Page 12 of My Brother's Billionaire Best Friends
This isn’t sustainable. I can’t keep pretending I’m not affected. And I can’t keep entertaining lectures from a woman who thinks control and repression are the same thing.
Parker Simon is here. She’s inside these walls. Wearing pencil skirts and smiling like she’s not unraveling me one glance at a time. And it’s only been three days. One, really. Two of those days were the weekend.
The glass walls of my office reflect everything—skyline, morning haze, the hard line of my jaw as I stand behind my desk trying to exhale Parker out of my system. It doesn’t work. I adjust the cuff of my shirt and stare down at the tablet in my hands, but none of the numbers register. There’s a buzzing under my skin that won’t stop.
The elevator audio leaked over the weekend, and I haven’t stopped bracing for impact since. No video. Just sound. Enough to spark headlines and social media threads about power dynamics and after-hours indiscretions.
I handled it the way I handle everything—with control. Got Jack to handle security. Told legal to issue takedowns. Prepped a board memo about internal sabotage from a rival firm.
But none of that fixes the most inconvenient truth of all.
It wasn’t fake. It was real. Every breath. Every kiss. Every sound Parker made in that elevator. The faint elevator ding is my only warning before the door bursts open.
Phil storms in like a hurricane of righteous fury. His jaw is clenched, his brown hair a mess like he’s been running his hands through it all morning. “Are you fucking serious?” he barks, ignoring protocol, manners, and the fact that I’m still technically his boss.
I don’t react. “Good morning.”
“Cut the bullshit.” He shuts the door with more force than necessary and stalks toward my desk. “You hired my sister. You said she’d be safe. And now she’s on every gossip blog from here to Singapore.”
I set my tablet down. “Yes, I’ve seen it.”
“And you’re not doing anything?”
“I’ve already launched a full internal review. The employees responsible for the leak have been terminated.”
His eyes narrow. “Don’t spin me.”
“I’m not spinning you, Phil. I’m managing an optics crisis in the way I’ve been trained to do.”
“She’s my sister.”
“I know.”
He grits his jaw. “She trusted me when I said this job would be good for her.”
“And it is. Her pay is significantly higher than standard, her benefits package?—”
“She’s being dragged across the internet.”
“No one’s named her. It’s just audio.”
“Peopleknow.”
I pause. “Do you?”
His expression hardens. “Do I what?”
“Do you know what happened?”
Phil hesitates. That moment of doubt is everything. I know him. I know how much it costs him to question his own instincts.
He’s not sure. He wants to believe Parker’s innocent. He’s not sure if I am. “It sounds like you on the audio,” he says finally. “Jack too. And Harrison.”
“I’m not in the habit of having sex in our elevators.” Technically, it’s not a habit if you don’t do it habitually.
He scoffs. “Since when?”
“Since always.”
