Chapter 1
Eden
“He’s cheating on you.”
I groan as I slip into the chair in front of my boss’s desk.
“Mason, not this again.” This is the problem with having one of your best friends for a boss. He calls you into his office to discuss your personal life before you’ve even had your coffee or brought him his.
“I have proof, Eden.”
That gets my attention. For months he’s been telling me that he was certain that my fiancé was cheating on me.
All three of my bosses/best friends have.
I’ve brushed them off telling them that they’re paranoid.
I mean, why would Scott propose if he was having an affair, right?
This is the first time evidence has been brought into the conversation though.
“What kind of proof?”
Watching me intently, his mouth set in a grim line, Mason slides a file folder across his desk to me.
Perched on the end of my chair, I flip it open to reveal a glossy 8x10 of my fiancé clinking glasses with a woman who is not me.
I can’t see her face or even the color of her hair, only the slender hand holding the wine goblet.
“This is just dinner…” I trail off as I flip to the next picture.
Scott with his hand on the ass of his assistant as she smiles over her shoulder at him.
Then the next, they’re caught in an embrace far from professional.
Each picture paints a more detailed picture of their affair.
When I reach the one where he has her bent over his desk, eyes squeezed tightly closed while he’s buried inside of her, I take note of the tie thrown over his shoulder.
It’s one he bought because he said it reminded him of my eyes.
The blues were identical, he’d said. I remember thinking how romantic it was at the time.
That was two months ago. Bile creeps up my throat and I do my best to swallow it back.
“E—“ Mason’s voice snaps me back, reminding me that I’m experiencing this with an audience. An audience that grows by two when the door opens and Gray and Dimitry Malone walk in.
“You were supposed to wait.” Gray accuses, hitting Mason with a glare as he settles in the seat next to me. Dimitry comes to lean on the edge of Mason’s desk right in front of us.
“Are you all right?” Dimitry asks. His voice is deep and wildly intimidating to everyone he deals with yet with me it always manages to be softer. Gentler.
I nod, not ready to examine my feelings.
What are my feelings? I should be crying and feel gutted, shouldn’t I?
I mean, I agreed to marry this man, and now I’ve just found out that he’s been cheating on me with his assistant.
Though the only thing I can think about right now is getting tested and being furious and utterly confused.
Just this past weekend, he told me he couldn’t wait to start a family with me and that I should stop taking my birth control pills.
I told him that we should probably wait until after the wedding, but I stopped taking them because the thought of having my own family again excited me.
But Why? Why would he want that when he was sleeping with someone else?
Why would he have asked me to marry him at all?
“Because he’s a fucking idiot and wanted the perfect wife and a mistress who would be at his beck and call.” Mason spits angrily.
I must have accidentally voiced my questions out loud.
“What do I do?” I implore, glancing at the three hulking men surrounding me.
Mason has come around his desk to sit beside Dimitry.
I should be embarrassed, with anyone else I might have been.
But these three, my bosses, have been my rocks, my friends since I was in middle school and them in high school when they were lucky enough to be taken in from foster care by Widow Malone.
At one point I was certain that I would end up with one of them.
I crushed on each of them at one time or another, even all at once, but neither of them ever reciprocated my crush, so I squashed it down and threw myself into college life and the dating scene.
It wasn’t until I started working here four years ago that I met Scott.
We started dating when I finally caved and agreed to one of his many daily invites to dinner or drinks, two years ago.
Mason, Gray and Dimitry hated us dating, hated him.
Constantly saying that I shouldn’t date someone I work with and then telling me every chance they got that he wasn’t good enough for me. Turns out that they were right.
Gray rubs a hand across my back, drawing me out of my thoughts. “First things first, how do you want us to handle this?”
I look at him confused. What is there for them to handle? “What do you mean?”
Mason reaches behind him and pulls forward two Manila envelopes from his desk. “These are their letters of termination.” He watches me, I’m guessing to see how I’ll react. I look even more confused.
“ You-you’re firing them?”
“You’re goddamn right we are,” Dimitry barks out.
“Not only were they fucking around behind your back, they were doing it in the office on company time, on company property. That alone would be grounds for termination. Add in the fact that they fucked you over….“ He glowers, “They’ll never work again in this city; I’ll make sure of it.”
His promise sends a tiny shiver down my spine.
I’m not sure exactly how to take that response from Dimi.
He’s always been super protective of me and openly against my relationship with Scott, but the vehemence in which he vows to ruin them is over the top, even for him.
My response to it might be what I should focus on though since it has me feeling more than finding out that my fiancé has been sleeping with his assistant.
His assistant, who has always been very cool to and dismissive of me. Which makes so much sense now.
“He’s right, E.” Gray says, his tone as soothing as his hand that’s still rubbing circles on my back.
“Do you want us to have Marj take it down to them?” Mason asks.
Marjorie is my assistant since I am the assistant to the three of them and needed all the help I could get.
After a year of juggling their work loads, I told them they’d each have to get their own assistant or hire me one.
So we hired Marjorie and she’s been a godsend.
“If they were anyone else, I would be the one handing over their letters. I won’t have her do my dirty work. Plus, I think I deserve some answers.”
“You absolutely do. But don’t feel like you have to do this now. Hell, I’ll go fire them for you if you want.” Gray offers.
“No. Really. I’ll do it. Just let me think for a minute.
” I can’t help the sigh that slips out. Scott and I live together.
I moved into his apartment a few months ago.
I should really go and get my belongings, though I don’t have much, before I burst into his office to end things between us as well as his career.
Who’s to say he won’t retaliate by keeping my things?
And then there’s the question of where the hell am I going to go?
“I need to figure out where I’m going to go and how to get my things before I do anything else. ” I tell them.
Mason clears his throat drawing my gaze but it’s Dimitry who speaks. “Your stuff is on its way to our place as we speak.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
He doesn’t look the least bit apologetic when he answers.
“We knew you wouldn’t want to stay with him; we know how you feel about cheating, and we have an extra room.
It just made the most sense.” He shrugs as if he just offered me a cup of coffee and not a place to live.
“So we used the spare key you gave us and told the movers to pack up everything that they think belongs to a woman and have it moved and unpacked by this afternoon.” He says it all so nonchalantly.
“Dimi…what if…you didn’t even ask me!” I accuse, flustered.
“I cannot live with the three of you.” Not because I haven’t done it before.
We lived together my senior year of high school as well as my freshman year of college before they graduated and moved to the city to start the company.
But now, they’re my bosses, not just friends, and I don’t want to be there when they bring women over, and they will.
They’re all beyond hot, rich, and successful; women throw themselves at them constantly.
I don’t want to be in the middle of that. I’m not sure I could handle it.
“It doesn’t have to be forever.” Gray hurries to reassure me. “And we didn’t ask because we didn’t want you to say no.” He admits a bit sheepishly.
“This way, all you have to worry about is telling Scott to go fuck himself.” Mason cuts in, making me snort out a laugh before my eyes fall back to the file with the pictures.
“Are there more?”
Mason knows exactly what I’m asking. “We have pictures upon pictures as well as videos, but the only other woman the PI saw him with was you.”
My mind stutters to a stop, my back snapping to attention. “Oh my god. Are there pictures or videos of him and I together?”
“No! He knew not to take pictures or videos of you.” Dimitry says, shutting down my sudden panic. I don’t know why but the thought of the three of them looking at pictures of Scott and I having sex is more than I can bear, on top of everything else.
Relieved, I offer a shaky smile. “Okay. Good. Well, let me handle this then.” My voice wavers as I take the envelopes from Mason.
“Do you want us to come with?” Gray offers.