Billionaire On Fire: The Complete Series (A Bad Boy Alpha Billionaire Romance) (38 page)

“Who are you to decide when it’s time for
me to go home? You’re not my mother!” A familiar pang of anger started building
up inside me. The nerve of this guy.

“I sure hope not. That would be awkward
for everybody. But seriously, are you okay?”

“That is quite frankly none of your
business,” I snapped.

What was his deal? Just because he has
money and a fancy car and driver, he thinks he can push people around and make
decisions for them? We would’ve been perfectly fine taking a cab back home.
We’d done it countless times before. It’s not like I didn’t have a life before
Zayden came into the picture!

“I would say it is, given our contract. It
says specifically—”

“Why don’t you just become a lawyer and be
done with it?” I sounded angry and that, combined with the headache that was
making me feel like I would go blind any second, made me think that I was
perhaps not in the best state of mind to have this conversation with Zayden
right now. “Look, I am in a lot of pain right now. I’m sure you’ve experienced
the mother of all hangovers. It’s not pretty and I am not functional currently.
I assure you I didn’t do anything last night that would even put a dent in the
contract—“

“I know. You kept saying that last night.
I’m not worried, you were on the phone with me practically the whole evening.”

I was such an idiot! My one night out to
clear my head of all things Zayden related and I managed to make it all about
him. Why did I drink so much?

“I am sorry for harassing you.”

“It’s not harassment if I enjoyed it.” He
was smirking; I could just feel it through his phone. “Really quite
entertaining. You’re really something, drunk or sober.”

“Thanks for the expert analysis,” I spat.
“Now if it’s okay with you, I am going to go back to lying down until time
stops.”

“Call me if you need anything.”

“I won’t,” I said and hung up.

My head fell right back onto the pillow
and I collapsed.

---

Hours later – or it could have been days
for all I knew – I woke up again to Stacey’s face smiling at me.

“Okay little miss drunky, it’s time to
spill the beans…what is going on with you and Zayden? After last night, you
have to tell me.”

I covered my face under the pillow and
mumbled, “Just kill me now, Stace. Why did we drink so much?”

She placed a cup of coffee on my bedside
table. “Because you wouldn’t have it any other way. You were clearly pissed
about something, and in your drunken stupor decided that the best way to deal
with it was by consuming as much as alcohol as your liver could handle.”

“But.” I looked up at her again. “But,
weren’t you and Nick drunk too?”

“Yeah, but we got to a point where we
stopped drinking because you were sharing your evening with every person in
that big birthday crowd. By sharing your evening, I mean, taking a shot with
everyone in sight.”

“Did I do something stupid?” I reached out
for the cup of coffee and the warmth of the liquid made my body feel infinitesimally
better.
 

“Nope, you were just having fun mostly.
Until the calls to Zayden started. Everyone in the bar spoke to him, thanks to
you.”

I buried my face in the palms of my hands.
“Shit, Stacey, that’s bad. I never should have called him.”

“What exactly did he do to you anyway? I
thought you guys were doing so great.”

I sighed and proceeded to tell her
everything that had happened after Rick had showed up at the office.

“Okay, first of all,” Stacey interrupted.
“What were you doing talking to that Dick anyway?”

“It’s a long story!” I said a little too
fast, feeling terrified of Stacey.

If anybody hated my ex-boyfriend with a
fiery-passion enough to burn him to the ground, it was Stacey. It was a mark of
her loyalty to me and really touching, for the most part. But right now her
glare was crushing my soul.

“I have all day. And more if needed,” she
said looking at her watch.

“He wants to be friends.” I shrugged.

“Oh, does he now?” She folded her hands.

“Look, Stace, if I told him to go fuck
off, it would seem like I am still affected by what he did to me, like I still
cared. And in all honesty, I don’t. Yes, he hurt me a lot and yes, I had the
hardest time getting over it. But I am over it now and I feel that the best way
to move on is to not make a big fuss about it.”

“Do you have to fraternize with him
though?” She frowned.

“No, but it’s easier than fighting him
off. I have been intending to avoid that coffee with him for as long as
possible. But that does not mean Zayden can tell me who I can or can’t talk to!
His attitude is what makes me actually want to hang out with Rick.”

“Aria, it doesn’t help to be bitter,” she
told me, stroking my arm. “But you’re right…as much as I have been approving of
Zayden all this time, I don’t think it was right of him to talk to you as
though you’re an object in his possession.”

“I am though, according to that fucking
contract, that’s exactly what I am,” I said, fuming. “He has stripped me down
to the level of his office desk. It’s like all of the sudden, I have no agency,
no independence, like I signed my life away to him, and he’s ready to remind me
of it every step of the way.”

“Oh Aria.” Stacey hugged me. “That sounds
bad. You should not feel objectified in any relationship. If it’s a power-play,
it’s not a real relationship. Definitely not a healthy one. I can’t believe I
am saying this, but I think you need to break it off. I know he is helping your
mom out – and he was really nice to you yesterday, I spoke to him on the
phone—“

“You and everyone in that bar,” I scoffed.

“If I had known about all this I would
have told him stop calling back and turned your phone off. It just seemed sweet
at the time, like he was concerned about you.”

I thought about that for a second. “I
don’t doubt that he is. Concerned, I mean. But I think he does not understand
the concept of boundaries and is controlling beyond belief. It’s starting to
feel way too suffocating.”

“Then get out of it,” Stacey repeated. “We
will figure something out for your mom. Maybe I can take out the loan in my
name? My dad could help co-sign it. We’d just have to get him really drunk one
day—”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,
Stacey. I’m sorry for fighting with you the other day. And no, I got myself
into this mess, I’ll find a way to get myself out of it. But it was extremely
sweet of you to offer. You’re honestly doing more than enough by just being
there. I couldn’t love you more for it.”

We both sat for a long time hugging each
other. By the end of it, I had decided for sure that I wanted to break things
off. I was not used to being objectified and doing a man’s bidding, and
whatever he was doing for me was not worth my dignity.

Zayden and I had to be over.

Chapter
8

Zayden

To my utter horror, I had gotten the
dreaded “surprise” visit from my mother a few days after Aria had stormed out
of my office. I already had a lot to worry about: Aria had called out of work
all week, making me increasingly anxious. If she hadn’t made those drunk calls
on Friday night, I was ready to show up at her apartment unannounced and give
her an earful. How could she have done that to me? A whole week? What was I
even paying her for, if she could simply choose to disappear whenever she damn
well please?

On top of that my mother decided to just
show up, no warning, and thought that would make me happy. Likely story— she
very well knew how I would react to the visit— yet she was my mother and I had
to at the very least try to not be a complete monster. Right now she was going
on and on about my chef’s inability to cook the steak to the perfect
medium-rare. She was a terrible cook herself, but loved to criticize everything
other people did.

“My, my, how hard is it to get a simple
steak right?” She frowned at the dinner table, while I wished, cringing, that
the chef couldn’t hear.

“I think it’s delicious.” I shrugged and
took a huge bite visibly savoring it. “Sean’s the best cook I know.”

That had the desired effect of making her
wince. “How can you say that? When your own mother is sitting right across
you?”

“Fine, if it’s all bothering you so much
you can just take over the kitchen while you’re here and I’ll send Sean on a
paid vacation. He deserves it.”

She gasped. “What is wrong with you, Zay?
Why do you insist of treating the help as though they are equals?”

“Because they are,” I snapped. “I have my
job of running the bank and Sean has his of cooking for us. I don’t see how one
is any less than the other.”

“You know your father used to have the
same attitude and that was his eventual downfall—”

“Right, he got a stroke because he was too
nice.” I rolled my eyes.

“He was careless and trusting of
everybody. It made him weak.”

“He wasn’t very trusting of you now was
he?” I spat.

Her face went completely red. We had never
really discussed what had happened between her and my dad. After I had found
out, I’d simply started distancing myself from her, without any kind of
confrontation. She must have figured it out, in any case, but it was something
neither of us ever brought up. The fact that I had just said that was akin to
slapping her across the face. Her eyes were burning with tears and she was
completely speechless for a long time.

She eventually said, “You don’t know
anything about what was between your father and me.”

“I know enough. I know why you are not in
his will and why you guys were having trouble before he passed away. I know
what you did.”

She began to cry and it gave me an odd
sort of sinister pleasure. “It’s not like that. I made some mistakes, and I am
still paying for it.”

“Hardly,” I scoffed. “I have provided you
with everything you need. You’re still living on dad’s money, and a pretty damn
leisurely life at that, I might add.”

Wiping her eyes with the napkin, she
added, “There are other ways to pay for your mistakes than financially. Not a
day goes by when I don’t regret my actions and wrongdoings to your father. He
was an incredible man and deserved better. I realize this now.”

“Well too bad, it’s about six years too
late. Longer, but god knows by how much. I bet you were never faithful to him.”

Another burst of tears followed. “That
isn’t true, Zay. I cared about your father very deeply, and loved him a lot
more than you’ll ever realize. But I was lonely. His life was completely
devoted to working and I’d barely see him most days. I felt like I had married
an empty bed. That was no excuse at all, but at the time I couldn’t think
clearly. A lonely woman is capable of stuff like this.”

“I’m aware of that,” I snorted.

“Which is why you need to give Gina
another chance.”

“Here we go again.” I rolled my eyes.

“I invited her to come back here and live
with us,” she said without looking me in the eye.

“What the fuck did you do that for? This
is my house and you don’t get to make these calls in my house.”

“Oh alright then, I’ll tell her not to
come if that makes you feel better. You haven’t seen my pills by any chance,
have you?”

Holy shit. Had she just threatened another
suicide attempt? I couldn’t take it anymore, I was trapped. A part of me wanted
to let her do whatever she wanted. But the other part of me just could not bare
the thought of losing another parent, as manipulative and cunning as she was.
She probably would never go through with it anyway, but that was the power this
woman held over me. Logically, I knew she wouldn’t, yet her threats were enough
to raise concern and bend me to her will.

I considered the idea of Gina moving back
here. It couldn’t really be that bad. I had plenty of spare bedrooms in the
house, she could pick the one she liked, farthest away from mine, and it would
have the added benefit of keeping my mother entertained. They could spend all
their time with each other and I could spend all my time at the office, with
Aria.

The thought of Aria made me feel
uncomfortable. She was already upset with me and it would take a lot for me to
get out of this situation alone, I didn’t doubt it. But I didn’t even want to
think of her reaction when she found out about Gina. I wondered what would be
the best way to explain it to her, and whether she would even give me a chance
to explain. From the outside it must look bad: I was technically still married,
and trying to fake an attempt of reconciliation with my wife to keep my mother
from offing herself, yet I had made her sign a contract to be my girlfriend and
then slept with her. And so many women before her that she knew of. She would
think I was a complete asshole, if she didn’t already. Aria could never know
about any of this, under any circumstances.