Page 4 of My Ex’s Dad (Scandalous Billionaires #1)

Despite the appearance of this being an uptight office, we have a business casual dress code.

I probably don’t look like a CEO with jeans, a button-up black dress shirt, and tattoos revealed by the sleeves that I automatically rolled up as soon as I stepped out of the house and realized the blast of humidity that hadn’t let up for the past few days was still sticking around.

I grew my hair long in my twenties because my parents abhorred it, and now, I also keep a neatly trimmed beard.

I probably look more fit for a biker club than a board meeting, but then again, I’m lacking the leather, the boots, and the bike.

I’ve only gone so far to inspire my parents’ constant ire. I don’t have a death wish.

“I’m sorry, but I have to be brief.” Despite my effort to remain composed, I find myself fiddling with the button on my rolled-up sleeve. “This is my problem, how?”

Amalphia’s eyes practically cross. Her cheeks get even redder, and her hands clutch open and close, fingers flexing and releasing.

Maybe I do have a death wish.

“Reg never talked about you. I always got the vibe that you were a deadbeat dad who thought money could fix everything.”

She says this like she wants to hurt me, but she delivers it without heat. This is just a fact for her, though I do get the feeling that if the situation was different and she wasn’t here, frazzled and ripped straight from October of 1982, she’d wince at her own words and apologize for being mean.

“You’re one of those men who thinks they can throw big bucks at a problem, and it will just magically go away.”

I’m not going to comment on my relationship with my son or his mother. It hurts like getting impaled, and seriously, I’m not sure that’s anyone’s idea of a good time.

“Do you know how nervous a rescue dog can be?” Her voice suddenly goes shrill, rising another octave.

“Booty Sue has been howling nonstop! My grandma needs to use the bathroom every twenty minutes. My mom is the sweetest person you’ll ever meet, and even she’s getting peeved, and my dad is a wreck.

Also? I now have no job because after going to my apartment, the thugs tried my place of employment.

I don’t work on Sundays, so I didn’t have to call in, but I didn’t even think to warn anyone.

I guess that shortly after I left my apartment yesterday, those thugs threatened my boss.

She called to tell me not to bother coming in again.

It’s a family-friendly establishment, and those guys weren’t family, and they sure as farge weren’t friendly. ”

“I’m still uncertain what it is you want from me.” I walk over to the edge of my desk and perch there, hoping I seem less threatening but doubly hoping she’ll get the hint and wrap up whatever this is, fast .

Her eyes shoot so wide that she looks like a cartoon character.

In the lobby, she told Gerald everything, and he relayed it to me. She knows I heard. It seems pretty obvious what she needs, namely me fixing the huge mess Reginald somehow managed to create. Again.

Her lips purse out in a very accurate fish impression that causes me to fixate inappropriately on them.

“I’m not sure what isn’t understandable about your son and this hot mess I’m in.

Reginald stole every single cent my grandma and parents had, and that was after cleaning me out.

He got in deep with some people who aren’t going to take, oh, shoot, sorry, I can’t pay you, my bad, as a legitimate answer.

Because of him, I have lost my job and my savings.

My apartment is no longer safe. My parents have worked hard their whole lives, and they have nothing now.

My grandma can’t even afford her pills, let alone the nursing home fees.

My mom and dad might still have their jobs, but that’s not the point.

Your son is a fraud and a liar, and now he’s fled town and left us to deal with the fallout.

I could go to the police, but I’m coming to you first. Consider it a kindness.

I figured you wouldn’t want this story to get out. ”

Yup. Here we are at last, with ten minutes to spare before my meeting.

“Are you blackmailing me?” I deadpan, but I’m also completely serious. Obviously, that’s exactly what she’s doing.

“Uhh, I…don’t know. Maybe?” She throws her hands up in the air and shoots me a scorching look that makes my balls tighten uncomfortably. “No. Yes…I’m definitely blackmailing you.”

I’m struggling over here…struggling to keep a straight face. Struggling to conjure another campfire in my brain. I won’t need one soon. Not when this meeting is going straight to the dumpster-fire category.

Amalphia can tell. She’s a born actress, and she dials up the apparent rage, her face contorting, eyes lighting up, hands on her hips.

She has to know exactly how the pose pushes out her chest, defining the curve of her breasts, her small waist, and the muscles in her legs.

A determined flare that is hotter than any pose flashes in her eyes.

“If you don’t man up and do the right thing, including getting your son out of this trouble before he gets himself killed , then I’ll have no choice but to resort to threats. I apologize. I’m not that kind of person, but I’m desperate.”

She rakes her hand through her hair, making it stand up at odd angles even though it’s long. She truly does look wildly desperate with her flushed cheeks, heaving breaths, and rapidly blinking eyes that keep sweeping around the room.

“You want money.”

“Yes!” she shouts, exasperated.

“Just so we’re clear, how much?”

She pauses like this is some kind of trap. It’s not a trap. I’m not the one trying to back her into a corner. She came here with the intention of giving me this sob story and extorting money from me . She’s not the one who has a right to be wary.

“However much my parents and granny had.” She pauses, eyeing up the tattoos on my forearms. They’re bulging a little since I’m leaning on the desk with my arms taking most of my weight.

A trickle of adrenaline shoots through my bloodstream at the appreciation on her face that she just can’t hide.

It’s probably just part of the act, but my dick doesn’t care.

It twitches in my pants, giving me fair warning that I need to get out of this position. Immediately.

She swallows in slow motion and continues, “I don’t even know how much it was.

I haven’t asked them. I just know it’s gone .

We’re all freaking out and trying not to get our legs or necks snapped or whatever it is that more modern thugs break now.

It’s probably all the bones. I doubt they’re nice people.

We don’t get the family discount for being in this mess all together.

Are you listening to me? My granny is an eighty-two-year-old woman! She could have a heart attack!”

I give her a slow clap and stand. Seven minutes until my meeting. “As far as blackmail goes, I have to say, this is quite original. I’ve never been threatened with granny guilt before.”

“I’m not threatening you right now.”

“I’m sorry, that’s right. It’s your next step. Police and media and all.”

She swipes back a few of her curls in an errant motion that I realize is pure exasperation.

They just spring back right in front of her face.

“Are you going to pay me back what Reginald stole? Are you going to find him and bail him out? I know you said he was cut off, but this can’t count.

Not when it’s a life-or-death situation. ”

There it is. She just admitted the real reason she’s here. It’s not hard to discern the path this dramatic show traced before she showed up.

She might not have wanted to do this. I’d even bet money that Reginald put her up to this.

Or Candice. Either way, a plan was cooked up like a delicious tray of exotic cookies.

Something with peanut butter and chocolate.

It was up to her to put the chef’s kiss of perfection on that blackmail, but the oven is open, and all I see is something that’s overbaked, and it stinks. Like…like…

Oh, for shit’s sake, it’s Monday morning. Comparing this crap plan to anything is doing any food out there an injustice, including Brussels sprouts, and they’re about as stenchy a beast as I can conjure up at the moment.

“It seems like my son has made his own bed,” I state in a voice flatter than roadkill. “He’s an adult, raised far too liberally and without consequences. If it takes going to jail to get him to learn that there are consequences for his actions, then so be it.”

She stares back at me like I’m the unhinged stinking sprout that somehow mutated in the oven—don’t ask me how since chemistry is wild—and just busted out, looking for gooey, stinky, veggie vengeance. “You’re kidding me. You know what jail is like, don’t you?”

“I’m as serious as a thorn.”

“A thorn where ?”

“In a hard-to-reach place that would require an embarrassing X-ray and an even more mortifying surgery.”

“That sounds horrible,” she screeches. “You’re a monster! Don’t you even care about the black stain this will leave on your name?”

“It has nothing to do with me.”

“Bro! He’s your son! I know you don’t care, but that’s cold.”

I do care. I fought for Reginald for years.

I made a mistake. I was sixteen and thought I was in love.

I was used, played, and discarded. I’ve paid for that poor judgment for the past twenty-one years, not out of guilt, as my parents have, but out of what most people would probably incredulously term a misguided sense of decency.

I’m also well aware that the cameras in here are capturing everything, and this conversation isn’t private for my own protection.

I’ll have to have a discussion with Gerald after this.

Never mind, he’ll make sure nothing said in here sees the light of day.

It will be stored for legal purposes, but past security, I trust this is going nowhere.