Page 10 of Forbidden Boss (Manhattan Billionaires)

It was the fact that I was the placeholder.

What if I was a placeholder for her too? What if this friendship had blossomed again after we’d lost touch after college, but if I asked her for this favor, she pulled away? What if we’d reconnected but she didn’treallycare about me, not enough to mix money with friendship?

Then I’d lose her. And I’d lose my friendship with Bonnie and Dani and Layla by association. Sure, we didn’t spend as much time together as we did a few years ago, since most of my girlfriends had their children and husbands now. But maybe the gulf between us would just be a little bit too wide to bridge if I pointed out how broke I really was.

It would kill me to realize I was a placeholder for them too.

So I couldn’t ask them for money. I couldn’t even ask to crash on one of their couches—and by one of their couches, of course, I mean one of the multitudes of luxurious guest rooms they owned in various buildings dotted around Manhattan and beyond.

Asking for help would be tantamount to plastering a big neon sign on my forehead that said, I DON’T BELONG HERE.

A hot tear rolled down my cheek, and I brushed it angrily away, jarring the edge of my splint on my face. Pain lanced through my sprained finger, and I let out a whimper.

Panic and heartbreak and despair whirled around me like I was the eye of the hurricane, and my emotions were the wind and rain wreaking destruction on the life I’d carefully built. I sat in the eye of the storm, dead inside, waiting for the hurricane to flatten me.

That’s why I didn’t hear his approach until I saw a pair of shiny black shoes come to a stop in front of me.

My gaze traveled up, up, up. Up the perfectly tailored pants with the quarter-break and crisp center pleat. Up the bespoke shirt—white again—that was now without a tie and open at the collar. Up the strong jaw and the hard male lips, until my gaze came to a stop on glittering blue eyes.

We stared at each other for a moment.

“You’re crying,” Rome Blakely told me with a frown.

“No, I’m not,” I replied, stupidly, because I definitely was.

“Did they not give you enough pain meds?” He shifted to look at the sliding glass doors behind me, like he had half a mind to march in there and demand I be treated again.

Maybe I’d hit my head, and I was hallucinating. Why else would the billionaire in charge of the company that had just fired me be standing there?

His jaw clenched, and he returned those thick-lashed eyes to me. “Why are you sitting here on your own?” he demanded.

I reared back. “Why are you here at all?”

He blinked slowly, ignoring my question. I arched a brow, but I was fragile. I didn’t have it in me to resist, so I answered his question first. “I was just enjoying the evening air before I head home,” I told him, not mentioning the pit of despair I’d accidentally fallen into. “Now it’s your turn. Why are you here?”

He nodded to the black sedan idling behind him. “I’m here to take you home.”

“What?” I asked his back because he’d already turned to head to the car. His driver jumped to open the back door for him, and he didn’t even deign to give me a glance before disappearing into the dark interior.

The hospital’s sliding glass door whirred behind me, and two women walked out, gossiping. They called out a greeting to a third person, and I just sat there staring at Rome Blakely’s car like the useless lump I was.

His driver cleared his throat. “Miss?”

“How did you find me?” I asked him.

“The paramedics told us which hospital they were taking you to this morning. Mr. Blakely wanted to make sure you made it home okay.”

“I don’t believe you,” I told him, frowning.

The man’s face was impassive. He held the door open and blinked at me, unmoving.

The stubborn part of me considered walking away and getting a cab. But I couldn’t afford that. I could take the subway…

But there was a car right there. If a rich, overbearing asshole wanted to drive me right to my door, who was I to refuse? I mean, I enjoyed a bit of true crime now and then and this was definitely how people got themselves murdered, but still. I was tired and brittle, and my finger throbbed.

I stood, meeting the driver’s gaze. Then I asked the most important question: “Does he have snacks in there?”

The driver’s eyes sparkled. “Yes, miss,” he told me.

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