Billionaire On Fire: The Complete Series (A Bad Boy Alpha Billionaire Romance) (24 page)

I ended up getting drunk to try and wipe
away the sadness, and that led to having sex with another bar-goer. When I woke
up and saw my mistake next to me, I pledged that I would not casually date men,
I would not settle for anything less than what Nick and Stacey had. One year later,
I was still going strong on the pledge. Except for the part where I often
dreamed of my boss’s naked body. These dreams were sporadic at first, but were
occurring more and more frequently. I was still very firmly set on never acting
on my feelings or falling for his advances.

I turned my attention back to Nick and
Stacey’s bickering and gave up. “Guys, just get a medium pizza with rice-crust
and a medium regular. Problem solved.”

After a short pause, I looked at Stacey
with amusement. “I’ll be eating the regular, Stace, but I am still morally on
your side.”

She threw a pillow at me and we burst into
simultaneous giggles.

Half an hour later the doorbell rang.

“That should be the pizza,” Nick said,
popping up.

“God I am starving. I hope they sent the
extra pepper flakes. They always mess that up,” I said.

“I don’t understand your inability to
consume any kind of food that doesn’t burn your soul.”

“It doesn’t burn, that’s the point. Not in
a bad way, at least. Spice makes me appreciate the flavor more.”

“Weirdo.”

“Says the girl who refuses to eat regular
pizza because she read something on The Great Internets.”

She scowled. “God, you’re starting to
sound just like Nick.”

“Where did he disappear to anyway? It
shouldn’t take this long to-” she stopped as Nick showed up looking utterly
confused.

Instead of two pizzas, however, he was
holding a giant bouquet of red roses.

“When I said I wanted gluten free, that’s
not what I had in mind,” Stacey said. “But how sweet, Nick!”

His eyes widened. “No! No no. Shit. I can
order you some flowers if you want! Sorry, baby. These are for Aria. From
someone named Zayden.”

Stacey gasped loudly, covering her mouth.
“Zayden as in-“

“As in her boss Zayden,” Nick finished her
sentence, looking equally confused.

They were both looking at me sharply as
though I would know what to say. As though I had been expecting flowers from my
boss, who very likely had his assistant Lana order them for every teller he
hadn’t yet gotten his hands on.

Nick handed me the flowers after picking
out the note.

“Hey!” I shouted trying to reach for it.
Nick was 6’5. I wasn’t going to win.

“Dear Aria,” he read out loud in a
dramatic voice, his right arm over his chest. “I hope you enjoy the roses. One
rose for each day until I change your mind.”

Nick gasped as Stacey counted: “Thirty
roses!”

I felt myself get hot in the face with
embarrassment, but a tiny bit of me fluttered in excitement. What the hell was
wrong with me?

“There’s a P.S.” Nick announced. “P.S. I
picked out the roses myself, so don’t bother thanking Lana tomorrow.”

“Have they developed technology to
intercept brain-waves yet?” I looked at Stacey.

“No Aria, he can’t read your mind.” She
flashed a huge grin. “You have a lover!”

“What?” I said louder than perhaps
necessary. “I do not have a lover. Zayden – Mr.Sinclair – is not my lover.”

“Looks like he will be in about,” Nick
surveyed the roses, “thirty days.”

I sighed. “No he won’t. I’ll return the
roses.”

“No you won’t!” Stacey yelled, looking
like I had just said I would amputate her imaginary puppy. “He’s a
multi-squillionaire. And so handsome. So, so handsome. Are you stupid?”

“That’s not the point-” I stopped myself
mid-sentence and gave her a suspicious look. “How do you know he’s handsome?”

“What?” she said defensively. “I read ZEN
Magazine.”

Oh right. That. I had a copy of the issue
with Zayden’s interview under my bed.

“I found it under your bed,” Stacy added.
“You’re already kind of sleeping with him.”

“Shut up, Stace! Let’s just eat the pizza,
watch some T.V., and never speak of this again.”

“Sure, if by never you mean thirty days,”
Nick butted in.

“Thanks for the unsolicited opinion,
Nicholas,” I said turning up the volume on the T.V. and getting under a
blanket.

They continued to offer what they thought
were clever comments but I tuned them out, focusing instead on the giant
bouquet of red roses. Was I in trouble? Would he manage to get what he wanted
in thirty days? He couldn’t take what I didn’t want to give. I felt a strange
pang in my chest. The problem was, I was not entirely sure I didn’t want to
give in. My cellphone rang, breaking the dangerous train of thoughts.

“Hi mom! How are you feeling?” I answered
the phone.

“Hi sweetheart. I am doing much better.
The doctors said I’ll be running around by the end of the month.”

I smiled. “I am so happy to hear that,
mom.”

“Don’t be, we still have to pay for the
stupid surgery. If I hadn’t gotten the damn surgery-”

“If you hadn’t gotten the surgery I
wouldn’t have a mother,” I cut her off. “So you just worry about getting
yourself all better, and I’ll worry about the bills.”

“Like you don’t have enough expenses
paying your way through college. I’m sorry for being such a lousy mother,
baby.”

“Don’t say that!” Tears formed in my eyes,
ready to break free. “Having to file for bankruptcy because dad bailed on you
after forcing you to co-sign on his loan does not make you a lousy mother. It
makes you a good person who faced terrible consequences for being one. You need
to stop blaming yourself. You took care of me all my life, now let me take care
of you. It’s going to be okay.”

“But-”

“No but. I’ll figure out a way to pay the
hospital bills. You relax and get all pretty. It’s nine o’clock, John will be
over with his daily tea service.”

She chuckled nervously. “What do you mean
get pretty? He’s just my neighbor who likes to help out sometimes. And bring me
mugs of tea. Just a…friend.”

“Okay mom, have fun with your
neighbor-friend,” I laughed. “I love you.”

“I love you too, sweetheart. Take care of
yourself.”

“Mom, I love you, bye!”

I hung up with a smile still on my face
and tears in my eyes. I still couldn’t believe what my dad had done to her. I
had no idea where he was now, what he was doing, if he ever thought about us.
He left us to take care of ourselves and I started working at the age of
fourteen, while my mom tried her best to fend for us, living paycheck to
paycheck, while dealing with her heart condition. It all motivated me to work
hard and excel in college so I could become a successful loan officer and give
my mom all the things she deserved.

This was exactly why I could never let
Zayden Sinclair get into my head again. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath
with new reserve.

The flowers had to be returned.

---

I walked into the loan officer’s desk
feeling nervous. This morning Stacey had helped me dress up in her black suit,
so I looked confident and mature enough to handle the situation. I had hoped
the attire would kill the moths in my stomach, but no such luck so far.

“Hi, I am Aria,” I said, offering my right
hand.

“Wilson.” His handshake was curt. “Take a
seat, Aria. You’re one of the tellers here, correct? I see you whenever I walk
in through the front.”

I nodded.

“How long have you been working here?” He
was looking at his computer screen.

“Just about three months. I worked at
State Park Bank for almost two years before that.”

“As a teller?”

I wanted him to get to the point.

“Yes, sir,” I said meekly.

“And you’re still in school?”

Why was he asking me these questions when
he was obviously looking at a document that told him all the answers? Mr.
Wilson was not helping the moth situation in my stomach.

“Yes, at Southern Eastern. Junior year.”

“Really?” He finally looked at me with raised
eyebrows. “It says here that you have only been in college for two years.”

“Yes, but I had excellent grades in many
AP classes so I had a whole year transferred over.”

“Impressive.” It didn’t sound like a
compliment, for some reason. “Do you have any other jobs besides this one?”

“No, just the bank. But I work insane
hours, so it’s practically two jobs,” I laughed nervously. He was not amused.

“I see,” he said and typed something on
his computer.

There were a few minutes of silence during
which the moths in my stomach participated in an intense war. I was just about
ready to throw up. This loan was my only bet— the only way I would be able to
pay for my mom’s surgery without dropping out of college. The future of my
entire life depended on whatever this Wilson guy was typing on his computer.

When he finally looked up, my heart was
pounding.

“Here’s the thing, Aria,” he said without
a single expression on his face. “You seem like a smart girl with a very
promising future. However, between your college tuition and loans and your own
living expenses, and just this job to sustain yourself – even if it is, as you
put it,” he paused to make air-quotes, “‘practically two jobs,’ there is just
no way you will be able to handle a loan for 60,000 dollars.”

My heart fell, and I could feel my eyes
start to prickle.

“But I will be out of college in a little
over a year.” My voice was shaky. “And I will have an excellent job, I assure
you, and my situation will change completely.”

“When that happens you can reapply for the
loan.” He actually looked a little apologetic.

“I need to pay for my mother’s heart
surgery.” I don’t know why I said it. Studying to be a loan officer, I knew
that there was nothing Wilson could do personally. His reasoning was completely
sound.

“I’m really sorry to hear that, and I wish
the bank could help you out, but right now there is nothing we can do.”

“I understand.” I did. That didn’t stop me
from wanting to run into the bathroom and bawl my eyes out. “Thank you.”

My face was swollen and covered in tears
by the time I made it back to the teller’s booth.

CHAPTER
4

ZAYDEN

She was crying. Crying women made me
uncomfortable. My mother knew this so well that I didn’t remember the last time
I saw her without tears in her eyes. At first it was about my dad’s death, so I
used to try and make her feel better, but slowly it became directed towards my
dad, in bitterness. At first I didn’t understand why she would speak of her
dead husband as though he were some sort of a monster, but snide comments here
and there about how I was handling my billions and it all started adding up.
She couldn’t believe that he hadn’t left a single penny in her name, which made
no sense to me at first either, but eventually the truth came out: she had been
cheating on him for years. With his lawyer. Who also happened to be one of his
best friends. He tolerated it while he was alive because he loved her or some
nonsense of that sort, but apparently this “love” thing was not that big of a
deal because he found a way to get back at her from the grave. It made me hate
her for a little bit, which added to the endless crying, but she was still my
mother and I found a way to tolerate her. I bought her a giant house in
California, thousands of miles away from me.

Why was Aria Roberts crying? I debated
whether to go over to her and what the implications of that would be. There was
no question about the fact that I wanted her body, but approaching her at an
emotional time might suggest I wanted more. That I cared about how she was
feeling. Well, maybe that’s exactly what she wanted; maybe believing exactly
that would be what broke her restraint. I got a strange feeling in my gut that
I didn’t understand. I was the master of manipulation. I messed with women’s
emotions all the time. The hint of moral fiber had to be because she was
crying.

I shook my head and trotted over to the
booth. She was the only person there. Her mascara had slightly run down her
smooth, blushing olive cheeks, which made her look surprisingly sexy.

She seemed to be so phased out that when
she noticed I was standing in front of her, she jumped. Quickly wiping her face
with her palms, she said in a squeaky voice, “Good morning, Mr. Sinclair!”

“Liar,” I teased. “It doesn’t seem to be
that good of a morning for you.”

“Oh, yeah, I am sorry about this. I’ll cut
it out before a customer walks in, I promise.”

“Well, obviously, that’s what I came over
here to say.” I was smiling. “It’s okay, Aria.”

That made her burst into a whole new bout
of tears. I guess it wasn’t okay, whatever it was. Completely unsure of what to
do, I told her, “Take a paid hour off. Walk around if you need to, take a
break.”