Page 108 of My Big, Fat, Hot Billionaire Enemy

I lean against him, just breathing for a second, letting the stress of the morning seep away. His hand rubs my back soothingly.

Okay, maybe billionaire hugs are a thing.

“You visited Dad yet?” I ask, pulling back slightly.

“Briefly. Dr. Finch updated me. He’s resting comfortably.”

I nod, relieved. “I should check on him.”

Dad is asleep when I peek into his room, looking peaceful for the first time in ages. The steady beep of the monitor is a reassuring rhythm.

I lean down and kiss his forehead gently.

“We got this, Dad,” I whisper. “Just get better.”

Back in the waiting room, Christopher is seated at the small table, his tablet open again. Back to business.

“What did he say?” Christopher asks.

“He’s sleeping,” I tell him. “Didn’t have the heart to wake him.”

“Have a seat,” Christopher says, his tone shifting back to strategic focus, though the warmth remains in his eyes. “So. Neutralizing the SPEs. My forensic accounting team is on standby. We need to authorize their engagement, give them access. Quietly. The sooner they map the extent of this, the sooner we control the narrative.”

We spend the next hour talking strategy. Real strategy. Not adversaries sizing each other up, but partners dissecting a shared problem. He listens to my insights on Hammond’s internal structures, I absorb his ruthless efficiency in planning the financial deep dive. It feels… right. Working alongside him, tackling this mess together.

Looking at him now, focused and intense as he outlines the steps for unwinding Dad’s disastrous creations without triggering alarms, I realize how far we’ve come. From that disastrous tech expo encounter with the humping robot dogs, through suspicion and takeovers and unexpected kisses, to this. Sitting in a hospital waiting room, planning how to save my family’s company while navigating my father’s potentially criminal mistakes.

Somehow, impossibly, Christopher Blackwell has become the person I trust most. With Hammond & Co.’s precarious future. With my father’s vulnerable secrets. And, terrifyingly enough, with my own heart.

The thought should send me running for the hills.

Instead, looking at the man who chose loyalty over leverage, who believes in me more than I believe in myself…

It just makes me want to lean in closer.

We still have a mountain to climb, littered with landmines planted by Morgan and maybe even Mark Blackwell, his father.

But for the first time, it doesn’t feel insurmountable.

33

Christopher

The glare off the polished surface of the boardroom table is fucking blinding. Or maybe it’s just the collective heat radiating from my executive team.

Hostility disguised as prudent concern.

Fucking predictable.

“With all due respect, Christopher,” Sarah Chan begins, her voice tight despite its usual smooth modulation, “these revised terms for the Hammond partnership… they’re exceptionally generous. Too generous. The equity split alone gives them far more leverage than their current financial position warrants. The operational autonomy granted to Ms. Hammond, while she’s only interim CEO…” She trails off, letting the implication hang there.

She’s implying Lucy is unqualified, a temporary placeholder we shouldn’t be betting the farm on.

“It exposes Blackwell Innovations to significant downside risk,” David Smith, chimes in immediately. Always eager to prove his worth by identifying problems. “If Hammond & Co. can’t stabilize quicklyunder her leadership, or if further… legacy issues… emerge during due diligence…” Legacy issues. A nice corporate euphemism for Richard Hammond’s creative accounting.

The board hasn’t found out about the potentially fraudulent SPEs, as far as I can tell.

Not yet, anyway. That would end the deal right here, right now. But my father won’t pull that card, not until he’s milked Hammond & Co. dry.