Three Billionaires Claimed Me Tonight novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Which One

The three men take back the key, the island deed and the equity folder in front of the room, and when Cressida demands to know which of them is Lena's boyfriend, all three answer at once: I am.

Christian crossed the room.

He closed his hand around Cressida's raised wrist and lowered it, slowly, until it hung at her side.

"Let go of her hair," he said.

Cressida let go.

Her friends let go of my arms so fast that one of them stumbled backward into a chair.

Dorian reached me first.

He took my chin in his hand and turned my face to the light.

There was gray sludge in my hair and a red mark on my cheek where a fingernail had caught me.

"Who threw it?" he asked.

His voice was soft, and nobody in the room wanted to hear what came after it.

"Cressida," I said.

"Thank you," Dorian said, and he took out a silk handkerchief and began to wipe the ash from my eyelids.

Behind him, two men in black suits had already shut the door and stood against it.

They were Maddox's.

I knew their faces from the lobby of his building.

Maddox walked around the table without a word and stopped in front of Cressida's bag.

"You have three things in there that belong to Ms. Prescott," he said. "I will count to three, and then my people will open it."

"You have no right to touch that," Cressida said.

Her voice shook, and she hugged the purse to her chest.

"They're actors," her friend whispered. "They have to be actors. Do we know any of them?"

"Ma'am," said the floor captain.

The floor captain had come back in. He stood very straight, and he did not look at her.

"Ms. Lyle, this is Mr. Christian Aldous. Aldous Holdings owns this building and this club."

Nobody said a word.

Christian held out his palm.

"My key."

Cressida didn't move.

Maddox nodded once, and the two men came off the door.

The purse was out of her arms before she could make a sound.

One of them tipped it onto the marble.

The matte black key rang against the stone.

The blue folder from the Bahamian land registry slid out beside it, and the embossed equity agreement landed on top.

Maddox picked the agreement up and opened it to the last page.

"That's my signature," he said. "Would you like me to read the valuation out to the room?"

Cressida's mouth moved, and nothing came out.

Dorian took the island deed and closed it against his chest.

"I picked that island out myself," he said, to nobody in particular. "I walked the beach with a surveyor in the rain."

Christian put the key in my hand and folded my fingers over it.

His hand was cold and steady.

For a moment the room could hear my breathing.

I looked at the table, where Cressida's carbon-fiber key fob still lay beside the cold plates.

"You said if one of them showed, the car was mine," I said.

She stared at me.

"Three showed," Dorian said, and he picked up the fob and put it in my palm beside the steel key. "Congratulations."

"You promised something else too," I said. "You said you'd go down on your knees and call me queen."

"I will do nothing of the kind," Cressida said.

"Then the camera can say it for you."

Dorian held his phone up where she could see the red light.

Her friends were backing toward the wall, and the one who had tripped me was crying.

"That car belongs to my patron," Cressida said.

"Then he'll want it back after I finish with him," Christian said.

I braced for the worst of it, because I knew these three.

I waited for the first one to turn his head and ask who the other two were.

Nobody did.

Christian glanced at Maddox, and Maddox glanced at Dorian, and then all three looked back at me, calm.

I thought, they're too stunned to ask.

Cressida found her voice at that exact moment.

"Oh, this is rich," she said, and she laughed, high and wild. "You people have no idea, do you?"

"She told us she has three of you," Cressida said anyway. "Three! Every one of you thinks you're the only man, and she's been cheating all of you for who knows how long. She's laughing at you."

"Cressida," Posey said, and her whisper cracked.

"Look at her. She's got you all standing in one room." Cressida spread her hands. "So which one of you is her boyfriend? Which one? Say it. I want to hear it."

The silence was so complete I could hear the ice melting in somebody's glass.

I did not breathe.

Christian turned his head toward me.

Maddox took off his glasses.

Dorian lowered the phone.

"I am," said Christian.

"I am," said Dorian.

"I am," said Maddox.

All three said it at once, and not one of them was looking at Cressida.

They were looking at each other.

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