Chapter 19 #2
“Pregnant,” I repeated, the word left me cold.
“Could be nothing,” he added quickly. “Small towns talk. But it’s circulating there. If anyone connects it to you, that’s a story.”
I stared at the packet. Fresh start in the city. The timeline was suspicious.
“If you need more—”
“No, thank you. I’ll have the money sent your account in the morning,” I replied, voice strained.
He nodded and melted back into the ballroom’s edge. I stood alone; the carpet opening up to swallow me whole, holding a report that turned my world upside down.
If it’s mine, why didn’t she tell me?
If it’s not, why is she in my home?
Atlas’s joke—oh, God—what if Atlas was right?
No, she wouldn’t use me—
But… if she was pregnant, then whatever happened, whatever the truth, everything between us was based on a web of deceit.
“Griffin.” Sam slid out of the shadows and startled me, clapping his hands. He clocked the report I held with a shit-eating grin. “Congratulations. Looks like she played you beautifully.”
“You overheard that?” What a snake in the grass he was.
“About our potential public disaster?” He smirked.
“Face it, Griff. Small-town girl shows up before your IPO, says the right things, wins over your kid, and you—then bam! A secret baby comes to light, distracting you from properly leading the company into its biggest game yet. If I were your enemies, I’d call it a clean play. ”
“You think someone hired her to disrupt—” I struggled with the image I had of her—a charming small-town woman with unmatched inner strength…
or was she really a struggling woman willing to take a payout to bring me down.
Then again, she wouldn’t need one of my enemies hiring her; I’d offered her five million.
“No. I don’t believe it. She wouldn’t do that. ”
“Wouldn’t what? Secure her future?” He lifted a brow. “A woman desperate for money and leverage? Anyone could steer that—DeSoto, Hawthorne, hell, any shark who’d love to see West Games bleed.”
The floor tilted, throwing my entire life off balance. The worst part? I agreed with him. But a sliver of hope still worked its way through the muck.
“Back off,” I warned. “I-I think I know her better than you.”
He shrugged. “I know investors and public perception. Right now, she may play the part well in a red dress. But if this gets out it looks less like love and more like strategy.” His smile sharpened. “And you fell right into the trap. All this time you wasted on her instead of the IPO.”
I should’ve put him through the wall. Instead, I shoved past him, the papers folded in my fist, blood roaring in my ears. I returned to where I left her, but she wasn’t around.
Brock stood in the shadows off to the side. “Find her,” I ordered.
I moved through the ballroom’s glitter and gloss in a fog. Nameless people stopped to give me handshakes, and slap my back. People with fake smiles and loaded pockets. None of them mattered right now as I pivoted across the parquet, searching for the woman in red.
When I finally spotted her, she was standing near the lounge entrance, one hand at her stomach. Fitting.
She turned and practically ran into Sam, who suddenly approached her with an evil grin.
“No.” I rushed to them as fast as I could, stopping about five feet behind them.
“Quite a performance tonight, lovely Jessa,” he drawled.
She blinked, confused. “Excuse me?”
“You’ve done very well here. I’m impressed.” He let his gaze drop, rise, linger too long. “Poor small town girl lands herself a billionaire. And pregnant, too. Commitment to the role—I respect that.”
The color drained from her face. “What did you just say?”
“Don’t play innocent.” He stepped closer.
“Gossip travels, honey. Griffin’s PI has quite the file on you.
And if it’s one thing Griffin hates, it’s a liar.
But don’t worry. If it’s money you want…
” He slowly slid his hand down the bare skin of her arm.
My hands squeezed into tight fists. “You and I can work out an arrangement. I’d be happy to pay for certain services. ”
She flinched as if he’d slapped her.
My ribs detonated. I moved in as she straightened, chin high.
“Get your hand off of me,” she shouted. People around us turned and stared.
“Relax.” He smiled. “We shouldn’t make an embarrassing scene for Griffin’s sake. We can come to a discreet arrangement.”
“And you call yourself a friend to him?”
Sam’s eyes cut past her as I arrived. His face fell. For one suspended second, Jessa’s gaze found mine. Then it flicked to the report in my hand, and back up to the doubt on my face.
Why hadn’t I already torn Sam off his feet for touching her? My past, my present, my future froze me to the spot.
“You had me investigated?” She asked, unbelieving, voice low and shaking.
I couldn’t speak.
Sam got between us. “She’s not worth it, Grif. I think it’s time I call security and have her escorted out.”
Tears glossed her lashes, fury burning through. “Griffin?”
“I-I…” People were staring and words wouldn’t move off my tongue, stuck behind everything I hadn’t asked for and everything I feared most. I’d experienced plenty in my years of running this company; never once had someone completely disarmed me as she had.
Sam’s satisfaction and gloating hung like a dark cloud in the air.
Despite it all, Jessa inhaled and drew herself taller, like a queen without a throne, fearless in the face of lions. “I would’ve told you everything if you’d given me the chance.”
Her voice wobbled at the end, and she fled, crying, forcing her way through the crowd.
“Jessa!”
“Grif—” Sam started, pulling me back. I yanked my arm from him. Brock came out of the shadows, ready to tear him to pieces.
“Another word and you’re fired,” I barked.
I turned back to see which way she had gone. The ballroom swallowed her. I chased. By the time I made it down the front steps of the Plaza, a yellow cab was already pulling from the curb with her in it.
“Jessa!” The name tore out of me. The taillights blurred down Park Avenue’s crowd of cars.
I immediately called Brock on the phone. “Did you see Jessa leave?”
“Yes, but I’m on foot. I’ll follow as long as I can.”
I stared down at the papers in my hand, the city roaring around me.
On the top page, the boldface header waited where I’d left it.
RUMORS OF PREGNANCY.
The words stared back like a slap to the face.
I would’ve told you everything if you’d given me the chance.
What did “everything” mean? That the rumor was true? That it wasn’t? That she’d planned to tell me tonight, after the speech and the smiles, after I had paraded her through a room by my side, starting to believe in us?
If the baby was mine, why keep it from me?
If it wasn’t, who exactly was this stranger in my home, in my son’s life, in my bed?
If there even was a baby.
“Goddammit.” I hated how any of those questions existed. That one whispered report could make me look at the woman who lit up my home and see deceit instead of truth.
I’d promised myself never to love again. Never risk it; let no one in. Brick by brick she dismantled me until she curled into the space beside me and I lost control.
I fell—my breath hitched.
I fell completely in love with her.
Inside, guests had applauded the version of me that never faltered. Out here, I was a man holding onto the echo of a woman’s voice promising she would’ve told me—if I’d let her.
Maybe there was an explanation. Maybe there wasn’t. Either way, I’d let fear speak first. I hadn’t defended her. I’d watched Sam touch what was mine, and I froze.
A horn blasted. The taillights of her cab long gone. Cameras popped all around me, capturing the moment I bled on the curb.