Claimed By My Billionaire Ex

Chapter 24

LUCAS

The door slammed shut, and silence settled around me, an overwhelming pressure pressing against my chest and leaving me breathless. A ringing resounded in my ears. I could no longer hear the media outside, hounding Jessie and Carter. All I heard was the echo of Olive's words: you were testing me.

Holy fuck.

Is that what I had done?

Testing her to see how she would react when I gave her exactly what she wanted? But didn't that still make this a choice for her? And she chose to leave.

Or had she just walked down the only path she'd ever known, one she'd expected to unfold? Sure, I'd said I loved her, but what did that really mean?

It was just a word.

I knew more than anyone that actions spoke louder than words. How many women had told me that they loved me but had then attempted to use me to get a job, or steal money from me, or fake a pregnancy to lock me down?

And here I was, telling Olive I loved her but keeping secrets from her, lying by omission, unfurling an entire plan to see if she would choose something other than me. I said I'd given her a choice, but all I'd really done was set her up.

If this had been a real choice, I would have been honest from the beginning. I would have admitted everything to her when I figured all of this out.

I would have opened up a space beside me and allowed her to walk with me in this journey. We could have exposed Jessie together, helped Quinn leave together, cover Olive's tracks together. That would have been the real choice. Transparency would have allowed her to see and understand the full spectrum of things.

By doing that, I would have showed her the love I felt for her instead of just expressing it in a word that had no backing.

It was duplicitous of me to be go behind her back and assume what choice she would have made, guiding her in that direction, when I could have actually fought for her.

Why the fuck hadn't I fought for her?

Then and now? I'd just watched her and my daughter walk out of this room, and I'd stood here, doing absolutely nothing to stop it.

A door at the back of the conference room was thrown open. Jessie, Carter, and Rachel stumbled inside, their words tangled in the middle of an argument. Rachel saw me and spun around.

"Where is she? Where's Olive?" Rachel snapped.

Jessie raised his hands. "Rachel, stop it!"

"I will not!" Rachel shouted. She stormed toward me. "That bitch ruined my husband's career."

I glanced between them. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"She was at Helen's house," Rachel said. "She went to the bathroom, and I think that she went into Helen's computer and made a copy of the video."

Carter scratched his head. "Helen? Who the fuck is Helen?"

Rachel spun around. "The whore you were cheating on me with! I just wanted a recording of you cheating. So that way, I could divorce your ass and take full custody."

Jessie's face fell flat. "You were in on that video?"

Carter's jaw dropped. "Rachel, what the fuck? So this is your fault?"

"I'm not an idiot," Rachel snapped. "You can fuck whoever you want if I have a path to working in the White House. Once I saw the video and realized that you were going to rig the votes, I didn't give a fuck."