Waking Up with a Billionaire (The Overnight Billionaires Book 3) (24 page)

C
hloe was going to Thailand. She didn’t have a choice. If she didn’t go, Zac would make good on his threat. And the news that French Kiss’s top model had once been a prostitute would not only ruin Madison but could also ruin the Beaumont brothers. And consequently Eden and Olivia. Chloe wasn’t about to let that happen. She loved Eden and Madison and had grown to love Grayson’s brothers. But most of all she loved Grayson, and she couldn’t stand to see him hurt when he found out the truth about her being an escort.

Zac must’ve known that he held all the cards because he didn’t have any problem letting her go back to Grayson’s to pack. She had three hours before she had to meet him at the airport. It wasn’t nearly enough time. Especially when she spent most of it trying to compose a letter to Grayson.

Since she couldn’t find any paper, she used his sketchpad and threw away so many drafts that she ran out of paper. She finally scrawled four words at the bottom of a sketch he had drawn of her feeding sardines to Josephine.

The picture reminded Chloe that she needed to feed the bird before she left. Leaving her duffel bag on the bed, she hurried up the stairs to the kitchen. She grabbed a can of sardines from the cupboard and took it out to the balcony. But Josephine wasn’t sitting on her eggs. Which made Chloe worried. Especially when one egg looked as if it had a crack in it. Before she could bend over to check, Mr. Huckabee’s voice drifted over from next door.

“So is that your granddaughter, Bob? Because her name is Candace, not Chloe.”

Chloe looked over to find not only Mr. Huckabee sitting on his balcony naked but also her grandfather. “Granddad?”

He lifted a hand in greeting before he stood. Luckily, he had on a pair of boxer shorts with bronco-riding cowboys printed on them. “I stopped by to say goodbye to you, but you weren’t home. Hammond here was nice enough to invite me over for some magic brownies.” He waggled his gray eyebrows. “And I must say that they make you feel pretty magical—are those sardines you have in your hand? You got any crackers to go with them? This veggie plate that Doris fixed us just isn’t filling up my gut.”

Chloe rolled her eyes. She really didn’t have time for this. “Please put your clothes on, Granddad, and I’ll call Gavin. Is he still at the hotel?”

“Nope. He had a business meeting this morning, which is why I came to see you. So where were you?”

“I went to lunch. Now hurry and get dressed.” Just in case Josephine came back, she opened the sardines and put them on the coffee table, then went inside to call Gavin. Her cell phone was in her room, and as she waited for him to answer, she started tossing clothes in her duffel bag. Gavin’s voice mail clicked on, and she had just started to leave a message when a voice behind her made her freeze.

“Let me guess. You’re leaving.”

Chloe slowly turned to find Grayson standing in the doorway. He wore a gray suit without the jacket. His tie was loose and hung at an odd angle and his hair was mussed. But it was his eyes that held her captive. They were filled with hurt.

She hung up the phone. “You came home early.”

He jerked off his tie and tossed it on the dresser. “Which I guess screwed up your plans to leave without a word.”

“I was going to call you.”

“Just like you called your family after you ran away from home?”

She wanted to explain, but she knew that if she did, Grayson would go after Zac. While Grayson could take Zac in a fistfight, he wouldn’t stand a chance in a gunfight. So instead of answering the question, she turned and continued to pack. Although it wasn’t easy when her hands shook and the backs of her eyes burned with unshed tears.

“So it’s true,” Grayson said. “You’re going back to Zac.”

She turned. “How did you know?”

He stared at her, as the hurt look morphed into hate. “What an idiot I am for believing that we had something special. But there was nothing special about it, was there? You were just biding your time until the guy you really do care about got out of jail.”

The tears she was trying so hard to hold back filled her eyes. “It’s not like that, Grayson.”

“Really?” He took a step closer. “Then what is it like?” When she didn’t answer, he shook his head and stared up at the ceiling. “I actually believed that you didn’t have any choice in the way your life has turned out. Poor, pitiful Chloe just got dealt a bad hand. But on the drive over here, I realized that life didn’t deal you anything. You chose your own hand. You chose to run away from home. You chose to move in with an abusive asshole. You chose to go to Nash’s hotel room. And you’re choosing to go back to that abusive asshole who sent you there.”

“You know about me going to Nash’s hotel room?”

“I’ve known all along, but before now, I thought that Zac had forced you. I thought you didn’t have a choice.”

Her shoulders wilted. “I didn’t…I don’t.”

He stared at her for only a second before he spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. “Yes, you do, Chloe. You had a choice then, and you have a choice now. You can stay. But the truth is that you don’t want to.” He turned and walked out. A moment later there was the loud slam of a door, followed by the roar of a car engine and the squeal of tires.

Heartbroken, Chloe sat down on the bed and released her tears. She might’ve continued to cry if a loud crunching hadn’t drawn her attention to the doorway. Granddad stood there eating a bag of Cheetos.

“Well, it looks like you’ve gotten yourself in quite a pickle this time, Selena Cameron.” He pulled out another Cheeto and munched on it. “And I might take your side if I didn’t agree with Grayson. Everybody has a choice. But sometimes we just do a bad job of choosing.” He glanced at her duffel bag on the bed. “And it looks like you’re making another one.”

She released her breath on a quivery sigh. “You don’t understand, Granddad.”

He walked over and sat down next to her. “Then enlighten me.”

With only a couple of hours before she had to be at the airport, Chloe really didn’t have the time. But there was something about her grandfather’s understanding eyes that made her start talking. She told him all about moving in with Zac, and his abuse. She told him about Zac’s pretending to buy the painting and wanting to meet for lunch. She ended with Zac’s ultimatum.

When she was finished, she expected her grandfather to be disappointed in her for getting involved with such a thug. Instead he only nodded. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell a bad apple until you bite into it.”

“And by then it’s too late,” she said.

Granddad took her hand and gave it a squeeze, leaving Cheeto-dust fingerprints on her skin. “It’s never too late to toss a bad apple in the trash. But after his abuse, I understand why you’re hesitant.”

“I’m not really scared of him. I’m more afraid of him telling people about Madison being a prostitute and ruining French Kiss.”

Her grandfather looked thoughtful. “But isn’t that putting the cart before the horse?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you don’t know for sure that people finding out about Madison will ruin her or French Kiss. It seems to me that people would want to buy lingerie from an expert on seduction.”

Put that way, it did make sense. “But what if people don’t?” She shook her head. “I’m afraid I can’t take that chance.”

Her grandfather sent her a pointed look as he polished off another Cheeto. “Just like you left home because you were afraid that your family would hate you once we found out you weren’t our blood relative? For a woman who acts so tough, it seems to me that you’ve spent an awful lot of time being afraid of things that might not happen. Which makes you a bit of a chickenshit.”

Chloe’s eyes widened. “Granddad!”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what else you’d call it. Only a chickenshit would run instead of staying and fighting for what they want.”

“And exactly how am I supposed to fight a hoodlum with a gun?”

For a moment it looked as if her grandfather had zoned out and wasn’t going to answer. A Cheeto hung from his mouth, and his eyes were dazed.

“Granddad?”

He blinked, and the Cheeto dropped to his lap as he continued the conversation as if he’d never taken a break. “That’s your problem, Selena. As an only child, you think everything is about you. But the truth is that no man, or woman, is an island. A truly strong person welcomes the help of their friends.”

Her grandfather’s wisdom struck such a chord of truth in Chloe that she was too stunned to reply. He was right. She had always thought that asking for help was a sign of weakness. Which probably explained why she had never had many friends. She had refused to go to Cain and Gavin when she was upset over her mother dying and her dad not being her dad. Fought against Eden and Madison’s friendship and refused to accept any help that they’d offered. She’d even resented Grayson for helping her get away from Zac. And if he hadn’t kidnapped her, she would now be living in some strange country without any friends or family. Which was exactly what was going to happen to her if she went with Zac. All because she couldn’t get it through her thick skull that asking for help when you couldn’t handle something on your own made you stronger rather than weaker.

She sat there for a moment absorbing the epiphany before a loud snore startled her out of her reverie. She turned to see her grandfather flopped back on the bed sound asleep. The empty Cheetos bag rested on his chest, and cheese dust ringed his mouth. She smiled, but the smile faded as soon as she realized that she now had a choice to make. She could run like a chickenshit or she could rally her friends and fight.

Chloe was late getting to the airport. So late that she didn’t even wait for her cab driver to give her change. She hurried to the airline counter where she was supposed to meet Zac. At first it looked like he wasn’t there, then a hand curled around her arm, digging deep into her flesh.

“You’re late,” he growled.

“Sorry.” She held up her bulging duffel bag. “I guess I had more to pack than I thought.”

He stared at her for a moment before he smiled. “I hope it’s filled with sexy lingerie.”

“Of course, what else would it be filled with?”

It didn’t take them long to check in and get their boarding passes. Zac had purchased the tickets using the same name he’d used to purchase the painting. And the counter clerk didn’t even look twice at the fake passport he handed her. He handed her another one for Chloe that had the same last name as his. And when they left the counter, he glanced at her and winked. “Until death do us part, Mrs. Rogers.”

Chloe tried to smile as they made their way to security, but she was nervous about getting through the X-ray machines with what she carried in her duffel. Fortunately, she was sent to the TSA-approved line, while Zac had to go through regular security and get thoroughly searched. The TSA woman who scanned her bag stopped the conveyor belt only briefly before she nodded at Chloe and allowed her to move on.

Once through security Zac seemed to relax. He bought them a couple of bottles of soda from a kiosk and found two seats by the window. Chloe sat down next to him and made sure to position her bag on her lap so the closed zipper tab was closest to Zac.

“So what exactly do you intend to do when we get to Thailand?” she asked. “Do you know someone there?”

Zac grinned. “I met a guy while I was in jail who has connections. He’s the one who made us the fake IDs. He left on the previous flight to Thailand and will meet us at the airport.”

“So are you going to do the same thing there that you did here? Are you going to run a prostitution ring?”

He unscrewed the cap and downed half of his cola. “Better. Here I had to worry about every prostitute I hired giving me problems. There the women do what they’re told or they get the crap knocked out of them.”

Chloe knew exactly who would be doing the knocking. She cleared her throat and spoke as loudly and clearly as she could without drawing attention from the people around them. “So you’re going to prostitute women for money. Just like you did here.”

He studied her, and for a moment she worried that she had given herself away. But then he took her hand. “I would never prostitute you, sweet one. You’re mine.” His fingers tightened, and he gave her a smile. “But if there’s a lonely businessman who just wants a little company, I’m sure you wouldn’t mind spending some time with him.”

For a moment Chloe really wanted to punch him right in the face. Instead she returned his smile. “Of course I wouldn’t mind.”

It seemed to take forever for the first boarding call to come over the speakers. They got in line behind an older woman with a carry-on roller bag.

“So why are you going to Thailand?” the woman asked. “I’m going to visit my daughter. She got a job there teaching English.” She glanced at Chloe’s duffel bag. “It looks like you brought plenty to keep you occupied on the long trip too. Mine is mostly filled with books.” She shook her head as the line started to move. “I just can’t get used to those new e-readers. I like to do the page turning myself.” She handed her boarding pass to the airline attendant. “Do you have an e-reader?”

Chloe was a little too preoccupied to reply. Something wasn’t right. She wasn’t supposed to get on the plane. She was just supposed to come to the airport. But unless she wanted to alert Zac, she had to hand the attendant her boarding pass. Once they were in the Jetway, she became even more nervous. But the book woman didn’t seem to notice and kept right on talking as they waited to board the plane.

“Have you read this one?” She leaned down and unzipped her bag, pulling out a hardcover book. “It’s about this guy who becomes a stalker after his wife leaves him. When she gets a restraining order and moves, he ends up getting facial reconstruction surgery and following her. He moves in right next door to her, and she falls in love with him all over again. But when they finally get around to having sex, he unzips his pants and she instantly recognizes his penis and calls the cops.”