful businessman holding me. Alex Grayson may have been flirty and somewhat playful, but there was a reason he wore that thousand-dollar, three-piece suit like he owned all of Southern California. He held himself with an air of power, unreadable in every way, and he was a man who seemed to ooze domination and business savviness. There was no explaining how attractive he was when he commanded the room as he spoke, his sharp features exploring every employee’s face. His mannerisms were that of a man in charge, and he was incredibly gorgeous to complement it all. For all of that, there would be no way I could ever allow him to see I’d gone broke by having a soft heart. I knew he could never understand, even as he held me and spoke in a heartfelt way when he reassured me that we could move forward together now that it was over.
It was far from over for me. I had the personal fallout I had to deal with, and next up was the thing I’d pushed farthest from my mind today, which was selling my apartment. The thing would sell fast; I knew that. I also knew it would sell for a shit-ton of money so I could start over and get back to a place where I could financially breathe again.
My apartment—all three million dollars of it—was designed by Dad and me when I was a teenager. He had me help him design the entire building, and together, we brought our first joint vision to life there. I would never forget the day he gave me the keys to the penthouse as a college graduation gift. The apartment was more than a home to me; it was every happy memory of my adulthood wrapped inside four walls, and now, I had to sell it.
I had the real estate listing contract stuffed into the pile of papers Jacey was carrying when she ran into Alex. Thank God, Jacey could keep a secret, and she knew I didn’t want Alex to know I was selling my home. Only three people knew about me listing the apartment: me, Jacey, and the broker. I didn’t even go through Natalia to sell the place—I didn’t want my wealthy friends to jump in and save Breanne. It took time, meditation, and a lot of tears, but I knew what Dad would expect of me at this shitty stage of my life.
“Never live in the past, Breanne. You must learn from it, or you will never have the mindset to face life’s relentless challenges.”
I heard Dad’s words in my head as if he’d whispered them from the grave and into my ear. Selling my home and starting all over again was what needed to be done to get my shit together. So, none of my friends would know about my place going up on the market until it was sold, and I got my finances corrected. Never again would I allow my big heart to put my employees’ financial well-being before my own. At least that’s what I told myself—I was still pissed off after four hours with thieves, interrogations, and lawyers.
“What the fuck?” I growled when the engine died on Natalia’s BMW, and I had to coast the goddamn thing to the side of the road. “Come on!” I yelled at the car as I tried starting it again.
This wasn’t happening. Not here, not on Beverly Drive.
“Jesus Christ! I just wanted a fucking chocolate cupcake from my favorite fucking bakery before I got home to watch old fucking movies!”
I hit the steering wheel on the car with enough frustration and force to make my hand tingle. Before I had time to study the check-engine light, a matte black, phantom-looking Mercedes AMG One pulled in front of me. In true, universe-punishing fashion, Alexander Grayson stepped out to see me in my twenty-seventh crisis of the month.
All power to the car was gone, much like my will to look Alex in the eye. I couldn’t even roll a fucking window down. The car was as dead as my soul at this moment—not to mention my hopes and dreams.
“Un-fucking-believable,” I said when Alex walked up to my door.
“Broke down?” he questioned. Although he chewed on the corner of his mouth in what appeared to be concern, I could sense the man’s eyes were glittering with humor behind his square-framed Ray-Bans.
“I’m sight-seeing. Someone said Jack Nicholson lived around here, so I figured, you know, if not now, then when?” I said sarcastically, stepping out of the car that’d betrayed me. “When I imagined living in hell, I thought I’d burn, not live like this.”
“You’ve had quite the day, or week, actually.” He whipped out his cell. “I’ll call for a tow and have it brought back to your place—or Jack Nicholson’s if you prefer?”
“It’s not my car.” I covered my mouth when I admitted that.
Alex grinned. “I had a notion that was the case, especially since your car is in the shop still, correct?”
Right. That’s the lie. “Exactly.”
Alex went straight to business, called the tow company, and hung up. “Now, one of two things is happening here.” He pulled me off to the safety of the shoulder of the road. “Either you have an incredible streak of horrendous luck following you everywhere, or this car was determined to breakdown whether you were behind the wheel or not.”
He smirked, but I didn’t smile in return after he walked around the car and sat in the driver’s seat. The car wouldn’t start, and all I could do was fold my arms and glance back at his. Mr. Moneybags seemed to flaunt his wealth like a peacock, driving a car that only sold at auction, and whoever bought it needed to be shitting gold bricks regularly to afford it.
Instead of being impressed by the man’s wealth, I was officially put-off. Maybe I was just feeling bitter. I’d lost everything after being a shitty CEO, and the real reason Alexander Grayson could handpick his car was that he wasn’t only the owner of Brooks Architectural. After doing some research, I found that he and James Mitchell had busted their asses together to make Mitchell and Associates a global empire. Alex was the man for the job when it came to acquisitions, and his resume spoke the reasons why it was most likely pocket change for him to buy the fresh off the production line Mercedes AMG-One.
Yeah, he wasn’t going to understand my sad and pathetic story of losing everything because I had a heart of gold. He couldn’t comprehend that if I brainwashed him.
“The alternator is most likely the problem. When’s the last time this was serviced?”
“I have no idea. Obviously, my friend has been too busy selling real estate to take it to the shop.”
Good God, Natalia. I thought you had someone servicing these goddamn things.
“Right,” Alex chuckled. “Your friend probably hasn’t even brought it in for its first oil change.”
“That’s a huge statement,” I countered.
“She seems like she’s a busy woman.” He shrugged and eyed me over the rim of his sunglasses. “You know, being the fastest and most brilliant woman in real estate. It’s why I hired her. A woman who puts business first.” He reached in and grabbed my briefcase. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s get you something to eat and get you home, and then I’ll loan you a car—that is if I can trust you not to blow up the poor thing.”
“I don’t need your charity,” I remained firm. “This is a nice neighborhood. I was planning to head to my favorite bakery so I could buy a chocolate cupcake and then round out the day in a hot bath.”
“If that’s how you plan on ending this day, I insist I join you,” he said.
“I don’t share when it comes to chocolate.”
He chewed on the corner of his mouth. “I wasn’t talking about chocolate.” He planted his hands on his hips. “After this week of bullshit being flung at you in every direction, and a long-ass day at Mitchell with Jim’s lawyers, I’m talking about joining you in that hot bath and hand-feeding you that chocolate muffin myself.”
I smiled at his flirtatious behavior. If only the man weren’t known for being a player. “Well, your hands don’t seem like they have the capabilities that my vibrator does.”
Oh, fucking hell. I didn’t say that. Yes, I did! I fucking said that, and Alex couldn’t look more dangerously sexy and yet predatorial than he does at this moment.
“Vibrators, eh?”
“I meant my back massaging thingy,” I tried to recover, but now I couldn’t think.
“Thingy,” he softly laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever—”
“Stop.” I held a hand up and eyed his car. “Get back in your multi-million-dollar playboy toy and go mess around with some chick who’s up for it. I’m not doing this with you, and since you mentioned my incredible run of horrendous luck, I’d like to add to that.”
“Would—”
“I’m not finished,” I interrupted him, seeing a shit-eating grin. I ignored the honks coming from the pissed-off drivers I’d forced into one lane and maintained my composure while begging for the tow truck to teleport itself here. “I have good reason to believe that you, Alex Grayson, are the very reason my life is going to hell at lightning speed. From the moment we’ve met, all I’ve come across are embarrassing situations, and it seems as though when I’ve encountered them all, I’ve been in your company.”
He crossed his arms. “That’s a profound statement.”
“It’s a fact.”
It really was.
“Perhaps one day you’ll see that in all of this bad shit you’ve encountered since being in my presence, I haven’t once judged you for it. Instead, I’ve tried to help you.”
“Shit, I’m sorry. Goddammit, don’t be nice. It makes it harder to blame you for it.”
“Perhaps that’s because you know I’m not the reason for all of this. I’m just a guy who’s remained firmly at your side while seeing you going through a rough patch.”
“I want to believe you actually cared. I do,” I said, now that our conversation went from Alex being a flirt to that compassionate man who held me while I cried on his shoulder earlier.
“Why can’t you? Jesus, Bree. Why won’t you at least allow me to help you?”
Because I might just fall for you, and then I’m royally fucked!
“I wasn’t raised to have someone else fix my problems. If my dad had raised me like that, I’d be curled up in a ball, still crying in the dark, corner office I found at Mitchell after the lawyers were done.”
“You seriously think that if I help you by offering you a ride home and loaning you one of the cars I never drive that I’m fixing your problems?”
“I don’t know what I’m thinking,” I said. “Please, just go. It’s Monday, for Christ’s sake. Maybe that’s why it’s a shitty day.”
“You’re a stubborn woman; you know that?”
I lifted my chin. “My dad said I got it from my mom.” I tried to smile because the strange way Alex’s voice changed while stating that fact reminded me of the many times Dad had said it to me.
Dad lectured me more than once on how to use my stubborn personality for good and not bad. The hard part was trying to decide whether or not refusing Alex’s help was me being headstrong in a good way or a bad way. I couldn’t allow the man to see me as a weak woman. I absolutely couldn’t let that shit happen, or it would validate why my dad’s company went under.
I smiled. “You’re a great man to pull over and offer me a hand. You’re also dead if you capitalize on this situation and use it against me.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because it seems like you’d be the type.”
“You have a lot to learn about me, Breanne, and a lot to learn about my intentions with you as well. I don’t plan on capitalizing on you going through shit, either.” He smiled. “I have no idea where or how you formed such an opinion of me, but perhaps one day you’ll trust my motives. From the moment you and I first spoke,” he took his sunglasses off and locked eyes with mine, “that night you needed me to be your fake fiancé?”
“I…yeah…” Oh, God. I could hardly think with his beautiful eyes—all filled with concern—staring into the core of my entire being.
“I could’ve easily been my usual asshole self and made you feel like shit for it. I didn’t. Instead, I gladly accepted the invitation to help you rid yourself of your ex and whatever else it was you felt you needed to prove to that man.”
He turned to walk away, leaving me feeling like the asshole I expected him to be. I rubbed my forehead, and my brain pleaded with me to trust him and tell him my sad story, but I couldn’t. I was swimming in confusion as the man offered me my briefcase, allowing me to handle this on my own as I’d insisted.
I felt the instinct to protect myself from him more than anything else, whether he offered help or not, and whether I felt like a weak businesswoman in front of him or not. All I knew was that a girl could easily trip and fall head over heels with the man’s serious business expression, or his smile—or that way he chewed on the corner of his mouth—and I couldn’t trust he wouldn’t hurt me if I fell for the man like I knew I could.
Why did I have to have one of the world’s most attractive men as my business partner? Why couldn’t he be ugly or have horrible breath and rotten teeth? Why did he physically have to be a man that any girl would fall for and not regret it the next morning?
That’s why I was stubborn. It’s why he wouldn’t get to me on a personal level. It’s also the very same reason I could never let him in. I trusted a man with my heart once, only to find out he was fucking some whore the night before our wedding. So, why would I trust the world’s most eligible bachelor? This man probably had a woman waiting for him to call if he needed stress relief after a bad day. Why wouldn’t he? He was wealthy, gorgeous, and available.
Now, he was gentleman enough to give me what I’d insisted upon, and I needed to wait on the side of the road for a tow.
Real smart, Bree.
