I FELL FOR MY DADDY'S BILLIONAIRE BEST FRIEND

Chapter Four

Kayla was waiting for her in the parking garage.

Rena spotted her leaning against a black sedan, arms crossed, like she'd been standing there long enough to make a point of it. There was no point pretending she hadn't seen her.

You didn't strike me as the type to run, Kayla said as Rena approached. Most interns would've taken the stairs to avoid this conversation.

“I'm not running from anything”.

Good. Then let's be direct. Kayla pushed off the car, closing the distance between them without hurrying. Raymond and I have history. Real history, not whatever this is he's doing with you out of guilt or grief or whatever excuse he's telling himself right now.

“There's nothing going on between us”

There will be, Kayla said, almost gently, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear like this was any other conversation between colleagues, and when there is, I need you to understand something. Raymond doesn't leave people. He collects them. He'll keep me in his life the same way he'll keep you, and neither of us gets to decide which one of us he actually chooses in the end, I've made my peace with that.

She said it with the calm of someone who'd already rehearsed it, and that was what unsettled Rena most — not the warning itself, but how little heat was behind it. This wasn't jealousy, This was someone who had already watched this exact scene play out before and knew precisely how it ended.

“Why tell me this?”

“Because you look like the kind of girl who still believes in one version of love, “Kayla said” “I'm saving you some time.

She walked away without waiting for a response, heels echoing off concrete, and Rena stood alone in the garage for a long moment before she could make her legs move toward her car. Her hands were shaking again by the time she got the door open, the same way they'd shaken over that file two days ago, and she was starting to hate how often this building made her feel like she was standing on ground that could give way at any second.

She called Jena on the drive and asked her to meet at their usual place instead of talking on the phone. Some things needed a face across the table.

Jena was already at the booth when Rena got there, two glasses of wine poured, waiting like she'd known this wasn't going to be a short conversation. She'd worn the same expression since they were kids — the one that meant she'd already cleared her schedule and wasn't going anywhere until Rena had said everything she needed to say.

“Tell me everything” Jena said…. Start with why you sound like you've seen a ghost”.

Rena told her, The reconciliation file, The transfer. Lucas's easy dismissal of it. Raymond admitted he'd placed her there on purpose. The moment in his office that almost became something neither of them could take back. Kayla in the parking garage, laying out the terms of a relationship Rena hadn't even agreed to yet.

Jena listened without interrupting, which was somehow worse than if she'd reacted to every piece.

“See, let me get this straight,” Jena finally said. “In four days, you've found evidence that might be connected to your parents' deaths, been recruited into a secret investigation by a man who's also your boss and also apparently the love of your life, and been threatened by his mistress in a parking garage.

“Why are you say it like that—

“I'm saying it exactly like that because that's exactly what it is” Jena reached across the table and took her hand. “I'm not telling you to walk away from him. I saw your face when you talked about that moment in his office. But Rena, you buried your parents a month ago. You are the most vulnerable you have ever been in your life, and the man asking you to trust him with the truth about their deaths is the same man you've been in love with since you were a teenager. That's not a coincidence you get to ignore.

“So what do I do?”

“Keep both eyes open,” Jena said. For all of it. The company, the investigation, and him. She squeezed Rena's hand once before letting go. “And call me the second anything about this changes, not tomorrow, The second it happens.”

“You're worrying too much.”

You buried your parents four weeks ago and you're already tangled up in a corporate cover-up and a billionaire's love life, Jena said. “I think I'm worrying exactly the right amount.”

Rena went back to work the next morning with Jena's words still sitting in her chest. Lucas found her before she'd even gotten her coffee.

“Sleep well?” he asked, dropping a lighter stack of files on her desk exactly as promised. “You look tired.”

“Long night.”

“Understandable, grief does that. He lingered a beat too long. “You know, I saw you leaving Raymond's office yesterday. Long meeting, for someone he barely knows."

Her stomach tightened, “he was reviewing my onboarding.”

“Of course”, Lucas smiled, easy as always, and turned to leave. Then stopped, like he'd just remembered something small. Funny thing about onboarding meetings. They don't usually last forty minutes with the door closed.

He walked off before she could answer, and Rena sat frozen at her desk, doing the math on exactly how much Lucas already knew. She thought back through every second of that meeting, trying to remember if the blinds had been open, if anyone had walked past, if there was any way he could know what was said and not just how long it took to say it.

She came up with nothing, which somehow made it worse.

That evening, packing up to leave, she noticed Lucas through the glass wall of his office, phone pressed to his ear, voice low enough that she couldn't hear a word. He wasn't looking at his screen or his calendar. He was watching the hallway, watching her, the entire time he spoke.

He hung up the second their eyes met, and smiled at her like nothing had happened at all, like she hadn't just watched him track her through a glass wall for the better part of a minute.

Rena smiled back, grabbed her bag, and left the building with her heart pounding, already certain of one thing.

Whoever Lucas had just been talking to, the conversation had been about her. And whatever Raymond thought he was protecting her from, she was starting to suspect it was already too late to stay out of it.