The Blindside of The billionaire

CHAPTER 3

"You're bleeding a ridiculous amount of cash on your personal ledger, Osa. And frankly, if I’m being completely transparent with you, that’s the least of my concerns right now."

Marcus, my chief legal counsel and a friend who had been riding shotgun with me since we were running local logistics out of a rented, unheated garage in our twenties, threw a thick manila folder onto my mahogany desk.

He didn't take a seat. He stood there, arms crossed over his chest, his face etched with a severe gravity that usually only accompanied a federal tax audit or a major corporate lawsuit.

I didn't even look up from the logistics tablet in front of me. "If it’s my personal ledger, Marcus, then by definition, it’s my business.

Eliz is restructuring her entire wardrobe for the upcoming winter gala season. It’s handled. I approved it."

"It’s not just the damn wardrobe, Osa," Marcus said, his voice dropping an octave as he stepped closer to the desk.

"I have security clearing your schedule, and I have compliance monitoring our public relations. She’s actively using your name out there in the city. She’s calling our primary vendor partners behind your back. Last week, she pulled major strings to get her cousin a lucrative sub-regional logistics contract, a contract that our compliance team usually vets for six months minimum.

She told the vendors it was on your direct, personal authorization. She bypassed the entire board."

I paused. My fingers hovered over the glass screen. A small, cold spike of sharp irritation flared in my chest, but it wasn't directed at Eliz. It was directed at Marcus for stepping across the boundary line of our friendship.

"She’s my woman, Marcus. What’s mine is hers to leverage within reason. She's learning the ropes of my world."

"She’s leveraging you," Marcus snapped, leaning over the desk, forcing me to look him in the eye. "Look at the data, man. Before she met you, she was a mid-level public relations assistant struggling to even get into the VIP rooms of this city.

Now she’s hosting private dinners with our independent board members when you’re out of the country on business. People talk, Osa. She’s building an entirely separate network on your back, and she’s not even hiding it from anyone anymore. Except you."

"That’s enough," I said. My voice dropped to a dangerous, icy whisper that immediately cut through the room. The entire executive office grew completely silent.

"You manage my corporate contracts, Marcus. You do not manage my personal life, and you do not manage the woman I choose to keep in my bed. I know exactly who she is, and I know what she's doing."

Marcus stared at me for a long, heavy moment, a mixture of disappointment and genuine concern washing over his face. "I hope you do, brother. Because if you don't, the fall is going to be brutal." He walked out, slamming the heavy oak door behind him.

The silence left in his wake felt suffocating. I looked down at the manila folder sitting on the corner of my desk, but I didn't open it. I couldn't bring myself to do it. To open that folder meant admitting that the peace I felt at night was a carefully constructed, highly expensive lie. I reached out, slid the folder into my desk drawer, locked it, and chose the lie.