Counting the Kisses (Counting the Billions 3)

But I should never have made Abby think I didn’t believe her. I should never have let her think, even for a second, that I doubted her judgment.

I felt terrible. Another night that I wished I could take back. I seemed to be having too many of those, ever since I had started things with Abby. I just kept messing up. It was no wonder that she wasn’t answering my calls. She wanted nothing to do with me.

I wondered if she was even planning on coming back to work the next day or if that ship had sailed entirely. I felt sick to my stomach just thinking of going back to the office without having her around. Of hiring someone else to be my advisor. I didn’t want to hire someone else.

I remembered what Austin had said, when she and I had first started dating. How I was going to have to decide if having a relationship with Abby was worth the potential of losing a great advisor. Suddenly, I was no longer sure.

I just had never pictured things with Abby turning out this wrong. Not in my worst nightmares.

I had holed up in my mansion on Saturday. Safer anyway, I told myself, since there was a gauntlet of paparazzi camped outside the place. Sure, I could have had the police involved, get all of those guys removed. But safer just to stay inside and drink myself to oblivion again.

Of course, that wouldn’t work too many days in a row, though. Austin called me on Sunday, letting me know that he was already on his way over. That’s what friends were for, I supposed.

I watched from one of the second-story windows as Austin pulled up outside, sending the paparazzi scattering like the bugs that they were. He made his way easily up to the front door, ignoring the questions they flung at him. I headed downstairs in time to hear the noisy chatter from outside before he had fully closed the front door.

He shook his head as he turned to face me. “I think you’re more popular than the president,” he joked as he kicked off his shoes. He peered at my face. “So how the fuck are you anyway?”

I gave him a look. “How do you think I am?” I asked him.

Austin raised an eyebrow at me. “Dude, I get that the whole trial didn’t turn out exactly the way you wanted, but it didn’t go too terribly,” he said. “The media haven’t even been able to come up with a good sound file from it, which I take to mean you didn’t say anything too stupid up there.” That last was meant as a joke, but I didn’t feel like laughing right now.

“Do you want a beer?” I asked over my shoulder, already heading for the kitchen and the waiting fridge.

“Sure,” Austin said easily. “So if it’s not the trial that has you upset, I’m guessing it’s something to do with Abby. Did she panic when she saw how much news coverage the trial got?”

“I don’t know,” I said sourly.

“Yes, you do,” Austin countered, accepting the beer I held out to him. He shook his head. “Come on, Daniel, don’t be like that. Just tell me what happened.”

Those words reminded me that Austin was my best friend. Maybe my only friend, with the way things had been going lately. Between Ivy sleeping with one of my best friends, my advisor betraying me to the media, and one of my best clients asking inappropriate questions to my staff and generally trying to stir up trouble, it felt like I didn’t have a single person in my corner anymore.

Except Abby. She had always been there for me. She had done whatever I asked of her, even taking over as CEO for a few days despite her trepidations that she wasn’t prepared for such a role.

And how had I repaid her for her loyalty? With angry words and suspicion.

I stared down at my beer. “Abby and I had a fight,” I admitted. “She told one of our clients we would never work with him again. And she had her reasons—all valid ones—but I just wouldn’t listen to her. I was so caught up in my own shit. Now she won’t return any of my calls, and I don’t know what to do.” I grimaced. “I get the feeling that if I just showed up at her place, she would slam the door in my face.”

Austin shook his head. “That sounds like a mess, man,” he said. “Did you find out why she let the client go??”

“He was apparently going around the office asking all the women if they’d ever slept with me,” I said bitterly. “You know, just trying to stir up another story for the media.” I frowned, suddenly realizing something. “Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was somehow in on the plan with Gerrard. They were always chummy in meetings. Gerrard probably told him to come now, while the trial was going on. He couldn’t get much money from me for the assault charges, but maybe that was never his target in the first place. He got me out of the office so that his crony could come in and interrogate my staff.”

I felt sick just thinking about it. Just when I had thought I was finished with Gerrard, for good. Of course, this was only yet another thing I didn’t have solid proof for. I couldn’t take Gerrard to court over a suspicion. He would likely go to the grave with all his secrets, and the media would crucify me in the court of public opinion as time went on.

I hated the unfairness of it all. But not as much as I hated the fact that I still didn’t know how to clear things up with Abby.

“Are you sure she’s not answering your calls because of all of that?” Austin asked carefully.

I blinked at him. “What do you mean?” I asked, wracking my brain for something else I might have done to upset her.

Of course, there was the whole matter of the trial. I knew that she didn’t want to be caught up in any of that. Or was she upset that I hadn’t let her testify on my behalf? Did she think that that would have swayed the jury so I could have gotten off scot-free? I just didn’t want her to feel like she had to get involved. I deserved the consequences of my actions, after all. And she was much more useful around the office. I had liked knowing she was there. But maybe she felt like I had dismissed her.

Austin clearly had something else in mind, though. He rapidly searched his phone for something. And I could tell from the grim look on his face that I wasn’t going to like it. Finally, he found what he was looking for and turned the phone around so that I could see it.

I felt anger course through me when I saw the headline: Does Abby James Really Know the Man Behind the Smile? The whole article focused on my past history of “anger issues” and “bar fights.” The facts were all true, I’d give them that. There was that time I had been thrown out of Icing for getting into a shouting fight with one of the other guys in the bar, who claimed that I had fouled up his relationship with his girlfriend. And the other time that the bouncer had hauled me out of a place for being too drunk.

I’d been so fucking young at that point, though. If I could just explain all of it to Abby, tell her that none of these pictures or stories were indicative of who I really was.

Austin watched my face as it flipped through a complicated set of emotions. I just didn’t know what to say. If this was the r