Page 32 of Faking it with My Billionaire Bosses

I growled. “This is fucking stupid.”

“Samantha told me the three of you seem insistent about dating Ms. Morgan. If that’s the case, I suggest the three of you date her separately. Let the public see each of you spending one on one time with her. We can make a relationship like this work if we play it right.” Paul tapped his fingers together and then sat forward. “Honestly, it could work beautifully. The public has ashort attention span. If we run with this story, it’ll be less for them to focus on. They’ll only have one woman to dig through. And when you’re done with this, we can just have it look as if Ms. Morgan left all three of you heartbroken. That’ll buy you another couple of years of not bothering with dating if you’re so against it.”

“You’d make it look like Sonnie hurt us?” I really didn’t like the sound of that.

“Yes, of course. The optics would be great. If it seemed like the three of you had hurt her, the public would hate you. The three of you would look like bullies who teamed up on a poor woman to hurt her. But if she hurts you, you look like three men who were willing to sacrifice and love the same woman, just for her to stab you in the back and leave you broken.”

“No fucking way.” Drake shook his head. “We would never be okay with throwing her under the bus like that.”

“You may not have an option.” Paul shrugged. “Either you get rid of her now and we release a statement that your private sex lives aren’t up for debate or you get rid of her later and we release a statement saying you’re heartbroken over your split with Ms. Morgan but you wish her nothing but the best. Blah, blah, blah. You know how this shit works. If you get rid of her now, you’ll still need to separately date.”

I ground my teeth together and glared at the man. He’d been emboldened since our last meeting and I could feel Samantha’s influence all over him. “Or we do neither of those things and fire you.”

Drake grunted. “I like that option, too.”

“Your manager hired me. She would need to fire me. She’s very supportive of this plan. She wants the best for you and your brand. If you insist on having Ms. Morgan in your life, you have to know it won’t end well for her. You have a business worth hundreds of millions. You have assets to protect. Your brandfeeds and homes the people you employ. That’s a little more important than Ms. Morgan, if you ask me. Samantha and I will do what we have to in order to protect your brand.”

I wanted to break his jaw. “We’re not going to throw Sonnie out like the trash. We’ll be sure to protect her.”

“At the cost of your employees’ livelihoods?”

The three of us were quiet because that question was loaded. We had a responsibility to protect our employees. Their jobs mattered. We’d made it part of our business plan to open locations in places that didn’t have enough resources for all of its citizens. We hired a full staff and paid them well when there were no other jobs available for them in the community. Without Trio, so many people would’ve lost everything.

“That’s what I thought. This isn’t about you, or Ms. Morgan. It’s about protecting your brand because your brand matters in keeping people employed. If it comes down to it, I’d hope you’d pick your thousands of employees over one woman.”

More pissed than ever, I slammed my hand on the table and glared at him. “Figure it out so it doesn’t come down to that.”

“I’ll do what I can.” Paul sighed. “Please don’t make any more statements to the press without them being approved by me or your manager. I understand tensions are high, but we have to be strategic about this.”

Cole pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. “What are we supposed to do? Let this ruin a woman’s life while we sit by and don’t say anything?”

“Her life will hardly be ruined.” Paul shook his head. “There’s an avenue for women who get themselves caught up in these situations.”

“Women who get themselves caught up in these situations?” Drake’s voice was dangerously low.

Samantha strolled in at that moment and looked at the three of us sitting with dark scowls on our faces. “Jesus. Are you stillthrowing a tantrum over the girl? I thought she’d be out of your system by now. Just go back home and fuck her a few more times so we can tell the press she’s no one and go back to business as usual.”

I stood up and moved towards the door. “Fuck you very much as usual, Samantha. You too, Paul.”

“Oh, lighten up!” She looked at Drake and Cole and rolled her eyes. “No wonder you two didn’t invite him to our tryst before. He’s so uptight.”

Her words went over me like knives but I didn’t stop to give her a reaction. I was shaking with anger by the time I got to the elevator and jabbed the button. Cole and Drake were behind me, giving me space, and I decided it was smart of them because I wanted to punch both of them right then.

They followed me into the elevator and Drake pushed the stop button almost immediately. He met my gaze and swore. “Fuck. We should’ve told you but neither of us were proud of that shit, Price.”

I ran a hand over my mouth and shook my head. “We don’t keep secrets from each other. Yet, you two managed to tag team your ex-wife and not mention it?”

Cole groaned. “Stop. We really were drunk as shit, Price. It’s not a proud moment for either of us. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you.”

“Me, too. I’m sorry. It was a couple of years after the divorce and I was embarrassed I’d let it happen. After all the shit she put me through, I was ashamed. Hell, the shit she put all of us through.”

I threw up my hands. “It’s fine. I just… I’m just fucking angry. They’re backing us into a corner. They’re killing whatever we have with Sonnie before we even get to have it.”

“Fuck that.” Cole scowled. “They don’t control our personal lives. There’s something there with Sonnie. They don’t get todecide that there isn’t. I’m not throwing away a chance at something real with her.”

“Our other option is to chance having Paul and Samantha paint her out to be a monster who hurt us. She wouldn’t bounce back from that.” I tugged at my hair and leaned against the elevator wall. “A public hate mob would go after her. Is that something we’re really willing to risk?”

Drake looked away and blew out a heavy sigh. “Things could work out.”

---