I’m tired of all this bullshit.
Meet me at your house at 3am.
The last text had just come in. Tired of trying to ignore this, since the texter was obviously not going away, I typed back,
Who are you? How do you know where I live?
A pause. I held my breath, terrified by the possible answers. Was it someone I worked with?
You know who this is, stupid bitch. Your 10,000 wasn’t enough. I want the rest.
Steven. I’d thought he was long gone. My lawyer had looked for him and found no traces of the Steven I’d known. And what did he mean by the rest? He’d taken my entire savings account. There wasn’t any more to give.
I don’t have anything else. You took everything.
I know you have more. I’ve been through your files. Meet me in 30m or I send this everywhere. Come alone!!!
A second later another text popped up. No words, just a video. Dread pooling in my stomach, I hit play. At the first frame, bile rose in my throat. It was us, Dylan and me, in the hallway the night before. His hand up my skirt, me clinging to his shoulders, my head tipped back, clearly in the middle of orgasm. Both our faces were easy to see, despite the low light in the hallway. If this got out, there would be no hiding from it.
I sank to the floor of the bathroom, my heart sick with despair. I’d had one night with Dylan. And it had been perfect. He’d been perfect. I’d spent half the time wondering if I really could be falling in love with a man I’d just met. Now, here it was. Cinderella was turning back into a pumpkin earlier than expected.
A hot tear dripped down my cheek. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay, to wake Dylan up and ask him to fix this like he’d fixed that horrible dinner the night before. Like he’d fixed Peter. He would if I asked. Somehow, he could make this problem go away too.
But could he do it faster than Steven could send that video out to news station, blogs, to anyone who’d love to use it to bring one of the rich and famous low? Maybe not. And this could ruin Dylan. It might not hurt the casino. A secret tryst in a hallway probably played well for the reputation of a guy who ran a casino. But I’d learned that afternoon that the casino was only a small part of his responsibilities.
Dylan ran Kane Enterprises with his brother and a cousin. They were involved in all sorts of businesses and had government contracts with some of them. They also had a board of directors Dylan had described as ‘a bunch of uptight old geezers’. What would those geezers do if Dylan was caught in a sex scandal? Could they push him out? It was possible, depending on how the stock was divided. I couldn’t afford to ask, not now. I knew Dylan would help me. At what danger to himself? Given how he reacted when Peter had manhandled me, Dylan might be pissed enough to go after Peter without covering his own ass.
I couldn’t let that happen. Dylan had given me more in the short time I’d known him than any other man. No one else had even come close. I wasn’t going to let Steven hurt him. Steven was my mistake. I would make him go away. My phone pinged again.
You have 27m. Then I release the video.
My finger hovered over the phone, blurry through the tears in my eyes. I didn’t want to leave. But I had to protect Dylan. Hand shaking, I typed,
I’ll be there.
To Be Continued…
Turn the page for a note from the author and a sneak peek at The Wedding Rescue, Book Four
Thank You