The Billionaire He Pretended Not to Be Chapter 04
Against all my expectations, Leo stepped back, his eyes dark and bottomless.
“I’ll stay out of your work if you agree to one thing.”
“What is it?”
He nodded toward the pouring rain. “It’s freezing out here. Can we head inside to talk?”
The motel room was empty and bare.
He waited until I’d changed out of my soaked clothes, then slid an address across to me.
“I threw a farewell party for you, one last night.” He leaned in so close his voice brushed my ear. “Show up, and I’ll never bother you again.”
I sat rigid for a long while before I finally nodded my agreement.
The next evening, my chest tightened before I even reached the venue. It was a private club, the kind of upscale spot I’d never once imagined stepping foot inside.
Leo’s table sat on the top floor, stocked with bottles of liquor worth more than my entire apartment combined.
Then I spotted her—Santoro, his fiancée. She sat beside Leo, glowing, flawless and radiant.
Before I could process what was happening, she announced she had a surprise planned for him.
Mid her rambling chatter, my name slipped out, and my heart slammed against my ribs.
She pulled out her phone and made a quick call. When she hung up, a childish grin stretched across her face, like a kid proud of a mischievous trick.
She tilted her head and looked at Leo.
“Oops. Looks like I cost Autumn her job today. Are you mad?”
My job.
I froze completely, unable to move an inch.
Cold seeped through every limb, sharp and piercing straight into my chest.
This was his surprise. He’d let his fiancée destroy the career I’d fought so hard to earn.
Leo sat silent beside her, not a single word spoken.
I remembered the soft smile he’d worn when I left him yesterday, and it all clicked into place. To him, I was nothing but a joke.
A fool who’d stupidly believed there could ever be a future between us.
Now that joke walked toward them amid quiet whispers and stifled snickers.
Santoro reached out and tugged a thin cord out from under Leo’s shirt collar.
“Hand this over to me, will you?”
I blinked hard.
A small silver cross swung into view—my mother’s only heirloom.
Leo gave Santoro anything she asked for, just like he’d once done for me.
He unclasped the pendant without hesitation and let it fall into her open palm.
The last fragile thread holding my sanity snapped inside my head.
I had nothing left. No job, no family. I couldn’t lose the only piece I still had of my mom.
I shoved the glass door hard and screamed out loud.
“Leo!”
He lifted his head. Through the glass, beneath the flickering neon lights, he looked eerily calm. Then he smiled.
I shattered completely.
“Leo! I don’t care about this job at all!”
“I’ll find that ring and return it to you!”
“Please—give my mom’s pendant back to me!”
A full week’s worth of pent-up pressure erupted all at once, my voice cracking like I’d lost my mind. Every person in the hallway twisted to stare at me.
Leo didn’t move a muscle.
The music faded to an end, and heavy silence crashed over everything again.
Through the glass partition, I watched Santoro toss the pendant once, twice, before her hand slipped and it flew free.
It crashed hard against the marble floor with a sharp, brittle crack.
I couldn’t recall how I’d made it back to the motel. When I jolted awake, every piece of my clothing was soaked through.
A man waited outside my door—one of Leo’s men, drenched to the bone just like me.
“Leo’s gone back to the estate,” he said flatly. “He sent me to tell you none of this was supposed to happen. He never wanted that cross broken.”
“He’ll fix everything with your job. There’s trouble back with the family, but he’ll come find you as soon as he can. Just don’t—”
I slammed the door shut mid-sentence, water dripping off my sleeves onto the floorboards.
I stared at the shattered cross clutched in my hands for ages, until my phone buzzed against my thigh.
It was a formal termination notice sent straight from my company.
Santoro would never tolerate my existence, and Leo had let her run wild without restraint. All those promises he’d made had been nothing but lies.
I slid down the cold wall, gasping for shaky breaths, and blocked every single way he could ever reach me.
Then I booked the earliest flight out of Chicago I could find.
I was never coming back.
