Billionaire On Fire: The Complete Series (A Bad Boy Alpha Billionaire Romance) (33 page)

“Good, because your mid-term exam for this
class is tomorrow,” he said, now addressing the whole class.

Phew. Mid-term. I’d ace that and
everything would be okay again. No more thinking about sex in class though.
What was even happening to me? I was going to kill Zayden Sinclair when he
returned from New York. He was beginning to interfere with my everyday life.

Chapter
2

Zayden

Did she have to be in class? I hated not
having the view of her ass from my office. All I had to look at was old Mrs.
Brian, who seemed to think frowning at every customer that walked in was
company policy.

I picked up my phone to call Aria,
wondering if I could demand that she become present at work instantly, but she
probably wouldn’t answer her phone in class. Grunting, I thought about how much
fun we were going to have when I took her home tonight. I had made some plans,
all right.

We hadn’t quite had the chance to do it
after that night in the office. First I had to rush off to New York, and when I
got back, there was a whole pile of work waiting for me to return to, and
countless annoying meetings. At least I had found a way to make work
interesting the day I had returned from New York. I thought back to that
morning, when Aria had seen me walk into the office from her teller’s booth and
was visibly struggling not to run to me. She didn’t want to tarnish her
reputation and worsen mine. Thank god she was clever. So I had to devise a plan
to get her to come into my office. And keep her there.

I called her phone.

“Good morning, Mrs. Roberts,” I grinned at
her from the distance. “How are you doing, today?”

“Better now,” she grinned back. “For no
particular reason, though.”

“There seems to be a steady number of
reinforcements for your tasks at the teller’s booth over there. There’s Mrs.
Brian, and the new kid should be arriving. Do you think you could make yourself
available for some executive-level assistance?”

“What did you have in mind?” She winked at
me. It was so damn sexy.

“What I really have in mind is bending you
over my desk and making you come over and over again.” I watched her flush. It
was so satisfying. “Since it’s the middle of the day, however, and we have a
lot of company, I will settle for you coming into my office and sorting through
my filing cabinet.”

She looked taken aback, but said, “Oh
yeah, sure, anything you want. You’re the boss.”

“I’m not finished,” I added with a wink.
She wasn’t the only one who could do that. “I want you to sort through my
filing cabinet, but first I want you to go to the bathroom and take your
panties off, so that I get a nice view of your ass and pussy when you’re
filing.”

She gasped. “Are you serious?”

“I don’t joke about pussy, Aria. Go take
your panties off. Now.” And then I hung up. Watching her from a distance, I
could tell she was equally as frustrated as she was aroused, and my cock was
already throbbing hard from that conversation.

She walked into my office a few moments
later and I said: “Where are they?”

“What?” She looked confused.

“Your panties.”

She raised her eyebrows. “In my purse. Why
does it matter?”

I pulled my top desk drawer out and said,
“Place them there. So you can’t cheat in case I step out of my desk.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” she whispered,
sounding more frustrated than aroused now.

“Panties. Now.” I stared at her with a
stern face until she gave up and stormed to place them where I had asked.
“Anything else? Do you want me to strip naked so everyone in the office can
have a nice show, too?”

She was angrier than I had realized. “Just
calm down,” I said, gently. “I thought you’d find it sexy.”

“I do and it’s annoying. I don’t want to
find it sexy. I was looking forward to your return from New York, and wanted to
ask you about your trip, and tell you about my progress on the Econ paper, and
so much more. But as soon as you walked in, all I could think about was the
other night.”

She paused for a second as though very
nervous about what was to come next, then added, “All I could think about was
the other night, and how much I wanted to repeat it. Right now.”

“Aria,” I gasped, getting super hard. “We
can book a hotel room around the corner and—”

“No,” she said quickly. “This is exactly
what I am talking about. I would love to accompany you to a hotel room and have
you do me as you please. It pisses me off though that you do this while I’m at
work. I need these hours. I need to be able to work while at work.”

“I’ll pay you double to take the day off.”

“Stop saying that, it’s disrespectful. I
want to earn the money I make.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you… I just
figured, you want it, I want it, there seems to be no logical reason that
either of us should be clothed right now.”

“But there is,” she sighed. “It’s called
my job. And yours!”

“Meh,” I said shrugging. “I own the
company, that’s hardly a job.”

“After work,” she snapped. “After everyone
leaves, we can hang around in your office and do whatever it is that you want
to do.”

“You make it sound like such a chore. How
flattering,” I snapped back. “And despite that charming proposition, I’ll have
to decline in favor of a sausage fest. Board meeting tonight.”

“We don’t have to be at each other’s
throats like this you know,” she said, sighing deeply.

“Well, the fucking sexual tension in the
room is making us act this way.”

“Yeah, it’s something like that,” she
said, staring at her feet.

“Not to change the subject but I got you
something,” I said, producing a tiny box from inside my suit pocket.

“What is it?” She looked nervous.

“Not a ring, obviously,” I said, handing
her a box.

“Oh really? I was so convinced that it was
a ring, and that one steamy night with me had made you decide you wanted me for
the rest of your life. Cause that’s how things work,” she laughed, opening the
box and gasped when the contents were revealed.

“These are beautiful,” she exclaimed,
examining the diamond Liberty locket I had gotten her. “Is this a real
diamond?”

“Two carat. Not much, but since you had
never been to New York before, I thought I’d bring a piece of it back to you.”

I was playing this smooth.

She laughed. “Yeah, just two carat, no big
deal. It’s not like that’s more than any valuable item I have ever owned.
Seriously, though, it’s beautiful. But I can’t accept it. You need to stop
buying me expensive presents.”

“It was nothing,” I said. It was just a
couple of thousand dollars and that wasn’t much to me. “Just take it, Aria.
Otherwise it’s just going to be thrown away.”

“I can’t. I don’t feel comfortable taking
gifts from my boss.” She sighed.

“I’m not just your boss.”

“I know.” Her eyes widened. “That’s not
what I meant to imply. You’re…” She started fidgeting with the pendant in her
hand and flushed to match the color of her red shirt. “You’re... I think of you
as… as…” It was like someone asked her to name every state in the U.S.
alphabetically in descending order. “A friend,” she finished after a lot of struggle.

“Ah, so you let all your friends do what I
did to you the other night?” I tried to look severe, although I was laughing
inside at her struggle to speak.

“No! Of course not! You know that I had
never – that I was a –“ She caught my eyes and realized I was just teasing her.
“I’m going to kill you.”

“Great, then you can keep the pendant as
memorabilia for when you miss me after my death.”

She grunted. “I feel bad, though!”

“If you really think of me as a friend,
then please, take this small present from your friend.”

“Fine,” she finally said. “But one
condition: no more presents, no more spending a single penny outside of our
contract on me. Promise?”

“I promise,” I smiled. “Now start shelving
and let me enjoy the view.”

“That’s okay. I’ve got to get back to
work. Enjoy my underwear,” she said, laughing as she waltzed out of my office.

She was just as good as I was at this
game.

Chapter
3

Aria

I was walking out of class, disgruntled
again from the second encounter in a row with my Statistics professor. It was
beginning to be an every class thing. Then I heard someone call my name.

Dick.

“Excuse me?” a blond guy of medium build
said.

I may have said Dick out loud. “That’s
your name, isn’t it?”

“It’s Rick. But thanks,” my ex-boyfriend
grinned. “I’ve been meaning to run into you, Aria.”

“Oh, that’s neat. You don’t even have any
classes in the Econ and Finance building. I suppose this is a ‘run-in’ and not
a stalking attempt. Go away, dick,” I said, walking on.

He ran after me. “Listen, I tried calling
you a bunch of times.”

I turned around and snapped, “Right. And
me completely not answering any of those gazillion phone calls over the last
few months did not give you the slightest hint that I want nothing to do with
you?”

“It did, but I am still here, doesn’t that
say something?”

“Yes, it says it’s really late and I have
to get out of here. You’re just a dirty scumbag who cheated on me on our
anniversary and is now stalking me outside of evening class.”

“You never even gave me a chance to
explain!” He was shouting now.

“Explain! What the hell is there to
explain, Dick? I saw everything that needed to be seen. Do I care about your
made-up sob story where you were doing a dying girl a favor or any kind of
other bullshit that you can come up with? No.”

“But you still care about me! Or you
wouldn’t be this angry,” he had the nerve to say.

I could almost slap him that moment and
tried to ease my trembling fingers. “I cared about you once. You know that. But
you hurt me, Ricky. It took me a very long time to recover from that. Of course
I’m still angry for what you did to me! But that in no way indicates any
remaining feelings for you. I have really truly moved on, and I suggest you do
the same. Though let’s be honest, you kind of already had before we even broke
up.”

He sighed. “I am really, really sorry,
Aria. I am not going to stand here and give you a long and twisted version of a
lie you aren’t going to believe. I fucked up, plain and simple. I don’t have
some grandiose reasoning behind it; I was just a stupid kid thinking with
everything other than my head. And Sally – the girl you found me with – had
been going after me for months and I just lost control.”

“I’m sorry for you and your inability to
keep it in your pants, but I am not sure how this is supposed to make anything
better.”

“It’s not. None of it is supposed to make
it any better. All I wanted to say was that I am truly sorry. I don’t think
I’ve ever been more sorry about anything in my life. And I would have to be
really stupid to think you’d ever give me another chance. I know I don’t
deserve one, and you deserve better.”

“Yeah? Then why are you still here?”

“Because I love you.” He shrugged. “I have
never loved anyone before or after you. You were the most inspiring person in
my life, never letting me down, always supporting me through the hardest of
times. And I let all that go, for what?” He shook his head.

“But I don’t love you anymore,” I said
softly.

A frown fell across his face. “I know,” he
said after a few moments. “I know that. Maybe we can still… I don’t know… be
friends?”

“Why? What does that accomplish?”

“I get to be around the most amazing girl
I have ever met, and have her in my life in some capacity, even though I will
know for sure that it’s never ever going to be more than that.”

I sighed. “Never ever.”

“Ever?” He was breaking out a tiny smile.

“Never!” I said more loudly.

“Friends?” He gave me his hand and I took
it reluctantly.

“Friends. But I have to go now. Lots to do
tonight, need to drop by home and then go to the bank—”

Shouldn’t have said that last part cause
he raised his eyebrows questioningly. “Why are you going to the bank this
late?”

“I forgot my…” I saw my phone prodding out
of my bag. “Phone…charger! I forgot my phone charger there!”

Phew. That was a close one. I needed to be
more careful about disclosing my whereabouts, especially when it concerned my
super-secret rendezvous with the owner and CEO of a giant bank chain.

“But I’ll see you later?” Rick was still
talking as I started storming off before I could say too much more.

“Sure,” I said without even looking back
and dashed out of there as fast as I could.