Page 78 of Daddy Down Under

“Your previous boss wouldn’t give you any because you hadn’t parted on good terms.”

“Correct. I never told you who that was though.”

“No, and I remember being impressed you would protect him even when he’d clearly treated you wrong.” A thought occurred to me. “Please tell me you didn’t work for Preston.”

“No. I worked for Simon DeGrasse for six horrendous months.”

I didn’t need any time to place that name. “He’s Preston’s business partner.”

“I hadn’t heard from him since he fired me and I started working for you four years ago. But two months ago, he called me completely out of the blue and started asking not-so-subtle questions about you and what you were working on.”

I didn’t even need to ask. “At which point you told him to fuck right off, though probably in more polite terms.”

Relief filled Oliver’s expression, and his mouth pulled up in a cheeky smile. “I told him that despite his low opinion of my performance, I was, in fact, an excellent personal assistant and he couldn’t pay me enough money in the world to break confidentiality.”

“Thank you.”

“That’s not something to thank me for, Cash. Even if I didn’t genuinely like you as much as I do, I would’ve never betrayed you like that. Loyalty matters…and so does the NDA I signed.”

“I appreciate that more than I can say.” My heart grew soft. “And you know how much I like you.”

“I do. But it had me wondering why Simon reached out all of a sudden, and so I did some subtle digging, spoke with some friends and acquaintances. That’s when the name Preston Levine popped up, immediately followed by some kind of wild story about a feud between you two.”

A feud. Not the word I would’ve chosen, but I supposed it did well on the gossip mill. “That’s one word for it.”

“I got the impression it was one-sided.”

“The hate? No, I hate him. If I never hear his name again for the rest of my life, that would be perfect.”

“And he hates you?”

I sighed. Apparently, I would have to tell this story for the second time in a week. “He was my best friend in college, and we were as close as brothers. Until he betrayed me. He disliked the man I was in a relationship with and went to great lengths to break us up, making up stories about me cheating on Victor. It cost me my relationship, and when I discovered what Preston had done, my best friend too.”

Oliver’s face was tight. “Hard to imagine a true friend doing something like that.”

“Yeah, suffice it to say I had a lot of questions about how real our friendship had been. Anyway, that was the last time I saw him. I mean, I’ve run into him from time to time socially, though I’ve always gone out of my way to avoid him. And he didn’t make any attempts to contact me either.” I reconsidered. “Well, after his initial refusal to believe our friendship was over.”

Oliver’s eyebrows rose sky high. “He really thought you’d still be friends after that?”

“He sure did.”

“Un-fucking-believable.”

Somehow, Oliver’s reaction gave me the courage to share more. “He’s Ocean’s father. The guy I’m…seeing here.”

Seeing was way too tame a word for what Ocean and I shared, but that was one topic I wassonot discussing with Oliver.

Oliver blinked rapidly. “Holy shit, are you serious? Did you know when you met? Did he?”

“He knew, and once he told me his name, I figured it out immediately.”

“You don’t think his father sent him, do you?”

I shook my head. “No chance in hell. Preston hates his son. According to Ocean, he always has. He hasn’t seen his father since he was nineteen…when his father beat him with a baseball bat.”

Normally, I would’ve never broken Ocean’s confidence like that, but I needed Oliver to understand who we were dealing with here.

“Fucking hell,” Oliver said, and I couldn’t have worded it better myself.

---