Dirty Love (Dirty Girl Duet #2)(9)

“Crey tried to reach you shortly after you landed in Belize, but got no answer on your cell phone.”

“I know. I didn’t have service down there.”

Cannon’s eyebrow rises. “You didn’t have service because Cav didn’t want you to have service. We checked with the carrier. You should’ve automatically switched over to the local network. Since you’ve been sleeping for about eighteen hours, I’ve gone through all the settings on the phone with the provider, and it appears Cav switched the one you needed to hook up to the local network. He wanted you cut off from everyone, Greer.”

My mind grapples with this revelation. First, how the hell did I sleep for eighteen hours? Good God, woman. And second, why would Cav do that?

The blows keep coming as Cannon continues. “The Internet was also disconnected in the house, and the caretakers were under orders from Cav not to relay any messages to you that Creighton was trying to reach you. He wanted you isolated from the rest of the world.”

The piece of bacon I just picked up falls back to my plate. “Why?”

“How better to get into your head than cutting you off from your support system? It’s a common technique to build rapport.”

Common to kidnappers and cults, maybe. Could Cav really be so calculating? It only takes me a moment to answer my own question.

Yes. He is.

I can’t forget I was a job from day one. Everything he’s said and done has been calculating. And dammit, I gave him the exact opening he needed to come back into my life.

The anti-Cav train in my head derails around the next curveball question. Why would he come back now? I’m not a job anymore.

I decide to throw that one at Cannon’s feet. “Why would he come back into my life and go to all this trouble? What’s his end game? What does he want from me now?”

Cannon lifts #1 Grandma to his lips again and drinks before responding. “I don’t know, but he has an angle. He always has an angle.”

For a moment, I wonder if Cannon is talking about himself, because I truly believe that about him. But I have trouble, even in my raw state, attributing that to Cav. He doesn’t seem cold and calculating. The opposite, actually. He seared me with the heat of his need, introduced me to pleasures I never knew existed.

But he lied. About everything. After you trusted him with the most vulnerable parts of you.

Betrayal is a cold blade slicing through the village of rationalizations I’m building in my head. I can’t rationalize this away. The stabbing pain in the vicinity of my heart tells me that too.

“So, what now? I’m banished to the backwoods of Kentucky?”

Cannon rises from the table and rinses his mug in the sink. “You’re laying low. If you want to call it banishment, that’s your choice. But after that stunt on Twitter yesterday morning, you unleashed another media cycle tearing into your character, and stock prices are taking a hit. We need to distance you from the companies if you’re going to keep acting like a spoiled little brat.”

And there we have it, the unvarnished truth from the mouth of Cannon Grove himself.

As much as it frustrates me to have my actions scrutinized so heavily and affect Creighton’s business, I know he’s right.

“How do you distance me?”

“You transfer all your interest in the companies to someone else. If you’re not a majority shareholder in so many of the businesses, then investors, after proper education, won’t be so concerned by your actions.”

Give up my interest in Karas Holdings? I remember the first time Creighton told me he was building the company, not only to secure his future, but to secure mine as well. He’d just taken a huge risk in the foreign currency market and made his first billion.

It wasn’t the money that hit me hardest, it was the feeling of solidarity. Creighton and me against the world, just like it was always Creighton and me against my aunt and uncle. Even though I have limited knowledge of all the details, I’ve been a part of almost every business venture he’s been involved in. When your brother is as busy and ambitious as mine, drawn in a hundred different directions at once, it’s one way to know you still occupy an important spot in his life.

The purchase of Homegrown Records for Holly was one of the first business deals he excluded me from, but obviously I held no resentment. I understood completely.

But to me, giving up my interest in those companies is equivalent to giving up that bond with my brother. I don’t want to do it.

I shake my head. “No. I’m not bowing out. I’ll be better. No more drunken ad posting or tweeting. I’m done.”

“Which is why you’re here, and you’ve got no Internet and no cell phone. I grabbed the case file on your counter, so maybe that’ll give you something else to do.”

“So this really is exile? You want me cut off from everything.” My words carry the weight of guilt I already feel. I’m twenty-six years old, and I’m still being treated like a child.

You did this to yourself, Greer. That inner voice is correct to a certain degree, but still . . . this is excessive.

“What about Banner? Can I at least talk to her?” I eye the old rotary telephone on the wall. It’s definitely an antique, but I can figure out how to use it.

Cannon follows my line of sight. “Phone has been shut off, and I’ve got a security guy coming in to babysit you while you’re here. It might be best for you and Banner to take a little break from wreaking havoc on the world for a week or so.”