Page 56 of The Billionaire Love Match

SEVENTEEN

Colt found his motherin her office, though the rest of the building was almost empty at this hour. She hung up her phone as he stormed in. “Colton, what’s wrong?”

“Don’t ask like you don’t know. What were you thinking bringing that guy on?”

He stood before her desk, watching her weigh responses and choose the right face to go with them. She gave a thin laugh.

“Oh, you mean Casey’s ex-boyfriend? He’ll make for some good TV. How could I not? I mean, once he contacted the show saying he’d seen one of the contestants kissing the bachelor just before the show started.”

He sank into a chair in front of the desk. His anger hadn’t dissipated, but felt muted slightly. Now it was tempered with the discomfort that his mother now knew that he’d met Casey before taping.

Colt leveled his gaze at her. “Did he also tell you that he was the one who gave me the black eye? That I actually am in the process of getting a restraining order against him?”

Her practiced expression fell away. “What are you talking about?”

“Whatever he told you, he must have left out that part,” Colt said. “Ask Mike and Hector. They pulled him off me before he could send me to the hospital. The guy is nuts. And now you’ve put him with Casey and put the whole show at risk. I thought you did your homework, mother.”

Her fingers itched for a phone. Who would she call? How would she think to fix this? She always had a plan and it always went back to serving her interests. But when she met his eyes again, he sat back, the emotion there shocking him.

“I’m really sorry, Colton. What can I do?”

This was the first legitimate apology he remembered in...years. Colt had to look away, staring at a photo behind her desk of himself, his mother, and his father. It had been taken in front of the house where he grew up, before his father died and before his mother got richer and upgraded to something nicer.

His father had just started radiation in the picture and still looked healthy. You couldn’t tell from their smiles that he had cancer. Or that their whole family was about to go down in flames.

He swallowed before answering. “I sent Mike with her. I hope that will be enough. I’m honestly afraid Lucas might hurt her.”

“I had no idea. I should have done more background, but I was...”

“You were distracted by what he told you, right? That I met Casey before the show?”

They locked eyes. Whatever softness had been on his mother’s face had slipped back to the normal hardness. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What would you have done if I had told you?” he asked.

“Depends on what you had to say. How long had you been dating her?”

“We weren’t dating. The first time we met was just before the first ceremony. I didn’t even catch her name.”

“But you kissed her.”

“She—yes. I kissed her.” He could see the judgment in her eyes. “Yes, I kissed her. In a public bathroom. And I didn’t know her name. I know how that sounds.”

“Do you?”

Colt stood and moved behind the chair he’d been sitting in, leaning on it for support. Since walking into the office, his head was in a strange place. Worry for Casey still ran like a current underneath his skin. But his thoughts also kept circling around his mother and his father and their family.

“Mom, why don’t you like Casey?”

“What’s there to like? She’s just another woman who sees you as a meal ticket. You don’t mean anything to her. She’s a barista. And thinks she’s a writer.” His mother laughed and another surge of anger and protectiveness rose up in Colt’s chest. “No, Colt—you just don’t see it from the perspective of reality. None of these women deserve you. None of them really want you. They want what you represent.”

“Thanks, mom. For reducing me to a dollar sign. I don’t know about the other women, but I know that’s not Casey.”

“Everyone has a price tag. You just haven’t seen hers yet.”

He wished that he could make her see and understand. But even as he thought this, he realized how little he knew Casey really. So much of what they had was a gut feeling. One that would hopefully play out tonight when they had their dinner.

“If that’s how you feel, why are you doing this?” Colt said.

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