Alpha Billionaire Series
Loving the One I Should Hate Chapter 22

GRANT

Mandy stood in front of me. She looked nervous. She looked beautiful. I didn't realize how much I had missed her in the weeks since I told her that going to Chicago wasn't going to be the end of us.

I had been disastrously wrong. But now, we are both in Chicago. She had been right, our lives here were a million miles different from who we were at the lake. At the lake, I was some guy taking a break from it all, and she was a siren luring me in only to crash my life against the rocks until I no longer existed. I had gone to her willingly, handing over my soul.

Here, we were executives on opposite sides of a corporate hostile takeover. There was no way this meeting was going to end well. I wasn't even sure why I had agreed to it.

I stood and indicated that she should take a seat. She looked stunning. She might have put a few extra pounds on, and her tan was fading. Looking at her made my chest tighten.

There was a time I would have done anything for her smile. It didn't look like she had smiled for a long time. I wanted to reach out and smooth the crease between her brows, tell her a joke, be the reason she smiled.

"You're looking well," I said as she sat. "Is your mother well?"

She snapped the folded napkin and draped it over her lap. "Why are you asking about my mother? You've never been concerned before."

"I've always been concerned, Mandy. Previously you would tell me, volunteering the information freely. I worried when you had clearly left the lake for the long term. I was under the impression that your mother wanted to become a permanent resident." "Yeah? Well, she changed her mind. She decided that maybe Chicago wasn't so bad. After all, her doctors are here, and there is more to do than have lunch with the same gossiping old bitties from the Library Society."

"So that means her health is holding steady?"

"That's none of your business."

"It's not. For what it's worth, I am concerned. Your mother's health is your business, and-"

"Stop talking Grant. I don't want to reminisce about old memories," she snapped.

"Old memories? It's been less than six weeks Mandy. Don't treat me like a long-lost lover you're here to see out of curiosity," I snapped back.

She opened her mouth to spit a retort but swallowed her words when our waiter appeared at our table.

"Can I get you started with an appetizer or a cocktail?" he asked.

"A bottle of house red and the antipasto plate with bruschetta," I ordered.

Mandy gave the waiter a strained smile. It wasn't the same as one of her real smiles that wrinkled her nose and rounded out her cheeks. When Mandy smiles, she smiles with her entire being, she radiates joy. One of Mandy's smiles was infectious. It hurt to know that I would never be at the receiving end of one again.

I let out a heavy breath.

"I don't know why I bothered to come," she admitted. "Why are you here?"

I looked at her a little confused. Dylan had convinced me that his cousin, Mandy's best friend, said that Mandy was miserable without me. That she wanted to see me. I thought that meant to work things out between us.

Of course, now that I knew who she was, I guessed she found out who I was prior to her leaving the lake. We had much to discuss.

"I'm here because you agreed to see me. Look, Mandy-"

"I don't think I'm interested in any of your excuses. You had plenty of opportunities to tell me exactly who you were, but you never did."

"I could say the same about you," I growled.

"I never hid who I was."

"I can say the same." I wasn't interested in this banter. I wanted to have a real conversation with her. I felt our surroundings, which she dictated, were not appropriate to what needed to be said. Had she demanded we meet in public because she was afraid, I would do something? I thought she knew me better than that. I would never hurt her.

I felt that this location was stopping her from being willing to get real, dig deeper. We had an intense connection, one that I had not wanted to give up. One that I was willing to fight for, even knowing who she was. Seeing her again, I realized that what Mandy meant to me was more important than who her father was.

We sat in silence as the server poured wine into glasses. She stared at the glass but didn't touch it. I took a sip. It was decent. When the antipasto arrived, Mandy took the initiative to serve it onto the two small plates.

"My mother's health is doing well." She picked at her appetizer and made small talk, completely ignoring the giant chasm between us. "I forgot how hot the city got this time of year. There is still so much summer left, and all the concrete makes everything so much hotter."

Our waiter reappeared and we ordered dinner.

"I guess what I really want to know the most, is how long did you know who I was, and why were you playing me?"

Mandy continued in the same banal she had used with the small talk. It took me a moment to catch that she had changed subjects. I stopped eating, uncertain of what she had said. I watched her for a moment. She was calm and focused on her antipasto. "This is really good. I never would have selected this restaurant, but then again, I don't exactly move in the same circles as you. Do I? So how was slumming with the lakeside local?"

"We both know that's not what was going on," I said in a low voice.

"Are you sure? How do I know you didn't try to pick up other women from Scott and Gracie's that night, but I was simply the first one to say yes?"

"Is that what you believe? That had you said no, I would have simply moved on to the next woman? Would Vivica have said yes? Maybe I should have approached her first, then we wouldn't be having this conversation, and instead, I would be having dinner with her." She let out a long breath, and her eyes lit with a fire I hadn't seen in her before. This was Mandy enraged. She inhaled, a dragon preparing to unleash a fiery barrage that would only bring death and destruction.

"Here's your chicken marsala, and eggplant parm for the lady," the waiter said with a smile. "Let me know if you need anything else."

He saved me from an unholy torrent of brimstone, I was going to tip him well.

"So, you admit that I was simply the available choice?"

"I said nothing of the sort. You are insinuating circumstances that did not happen. You may not be pleased with what did occur, but you cannot pick and choose to replace those memories in such a way that I am the bad guy here." "You never told me who you were," she bit out.

"That's complete bullshit and you know it. I may not have given you a complete rundown of my curriculum vitae, but you knew the important pieces. I never hid my identity from you. You knew I ran a business."

"But not what business."

"I don't recall you ever telling me the name of the company you spent so many hours of your day crunching numbers on spreadsheets for. But you don't see me accusing you of being some kind of catfish. Making me think you were this poor recent graduate with an MBA, and you were stuck analyzing and running data for some struggling company that was grossly underpaying you when in reality you had just inherited a fairly decent sized company with a successful brand of a children's line of athletic equipment." "You're saying if you knew who I was all along, you never would have slept with me?"

It was the stupidest question to have come from the beautiful lips of a smart woman.

"I don't know Mandy. Indignant me wants to say of course I wouldn't have slept with you. But then again, maybe that would have been a good way to seduce you into signing over the company. I would think the fact that we are having this conversation proves that I didn't know who you were, and I wasn't trying to seduce the company away from you."

"But you would have. You would have used my emotions against me to get at MiMa Play, just like you drove my father to his death."

"I had nothing to do-"

She was on her feet. "Don't you dare. The loan-shark terms you had my father agree to at a time when he was desperate are what killed him. Don't ever tell me you had nothing to do with my father's death. If our product is so damned good, I'm going to fight you tooth and nail to keep it."

"Mandy, you need me. I watched you struggle all summer with the figures, you can't run that company on your own."

Cool liquid splashed over my chin and onto my chest. I gasped at the sudden shock of it.

The wine hit my shirt spreading a wide pink stain across thousands of dollars in designer men's wear. I looked at Mandy with rage and another emotion I no longer wanted. I didn't want the hope that she could return to loving me. That was something she had slammed the door on.

She spun on her heel. I didn't miss the angry tears in her eyes as her hair twisted and blocked her view before bouncing back into a fall of mahogany perfection. She was a fury incarnate. From her perspective, I deserved more than a glass of wine in the face. She probably wanted to claw my eyes out.

I laughed at myself as she stormed away. She wanted to bite and scratch, and all I wanted to do was crush her spirit in my arms and kiss her lips. The stronger her rage, the greater my urge to have her.

Mandy walked away hating me, and I hated myself for not having the balls to have ever told her I loved her when I had the chance. My future looked bleak and without Mandy, the girl I loved. The waiter handed me a napkin and I bloated at my wine-drenched clothes.

"I'll get this out of your way," he said as he removed my meal, now swimming in wine. "Would you care for me to have a fresh one boxed up to go?"

"No, I think I'll eat here. However, if you could box up the lady's untouched meal. Thank you."

I drained my glass of its contents. It was good wine, such a shame Mandy chose to waste it all over the front of my shirt.