Page 43 of Heart Like Yours
“Always,” I promise. With a quick peek back at the crowd, my stomach knots and unease prickles at the nape of my neck. I hold out a hand toward her. She opens her mouth to protest, but I interrupt. “Just until we know what they’re all there for.”
Reluctantly, she slips her palm into mine, our fingers tangling immediately.
Together, we head toward our building. As we get closer, the camera straps hanging around people’s necks come into focus and dread makes me freeze, pulling Paige to a stop beside me.
“Garrett?” she questions just as one of the reporters spots us. I react on instinct, tucking Paige into my side and shielding her as they swarm around us.
Questions and comments are shouted out faster than I could think to answer if I wanted to, but my only focus is getting Paige inside.
“How did you keep your billionaire status a secret for so long?”
“Are you the silent owner of Hearts Arena?”
“How does it feel to shoot straight to the top of the Billionaire Bachelor list?”
“Is this your girlfriend? Was she in on the secrets and lies too?”
My teeth grind painfully together while Paige clings to me. My building security must have seen us coming as they work on clearing us a path and helping us get through.
The silence of the lobby is deafening, my ears ringing as I finally process what’s happening.
“Garrett?” Paige says softly, but I can’t bring myself to look at her just yet.
I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose while swallowing down the rising panic and trying to figure out what to say.
PAIGE
“Holy shit,” Lilly exclaims, dropping onto the couch beside me.
“Yup.”
This is pretty much how our conversation has gone since she crashed through my door with Eva hot on her heels twenty minutes ago. Thankfully, Sam was still stuck at work, so it was one less person around to witness my spiral. Much like the reporters from earlier, they fired off questions, barely giving me a second to answer. When they finally paused long enough for me to get a word in, I simply handed her my tablet with one of the many articles that popped up today.
Billionaire.
I knew he was rich. He’s the CEO of his own company and just bought another one a few weeks ago. He also told me in passing when we were in Vermont that money isn’t a problem. That and my raise alone was enough to give me a rough idea that he was more than comfortable.
But a billionaire?
After we got inside, Garrett went straight into crisis management. He said he would explain everything, but heneeded to deal with this now. He asked the security team to escort me to my car and was gone before I could even blink.
My phone had been blowing up from the group chat I had with Lilly and Eva, so I told them to meet me at my apartment ASAP.
Six hours later, I still haven’t heard from Garrett.
I had been grateful that Sam was still at work, needing just a few minutes alone to sort through all the information I did have. Which admittedly was very little.
It had felt like something changed two weeks ago when we were in Vermont. We had both opened up, had both shared so much with each other in a twenty-four-hour span.
So why didn’t he tell me this?
“Wait,” I start, turning my head to Lilly. “Did Dominik say why he never mentioned this to you?”
“He didn’t know.” Lilly frowns, glancing down at the phone in her hand. “When I left to come here, Dominik was waiting for Garrett to come over.”
My eyes widen at that. “So…no one knew then.”
With everything I know about Garrett, the fact that his financial status was such a tight-lipped secret, to the point where someone who was family to him was in the dark, he had to have a reason for hiding this.