The Billionaire's Gamble

Frank Baron gives me an appraising look. “And what exactly made your panties knot up enough to warrant this interruption?”

“Platinum Enterprises.”

He gives me a small smile. “Lose your home?”

“Not if I can help it. How can you live with yourself doing this to people?”

“I could ask you the same question,” Frank says.

I freeze. Suddenly the air in the room is different, and I know that I’ve missed something. “What are you talking about?”

“How are you any better than us, since you’ve been so busy ruining Nolan’s life?”

“Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?” says another voice, and it’s one I know. I turn to see Gerard standing up from the table. “Hello, Dani. I would say ‘long time, no see,’ but at this point I think we’ve already seen everything. You might be interested in these.”

He tosses a folder at me and it lands on the table in front of me. I flip it open, and I feel all the blood drain out of my face. The folder is full of photos. Pictures of Nolan and me. I am entirely naked, Nolan on top of me in the back of the limo. There’s no question about what’s happening between us. I can tell from the angle of photo that it was taken from the front seat. We were so lost in each other that we didn’t even notice. Those bright lights I saw weren’t my mind playing tricks on me—they were camera flashes. “How did you get these?” I ask, even though I already know. No photographer is that good. They paid off the driver to let the photographer in the car. They paid the photographer to get as risqué a shot as possible.

“Does it matter?” Frank asks. “We have them. You really couldn’t have come along at a better time, Ms. Hathaway. I have to thank you for being our leverage.”

My anger rises again. They’re making a move for the company and they’re using me as blackmail. Are you fucking kidding me? There’s no way I’m going to let these men destroy Nolan because of me. “What did you do?”

Gerard speaks up. “Once the threat was made to release these pictures to the public, he gave in to every demand we had.”

“At the board meeting tomorrow Nolan will resign his post as CEO, and the majority of his holdings will become the property of the board of directors.”

Despair fills me as I realize that I did this. Being with me made him lose everything. I never wanted that. My despair is followed by white hot rage. These men, these stupid, evil men, are not going to get away with this.

Gerard comes around the table, getting way too close. His vibe is as creepy as ever. “Now that Mr. Coldwater is out of the picture, I might just consider helping you. We wouldn’t want these pictures getting released accidentally. People might believe those rumors about you being a hired whore and then where would you be?”

My hand lashes out before I can even think to stop it, slapping him across the face with all my strength. Gerard’s eyes go black with fury, and I’m reminded of that night when I said no and he didn’t listen. But he doesn’t make a move. He won’t—not here and now when he’s in full view of people he wants to impress. He’s a coward. I grab the file full of photos and walk towards the door. Frank calls after me, laughing, “We live in a digital age, Ms. Hathaway. You can’t get rid of the pictures by destroying the copies.”

I don’t look back.

Outside the office, Sage is just coming out of the elevator with Derek in tow. I have to hand it to her, she thinks on her feet. I sprint across the floor to meet her. “I need your help.”

“Dani, you should leave.”

“I know about everything,” I tell her. “I don’t need help for me, I need help for Nolan. I know how to fix this.”

Sage hesitates, and I know that she’s unsure whether or not to trust me at this moment. But finally, she nods. “What do you need me to do?”

“I need you to find me a photographer. His name is Aaron Meyer.”

19

Dani

I’m sitting in Nolan’s den with a glass of wine, watching the coverage. It’s all over the news: Billionaire playboy Nolan Coldwater caught in nude photo scandal. Personally I’m not sure how you can really call it a scandal, but whatever. I lazily flip through the channels, but everyone’s saying roughly the same thing, that it’s a shame he let himself get carried away—his father was such a classy man. That I’m a slut for dragging Nolan down into this mess.

Kelly is out with Sage, who offered to take her to dinner with her girlfriend Clara and show her a good time. I need to be alone when I speak to Nolan, and I imagine that he’ll be here soon.