The Dating Games (Dating Games Complete Box Set Series) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (4 page)

When they were completely done, they walked out of the building together, Devon made sure that the security alarm was set even though she knew how to do it, he wanted to make sure for himself that it was in place.

              “Are you sure you don't mind giving me a ride home?” she asked him, frowning. She didn't want him to see where she lived. She would be more embarrassed knowing that he was hiring someone who was completely poor, living paycheck to paycheck

              Jasmine recalled her mother telling her that it didn't matter where she came from, what mattered was that she was nice even if people were mean because no one knew others problems, and she knew that herself. Her mother's words of wisdom were good, but she wished that she could hear her mother's voice one more time telling her that.

              “I don't mind giving you a ride home at all.” He shook his head, glad that his car was in the parking garage across the street so that he didn't have to walk himself.

              They walked across the street together, making sure that they looked both ways. His Jaguar was a dark blue and she gasped when she saw it, she had never been in such an expensive car, never in her life. he opened the passenger side door for her letting her know that he could be a gentlemen. He was hoping that maybe he could ask her out on a date, but he knew the rules of the dating game. He had to pick someone from the dating game to get to know better after ten episodes. That was when he had gotten an idea in his head to ask her after she did the advertising to sign up for it. He would pick her at the end so that it looked like he had thought about it with the other contestants.

              When they drove out of the parking garage, she gave him directions to her house, she saw him punching it into his GPS wishing that she could even afford a car of her own, but she couldn't being a college student who was paying her own tuition. Somehow her mother had always come up with the money while working two jobs, one right after another.

              Devon knew the address was on the other side of town, and he knew that it was a bad neighborhood. He had never been through it before but he had heard about the crime rate. He looked at her knowing that she was a woman that didn't deserve to be in that kind of neighborhood. She deserved so much better and he hoped with the money that he was giving her that she would find something decent. Even a house, maybe, because he knew that side of town didn't have houses, it only had run-down apartments. He didn't say anything to her about it.

              “What?” she asked him when they were sitting at a red light and he looked over at her again.

              “Nothing, since it's going to be a half hour drive, why don't you kick your heels off and relax a little. Your feet must be killing you.” He looked down at her feet and knew that she had been on them for a while now.

              “It's alright, my feet are fine.” She gave him a grim smile, she knew that if she took off her heels that her feet were going to smell up his car and she didn't want any bad odor to get in his car or even around him.

              “Suit yourself.” Devon shrugged his shoulders, if she didn't want to take her heels off, she didn't have to.

              Neither one of them talked the rest of the trip to the apartment. She was embarrassed when they pulled onto her street. He could see by her facial expression, seeing how she put her head down.

              Devon pulled up in front of her apartment and saw that the dirty apartment was an off-white, knowing that someone should power wash it but he knew that it wasn't her job to do it. She just rented off the landlord that didn't care about the apartment evidently.

              “Thank you for the ride home, I really appreciate it,” Jasmine told him, giving him the best smile that she could muster but he knew it wasn't her real smile.

              “Anytime. If you want, I can pick you up tomorrow morning,” he stated, not worried about going to get her a little earlier.

              “Sure, if you don't mind.” Jasmine nodded her head quickly, it meant that she could get out of the apartment for a little bit longer.

              When Jasmine opened her door, they both heard a couple fighting within the apartment. It sounded like the couple was drunk and the swearing that was coming out of their mouths was unreal.

              “Do you want me to walk you up to your apartment?” Devon felt the need to protect her, he had never felt that way about a woman before.

              “It's alright, this is the stuff I deal with on a daily basis. I'm surprised that the police haven't been here; they fight all night. Makes it hard to sleep.” Jasmine frowned, wishing that the couple would take one night off from fighting. She had to wear earplugs in order to get any amount of sleep.

              “Here, I will write down my number, make sure you call me when you are safely inside. I won't leave until you call.” Devon leaned over and got into his glove box to get out a pad of paper and a pen.

Writing down his name and number quickly, he ripped it off the pad and made sure that she had it in her hand.

              “I will.” Jasmine felt embarrassed as she got out of the car and she was almost in tears, ashamed even more that he saw what the apartment looked like from the outside. She was glad that he hadn't come inside because she hadn't cleaned up in a while, living as a college student of course.

              She quickly went up the worn-out stairs that needed to be painted and turned her key in the lock to even get inside the apartment. For that, she was thankful. She had already had enough troubles before the security lock was put on and she had a feeling that she was the reason the landlord had put it on.

              Jasmine didn't look behind her, even though she was sure that Devon was watching her. She didn't feel as if she was good enough to turn to see if he was watching her and even if he was, it would mean that he was interested in her and she couldn't handle dating at the moment.

              Jasmine took the stairs two at a time so that she could get to the second floor quicker knowing that he was waiting for her to call. She didn't even have a cell phone; she couldn't afford one like all the other college students. She had to take care of her bills and when she was done with that, she hardly had any money left.

              Jasmine put her house key into the lock and opened the door, she went into the apartment and slammed the door shut quickly, her heart racing as she locked all three deadbolts behind her before picking up her dirty old house phone that was cordless. It was one she had found in the apartment when she had moved in.

              Jasmine looked at the napkin and dialed his number, he had picked up on the first ring. She figured he must have had it in his hand, waiting for her to call him.

              “Are you in the apartment safely? No problems?” he asked her before she could even say anything.

              Jasmine couldn't help but grin about how worried he was about her, he didn't even know her number before he picked it up and began asking questions.

              “Yes, I'm fine. Thank you so much for everything you've done Devon.” She thanked him again glad that she had the help because she would still be walking. An hour walk wasn't what she was looking forward to. She had done numerous times before from missing the bus and her feet were sore when she got back to the apartment.

              “Great, so I will pick you up at four thirty in the morning. What kind of coffee do you drink?” Devon was a coffee freak himself and he knew that college students drank it a lot to make sure that they could cope with their studying and their classes.

              “Black with three sugars. Please put two caffeine shots in it,” Jasmine stated, she wasn't surprised that he had asked her because he had done so much for her already and she knew that he was a nice guy. She began worrying that he was doing it out of sympathy as she bit down on her lip, almost making herself bleed.

              “Alright, are you sure you're okay?” he asked again, not knowing how the neighbors were around there.

              “I'm fine, I will see you in the morning.” Jasmine laughed in his ear before they hung up with each other.

              Before Devon left, he put her phone number in his contacts so that he could call her and hoped that he could get her to sign up for the dating game. He would pick her in a heartbeat. He pulled away from the curb and looked in the rearview mirror off and on until the apartment disappeared.

              “I really hope that you do something smart with your money, Jasmine. This is a great opportunity to make a better life for yourself,” Devon whispered as he was headed home himself.

              Devon was surprised at himself for feeling so deeply about Jasmine because they hardly even knew each other. He had never thought about the women that he just left at their houses after he had sex with them. Had never thought or wondered if they were going to be okay and never even offered to help anyone clean the office building up.

              “You got it bad,” Devon muttered to himself but felt a grin come across his face when he said it. He prayed that she was going to be okay through the night and remembered that if she had even been in college two years then she was used to her environment. Even though he didn't like it, he could see that she was ashamed of where she lived but he didn't care about that, he only cared about how nice she was and how attractive she was. He was hoping that, through practicing the lines, they found out more about each other in time.

              Devon thought about Jasmine all the way home. He had another hour’s drive, but he wasn't going to tell her that because he had a feeling that she would have refused the ride and he knew that it took a while before she would get home.

              Jasmine looked at her apartment door to see if the doorknob was turning at all. She slept on the couch most of the time now since the incident that had happened to her. She wished that her mother would have been around to protect her on that night knowing that she still had a hard time sleeping between the fighting upstairs and the problem that she had gone through.

              “You're alright, you're going to be alright,” Jasmine whispered to herself as she found the time to clean the apartment and keep herself busy.

              Jasmine didn't have many friends and the friends that she did have never came over to visit her. They were more like college friends during classes and that was it. She would sit with them at lunch time but if she had anything going on, she didn't invite them and they didn't invite her. Which was fine, she liked being alone most of the time anyways, just not alone in her apartment.

              On her days off, Jasmine stayed at the college until she couldn't stay there any longer. She hated going to the apartment and thought, depending on how much Devon gave her, she would save for a better apartment on the other side of town. She didn't expect that he would give her much in the few hours that they would practice but she knew that she was going to have some at least set aside. She had learned to put her paychecks in the freezer after she cashed them. She put her money in the way back of the freezer under her meats.

              Jasmine had the whole house cleaned before one in the morning and she was tired knowing she had to get up in just a few hours. She planned on getting up at three to make sure that she was ready so that Devon didn't have to wait on her to get ready. Looking around the apartment, she was happy with it, she had sprayed the apartment with rose bathroom spray, it was the only thing that she could find that would smell good in the rooms.

              After a few minutes of admiring what a good job she had done, she went into the small living room off the kitchen and laid down on the worn out green sofa that she had managed to pick up at a yard sale. The owner of it was nice enough to bring the couch up for her, she didn't know how she would have managed to get it up there by herself with no help.

              Laying on the sofa, she found herself not being able to sleep now that she was comfortable her eyes were wide open and as much as she thought about Devon that night she knew that she wouldn't be able to start dating for a very long time. She had never had sex before and that was one of the problems. The other problem she had was she couldn't get over what had happened to her over the past few months. She was still mourning the loss of her mother, for a starter. Jasmine blinked her eyes, trying to keep the tears from falling, failing miserably as she cried into the hard arm of the couch.

Jasmine was just about to close her eyes, she was tired from all her crying and just as she closed her eyes, her alarm went off and she groaned, not wanting to get up. She knew that her eyes were red and she had to make sure that she covered them with make-up; she didn't want to go in there looking like she got no sleep at all.

              Jasmine finally got up at three fifteen that morning knowing that she had forty-five minutes to get ready before Devon came to pick her up.

              She took a quick shower and put on a pair of black slacks that she had a white shirt, making sure that she had a bra on. Jasmine put on make-up but made sure that she didn't put on too much and she put on her favorite deodorant and her favorite perfume which was “vanilla fields.”

              Jasmine was impressed with herself that she still had fifteen minutes left before Devon arrived to get her. Her hair was crimped and curly just the way she liked it. She thought she looked good and hoped that she was dressed fine for the interview, hoping that her hair stayed in place. She knew that it should because she used enough hair gel and hair spray to hold it firmly in place.

              Her house phone rang five minutes early and she answered it hearing Devon's voice on the other end of the line.

              “Are you ready or do you need a little more time?” He laughed into the phone knowing that he was just a few minutes early but he knew how women liked taking forever to get ready.

              “I'm all set, was just waiting on you. I will be down in just a second.” Jasmine was glad that he didn't have to wait for her. Glad that he would be impressed that she hadn't taken forever to get ready.

              Jasmine looked at herself in the mirror one more time before she left her house, making sure that all the locks were locked on the outside of the apartment door. She had forgotten to lock all of them yesterday when she was getting ready to go to the office building to clean. She didn't want to make that same mistake again.

              Heading down the stairs quickly, she had decided that she wasn't going to wear heels because her feet were still sore from the night before, she wore white sneakers with white socks underneath and hoped that her feet wouldn't sweat a lot during the interview. She was not sure if she had to take her shoes off for the dress fitting.

              “I went in early this morning to make sure to pick out the dresses. I think that you're going to like them,” he stated the second she got into the car.

              “Do you ever sleep?” she asked him, taking the hot coffee that he handed to her.

              “A few hours a night, that's about it,” Devon told her honestly but he was used to it. He couldn't be a successful billionaire if he slept his life away. He knew that the more hours he put into his magazine business, the more money he made and he was happy with the money that was rolling in from the magazine selling like hot cakes.

              Jasmine was thankful for the coffee, she took a sip and knew that he had gotten it right. Even if he hadn't, she would have drunk it only because he had bought it. She had been taught to be thankful that she had gotten anything at all, not to complain because it wasn't polite.

              “Is it just the way you want it?” Devon asked when she took her first sip of coffee. Seeing a smile on her face, she nodded her head.

              “How did it go last night?” Devon was talking about the fighting that they had heard the night before.

              “I don't know, I cleaned the apartment, put my earplugs in, and didn't hear anything. I hardly got any sleep myself.” Jasmine was honest with him.

              Devon didn't know what else to talk about with her, he would explain how things were going to go when they got there and he had slipped in the red dress that he liked, hoping she would at least try it on for him. He knew that since she was in advertising for women that she shouldn't show too much and it was the perfect dress for her, but if she didn't want to wear it he wasn't going to make her.

              They arrived exactly at five in the morning to the studio and Devon smiled seeing that Ken's car was there. When he had showed up earlier that morning he was glad that Ken trusted him with a key to the studio so that he could set a few things up himself.

              Devon was wondering what he was going to have her model, knowing that she didn't like revealing clothing. He would have to think up another magazine which wasn't bad for him, it would mean more money in the bank.

              They both got out of the car and Devon locked the car doors, he wanted to take her hand but knew that he shouldn't push himself too much onto her. She was tense, he could tell that, and he hoped that she would loosen up just a little during the interview and the dress showing that they wanted her to do, hoping that they would find the right dress that everyone could agree on.

              Devon held the door open for her and she gave him a smile, a nervous smile. He could already read what was on her face. She had the jitters, worrying if she was going to be good enough or not.

              Ken was sitting in the studio chair with a smile on his face. He sat there with his laptop on his lap looking at how the ratings were going up more and more by the minute.

              “We are doing something right. Five hundred people that had watched it really enjoyed it. The rating keeps going up and up by the minute. I'm really impressed with you.” Ken shut the computer down, closed the laptop and put it on the table in front of him before he got up from his chair.

              “I'm Ken and you must be Jasmine. I've only heard good things about you.” He grinned, introducing himself and reaching out his hand.

              “It's nice to meet you too, a little nervous but I'm sure that it's not going to happen when it's show time. Devon already told me he would practice with me.” Jasmine liked being honest and she could see that he liked her being honest.

              “It's normal to be nervous, now what I want you to do is go through that door behind us and try on some dresses. You will come out with each one to see if we all can agree on something,” Ken stated, instructing her on what she was do.

              “Great, I want to thank you for this opportunity to work for you.” Jasmine wanted him to know that she appreciated them, well Devon, for asking her and figuring it out with his friend first.

              “That's not a problem, Devon didn't lie, you are a beautiful woman.” Ken complimented her and saw her blush.

              “Well thank you,” Jasmine told him softly as she walked to the door that Ken had pointed at and opened it up.

              When she closed the door behind her, Ken gave him a thumbs up on doing a good job for being the model for their advertising.

              “She looks good enough to try out for the dating show. You should have her fill out a form before she leaves today. Make it look like she's one of the last ones to be picked,” Ken suggested, Devon smiled when he thought about it. He had the same idea that Ken had.

              “It's not hard giving her the form, the hardest part is getting her to do it. I think it's going to take a little more than small talk when it comes to this one.” Devon warned him.

              “Well, we got to have her so somehow you have to get on her and convince her that she's really helping the show out. You got to spend time with her on your own and it's up to you on whether or not you would pick her, and the way you look at her, it's not hard to tell that you would pick her to go on a date with you. Just don't make it too obvious after the advertising; I don't want anyone thinking that it's staged.” Ken pointed a finger at him and watched Devon's head nod slightly.

              It was no lie that Devon wanted her on the team, that he wanted to date her and get to know her more personally but he had a feeling that she was hiding something or that maybe she had a rough life up until then.

              “I will try my best but there are no promises, Ken. I can't promise you anything.” Devon shook his head. He didn't want to give Ken false hope and let him down. He had to know that it wasn't going to be an easy task.

              “Do everything that you can--” Ken cut himself off when they heard the doorknob to the room wiggle, then Jasmine stepped in.

              They both looked at her with wide eyes, seeing that she had tried on the green dress. They looked her up and down. It was a little too short for her liking and she kept trying to pull it down, uncomfortable with the way that the dress fit.

              Looking down at her cleavage, she thought that her tits were going to pop out at any moment but both men liked the curves of her body and nodded their heads.

              “I don't think this is going to be the one for you. You want me comfortable in the advertisement, right?” Jasmine pointed out to them, hoping that they didn't think she was picky but the dress was just too tight for her. She had to suck in her breath and breathe out slowly.

              “It looks really good on you but if you don't think that it fits your body well then that's fine, we have plenty more dresses for you try on. We can stay here all day if you want to,” Ken stated, giving her a smile as she turned around and went back into the room. She was thankful that they didn't tell her what to wear.

              “She doesn't have all day to stay here.” Devon forgot until that moment that she had college classes. They only had a few more hours for her to try on dresses.

              “How come?” Ken looked disappointed; he hoped that she would pick out a dress soon then for them to agree on.

              “She has college classes. She's studying to be something spectacular and I don't want to mess that up either,” Devon explained to him.

              Ken nodded his head, he could respect that and he wasn't going to push her to stay there any longer than what had to be.

              “That's good, I'm glad that she has her education and that she is motivated for herself and that she wasn't going to give that up because of something that had come her way.” Ken nodded his head, feeling a smile coming across his face. He could tell that Jasmine looked out for herself, that she had a good head on his shoulders.

              Jasmine came out wearing a few more dresses during that hour and she didn't like any of them that Devon had picked out for her. There was just one more dress to try on and Devon knew that it was the red one, probably the one that she had been saving for last.

              “How many more dresses do you have?” Ken asked her, knowing that they had gone through ten dresses already.

              “The red one, that's the last one. I am praying it's the dress that I'm going to feel comfortable in.” Jasmine gave him a grim smile.

              She didn't want either one of them thinking that she wasn't grateful for the opportunity that they were giving her. She was, she just hadn't found the right dress to work with. She knew that she couldn't reach down or up to tug on her dress while she was on national television and she thought that all the dresses were just a little shorter than what she had thought they would be. She wasn't comfortable with the short dresses showing off both her legs, knowing that men would be at home looking at her like she was eye candy.

              “Great, that's the dress that I like the most. We have two more hours before you have to get to classes.” Devon pointed at the clock letting her know that they were already spending too much time playing dress up without being rude about it.