Page 51 of Fake Marriage with the Billionaire

He walked around to one edge of the desk and grabbed the remote, pointing it at the television. He paused, watching Rebecca give her canned responses to the questions being hurled at her about his move to step down.

Stoney crossed his arms, his brow furrowing as she spoke. “You know she’s jumping for joy on the inside, right?”

Richard snorted and turned off the television. Let her jump. It wasn’t his problem anymore.

Stoney stuck around and helped him pack up the rest of his things, then started taking the boxes down to his car while Richard turned in his keys. The HR lady looked at him with wet, bloodshot eyes.

“Are you really stepping down sir?”

He nodded. “Yup. There are more things to life than this.”

Once all the goodbyes were said by his employees, he left the building that he’d come to almost every day he could remember and walked to his car. Before he got in, he turned and took a final look at the building. He remembered his father bringing him there when he was twelve and thirteen and when he was older and looking at colleges. He could hear his father talk about how he’d built the business up with his hands and how it would only be fitting for his son to be the next person in line to bring their company into the future.

That’s how it was supposed to work out. But sometimes life just doesn’t work out the way you think it will.

He got into the car and the sadness started to settle in. He was leaving so much of his life behind…

He let the sadness drain out of him as the car pulled up the drive leading to his home. As they got closer to the door, he noticed that someone was sitting on the front steps. The closer they got the more he recognized the form.

It was Stella. Sitting on the steps in a hoodie and blue jeans, watching as Richard’s car came to a stop at the curb. The driver put the car in park and looked back at Richard in the rearview mirror.

“Do you want me to call security, sir?” he asked.

“No,” said Richard. “I’ll handle this.”

He got out of the car and as he closed the door, he noticed that she was turning a small glass marble around and around in her hand. It was the one that he’d given her the day before. The one that he’d searched for online to give to her as a present days before that. He sighed heavily, looking over his shoulder at his driver, who was watching Richard carefully.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her. Stella looked up at him, her blue eyes rimmed with red and her cheeks wet. She smiled a little and shrugged.

“I wanted to see you.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” was all he could respond with. It wasn’t what he felt, but it seemed like it was the appropriate response.

“I know,” she said. “But…but I’m here anyway.” She stood up, holding the marble up between her fingertips.

“I noticed that the marble doesn’t have a scratch on it,” she said with a little smile. “You bought this brand new, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “Days ago,” he said.

She chuckled. “Of course you did.” It was almost a whisper.

Richard found himself shifting his feet from one to the other nervously. Did she come there to yell at him? To throw the marble back in his face angrily and curse his attempts to explain himself? He didn’t know and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Can we talk?” she asked him.

Yes,he almost said. He stopped the word fast, clenching his jaw to prevent it from slipping out between his lips.

“There’s nothing left to say,” he said, finally.

“Oh,” she said, “I wouldn’t say that. Rumor has it that you really stepped down as CEO of your company.”

“It’s not a rumor,” he responded. “I told you--”

“I know,” she said quickly.

They both went silent, the pregnant pause hanging between them. “Is that why you’re here? Because I gave it all up. I told you, I wasn’t doing it for you.”

She chuckled a little. “I was on my way over here when I heard the announcement on the radio,” she said. “I heard you when you said you weren’t doing it for me. I also heard you when you said you loved me.”

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