Billionaire On Fire: The Complete Series (A Bad Boy Alpha Billionaire Romance) (23 page)

“I have to work,” I said automatically.

Was I even breathing? I couldn’t be sure.

“I’ll pay you to take the whole day off.
And maybe after lunch we can spend the whole day in my apartment being, you
know, ‘married’ for the day.”

He winked. I felt my pulse rising. Right
now I couldn’t think of a single reason to turn his offer down, but I had to
get ahold of myself. This was what Zayden did, and I was smarter than the women
who fell for it.

“Sure, we can meet each other’s parents
and raise some children after,” I laughed. It wasn’t a convincing laughter. I
got up before things could get out of hand. “I’ll eat this later. Have a nice
day Mr. Sinclair,” I said and walked away without looking back.

This must have been what a tornado felt
like.

CHAPTER
2

ZAYDEN

I looked at the girl lying next to me with
a mixture of confusion and amusement. I was pretty sure she was faking sleep.
Just like last night she had pretended to be too intoxicated to go home, even
when I suggested I would have my chauffeur drive her in one of the limos. Girls
like this got on my nerves, and I was starting to regret taking her back to my
place.

Not that I wasn’t used to girls clinging
on like this; usually, however, after a good fuck I would just tell them that I
was “emotionally unavailable.” There would be some crying, but eventually those
words would drive women to flee without much egging on my part. I let out an
involuntary snort. Women. All I knew was it worked. Anything worked. Everything
worked.

Most of the time, anyway. Very rarely did
women deny my advances, and Aria Roberts had been the first in countless years
to so casually turn me down. It excited me to maddening degrees; it had gotten
far too easy for me to get women and I needed a good challenge. But last night,
I was so frustrated that I picked up the first pair of sexy boobs that flashed
in my face at the Tavern. Boring personality, if she had one at all, and an
even more boring lay. I had half the mind to finish myself off in the middle of
it, but felt sorry for the poor soul. Another reason it pissed me off that she
was still lying comfortable in my king-sized bed.

“Wake up!” I tapped her shoulders. “Quick!
It’s time to go home.”

She opened her eyes slowly and got out of
the covers, still naked. She did have nice breasts; maybe it wasn’t the worst
pick-up ever after all.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, ruffling her
hair. Trying to be cute. Women. “I didn’t realize I over-slept. I was…”

Yeah, the breasts were really something.
She was rambling on but I didn’t catch a single word, or care to. I felt myself
get harder watching her nipples and just threw her back into the bed. She
seemed way too excited about it; I’d have to deal with it later but for now I
just grabbed her and closed my eyes.

I thrust myself deep inside her, picturing
Aria Roberts’ tiny body and perfect little ass in my mind. Fuck.

***

“Mrs. Sinclair asked me about your
whereabouts this morning,” my driver Ned said.

I grunted. My mother had a way of getting
on my nerves.

“Tell her I’m in Bali for the rest of the
month.”

“I think she plans to surprise you with a
visit,” he said apologetically.

Ned was one of the only people in the
world I would trust with my life. He had been with our family for over two
decades, and helped me keep it together when my dad passed away, six years ago
today. It was the day of my MBA graduation and I was supposed to leave for a vacation
to Spain that night; I had no real plans, no rush to hurry into a career. He
had a stroke, and all of a sudden I was left without a father and without my
youth, and with the South National Bank empire as compensation for my loss.
Every single day of my life since that day six years ago has been dedicated to
growing what my dad had built, to honor his legacy, to take his company further
than his wildest imaginations.

This left no room for friends or any kind
of social life outside of what the business demanded, and I couldn’t be happier
about it. There would be parties and overseas cruises and models in penthouses,
but all for the business, all to convince shareholders and investors that I
made them happy and that their money was best suited in my expert hands. The
models in penthouses were the only mildly pleasurable part. Generally though,
any social situation was an arena for manipulation and cunning, and just
another way to build on my dad’s empire. People tended to hold me back and
there was no room in my life for a pause.
 

Ned was, in some ways, my only friend.

“It’s okay. I’ll take care of it, Ned.” I
sighed. “You don’t worry about it.”

When I got to my desk, I was welcomed by a
slew of emails. The union in the Nashville branch was organizing a third strike
this year and had closed up for business. What a bunch of fucking babies. I was
all for fair wages and benefits; so much so that I had been invited to a local
TED talk to address the importance of solidarity and understanding between
company executives and the lowest level employees. I turned down the invite –
only people who don’t practice have time to preach – but was subsequently
featured in ZEN magazine for running the only set of banks in the nation that
paid even the cleaning staff over twice the minimum wage. The first union
strike hadn’t phased me—it would have almost moved me if I were capable of such
a thing—and I had raised companywide salary. The second time and onwards it had
just started to look like they were testing how far they could push me. I felt
a tremor of anger as I dialed Tom, the Nashville VP.

“Shut it down,” I said sharply.

Tom huffed and puffed some words that
faintly resembled coherence, but my attention drifted away from the problem at
hand as I saw Aria Roberts walk into the building and towards the teller’s
booth. She had a fascinating body. Not stunning in any traditional sense. I had
fucked far too many supermodels to be excited by infinite legs and plastic
breasts. Aria was what could only be defined as cute. Cute in the sexiest way
possible. She had a petite figure and couldn’t be much taller than 5’3, if
that, and it suited her heart-shaped face and bright brown eyes. Her long red
hair covered half of her tiny body, ending slightly above her lower back. Her breasts
were on the smaller side, but all I needed was a mouthful. There was a mouthful
there for sure, and plenty to spare. What really stood out was her perfectly
round ass. It was bigger than most of her and I wasn’t sure how she could fit
that curve in her small body and still walk with a stride. I was getting hard
just looking at her through my glass door.

“Zay? You there?”

I snapped out of it. “What? Uh… I don’t
wanna hear it Tom, I don’t wanna hear any of it. Just shut it down, alright?”

My eyes drifted towards Aria again. When
would I get the opportunity to throw that little body into the air and fuck her
brains out? Would I ever? The fact that I had to ask myself that question
surprised me. Never before had it been a question of if but when, with any woman:
actresses, models, athletes—they all gave in eventually. But I couldn’t seduce
a teller in my own bank! They usually begged me to take them any way I liked,
anywhere I liked. Some just gave in right after their first interview here –
they never actually made it to work afterwards, though. I didn’t do repeats and
I didn’t like the idea of employing girls that would be too distracted
fantasizing about me to get their jobs done. I usually sent them to work for a
business-partner or another shareholder with the highest recommendations, so I
wasn’t exactly making them suffer. That would be Aria’s fate too, and perhaps
the knowledge of that made her shy away from me.

Or maybe she really, truly, genuinely had
no interest in sleeping with me. The way she shrugged off all my advances with
confident scorn and polite laughter surely suggested that was the case. That
fascinated me endlessly. She had told me she was single, yet she seemed to turn
men down right and left. I knew she was a junior in college. Perhaps between
the coursework and working almost full-time hours at the bank she simply did
not have time for some fun. Maybe if I gave her the right kind of incentive and
somehow assured her that she will be compensated for her company more
generously than she was for her job…

But I realized I had already tried that
and she was still not interested. I was back at square one, at a complete loss.
I had unions to deal with, people to fire, emails to respond to, but all I
could focus on was a twenty-year-old girl’s ass. All I cared about was finding
a way to get her into my bed.

I was hovering on dangerous territory, but
I loved a good challenge. I picked up the phone again and watched her answer
from the teller’s booth.

“South National Bank, how may I help you?”

She was looking towards me. She knew.

“I can think of so many ways.” I grinned.
“None that would require your clothes, though.”

She chuckled, flashing her dimples. It was
a nervous laugh. I made everyone around me nervous; it was the natural reaction
I had come to expect from people over the years. The reaction coming from her
was a source of thrill because she hadn’t gave into me yet.

“Did you need something, Mr. Sinclair?”

“Well, first of all, I need you to call me
Zayden. Zay is fine too. Can you do that for me?”

“Okay Zayden,” she sighed heavily. “You’re
watching, so you know that took everything out of me. I like to be
professional.”

Mrs. Brian, the other teller on duty,
looked at Aria disapprovingly. She had worked for this bank for many years, and
had seen my shenanigans with many different women.

“I could take so many things out of you,
Aria.” My face was serious now. Wanting. “Just give me a chance to show you.
I’ll make you feel things you never thought you were capable of feeling.”

She looked away. I was beginning to get
irritated that I couldn’t get through to her.

“Thank you for the very generous offer,
Mr. Sinclair, but I think I’ll pass for now. Please let me know if you need
anything.” She paused for a second. “Anything else, I mean.”

She hung up, leaving me more ridden with
desire than before.

CHAPTER
3

ARIA

My roommates Nick and Stacey were having
the hardest time deciding on the kind of pizza to order, as the three of us
curled up on our living room couch watching Friends.

“God Stacey, you’re such a Monica!” Nick
exclaimed.

“Well excuse me for not wanting to give us
all cancer,” Stacey snapped back.

“Get off WebMD, Stace. Pizza crust cannot
give you cancer.”

“You would be surprised by the kinds of
things gluten could do to you if you took some time out of playing space games
to actually read about important things on the internet.”

Nick sighed and looked at me as I began to
cover my face with my palms.

“I am not going to play judge to yet
another pseudo court-drama about the importance of video games in your
burgeoning career as a programmer,” I mumbled. “Deal with your girlfriend
yourself.”

Stacey gasped. “Traitor! You’re supposed
to be my best friend!”

“I am. Which is why I am staying out of
this.”

They both looked confused and annoyed, as
though they were completely clueless about where to go from here. It was
comical. Nick and Stacey were the best couple I had ever seen: they were best
friends first, and argued over everything from Nick’s video games to Stacey’s
Cosmo-inspired women’s blog to pizza and gluten. I also happened to secretly
know that they were both working extra shifts – Nick at the Southern Eastern
University’s IT help desk, and Stacey at the library – to save money so they
could surprise each other on their three-year-anniversary.

Stacey had been my best friend since 9th
grade, and when she had met Nick – a freshman in college at the time – we were
in our senior year of high-school. At first I was worried sick that we would
grow apart after she had found a boyfriend, but it turned out that Nick was
incredibly cool and we got along well. So much so that when Stacey and I joined
him for college at SEU two years ago, moving into his two-bedroom apartment
seemed the natural thing to do. Most people seemed surprised to learn that I
lived with a couple, but to us it was just three best friends being roommates
and goofing around the house. And my room was far enough away from theirs for
me to not hear things I wouldn’t want to hear. I was going to miss them when we
all graduated and they moved on to get married, have babies, and do other
things couples do. I was a tad envious of what they had. They really were perfect
for each other.

Watching their relationship had been one
of the reasons I had grown to become ridiculously picky about men. The other
reason was a guy I had dated my freshman year who cheated on me with a sorority
girl. Rick – a Dick if there ever was one – was my first boyfriend, and things
seemed to be going great as our first anniversary was approaching. I was going
to lose my virginity to him that night. Everything was planned. Nick and Stacey
were on a weekend getaway, I had cleaned and double-cleaned the apartment,
bought candles and incense and all kinds of other romantic crap. I had cut my
shift short so I could set everything up, but when I got home I caught him in
bed, in my bed, with a blonde girl I had never seen.