Page 60 of Triplet Babies for My Billionaire Boss

Mark pulled a face as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. “So, you’re going to fund someone that’s willing to do something like this? She’s half his age.”

The investors shifted in their chairs, uncomfortable.

“It’s not illegal,” Gallagher said. “There are a lot of older men with younger wives or girlfriends out there. If we rejected them for that alone, we would lose many a good man.”

Mark narrowed his eyes at Gallagher. “You’re a fool,” he said. “You all are.”

“Might I point out that this is the first scandal Rodney has been involved in?” Holt asked. “He has had a clean slate until now, which is saying something, considering the publicity he gets from time to time.”

“And we’re still profiting,” Gallagher added, and all the investors agreed. “Jones has had a rise, and we’re not pulling out. It would be foolish to pull out after we’ve seen the numbers and seen how we stand to gain.”

Mark shook his head, giving up. He was done with the conversation, and I was relieved. Mark’s fury was personal, and I didn’t like that he tried to draw my business into it.

“I trust all of this is behind us now,” Gallagher said to me. “Keep up the good work.”

He stood to leave, the meeting adjourned, and the others followed suit. They left the boardroom one by one until it was only me and Mark, like it had always been. But this time, there was a wedge between us. We were on opposite sides of a line, and it wasn’t the same as it had been at all.

“Mark,” I said. “Can we talk about this?”

“What do you want to talk about?” Mark asked. “How you fucked my daughter behind my back? She’s a child, Rodney. We were friends, for God’s sake. What the hell were you thinking?”

I shook my head. “I know you’re angry, but you know what it’s like to be in love. Remember what it was like with Nina.”

Nina and Mark had come from different financial backgrounds, and their relationship hadn’t exactly been smooth sailing.

“She’s my age, Rodney.”

I sighed. Mark wasn’t going to let the age thing go. I had, and Danielle had. I hoped everyone else would, too. But Danielle was Mark’s little girl. I guessed I couldn’t blame him.

“Was it worth it?” Mark asked.

“What?” I asked.

“Throwing our entire friendship away?”

I shook my head. “Don’t do this,” I said. “Don’t make it look like I chose one over the other. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

Mark laughed bitterly. “You think you can have everything just because you want it. Well, it doesn’t work that way. I would tell you to choose between her or me, but you’ve already done that. I’m not going to stand by and watch you sink yourself and ruin my daughter’s life.”

He walked toward the door. “We had a good run, Hot Rod. Pity you had to fuck it up when we were in the home stretch.”

He said the last over his shoulder without looking at me. I couldn’t respond before he slammed the door behind him, and I was alone in the boardroom with his words clawing at me as if he hadn’t already left.

---