Wild Billionaire Romance - Chapter 67: Chapter 67

JOSEF
Being in close proximity to Meredith was wreaking havoc with my entire being.
No, I wasn’t a virgin.
I wasn’t a kid.
And I hadn’t been chaste over the last fifteen fucking years.
But desire coursed through me like molten lava, melting my reserve and hardening my cock.
Fuck, I hadn’t felt that goddamn hard in years. If I didn’t calm down, I was likely to bust the seam of my too tight pants.
Why did she have to look so good?
Goddamn.
I craved this woman like I craved no other. Hungered for her even when she looked at me like she hated me.
That was okay. I could deal with her hatred. It would have been so much worse if she’d been indifferent.
Fact was, Meredith looked good.
Too damn good in her sedate dress with her hair wildfire pulled back from her face.
The dress was a little too big on her, bagging around her waist and arms where it should have been taken in by the dressmaker or seamstress. Her purse was scuffed, and her shoes were a different shade of gray.
The Meredith I knew had a keen fashion sense and dressed to enhance her full figure. She’d always had piles of money and an individuality I’d admired.
This Meredith was every bit as beautiful. Even more so.
I’d come there with a purpose. To bring her to heel.
But looking at her, I realized there was so much I didn’t know. Trying to remain aloof was a fighting battle.
My interest was piqued.
There was a storm brewing behind her eyes and whether it was made of the same stuff as the hurricane wild winds billowing inside of me, I didn’t know for sure yet.
But I wanted to find out.
I wouldn’t lie to myself. Not when it came to her. My blood burned when I looked at Meredith.
They said where there was smoke, there was fire. Well, I smelled smoke, alright.
Maybe it was time to check for fire.
MEREDITH
Anger hummed through my veins, and once again, I was really glad I wasn’t wearing a sweater.
The room felt very warm all of a sudden.
Sticky. Uncomfortable.
I shifted in my seat, aware of the stiff backed chair in a way I wished I wasn’t. I’d grown up with money and I was aware of corporate tactics.
Rooms like this were set up to make the opposing party feel nervous and ill at ease.
I felt downright fucking annoyed. I had no business being there. No dog in this fight, except that I cared about all those people who would suffer if I didn’t agree to sit there with a man I considered my sworn enemy.
A man who sat and glared at me like I was a blight on his pristine suit. Or something grotesque beneath a microscope.
This was not the man I knew fifteen years ago. That man wouldn’t be caught dead in a business meeting wearing a fucking tie.
This Josef was a stranger, and I needed to keep reminding myself of that fact.
Cold. Hard. Calculating.
But I wasn’t the same whimpering little miss anymore. If he thought he could bully me into saying or doing what he wanted, he was wrong. So wrong.
Fuck this man so much.
“Fine. The truth. After my eighteenth birthday,” I said, refusing to acknowledge Josef’s part in that fiasco. “I went to Europe. I made friends. Got a job. And I stayed there for almost nine years.”
“And then?” he prompted.
“And then, I came back to the states. To Washington D.C. first, then to Jersey City. My job had a new location and sent me there to do what I do, and I found a small apartment that suits me.”
“You stayed undiscovered for so long, how did he find you now?” Josef asked, and it was a good question.
“I don’t know that he looked. But I was using my mother’s maiden name in Europe. To return, I had to use my real passport, of course. Franklin must have had his detectives monitoring it.”
“Is that when he sent the investigator?”
“Yes. He sent his PI with a request, asking me to meet with him. I said no. The end.”
It wasn’t the end.
Not really.
But for all intents and purposes, it was as far as Josef was concerned.
He didn’t deserve my secrets.
But even as I acknowledged that to myself, I couldn’t help but replay the incident in my head.
He’d been clutching a notice from the bank in one hand, a glass of scotch in the other. The house was empty, except for the two of us.
The staff must have left around seven. Like they used to every night. The sprawling mansion in Morristown was exactly the same as I remembered.
Pompous and badly decorated, showing off Franklin’s wealth, and the fact he had no taste.
He’d earned his wealth over the years through wheeling and dealing, and other schemes I wanted nothing to do with. But the bulk of it had been inherited.
Money was such a fucked up thing.
We needed it to live, sure. It was a necessary part of life. But I wished it wasn’t.
Growing up rich was one of the banes of my existence. It had cost me the man I loved. Cost me my mother, too.
Greedy fragile thing.
She couldn’t stand her loveless marriage. She wasn’t cruel in the normal sense, but she never cared for me.
Not like a mother should.
Of course, I knew all about it now. Franklin had blamed her for the lie she told to get him to marry her, as was his right.
My stepfather didn’t like being tricked any more than my mother could stand not being adored.
I was just collateral damage.
I didn’t know when he’d decided to gift me to one of his business associates, to use my virginal status to seal a deal, but it was sometime during the summer he’d hired Josef Aziz for extra security.
That was the summer I turned eighteen.
The summer I fell in love and gave myself to a man for the first and only time.
I had no idea what my stepfather’s plans were, or that Josef was just using me. Unwise and too green to understand, I didn’t know that men had different motivations and intentions than women did.
But we really were fundamentally different.
I thought Josef loved me. I thought my stepfather was my father, and that he, too, loved me.
I’d been horribly wrong on both accounts.
The dark, nefarious plans Franklin Gray had for me still turned my stomach.
Oh, but I ruined those plans without even knowing about them. And even though it ended badly, I would not change a thing.
Josef might have broken my heart, but he’d saved me from a fate I believed to this day would have been much worse than death.
Josef didn’t know about that. I could tell by looking at him. And I wasn’t going to tell him now.
He doesn’t get my secrets. Good or bad.
I gave my virginity, my heart, my everything to Josef freely that summer, and he ruined me. But my stepfather’s plan to give me to one of his oily business partners was so much worse than my heartbreak.
At least, I’d always thought so.
But looking at him now, I had to wonder. Was it?
Pain lanced my heart at the memory. I gave Josef everything. But it wasn’t enough.
I wasn’t enough.
The sound of Franklin’s cruel laughter as he showed me proof of the payoff he’d given to my lover. A copy of the check he’d cashed that same day in the amount of twenty-five thousand dollars made out to Josef Aziz.
At least, I learned what I was worth.
Money really was the root of all evil. I was certain of it. I’d witnessed it firsthand.
Besides, if that old saying wasn’t true, why did so many people stitch it on pillows?
Money could turn people you thought you knew, people you loved, into absolute strangers.
I fucking hated my stepfather’s money.
But I was a hypocrite. Because his money had paid for my life for so long.
Even after I ran away, he put money in my account, and I did my best to not use it. I hated his money.
But maybe Franklin owed it to me after what he did. After his brutality had caused me to run. After he’d cost me the only thing I’d ever really wanted. After bribing Josef.
“It’s all over. Merry, I lost it all. The house. The cars. Everything, I lost everything, but worse, I lost you. Please forgive me. Your mother wouldn’t have wanted this. Forgive me,” he’d blurted when I walked into his office last night.
God, I always hated my stepfather’s office.
It was cold and unforgiving, all wood panels and black furniture. Like a coffin.
There’d always been something soul-destroying about that space. But I had no idea at the time that it would be the last place I’d see him alive.
“What are you talking about?”
I was confused and shocked by his haggard appearance. I hadn’t seen him in years and time hadn’t treated him well.
My modest living conditions over the past decade and a half made it so I wasn’t used to the opulence of my childhood home. I hardly even thought of that place.
So, I certainly wasn’t prepared at all for the pity I’d felt when I saw all the nothing his wealth and grandiose home had given Franklin.
He used to seem so big to me, the man I’d called father. But not since the summer I turned eighteen.
“I expect you to fulfill the terms of the loan by the close of business today,” Josef said finally, and I knew I’d lost.
He slid a copy of the contract my father had signed across the table to me, bumping it against the other documents his man had already given me.
But I made no move to touch it.
I didn’t have to read the letter to know he was telling the truth. My stepfather had taken an enormous risk, using the business, the house, everything really, as collateral to fund his latest scheme.
He lost, and the people who worked for Gray Corps would suffer because of it.
“Shit,” I said, lowering my gaze.
“There is another way, Meredith,” Josef said, calling my name, but I was too distraught for words.
“Really, What would that be, Josef? I’d give you everything I have in the bank, but it wouldn’t make a dent. God, all those people without jobs,” I muttered, putting my elbows on the table, and holding my head.
I couldn’t bear to think about it.
Desperate people did desperate things, and I’d spent much of my adult life trying to help those who found themselves in desperate situations.
I stood to leave, holding on to the back of the chair while I looked at the man I once knew for any sign of recognition.
But the old Josef was gone. I didn’t know whether to be glad for him or remorseful.
Just then, my cell phone chirped, and I took it out of my bag. It was the hospital.
“Hello?”
“Miss Gray, this is Dr. Montgomery, I am sorry to inform you, your father has expired.”
I closed my eyes, the weight of expectations sinking me to my knees.
My stepfather was dead. And now, the company would die, too. All those people would be fired. Countless lives ruined.
I failed.