Billionaire Beast

“To get back at him, I guess. I realize how stupid it was. But I was really pissed at him. Not just because he lied to me about you.”

“What else?” I asked. “What else could he have possibly done to you that would make you want to sabotage your own company, just to hurt him?”

But Jonathan was shaking his head. “This isn’t my company,” he said. “Ian might like to play it off like we started this together, but at the end of the day, it’s his company. At the end of the day, he’s the one who’s in charge and calling all the shots. That’s how it’s always been though, even when we were just kids. I don’t know how much he’s told you about his past, but he basically integrated himself into my family. I think my mother loved him more than she loved me sometimes, to be honest. And he was always better at sports, and as we got older, he got stronger and better-looking, and it was like he could do no wrong. He hardly ever even works out, and he looks like that, did you know that? And my father had always hoped I’d join the military, but I wanted to go to college, and then Ian ends up as a Marine. He and I have a whole long history that I don’t think you’re even aware of.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, “that might very well be the case, but that doesn’t mean you should’ve done something like that, Jonathan. That’s pretty messed up. Ian was adamant that it wasn’t someone on this end. He trusts you.”

“Well, I trusted him!” Jonathan yelled. “I was honest with him about how I felt about you, and he told me that he was going to get a feel for whether or not you were ready to be in a relationship with someone. He told me he was going to do that and he ends up getting with you himself. Which I should have expected. I should have known this was going to happen.”

“Are we in high school?” I asked, unable to believe what I was hearing. “You asked him to find out for you if I was interested in dating? Why wouldn’t you just ask me yourself? Don’t you think if someone doesn’t have the guts to do it themselves, then maybe they don’t deserve it?”

“I’m not saying I’d do it the same way if I could go back,” he said, scowling. “I just felt so caught up in it, and I liked you so much that I didn’t want to mess things up. I knew all the shit that you were going through with Noah, and I didn’t want to scare you off. And he told me that he talked to you and you weren’t ready to see anyone, so I just backed off.”

“And then you found out that we were seeing each other and you decided to leak private information? I can’t believe this. Does Ian know?”

“No.”

I took a deep breath. I didn’t know what to say; the whole thing was kind of hard to believe. “I think you should go, Jonathan. I really don’t even know what else to say. I mean, I don’t work there anymore, I don’t have anything to do with the company. But regardless, it seems like it’s pretty messed up to go behind your friend’s back and do something like that. I don’t actually think I could go out with someone who would be willing to do that.”

“I understand,” he said. “I honestly wasn’t expecting that you’d say otherwise. But I wante

d to tell you. And now since I’ve told you . . . I guess I’ll just go.”

“I think that would be best.”

He paused, like there was something else he wanted to tell me, but then thought better of it.

After he left, I called Caroline. “I’m starving, and I need to talk,” I said. “Want to meet for breakfast? Somewhere cheap.”

“Sure,” she said. “How about Bette’s Diner? Is everything okay?”

“The diner sounds good, and I’ll tell you when I see you,” I said.

At the diner, I slid across the smooth turquoise vinyl booth across from Caroline. The waitress came over right away, and I accepted her offer of a cup of coffee and then ordered a Belgian waffle and a side of scrambled eggs.

“So what’s going on?” Caroline asked.

“There has been so much messed up stuff happening I don’t even know where to begin. Jonathan had just stopped by before I called you.”

“Jonathan? Really?”

“Yeah. He came over to let me know that the whole reason I basically got hired there in the first place was because he liked me. But he didn’t say anything about it because he’d asked Ian to find out if I was interested in dating anyone, or if I wasn’t ready for something like that because of Noah.”

“Wow,” Caroline said. “Looks like Ian took that one a little too far.”

“You don’t think that’s a little bit . . . I don’t know, lame? I would’ve had more respect for him if he had just been upfront himself about it.”

“Well, yeah,” Caroline said, peeling the top off a little container of half and half. “He should have grown a pair and told you himself. I guess it’s a little bit cute, but in a juvenile sort of way, that he couldn’t tell you himself.”

“Right,” I said. “I think he thought I was going to be happy about that, or think that it made him this upstanding sort of person or something, but really, the whole thing is stupid.” I shook my head. “It’s crazy. Suddenly everyone is confessing their love for me. Whose life is this?”

Caroline laughed. “Most women would be dying to be in your position, you know.”

“Well, I’m not. It’s not as much fun as it might sound like. It’s really weird, if you want to know the truth.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I’ve never had five guys drooling over me at the same time.”

“It’s not five,” I said. “But I’m not even used to having one. I used to feel like I was pretty much invisible to guys before all of this.”