Page 79 of Escorting the CEO
Just like he’d paid me to come here and live a lie.
I’d never thought of money as a bad thing. I’d never thought that people who were wealthy were corrupt, or wrong, or greedy just because of the things they had, or because of the money in their bank accounts. Istilldidn’t think that, but what I now understood was that there were plenty of people who would do anything for money, for power, for control. Great wealth seemed to invite gate crashers, parasites looking for favors, not to mention a certain brand of socially acceptable lunacy—the trading of one’s values for dollars.
I was just as guilty. I’d traded my veryselffor cash. Just because I’d deemed my cause noble—saving my grandmother’s farm, keeping Josie and Bo fed—did it really make me any different from Gigi or my mother?
Or for that matter, from Miranda and even… Rhodes?
All of us were guilty. All of us were greedy. Each of us had our reasons, of course. Miranda wanted Barrington Enterprises. So did Rhodes. Gigi and my mother wanted money, as did I. All of us thought we “deserved” to get what we wanted. We had ourrationales, and our individual experiences and perspectives to support them.
But now I could see it more clearly.
Coming to Barrington Manor had been a mistake. Under the guise of protecting my family, I’d traded my integrity for cash. And then I’d fallen for my fake fiancé—a rookie mistake if there ever was one—before understanding that he was the king of trades, that his life was one big transaction of which I was merely a line item.
I couldn’t judge him for paying Gigi off. I’d done exactly the same thing hours before with my own mother. But it broke me to see his ease with it, his way of moving through this world, to recognize that even though he was doing for Luke, he was also doing thistoLuke.
He was teaching his nephew how to solve a problem by throwing money at it. The child was going to be stuck in this web forever with no way out. It was horrible to be a Barrington. Everyone wanted something from you, always. Even the people who were supposed to love you.
Rhodes had managed me by choosing to hide his offer to my mother. He was managing Luke by payinghismother to go away, too. Did I blame Rhodes for what he’d done? No. Did I think he was a bad person? No. Did I still have feelings for him? Absolutely.
But was I going to be a fool for this man, and give him my heart?
Not anymore.
Because Rhodes did not suffer fools; he paid for them to go away. That was how he made his way through the world. He’d paid for me to stand at his side, to recite my wedding vows, to be a mother figure for his nephew. I would do those things. I would fulfill the contract. Even though I felt like what both my mother and Gigi had called me—a prostitute—I was clear-eyedand accepting in my decision. I was saving my grandmother’s home, and I was protecting my little brother and sister from our mother. My integrity was worth that trade. That was mychoice.
But I would not let my heart fall victim to the decisions of my head. It wasn’t safe for me to love Rhodes; I could never trust him. We were not living in the same world. Where I saw emotion and connection, he saw liability and risk. There was nowhere for love to bloom in a spreadsheet, a contract, or a corporate disclosure.
I wandered down the empty hallways of Barrington Manor and stumbled into Rhodes’s gorgeous primary suite, feeling lost. The welcome of the air conditioning wore off, and I shivered. The tiny bud of hope that had sprouted in my chest was shriveled, shrunk away. I’d prayed for love, and instead found duty.
There were worse things, I supposed.
But as I locked myself in the private bathroom, allowing myself exactly five minutes to cry, I couldn’t think of any.
MORE THAN ENOUGH
RHODES
I didn’t even thinkabout what I was saying to Gigi. Words and numbers, admonitions, and finally, an agreement. All I could focus on was Rory and the look on her face before she’d walked away. There had been disappointment there, but no surprise.
But why would she be disappointed in me? In offering Gigi more money, all I was doing was protecting Luke. And honestly, she’d done the same with her own mother that very morning, trading cash for her promise to go away. How was that any different than what I’d done? Why did I have a sinking feeling that Rory no longer felt the same way about me?
Fuck it.She’d signed the contract. If she didn’t care about me anymore, so be it.
I stormed back to the house, grateful to get away from Gigi but for little else. I knew I’d made a mistake by having Tammy Harris followed and offering her money without talking to Rory about it. But I’d admitted my wrong. I’d owned it. Why wasn’t that good enough?
Because people are complicated. Which was exactly why I avoided getting involved with them.
Fuck it,I thought again. If Rory didn’t want our relationship to be real, this could still work. We would still be married. Iwould win the company and retain custody of Luke. That was what I was paying her for. That was why I’d hired her in the first place.
It would be easier this way. It was, after all, a transaction at heart.
And I refused to let my actual heart be impacted any further.
“Philips.”I stopped the butler in the hall. “Where’s Miranda?”
“In her office,” Philips said. “Shall I fetch her?”
“No, I’ll go and see her.”
