The Grumpy Boss Cowboy Billionaire

Chapter 16

Victor

Something was wrong. I could feel it, like a sliver under my nail. My cleanup tasks at the park had run late yesterday, and I hadn’t gotten home until well after ten o’clock last night, by which point, Emma had already gone to bed, and her bedroom door was locked. I got up later than I’d wanted this morning and she had already headed down to the park, her single mug and a small plate with a used fork the only evidence of her in the kitchen.

I stepped outside into the morning air, already simmering with the heat, and climbed into the golf cart. She must’ve walked by herself. We had planned on doing flooring together in the restaurant today, and sure enough, that’s where I found her, headphones in, hair tied up, eyes fixed forward. I brushed a finger across her arm and she recoiled from me.

“Oh sorry,” she murmured, not meeting my eyes. “You surprised me.”

I bent to touch a kiss to her cheek and she shifted away from me slightly. “Sorry, Victor. I’m just really tired today. Didn’t sleep very well.”

“That’s because you didn’t sleep next to me.” I brushed a strand of hair from her forehead and she winced. I gave her a small chuckle.

She offered a grim smile, touching a kiss to the corner of my mouth, before getting back to work. I began working on the far end of the room, eyes wandering over to her every few minutes. She didn’t even look at me. Around noon, Emma straightened up and stretched, taking a long drink from her water bottle.

“Time for lunch?” I called over to her, hoping to have a moment to talk.

“I’m not hungry yet.” She popped her neck and knelt back down. “Thanks, though. Feel free to go grab something for yourself.”

I watched as she went back to work, my stomach churning. I couldn’t figure out what I did, what had changed so quickly, I could only assume it had to do with her family, and what happened back at home. I went to the test kitchen and grabbed one of the appetizers they were trying, hoping it would settle my stomach.

After eating, I returned to the dining hall and kneeled down to resume my work when Claire hurried in with a furrowed brow. Her jaw was tense and the worry in her eyes was clear. Emma made a face when she saw Claire, averting her eyes quickly when I caught her staring.

“Victor, you need to see this,” Clair whispered. "It's important, and it's private."

I stood slowly, padding over to where Emma was working. “Hey, Em, I need to take care of something at the house. I'll be back as soon as I can.”

The skin between her eyebrows pinched and she gestured to the room. “I guess I can knock the rest of this out by myself, and all the rest of our tasks for today.”

Without another word, I shook my head and followed Claire out to the golf cart and slid in. She pressed her foot down on the gas and sped toward the mansion. When we arrived, she parked it and hopped out, leading the way into the office. I immediately went to my sideboard, pouring several fingers of brandy into a snifter. If Claire felt the need to pull me out of renovation tasks, it would be over something that I needed to have a drink for.

I sank back into the desk chair and looked at her. “What was so important, Clair?”

She tossed a pile of pictures in front of me. I sat forward and glanced at them, then raised my eyebrows, looking closer at the content. Emma was seated beside none other than Fred Hastings, a cup of tea balanced on her knee, and her face perfectly attentive. The next shot was him handing her a large brown envelope, and her receiving it. A third photo depicted her accepting a card from him while standing, the brown envelope clearly visible in her hands.

My stomach sank. What was in the envelope? Was it bribe money? Evidence? Falsified documents? Was Emma the mole?

I topped off my glass, studying the pictures, hoping that staring at them would bring some clarity to what seemed like pretty damning evidence. Claire returned to my office and crossed her arms, cocking her hip. “Looks pretty bad, doesn’t it?”

Something in her tone pissed me off and I glared up at her. “Looks can be deceiving, Claire.”

She shrugged. “Only way you could know is by finding that envelope and seeing what’s inside.”

I bared my teeth at her. “Stop...right there.”

She flinched slightly at my outburst, shrugged, then walked out the door. I should have felt worse about barking at her like that, especially when she was right, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel that. Everything was too screwed up already. I couldn’t figure it all out, and these photos in front of me were damning in the best case scenario.

I sat and drank brandy in my office for a long time, staring at those photos on my desk. I couldn’t bring myself to put them away, couldn’t stop staring at them. How could she?

My dad had been right.

Six glasses of brandy later, I had convinced myself that there was only one way to know for sure. I needed to find that envelope. Bringing the bottle with me, I headed up the stairs and down the hall, to her room. The door was unlocked and I pushed it open wide, stepping over her clothes strewn across the floor. I paused, looking around, trying to think where she would hide something. I strode over to the desk and pulled open the top drawer. Digging through a collection of pens and paperclips, my fingers closed on paydirt, closing on the thick paper envelope.

It felt pretty substantial as I withdrew on it, hipping the drawer closed and exiting the room quickly. I carried it downstairs to the office, hands shaking as I fingered the metal prongs on the folder. Swallowing down the last of my brandy, I gathered my courage and opened the envelope, dumping the contents on the desktop. I picked up the first sheet of paper, flipping it over, and my stomach dropped by what I saw.

It was a photo of me, a very unflattering one, getting a lapdance from a topless woman, with a nearly nude woman sitting on either side of me. My heart sank further as I realized I couldn’t remember the names of any of the three women in the photo. I picked up another—this one was me caught up in the lusty embrace of another scantily clad woman, lips locked and tongues tangled, with my hand shoved down the front of her pants.

I picked up a third photo and cringed—it was a photo I was haunted by, one of Claire in lingerie from when we were briefly dating. Finally, I shoved the photos to the side and flipped over some of the paper pages. Court documents from when a women tried to extort money from me by claiming domestic violence from consensual kinky sex, nothing more than anything that had occurred with Emma. Another page was accusations from former business partners regarding exploitation, a simple misunderstanding.

The final document in the folder was a thick packet of pages, stapled in the corner, and fresh off the printer—a job offer to work for Fred Hastings on an archaeological dig site in Sedona. It felt like the floor had dropped out from under me and I was plummeting into a bottomless abyss. She was thinking about leaving. She was looking for other jobs. She wasn’t going to stay with me.

I filled my glass again, settling back in the chair to wait for Emma to return to the mansion.