Bought By The Billionaire - BDSM 18 novel Chapter 68

The door clicks closed and the voices vanish. Only the Click-Click of high heels still carries, rapidly receding.

Sitting in my cubical, alone, my heart bangs and my throat is dry.

Calm down…

Just calm down…

Sticks and stones can break my bones…

Deep breath…

And another…

The jabbering under my ribs slows…

With a squeak, the outer door opens again, the hum of distant voices echoing in, topped by the fake jollity of the compère. My chest tightens.

Footsteps clip in. “Beth?”

“Grace?”

The footsteps clip again, closer now. “Where are you, girl?”

My cheeks hot, a bit sheepishly, I open my cubical, step out. “I… needed some air.”

Her cheeks suck in. Her head cants. “Yes, I saw the Toxic Trio coming out. What did they say?”

“It was…” The words snarl on my lips. “Why does Irene dislike me so much? Have I said something I shouldn't?”

Grace snorts. “Irene dislikes everyone except herself.” She strolls closer, the snort morphing to a chuckle, eyes twinkling. “The issue is that you haven't said anything you shouldn’t. If you'd made any slips, Irene would have smiled at you, deigned to talk with you, then introduced you to everyone in the most condescending manner possible.”

Her forehead wrinkles. “And don't you worry about your Richard. He's got his antennae wired. He knows what's going on.” She taps a finger on my chest. “He also knows that you have to learn to deal with this in your own way.”

“Did he send you in here?”

“Well, he could hardly come himself, could he?”

She Tuts then, all unexpectedly, she’s hooked her arm through mine and is marching me to one of the chairs. Too startled to resist, I let her spin me and then, a palm slapped to my chest, to push me down.

Hands on hips, she towers over me, jabbing a finger toward me. “Now you listen to me. There’s a reason you’re here, at this event. And there’s a reason that man out there…” The finger swings like a compass needle toward the door… “… married you. And you have a reputation to maintain. Not just your own, but his.”

The finger stabs at her own chest. “We have a reputation to maintain. And we…” The finger stabs toward me… “We do not let the likes of Irene Vandervoort win catting contests.”

“We? Who’s we?”

“We is any of us that weren’t born into this, but got here under our own steam.”

I lick my lips. “Irene’s an important woman. The Mayor’s wife.”

Grace’s face cracks to a Cheshire Cat grin. “Girl, you are an important woman. Haven’t you got that yet?”

“It’s… It’s taking a bit of getting used to.”

She stares at me, then her head tilts and, sighing, she snags a chair, pulling it close to sit beside me. Taking my hand, she slips her own, top and bottom, around it. “Beth, you're young, beautiful and the wealthiest man in the City just married you. And to crown it all, it's dazzlingly clear that the reason the pair of you are married is that you’re actually in love with the other. Irene can’t stand that.”

“When she was in here,” I say, “They were saying all sorts. That I’d married him for his money.”

Grace huffs. “Don't you take no notice of them, Honey. And certainly not Irene. She was a cat when she was a kid. She's a cat now. She’ll always be a cat. She wants to scratch, she goes looking for a post. And if Richard were the type to be taken in by a gold digger, he’d have been married and divorced half a dozen times by now.” She huffs. “And doubtless paying half a dozen lots of alimony.”

Her eye fixes on me. “Beth, you're the winner in a race that's been run for years by every woman in the City with an eye to grabbing a fortune. Do you imagine Adele was the only one trying to get her hooks into Richard? We’re talking about a man who’s not just wealthy, but handsome, intelligent and devastatingly charming. When the news came out that he’d finally decided to marry, there were a lot of sore losers out there. Just remember… You are the one he married.”

She gives my hand a quick double pat. Then, measuring out her words, “Did you know that…” She pauses, as though wondering if she should continue… “Did you know that Irene had… a… thing… for Richard herself, when they were younger?”

I do a quick mental stagger. “She did?”

She clicks her tongue. “Oh, yes.” She clicks again. “Actually, she was pretty free and easy with all the boys, but she tried harder with Richard.”

“Boys? When was this?”

“Schooldays. But while your Richard and my Will both attended the local high school, Irene and her upwardly mobile cronies were sent to a ladies' college, learning how to behave.”

Why didn’t he tell me this?

“So, what happened?”

“As Will tells it to me, Irene and her gang of friends hung around the flicks and the burger bars making cows eyes at the boys they fancied. Irene targeted Richard. And ‘cause he was a teenage kid runnin' on hormones and hope, he went for it.”

“Went for it? So… how far did it go?”