Page 7 of The Elusive Billionaire

“Why am I the asshole again?” I couldn’t tear my attention away from Savvy if I tried.

“Because you’re still secretly trying to get a baby via surrogacy instead of putting yourself out there and finding a loving, stable relationship with some nice girl,” Sage says, joining us. “Someone like Savvy, maybe.”

Jesus Christ. Not this again. Why did I ever blurt my innermost wish to a crowd full of dickheads? I should have just shown up one day with my baby in tow instead of filling them in on my intentions to have a child of my own—my way.

And Savvy is not a nice girl. She’s the spawn of the devil…and sexy as sin.

My so-called friends laugh with Sage, but I’m saved from more hazing when Savvy’s phone pings. Shuffling all the shit in my hands, I turn her phone over.

She has a new email notification, but also…

No.

Just…no.

This can’t be happening. It…can’t.

Using the palm of my hand, I press hard into my eyeballs because I’m seeing things—hallucinating from the cold, maybe. That’s possible, right? But when I remove my hand and blink rapidly, Savvy’s screen doesn’t change. There’s an older notification too.

New message from ChasingColors42

My fingers are stiff as I type in her passcode. It takes me three tries to get it right, but when I do, the ground sways beneath my feet.

Without remorse, I find and open the app for Ray of Hope, the surrogacy center I’ve been working with.

The guilt I’ve been carrying morphs into something much darker, angrier. It’s violent in a way I’ve never experienced as messages between me as ChasingColors42 and Savvy as Firefly12 fill the screen.

She knew.

All this time. All these messages—she knew she was talking to me—she had to have known.

I scroll back to the beginning, where I told her I had just moved to a small town after my grandfather passed away. To where I told her about Sage, and when I told her I’d just found out that my best friend was also my brother.

Where I told her the real reason I wanted a baby of my own.

I haven’t cried since the night my sister died, but emotion pricks at the corners of my eyes now.

I’ve spent months worrying that I was growing feelings for both Savvy and a faceless woman I was determined to make my surrogate, only to find out that they’re one and the same.

I’ve been tearing myself up for turning into what I feared most—a cheater, a liar.

Savvy’s eyes meet mine, and hatred stronger than the devil himself consumes me.

Betrayal is the one thing I can never get over.

Now she’s become the one person I can’t forgive. Or forget because with one lie of omission, she made me believe I was turning into the one person I hate most in life—my father.

But she’s done more than betray me. She might have actually succeeded in what my father never could.

Savvy now has the power to destroy me with my vulnerabilities, my secrets, my truth.

I don’t remember moving, but Savvy’s worried stare stays locked on mine as I march through the park. When I’m close enough to touch, I shove all her shit into her hands, then grab her chin between my thumb and forefinger.

Keep it together, Grey. Keep it together.

She tries to pull away when I spit on my pocket square, then roughly wipe away the remaining soot from her face, and I should let her go. I should walk away, but the hurt that’s currently feasting on my heart won’t allow me to.

“Stop it, Grey. That’s disgusting.”