Page 101 of Forbidden Boss (Manhattan Billionaires)

“What do you think you’re doing, Rome?” she hissed, her nails digging into my elbow as she dragged me out of the room.

I tore my arm away. “You’ve been spying on me,” I told her, my voice oddly flat.

“Don’t be dramatic. She wanted to play the rebel for a few years, but Ophelia is a good girl and she’s ready to come back into the fold. I think you’d be good together. Her parents?—”

“I don’t give a shit who her parents are or what they can do for you if I date their daughter.”

My mother’s jaw hardened. “If this is about that girl?—”

“This is aboutme, Mother. I’m done.”

The words came out of me before I really understood what I was saying, but once I spoke them out loud, the clarity they provided put my entire life into sharp relief. I’d spent so many years being torn between resentment and desperation for affection. I hated my parents for their rejection, yet I jumped at every phone call, answered every demand.

I was so desperate for a scrap of love that I really thought it was okay to be treated like an accessory in their lives.

Maybe it was the sight of Will vowing to love and cherish a woman he had no interest in marrying that did it. Or the realization that my parents would go as far as to plant someone in my own organization to get information on me. And then, the cherry on top of the shit sundae—to try to set me up with her! As if a bit of family espionage was just par for the course when the eldest son decided to build his own company instead of dancing exactly to the family tune.

I was done. Utterly and completely. I no longer cared if these people approved. I no longer craved their attention, their affection, their time.

Truthfully, I hadn’t even realized Ihadcraved it—not until that need was gone.

Or maybe, I realized how empty my familial relationships were when even at a distance, Nikki gave me something that meant so much more.

“She isn’t good enough for you, Rome,” my mother hissed, accurately reading the direction of my thoughts. “You think a girl who came from nothing can stand at your side? You think she can actually help you get to the next level?”

“What level is that, Joanne?”

“Don’t you call me by my first name. I am yourmother?—”

“You aren’t. You haven’t been that for a long time.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her voice jumped up an octave as her arms fell to her sides.

“It means exactly what it sounds like. I’m not rushing over every time I get a summons. I’m not entertaining your opinions or your judgments. I’m not answering your calls. As far as I’m concerned, my family is dead.”

Her face went white. “Rome?—”

“Goodbye, Joanne.” I began to walk away.

“People will find out about that contract, Rome. Your company won’t survive the bad press.”

I paused and turned. “Is that a threat?”

“It’s the truth.”

“I don’t think anyone will find out, actually,” I said, coldness creeping into the edges of my words.

My mother scoffed. “How do you figure?”

“How embarrassing would it be for you if everyone found out the lengths you’d go to set me up with a woman? You’d be laughingstock, especially because there’s no way I’ll ever date the Gerbers’ daughter. And all those businesses you’ve invested in—how many of them would be happy to find out about your little spy? Everyone would be suspicious of you. No one would trust you. The whole house of cards might just fall apart.”

Eyes that shot flames bore into mine. I withstood her glare for a few long seconds, then turned around and walked away.

In the lobby, an elevator opened as I pressed the button, and a few moments later I was in my room, phone at my ear, my suitcase open and on the bed.

“Clara,” I said, “I’m coming back. I need the jet to be ready as soon as possible.”

“On it,” she said, and I hung up the phone.

---