Page 97 of My Big, Fat, Hot Billionaire Enemy

I refused him.

I chose… something different.

I choseLucy.

But the file still sits on my desk. A ticking time bomb. Richard Hammond’s fraudulent SPEs.

What the fuck do I do now?

Transparency. Trust.

That’s what I offered Lucy.

But this? Revealing this… it will shatter her. It will confirm her worst fears about her father, about the precariousness of everything she’s fighting for.

It might destroy any trust she has left in me, seeing me as the bearer of devastating news, inextricably linked to her family’s potential ruin.

Keeping it secret feels like a betrayal. Another layer of manipulation in a game already rife with it. If she finds out later, if Morgan or my father find another way to leak it… the fallout would be catastrophic. For the deal. For us.

But telling her now? While we’re just starting to build something real?

I don’t know if I can do it.

There’s no good option. Only varying degrees of disaster.

I pick up the file. The weight of it feels immense. The secrets inside are poison.

I have to tell her. At some point.

She deserves the truth.

Needs it to navigate what’s coming.

But when? How? How do I deliver a blow like this without becoming the Executioner she always feared I was?

Fuck.

30

Lucy

Okay, waking up alone in Christopher Blackwell’s bed, Take Two.

Apparently, the sleepy cuddling we managed in the Hamptons before that scaffolding emergency was a limited-time offer.

Or maybe there was another business fire requiring his immediate, brooding presence somewhere else this morning?

It’s hard to tell with him.

Maybe he just spontaneously combusted from excessive feelings?

At least this time he didn’t get yanked away by news of my company’s latest disaster… as far as I know. Still, just me again, tangled in ridiculously expensive sheets, with only the ghost of his intense cologne for company.

Maybe this is just standard billionaire operating procedure? Wake up, conquer the world, and leave the girl wondering if the Ice King persona has rebooted overnight?

Note to self: ask Ava if Gideon ever just… evaporates before dawn.

Still, could be worse.