Chased by the Billionaire 1 Read Online Free PDF Page B

mirrored there.
    I walked over to where Churchill stood
and accepted his hand as I slid into the car. The Italian leather
seats were so soft I wanted to strip out of my dress and roll
around on them… but I didn’t, of course.
    That would have been tacky, though I’m
sure Lance would have recorded it on his iPhone and posted it on
half a dozen social media sites before I even got home.
    Churchill followed me into the car, and
then came Lance.
    I heard Jackson call out, “Remember,
Tigger… Chester’s at noon. Don’t be late!”
    Lance turned and said,
“Tigger?”
    I gave him my most deadly of glares.
“Don’t ask. Now shut the door.”
    Lance laughed one
perfect Ha , and
pulled the door shut. The Roll-Royce sped off into the night,
slipping through traffic like it was made out of smoke and
shadows.
    As Chicago slid past in our wake, my
assistant placed his hand atop mine and squeezed.
    “ You alright, boss
lady?”
    No, I wasn’t alright. I was so
confused. I was numb. My mind was a word jumble from hell: hurt,
hate, loved, abandoned…
    I suppressed the tears vying to course
down my face, and wreck my makeup, and took deep breaths
instead.
    “ Would you gentlemen mind
dropping me off somewhere?”
     

Chapter
5
     
    I texted her on the way over, and
called her from the lobby and the elevator, but Susan refused to
answer.
    I needed to talk to her. I needed my
best friend to help me figure things out.
    So I knocked on her door and rang her
doorbell over and over and over again.
    And then I heard a baby
crying.
    Shiiit!
    I’d forgotten there was a baby
now.
    And I'd woken her up.
    I considered sneaking away, and dashing
down the fire exit stairs, but Susan opened the apartment door just
as I was turning to run. She held little Sara in her arms as she
cried and screamed—Susan’s eyes were blood shot and her expression
pissed off.
    I opened my mouth to talk, but she cut
me off by slicing the air with her free hand.
    “ Get in, shut the door, and
sit down,” she said, voice terse, and then turned to pad off to the
living room.
    I’d read that new mothers were not only
sleep deprived but dangerous. Under normal circumstances I would
never have come anywhere near this apartment or baby Sara. Too
loud, too stressful, and far too many chances to walk away with a
terrifying stain.
    But I had been so turned around and
shaken by seeing Jackson again, I hadn’t thought things
out.
    I did as I was told. I came in, shut
the door, and followed Susan into her living room.
    She pointed to a beige couch with a
huge stuffed snowman on one end, and a duo of stuffed princesses on
the other. Well, the one with the white hair was a princess for
sure… the other might have been her maid.
    Susan gestured for me to
sit in the center of the couch, and I obeyed. She immediately
slapped a pink and orange bath towel over my shoulder and set baby
Sara in my arms, her wails and sobs like the raptor screeches
from Jurassic Park .
    She turned and grabbed two remotes from
the coffee table I’d bought them for their wedding gift—I cringed
as I saw the scratches and dings already inflicted on the Hooker
Brookhaven wood topped table.
    She pointed the dual remotes at the
large flat-screen TV mounted on the wall, and then pocketed the
remotes in her wrinkled and stained polka-dot robe.
    The fifty-inch screen blazed to life,
and I was suddenly bombarded by a dancing snowman singing about the
joys of summer.
    I looked at baby Sara—she had suddenly
stopped crying, and was now smiling, cooing as the snowman
danced.
    I looked around and found myself alone
in the room with the baby.
    “ Susan…” I called. “Are you
there?”
    No answer.
    I looked to the baby and then to the
snowman and sighed.
    And now I was going to
pay .
    An eternity later—technically about ten
minutes—Susan emerged from the back of the apartment with a baby
bottle in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.
    Oh yes, that was what I
needed.
    Caffeine.
    I reached