Forbidden Love

24

Barrett

Iwas a frigging destroyer. I was on the warpath, and if I wasn’t happy, then fuck, why should anyone else be. My staff was in the firing line of my flippant and often erratic behavior. But I didn’t give two fucks—I couldn’t stop.

We were inching closer to finding out who framed me, and bothering to come to work was harder than my dick around Lourde. Not because of the shitstorm that had fallen upon us this week from Jessica’s barrage of lies. No, not that. Rather because of the shell of a heart in my chest since Lourde and I were no longer together.

But it was my fault. I pushed her away when I should have leaned into her. It was a necessary evil, and there was no turning back now. If I hadn’t, I’d be ruining her future along her family’s reputation and legacy.

But when I returned home to an empty house, reality struck like barbwire to the heart. She was gone, and I was gut-wrenchingly hollow. The darkness had eclipsed my heart, and again I lived in the shadows, licking my wounds in my own private Idaho.

“Barrett, sorry to trouble you, but I have something important.” Barton stuck his head through the door. My goddamn assistant must have let him in when I strictly said no one was to come in.

“Fuck, it better be good. I asked Aimee to leave me the fuck alone.”

“I know.” He closed the door behind him. “But listen, I found out who’s behind this, and you won’t believe it.”

“Get in here then,” I snapped.

“Yes, of course.” He leaped over and sat on the chair opposite me. “The camera that picked up the face cutting the wire near the crane we identified as James Crowset.”

“Never heard of him.”

“No. Nor should you.”

“Can you get to the point?”

“We connected him to the Hamptons’ board members, Simon and Cary.

“Do you have proof?”

“It’s all in there.” He slid an envelope toward me.

Opening it, I quickly scanned the first photo. The fucking lump in my throat rose to my tongue. Pictures of him cutting the crane cable were there, but I’d seen those. Behind them were covert pictures showing the board members and him in a room together.

“This isn’t enough. It’s good, but not enough.”

“I knew you’d say that, so I dug further, finding a money trail of small regular payments to James from a trust fund.”

“Let me guess who the directors of the shady trust are.”

“Both board members.”

Fucking cocksuckers. I knew they were snakes, but I never knew they had this in them.”

“Good work.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“When you met them in the Hamptons a few weeks back to negotiate the purchase of the iconic Hamptons Hotel, did you have any idea then?”

“They didn’t like that I lowballed the fuck out of them and accused them of skimming the hotel of hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund their mistresses and holidays… if that’s what you mean.”

“Right. Well, fuck. They are behind it, pure and simple.”

“And how does Jessica’s declaration of lies tie into all of this?”

“They recruited her. First of all, to give access to the worksite, so they knew when the security detail switched, then to come up with the absurd lie accusing you of sexual harassment.”

“I don’t understand why she’d do it… I barely knew her.”

“What other reason is there?”

“Money.”

Of course.