Page 29 of Billionaire’s Heartbreak

“Kai! What is going on?” Lincoln’s voice barked through the phone. Even without speaker, people nearby could hear him. “June? Is that you?” His voice rose with panic. “What the hell is happening over there? Speak to me. Put me on speaker.”

Every sensible instinct told me not to. The room was already one wrong word away from exploding. The last thing we needed was Lincoln’s voice thrown into the middle of it.

But my thumb moved anyway. I pressed the speaker button. Maybe I just wanted backup.

“This is not the time, Lincoln Young!” June snapped before he could speak.

“How can I help?” Lincoln asked immediately, his tone sharp and alert.

“You can’t,” June said, shaking her head. “Not when you’re miles away.”

“You don’t know that,” I cut in before I could stop myself. I wasn’t even sure why I said it. Maybe I just wanted her to be wrong. Maybe I wanted someone on my side for once.

June shot me a look that could have killed.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” she said, her voice cracking as she looked down at Dannie. “I can’t think…”

Her body gave out. One second she was kneeling; the next, she dropped onto the floor beside him, sitting hard like her legs could no longer hold her. “We need to get him to the hospital.”

“No hospital.” Squirrel’s voice cut through the room, followed by another voice, then another.

“No hospital.”

“We can’t.”

“Not there.”

“No way.”

The words spread through the room, men muttering and shaking their heads as if the idea itself were dangerous. June stared at them, stunned.

“He could die,” she said, her voice trembling but loud enough for everyone to hear.

Lincoln was still talking through the phone, but his voice disappeared beneath the noise.

“There has to be another way,” Laura said, pushing through the crowd.

“There’s no other way,” June snapped.

“No. We simply can’t go to the hospital.”

June looked at her slowly, then started unbuttoning the top of her white shirt with jerky movements, like she couldn’t breathe. “Don’t fight me on this,” she said, her voice low and dangerous.

I froze.

I knew Dannie hadn’t been well. I’d seen the headaches, the exhaustion, the whispers whenever he left the room.

But no one had told me anything. And the way June reacted now… this wasn’t new. She knew and she’d kept it from me.

Something ugly twisted in my chest. Part of me was angry at Dannie. Most of it was at her.

After everything we’d been through, I thought at least that much hadn’t changed. We didn’t have to be lovers anymore. Fine. But we could have been friends. Real friends. The kind who shared secrets. The kind who called when things went wrong.

“Kai! Kai! Kai!” Lincoln’s voice snapped me back.

I switched off the speaker and pressed the phone to my ear.

“Listen to me,” he said.