Page 111 of Battle with a Billionaire

“I’m not too busy for that,” he answered. “We’ll go around six? It’ll be nice to eat dinner alone.”

“Great,” she said with a smile as she rose. “See you then.”

She stepped toward the door, ready to leave his office behind when he called to her. “Julia?”

“Yeah?” she asked as she twisted to face him.

“I’m glad you’re safe and home.”

“Thanks,” she said with a smile that lingered on her lips even as she left him behind. Was this all some sort of elaborate charade or did he actually care? Or did he care because he preferred not to field questions about where his wife had slept the night before or if something had happened to her?

She imagined the PR disaster if she’d ended up dead somewhere. Though he could have spun that as a grieving widower most likely.

The entire scenario made her head hurt again.

“Hey, you don’t look very happy,” Kyle said as she approached him.

“I’m fine.”

“Can we talk?”

“Ahhh, maybe it’s best if you–“

“Let me guess. It’s best if I go. I’ve upset the almighty Grant.”

She let her gaze fall to the marble floor, studying the black specks in it as she struggled to bridge the chasm that divided father and son.

“Julia, don’t let him dictate your life,” Kyle said.

“I’m not,” she answered, “but I’m trying to be fair.”

He shook his head, his annoyance obvious. “Nothing about this is fair. Especially not to you.”

“There’s just a lot going on right now, and I’m not sure I can handle all of it. The undercurrents here are way more than I’m capable of dealing with right now.”

“Okay,” he said, his disappointment obvious. “But I’m just going to say again before I go that I don’t think this is normal or healthy. The first thing you said to him when you got here was ‘I can explain.’ Julia, that’s not okay.”

Her shoulders slumped. “I just think it came across…awkwardly when you said it the way you did. Besides, given my current state, I’m not sure my abnormal, unhealthy contractual relationship is really the priority for concern.”

“Maybe it ought to be. Maybe this happened for a reason.”

The doors opened to Grant’s study, and he froze in the doorway, his eyes going back and forth between the two of them before landing on Kyle. “Oh, you’re still here.”

“Yes, I am,” he said with a sigh. “Because I’d like to talk to Julia, but thanks to you, she feels uncomfortable doing that.”

Julia shook her head. “That’s not…”

“And now she’s going to apologize for it or deny it because she’s too afraid to tell you the truth,” Kyle added.

Julia bit her lower lip as her features pinched. She had no idea what she felt, but these constant skirmishes were taxing. She didn’t want to upset the balance of the household she lived in, that wasn’t fair. But she couldn’t explain that to Kyle without him getting upset and blaming Grant.

“Okay, you know what, you’re welcome to stay, Kyle. Stay all day. Move back in if that makes you happy. Just stop pressuring Julia like this.”

“Me pressuring Julia? I’m hardly pressuring her. She knows that.”

“Oh, right, that’s why you’re seeking her out every chance you get.”

“I’m trying to help her, but to be clear, she came to my place on her own because she had another memory.”

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