Page 37 of Chosen By a Billionaire (Rags to Romance #24)

“I thought we were having the retirement party right here,” Jayda said as she and Harrison got into his limousine.

“You mean you thought my fight with Felix and your fight with Gweneth was a part of the fun?”

Jayda smiled. “You know what I mean.”

“No, this was just some of the people meeting at the house before we head over to the banquet hall. He has several hundred guests expected to attend.”

“Oh wow. He’s popular, hun?”

“He’s rich. They come for rich.”

Jayda nodded “Yeah, I get that.” Then she realized Vincent was still standing at the back passenger door. “What is he waiting on?”

“Father is going to ride with you and I, rather than alone in his own limousine.”

“Why not with Felix?” Jayda asked.

Harrison agreed. “You’ll have to ask him that question.”

“Why with us then? Do you think that gives you the edge?”

Harrison quickly shook his head. “Not in the least. You never know with my father. It could be as simple as the fact that he likes my limo better than his own.”

Jayda laughed. “But it’s not even yours, is it? Yours is back in New York.”

“No, I keep one at my condo in Portland. It’s mine,” said Harrison.

Jayda wanted to shake her head. How many cars did one man need? But she held her peace. It was a different world she was in, and she had better get used to it.

Then she thought about Gweneth. “Who did she cheat on you with?” she asked him.

There was a definite pause as if he didn’t want to relive that time.

“Was it Felix?”

Harrison quickly shook his head. “For once, no, it wasn’t Felix.”

Jayda wasn’t going to let it go. “Then who was it?”

“It was my father’s second wife. My stepmother.”

Jayda frowned. “His wife ? But . . .” Then Jayda frowned. “Gweneth is a lesbian?”

“I don’t know what that woman is. She’s a cheater. That’s all I know. And after I discovered it, I wanted no parts of her.”

“But you were in love with her at the time though, right?”

“Absolutely not. I didn’t know what love was back then.”

Jayda smiled. “I expected you to say you still don’t.”

“Oh I do now,” said Harrison with a smile. He held her hand. “I do now.”

Jayda continued smiling too. She wanted to ask more questions about Gweneth, but she didn’t go there. There were plenty of Gweneths in his past she was certain of it. She had to get used to that as well.

And then HB arrived and got in the backseat of Harrison’s limousine, facing them.

HB’s security detail was in the SUV behind them, followed by Felix’s limo that housed he, his wife, and the two couples that came with them.

Followed by Carter, Archie, and Dalton in their own limo.

And that entire convoy of vehicles was on its way to town.

Meanwhile Jayda was inwardly having a meltdown.

Sitting across from each other like that was the nearest she had ever gotten to Harrison’s father, and it was an unnerving experience.

Especially when he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of her.

She expected him to be like all the others in that circle and ask Harrison what hole he dug her out of too. Nonsense like that.

But that wasn’t how it turned out. “What’s your name?” he asked her.

It was in that moment that Harrison felt a great need to protect her. His father could have sharp knives too. “Her name is Jayda Robin--,” Harrison started saying, but his father cut him off.

“I’m asking the young lady.”

Jayda knew she had to get her nerves together. It was something about his gaze that reminded her of the first time she saw Harrison. There was an I’m better than you arrogance to it. “My name is Jayda Robinson. That’s Jayda with a y.”

HB didn’t ask for clarification. “How old are you, Jayda?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Harrison’s forty-one. That’s quite an age difference.”

Jayda realized that was the first time she knew Harrison’s exact age. Which was a couple years older than she had thought. “Yes sir,” was all she could say to that.

“What do you do for a living?” HB asked her.

That was the part where it would probably get nasty. It certainly did at Harrison’s dinner party. “I’m a food delivery driver by day and I wait tables by night.”

HB continued to stare at her as she waited for his putdowns. “So you’re a hustler?”

Harrison was offended. “She’s not a hustler.”

But Jayda wasn’t offended at all. “If hustling means doing whatever honest work I can get to pay my bills, then yes, sir, I’m a hustler.”

Harrison actually liked that response. He squeezed her hand.

“You can call it hustling or whatever you want,” she added.

“What do you call it?” HB asked her.

“I’m a survivor. I call it surviving.”

HB continued to stare at her. “As do I,” he replied.

Jayda was floored. He actually agreed with her? She looked at Harrison. She could tell he was floored, too, because he was staring at his father.

And then his father looked at him. “How have you been, Harrison?” he asked him.

It was the first time they had actually had a conversation. Harrison nodded his head. “I’ve been good. And you?”

“Oh I’ve been better. But I’m not dying anyway.”

“You’re not . . . What do you mean? I thought the doctors said--”

“Oh they said a lot of things. But I told them to try every experimental treatment they could find. My cancer is rare, so it needed a rare treatment in my view, not the standard courses. One of those treatments happened to work. We had to go all the way to Africa to get it, but it worked. Which means that as of this day I’m cancer-free. ”

“Oh Father!” Harrison said with an exhale of such relief that he leaned over and gave his father a hug.

Jayda was astounded. She’d never seen Harrison so emotional. And at first she could tell his father was super-stunned too. But then his father squeezed his eyes shut as Harrison hugged him. And then he returned Harrison’s hug.

“I wanted to tell you I was so sorry,” Harrison said to his father as they embraced, “but you wouldn’t receive my calls.”

“There was nothing to be sorry about,” said HB. “You weren’t the driver.”

Jayda could tell that such a statement surprised Harrison by the way he stopped embracing his father. “What do you mean? I thought you believed what they were saying.”

HB shook his head. “Not for a second. Not you. Felix maybe. But never you.”

“Then why didn’t you accept my calls?”

“Because I’m a stubborn bastard who was angry with you for allowing her to get behind the wheel of that car in the first place when you knew she was drinking too.”

“Father, I was plastered. I could barely stand up. I didn’t even know how I got in that car or who was driving or any of that until after the accident. How was I going to stop anybody else when I had no control over myself that night?”

For a few seconds they just stared at each other. Then HB looked away. But Harrison was still staring.

It seemed like the perfect time to ask, Jayda thought. “Why would Gweneth blame you for that accident?” she asked Harrison.

“Because it became a conspiracy theory in my stepmother’s family that got out of hand.

More people in our circles were believing the lie than the truth.

Even the police confirmed that I was in the backseat passed out, along with my then-girlfriend, and both of us had alcohol levels in our system that would not have allowed either one of us to drive two feet let alone ten miles before we crashed.

But they wanted to sue me for reckless endangerment or whatever it was and needed me to be guilty too. ”

“Did you settle the case?”

“I couldn’t. That would have confirmed the conspiracy. And I wasn’t going to do that ever.”

“But I settled the case,” HB said, “which angered him. That was why he didn’t try very hard to get in touch with me. A few attempts in four years wasn’t very difficult to do.”

Harrison said nothing to that. Which meant, to Jayda, that HB was probably telling the truth.

“Thank God you’re cancer-free,” Harrison said to his father instead. “That’s all that matters.”

HB considered Harrison. “You’re the only one,” he said.

“I’m the only one what?” asked Harrison.

“You’re the only one that ever gave a damn about me.”

Jayda was startled to hear such a thing. So was Harrison.

But then HB added: “But that doesn’t give you any advantage over Felix. I will make my decision of who will lead Bainbridge Oil based on the best man for the job. Nothing else.”

“As you should,” said Harrison without hesitation.

“I still might disqualify you for your attempt at subversiveness with that fake fiancée nonsense,” HB also said.

“Just so we’re clear,” said Harrison. “She’s not a fake fiancée. She’s my real fiancée.”

“So you say,” said HB. “But you were willing to say just the opposite a few days ago, yes?”

Harrison hated to admit it. “Yes.”

“And it really had nothing to do with your love for Bainbridge Oil. You need Bainbridge Oil to keep BCT afloat. Yes?”

Harrison had to admit that truth as well. “Yes,” he said.

“So you see there’s very little difference between you and Felix. Felix doesn’t try to hide his greed. You are the master at hiding yours.”

Both father and son stared at each other. It was a stinging indictment against Harrison to Jayda, but even she knew his father wasn’t wrong. Harrison was ruthless. In business, he was no shrinking violet. She knew who she was getting in bed with.

And Harrison was about to agree with his father when they all suddenly heard the front driver side window crash.

Desmond was struck with a bullet to the side of his head that immediately caused him to fall sideways unconscious.

And immediately thereafter, Vincent, who was attempting to pull out his gun, was struck by gunfire and fell over too.

And even as Vincent was falling, they could hear gunfire erupting behind them, as if the gunmen were trying to take out the security people first.

“Get down and stay down!” Harrison yelled at HB and Jayda as he tossed Desmond on top of Vincent and got behind the wheel of the now out of control limo. And he sped away from the others.

“Where’s it coming from?” HB was asking as he and Jayda got down to the floor.

“I have no idea!” Harrison responded as he was looking behind him and beside him for any signs of the gunmen.

But it wasn’t until Jayda looked behind her and slightly upward was she able to see the culprit.

And it frightened her even more. “It’s coming from a helicopter,” she yelled at Harrison. “There’s a helicopter just behind us trying to take out HB’s security detail!”

“Good Lord,” Harrison said, because he knew he couldn’t outrun a chopper.

And Jayda knew it too. That was why she quickly reached in front, trying to pull out the gun Vincent had attempt to retrieve before he was shot down.

Harrison was too busy trying to get as much real estate between his limo and the security detail behind them in that SUV and the other limos behind them.

He prayed the others were okay, but he knew his job was to get Jayda and his father out of harm’s way no matter what. He was flooring that limousine.

That was why he didn’t realize Jayda wasn’t down on the floor anymore, but was reaching for Vincent’s gun, until she had that gun in her hand.

“What are you doing?” Harrison yelled at her. “Didn’t I tell you to get down? Get your ass down and stay down, Jayda!”

But Jayda knew as soon as the helicopter finished off the men in that SUV, it was coming for their limousine. And somebody had to stop it.

Her father taught her how to shoot a gun when she was a little girl, but that was years ago. But she was hoping it was like riding a bike: it always came back to you.

And when she saw that chopper cause the security SUV to lose control, run off the road, and flip so hard that it was tearing apart, she got on her back on that floor and shot out the back windshield.

And as that chopper began flying toward them, she began shooting at that chopper, which caused it to swerve to the side of the limo rather than taking direct aim from the back.

When Harrison saw that Jayda was putting her life in danger, he slung the limo down side streets to lose the chopper, but the chopper stayed with them.

And when HB attempted to lift up his head to see what was happening, Jayda pushed back down.

“Stay down, HB!” she yelled at him as if she was his equal.

Or at least his protector. And in that moment she was.

HB quickly complied and got his head back down.

As Harrison sped down street after street attempting to shake the chopper, Jayda shot out the driver side window where the chopper had flown to and began shooting at that chopper from that angle.

But when it began flying lower in an effort to get that kill shot on Harrison the way they had done to Desmond and that SUV driver, Jayda waited.

She stopped firing. That was when she saw that there were only two men in that chopper: the gunman and the pilot.

And as soon as the pilot put that chopper down lower, and she could see that gunman aim his assault rifle ready to fire on Harrison, that was when she started firing on him with such velocity that she didn’t know if any of her bullets were connecting.

But when she saw the gunman fall out of the chopper, and the helicopter attempt to fly higher to get away from that limo, Jayda kept shooting until that pilot slumped over too.

The chopper went into a spin, and then a tailspin, and then crashed into a concrete barricade on the highway and split into pieces. And Harrison, taking no chances, sped straight to the hospital in case Vincent and Desmond stood a chance.

When they were clean out of harm’s way, HB sat up. And he looked at Jayda. Harrison was already looking at her, too, through the rearview mirror.

And both men were astonished. First at the fact that they got out of there alive given what they were up against. But mainly at the fact that it was because of Jayda’s quick thinking.

She said she was a survivor. She said she knew how to survive. And in that moment both Harrison and HB absolutely believed her.