Save Your Tears: I'm Busy Getting Rich

My fiancé spent our engagement fitting staring at his phone, waiting for another woman to text him. I was standing right in front of him. In the gown. The wedding was tomorrow.

He'd been obsessed with her for years. Everyone expected me to love him until he got over it. I had money. I had a face. Why would I take what somebody else threw away?

Later, he came crawling back and asked me to give him another chance. By then the male lead was in a cell, tearing it apart with his bare hands. And me?

I was busy building my own company. Chapter 1 I woke up inside the novel I'd read at the worst possible moment. The engagement ceremony was tomorrow. Mine. To Rhett Whitlock.

The second male lead. Right now he was helping me pick the dress. Engaged tomorrow and still waiting on a woman who was never his.

What a hopeless romantic. "They all look good," he said, bored. "Just take one." He was slouched on the couch. He lifted his eyes for about half a second.

The rest of him belonged to his phone. It buzzed. He grabbed it. His face opened up, then closed again, and he set it down. Ha. He was waiting on the female lead.

The waist sash was cutting into my ribs. I loosened it, not looking at him. "Rhett.

Let's call off the engagement." "Mm." "Mm?" His head snapped up. "What did you say?" Was he deaf? "Call it off," I repeated, patient. "Break up.

Understand?" He thought I was sulking. He came over and ruffled my hair, using the voice you'd use on a sixyearold. "Don't be like that." Don't be like that, my ass.

I shoved his arm off. I was gearing up to say something he'd remember when a streak of pink came flying at us.

She latched onto Rhett's arm and glared at me like I'd come to take him. "What do you think you're doing?" "Vivienne Cole. You don't even want him. Why do you keep him on the hook?

You twofaced little fake!" She screamed it right in my face. I got a mouthful of her spit, and my whole face turned into a question mark. "Ma'am.

Before you spray a person, maybe check who you're spraying. I'm not Vivienne." Her mouth opened. It closed again. "I don't care what woman you are. Stay away from Rhett!" Amazing.

I must not have read my horoscope this morning. Then again. This was good. Two oldmoney families, a dozen deals between them.

I couldn't just walk out and leave Mom and Dad holding it. But a woman throwing herself at him in a bridal salon? That I can work with. I let my face crumple.

I pressed a hand over my mouth and sobbed. "Your side pieces are coming to find me now, and you're telling me not to be like that?

You cheating bastard." Behind my palm, I was grinning so hard my cheeks hurt. Rhett tried to pry her off.

She had a grip like a bear trap, and his manners wouldn't let him get rough about it. Neither of them was going anywhere. "Rhett. My name is Nova Pierce. I came here to save you.

Don't push me away." She burrowed her head into his chest, hiccuping, lacing her fingers through his. "Rhett, don't be scared. I'm here now.

Nobody's ever going to hurt you again." It was beautiful. I got goosebumps. The bad kind. I raised my phone and started shooting. Evidence. All of it. My parents spoiled me rotten.

Once I dropped these photos on the table, I wouldn't have to ask to end the engagement. They'd drag me out of it themselves.

I took another photo. "Get off me." Rhett finally pushed her away. He straightened his shirt, smoothing the wrinkles she'd left, his eyebrows pulled into one hard line.

Nova reached for him again. Rhett didn't even look at her. He signaled his bodyguards. "Get this lunatic out of here." Her eyes went huge. Her whole face stopped working. Poor girl.

She didn't know yet. The gentle, devoted Rhett from the book is only gentle with one woman. And it isn't her. It isn't me either. Chapter 2 Oh. And he's a germaphobe.

Before I woke up, if I wanted to hold his hand, I had to wash mine first. Once I got excited and grabbed him without asking. He didn't pull away.

But the second I let go, he took out a wet wipe. Then he went to the bathroom and washed his hands three times. I used to think he was just clean. Now I think he's sick.

Vivienne Cole is the exception, of course. She could roll around in a sewer and Rhett wouldn't flinch. Germaphobe, my foot. He just doesn't love me.

They walked Nova out through the front of the salon. She kept muttering the whole way, like a prayer. "How can this be happening? The Rhett in the book is gentle.

He's so gentle." Sweetheart. That's for the female lead. At home, I slapped the fresh stack of prints down on the table. "Dad. Mom.

Your princess has been wronged." I puffed out my cheeks, crossed my arms, and threw myself into the couch. "What's all this?" Mom came flapping over in her flipflops, patting down the edges of her sheet mask.

Dad shut his laptop, pushed his wirerim glasses up, and rolled his desk chair across the floor to us. I lifted my chin. Look for yourselves. Handholding. Hugging.

Long, meaningful eye contact. Every angle I could get. Please. I didn't study photography for nothing. Closeups, zoom, slow motion. I'm a bigname shipper in the fandom.

I could do it in my sleep. Mom took one look and detonated. "I thought the youngest Whitlock was the decent one.

Turns out he's a player, exactly like that middle brother of his!" Was that a shot at the brother? Collateral damage, apparently.

Dad slammed the table. "The Whitlocks are going to answer for this." That afternoon, all three of us drove over to the Whitlock house. Funny thing. The leads were there too.

The tall, gorgeous man and the small, delicate woman, folded into each other on the sofa. Very easy on the eyes.

Except they did it everywhere, in front of everyone, and I have a weak stomach. You two have a bed at home. Use it. Nobody else in the room even blinked. They were used to it.

Only Rhett watched them out of the corner of his eye, jaw locked, fist closing on his knee. A man's competitive streak is a beautiful thing.

To make a point, he came over and reached an arm around me. I turned. Full 720degree spin. Missed him completely. Rhett said nothing at all. The silence got a little thick. Mrs.

Whitlock jumped in. "Lo, sweetheart, that woman is a lunatic. She has nothing to do with Rhett.

Don't let it upset you." Half a day is plenty of time for the Whitlocks to pull a girl's entire life apart. A father who beat her. A mother who favored her brother.

A brother who lived off both of them. Standard tragicheroine starter kit. To the Whitlocks, a woman from a family like that could never touch their brilliant son.

And if she managed to touch him, they'd never admit it. "Mrs. Whitlock, I—" Vivienne cut me off. "Lo. You know exactly what kind of man Rhett is.

How could you suspect him?" Look at that. She grew four inches in one sentence. I laughed at her. "You trust him so much.

Why don't you marry him?" Vivienne went scarlet all the way to her ears. Nobody in that room said a word. The male lead came to his wife's defense.

He pulled her into his chest, bent his head, and kissed the tip of her ear, murmuring something soft.

Then he looked at me the way you look at something on the bottom of your shoe. "Say one more word out of line, and I won't be gentle with you." Chapter 3 His assistant piled on. "Miss Ashford, Mrs.

Vance heard what happened to you. She was so worried she barely touched her lunch. She came straight over. And this is how you talk to her.

That's cold." I let my mouth twist. "So it's my fault." My bad. I have no manners.

Guilt doesn't work on me. "If she was so worried, where was she this morning?" "Then again, how could I compete with her precious Rhett?" "Roman.

Your wife cares this much about another man. Maybe step aside and let them be happy." "Marlowe!" Roman roared it. I took a step back, disgusted. I didn't want his spit on my face.

What is it with these people and spraying when they shout? Roman Vance. They call him the Reaper. Everyone's afraid of him. I'm not. The story is over.

The world went back to running the way worlds actually run. Something the size of the Ashford family doesn't collapse because he said a scary sentence in a living room.

His eyes went to Rhett. Once. Twice. Three times, his jaw tight. He was afraid. The male lead is a possessive animal who solves problems below the belt.

Turning him against Rhett would take me an afternoon. If they'd left me alone, I'd have left them alone. But the leads have never once left anybody alone.

Wherever they go, the ground catches fire. There's a reason I hate them. The polite version is that I was the female lead's best friend.

The honest version is that I was her errand girl. I bought her clothes. I bought her jewelry. I stood between her and the girls who made her life hell at school.

And she forgave every single one of them, then looked at me like I was the cruel one for not doing the same.

When the male lead showed up to defend her, she didn't look at anybody in that room except me. She cried and she looked at me. So he decided I was the one hurting her.

He nearly bankrupted my family. Ashford stock went into free fall before she finally got around to explaining. We lost billions. I got one apology out of her. It cost her nothing.

And him? Still up there on his cloud. Not one ounce of guilt. That arrogant look on his face, like the whole thing was our fault for not explaining faster. Plot armor.

God, plot armor. Drop a man like that into the real world and he couldn't hold down a job. Dad pulled me behind him. "Mr. Vance. Lo is angry. She says things when she's angry.

Please don't take it to heart." Then he looked down at Vivienne, and his eyes went cold. "And please keep your wife in line. This is a family matter.

An outsider doesn't get a say in it." "Mr. Ashford, I never—" Vivienne started. Dad didn't give her an inch. "Mrs. Vance.

Don't treat us like idiots." The color drained out of her face. She cried the way she always cries, prettily, one tear at a time.

If Roman hadn't been holding her up from behind, she'd have gone straight down onto the carpet. I tugged the back of Dad's jacket and gave him a thumbsup. That's my CEO.

After all that, my parents had no appetite left for negotiating with the Whitlocks. Dad waved a hand and it was done. The engagement was off. I thought that was the end of it.

Two sentences. That was all I'd said to his wife, in the Whitlock house. I had no idea how long Roman Vance holds on to two sentences. Chapter 4 That night I went out with my girls.

Strobe lights. Dancers grinding on the platforms. A DJ hunched over the decks. And one girl in a long white dress, sitting alone with a guitar, singing. Wildly out of place.

I looked closer. Well. If it isn't Nova Pierce. Times are hard. You wake up inside a book and you end up busking for tips. Except nothing about this was that simple.

Sure enough, there he was in the crowd. Rhett. Shocking. Truly. I took a sip of brandy. It went down sharp. Half a glass and my stomach started to burn.

One of my girls grabbed my arm. "Marlowe, isn't that your fiancé?" "Engagement's off," I said. "He doesn't even qualify as an ex." "Is that right?" A low voice, right above my head.

I jumped so hard the brandy went over the rim. That voice came with a chill. Does this man teleport? Rhett's face was awful. "Your stomach is bad.

You can't drink." I smiled at him. "Oh? And why exactly is my stomach bad, Rhett?" Six months ago, Vivienne fought with Roman and walked out in the middle of the night.

One phone call. Rhett had her in his house before sunrise. A full month. Same table. Same roof. Nobody ever found out what happened in there. What I saw was his face.

He is a serious man. He does not laugh out loud. That month he laughed out loud constantly, in the middle of nothing, like a boy who'd just found out what a crush is.

It didn't last. Roman found her. They made up. Rhett went from heaven straight through the floor.

I watched him take hold of Vivienne's sleeve, the very edge of it, like that was all he was allowed. She pulled her arm away without stopping. Pathetic.

He didn't even have the right to her hand. So he started drinking. I told him to stop. He didn't stop. So I drank with him.

Glass after glass of something strong, until my stomach opened up and bled. I remember the floor. I remember rolling on it. My hand shook too hard to hold my phone.

Rhett thought I was performing. He sat there and watched me for half an hour before he took me to a hospital.

It never healed right. "I'm sorry." The danger went out of him all at once. His voice went soft. Great.

I don't want it. "If you're really sorry, get the hell away from me." He didn't argue.

He took the bottle out of my hand, hard, and went and sat in a booth across the room. "Hey, gorgeous. Put the guitar down.

Come play these instead." "You come to a club dressed like that and act like a nun? You wanted attention, you got it. You said no once. That's cute.

Don't push it." "Oh, look at her, staring across the room. You like him? Sweetheart, one of his shirts costs more than you. Aim lower. We'll take good care of you." "Get off me!

Help! Somebody help me!" Nova. I saw her dress come apart at the shoulder. I saw her stumble across the floor toward us. She caught the sleeve of Rhett's jacket.

Her eyes were full. "Rhett. Help me." Small, shaking, her lips trembling with it. There isn't a person alive who could look at her and not want to help. Then the next second.

Her face froze. Chapter 5 Rhett shoved her off him. Right there, in front of her, he brushed at the spot where her fingers had been. He kept brushing. It wasn't coming off.

So he took the fabric between his hands and tore the sleeve away from his jacket. Nova was still holding her hand up. The one she'd grabbed him with.

Her fingers stayed exactly where they were. So much for manners. When he was done, he turned to me. "I really don't know her." I'd seen that expression on him before.

Vivienne once walked in on the two of us having dinner. Just dinner. She'd smiled like a girlfriend catching her man in a lie. "I didn't realize you two were so close," she'd said.

Rhett had tripped over himself explaining. A coincidence. Nothing. It took him a while to smooth her out. So what was this, then. Was he smoothing me out?

Grinding one girl into the floor to make another girl smile. I put my jacket over Nova's shoulders and pulled her up.

She was wooden in my hands, still stuck three seconds in the past, talking to herself. "No. No.

Rhett isn't like this." "He's exactly like this," I said. "He's just not the thing you built in your head." Women do this with men they love. We polish them.

We put them up somewhere they never earned, decide we're not good enough to stand there with them, and then we get small and scared. Were they ever that good? Not one of them.

Not once. "I don't believe you." She threw my hand off. "He just hasn't seen what I'm worth yet." "I moved too fast. That was my fault. I came at him wrong. Yes.

That's all it is." Four sentences and she'd talked herself back into the cage. She pulled my jacket tight around her, looked at Rhett for a long moment, and walked out of the club.

The next day, I got the news. About Nova. And about Rhett. Last night, Nova was nearly assaulted. Rhett happened to be passing.

He pulled the men off her and put her up in one of his houses