Because of His Fortune (For His Pleasure, Book 25) (3 page)

“My mother’s dead,” he cried out, at one
point.

“Come to bed, Liam,” Grace said, grabbing
him by the arm.
 
“Come and lay with
me.”

He did as she said, and she removed his
shoes and then slid into bed after him, pulling the blankets around them both.

He had stopped crying, but his soul was
smoldering and dark and wasted.

She could feel his emptiness and she
tried to hold him, and it terrified her.

But Grace did all she could, stroking his
hair, telling him it would be fine, and then eventually he fell into a deep,
seemingly peaceful sleep.

***

Grace woke up early and Liam was still
sleeping soundly next to her.
 
She
slowly got up, careful not to wake him, grabbed her phone and left the
room.
 

Then she went downstairs and called
Easton’s office phone, assuming she’d get his voicemail.

Instead, to her horror, Easton picked up
on the second ring.
 
“Easton
Rather,” he said, his voice sounding clipped and unfriendly.

“Oh, I didn’t think I’d get a real
person,” she said, trying to add a smile as she paced the kitchen.

“You were hoping to reach a fake person?”
Easton asked, his tone less than humorous.

“Well, your voicemail—not that I
mind speaking to you in person,” she hurried to clarify.

“No, of course not.
 
We’re clearly enjoying such wonderful
repartee,” he said drily.

Grace rolled her eyes.
 
How much worse could this conversation
go?

“Well, the reason why I’m calling is that
I’m going to be late into work today.”

“And why’s that?”

“I’m not sure if you heard what happened
to Anne Houston,” Grace said.

There was a lengthy pause.
 
The pause was long enough that Grace
almost asked if Easton was still there.
 
But then he said, “Yes, I did.
 
In fact, I spoke to Liam yesterday, as
soon as I heard the news.”

“Oh,” Grace said, scratching her head,
feeling more and more uneasy.
 
“Liam’s here right now…at my apartment…”

“I really don’t need to know the details
of your personal life, Ms. Knowles.”

“Of course,” she replied.
 
“But the thing is, Liam’s here and I
feel like I need to maybe just spend a little time with him this morning.
 
I’ll come in as soon as I’m sure he’s
okay…it won’t be very long.
 
But I
just wanted to alert you to the situation.”

Another lengthy silence.

“That’s your choice,” Easton said, his
voice not any friendlier than it had ever been.

Grace found her annoyance growing.
 
“His mother just died and he’s your
friend,” she said.
 
“And he’s also
my friend and I’m going to be here for him.
 
So yes, it is my choice.”

“You know, I normally wouldn’t pretend to
give personal advice to an employee,” Easton said.
 
“But I feel you’ve given me no choice,
since you’ve elected to tell me details about your life, your friends, your
concerns.”

“I didn’t do that,” Grace said.

“Let me continue,” Easton barked.
 
“I didn’t hire you, Ms. Knowles.
 
That was a decision that my boss made,
and so I’ve chosen to respect his wishes and trust his instincts.
 
But I wonder how Red Jameson would feel
about his decision to hire you if he realized that within the first week of
your joining us, you’ve had sexual relations with your boyfriend in my office,
on my desk—on camera.”

“I can’t do this,” Grace said, readying
to hang up and simply accept that she wasn’t going to ever go back to work.

“Don’t you dare hang up this phone,”
Easton growled.

She listened, as if he’d literally taken
control of her body.
 
“Okay,” she
said, her heart pounding now.

“As I was saying, in the first week of
your employment here, you had sex in my office, and then your boyfriend
threatened me on your behalf.
 
Now
you’re calling in late because that same boyfriend had a family tragedy and
you’ve seen fit to include me in your personal concerns around that event.”

Grace swallowed, feeling bile in her
throat.
 
“I guess it sounds pretty
bad when you put it that way.”

“It is pretty bad,” Easton replied.
 
“And so I submit to you, that perhaps
you’re simply not emotionally ready to work in a professional office environment,
Ms. Knowles.
 
It appears to me that
you have some things in your life that need to be gotten in order before you
can truly do the kind of high-stress, demanding work that we demand here.”

“I swear I can do so much better than
this,” Grace said.
 
“If you’ll just
give me a chance, Mr. Rather…”

“Have I not done that already?”

“You have.
 
You’ve been more than fair.”

“I see.
 
But you want me to be a complete
pushover.
 
A door mat of sorts,
where you can wipe your feet and not worry about any sort of reaction or
fallout from your behavior.”
 
Easton
chuckled.
 
“Welcome to the real
world, Ms. Knowles.
 
It’s not all
about you.”

And then he hung up.

“Asshole,” she said into the phone,
squeezing it so tightly in her hand that she thought it might crack.
 
If she didn’t need the phone so badly,
she’d have smashed it into a million pieces against the wall.

Instead, she took a brief minute to
compose herself and then went upstairs to her bedroom.

She was surprised to find Liam, dressed
and running his fingers through his hair, looking tired and wrinkled, but much
more sober than she’d last seen him.
 
He gave her a wry smile.
 
“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she replied, trying to appear calm
and unfrazzled.
 
“How are you?”

“Not bad,” he said, brushing at his
blazer.
 
“A little worse for wear,
but drinking for six or seven hours straight will do that to you.”
 

Grace rubbed her arms.
 
“Are you hungry?” she asked.

He shrugged.
 
“Don’t you need to get ready for work?”

“I called Easton and told him I’d be
late.”

Liam shook his head.
 
“You shouldn’t do that, Grace.
 
It’s your first week of work.”

Funny
, she thought.
 
That’s
exactly what Easton said.

“I don’t care about Easton and his shitty
job,” Grace replied.
 
“I care about
you.”

Liam sighed.
 
“You don’t need to babysit me.
 
I’m okay.”
 
He looked at her and flashed a fake
smile.
 
“Listen, I’ll have my driver
stop off at your work on the way to my next appointment.”

“Next appointment?” she said.

He nodded, checking his phone.
 
“Duty calls.
 
I’ve got a lot to attend to today,
Grace.”

“Oh.”
 
She felt her heart sink.
 
Liam was acting like last night had
never even happened.
 
Maybe he’d
been that drunk, perhaps he’d forgotten everything.
 
But all that raw vulnerability he’d
shown when he’d broken down crying—Grace had just assumed that this
morning he’d remember that she’d been there for him.

I
thought he needed me
.

But Liam was composed, detached, and
didn’t act particularly interested in being with her.

It’s
as if he wants to get away from me now.

Well,
if that’s how he feels, than why should I bother risking my job for him?

Grace told him that she was going to get
ready for work and Liam began texting on his phone, nodding at her absently.

She got in the shower and once more had
to fight back tears, wondering why Liam Houston was so incredibly hot and
cold.
 
One second he loved her more
than life itself, and the next he acted as if she was little more important
than a hood ornament.
 
Someone he
could just as easily never see again and still be quite happy and content.

Grace quickly got dressed in a
conservative pantsuit that she hoped would signal a return to seriousness to
Easton.

Of course, she knew that Easton wasn’t
likely to be swayed by her choice of outfit, but she needed all the help she
could get.
 
Things were not going
well.

When she emerged from the bathroom, Liam
was waiting for her impatiently.
 
“Car’s out front,” he told her, not even looking at her, let alone
telling her she looked nice.

Grace wanted to tell him that he could
take his precious car and driver and shove them up his spoiled, entitled
ass.
 
But she bit her tongue.

His
mother just died.
 
Remember that,
Grace
.

Yes, yes, yes.
 
She’d been telling herself this
incessantly, but it was more and more difficult to believe that it was as
simple as Liam grieving.
 
Perhaps it
was just that the hard times were revealing the true nature of his feelings
about their relationship.

And so the two of them went out of the
apartment together and got into the back of the limousine and started off.

On the way to drop her off at work, Liam
was on the phone with what Grace could only assume was somebody at his
gym.
 
Liam was telling whoever it
was that he would be there in just a few minutes and that he was ready to work
out.

“I know,” Liam said into the phone, as he
stared out the window.
 
“I know,
everyone keeps saying that I should take time to be with family.
 
But the truth is, I have to keep busy
right now.
 
If I don’t work out and
train, I’m going to go nuts…okay, dude.
 
See you in a few.”

He got off the phone and went right back
to texting.

Grace folded her arms and sighed heavily,
rolling her eyes.

Liam glanced up at her finally.
 
“Something wrong?”

“No,” she lied, feeling her entire body
tense like a snake about to strike.

“Good,” he said, going back to his damn
phone.

“You know, it’s incredibly rude the way
you’re on your phone constantly in front of me.
 
What am I, invisible?” she said, finally.
 

Liam ran a hand through his hair, seeming
frustrated.
 
“You literally just
told me nothing was wrong, Grace.”

“Well, I lied.”

“And that’s my fault?
 
It’s my fault you’re a liar?”

She stared at him in disbelief.
 
“You’re acting like an asshole, Liam.”

His expression turned stony.
 
“And you’re acting like a very
self-centered person,” he shot back.
 
“My mother just died not twenty-four hours ago.
 
Her body’s hardly cold and you can’t
understand why maybe I’m a little distracted?”

“I can understand you being distracted,”
she said, feeling her body start to shake.
 
“But you’ve been cruel to me, Liam.
 
Really, really cruel.”
 
Tears
dripped, unbidden, from her eyes and streamed down her cheeks.

Liam seemed unmoved by this display of
emotion from her.
 
He stared at her,
unconvinced, cold.
 
“I don’t see how
I’ve been cruel to you.
 
I’ve been
dealing with something that you can’t even imagine.
 
Until it happens to you—God
forbid—don’t tell me how I should behave.”

Grace took a deep breath and stifled a
sob.
 
She shook her head.
 
“Forget it.
 
Just forget it.
 
Excuse me!” she yelled to the driver,
who glanced back at her over his shoulder.

“Yeah?” the driver said.

“Please pull over—I’m getting out,”
Grace told him.

“Grace, c’mon now,” Liam said, suddenly
sounding plaintive and a bit sorry.

He reached out and she moved quickly away
from him.
 
“I said, pull over now!”
 

The driver did as he was told and the car
came to an abrupt halt on the side of the road.
 
Grace opened the door, nearly smashing
it into a parked car in her haste.