The Billionaire’s Promise (His Submissive #8)(4)
Author: Ava Claire

“I did talk to Alicia, okay?” she blurted out.

Jacob and I exchanged a look of surprise. I was the first to turn back to her, pivoting slowly, warily, like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. If Rachel Laraby was being honest, there had to be some catch.

“We’re listening,” I said softly.

“I’ve had Alicia Whitmore’s contact information for a long time,” she continued, looking back and forth between me and Jacob like she was afraid that if she lingered on one of us for too long the jig was up. “Back when Jacob and I were together, he talked about how difficult their relationship was. How rough things were when he was a child–and how they were trying to start over after his dad passed away.”

I sucked in my breath, hoping the gasp was only audible to me, but I could tell that Jacob caught it from the way his grip tightened.

His voice was low and adamant. “Leila–”

“Let her finish,” I said hollowly, feeling the familiar ache of worry settle back in the pit of my stomach.

He said they were over before they began. If that was true and they hadn’t been close and opened up to one another, how the hell did Rachel know about his relationship with his mother?   Why was she wielding knowledge that I had to pull teeth to retrieve and left me nowhere near prepared for the shitstorm that descended just this morning?

I never thought I’d say the words ‘truth’ and ‘Rachel Laraby’ in the same breath, but it was obvious that there was a grain of truth to what she was saying.

And that Jacob hadn’t been completely honest about their past.

But for someone that was a chatterbox seconds earlier she shut her mouth up tight.

“I thought you had things to share?” I grilled. “Lies to reveal? People to villainize?”

She put a hand on her hip, emboldened by the fact that I was giving her the mic at all. “I’m not saying another word while he’s still in the room.”

“That’s rich,” Jacob said incredulously. “You call my office everyday with some emergency or life or death interview that requires my assistance and now you want me out of here? Why? So you can lie without me there to refute it?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” she said, dropping every word like acid. She pointed at me. “It’s up to you. I’m not saying a single word more with Jacob staring like one look from you and he’ll throw me through the window.”

I peered at Jacob and his cerulean eyes nearly bulged from his head. “You’re not being serious. You’re not going to listen to anything she has to say, are you?”

“I just want this done,” I said, my voice practically a whisper. “I want everything out in the open.”

“And you think she’s the one that will give you that? That she wants to end this? Rachel is the very reason we’re in this situation at all!”

“And now that we’re here, what harm comes from letting her speak?”

“How about the fact that she’s certifiable and every word that comes out of her mouth is toxic?” He looked at me like I was the one that was crazy. “After the stunt she pulled at the hotel, how can you believe anything that she has to say?”

“Because I know that look she has in her eyes every time she stares at you!” I said, emotion flooding my screech. It was the same one I had when I thought I’d lost him. It wasn’t the look of someone pining over something they never had. It was the look of someone who knew exactly what they’d lost.

I couldn’t focus on that and the hurt on his face, so I looked at Rachel, focusing on getting this over with. “We can talk in the lounge area behind you. Jacob will stay here.”

“I don’t want him–”

“We can talk over there–” I interrupted fiercely. “–or you can leave.”

She frowned stubbornly, but spun on her heels and sashayed to the leather couch on the wall. She lowered herself onto the cushion and crossed her legs, gesturing beside her. “You might want to sit down for this.”

“I’ll stand.”

“Suit yourself,” she said with an eye roll. She drew a breath and began. “I told you about talking to Alicia and I have another truth.”

She paused dramatically and I crossed my arms, so over this cat and mouse BS. “I’m listening, Rachel.”

“I’m not over Jacob.”

I scrunched my face in annoyance. That couldn’t be her revelation. I mean…duh? It was pretty obvious she still had feelings for him. “If that’s all you have to say, we’re done here.”

“I’m not over him because he’s the first guy that I ever said I love you too,” she continued, biting her lip. “He was the first guy I ever saw myself being with, well, forever.” When she looked me dead on, I knew she was about to say something I didn’t want to hear. “And when he told me he loved me back, it was the first time a guy ever really meant it.”

****

“What do you mean you just walked out?” Megan said, peering at me like she must have missed something.

I took the bottle of water she offered, even though I could go for something a lot stronger.

“I didn’t say a single word to either of them. I just got up, marched to the exit, took the elevator down to the garage and drove here.”

“Huh.”

One word and just from the inflection in her voice, I knew she wasn’t stumped as much as disappointed. It was the sound she made when I went through a hipster stage, wearing vintage dresses that did me no favors. It was the single syllable she’d released when I swooned over guys that we both knew would be a disappointment. She’d even grunted the exact same ‘huh’ when I told her I was going to Venice with Jacob Whitmore.

“The thing is, when she said that he told her he loved her, I got this feeling.” I unscrewed the cap slowly, staring off in space. “I felt like I was back in the hotel restaurant, barely over the fact that this mega actress was sitting beside me, totally ignoring my existence and picking up her not-so-subtle clues that she cared about Jacob. And he couldn’t possibly not return those feelings because she was Rachel Laraby.” I chewed on my bottom lip. “How could he not fall for her?”

“I know you’re not going down that rabbit hole, thinking that you can’t hold a candle to her,” Megan scoffed. “I swear if you start drinking that crazy chick’s kool aid-”