Chapter 16 Heart broken
The next two days passed in a blur of ignored calls and property showings. Greyson threw himself into his work, hosting open houses for luxury condos, negotiating deals for penthouse apartments. Anything to keep his mind off the growing list of missed calls from Cassie, from Meagan, from Liam who still called him every day after school.
The glass and steel tower that housed GC Properties stood like a monument to his reinvention—thirty floors of legitimate business built on blood money and buried secrets. From his corner office on the twenty-eighth floor, Greyson could see the entire city spread out below him, a kingdom of concrete and ambition that he'd conquered through careful lies and calculated charm.
Even here, in his sanctuary of success, he couldn't escape the weight of Logan's words. You're a ghost. The accusation followed him through meetings with clients, through contract signings, through the endless performance of being someone he wasn't.
It was Jenna who found him in his office on the third day, her blonde hair perfectly styled despite the late hour, her smile sympathetic and understanding. She moved through his space with the confidence of someone who belonged, carrying a steaming cup of coffee and wearing a concerned expression that seemed almost too perfect.
"Mr. Christianson O'Malley? I brought you some coffee."
Greyson looked up from the stack of property contracts he'd been pretending to review, his eyes bloodshot from exhaustion and self-inflicted misery. Jenna Martinez had been his new assistant for only two weeks, but she'd already proven herself invaluable—organized, efficient, and mysteriously understanding of his need for privacy. She fit perfectly into his legitimate world, with no questions about his past.
"Thank you, Jenna. You didn't have to stay so late."
"I wanted to." She set the coffee on his desk, her fingers brushing his as she pulled back. "I've been worried about you. You haven't seemed yourself lately."
There was something in her tone, something that made Greyson look at her more carefully. She was beautiful—he'd noticed that from the first day—but there was something else, something that reminded him of the women who used to frequent Logan's world. Polished, perfect, and dangerous in ways that weren't immediately apparent.
"I'm fine," he said, though they both knew it was a lie.
"Are you?" She perched on the edge of his desk, her skirt riding up slightly, her presence filling the space between them with an electricity that had nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with manipulation. "You look like a man who's carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders."
Greyson's phone buzzed against his desk, Cassie's name flashing on the screen for the dozenth time that day. He reached for it instinctively, then stopped himself, his hand hovering over the device. The simple act of not answering had become a form of self-torture, each ignored call another nail in the coffin of his own happiness.
"You know," Jenna said softly, her voice carrying a note of understanding that seemed too knowing, too perfectly timed, "sometimes the kindest thing you can do for someone is to let them go."
The words were so close to what Logan had said, so perfectly aligned with the thoughts that had been torturing him for days, that Greyson felt something click into place. He looked at Jenna again, really looked at her, and saw the calculation behind her sympathetic smile.
"How do you know about...?"
"About her? About Cassie Hunter?" Jenna's smile widened, and for a moment, the mask slipped enough to reveal something colder underneath. "Everyone knows about the great Greyson O'Malley redemption arc. The bad boy businessman falling for the good girl. It's quite the story."
The way she said it made his skin crawl. There was mockery in her tone, a familiarity that spoke of knowledge she shouldn't have. "Jenna—"
"You did the right thing," she continued, sliding closer until her thigh pressed against his knee. "Walking away before you could hurt her. She's been through enough, don't you think? With Jake and everything that happened between them?"
The mention of Jake sent ice through Greyson's veins. Jake Turner—Cassie's ex-fiancé, the man who had shattered her trust and left her afraid to love again. The man who had cheated on her with...
"How do you know about Jake?"
Jenna was already moving, her perfectly manicured hand reaching up to cup his face, her body pressing against his in a way that was both intimate and predatory. "You're a good man, Greyson. A man who knows when to make the hard choice."
Her lips were soft against his, tasting of vanilla lip gloss and deception. For a moment, Greyson was too shocked to move, too emotionally drained to resist. It had been days since he'd felt anything but pain, days since he'd allowed himself any comfort. The kiss was like a drug, numbing the ache in his chest with its false promise of forgetfulness.
Even as he found himself responding, even as his hands moved to her waist, a part of his mind was screaming warnings. This was wrong. This was exactly what Logan had predicted. This was him proving every terrible thing that had ever been said about him.
"That's right," Jenna whispered against his lips, her voice triumphant. "Just let go. Stop fighting so hard to be something you're not."
It was her tone—victorious, knowing, cruel—that finally broke through the fog of his despair. This wasn't comfort. This wasn't even attraction. This was something else entirely, something calculated and cold and designed to destroy what little remained of his integrity.
"Greyson?"
Cassie's voice was barely a whisper, but it cut through the moment like a gunshot. He pulled away from Jenna so fast he nearly fell from his chair, his heart hammering against his ribs as he turned to face the woman he'd been trying so hard to protect.
She stood in the doorway of his office, leaning heavily on a crutch, her face pale but determined. The hospital gown had been replaced by jeans and a soft sweater, but she still looked fragile, breakable. Her dark eyes, usually so warm when they looked at him, were now filled with a mixture of hurt and fury that made his chest constrict.
"Cassie, I—"
"Don't." Her voice was steady, but he could see the way her hands shook as she gripped the crutch. "Don't you dare try to explain this away."
Jenna straightened her skirt with deliberate slowness, her smile never wavering. In fact, it seemed to grow broader, more satisfied, as if this moment was exactly what she'd been waiting for.
"I should probably go," Jenna said, her voice carrying a note of false regret. "Let you two talk."
She moved toward the door, pausing beside Cassie with a look that was anything but apologetic. For a moment, the two women faced each other—Cassie, broken and beautiful and bleeding from a wound she'd never seen coming, and Jenna, polished and perfect and utterly without remorse.
"I'm sorry you had to see that," Jenna said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "But maybe it's better this way. Now you know where you stand."
The recognition that flashed across Cassie's face was like watching a car crash in slow motion. Her eyes widened, her grip on the crutch tightening until her knuckles went white.
"You," she whispered, her voice filled with a mixture of shock and rage. "You're—"
"Jenna Martinez," the blonde woman said, extending her hand in a mockery of polite introduction. "Though I suppose you knew me as Jenna Richardson. Jake's... friend."
The revelation hit Greyson like a physical blow. Jenna Richardson. Jake's mistress, the woman who had destroyed Cassie's engagement, who had been there in the hotel room when Cassie had discovered her fiancé's betrayal. The woman who had looked Cassie in the eye and smiled while her world crumbled.