Page 8 of Tempting the Billionaire
So I do.
“What?”
“How’s it going?” he asks simply.
“I’m working on it,” I reply.
“Any progress?”
“It’s going to take time, okay? Back off.”
There’s a long pause. “Just don’t let it take too long,” Justin finally responds.
“I’m trying as hard as I can, okay? You just need to be patient.”
He sighs through the phone. “Fine.” With that, he hangs up.
I throw my phone angrily to the end of my bed, feeling another rush of tears coming on. You’d think I’d have cried out all the water in my body this week.
Continued doubts seep into my brain about whether or not I can actually pull this off. I think backto the handful of interactions I’d had with Ezra this week. Sure, he seems attracted to me—that’s not hard to gauge. But to cheat on his wife? Would he really consider that? The idea of being a homewrecker makes me feel sick. But the idea of those videos of me being out there for the whole world to see makes me sicker.
After Justin sends me a screenshot of the video he plans to leak—every feature of my face and body humiliatingly on display, I’m spurred into action, and I come into the shop Monday morning with a plan.
My stomach is in knots. So much so that I purposefully didn’t bring a lunch, knowing there’s no way I’ll be able to keep it down. Both from the dread and self-loathing and from the actual plan I’m trying to enact.
“You okay?” Rachel asks me a few hours into the day.
I force a smile onto my face. “Yeah, just didn’t sleep well last night. A little out of it,” I lie, making a mental note to try and conceal my nerves better.
But when Ezra comes into the shop in the early afternoon, it only makes my anxieties worse. I shoothim what I hope is a flirtatious smile over the counter, and he grins back, sweeping past me and into the back room where his office is.
My plan can’t start until the end of the day, so I spend the rest of the afternoon keeping my head down and working.
When six o’clock rolls around, I turn to Rachel. “I can finish up the bookkeeping if you want to head out,” I offer.
Her face lights up. “You sure?”
I nod. “Yeah, I’ve seen you do it enough times that I can probably handle it. Besides, Ezra’s in the back if I need help.”
“Great, thanks,” she says, grabbing her purse from the back room. “See you tomorrow.” She waves and is out the door.
I glance over my shoulder. When Ezra comes into the shop, he usually arrives in the early afternoon and stays—well, I’m not exactly sure how late he stays. All I know is that he’s always still here when the sales associates leave.
I turn off the sign and lock the door, heading to the computer behind the reception area to fill out the day’s logs—recording sales and making sure all the cash is arranged as it should be. It only takes me a few minutes, but I stick around later, my nerves rising by the second.
I glance at the clock. 6:30. I close my eyes, taking a deep breath. Every bone in my body is screaming no, that I should absolutely not go through with my plan. But I can’t help but think about that screenshot Justin sent me, the echoes of my moans when he’d played the video in my apartment. I imagine it all over Facebook, Instagram—my friends and family seeing it. I imagine it on revenge porn sites—plastered there until the ends of eternity.
Fuck.
I have to do this.
I force my legs to do my bidding, moving into the back room and softly knocking on the door to Ezra’s office.
“Come in,” his deep voice calls.
I turn the knob, stepping into the room. “Hi,” I say quietly.
“Emma.” He raises an eyebrow. “I’d assumed you and Rachel would be gone by now.”
