HIS (A Billionaire Romance Novel) (6 page)

The way he stressed that last word made my heart shudder and nearly stop. My jaw fell slack. “You don’t mean…”

But I could tell that he did. Even before he looked at me, I knew exactly what Tyler meant.

“I was sixteen when she suggested we try out a different kind of therapy,” he continued. He was still examining my things. The rhythm of his footsteps seemed to keep him calm. “She told me that my anxiety stemmed from a need to exert control, but an inability to do so effectively. I was, after all, only a teenager. I still had parents to answer to. And even though I’d been introduced to the board of directors when I was seven, they hardly took me seriously. When you have a stutter, nobody does, especially not your classmates.” He paused there, and I could tell the recollection hurt him even if his expression never changed. “I felt powerless. Weak. Jackie said she could cure me of it. She said what we did would help.”

“And she…” I trailed off. Just thinking about it almost made me gag. “She was the one who introduced you to domination?”

“And submission,” Tyler confirmed. “The first few times, I was her sub. By letting go of my need to control, I could conquer it. That was the first step. She needed to break me to make me better.” He toyed with one of his cufflinks. “And once she had, she remade me. Showed me what it was to be a man. How to
take
without giving, how to see everyone around me as a bounty or a conquest. The things she did to me, the things she
made
me to, would seem reprehensible to most. But my father paid her for them, nonetheless.”

I closed my eyes. I couldn’t imagine what that woman had put him through. I didn’t want to. She’d taken advantage of him and of her position as his superior, his elder. She’d preyed on a psychologically vulnerable child, and though I could guess what happened next, I still had to ask him.

“Why did you marry her?”

Tyler shrugged. “When I was seventeen, she told me she was pregnant.” My blood rushed in my ears, and I almost didn’t hear him go on. “She’d told me she was on birth control, so condoms were unnecessary. She never allowed me to pull out, either. Sometimes, when she wasn’t tied up, she’d hold onto my leg to make sure of it. I was a stupid teenager who dismissed it all as another one of her kinks. And even when she told me about our ‘miracle’ baby, I was so wrapped up in her web of influence that I didn’t even think to question her.”

Knowing Tyler Cross had been married was one thing. But there was a child, too? This was wrong. This was so very, very wrong.

“I can’t…” I began, but Tyler silenced me once again.

“You
can
,” he insisted, “because there is no child. If there ever was.” His expression darkened, and the first flash of rage I’d seen in him lit up his eyes like a lightning bolt. His voice proved the ensuing thunder, rumbling low and deep like storm clouds threatening over the horizon. “She insisted that we ‘do the right thing,’ and when I told my father, he was furious. In the end, however, he agreed with her. The scandal she could have brought down on our heads…”

His jaw was trembling, and he took a moment to still it before he continued. “It was a private ceremony, as you can imagine. Quick. Simple. And kept out of the public eye. Nobody knew but us, and that was the way Jackie liked it. That made my family much easier to blackmail. And then, just when she would have been ready to show, she called me one day and told me she’d miscarried. Looking back on it, I don’t believe she ever was pregnant. But at the time, the news destroyed me.”

“And she sunk her claws in deeper,” I said softly. I knew the type. Jackie was a predator, a violent sociopath who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted. Every injury she inflicted upon Tyler weakened him more and more, and that was exactly the situation Jackie had worked so hard to engineer.

There was opportunity in Tyler’s misery, and having been his psychologist—knowing his deepest, darkest secrets—she had the ability to destroy his psyche in ways that made an atom bomb look like a sparkler.

He nodded. “Yes. She insisted we try again. But the idea of losing a child had crippled me. I found that I… couldn’t perform.” I tried not to react, but Tyler had just revealed what was surely one of his great wounds. I didn’t know many men who could admit to something like that, regardless of any extenuating circumstances. “That was when I saw the real Jackie Mansfield. That was when her attacks went from psychological to physical. And then, later, I found out she was cheating on me. With another patient.” His eyes thinned. “Another seventeen-year-old.”

I felt sick to my stomach as I remembered my own altercation with Jackie. When I’d first seen her sliding her body up against Tyler’s, she’d seemed so elegant, so in charge. I’d found that almost sexy—even though I’d also felt threatened by it—until she turned around and saw me standing there. Then everything about her had changed. In an instant, that cool façade had become terrible and wild. My scalp still smarted from where she’d dug her claws into my hair and hauled me out of the house so swiftly I hadn’t even noticed it was raining until I was already soaked. I remembered the look in her eyes as she sized me up, as she wordlessly probed me for some kind of weakness. Jackie was made of the same stuff as conmen and serial killers. She was dangerous, and now she knew who I was.

But my own well-being wasn’t what I feared for the most. Seeing Tyler laid bare made me realize she was a far greater threat to him than she ever would be to me. She wanted something from him still, and whatever it was, I knew she would do anything to get it.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Tyler looked at me. “For what?”

“For what she did to you. For what she undoubtedly did to others.” I cleared my throat and tried to regain my composure. “The other man—
kid.
Did you ever…”

“Tell him?” Tyler half-smiled. “I tried to. But Jackie’s good at what she does. He didn’t believe me. He probably wouldn’t, even now.”

“And then you divorced her. I gather she didn’t leave quietly?”

This time, he actually laughed. “No, she didn’t. And I got to see the full dearth of her crazy. But knowing it was the last time made it bearable, and the money my father paid her was enough to convince her to keep her distance.”

“Until now,” I murmured. “What changed?”

“My father died,” Tyler answered. He said it so flatly that I gasped out loud. Another little smile crept over his face. “It’s all right. I’d seen it coming for a long time. He was very ill.”

“I’m… I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I didn’t know…”

Tyler waved his hand. “Of course you didn’t. You wouldn’t have. The board and I decided it was better to keep things quiet so it wouldn’t affect our stock. After all, my father did always put the company first.” There was an underlying venom to that statement, but this was not the time for me to ask questions. “Anyway, that was a year ago. And Jackie wasted no time. She showed up for the funeral.”

My pity and shock were now turning into rage. “Of course. The moment she perceived your father was no longer there to protect you, she went in for the kill.”

“Oh, yes. Now that I’ve inherited the rest of my father’s vast and virtually limitless fortune, Jackie would like nothing more than to get a bigger piece of it. She wants to get married again. I get the feeling she can’t
wait
to be my widow.”

I was seething. My blood pressure was through the roof and my limbs yearned to stretch out, to move, to keep moving until I had Jackie Mansfield by the throat.

“The problem is,” Tyler added, “she has some
very
good blackmail material.”

Nothing could be worse than what she’d done to Tyler and who knew how many other adolescent patients. “Tell me,” I said. Maybe I wasn’t a lawyer or a corporate shark like Tyler and Mitchell, but I wasn’t stupid, either. There had to be some way out of it.

Tyler made his way back over to the table. He sat down across from me again, his knees knocking gently into mine. “That whole story I just told you?” He spread his hands and offered a helpless smile. “Well, Jackie tells it a very different way.”

The coffee was only making me more jittery, but I drank it anyway—there was still some comfort to be had in the routine. “Oh? And what way is that?”

“In her estimation, I raped her,” he said coolly. “And when I found out she was pregnant, I orchestrated a secret marriage in order to silence her. And then, once she miscarried as a product of my abuse, I left her high and dry—minus a little payoff.”

This time, my jaw dropped so far it almost struck the tabletop. “That’s insane,” I said. “And she doesn’t have proof…”

“Maybe not,” Tyler agreed, “but can you imagine what kind of havoc she could wreak with her fairytale? I can just see the headlines now: ‘Billionaire Buys Rape Victim’s Silence.’ My life, everything I worked for, would be in ruins.”

“But the other boy…”

“Would back up her claims,” he told me. “I’m sure of it. I remember how I was at his age. I remember thinking Jackie could do no wrong. And I’m sure she’s engineered that situation to her benefit. She probably realized he had some kind of hero complex and lured him in with a carefully-timed breakdown during one of their sessions. I can just imagine her tear-filled eyes as she related to him all the gory details of her abuse and rape.”

“And of course, you have nobody who can vouch for you,” I said, thinking out loud. “Your sessions were private. And with your father dead…”

Tyler nodded. “Exactly.”

I sat back in my chair and stared at my coffee mug. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. There were millions of actual rape victims in the world who would never see justice because of how the public, and even law enforcement, would treat them. But that same public also hated billionaires, envied them for what they had, and would love nothing more than to see one taken down in the wake of an allegation like this one.

People were funny like that. Actual victims could forget about justice—unless they were able to somehow entertain the general public in the process, give them something personal to gain.
Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em laugh…

“Jesus,” I whispered. “Tyler—Mr. Cross—I’m so sorry.”

“You needn’t be,” he said. “None of this is your fault. In fact, you’re the only thing—the only person—who has helped me through any of this.”

I lifted my gaze to meet his. “You mean what we did? Together? Yesterday?” I was stumbling over my words again, just like I always did when someone—especially a man—started getting close to me. I was fine when they were at arm’s length. I could flirt with damn near anyone. But once things became real, that confidence was much harder to hold onto.

Tyler nodded. “Yes. Yesterday was the first time in months I’ve felt in control of things—safe. My father dying, Jackie’s ultimatum—it’s all brought my anxiety back to the surface. It’s crippled me, Valerie. That’s why I couldn’t come back to the company. The board would have seen right through me. They would’ve been on me like rabid dogs.”

“But Mitchell,” I said, careful not to give my words too much weight. “He’s concerned about you. All the execs are. Everybody’s in a panic. They want you to return.”

“They want our stock prices to stabilize,” he argued. “And then, once they do, they’ll go for my throat. All they’ll have to do is put it to a vote, and when those hands go up, I’ll be out.”

I frowned. “They can do that?”

“Of course. It’s the board’s way of saving their asses. They want a figurehead, someone who can put on a smile and do no wrong. If they can’t have that, they’ll vote me out at the first sign of weakness. On a ship, we’d call that mutiny. But in a company, we call it good business sense,” he added drily.

“What will you do?” I asked him. This was a mess, the outcome of which hinged solely on what Tyler did next. “You can’t hide away forever. You’ve got to do something.”

His eyes glimmered. “And that, Valerie, is where you come in.”

Talk about déjà vu. Mitchell had practically said those same words to me when he’d commissioned me to bring Tyler Cross back into the fold. I squirmed in my seat. Nothing good could come of this. I was sure of it.