Page 5 of My Ex’s Dad (Scandalous Billionaires #1)

“First, I’m not your bro.” I flick my phone screen. Two minutes until my meeting, which means wrap up and now . “Second, I might have been more inclined to help if you’d just asked for the money without trying to extort it dishonestly.”

Amalphia stumbles forward, her desperation kicking up a notch.

“I already said this was my last resort! Dishonesty?” She shakes her head so hard that her curls jiggle in slow motion.

“Just stroke a check, big guy, and I’ll be on my way.

You can certainly afford it. Your office is eighteen times the size of my parents’ house.

I did enough research on your family to figure out that you’re uber old-school rich. ”

“The term is old money, I believe.”

She’s done playing brave. Her soft eyes fill with tears, which gives her the innocent, doe-eyed expression that has very likely served her well in life. I said she was pretty, but it’s beyond that. She’s stunning, actually.

I might want to laugh this whole thing off, including the slow-burn anger and injustice that’s pummeling my guts like bad street meat, but I find myself without enough breath to do so.

Amalphia steps into my space. I hold my ground because that’s what you do in a battle of wills, but she’s close enough that I can smell her unique scent.

Something calming. Green tea. “I just want what’s mine.

” There’s a pleading note in her voice now.

“My money, my granny’s money, my parents’ money,” Her hands ball into fists.

“And for you to get Reginald out of whatever trouble he’s in by paying off those thugs however much he owes. ”

I’m silent for far too long. The minutes are ticking away, and I’m going to be more than fashionably late for this meeting.

“Be a good human being,” she implores.

That’s too much. The straw that breaks my poor old clichéd camel’s back.

I know for a fact that I’ve done my fair share of shutting up, taking it, and still trying not to lose hope and be kind.

I took Reginald’s mother as a one-off and have never let the rest of the world shoulder the weight of her betrayal.

Even after getting burned, I’ve tried to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

“You have no idea who I am or what I’ve done with my life,” I seethe, anything but bored, distant, and impartial.

She looks way up at me because we’re standing far too close, and I’m so much taller than she is. She’s not going to apologize. “You might not care if I become a mushy goo pile of destroyed bones this and non-functioning that, but you have to care about—”

“This conversation is becoming cyclical, and I have a meeting to get to, so…”

She’s incredulous. She can’t believe her little sappy song and dance act of horror and woe is this and broken bones that isn’t going to work.

I’m going to have to clarify, even if it makes me a total douchecanoe. I do still get a shiver of repulsion at the unfairness of getting thought of that way when I’ve done nothing to earn it.

“Did you think you could just come in here with this wild story and that I’d stroke you a check?

This isn’t my first rodeo, and now that I’ve cut Reg and Candice off, they’re feeling it.

I have no doubt you spent a good amount of time concocting this story.

You’re even a half-convincing actress. Congrats on being vastly more entertaining than any of the drudgery I’ve watched anywhere in the past few months. I’m sorry, but the answer is no.”

“What? Reg and—no! We’re not even dating anymore. This is a very clear breakup. It should have happened a long time ago. Way before he ever had the chance to do this.” She bites down on her bottom lip, which sends an unexpected shower of sparks through me.

What is wrong with me that my junk is taking over my brain and shouting at me to be a hero and fight the bad guys for this woman?

“I have proof! I can show you my bank account!”

She fumbles in her pumpkin bag for something, probably her phone, but the zipper jams. She curses under her breath and tugs harder.

“You have an account that money appears to have been moved out of? It’s easy enough to give Reginald the password so he could move the money out and make it look legit.”

Her head snaps up. She’s all fire and brimstone now, still half in disbelief but shooting flames like a souped-up tractor. What ? I was doomscrolling shorts last night. I saw things. Honestly, it’s absolutely stupefying how beautiful she looks when she’s righteously angry.

“They’re going to break. My. Freaking. Bones. And. Feed. Me. To. The. Fishes. I’m not talking about my mom’s sweet old goldfish either. Serious fish. This isn’t a joke! It’s not a freaking drill. I’m not in on this with Reg.”

“Then go to the police. Give them your non-existent proof and ask them for help. If they deem your story has merit, they’ll protect you.”

Calling security to remove her is distasteful, and I feel like a total cheeseball Chad when I circle my desk, pick up the receiver, and punch in 929, our internal code.

“Gerald here,” he answers within a fraction of a second.

“Would you be so kind as to escort Amalphia…” I don’t know her last name, and there’s an awkward pause before I continue, “…Miss Amalphia back down to the lobby, please?”

“Sure, boss. Can I come in?”

If there’s one thing I hate more than Brussels sprouts and blackmail, it’s when people call me boss. I have to bite down on a laugh, though, when I realize that, of course, Gerald is just outside the closed door. He never left.

“Please,” I answer.

“Ugh!” Amalphia shoots a stabby finger in my direction. “You’re worse than…than…than soggy vegetables, liver, and bog farts!”

I have to say I’m impressed Reg put this together. Or not so impressed, given the whole thing was very likely cooked up by his mother.

“Bad people should come with warning symbols, not beautiful faces!” Amalphia yelps as the door opens, and Gerald steps in. “The world would be a vastly improved place!”

The backward compliment still makes me feel shaken and goddamn stirred.

It’s bizarre, given there hasn’t been a woman who has elicited such a response in me since I was sixteen and shut it down for good. Apparently, curly hair, wild eyes, eighties getups, and pumpkin purses are my weak spots.

“I don’t disagree.” I manage, somehow, to sound like I’m not eighty-five-point-nine-thousand degrees of boiling desire warring with confusion on the inside. “I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful. I sincerely hope you find what you’re looking for. Word to the wise, it won’t be with my son.”

Sadly, Reginald takes after his mother. He doesn’t have a bone in his body that isn’t self-absorbed.

I’m not throwing myself down the rabbit hole of wishing things could be different again or wondering what Reginald would have been like if I could have been involved in raising him.

I could have fought harder, but it wasn’t just a matter of court.

It was the damage Candice threatened to do to her own son in order to get her way.

My opinion of his attitude very likely isn’t even relevant. I’ve doubted it until today when this woman’s performance confirmed it.

Gerald holds out a hand and makes a sweeping motion that says this way, please, let’s not make a scene here; it’ll all be alright.

She scowls at me as she turns, but it’s clearly not enough. She flips me the bird over her shoulder at the last minute, right before the door closes.

Then, it flings back open to a grunt of, “Miss, please!”

Amalphia sticks her head around the crack. “Can I at least borrow twenty dollars? I have no money to get back home.”

I’m assuming she means Harrisburg, but really, it could be anywhere. The last update I heard from Candice on Reg’s whereabouts was four months ago when she was due to give me one.

A nasty sensation that feels like inhaling pungent smoke grips my chest and trickles down into my belly. No. I refuse to consider this. It’s just an encore to the main act.

“I’m sorry, no.”

“Right. Any amount of money is only enabling.” She screws up her face. “So…I guess asking for a job since I’ve been fired from mine is out of the question?”

“Come with me!” Gerald practically pleads.

“I’ll go when I’m good and ready,” Amalphia snaps, but she doesn’t snarl, stomp her foot, or make a production of it as Gerald puts a hand behind her back without touching her and corrals her away from the door.

“If you come now, I’ll see what I can do about getting you some money for gas.”

I sigh and make a mental note to reimburse Gerald later.

The money will be coming out of his own pocket.

He’s a bleeding heart, easily taken in by ruses.

He’s a better man than I am. He cares about people at a level that’s almost unfathomable to me.

He doesn’t just work here. Aside from having a large family with kids that aren’t even his, he volunteers at a soup kitchen in the heart of the city and is involved with several inner-city youth programs.

Once Gerald wrangles Amalphia out without so much as touching her and closes the door tightly behind him, I snatch up the folders I need for my meeting, grab my phone, and walk briskly down the hall, now probably twenty minutes late.

Coffee will only hold out so long. Everyone is probably that extra degree of surly that no amount of apologizing will make up for.

It’s not until late afternoon when the question I’ve been trying to push to the fringes of my mind finally explodes in flashing neon behind my eyes.

What if Amalphia wasn’t lying?

I ruminate on that rather uncomfortably as if that thorn has lodged itself in my own hard-to-reach, sun-don’t-shine spot. A sick feeling churns in my gut. I was so convinced the whole thing was an exceptional act, but what if ? What if it was so exceptionally good because it was real ?

I had to calm down long enough to see it, but now that I’ve gone there in my head, I can’t tunnel my way out. All I can hear and see is a young woman pleading with me to save the people she cares about from the bone-breaking fish feeders.

It was an act. It had to be.

But what if it wasn’t?

Thinking about it makes my chest do something I don’t like. It takes me an extra half an hour, but I do something I very rarely do and usually need to psych myself up to a tremendous degree for.

I call Candice.