Free His to Have: A Billionaire Romance by Piper Hayes Page A

can talk to her, find out what she knows.”
    “No, I have this under control. Just stick to the plan, and everything will be fine.” I shake my head and smile.
    “This is what you pay me for. Let me ask around and figure out if there’s anything else going on. No one else will know anything, especially her. If I find nothing, I’ll tell you. If I find something, you’ll know as soon as I do.”  
    “Stay away from her,” I say. There’s a hardness to my tone that surprises even me, and Damien is back on the defensive, all but physically backing away from me. “I have everything under control.”
    “There’s got to be something I can do,” Damien says. He’s leaning over and fidgeting in his chair, shaking his knee up and down as he tries to figure out some way to convince me to see his side of things. I get what he’s saying, but I can’t accept it could be true.  
    I know it flies against everything I’ve ever learned, everything I’ve ever told myself, but I’m going to trust Cat with everything I am. “There is one thing,” I add. “Get me in touch with the FBI agent.”
    “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Damien says.
    “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, and I’m not going to let anything happen to anyone who’s working for me. I made you a promise when you came on board, and I keep my promises.”
    “So what are you going to do?” Damien asks. “What are you going to tell him?”  
    “I’m going to tell him to arrest me. But first, I have something else I have to do.”  
    “This is a joke, right?”
    “No.” I pick up the phone. “Edna, cancel my meetings for the rest of the day. I have urgent business. I’ll also need you to call the board and set up a meeting for Monday morning. They’ll understand the reason soon enough.”  
    Damien is staring at me in disbelief. “Remind me again why I work for you when you won’t listen to a word I say.”  
    “It’s because I’m right.”
    “Let’s hope so.”
    ***

    I make it back to the apartment as quickly as possible. I wonder if Ben’s still there as I step into the elevator. I wonder if he’s searching through my place as Cat begs him to leave. There’s so much about this situation I don’t know. I hate not knowing. I’ve based my entire career and most of my life on working on whatever concrete information I have available. I don’t take leaps of faith. I don’t trust people. I don’t make guesses. Yet, right now, at this very moment, I have no proof that Catherine truly has feelings for me, that she would do whatever it takes to protect me in the same way I’d do anything to protect her. I feel a sharp pain in my chest and behind my temples at the thought of losing her… I can’t even place a name on it. The pain grows and grows as I try to imagine that betrayal. And then, I realize what it is, and I know why I’m acting so recklessly, why I’m risking everything. I love her.
    The door opens, and Catherine is standing in the living room with an evening gown and a bag over her shoulder.   She’s alone, and she looks pissed off for the fraction of a second before she fully recognizes that it’s me. She looks beautiful, even without her hair done up, even without her makeup and expensive clothes. I wish she could understand that about herself. I wish she could understand that even if there was no money, no family name, none of that, that I would still move heaven and earth to be with her, to make her happy, to keep her safe.  
    “Hey,” she says as I stand there lost in thought.
    “Hey,” I reply. I cross the space between us and wrap my arms around her, hugging her tight. I kiss her, not because I want to but because if I go another second without kissing her I feel like I’ll die. But as soon as I taste her sweet lips all of my worry and need fades away, and I feel a warm bliss. I want this feeling to last forever, and there’s only one way I can think of making that