Page 45 of Adonis: The Cost of a Billionaire's Heart
“About what we—” she began.
“It was a mistake,” I declared, cutting her off. The words tasted like ash on my tongue. “We agreed we wouldn’t cross that line again, but we got carried away with the champagne and the excitement surrounding the deal. It clouded our judgment.”
I watched the hurt bloom in her eyes, quickly masked by professional detachment. She nodded once, sharply. “You’re right,” she replied, voice steady. “I’ll get dressed.”
She swiftly turned her back, shielding herself from my hardened gaze. I sat there frozen, hating myself for hurting herwhen black women were already so unprotected in this world. It was better this way. Cleaner. Safer. Better in the long run for both of us. No matter how many times I repeated the mantra, the words tasted like lies.
My phone rang and Ellis’s name flashed across the screen. The ink on our deal had barely dried, so I was curious as to why he was calling so soon.
I stepped out of the room to answer. “Ellis.”
“Holland, an interesting headline came across my phone a little after you left. It was about a man . . . from Rikers.”
My heart dropped like a dip in altitude as my grip tightened around the phone. “Who?” I questioned carefully.
Ellis paused, forcing us both to sit in his silence. “How well do you know the woman you’re planning to marry?”
My brows crinkled. “I know her just fine. Why?”
“Then I take it you knew that you were days away from becoming the stepfather to the son of the man who killed your father.”
The words rolled off his tongue as smoothly as butter but felt like daggers to my ears. My blood ran cold upon hearing his statement, and my chest tightened as the floor beneath me began to rattle. Jadarius Washington, the man who’d taken my father’s life, was Simora’s baby daddy? How the fuck did I miss that?
“What?” was all I managed to mutter out.
“It’s all in the news. He has quite the claims about your beautiful fiancée and that sweet boy of hers. So, I ask you again, how well do you know the woman you’re about to marry?”
Anger and doubt were at war inside me, swirling around my head like a tornado. How could Jadarius, the man I hated the most in this world, be Mason’s biological father? Did Simora know? Had she been playing me all along? Everything in methreatened to explode. Jadarius had been at the epicenter of all my problems for years and still was.
I stood rooted to the ground, eyeing the clouds and ant-sized city below as we slowly started to descend. For the first time in my life, I was speechless.
The minute I cleared the cobwebs from my throat to speak, Ellis beat me to the punch. “In this business, everybody has secrets. But if you can’t trust her, how can I trust you?”
“Ellis, I can assure you that?—”
“Seeing as though we just signed our deal, this doesn’t look good for either of us. I’m only calling to warn you that he said he’s coming for what’s his. He’s already made his move by going to the press—says he’ll take a DNA test and everything.”
I huffed. “What the fuck is he doing all of this for now? How did he even know we were working together?”
“My company issued a press release announcing our partnership about an hour ago. News outlets are covering it along with his announcement as we speak. It’s a shit show.”
“Shit,” I hissed into the receiver, knowing things like that were basic business practices.
“When did you first hear the hiss, Holland?” he replied.
“What?”
“Think about it.”
My brows snapped together. I wasn’t in the mood for a wisdom-filled analogy at the moment. “I don’t know what you’re talking about?”
“A snake’s hiss is their warning signal before they strike. When did you hear it?”
I paused, thinking over the last few weeks. Then it hit me. The phone call I’d ignored the night my engagement to Simora had been announced. It was the same night as the anniversary of my father’s murder.
“Fuck,” I hissed into the receiver.
As soon as he saw us together, he must’ve started thinking of a way to strike back. Because he was behind bars, he couldn’t get me back in violence, so he chose the next best thing: utter mayhem. The kind that tainted reputations, soured relationships, and birthed trust issues.
