Marrying My Billionaire Boss

An internal alarm goes off. “You feeling okay? Should I call Dr. Wong?” I ask, even though my gut is telling me something’s very, very wrong, and it’s not something the good doc can fix.

“No, I’m fine.” Evie starts walking toward the office, and I go with her, wondering what’s making her act so strangely.

Maybe she’s upset her dad had to leave so suddenly. Or embarrassed about the scene with Georgette. People were recording it, and I’m sure it’s going to make a splash on more than one tabloid site. For all I know, the incident is already all over social media.

A night out will be a good idea. It should cheer Evie up.

I take her to her desk, then go to my office. I text Court and Yuna, asking them if they’re free for dinner with me and Evie. Court says yes, and wants to bring his fiancée. Yuna says fine, but warns me her mom’s assistants are going to tag along, and hopes Evie won’t mind them too much. I tell her not at all. I ask Court about Tony, but he says Tony has a date night with his wife. It’s okay. Court and Yuna are fun. And Skittles is nice too. Maybe it’ll help Evie forget Bradley and get her mind off my sociopathic ex.

At five, the office is emptying out like a beach at low tide. I go to Evie’s desk. “Ready for a fun night out?”

“Actually…can we talk?” she says. “It’s just the two of us here.”

“Sure.” Something must’ve happened between her and Bradley while I was occupied with Georgette.

“A lot of people want your money,” she starts slowly. “So y

ou’re naturally suspicious.”

I shrug, feigning nonchalance even though I immediately know Bradley yapped. Fuck. “Not all the time, but sometimes, yeah.” I should’ve just slugged Georgette back at the café, knocked her out and never left that con man alone with Evie. “I don’t generally make myself available to most people. You know that.”

She nods. “Yeah. I block them for you.”

“Exactly.”

Evie looks away, making fists, then opening her hands and curling them back into fists again on the desk. Suddenly she jerks her chin up and faces me. “Nate. Do you trust me?”

“Of course,” I answer without hesitation.

“Enough to tell me the truth no matter what?”

Shit. I feel like the floor underneath my feet has just turned into a sinkhole.

“Or does the trust only extend to some convenient line you’ve drawn without telling me about it? Or maybe you never meant for this”—she gestures at us—“to last long enough to matter.”

Okay, this is bad. My brain starts working overtime to figure a way to pull myself out of the hole I’m in. “Evie, it’s just… You can’t… I didn’t want you to worry about it,” I say, not wanting to throw Mari under the bus. I don’t agree with her decisions, but that doesn’t mean I want to screw up her relationship with Evie to save my own ass. “What Bradley did or didn’t do has nothing to do with us.”

“Doesn’t it? Or maybe you just didn’t want to tell me the truth. You were hoarding the little nugget in case you ever need to use it against me,” she says like she’s reciting something somebody told her. Or maybe it’s something she’s been thinking for a while.

The blow couldn’t be more devastating either way.

“Evie, no! How could you think that?” Most importantly, what made her think that? Haven’t I done everything in my power to reassure her I’ll keep her safe?

“I don’t know,” she says, her chin trembling for a moment before the muscles in her jaw start to bunch. “I’m just… I thought you’d always tell me things. You said you trusted me. How can it be trust when you lie?”

Desperation pierces through me. I have to make her understand or I’m going to lose her. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“How did you think I’d feel when I found out?” Her voice is thick with hurt.

“I was going to…” I can’t even complete that and say I was going to tell her, because I was merely thinking about it, and not even that seriously. I don’t want to add new lies to what I’ve done. I clear my throat.

“You weren’t going to tell me until it was convenient for you, is that it?” she says, tears shining in her eyes.

“Evie…” I rake my fingers through my hair. I don’t know what to say to fix this. The longer I stay silent, the more she slips away, but if I say the wrong thing, it’ll be the end of us…

“You know… Let’s just go back to the house,” she says after a while.

“Okay.” Dread is spreading through me. I notice she didn’t say “home.”