Arrangement With A Billionaire (Bad Boy Billionaire Brothers #1) (28 page)

“Everything all right?”

She turned and looked back at him, her fingers barely holding onto the papers in her hands.

A light frown pulled at Arturo’s dark brows, and Isla realized what he looked so worried about.

She wiped her eyes. She wasn’t crying, but her eyes burned and it was obvious she was about to start. “Sorry,” she said, trying to laugh it off, but failing. “I’m just really happy about this, is all.”

Arturo seemed to buy her excuse. “That’s good, considering you looked like you wanted to claw my eyes out a second ago.”

She still kind of did, knowing what she knew now and thinking back to that blonde that had been giving him a lap dance only a couple of minutes ago.

She bit that back. It wasn’t her business. It never had been. Even if there was a chance of it being any of her business, there was nothing between them now, so she had nothing to complain about.

Arturo approached her. He didn’t touch her, but his hands reached for the contract. He held onto one side while Isla held onto the other. He was taking it. When he took it and she let go, there wouldn’t be anything connecting them anymore.

She let go of it.

Arturo smiled softly at her. She couldn’t get a proper read on his face. She couldn’t get a proper read on anything anymore.

She wanted to say something to him, to let him know what she’d just realized, but the thought of that woman on his lap, of him telling her she needed to go….

She couldn’t do it.

Arturo wet his lips. He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’ll call Sam. He’ll take you wherever you need to go.”

Isla cleared her throat. “Right, uh, thanks for that.”

She quickly started walking to the door. She needed to get out of here. It was too awkward, and if she stayed any longer, she thought she might actually die from how humiliated she was.

The worst part was how she felt like everything was all wide open for Arturo to see. She didn’t want anyone to see her like this.

“Isla,” Arturo called.

She was already pushing the doors open.

She walked out into the lobby. Sylvia saw her there, but Isla passed her quickly.

“Miss King? I think Mr. Calendri is calling for you.”

“Isla?” Orlando asked.

She pretended to not hear them either as she pressed the button for the elevator. She multi-tapped it like that would make the doors open faster.

It took forever before they did. Or it seemed to.

When she finally got into the elevator and pressed the button for the parking lot, she leaned her back against the wall and looked out one last time at Arturo’s doors. She’d kind of hoped he would be there, rushing out to stop her or something, just like in one of Jane’s romance novels.

The doors slid shut and she descended. Orlando and Sylvia were clearly confused, but she just needed to get out of here.

Right, of course he wasn’t going to stop her. This wasn’t a game anymore and that stuff only happened in wild fantasies.

Isla wiped her face with her hands and sniffed.

The only thing remotely close to being out of a romance novel was the fucked-up situation itself. She’d actually fallen for a man who’d been using her for sex. She was never going to say it out loud, but in her head, she couldn’t stop the words from forming.

She actually loved the bastard, and that fact was never going to make her happy.

S
ilvio wasn’t back
at the apartment when Isla came back. In a weird way, she’d been hoping to see him, even though he was there for Jane.

He didn’t show up the next day either. Or the next day. Or the day after that. It seemed as though an entire month had gone by when Isla realized she hadn’t heard a thing from anyone in Arturo’s circles, which was when she’d realized why she’d hoped to see Silvio around.

If he was around, then Isla could pretend she still had some connection to Arturo.

Jane acted like she didn’t know anything was going on. She didn’t mention Silvio’s name, or confirm or deny what Isla thought had happened after she had left.

That made things awkward in the beginning. Isla wanted to know how she’d even met Silvio and why was she so embarrassed to have any sort of connection with him? Was it because she wrote billionaire romances? Maybe it was embarrassing for her to be a writer in that genre, while actually knowing a real billionaire.

It was hard to sexualize a person when they had a real face and a life, and weren’t just text on a page or an actor on the big screen.

Isla felt sorry for Jane, but she wasn’t a good enough person to spare much of even that pitiful emotion.

She was still wallowing in her own self-pity and trying to forget that the very thought of Arturo made her heart thump in all the wrong ways.

She loved the bastard. She loved him, and her plan to get close enough to be considered a friend, to make him feel guilty for getting her to sign that contract, had backfired spectacularly in her face. Now there wasn’t anything between them. She hadn’t so much as received a call or a text, and she’d certainly never heard anything back from Orlando, Silvio, or even Sam or Martina.

She missed those two especially.

Isla
had
heard from the lawyers, of course, people who wanted to make sure the transfer of 49 percent of a multi-million dollar company in Isla’s name went smoothly.

And it did. For what had to be the first time in the history of any business transaction of this size, everything was clear skies and smooth sailing.

Arturo had even arranged to continue operations of her share of the business until she was ready to tell her parents that she had it, and then hand it over to the people who knew what they were doing better than she did.

Which she hadn’t done yet.

Isla knew Arturo’s phone number. She had lived in his house for a little over two weeks, after all, but when the time came that she was ready to explain to her parents that her adoring billionaire boyfriend was handing over part of his girlfriend’s family business, Isla was to call his lawyers, who would then relay the message to him.

She wasn’t supposed to call Arturo personally.

Isla stayed in bed, staring at her phone, staring at the screen with Arturo’s name and number on it. She imagined calling him right now just for the hell of it, just to hear his voice, but then her imagination quickly filled in what would happen next.

He’d know it was her. He had to have caller ID, and if he didn’t have it and didn’t recognize her number, then Isla would hang up the second he picked up and said a single word.

Her stomach constricted at the thought, as though it was something that had already happened.

But then she’d hear his voice.

She stared at the screen of her phone, looking at the black pixels that spelled out his name, and thought about calling.

She turned off her phone and stuck it under her pillow. The level of pathetic that oozed from her was impressive in its sadness.

She hadn’t showered in three days. Hadn’t sketched any new designs, despite the fact that having the business back, or part of it, meant she’d be going back to work soon. She hadn’t even opened up her kits or made anything out of her many supplies. Her body was tired. So was her mind. She thought about doing these things, but even as she imagined her legs and arms moving, or jumping out of bed and hoping into the shower and starting her day—at one in the afternoon—her body wouldn’t cooperate. Her fingers didn’t even twitch.

Tired but wide awake. Wanting to sleep, but couldn’t. Wanting to move, but couldn’t. She didn’t even know how long it had been since she’d eaten, but her stomach didn’t growl for food.

And all because she loved someone who didn’t love her. Isla didn’t think she’d ever been in love before. Not if this was what the heartbreak of real love felt like.

No wonder she’d never fallen in love before. She swore to herself that the second she got over this, she was never going to fall for anyone ever again.

Well, no, okay that was kind of dumb. She didn’t exactly want to turn into the crazy cat lady. When she got over Arturo, she was going to find someone else to love, but she was going to be smart about it. She wouldn’t just let the stupid emotion sneak up on her when she wasn’t paying attention, and she wouldn’t feel anything she wasn’t supposed to just because Arturo’s life story made her feel sorry for him.

Isla was a perfectly normal adult female. A lot of women had a desire to be nurturers. That was all it was. Arturo’s history with his father, his family, and his aloof nature had made her want to take care of him.

She’d intended to walk away from the entire thing with him feeling guilty for using her after she showed him what an outstanding individual she was, but in the end, she was the one who had been pulled in.

She didn’t even care if that was a clinical and somewhat heartless way of looking at it. It had to be the truth. How else did she explain how she was feeling right now?

She could stay in this bed forever.

She didn’t even flinch when her door burst open.

“All right! That’s it! I’ve had enough!”

Jane marched into Isla’s room, around her bed, and was then within sight. Her spine was straight, shoulders were back, and her straight brunette hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail. She looked like a woman about to take charge of…whatever it was that she wanted.

And apparently, she wanted the sheets on Isla’s bed, because she grabbed onto them tight and yanked them off Isla’s body, making them fly across the room like they were made to sail in the air.

Isla glanced at her friend. “What do you want?”

“You’re still in your pajamas!” Jane snapped. “Jesus, girl, what’s
with
you? I know you liked him and everything, but enough is enough!”

Jane then wrinkled her nose. “Your hair looks like a complete mess. When was the last time you had a bath?”

“Three days ago.”

Jane lifted a perfectly sculpted brow. “Three days?”

“On Friday.”

Jane just stared at her. Then she exploded. “Friday was
five
days ago! Get your disgusting butt into the bathroom now!”

Isla blinked up at her friend. “Five days ago?”

Jane crossed her arms.

The itch Isla felt on her skin did seem a little stronger than usual, and with those shrewd eyes on her, knowing what she knew…

Isla pulled herself out of bed, letting her weak feet touch the ground for the first time in a hundred years. “All right.”

T
he shower did help
, especially since Isla stayed under the water for a good hour. She shaved her legs, shampooed and conditioned her hair twice, scrubbed her face and body of all the dead skin she had—which was a disgusting amount; —and then used her in-the-shower moisturizer to really bring herself back to normal.

She felt kind of good when it came time to get out of the shower.

Isla was also reminded of just how hungry she was, and she went in search of food.

Jane was, unfortunately, sitting at the little table in the equally small space that passed for their kitchen. She was holding onto a mug in both of her hands.

“Don’t tell me we have to have a talk now,” Isla said, praying that wasn’t what this was about.

She felt better after having her shower, but that didn’t mean she wanted to spill her guts to anyone, even Jane, about what she was feeling for Arturo.

Jane scoffed and lifted her mug to her lips. “I could be just having a coffee, you know.”

“Sure,” Isla said, smiling and walking past her friend. She rummaged through the fridge, pulled out an apple, some orange juice, and some eggs and cheese.

She was totally going to reward herself with something delicious and fattening, and not because she was depressed.

Jane stayed mostly silent while Isla fried her egg. Shit, had she actually pissed Jane off with that last comment?

Glancing over her shoulder, Isla was able to breathe a heavy sigh when she realized that, no, Jane wasn’t giving her the silent treatment. She had a mechanical pencil in her hand and was staring down at an open notebook.

Jane liked writing things out in long hand before she went to her computer, especially her character designs.

Okay, so she was working. That was good. It meant Isla didn’t have to feel strange about the silence.

She finished cooking her eggs and melting the cheese on top, and then she squished the entire thing between two pieces of dry, gluten-free toast that Jane was always buying.

It wasn’t even close to being the same as the breakfast that could be found in Arturo’s house, but after several days of being on the starvation diet, it did the trick.

After taking her first bite, she sat down in the only other seat at the tiny square table.

She took more bites of her egg sandwich, drank some coffee and orange juice, and ate some fruit. All the while, Jane barely looked up at her.

Isla was going out of her damned mind.

“So…what was going on with you and Silvio?”

Jane glanced up at her from her papers before she looked back down. “I can’t ask my best friend about what’s got her looking like a corpse, but you can ask me about Arturo’s brother?”

Isla bit her lip, the bones in her hand clenching into fists without her permission. “Right, sorry.”

Another silence. Isla was getting fidgety. “I’m in love with Arturo,” she said, spitting it out and putting the words into the world for the first time.

Jane’s eyes widened just a fraction as she looked up. “Wow. Seriously?”

Isla glared. “No, I’m kidding.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Jane raised her hands and sat back. “Wow, sorry. No wonder you’ve been so cheery lately.”

Isla rolled her eyes. “I’ll get over it.”

“I mean, I guess I should’ve seen it coming. You’ve been way more depressed than you should’ve been after he sent you home, and all the texts you sent me when you were there were so happy.”

“Yeah, and you’re a romance author,” Isla said, liking where the direction of this conversation was going. “Remind me to never read anything you write.”

“I want you reading the stuff I write about as much as I want my mother reading it,” Jane said.

Isla got serious. “Or Silvio?”

“
Especially
Silvio,” Jane replied, her mouth turned into a crooked line that didn’t suit her at all.

Like the idea of sharing anything with Silvio had left a bad taste in her mouth.

Isla and Jane’s eyes met, and they both started to laugh. It had to be the first time they’d laughed together in weeks. It was kind of strained and more of a release than anything else, but it felt good. Really good.

The kitchen looked bright and normal all of a sudden, and not so gloomy and dark. Or maybe that was just Isla projecting her mood onto her surroundings.

She couldn’t be entirely sure.

“So,” Jane started. “If you love him, why don’t you try for something with him?”

Some of the gloom returned. “It wouldn’t work out.”

Jane gently stirred the spoon she always left in her coffee mug, even though it was probably stirred perfectly already. “Because of the way things started out?”

Isla leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. “Because of the way they started out and the way they ended. He’s got too much baggage, too. I don’t think I want any part of that.”

“Yeah, right,” Jane said. “I’m sure the fact that he’s a handsome billionaire who can make you fall in love with him, despite being a total asshole, has nothing to do with it.”

Isla’s face heated. She glanced down at her friend, but then returned her attention to the ceiling that suddenly interested the hell out of her.

There wasn’t any particular reason why she loved Arturo. It wasn’t like he’d made some grand sweeping gesture that had won her heart over.

It had been all the little things, the fact that he was so close with two of his three brothers, and was trying to patch things up with Sebastian. The fact that he was loved by his staff, Martina especially.

It was how he tried to hide so much of himself away, and revealed so much at the same time.

And maybe part of it was that he was the handsome, aloof billionaire that she wanted to heal. She didn’t even know anymore.

“I guess so,” Isla said, deciding not to commit to anything Jane had to say about it. She wanted to change the subject. “What about Silvio? How’d you both end up together?”

“We are not together,” Jane said, scratching something out violently on her notebook.

“Uh-huh. You and he weren’t going at it after Orlando and I left?”

“No.”

Isla blinked at the sharp answer. She didn’t know if she believed it or not, but it was clear that Jane wasn’t playing around either.

When Isla was going through guy problems, she got a little depressed, granted, but when Jane was having men troubles, she hid it behind her anger.

“Did something happen?” Isla asked. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“
No
,” Jane said, groaning and hiding her face in her hands.

“But…”

Jane blew out a very irritated-sounding noise before she pulled her hands away from her face. “Okay, so I met him at a club one night a couple weeks back. He was cute and bought me a couple of drinks and we…had a thing in the bathroom.”

Isla’s brows shot up. She couldn’t stop them, even as she tried to keep her face neutral. “In the bathroom?”

“Shut up, okay? I know it’s slutty and everything, but he was cute and charming, and I fucking wanted to just let go and have some fun.”