Page 81 of No More Billionaires

“Kenley.” Larson’s somber voice stopped me.

I spun to face him, heart seizing in dread.

He walked toward me slowly, his shoes somehow making barely a sound. He stopped just in front of me but didn’t reach out and make contact.

“Is it true?”

I just stared up at him, the tears behind my eyes demanding their freedom.

“Those things she said—are they true? She trained you to be a—a – told you totargetme when you started working at WNN?”

What could I say? It was true—every pathetic bit of it. I should have told him about my mother, my upbringing sooner.

But it was too late for should-have. Now anything I said would only look like an excuse.

“It is true, but—”

“I know of Mark’s family, by the way. You never mentioned his last name in the past.”

He laughed a humorless laugh. “I guess he fit the target criteria—and I fit it even better, don’t I? Isthatwhy you came to work at WNN in the first place? To meet me? To make me fall in love with you?”

I stepped back from him, overcome with horror and offended to my core. I hadn’t been completely open about my past, and I did have the stage mother from Hell, but he should have known me better than that.

“I can’t believe you just asked me that. You know I didn’t target you. I barely spoke to you the first month, for God’s sake.Youwouldn’t leavemealone.”

“Maybe it was your strategy—do the opposite of what the other girls do. It worked didn’t it?”

His face was harder than I’d ever seen it, his defenses thrown up in front of him like bomb shelter lockdown doors.

The pressure in my head was so intense I felt as if my anger—at my mother, at this horrific situation, athimfor even thinking that—would explode from my eardrums. But I didn’t scream, didn’t yell.

Instead I said what I needed to say in a deadly quiet tone.

“If you really believe that, then maybe you bought your way to that Stanford diploma after all, because you’re not as smart as you seem.You’rethe one who mademefall in love.”

I pointed up at his shocked face, my hand shaking with adrenaline.

“Couldn’t you tell? I fought it as hard as I could. I didn’t want to feel that vulnerable ever again after what Mark did. I just wanted to be alone and be myself and be free of him and Momma and all this… this—”

I looked around then realized the problem wasonme, attached to me, covering my face and head. I scrubbed my hands violently through my hair, destroying the style and making me look like a mad woman.

“All of thisshit.”

Wiping the back of my hand across my lips, I smeared my freshly-applied lipstick. I snatched my earrings off and threw them, enjoying how they struck the lobby wall with a loud double-crack.

“This is why you’ve never seen me dressed up before. I’m sick of being someone’s Barbie doll.” I removed my heels and tossed them both into the lobby’s central fountain. “Of being my mother’s retirement plan.”

For a split second, I considered yanking my dress off, but then reconsidered.

Did I really want to strip in the lobby of one of America’s most exclusive country clubs?

With Spanx on?

Instead, I took the hem of my dress in both hands and pulled as hard as I could—tearing it with a satisfyingR-RIP.

“I’m sick of pretending to be perfect.”

Larson stared at me. He looked like he was barely breathing. Obviously, he thought I’d lost my mind.

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