The Billionaire And The Waitress (gxg)

47 - a love

ADRIEN was going to kill Grey and string him up from the ceiling by his balls. 

     The plan she had agreed on with Muse wasn't just about Sherry for her. It was about ruining Grey so completely and utterly he would be less than nothing by the time she was done with him. 

     She had been a part of many, many corporate schemes in her climb to the top. Becoming a CEO of her own business―without her father's help―had required ruthlessness and apathy along the lengths of a serial killer determined to never be caught. It was almost like a game. When she blackmailed Julien, she had been winning. But it seemed Grey had become a new player. 

     For many years, Adrien and Grey had been neck-to-neck in their rise to power. Her father had been priming them both as heirs to the Vitale Enterprises, treating Grey as his own son alongside Adrien. 

     Something had occurred to Adrien in her time spent on the plane. Her father's proposition―become a reputable, religious woman, or he wouldn't give her the company―was out of character. 

     He had, if anything, encouraged her to behave as the other men in the business did. To sleep around with women, never develop feelings for them, never settle down. So why, in his last months alive, would he suddenly care? She had figured it had to do with Grey, and the fact that he had a wife and a child. He had told her she needed to be more like him. It had come out of nowhere. She should have questioned it. What if it had more to do with Grey than she thought? 

     What if Grey had given her father the idea? 

     It would explain his true motives: how badly he wanted to inherit Vitale Enterprises. It would explain his actions now―letting it slip to Muse that she had blackmailed her father, calling Adrien into the meeting room while Muse had inexplicably ended up outside in a position to eavesdrop, Piper coincidentally coming out of the sauna almost naked as Adrien had finished her workout, so Muse could walk in and see them together. 

     There was no way he wasn't behind everything. Adrien's heartbeat flickered in her chest. What if Grey had been the real villain all along, not her father? 

     She should have put the pieces together sooner. The way that as soon as everything between her and Muse started going well, something devastating happened. Again and again.

     Adrien laughed to herself then, as she stepped off the plane and touched the shimmering asphalt in Hawaii. 

     Grey Hansen was almost as cutthroat as she was.

     But she hadn't come this far, being a female CEO, without being worse than any man she had ever faced. 

     And now that she realized there was a game being played, with Grey in the lead, she would have to fix that. Because Adrien Vitale didn't lose―ever. 

THE private limousine, driven by James, arrived at the resort. Adrien and Muse had sat in the back, with a seat between them. Their hands had been so close, fingertips almost touching. If one of them had moved an inch, they could have held hands. 

     "Here, Mrs. Vitale," said James. He clicked a remote button and the doors slid upwards, folding over the roof of the car. 

     Adrien waited with bated breath to see Muse's reaction to the resort. She had picked it after hours of bleary-eyed research, waiting for Muse to return home from her night shift at the Moth Cafe. She had wanted it to be perfect. 

     As soon as they stepped out of the car, Adrien offering her hand out to Muse, Muse gasped a little. Adrien's eyes slid towards her. She wanted her to like it so badly she could feel her heartbeat thrumming in her veins.