Forbidden Boss (Nikki and Rome's Story) (Manhattan Billionaires)

35. Rome

Nikki calledin sick the next day, which was a first. Clara informed me with a message that popped up at the bottom corner of my screen, and Nikki sent me a text a few minutes later. I sat at my desk and clenched my hands into fists, resisting the urge to jump in a car and head to her apartment to make sure she was okay. Instead, I ordered some chicken soup and a bunch of flowers to be delivered to her, and I turned to the contract with Monk to start ironing out the details.

Our weekend in Grenada had been fruitful, and I had to make sure we capitalized on it. I couldn’t let myself be tugged toward the woman who dominated my thoughts while neglecting my duties.

Even if I wanted to.

I had the niggling feeling that something had happened, a splinter under my skin that I wasn’t quite able to dig out. She’d felt ill; she was probably just sick. But she’d turned away from me. Ever since we’d known each other, she’d always turned toward. The change made me uncomfortable.

When my phone buzzed with a message from her thanking me for the delivery, some of the tension in my shoulders drained away. I liked caring for her. I liked being the one she could rely on, and I wanted her to turn to me for comfort and security. I wished I’d insisted on her sleeping at my place last night so I could nurse her back to health the way I wanted to.

As soon as the day was over, I’d be at her place to check on her.

I was interrupted from my rumination in the early afternoon when Cole knocked on my office door and poked his head in. “You busy?” he asked, which was strange. Typically he’d just waltz in without caring if he was disturbing me.

I rolled back from my desk and gestured for him to take a seat. Instead, Cole stood on the other side of my desk holding a manila folder. He cleared his throat but said nothing.

Arching my brows, I said, “Yes?”

Not one to beat around the bush, Cole lifted his gaze to mine and replied, “I’ve been headhunted. I’ve been offered a position as the director of a small company.”

I blinked.

“Not a competitor,” he rushed to add. “It’s a software company.”

“I see,” I said, even though I didn’t. “What do you know about software?”

“Not much,” Cole admitted, “but I know about sales. They’re in the finance industry, which is…”

“Your area of expertise.”

He let out a long sigh and pulled a sheet of paper from the folder in his hand. “My letter of resignation.”

A flurry of emotions ran through me, and it took all my self-control to keep them off my face. I wasn’t sure if I succeeded when Cole shifted his weight from foot to foot, as if he were preparing to run.

I wasn’t surprised; Cole was talented. He’d have recruiters pestering him on a daily basis. But although this wasn’t unexpected, the loss of my second still felt like a betrayal.

After everything we’d been through together, all the opportunities I’d given him, he was just going to leave?

I took the letter from him but was unable to read past the first line. It landed with a soft scrape on my desk, and I lined it up perfectly with the edge of my keyboard before saying, “Will you sit down, at least?”

“I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to stay,” Cole said, taking a seat. “Rome, I just want to tell you, working here has been a great experience. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I don’t want to leave on a sour note.”

I nodded. “Neither do I.” The words were gritted out, but I meant them. Or I wanted to mean them. At that exact moment, there was a sort of howling in my head, a little boy’s voice crying out into his boarding school bed’s pillow while a thunderstorm raged outside, the evidence of his bedwetting soaked into his pajamas, shame and fear and loneliness his only companion. That little boy wanted to cut Cole to size and tell him to leave my office and never speak to me again. He wanted to get on the phone and sully the other man’s name so his precious opportunity at the fancy financial software company crumbled to dust.

But I wasn’t that kid anymore. Hell, I wasn’t even the man I’d been three months ago. I didn’t think of life as a game to win, or a stone from which I was meant to squeeze out every drop of blood. I enjoyed myself, on occasion. I looked forward to the future.

Could I really begrudge Cole for wanting a bright future of his own?

I met my friend’s gaze. He stared back at me, arching his brows, waiting for me to bite his head off. The lump in my throat stopped me from being able to say much, but I did manage a croaked, “Why now?”

Cole braided his fingers together, then opened them up and stared at his palms as if the answer were written there. He let out a long sigh. “Ever since we found out about the exposure from hiring so many independent contractors,” he admitted.

“You fixed that,” I said. “You’re not leaving because you think I’m mad about that, are you? I’m not.”

“It’s not that,” he said, lifting his gaze to mine. “I realized I’ve been coasting. I should have caught that years ago, Rome. I should have known. But I’ve been…” He cringed, and finally finished his sentence with, “bored. I’ve been bored, Rome. I need a new challenge. Something I can’t do on autopilot. And I’m sorry to do this right before the holidays, but I wanted to tell you as soon as I was sure.”

It hurt. It hurt that he called my company boring, that he wanted to move on, that he was nervous about my reaction in the first place. It hurt that I’d have to keep running this company without my good friend at my side. It hurt that he was just another person who turned his back on me when I needed them most.

But I rallied myself together and stood, extending my hand across the desk to him. “You’ll do great,” I told him.

“I’ll stay until the Monk contract is settled,” he promised, pumping my arm.

I gulped through a tight throat and nodded. “Thanks, Cole.”

He nodded, then slipped out the door again. An email pinged, reminding me of my responsibilities, and I threw myself into work to distract myself until I could go see Nikki and feel her arms wrap me in their warmth. I’d feel better once I was next to her. This wouldn’t hurt so much once her fingers were running through my hair, her lips dropping soft kisses on my jaw.

Everything would be okay once we were together, which was just a few hours away.

Except those few hours stretched when I got a call from my mother, who needed me to stop by their place as soon as possible. When I told her I couldn’t make it tonight, she pulled out her top-shelf guilt trip and convinced me. I’m not even sure how she did it. She barely said anything but, “I really need to talk to you tonight.” But there was a flavor to her silences, a weight to the emphasis of her words. She twisted a particular screw that tightened just the right bands around my heart, and I heard myself agreeing to meet her at five o’clock.

I’d resisted becoming that little boy in his boarding school bed when Cole was in front of me, but apparently I wasn’t strong enough to resist my mother beckoning me to the estate on Long Island. There was still a part of me that wanted my mother’s approval, even though I hated myself for it.

When the helicopter landed, I checked my phone for the hundredth time. Nikki hadn’t responded to the text I’d sent telling her I’d be over after I visited my parents, but it didn’t look like she’d seen the message. She was probably sleeping off whatever illness she’d caught during our trip.

A staff member met me at the back steps, which I took two at a time. I was led through the ornate hallways to my mother’s favorite sitting room, where she sat on an overstuffed couch with a laptop on the coffee table in front of her, papers strewn all around, and glasses perched on the edge of her nose. Beside her lounged my brother, who barely looked up from the phone screen he was staring at when I walked in.

“Good,” my mother said when she saw me. “I was worried you’d try to play the rebel tonight. Come here.”

Her words rankled. Play the rebel? Just because I didn’t like being summoned? Even though I was here. I’d come running when she’d snapped her fingers, and I felt weak and stupid for it. Instead of having my arms wrapped around the woman I lo—the woman I wanted to see, I was miles away gritting my teeth and clenching my fists at being chastised like an errant child.

But just as I always did, I stuffed the discomfort down and took a seat next to her on the couch. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the papers on the coffee table were seating charts for a wedding. My brother’s wedding to Natasha. I frowned. “What was so important that you needed me to rush over?”

My mother pulled her glasses off her nose and folded them carefully. “We’ve been completing the seating charts, darling. I’m sorry, but there’s just no room for your plus-one.” Her face was utterly calm. Serene, even. She met my gaze with her icy blue eyes and didn’t even blink.

“There are three hundred and twenty-five guests at the wedding, Mother,” I said through clenched teeth. “What difference does one more or less make?”

“It makes a world of difference,” she clipped.

“The girl can’t come,” Will said, finally looking away from his phone. He arched his brows at me. “Got it?”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s my wedding and I said so.”

I narrowed my eyes at my brother and then shifted to look at my mother. She was busy straightening the pages on the coffee table, tapping them together as if the discussion was over and we could all pack up and leave.

“No,” I said, standing.

She paused and glanced up at me. “Excuse me?”

“I said no. I’m dating Nikki. She’s…important to me. I want her beside me at family events.”

My mother let out a long sigh and stood up to face me. She smoothed her hands down her tweed skirt, then held her hands at her stomach and met my gaze. “I understand why a man would be attracted to a woman like her, Rome, but the fact of the matter is that just isn’t done.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t speak to me like that,” my mother snapped. “You know precisely what it means. Every one of those three hundred and twenty-five guests will be dignitaries, businesspeople, connections, and family members. What would they think when they found out that you hired her to be at your side?”

I blinked, rearing back. “What are you talking about?”

My mother pursed her lips and arched her brows. Her silence said, Really?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s impressive that you kept it under wraps for as long as you did, darling, but the truth will come out eventually. We can’t have an escort sitting at the head table.”

“She’s not an escort,” I bit off.

My mother made a soft hum, her disagreement more than clear.

“Forget about me coming as well, then,” I said, mind racing.

“Rome!”

I stomped away, waving off the butler who tried to accost me and direct me to the dining room. I cut through the backyard to the helipad, blood boiling, wanting only one thing.

To see Nikki.

I needed to hold her in my arms, because my world felt like it was crumbling around me. My best friend had found a new job. My family… I was seeing my family for who they really were. Callous, cold people who cared more about appearances than they did about their own people.

And how did my mother know? How could she possibly have found out? Did she have a spy on my legal team? Cole?

No, not Cole. He wouldn’t. Would he?

I’d figure this out, and I’d fix it. I wouldn’t let my mother’s callousness ruin the biggest business deal my company had ever made. I wanted to believe she wouldn’t do that, but how could I be sure?

She and my father had shipped me off to a top-rated boarding school because they didn’t have time for me. My brother was treated completely differently, the little prince of the family who could do no wrong. Those people didn’t love me. They didn’t care about me. None of them did.

The only person in my life who did was Nikki. She had the ability to make me soften with nothing more than a look. She made me feel like I wasn’t raging against the storm on my own. She was my shelter. My woman. My rock.

And she’d finally sent me a text message. I’m beat, she wrote. Going to bed. Can I get a rain check on the snuggles?

Clipped into the helicopter as it took off, I read and reread the message a dozen or so times. Then I dropped my hands between my knees and let my head sink down, defeated.