Page 34 of Beautiful Betrayal

“She took a job.”

My lashes lower and I turn away. She’s officially gone. She’s not coming back to work here. “Where?”

“That’s the part I’d rather leave out of this equation.”

I cut him a sharp look. “What does that mean?”

“Ri,” he says. “She went to work for Ri.”

Those words punch me in the chest so hard that I want to punch the window, and that’s not me, that’s not how I operate.“Is she fucking him?” I ask, the anger I can’t control radiating in my voice.

“I don’t know, man. I wouldn’t have thought she’d take a job with him. Not Ri. She knows how much he hates you.”

I love you, she’d said on the phone days ago. More like she fucking hates me. “Leave,” I order softly.

“Grayson—”

“Eric, man, I love you, but get out of my fucking office. I need to be alone.”

“Right. I understand.” He turns and heads for the door. He’s just exited when Nancy, my forty-two-year-old, quiet, always smart assistant appears in the doorway, proving she’s not smart right now. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be about to speak to me. She shoves her black-rimmed glasses up her nose and clears her throat. “Courtney is here. She’s a—”

“I know who she is,” I snap because of course, I know Mia’s best friend. I look skyward and then say, “Send her in.”

I stay where I’m at, needing control in a way I normally assume in less obvious ways. Courtney walks into my office and shuts the door. She’s wearing funeral black, her blonde hair a mess, which tells me she’s a mess, which isn’t like her. “I know about Ri,” I say.

She reaches into her purse and closes the space between us and I’m aware of her hand in that bag, waiting to deliver another blow. “She gave this to me three weeks ago to give to you and I didn’t. I thought she’d take it back, but I can’t hold on to a hundred-thousand-dollar ring.” She pulls her hand from the bag and hands me Mia’s ring box.

“Two hundred thousand,” I say, not because the money matters to me, but because of the impact of Mia giving it back. She never wanted my money. Fuck. She’s perfect, and in this moment I know the war is lost. She’s gone. I’m not getting her back.

I take the box.

Courtney opens her mouth and shuts it. And then she turns and walks toward the door. A minute later, she’s gone and the door is shut and my mind goes where I don’t want it to go. The timing of the news about Mia with Ri and this ring are hard to ignore, no matter what Courtney claims about the timing. Mia’s made it clear to me that she’s with Ri now and I know she knows that’s the end for me, for us.

“Grayson?”

I blink back to the present to find Mia looking up at me. “Yeah, baby?”

Her eyes soften and warm. “God, I missed you calling me that. I just missed you, period. Please tell me what you’re thinking.”

“You could have sold the ring to help your father.”

“Sell my ring? I wouldn’t sell my ring. It’s—special. It was—”

I tangle my fingers in her hair and pull her mouth to mine. “I know you wouldn’t. I doubted you, too, though. You know that, right?”

“You thought I went to Ri to hurt you.”

“Yes. I found out you went to work for him the same day Courtney brought me back the ring.”

“But I gave her the ring the day we broke up.”

“She didn’t bring it to me.”

“She brought it the day you found out?”

“Yes. She did.”

She sits up and climbs on top of me, her hands going to my cheeks. “That must have felt like a ‘fuck you’ and it wasn’t. I would never—”

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