Page 37 of Broken Billionaire Boss

My mind races. I’ve got to find Rachel and explain the mistake. Oh my god, how she must hate me and think I’m the lowest piece of shit on Earth. “W-what about her friends? Have you reached out to Landon and Marissa?”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” she snaps. “Of course I have, and I’ve searched everywhere.” Her face crumples in grief. “Why couldn’t you have just left her alone or, at most, flaunted your success and let her stew in her misery. Why did you have to destroy her like that? That girl has done nothing but love you when no one else would!”

My stomach roils, and my hands tremble with self-loathing and rage. “Rachel,” I gasp. “I’m going to find her. I’ll do what I have to do to bring her back safe.”

Helen lifts her eyes to the ceiling, and I see they’re filled with tears. “I’m so scared,” she says, her voice shaking. “The last time you hurt her like this, you broke my baby. My strong, brilliant little girl sank so low it took all my skill along with another therapist to bring her back from the edge.” She shakes her head. “And now she’s out there all alone, believing that the one person she stood by faithfully has betrayed and deceived her in the worst possible way. I’m terrified of what she may do.” She clasps a hand over her mouth.

Deep in my soul, a horrible wailing rises up, and I nearly collapse at the thought that my dear, sweet Rachel harming herself over what I did to her. “I’ll find her, Dr. Bradly. Whatever it takes, I’m going to find her.” I grab my jacket and car keys. “I’ll find her, I promise.”

I dash out the door and nearly collide with Parker. “Dude, what the hell’s going on in there?” He looks over my shoulder and spots Dr. Bradly. “Is that Rachel’s mom?”

“I don’t have time. I’ve got to find Rachel,” I say, shoving past him. He catches up with me.

“Man, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”

“Rachel’s missing,” I say, and my voice falters. “She didn’t write that letter. Her mom hid the real letter Rachel sent because she was trying to stop us from getting married.”

Parker grabs my elbow as we step into the elevator. “Holy shit, are you serious?”

My hands are shaking so badly, I can barely punch the button for the lobby, and I’m grateful for Parker’s steadying hand on my arm. “Her mom just confessed it and showed me the real letter Rachel wrote.” I pull it out of my pocket and hand it to him. His eyes grow wider and wider as they scan down the page.

“This is so fucked up!”

I nod. “And now Rachel is nowhere to be found. If she’s done something to harm herself because of me. Shit!” I punch the wall hard, not caring about the pain that lances up my arm.

“We’re going to find her and set this thing straight,” Parker says. He holds out his hand. “Let me drive. You’re falling apart here.”

I almost drop my keys as I hand them over. “I fucked up bad, Park. I don’t think I can come back from this. I…I…” All of a sudden, I can’t breathe.

“Hey, Rhence, just chill, breathe, dude,” Parker says, gripping my shoulders, eyes full of concern. “We’re going to find her and make this right. Just hang in there. Breathe.” He doesn’t let go of me until my breathing evens out and I’m steady again.

When the elevator doors dings open, we run for the parking garage. We climb into my Mercedes convertible, and Parker guns it down the road.

“We start with tracking her credit cards,” I say. “Let’s go to her apartment and search it for any clues.”

“How do we get in?”

“I have a key,” I reply, hoping she hasn’t changed the lock. Like a complete dick, I changed mine to add further insult to injury if she tried coming back. I squeeze my eyes shut and punch the dashboard hard enough to dent it. More pain screams up my arm, and two of my already bruised knuckles split open.

“Dude, chill.”

“Think, think, think,” I admonish myself. “All right, we head to her place to see what we can find. I’ll hire a whole team of private investigators to search for her. We’re going to find her, I’ve got to believe that.”

“We will, Rhence. I think you two were really meant to be together. It’s going to work out. You’ll see.”

Startled, I turn to look at him.

“I know, I know,” he says as he hits the turn signal. “I wanted you to get your revenge so you’d have closure. But something about all the horrible things you said about Rachel didn’t resonate with the person that I met.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

He shrugs. “You were the one with all the history. I just figured she was one of those psychotic chicks who was really great at deceiving people. But now that I know the truth, it just seems more consistent with the person I’ve come to know as Rachel.”

Twenty minutes later, we pull up to her apartment. Thank God my key still works. I grab her laptop and within minutes, I hack it and review Rachel’s recent search history. My heart sinks into my stomach. A few of the searches read “treating severe depression, psychologically abusive boyfriends, what to do when there seems no way out.”

“Oh, Rache,” I groan, drawing Parker’s attention. He reads the screen and grips my shoulder.

“Hey, they’re just searches, it doesn’t mean anything,” he says. “If anyone ever read my search history, they’d put me away for good.”

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