Billionaire On Fire: The Complete Series (A Bad Boy Alpha Billionaire Romance) (54 page)

Once dinner was ready, we sat on the small
four-occupancy dining table, which my mom had obviously bought since our last
visit. Perhaps it was in exchange for our large mahogany table, which was
glaringly missing. I felt an odd sort of a discomfort in my chest as I took my
seat across of Zayden and tried hard not to catch anybody’s eyes.

My mom had put together an elaborate
dinner for somebody in her economic stature. Enormous Porter-House Steaks that
appeared grilled to perfection, a plate full of spicy and crunchy looking
shrimp, mashed potatoes cooked with gouda – perhaps one of my all time
favorites growing up from all of my mom’s cooking – and an assortment of
roasted vegetables. In addition, there was a whole side for dessert with various
fruits, chocolate ice-cream cake, apple pie, and cookie dough ice cream.

“Mom, you really went all out,” I gasped
and noticed even Zayden seemed to be impressed, which I supposed was her
intention.

She shrugged, although her smile gave away
that she was rather pleased with herself. “It was no big deal, really. Just
threw some things together hastily. Eat up!”

As I started eating the delicious food, I
forgot all about the pressure that was supposed to be present in the current
situation, where I was introducing my boyfriend to my mother. For the first
time since my high-school prom date, I remembered suddenly. No wonder she had
gone out of her way with this dinner. Or perhaps it was the little side fact
that the guy was spending sixty thousand dollars to help her out, I realized
stupidly.

This wasn’t about meeting my boyfriend at
all. This was about feeding a nice meal to the guy who was helping her out as a
token of appreciation. For some reason, that made me feel sad, so I focused all
my attention on the juicy steak that was filling all my senses.

“Mmm,” I heard Zayden moan, telling me
that he was equally impressed with dinner, which was an accomplishment given
that he had an international super-chef at his beck and call twenty-four seven.

“Let’s open the wine, shall we?” Mom’s
voice pulled me out of my foodgasm.

“What?” I felt a little disoriented for a
moment.

“The wine your boyfriend so nicely bought
for me, shall we open it then?” She smiled.

I looked at Zayden, who seemed as
blown-away from the dinner as I was and he nodded. “Sure, if you would like.
It’s yours to do with as you please.” He smiled.

By the time she returned with the freshly
opened bottle of wine, we had managed to help ourselves to third servings of
everything on the table.

“Molly,” Zayden sighed at last. “You don’t
suppose you would be interested in a career as a chef, would you?”

I knew immediately what he was suggesting,
so I gave Zayden a stern look that was meant to read “Not another word!” But
mom just giggled, thinking of it as just a stray compliment.

“It’s nothing. Aria is a really good cook,
too. I’m sure you’ve had her cooking plenty of times. The mashed potatoes and
gouda, at the very least!”

I looked intensely at the marks on the new
dining table, aware of Zayden’s amused gaze. “No, actually,” I heard him say
from beside me. “I have not quite had the pleasure of eating Aria’s cooking
just yet. But if tonight is any indication of what I was missing, then I have
to say I am very disappointed you never invited me for dinner.”

My mom looked at me reproachfully.
“Sweetheart, that’s not very nice, especially since you told me he made you
dinner the other night.”

“He grilled,” I said automatically.
Feeling kind of guilty I added, “Yes, he did, and I was planning to invite him over
this weekend but then we decided to come see you instead. Would you have rather
we not?”

 
“Of
course not!” she exclaimed. “I am happy you guys decided to pay me a visit. I
was going crazy all by myself. This wine is amazing, by the way,” she added, sipping
on the red in her glass. “The best I have ever had. Is it foreign or can I find
it locally?”

I glanced at Zayden, who looked slightly
uncomfortable and unsure how to answer. “It’s…it’s a special kind of wine that
I got directly from the Vineyard. Limited edition, they only make it this time
of the year and you have to be a member to—”

“Wow, that sounds really fancy,” my mom
said, looking at me quizzically.

“It’s no big deal.” Zayden shrugged. “I
can get you a whole case. It might take a couple of weeks though. I was going
to bring a case tonight, but wasn’t sure if you would like it.”

“Just out of curiosity, Zayden,” my mom
said, still looking at me as though searching for some kind of an answer. “What
exactly do you do for a living?”

Zayden opened his mouth to answer, but
before he could produce a sound, I chimed in, “He works with me, mom. I told
you remember?” I smiled nervously and then looked at Zayden, hoping he could
pick up on my cues.

“Yes, of course I remember,” my mom
chuckled. “But don’t be silly, Aria. You work in a pretty large branch of a
huge bank chain. There are certainly many, many things to be done there. I am
just curious as to what exactly working with you entails here?”

Grabbing the opportunity of Zayden
chewing, his mouth too full to speak, I immediately jumped to answer, “He’s a
loan officer!”

From the look of perplexed curiosity in
Zayden’s face, to that of looming anger in my mother, I realized that this
dinner was starting to get closer to what I had imagined it would be like in
the first place. I wanted to carve a hole under the table and disappear
forever.

“Since when do we lie to each other,
Aria?” my mom asked after a few minutes of maddening silence.

“I’m not lying! He works with me at the
bank.”

“I believe that. But somebody who rides
over here in a limousine with a driver and talks of exclusive memberships to
fancy Vineyards and can produce an entire case of better wine than I had ever
tasted in my life, is not a loan officer. It would be nice if you gave me the
slightest bit of credit, Aria. I know I got us into a big pile of mess
financially, but I am not stupid.”

“You didn’t,” I said, starting to feel
guilty. “You were not the one who got us into this big pile of mess, mom. And I
don’t think you’re stupid. In my defense…you weren’t supposed to see the limo,”
I finished lamely.

“Why don’t you answer this time,” she said
looking away from me and smiling at Zayden. “What exactly do you do for a
living, Zayden?”

He finished chewing and swallowed, as I
felt my heart thump faster and faster across my chest.

“I am the CEO of South National Bank,” he
said simply.

I did not dare look at my mother. Or him.
Or anybody. I simply continued to stuff mashed potatoes into my mouth, hoping
that nobody expected me to speak for a long time, unable to quite think of
anything rational to say.

“I see,” my mom said in a voice that did
not sound entirely like her own. “So you’re her boss, then? You’re everybody’s
boss?”

“In a manner of speaking. It’s really not
a big deal, though,” he added hastily. “I have and always will, consider Aria
an equal. Your daughter is brilliant, Molly. Especially for her age.”

“I know she is,” I heard my mom say
mechanically. I was still glaring at the table in front of me. “But when you
say ‘for her age’ I do wonder, are you much older, then?”

“I will turn thirty-three in February.”

“Wow, I am surprised you aren’t married
then. A handsome young man like yourself. Surely somebody rather suitable must
have grabbed your interest before our little Aria did?”

“I was married once, but she wasn’t the
right woman for me,” he said, beginning to sound increasingly more
uncomfortable. “And I am glad it didn’t work out or I would have never met
Aria. She lacked your daughter’s intelligence. Most women do, Molly.”

“How about children? Did you father any
with this unintelligent woman you speak of?”

“None that I know of,” he said in an
attempt at humor, but it had obviously been the wrong move because I chose that
moment to look up at mom’s face and it was glowing red hot.

“I’m sorry, Zayden – Mr. Zayden Sinclair,
I mean – would you mind excusing us for just a little bit? I need to have a
word with Aria. Family matters to discuss, you know? Why don’t you help
yourself to more of that pie and ice cream in the meanwhile?”

Say no, Zayden, say no, say no, say no. I
looked at him and nodded, hoping he would understand but he remained completely
clueless. “Sure, go ahead. I don’t mind at all.”

Shit. As my mom lead me towards her
bedroom, my heart started thumping even louder than before. What was she going
to do? I wish I hadn’t lied to her! The thing was, there was no way she could
exactly back off the deal now, so she had to learn to be okay with whatever was
happening. If only I hadn’t lied to her to begin with, perhaps this whole thing
wouldn’t have turned into the scary ordeal that it had become.

When we entered the room and my mom closed
the door behind her, I crossed my fingers, even though I wasn’t sure what that
would accomplish.

“Your boss?” my mom asked, not in an angry
but disappointed tone. “Your boss, Aria? Of all the people in the whole world,
you decided that you were going to sleep with the owner and CEO of South
National Bank!”

“What does the bank have anything to do
with it?” I asked, confused by where her focus was geared.

“Shhhh,” she hissed immediately. “Let’s
keep our voices down, shall we?”

“Okay,” I whispered. “But mom, seriously,
this is not what it must look like.”

“I love you Aria and I really appreciate
all the things you have done in order to help me out. It’s just…I feel like I
let you stoop too low for my sake and right now I can’t help feel like I’ve
done an altogether terrible job of being a mother by letting you do this for
me. Your boss has been paying my medical bills! I can’t imagine the kind of
requests he must have in return. He is so much older than you too and you’re so
young and naïve.”

“I’m not stupid,” I snapped, starting to
get annoyed. “Yes, I am younger than him but I am not an idiot, mom. And I will
admit that yes, this whole thing kind of started in a manner that might seem
less than classy. He made me sign a contract that said he would make monthly
payments to your bills for as long as I dated him. That was it though, just
dating! There was nothing crude on there. I can show you the contract!”

She sighed. “I believe you, sweetheart.
But obviously it seems that this has gone beyond the contract now, has it?”

“I love him, mom,” I said earnestly,
hoping she would understand. “It started out as all games and tricks, but we
just grew to really care for one another. Everything you have seen tonight
between me and Zayden, it was all real. He is my boyfriend. Yes he is older and
he is also my boss, but I have honestly never felt this way about anybody in my
life before and that’s not something you ought to be ashamed of!”

I was quite surprised with the eloquence I
had just employed in a situation where I was almost too afraid to function. My
mom’s reaction, however, wasn’t quite what I expected. She looked neither mad
nor happy nor please. She looked horrified.

“What’s wrong, mom?”

“Oh Aria, I am sorry,” she said covering
her face in both her hands.

“What are you sorry about? You have
nothing to apologize for!” The atmosphere in the room had suddenly gotten
bizarre as though I had walked in the middle of a very dramatic scene in a soap
opera. “What’s going on, mom? Why are you so upset?” She was crying, trying
hard to hush her sniffs - so that Zayden wouldn’t hear, I presumed - leaving me
completely perplexed. I walked over to her uncertainly and placed a hand on her
right shoulder. “Mom, talk to me, is everything okay? Is it the house? You know
you can always come live with me.”

“No, Aria,” she said, finally looking up.
Her face was red and blotchy, her eyes swollen to almost twice their size. “Are
you sure you love this guy?” she asked in even softer tones than before.

“Yes,” I said without even considering it
for a second.

“Then I really do owe you an apology. You
know when your dad filed for bankruptcy?”

“How could I ever forget?” I shrugged.

“Well before he filed that, he was
obviously in a lot of debt. He owed huge sums of money to a lot of different
people, but most of all, he owed five hundred thousand dollars to a particular
bank.”

My heart started shaking again as I was
beginning to understand where my mom was going with this. It couldn’t be. It
couldn’t possibly be that my father—

“The bank was South National Bank,” my mom
finished.

I threw my body on to her bed in shock.

“So you’re telling me,” I said very slowly
so that there would be absolutely no confusion on this matter. “That this man
is paying sixty thousand dollars to help out our family, after our family
robbed his company of eight times that amount already?”

“Don’t put it like that, sweetheart!” my
mom gasped. “You couldn’t have known now, could you? When you first took a job
there, I felt a little uncomfortable given our shaky history with the company,
but I didn’t want to say anything because it was just a job. What could go
wrong? As I learned in the span of the past hour, apparently a whole lot.”