Billionaire On Fire: The Complete Series (A Bad Boy Alpha Billionaire Romance) (36 page)

And I would like to learn more from him. A
lot more. One of the greatest unimagined benefits of our tryst had been just
how much I had learned from Zayden. More than I had from most teachers. He was
always willing and eager to talk me through the basics of management in the
banking industry and whenever we talked about this stuff, his teasing persona
would completely vanish. Solemnly, he would get into telling me details about
his own experiences during his MBA, and getting into everyday examples from his
job as CEO. When we were “studying,” he would even ignore my playful sexual
advances, leading me to believe that he actually took me seriously. Coming from
a misogynistic philanderer, it surprisingly meant a lot.

I couldn’t wait until everyone went home
and I would walk into his office with all these new questions that I had been
thinking about. With my shirt off. I would challenge him to keep his serious
tone and make it very difficult. It would be amusing. Then, after we walked
through all my questions, we would get back on his couch. Or maybe he would
even invite me home…if we managed to keep our hands off each other through my
long list of questions, after all, we could manage another few minutes to his
house. I wondered what it was like. Probably bigger than any place I had ever
seen. His bedroom was probably the perfect Martha Stewart representation of the
Alpha male. Dark sheets and curtains. A drawer full of kinky things, I could
bet. Things I would have no idea the purpose for. And he would probably want to
show me.

“Aria,” I heard a male voice say, breaking
me out of my embarrassing day dream. I looked up hoping to find Zayden, and was
disappointed to find Dick’s face smiling down at me gleefully. Rick. I forced a
smile.

“Hey! You look really pretty today,” he
said. “Well, every day. But really, really pretty today.”

Annoyed but trying not to show it, I
cleared my throat. “Thanks,” I said awkwardly. “What are you doing here?”

“Snappy. How flattering for my ego.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound rude or
anything. Just wondering how come you’re at the bank. I’ve never seen you here
before. And I thought you banked with Wells Fargo!”

“I am thinking of changing it.” He
shrugged. “There are some things only this branch of South National has to
offer. Exclusively.”

I sighed. “Rick. We have been through this
already. You know where I stand on this whole thing.”

His smile didn’t falter. “I know. I
thought we stood at being friends.”

That made me smile back at him and at the
exact moment I saw Zayden looking at us sternly. “Yes, that sounds about right.
But you really shouldn’t be here.”

“I am not stalking, I promise. I had to go
visit a friend next door and I remembered you telling me you worked here. It
probably sounds like bullshit – given the age-old ‘I was in the neighborhood’
line – but I really was. I can give you his number if you like.”

I laughed, trying not to look at Zayden.
His fierce stares were starting to make me uncomfortable. “I believe you, and
thanks for stopping by.”

“Of course, any time. I thought I would
also check up on our coffee hangout. I owe you a delicious cup of Frappuccino
for everything I made you go through.”

“You don’t owe me anything. Like I said, I
am over everything that happened. But yes, we can grab that coffee sometime.”

“Perhaps you could plan that coffee date
when I am not paying you by the hour,” I heard a different, angrier voice say.
Zayden was standing in front of us, looking about ready to commit murder. I had
never seen him this angry before. Not even when he was yelling on the phone the
other day. My knees trembled and I looked over at Rick. He looked petrified,
his face turning pale white.

“I’m sorry,” he was saying in the voice of
a mouse. “I did not mean to distract her from her job.”

“You know who I am?” Zayden said, his eyes
almost red.

“Duh. Most people do around here. I’m
Richard Kruz. A friend of Aria’s.”

“I don’t care if you’re the mother of
Jesus. If you need to flirt with my employees, do it on your own time. Now
please leave the premises of my building before I call security.”

Rick looked like he was about to throw up
and muttered another “sorry” before strutting out of the building. If I wasn’t
so terrified myself, I would be laughing hard at the look on his face. He
definitely deserved this.

“You,” Zayden snapped. “In my office.
Now.”

He had never spoken to me like that, and
now my amusement and fear was starting to turn into anger. God, he was being an
ass. I followed him to his office, rage spreading through my body.

“Close the door behind you,” he said in
the same angry tone.

I complied, if for no other reason than to
avoid a scene. There was never a good time to be chastised by Zayden Sinclair,
but the worst time ever would be during the middle of the day at both our
workplaces with everyone listening as they pretended to work.

It would be difficult to continue to keep
my cool if he kept acting this way though.

Chapter
6

Zayden

I couldn’t justify the intense anger I
felt in that moment. Just looking at her face was making me want to throw
something out the window, and it had taken all the reserve I could muster not
to punch that college punk in the face for daring to flirt with her right in
front of my eyes.

“Who the fuck was that?” I snapped
bitterly.

“I won’t answer until you ask again,” she
said defiantly. “More politely.”

The nerve she had to tell me what the fuck
to do was pissing me off! I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. She
wasn’t going to make this easy, and the angrier I got, the more I needed to
find out who that kid was, so he could be banned from the bank premises
forever.

“Aria, who was that guy that you agreed to
go on a coffee date with?”

“First of all, if you had been listening
without the intention of hearing whatever you wanted to, you would realize it’s
not a date. We specifically had a conversation about just being friends, and I
very calmly and nicely rejected all his other advances.”

“Too nicely. You should have told him to
fuck off. I’m going to ask again, who was he?”

She sighed. “Calm down, Zayden. It’s
nobody important.”

“It obviously is if you are making plans
with him.”

“I make plans with Nick all the time. You
know, my roommate, who you thought I was also screwing. That doesn’t bother
you.”

“He’s dating your friend. I hardly have
anything to worry about there.”

“And you hardly have anything to worry
about here either. You heard the whole conversation!”

“I saw how he was looking at you. I know
that look… it’s the same one I give you all the time.” I tried to keep my voice
from sounding betrayed and pathetic, but I suspected I wasn’t doing a superb
job of it.

“Rick is the very last guy on Earth I
would ever get involved with, I promise you.”

That name sounded familiar. After our
first night she had said something about a Dick… I was half passed out from
cumming, but I had heard her say something about something about a guy named
Dick… Rick. And then it hit me.

Holding on very tightly to my stress ball,
I said, “Your ex.”

“Yes, my ex,” she snapped. “Ex. Meaning in
the past. I don’t know if you were paying attention, but that guy hurt me quite
a lot. He cheated on me on our anniversary and it took me forever to get over
it. I spent the majority of the year hating him.”

“Oh really? How often do you go out for
coffee with someone you hate,” I challenged, my fingernails digging through the
palm of my hands. The pain was oddly soothing.

“Not very often. But you know what? Before
you came along, I would never ever have agreed to be friends with him. Because
in some part of me, I still cared. Now I don’t. Because I care about you. And I
have no reason to hate him. He almost did me a favor. In some ways, I am
grateful… if he hadn’t cheated on me, you and I would have never…”

She stopped, perhaps realizing that she
had said more than she intended.

“You can’t talk to him anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“You are not allowed to go anywhere near
that guy.”

She flared her nostrils. “You can’t tell
me who I can or cannot talk to. You think you own me?”

“Actually I kind of do,” I spat. “In this
regard anyway. It’s in the contract. Section 9. You’re not allowed to engage in
any sort of relationship – platonic or otherwise – with a man I disapprove of.
And I assure you, I disapprove of this guy.”

She opened her mouth in anger and closed
it again. Tears were now freely streaming down her face, her mascara running
down her cheeks. I didn’t want her to cry. But more importantly, I didn’t want
her talking to that guy.

She looked like she wanted to say
something a few times but changed her mind. After standing there in silence for
a few minutes, she stormed out of the office.

People had definitely witnessed the
production, and I worried about being insulted by my own employees. I did not
need this kind of attention. Why did I care who she spoke to anyway? She was
just some girl I had contracted to win a challenge in my own head, yet this
whole ordeal made me feel extremely vulnerable. So much so that I had ended up
creating a scene at work; something that had never, ever happened, in my entire
career.

Aria Roberts was turning out to be more
trouble than I needed in my life. Yet I knew just then that I would not be able
to rest peacefully until I knew for sure that no one else shared her attention.
She was to be – for whatever duration she had signed up for – completely and
utterly mine.

I didn’t care how that made me seem. I
wanted what I wanted, and I always got what I wanted. If she didn’t stop
talking to him, I’d have him shipped off the state in no time. Money talks.

She would then hate me if she found out. I
felt an uncomfortable knot in my chest. I didn’t want her to hate me. I would
have to find a better tactic. What happened today could not be repeated. If I
wanted to enjoy the remainder of these few months, it was in my best interest
to learn to keep my emotions in check.

The trouble was, I had never before had
trouble keeping my emotions in check, and I really did not know how.

Chapter
7

Aria

“Not now Stace!” I yelled from my room
after Stacey’s fourteenth attempt to knock on my door.

“I come bearing cookies. With huge
chocolate chunks. Don’t tell me your mouth isn’t watering smelling all the
freshly baked goods.”

I sighed. She was right; Stacey knew me
too well. The aroma of the cookies baking had definitely attracted my
attention, but if I knew one thing about myself, it was to not allow binging on
sugar while I was upset. It usually started with one cookie or just a spoonful
of ice-cream, and next thing I knew I would be laying amidst a mountain of
wrappers and empty tubs of ice-cream. I was such a freaking stereotype
sometimes. Since I literally had no time for the gym in my schedule between
work and classes, this always ended up being a horrible idea.

“Thank you, but I honestly just need to
continue stuffing my head in this pillow and ignoring humanity for a little bit
longer.”

“What if I promise not to make you talk
about whatever it is that’s bothering you?” Stacey offered patiently. “Though I
assume it’s Zayden related. You can talk to me when you’re ready, but don’t
take it out on yummy sugary deliciousness.”

“How delicious?” I couldn’t help but ask.
Stacey was a master baker, so it was a stupid question, in any case.

“Better than Halloween.”

I gasped and jumped to open the door. Damn
it, Stacey.

“It can’t be better than Halloween. You
had peaked. That’s physically impossible,” I said reaching for one giant
cookie, while Stacey made herself comfortable in my bed.

One large bite and I was ready to
collapse, all my troubles temporarily evaporating. The cookie seemed to be
ninety percent chocolate and just the right amount of crunchy, with buttery
sweetness and the tiniest hint of vanilla. I closed my eyes and ate the rest of
the cookie in slow bites, savoring every aspect of the immaculate taste and
texture. For a moment I completely forgot why I had myself locked in my room
for the last few days.

“Good?” Stacey was grinning at me, all
prideful, when I opened my eyes.

“Horrible,” I said returning her grin.
“Absolutely disgusting.”

I reached out for another one and devoured
it. “Seriously, the worse cookies I’ve ever had.”

Stacey chuckled. “I’m glad you think so
too. Now listen, I know you don’t want to talk about whatever is bothering you,
and that’s fine. But you’ve been locked in here for days and that’s not
healthy. Let’s do something. Outdoors.”