Billionaire On Fire: The Complete Series (A Bad Boy Alpha Billionaire Romance) (47 page)

“Mom, I have to tell you something,” I
said, resigned. “Please listen very carefully and don’t get upset with me.”

“Why would I get upset with you?” she
asked sounding surprised that I would even suggest such a thing. “You have been
wonderful, Aria, helping me with my hospital bills like this! I only hope I get
the opportunity to do something great for you in return someday.”

“You have mom, you did that little thing
where you, you know, raised me?” I tried to sound cheerful but my insides were
at war. How was I going to explain it to her? The contract was not exactly
something she would approve of; it would sound, no matter how I put it, like I
was selling myself. She would not be able to handle that. I had to come up with
a better story. “Listen, mom,” I started again. “I may have lied to you a
little bit, but it was so you didn’t feel uncomfortable about those payments.
My loan never exactly got through.”

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath
until she spoke, “What do you mean your loan never got through? You have been
making payments! I have the receipt!”

“That wasn’t me,” I said sulkily, as
Stacey threw me a pillow for comfort.

“What? I don’t understand. Of course it
was you!”

“It wasn’t. I mean it was. It’s
complicated. My loan got denied so my – uh – boyfriend, who has a lot of money,
offered to lend me the money, which I am to pay him back after finding a job.”

“Boyfriend?” She sounded shocked. “You
didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend, Aria! Since when do we hide things from
each other? It’s not, oh god, it’s not that awful boy who broke your heart last
year, is it?”

“No mom, it’s someone else, and we hadn’t
really figured out what we were for the longest time so I never felt like
talking about it.”

“So the guy was willing to give you sixty
thousand dollars before even putting a name on your relationship? I don’t get
it, Aria. I hope you haven’t been doing anything illegal. I’m not worth the
trouble.”

“No, mom, no no! Nothing illegal, I
promise. Like I said, it is very complicated. But I haven’t done anything you
wouldn’t approve of mom,” I said crossing my fingers.

“
I don
’t know, Aria. You didn’t even tell me about this guy,
and he has been paying all this money.” Her voice was shaking slightly.

“I will be paying him back, I promise!” I
said honestly. “But I think for now the payments will have to stop because, uh,
we broke up.”

“Aww, honey! Are you all right? Maybe I
should come over and spend a few days with you.”

I thought about that for a second and
realized it was a horrible idea. If she came here it would be easier for her to
find out exactly what the deal between me and Zayden was.

“Don’t be silly, mom.” I tried to sound as
cheerful as possible. “We were not even dating for too long. He was a good
boyfriend but he began to get controlling and that pissed me off so I ended it.
I am not even upset about it! Worried about your hospital bills, sure, but not upset.
And I will find another way to continue your payments. You trust me don’t you?”

“Of course I trust you! But I feel like I
am putting way too much pressure on you with all this money business. You are
twenty years old; how can I expect you to come up with forty thousand more
dollars just like that? Especially if your loan got denied. Oh, those rascals!
You actually work at the bank and they would still deny you.”

“It’s okay, mom, it really is. We will
figure something out, you know I will. Please don’t worry about this for now.
It’s late, go to bed, I will call you soon and we will make a plan. Everything
is going to be alright.”

“As long as you are okay, honey,” she
said, sounding apologetic. “I am so sorry about all this.”

“Don’t be! I am fine and if I can’t even
help out my mom when she needs me, what’s the point of anything?” I asked
brightly. “Goodnight, mom. Sleep well. You are going to be okay. We are going
to be okay.”

“Goodnight, baby. I love you.”

“I love you too,” I whispered and hung up,
feeling extremely anxious.

Even though I had told her I would figure
it out, I had no idea what I was going to do. There were only a couple of days
left until the month was over, and if Zayden really had decided to back down, I
hadn’t the slightest idea how I was going to get us out of this pickle.

“What is going on?” Stacey, who had been
silently listening to my whole conversation finally spoke.

“What is going on, Stace,”
I said sullenly.
“Is that I am so very
fucked.”

Chapter 6

Zayden

My last encounter with Aria had not been
nearly as satisfying as I would have thought. Giving her what she wants did not
make me feel the slightest bit better, but rather it made me feel weak; an
emotion I had never been able to identify with in my whole life. She had sent
me an email afterwards, which I unconsciously chose to ignore. Who cared if she
felt guilty about my mother? She hadn’t exactly given me the opportunity to
explain myself. I couldn’t help but take this time to make her as anxious and
vulnerable as she had made me feel. I fully intended to make the payment to her
mother’s hospital, but she didn’t need to know that yet. For another couple of
days she could go on without knowing whether I was going to do it or not.

Meanwhile, I had my mom and Gina to deal
with, and I figured I would start with Gina, who to her credit hadn’t told my
mother anything. Perhaps for the same fear I had that she would react in a
perfectly irrational manner. And I had come to believe that regardless of the
fact that she was a royal pain in the ass, she really did care about my mother.

I had invited her over for breakfast at
one of her favorite restaurants, so that the angry phone call wasn’t the last
she heard of me. Subtlety was the secret to making sure this ordeal went
smoothly from all directions, not that I had definitively decided that I was
going to end it.

She arrived about ten minutes late,
looking as though she had been crying. Her eyes were puffy even underneath the
multiple layers of makeup, and I felt slightly uncomfortable. Oh well. As long
as she didn’t start crying in front of me, it wasn’t my problem.

“
Hello,
” Gina said, sitting across from me. “
I am sorry I
’m late, I just–”

“It’s okay,” I said and waved my arm
nonchalantly. “Not important. Thank you for coming here, especially after that
phone call.”

“Yeah, that phone call, it was really
something,” she said and attempted a meek smile. “I have been spending the last
few days half hoping you were joking.”

“I wasn’t,” I said and frowned. “For what
it’s worth, your deal really did sound tempting and I was seriously considering
it. But then you came into my office the other day and put on a show, which I
am still paying for.”

“What do you mean?” She looked genuinely
surprised. “I wasn’t putting on a show. I was in the area and came by to say
hello. I thought we were friends and that was acceptable.”

“We’re not friends, we never were. You
know full well why you were there that day, and so do I so let’s skip all the
pretenses, shall we?”

There was a long silence, during which
Gina pretended to be surveying the menu intensely. When she eventually looked
up to meet my eye, she said in a barely audible whisper, “I thought there
wasn’t anyone else.”

“I thought you didn’t know what I was
talking about,” I snapped.

“Look, I did not come in there with the
intention of ruining things for you and whoever this girl is. I was, however,
curious to find out if there was anyone at all. Because despite of what deal I
tried to make with you, I guess some part of me wanted to believe that we could
be a real couple one day, which would be impossible if your heart was someplace
else.”

“Why? Why do you even care, Gina? You
never loved me, by your own admission. And you know what, maybe I would have
agreed to whatever you had to say, if I had gotten the chance to explain it to
Ar – the girl – before she saw it the way she did. That made the decision for
me. You kind of brought this onto yourself, you know?”

She started tearing up upon hearing those
words. “Yep, which is why I have spent extra time bawling my eyes out the last
few days. I figured it was something like that. But like I said, I wasn’t
putting on a show for her, I was just testing to see if you were lying about
there not being anyone else.”

“
And you caught me, hoorah!
”
I said angrily.
“Hope it was worth it.”

She was openly crying, which made me want
to just walk out of the restaurant and never see her again. But I had to be
careful, if I wanted my mother on my side.

“Look, I am sorry, Gina. Mostly because
for once in our lives you were being honest with me when you proposed that
deal. It was a refreshing change to see you so candid. But I am afraid, it
can’t work out. I know you need money–”

“More… than… you…realize…” She sniffed
tearfully. “I’m losing my house. It was the only thing my parents left for me
and it’s getting foreclosed on, and I thought maybe if we could strike up a
deal, I could save it and in return you get peace from your mom. And perhaps
when she, you know, passed on, we could go our separate ways and we would both
have gotten something out of it.”

“Why didn’t you just say that from the
beginning?” I said, a brilliant plan finally playing out in my mind. This was
going to be much simpler than I had thought; in fact, I was disappointed in
myself for not thinking of this sooner.
 
It
was the perfect solution and I felt a surge of relief spread across my whole
body as I spoke again, “I will make you a deal. Another one, but I think you
will be quite pleased.”

After explaining to her that I would pay
for her house if she signed the divorce papers, she looked considerably
cheerful, and was almost too eager to accept.

“Thank you, Zayden! You are actually a
pretty good guy, you know?” She said, wiping her face with the napkin on the
table.

“No need to fawn all over me, I am doing
this because I have something to gain from it as well. Pull something like you
did in my office the other day again – or do anything at all to upset me and
the deal is off.”

“
I won
’t! I will be gone forever, Zay, if that is what you
want.”

After another few minutes of hearing the
needless words of gratitude, I paid the check and got up to leave.

“Just one question, Zayden, before you
leave,” Gina said right as I was inching towards the door. “And it is personal
so don’t feel obligated to answer. I am just really curious because I have
known you for so long, but I have never seen you do so much for just a girl.”

“What are you trying to get at, Gina?”
I sighed.

“
I don
’t know. I am just wondering… are you in love this
Aria girl?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” I said
without thinking and walked away. It was true, love was not something I had
ever experienced in my life before, so even if I felt it somehow, I would never
recognize it. Nor was there any reason to recognize it. Love was probably just
a word invented for the weak in order to justify extremely stupid things they
did. I was neither stupid nor weak.

---

Next order of business was dealing with my
mother, and if all went as planned, that was bound to be a piece of cake. I
still couldn’t get over the fact that this idea hadn’t occurred to me sooner.
It was so simple and brilliant. I should have thought of it the day Gina had
made me that offer; she only needed money, after all.

Unsurprisingly, my mom came into my room
at about eight that night looking completely horrorstruck.

“
I just,
” she said almost hyperventilating. “I just got a call
from Gina. Oh Zayden, I am so sorry.”

She was obviously on the verge of tears
and for a split second I almost felt guilty for pulling this off.

“What’s wrong?” I asked innocently looking
up from my laptop. “Is she okay?”

“She is fine… I think,” my mom said in a
shaking voice. “But – but – Zayden I am sorry for all of this.”

“What do you mean? What are you
apologizing for? Is everything okay, mom?” I was trying hard to sound genuinely
curious and concerned, but my insides were jumping in joy; the plan had
obviously worked fantastically.

“No, no, no, no!” she exclaimed
dramatically. “Nothing is okay, and it’s all my fault. I did this to you. I am
so, so sorry son.”

“For what?” I eyed her quizzically.

She waited a few minutes before speaking,
as though her next words held a lot of weight and she wanted to make sure she
delivered them in the best possible way.

“Gina, she is,” she halted for a few more
seconds. “She is gone, Zay. I am so so sorry. I should have never pushed you
towards her like that. This is all my fault!”