Billionaire Broken, My Billionaire Boss, Part 8
They say the only thing worse than not getting what you want is getting what you want.
Well, I had wanted Stone-Black destroyed. I'd studied the owners and seen pictures of Mr. Stone and swore that I would do my best to take him and his company down.
Then I'd met him.
Then I'd fallen for him.
And I'd found that he wasn't the culprit.
But still, Stone-Black was going to be destroyed.
And there I was, wrapped in a towel still dripping water on to an expensive carpet, a length of rope in my hands that had very recently been used to bind me, and my boss, Mr. Jackson Stone, in front of me, his eyes mirrors, doubt creeping like a poison through his body.
"I would never..." I begun.
Normally, Mr. Stone was in control of his emotions. He had his standard Mr. Stone face - flat and unreadable - and this was the one he showed the world. It was his mask and he had worn it so long it had become him. But now, there was no mask. He was furious. He let go of the phone and took two steps across the room to stand in front of me. Was this it? I was about to be fired and thrown out while wearing a towel? By a gorgeous man wearing a towel?
Mr. Stone slipped the coiled rope from my hands and placed it on the carpet beside him. Then he stroked his fingers up my arm until they came to rest on my collar.
"Even after all we've been through ... you still don't trust me," he stated.
"I do trust you. It's just ... how this looks. The files gone and I asked you to come here."
"You don't trust my feelings about you. That I'm fickle or that I'll suspect you're lying to me and it's all over, even without any proof."
His voice had softened and somehow that was infinitely worse than flat emotionless. I heard the pain and it shredded me. He was right ... I was assuming what was happening in his mind. I trusted him to bind me, to suspend me from a ceiling with no way to escape, to have me wear a buzzing sex toy to a party ... but I didn't trust that his affection for me wasn't going to evaporate in an instant.
Even as I thought the word affection I felt another word shadowing it.
Love.
Did I? And did he?
Mr. Stone stepped closer to me and stroked his fingers across the back of my neck. My hair was still wet and dripping from our shower together. The nearness of his body simultaneously comforted me and sent a thrill of nerves fluttering up from my stomach.
"If you're to be mine, you must trust me," he said.
We stepped into each other, his lips finding mine in a kiss that left me breathless. His strong arms clenched around my body and I felt I was enclosed in a warm prison to which I held all the keys.
"I do and I will, sir," I said.
He looked down at wet footprints across the floor and then expanding damp circle from my wet hair.
"Tsk tsk, getting the floor wet. I will have to do something about that." He tugged on my collar softly. "Next time," he added.
I followed him back into the bathroom and we both silently finished drying off. I hadn't thought my clothing choices through so I only had the blue dress to put back on. Sexy: yes. Any protection from the elements: no. Thankfully, the elevator was enclosed and Mi-oh was waiting outside with the Bentley running.
We pulled into traffic before Mr. Stone spoke again. "Whomever took those files has the upper hand now. Without the paper trail, I can't stop them. I can't even find them."
He seemed despondent, as though the weight of it all was slowing crushing him.
"What about the computer files? There are copies. Electronic trails?"
"They've already been changed. The fakes are in place and there is no computer trail. Whomever this is - a business or a person - they've covered their tracks. They've beaten me."
"We'll find a way," I said. I had nothing else.
Mr. Stone lapsed back into silence but kept checking his phone as though he expected to see something on it that would solve this problem. He had been tense today while we were trying to