Page 2 of My Ex’s Dad (Scandalous Billionaires #1)

“A shitty one!” I snap his phone off and try to shove it in my pocket, but he’s too fast. He snatches it back. Ugh, so much for the evidence.

“Reginald,” I press, trying to force air through my nose. “I need to calm down, and while I’m breathing, I need you to tell me exactly how much of this is true.”

“Oh.” He cracks a relieved smile. “That’s easy.” Here it is. Typical Reg. The whole world is one big ha fucking ha. “All of it.”

My stomach crashes straight to my toes, which I think is probably bad for digestion.

“How?! How could you have stolen money from me, my parents, and my granny?” I splutter, but there’s no way I’m not having this out.

“She’s in a nursing home! Don’t you have any shame?

How could you have told a bunch of thugs that I’m rich?

I’m not rich. It’s the other way around. Your family has all the money!”

“My dad cut my mom off a few months ago. That’s when I made it my business to figure out your banking shit, and I’m sorry, but your parents and granny’s computers are just way too easy to get onto. They have their passwords saved. They didn’t even notice when I reset them and resaved them.”

“They’re old! They can’t remember everything.

How could you do this? My parents have worked so hard and have almost nothing to show for it.

My grandma has the nursing home to pay for, plus there’s all the medications that she needs.

” I don’t need to say anything on my behalf about how hard I’ve worked for the meager savings I have.

Had .

I’m going to stroke out. Right here, right now. This is how I die.

No. This is not how you die, Amalphia Marisan Winthrope. You are stronger than this. Mega muscle power to match the mega pep-talk voice. That’s me. I’ve just been dying for your brain to need me, and here I am. He is not going to win. He won’t get away with this.

I wish the voice in my head were less of a cheesy victim from every shitty situation in every horrible movie ever. This can’t be me. I can’t be the first person to die in this horror.

“You need to get out of here,” Reg warns, and cue the horrible crashing of my brain back into reality. “Those thugs are going to come looking for me, and when they find out I lied to them…”

“They’re coming here?” I squeak. “You led them right to me, and you’re just going to bail?”

“I did come to give you a warning. I could have just fled the scene. I came back here. That has to count for something. I wasted valuable time when I could have been fleeing. I should have just called, but that seemed like a cowardly thing to do.”

There’s no guru on earth who could help me breathe through this.

Judging from the worried look on Reg’s face, he’s weighing just how smart it is to still be standing here. Luckily, he chose the living room, and there weren’t many sharp objects to hand.

“Okay, well…I’m sorry. Really, I am, but I have to peace out now.”

He shoves his phone back into his jeans and dodges straight to the TV.

One sharp yank frees his game console. I’m too stunned to even process it as he shoves it into a reusable grocery bag—my bag with the goofy cat heads all over it—and rams in controllers and games.

He slings it over his shoulder like a villainous reverse Santa and races out of the apartment.

He doesn’t even bother to shut the door behind him.

When I get myself together enough to check it, it’s gaping open.

Why bother shutting and locking it? That’s not going to keep the kind of men who are after him out of my life.

It’s not going to stop them from coming after me, and when they find out I don’t have the money?

What are they going to do? Break my legs?

Do they even still do that? I can think of at least ten things that would be worse and a thousand other ways of terrifying and haunting a person.

How did I not see this coming?

Okay, not this specifically, because who on earth would think something like this could ever be a real thing? But why didn’t I kick Reg out of my life months ago? Am I really so weak and stupid that—

No .

I am not playing the victim game.

Not right now. This situation doesn’t call for weak ass waterworks and self-blame.

There’s no magic time machine I can stuff myself into to go back and minimize the regret of my last four years.

If I’d never met my ex, there never would have been a Reg.

I’m so freaking sure about that. If only I could go find twenty-year-old me and warn her to steer clear.

I’d buy her some fantastic vibrators and tell her to have a blast. Stay single at ALL FREAKING COSTS.

And never, ever allow another person near your family’s home computers.

Fuck. Fuck my life.

I said I wasn’t going there, but my brain is on a vicious loop, trending into one holy hell of a downward spiral. All I can think about is my family. My parents. My poor granny. If I don’t make this right, it’s not just my life that is going to be ruined beyond repair.

What would I do if I was a master villain?

I never thought I’d be uttering that statement, even in my mind, but here I am.

I’d outsmart Reg and beat him at his own game.

I’d see his amateur hour and raise it with the blackest pitch of evil.

Oh, yes. This is sweet, innocent, na?ve, kicked when I’m already down Amalphia entering her villain era.

See how bad this is? Now, I’m thinking about myself in the third person.

I expect some sort of crashing music to come blasting through the apartment or a sudden eclipse of the sun outside, but nope.

It’s silent in here other than the fridge buzzing annoyingly like it always does and all the regular weekend apartment noises when everyone is home.

It’s still Sunday afternoon. Time hasn’t changed.

The sun didn’t fall from the sky, and it’s not raining blood.

No pentagram magically appeared on the floor, and no demons have been summoned.

I breathe out a sigh of relief. For a second there, I was worried I’d sold my soul.

Then again, if it would help…

There’s a pink pad of paper on the fridge with a cartoon cat on top and flower boards along the sides and bottom.

The pen at the side fits into a little plastic holder.

I tear off a sheet, click the pen open, and slam my ass down on the old floral chair at the seventies table.

It’s seen prettier days, but it used to belong to my grandma.

When she had to downsize to move into the nursing home, I took as much of her furniture as I could cram into this miniscule apartment.

Nostalgia is a thing for me. This table played a starring role in my childhood.

I couldn’t let it go to a thrift store or, worse, some dumpster when they deemed it not good enough to sell.

Brainstorming is laughable right now, but I jot down the first solutions that come to mind.

Find someone who deals in soul contracts.

I cross that off immediately. It’s not realistic. Curses and magic, if they are a thing, aren’t something I can start dabbling in now . I need a much more immediate, realistic solution.

Take out a loan.

Except who would give me one? I couldn’t even qualify for a mortgage on my waitress’ salary. I tried. Several times. I doubt the local loan marts are going to lend me more than five hundred bucks, and I’m sure whatever Reg owes is much, much more.

How does one even find an underground fight club slash casino? Seriously. WTF, with all the emphasis on the F.

Borrow from a friend.

Okay, that’s not a great solution, seeing as all my friends are pretty much as broke as I am. But then the little human brain lightbulb thing pings off like an alarm inside my skull.

Find Reg’s rich dad and get him to pay what his son owes.

I literally put it in writing like I’m scared the words might just vaporize out of my brain and cease to be.

Reg’s mom whined a few months ago about getting cut off.

Something about Reg aging out, not living at home anymore, and not choosing to pursue college.

At the time, I was trying to tune her out.

Cotton balls stuffed deep into ear canals and doubling up with noise-canceling headphones wouldn’t have been enough to tune her out.

Right now might be the only time I’ve ever been glad for it.

I used to feel sorry for Reg having to basically parent his mom.

Maybe I still do. If she’d raised him like a mom instead of…

well, okay, I’m not judging, but he didn’t have much of a parental influence in his life.

It’s hard to feel any kind of sympathy for him now that he’s waved his true colors right in my face to the tune of destroying my life and my family’s lives right along with it.

Walking bundle of red flags much?

Alas, it’s too late for foresight. No, I wish. Hindsight, I mean.

Any sight.

How does one go about finding one’s ex-boyfriend’s father?

I drop my head into my hands and rack my barely functioning brain for any mention Reg ever made of his dad. Namely, a name.

I pretty much have a photographic memory, and it’s like scrolling back up a screen, going back through old saved videos, and busting out old photos.

I’m nowhere near the level some people are, but that’s the way I store memories.

It’s not a neat filing cabinet by any means.

More like a chaotic hot mess that’s been thrown into disarray by the fact that I’m sitting here in this chair and sweating out half my body weight in perspiration at the thought of burly thugs coming and tearing me limb from limb at any minute.

I shoot up and grab my car keys. It would be best not to be here right now. I can think in the car. I’ll also have to phone my parents, confess this whole terrible thing to them, and warn them, too, in case anyone shows up at their house.

I’m going to drive straight to the nursing home. I might have to put them on high alert. I’ll have to confess to my poor, lovely, sweet, wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly-for-all-the-world granny that her life savings are probably gone.

I swallow back bile as I grab my keys and my purse. It’s a bad time to remember that my gas tank is on E. It’s always on E. Do I even have a single dollar left to my name?

I rummage frantically around in my purse and find a crumpled twenty. I nearly fall to the ground with relief. It won’t get me far, but it’s a whole lot better than nothing.

I lock up my apartment and race down the stairs, only letting out a shaky, trembling breath when I’m safe behind the wheel of my car with the doors locked. I’m trembling so badly that I need to take a minute and calm down.

Stream some chill beats or something.

I take my phone out of my purse, and my fingers leave sweaty marks on the screen that make me want to gag.

Actually, I just want to gag about everything right now. This whole day? It’s pretty much a straight projectile vomit of life dumped right on top of me, and I’m usually a no-thank-you type of girl when it comes to dealing with puke.

Before I can even slide to get the screen on and find my music streaming app, a name floats into my brain.

You think your name is bad? Try having to go through life with Warrick Beanbottom.

Sounds enchanted, right? More like a failed wizard who now sits at home all alone and smells the gnarly farts of every failed spell.

Not so happily ever after and not magical.

It’s a deadbeat name for a deadbeat sperm donor.

Thank god I got my mom’s last name. At least he pays his guilt payments to my mom every month.

He’s never missed a payment, and they’re not small.

I’ll give him that. But do you really care when your family is richer than god?

Asshole. I hope he turns himself into a toad one day.

I thought Reg was just venting that day. He didn’t usually talk about his dad, and neither did his mom. There was just that one time where it was more than a word or a sentence in passing. Even when they were cut off, they whined more about that than mentioning who did the axing of their funding.

I nearly drop my phone in my excitement at having my brain finally do some proper braining.

There can’t be that many people with the name Warrick Beanbottom in Harrisburg, can there? The city has fifty thousand people. The odds are probably in my favor.

Who says he lives here or even in Pennsylvania?

Okay, brain, now is so not the time to get down on yourself.

I type the name into my phone and hit search. Then, I screw my eyes shut tight.

I get exactly one result. I follow the name to a robotics page.

I can’t really even figure out what the company does, but my head is a scrambled, goopy mess right now.

I hit the company directory, and there he is.

Warrick Beanbottom, CEO. There’s no photo anywhere, and there certainly aren’t any private addresses.

If I had tons of money, the first thing I would do is protect my privacy. I wouldn’t be listing my private address either. Good lord, I wouldn’t want to do that now, but if I had the funds, I could pay to make sure no one showed up at my doorstep.

Nasty thugs wanting to break my bones, for one.

My car is fifteen years old, a tiny little jellybean in sky blue. It’s great on gas, and I mean GREAT in screaming capitals. I can drive on a thirty-dollar tank for weeks.

Pittsburgh is only about three and a half hours away. It might be a Sunday, but I’ll sleep in my car if I have to. I’ll call my parents right away and let them know everything. I’ll tell them that I’m fixing this, and I’ll promise them that they don’t have to worry.

I have a name and an address.

I just hope it’s the right one and that I can somehow beg, cajole, or force my way into a massive corporate office.

I might have to make threats, which blows my mind because I’m far too sweet to even generally think of ever hurting another person or making vague promises about it, but desperate times and all that.

I don’t have any other choice.

This is probably my only hope.