Billionaire On Fire: The Complete Series (A Bad Boy Alpha Billionaire Romance) (83 page)

I sat
in the back of the black, sleek vehicle and breathed into the window, watching
the way the fog grew from my mouth. We whisked past the monuments. I called up
to Dimitri in a harsh, empty voice. I told him to take me to a different
address—to the address of Rachel. The thought of returning to that camera-laden
apartment, where Jason could watch me shivering with fear and anticipation made
me queasy.

Dimitri
swept the car toward Rachel’s apartment and stopped curtly, forcing me nearly
out of my seat. I hadn’t been buckled. I brought my hands over my waist and
coughed a few times, feeling the anxiety of the evening pass through me. “Thank
you, Dimitri,” I whispered. And then, I was gone.

I
skirted up the steps, toward Rachel’s apartment. I knew she’d be home; I knew
that she was a homebody, now—that she was so different than the woman I’d met
all those years ago, when we’d been ready to take on the world. But really: I
didn’t feel any more ready, in that moment, than I ever had. I felt that I wanted
to cower beneath something, at least for a while, before conquering anything
once more.

I
tapped at the door. I heard soft feet scamper toward it, and then I saw
Rachel’s tired, if beautiful, face in the crack. “Amanda. I didn’t think you’d
be back tonight,” she stated, yawning a bit as she did it. She unlocked the
latch and allowed me to enter. I flumped onto the couch and brought my feet up
under my body. I looked at her, shaking my head. “I don’t think it’s safe at my
apartment,” I whispered.

She
knelt down toward me, her eyes frightened. “What do you mean?”

But I
couldn’t tell her about the concrete knowledge I had about Jason; I couldn’t
tell her the real reason he’d followed me, caught me on film. She couldn’t
know. She probably didn’t think much of me as it was. “It’s just a feeling I
have,” I laughed, still giving off that frightened, little bird expression. “I
can’t explain it.”

Rachel
nodded, her eyebrows furrowing. She bit her lip and tapped at my naked knee.
“You can stay as long as you need to,” she whispered.

Ultimately,
I fell asleep on the couch like that. The next morning, I called into work,
unable to lift myself into the air. Jason smiled into the phone as I told him:
“I can’t do it today, Jason. You’ll have to take over my responsibilities, if
only for a while.”

Jason’s
tongue snapped at the top of his mouth with satisfaction. I could hear it.
“Take all the time you need, Missy.” And then he hung up the phone.

Rachel
brought take out home that evening and I ate it while wearing her crumpled
pajamas, laughing a bit at the small stories she told about her life. I
couldn’t remember a single one in the moments after; they glimmered in my mind
for a instant and then they were gone. But it was so nice to speak to someone,
to feel safe.

Finally,
on Thursday of that week—a full four days later—I returned to work. I kept my
head down as I entered the White House, inhaling with my nose and exhaling with
my mouth to keep my anxiety down. I’d had thoughts of the president coursing
through my head non-stop since that evening when he’d told me too much, when
he’d revealed such personal things about himself. I could still see the sort of
dull shock in his face as he got dressed and left me, unsure of what else to
say after he’d given me his heart.

I got
caught up quickly at work, even talking to Jason for a bit about concrete
elements of the campaign. He walked me through a meeting he’d had with the
Governor of California, and I nodded, asking questions, making notes. I felt
like a reproduction of my previous self, even if the image wasn’t precise.
Perhaps I would only be smog from there on out, ready to dissipate into the
horizon.

I
began writing a rough draft of a press release around lunch time and worked all
the way till three, allowing my mind to formulate these words and phrases with
such precision. I could get through this, my mind kept telling my heart. I
could get through this, I could deal with Jason; I could ignore the president
forever.

I
stood and began passing out the press releases to the other members of the
campaign team, announcing to them our next steps for the education reform
discussion. We were filtering it through the country, getting them excited
about a brighter, more solid future. I stretched my neck around, allowing my
head to loll back. I was exhausted. And I’d hardly thought about the president
the entire day.

I
bolted to the bathroom at around four, down the hall. I felt such a foreboding
nature from the Oval Office. I hadn’t seen Xavier and I wondered what he was
doing in there. Sitting, staring forward, bringing his fingers together
politely over and over again. Like he was plotting something.

I
tapped my cleaned fingers against my blouse as I walked past on my way back to
the desk I held at the helm of the campaign team. Suddenly, I heard the Oval
Office door creak open. My head jolted to the left and peered into the earnest
expression of Xavier, who was leaning outside the door like a school boy.

The
Secret Service agent at the exterior of the office didn’t appear to notice him.
His eyes still stood forward, never eyeing the man beside him.

“Amanda.
I’d love to speak with you when you get a moment,” Xavier stated, his eyes
dark.

I took
a step away, holding my hand over my heart. It was beating wildly, making me
feel faint. I swallowed, searching for words. “Mr. President. I have a good
deal to do before I depart for the day.”

But
his voice was harsh. “And I’d love to get a better comprehension for it,” he
stated. “I need to talk to my campaign manager. And that’s you. Stat.”

I
gulped and entered the office, following him inside. His angry words seemed to
vibrate in my stomach, making me feel ill with their harshness. Xavier walked
away, with his back toward me. He sighed in that arena between the two couches,
leaning over his desk with his fingers spread wide on the wood. I stood behind
him with my hand to my mouth, feeling such anxiety course through me.

“Mr.
President?” I spoke, finally, wanting to cut the tension and wanting to make
sure he was okay.

He
huffed. “Amanda.” He spun around, his eyes dark once more. But they seemed to
plead with me, to say something more. “I need to talk to you.”

He
took a step forward and grabbed both of my wrists—not too hard, but not softly,
either. “I said something to you. Something big. Something that meant something
to me.” His eyes were so serious. “And you said nothing.”

My
mind searched for the right words to say. I felt that he was acting like a
child. But his reasoning for it—the purpose behind this passion—was his true
love for me. I bit my lip for a moment, considering. “You—you can’t leave your
wife,” I whispered then.

His
eyes jolted to the ground. He still held my wrists tightly. “You know that I’m
the most powerful man in the world. You know I can just go say the word, and an
entire country you’ve never heard of in your life can cease to exist. You know
I can do all that. And yet you’re telling me I can’t leave my wife?”

His
words came in angry spurts. I tried to remove my wrists from his grasp, but I
couldn’t. My eyes looked up to him, searching his face. “You can’t leave her.
You know what that will do for us? Nothing. It will do nothing.” My voice was
so pained I almost couldn’t recognize it.

He
frowned and turned to the side, looking at the painting of George Washington on
the side. His face was still seething. “I just want to know if you love me,” he
nearly spat. “I want to know that I’m not crazy, that there’s something between
us. I’ve been thinking about you non-stop since Sunday. And you disappeared. I
was certain you’d never come back.”

My
heart quickened. He was asking me if I loved him, and god it was probably true.
It was probably that I did. But I couldn’t let him know of these confused feelings.
It wasn’t fair to him. So I swallowed. I cleared my throat. “How do I know? I
can’t know. Not yet,” I whispered. I felt my voice crack.

He
lowered his eyes. They wouldn’t look at me again, I knew.

Suddenly,
a huge rush of regret washed over me. I felt so frightened that if I didn’t say
I loved him too, if I didn’t assure him of my feelings, he would never see me
again. And in that moment, I knew that wasn’t an option for my happiness.
“Baby. I don’t know. But that doesn’t mean—that doesn’t mean we have to give
up,” I whispered.

I knew
I shouldn’t have. I knew I shouldn’t have handed this over to him, like a peace
offering. I swallowed, and his face brightened for just a moment. But then, a
thought passed through him once more. “You can’t tell me not to divorce my
wife,” he hissed for a moment. “I’ve been so miserable for so long. You can’t
tell me not to divorce her. All I’ve wanted—for years and years—is an escape. A
love to call my own. And now I have you. And yet, you don’t want this.” He
bowed his head subtly.

I
shook my head slightly, watching the way his eyebrows chiseled over his eyes.
“Baby,” I whispered. I felt the way my throat caught with the words. “I know
your feelings. I know it’s frustrating to live in a marriage with someone you
don’t care about—someone you can’t care about. But I don’t think it’s a good
time to leave her.” I was thinking from a public relations standpoint. And also
from a selfish, fearful standpoint. If he left his wife for me at that stage of
my career, I’d be nothing. If Monica Lewinsky could have a do over, she’d
surely have done something differently.

“Why
not?” he asked me, gruffly.

I
shook my head. “You’re risking the presidency if you leave her. You know the
American people respect you. You know they’d respect your decision—at least in
the middle of your term, if you choose to go through with it. However, you’re
currently in the middle of a campaign. If you divorce her, now, you won’t win
the presidency. No one will trust you to get us through the next several years
of office if you can’t even hold down your wife.” I bit down on my lip.

His
eyes grew large with anger. But I rubbed at his fingers once more with my
thumb, allowing him to ease up on his grip. “It’s okay, Xavier,” I whispered. I
remembered the way his dick felt in me, the way he kissed me and made my knees
give out beneath me. I closed my eyes—if only for a second—and allowed the
passion drive through me.

He
nodded and collapsed back on the couch in the center of the office. The age of
the furniture creaked beneath him. He nodded. “All right. All right. I see your
point,” he said resolutely. “But it has to happen soon.” His eyes were dark,
direct. “I will leave her soon. And we will be together, Amanda. Because I love
you. And I know you love me, too.”

I
nodded, feeling my stomach jolt into my throat. I felt such unease. But I
collapsed on the couch next to him and allowed him to drape his arm over me. I
allowed my head to rest against his shoulder, and I felt his heart beating
inside his broad rib cage. This was our life: constantly hiding, plotting,
driving forward to an unsure future that we could only plan half-heartedly from
a distance.

We
were making it all up as we went along.

Chapter 2

I went
back to Rachel’s house that evening, naturally. She was watching an old
made-for-television movie and eating ice cream. She had oversized sweatpants on
around her thin waist, and she tapped at the couch beside her, asking me to sit
down. I did it, bringing my hands over my stomach. It still quaked from my
conversation with the president.

“Can I
ask you a question?” I asked Rachel, then. I dipped my own spoon into the ice
cream—a chocolate mint—and stabbed it into my mouth. The sugary drippings slid down
my tongue.

“Shoot,”
Rachel told me, nodding.

“Well.
I wondered. I wondered if you’d ever been in love,” I said quietly. I felt the
pangs of my love for the president—was it love??—coursing through me. I took
another bite of ice cream.

She
considered my words for a moment. She allowed the ice cream to pass over her
tongue. “I think I loved my high school boyfriend. Isn’t that silly?”

I
laughed, feeling a bit of joy escalate through my body. “It’s a little silly.
You can still feel the love? That’s how you know?” I asked.

She
shook her head. “I don’t feel the love, exactly. It’s more that I feel a memory
of that love, you know? I remember loving him. His name was Alex Crawford, and
we fought constantly—constantly! It was a mess. But then I’d cry, and he’d
apologize over and over again. And then it was okay. You know?”

I
shook my head, cackling a bit. “I don’t think I loved anyone before,” I
murmured, bringing my head back to my affair with the president.” I took
another bite of the ice cream. “This stuff is going to make me sick.”

Rachel
laughed, setting the ice cream on the coffee table before her. A small dripping
from the spoon landed on the coffee table. She blinked at me. “How long do you
think you’ll stay?” she asked me. Her voice quaked.

I
pursed my lips. I couldn’t go back to the apartment. I’d been there a few
times, of course—only to grab clothes, to dash in and dash out. But the place
felt like a wasteland. A wasteland in which a single eyeball—like a great
sun—burned into me. “I’m not sure, Rachel,” I whispered, feeling terrible. I
couldn’t put her out like this. “But I’ll—I’ll definitely be out soon.”