Billionaire On Fire: The Complete Series (A Bad Boy Alpha Billionaire Romance) (28 page)

“Well, that’s the thing.” I was finally
able to look at him without flinching again. “My professor is a hardcore
Republican who doesn’t believe any good could come out of taxing the rich. He
accused me of being a dirty communist. So I am writing this paper to prove him
wrong.”

“People don’t easily change their long-standing
political opinions, Aria. You are probably taking a risk challenging him like
that since he decides your grades.”

“He can’t fail me for disagreeing with me,
and this paper is my one chance to show him that his way isn’t the only way.”

“Saving the world, one Econ professor at a
time?” he laughed.

“Fine, you don’t really have to help me. I
just thought it would be a fun thing to do if we are going to spend so much
time together. But this is your contract, we do whatever you want on your
time.”

Dinner had been so nice and relaxed; I had
almost forgotten why I was there. We weren’t just two people hanging out and
getting to know each other, he was
paying
me to do this. We weren’t friends. We weren’t anything. I was his employee. Why
did I ever think he would be interested in my stupid – I jumped as I felt his
hand over mine. Suddenly, without any warning, my mind went completely blank
and I felt a jolt of electricity run through my veins. His hands were strong
but tender, his long, slender fingers completely engulfing mine. He was
twiddling his thumb against mine and I felt a sensation in a place that had no
right to react to what was happening. I couldn’t remember what I was thinking
about or what we were talking about. All I knew was that I wished that my body
didn’t react to his touch the way it did. I squeaked involuntarily and pulled
my hand away gently.

What the hell was that? Once more, I had
trouble looking him in the eye. This time for completely different reasons.

It felt like an eternity had passed by the
time he finally said, “I’ll help you with your paper. Every night after dinner
we will work on it together. Okay?”

When I met his bright blue eyes again, he
was flashing me a genuine smile and my heartbeat picked up. How embarrassing.
Snap out of it, woman! Agreeing to help me with homework was just one of many
tricks in his big game plan of getting my clothes off, just like organizing a
custom dinner with my favorite dishes. He wasn’t interested in my food choices
or my paper or my world views or my economics professor. I would be an idiot to
let myself believe otherwise. He had made no attempt to hide his motives behind
this entire set-up, and if I let myself get confused into thinking he actually
cared about me, only I would be to blame when I got hurt in the end. Staying
grounded through these six months seemed like a harder task right now than it
ever had before, but I had to be strong and take this for what it was to him: a
game.

“Thank you,” I said, trying not to betray
my train of thought.

“And one of these days,” he added. “I
would be happy to come to your apartment for some pizza and Bud Light. We can
do the Netflix thing as well if it makes you feel normal.”

“All right.”

---

When I finally got home that night,
however, I started panicking. Zayden Sinclair, in my house? The living room
floor was covered in magazines, and Stacey and Nick would scrutinize him to no
end, and our T.V. was not even a flat screen. The couch was fifty-years-old, a
gift from Nick’s now deceased grandmother. Maybe I could get him to change his
mind…

As I covered myself with blankets, my
thoughts drifted away from the apartment to that moment during dinner when his
thumb was rubbing against mine. Laden with desire, I softly rubbed my fingers
against each other. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I could not let him have
this kind of an effect on me. This was exactly what he was trying to
accomplish, and I knew better than to let him have what he wanted. With the
firm decision to actively block any compromising thoughts of him, I closed my
eyes.

That didn’t stop me from dreaming
compromising dreams all night, though.

CHAPTER
6

ZAYDEN

I was surprised by Aria’s progress on her
paper so far. Over the past few years running the company, I had grown cynical
of women, and the thought of them as intellectual beings had not crossed my
mind since my MBA days. It probably had to do with not working with many smart
ones. But man, this girl was bright. Had I not been dallying with her with the
intention of getting into her pants, I might even have offered her a long-term
analyst position at the bank. She would crawl up the ranks quickly with her
out-of-the-box thinking and passionate articulations of ideas on the impact of
individual economic status on large-scale growth of a national economy.
Unfortunately, some other institution would be lucky to have her as an asset,
since I had already decided on utilizing a whole different set of her talents;
hopefully she had those talents, even though she was a virgin. Oh, who was I
kidding, I was going to enjoy every minute of it even if she just lay there
like a rock. Getting her to lay down next to me was going to be the hardest
part.

I was doing everything I could:
researching her favorite cuisines, offering to hang out in her comfort-zone,
even helping her with homework. But it wasn’t enough. I had to do more.
Suddenly, I had a flash of inspiration and logged onto the MBA homepage of my
alma mater.

If I submitted her abstract for
publication in their Economist Tribune, they would jump to accept it purely
based on my recommendation. I could gladly throw some money at them if that
helped, but I did more than enough to uphold the university’s financial
standing. There was no way they would decline something that came from me. I
had to be careful, though, in letting her know just how much influence I had on
their decision. She needed to know that it would not have happened without me,
but her pride would suffer if she didn’t feel she merited the publication. In
order to get her running into my arms, I had to find the perfect balance
between the two.

I had begun working on the submission when
she walked in.

“It’s almost six, did you want me here
tonight?”

“Of course, every night. Didn’t we go over
this?” I looked up at her.

She frowned. “You just look busy is all, I
wasn’t sure-”

“Seriously, every night.”

“Did you get a chance to go through my
paper yet?”

“Yes.” I chose my words very carefully.
“It’s promising, but certainly needs more work and some solid data.”

She bought my bluff and her face fell. All
the better for when she would finally learn about the publication. I felt a
rush of excitement. If that didn’t do it, I didn’t know what would.

“I knew it,” she said in a disappointed
voice. “I am sorry for putting you through reading that crap. You don’t have to
help me with it if it’s beyond hope. I don’t want to waste your time on
something that sucks.”

“If you only knew how much time I waste on
things that sucked,” I winked.

She gasped. “That’s awful. And 23.”

“Huh?” 23 what? What was she talking
about?

“Since the beginning of our contract, you
have objectified or insulted women a total of 23 times.”

“You’ve been counting?” I widened my eyes.

“Not consciously until about 17,” she
shrugged helplessly.

“Does it really bother you that much?”

“Men are all a bunch of pigs who cannot
think without their dicks for more than five seconds in a row,” she said with
so much feisty passion; she was turning me on. “How did that feel?”

“Like the truth,” I smiled.

She pursed her lips. “You are beyond
hope.”

“Your paper doesn’t suck,” I replied
without thinking.

“But you just said-”

“I said it could use some work, which is
what we are going to do. Don’t worry.”

“Can we do it without being sexist?” She
bit her lips, as though she didn’t really mean to say that. “Sorry, I didn’t
mean to imply you were sexist.”

“You straight up called me a sexist.
That’s not implying anything,” I frowned. I really wasn’t. I just had been
searching for a woman who could match my intelligence, and I had yet to meet
one in the financial industry. I still hired plenty of women and they all got
equal pay. Aria was intriguing though.

She mumbled something inaudible.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” she flashed me the brightest
smile she could muster. “Would you like some coffee?”

“You keep offering to make me coffee,
what’s your game?” I eyed her suspiciously.

She looked furious. “My ‘game’, is giving
you some caffeine for energy while you seem to be working hard on whatever big
important thing you’re working on. It’s called being nice; some people do it
sometimes without an alternative agenda in mind.”

Oh. Shit. I must have hit the wrong
button.

“I did not mean to offend you,” I said
after a few moments. “I’ll take that cup of coffee.”

She walked out without saying a word, and
I felt a strange emotion that I couldn’t quite identify. Remorse? That couldn’t
be true, why would I feel guilty about questioning her motives? Everyone had
ulterior motives. I was doing so many nice things for Aria, and not a single
one of them without the intention of fucking her. Am I so horrible to assume
she was attempting to do the same for some unspecified intentions?

Yes, yes I was. It was just coffee. For
the second time in the last twenty-four hours, Aria Roberts had unintentionally
managed to make me question my cynicism. I was starting to believe that this
girl was simply a terrible influence. Another, much smaller part of me was
intrigued by the very possibility that I could question my outlook on life.
That thing she had said about objectifying women, for instance. It stuck with
me. I wasn’t deluded enough to think myself innocent of such behavior, but
twenty-three times in just a few days’ worth of conversation with a single
person? That felt like a little too much, even for me. I would have to be very
conscious of that around her from now on, especially if I was going to seduce
her. It was essential that she believed that it was a good idea.

---

By the time she returned, I had already
heard back from the Economics Journal.

“I have good news,” I said as soon as she
walked in.

“I’m out of the contract and now you’re
just going to loan me the money out of the goodness of your heart?” she asked
with a straight face.

Technically she didn’t have to do anything
significant as a part of the deal, so I was surprised by her attitude. I felt a
surge of rage begin to bubble up when I made the mistake of catching her eyes.
They were shining and there was a slight hint of a dimple on her soft cheeks.
She was joking.

“We both know that I don’t have that good
of a heart,” I said.

“I think you have a better heart than you
think you do,” she shrugged.

Hearing those words made me feel way
better than it should have. She thought I was a good person? That wasn’t
something I was used to. The best I got from people, as far as positive
reactions go, was fearful reverence. People respected what I had done with the
company, they were impressed by how successful I had managed to become at a
relatively young age. Never, or at least not in a very long time, had somebody
actually appreciated my character. Not even me, I realized. After my dad passed
away, all my morals began to intertwine together into a deeply gray area, where
right or wrong only differed in the dollar value it brought to the company. Or
in my personal life, on how easily and frequently it got new women to my
bedroom. My dad was the person who always kept me on my toes and insisted on a
regular morality check. After he passed on, it almost didn’t seem to mean
anything anymore. Who should I have to be a good person for since he was no
longer there? Mom wasn’t anything close to the epitome of any virtue; more
importantly, she couldn’t care less what kind of a person I was turning into,
as long as I showered her with gifts and nice fat checks.

What Aria had just said really startled
me, because the truth of the matter was that my heart had nothing to do with
anything I was doing for her; a whole another organ was responsible for my
actions. But she knew that. And I had never made any attempts to conceal my
true intentions. That’s what surprised me the most: she thought I was a decent
person, despite my intentions! Maybe she was just sucking up to me, maybe she
just needed something, maybe she was just playing a game. The cynical part of
me had all these suspicions, but somehow they didn’t seem to matter in the face
of the knowledge that there was at least one person in the planet that didn’t
think I was a total and complete douchebag. And that meant a whole lot more to
me than it should have. Which made me wonder if what I was supposed to tell her
next was a good idea.

“You are getting published,” I said as
though I was merely complementing her hair.

She looked confused for a few seconds, and
then looked behind her as if to check if I was talking to someone else. Then
she looked at me, followed by my computer and I watched in satisfaction as her
eyes widened in realization and her whole face turned as bright as the
daylight. Her gasp was loud enough to echo throughout the whole office
building, and she probably realized that and covered her mouth.