Breathe: A Billionaire Romance, Part 1 (2 page)

The broken elevator, although a pain in my ass, was a welcomed sight compared to days spent with Derek Sholts. I sighed in delight as I walked past it, towards the stairs. I knew that the stairs were long; I knew it was winding, but I also knew that it was the pathway to my apartment door. It was my yellow brick road to the place that I had dreamed of all day. It was the path to my home.

It really was an incredibly long path though. With every step I took, I almost wished I had just stayed at Derek’s life of luxury for a little longer.

“Why isn’t this damn elevator working?!” I yelled out, the echoes likely reaching several tenants’ ears. However, I didn’t care. Maybe someone from maintenance would actually get their shit together.

Gasping for air and completely exhausted, I finally found myself reaching the final step to the seventh floor.  I really did need to get some extra cardio workouts in; that was for certain. I was so tired, and so completely excited, that I almost immediately fell to the ugly green carpet in glee and defeat.

But I didn’t. I couldn’t fall to the ground. Not yet.

I had bigger fish to fry. I wanted to go to sleep. Early. For the first time in a long time.

I groaned and continued forward, sighing a great sigh of relief as I reached my now-heavy arms out to grasp the knob to my apartment, my haven, my sweet, sweet sanctuary.

I turned the brass handle and felt a weight of resistance against the door as I pushed.

Great
, I thought,
something was keeping me from entering my home!
I groaned, just before finally knocking.

“Polly, let me in! I’m exhausted!” I bellowed through the cracked door.

I tried to eye through the small bit of space between the door and the threshold as I pushed it open as far as it would go, but I couldn’t tell what anything was; I could only tell that my roommate, Polly, was nearby.

“Sorry!” she said and laughed, and immediately, a large thud sounded on the other side of the door.

“Are you okay?” I asked, hurriedly as if I was worried, my brows furrowing in curiosity. Part of me sort of hoped she
had
face-planted
. How dare she keep me out of my apartment when I am so exhausted?
I wasn't worried, because if she had gotten hurt—which was typical of Polly—I knew it wouldn’t be serious.

“I’m good!” she yelled, as if trying to assure me. However, I could tell by the sound of her voice that she wasn’t “good”; she had just hurt herself. I couldn’t help but giggle a bit and had to hold my hand over my mouth to stifle it.

“What happened?” I asked, knowingly.

“I just sort of... face-planted. But I’m all good!” she said, and I almost did a victory dance right then and there. When I heard more loud sounds come from the other side of the door and vibrations skidded across the surface of it, I wondered what in the blue hell could possibly be happening in our apartment.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.

“I sort of got into a cleaning-mood and had to move the furniture around!” she replied.

“You had to move....” I started, and then realized it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that it didn’t make sense. It didn’t matter that the furniture didn’t need to be moved. Nothing Polly did really made a lot of sense. “Never mind.”

I breathed out, exasperated. “Hurry, though!” I yelled out, leaning against the wall. I was tired, and I really just wanted to lay down. And then all of a sudden, without further begging on my part, the door blasted open with a jolt.

“Hey!” she said in a tone that almost suggested she didn’t even know I was standing out there.

“Hey...?” I asked. “We are well beyond that stage. I’ve been standing out here for twenty minutes.”

“Well, how the heck are you? How was your day!?” she asked like a bullet on crack.

She was my peppy little firecracker of a roommate. Her gorgeous, thick, flowing brown locks and tanned complexion made her a firecracker in not only her personality, but to men too; she was hot. I could even admit that.

I walked in the apartment; the furniture really was everywhere. My dining table slash kitchen island was in the living room area. I mean, in Polly’s defense, it was all open concept, but still... it was in the damn living room. The orange couch was set catty-cornered to the door, obviously the culprit of the previous blockade.

The vacuum cleaner lay beside the door as well, all the while the broom and mop were out on the living room coffee table which was also out of place. The only thing that seemed to be in place was the TV and game console—which I knew she had likely been on all day.

“You got into a cleaning mood....?” I asked, concerned. I wondered why I hadn’t asked yet. It wasn’t like Polly to clean. Not even a little bit.

“I had a really good phone call from my agent, and I didn’t know what to do with myself so I had to throw my energy into something else!”

Polly was an actress. Sometimes it was a bit of an annoyance. The lack of money and constant heartbreaks was enough to drive anyone up a wall, but I wasn’t there to lecture her. She was a great roommate, and we had made it work ever since I first moved to the city.

“And that was cleaning?” I raised my eyebrows. I couldn’t even believe what I was seeing; everything looked absolutely spotless. The only problem I had was the fact that all our stuff was disorganized and I could hardly even get through the walkway, or even to the safety of my bedroom if I wanted to—which, if I was being honest, was the only place I was thinking about.

I loved Polly. But I wanted to go to bed. I didn’t want to spend quality time with her, not after a day full of Derek Sholts.

“Well, I just thought about what your mom said the last time she was here,” she said, helping me shift the couch back to its respective spot.

With a heavy grunt and a large sigh, I looked at her, heaving. I was so exhausted I felt like I could faint. “What did she say?” I asked.

“I don’t remember it exactly,” she said, giving the puffy orange couch a final shove into its place. “It was about cleaning. Something about how it soothes your soul and keeps your mind busy...”

“Ha,” I chuckled. “My mama always says that idle hands are the Devil’s playthings and sometimes when your mind is worried or your belly is all tied up in knots with nerves, the best thing to do is keep them busy and nothing works better than cleaning to your heart’s content or cooking supper.”

“God, you’re so country sometimes,” she said with a snort, shoving a piece of cake in her mouth.

“Excuse me?!” I shrieked, crashing down on the orange couch.

“You’re all ‘mama this, mama that’!”

“So what? You don’t talk about your mama?” I asked, confused. “Besides, you brought her up.”

“Not my
mama
, no. My
mother
, my
mom
—I talk about her. And I brought up your
mom
, not your
mama
.” Polly giggled again. My eyes narrowed. She was making fun of me.

“Tom-ay-toe, tom-ah-toe.”

“No one says tom-ah-toe... and what about ‘supper’ and ‘belly in knots’ and all the other crap you just said?”

“Why do we even talk?” I whined. “All you do is make fun—”

“Oh come on, you know I’m just playing with you.” She walked over to me and placed my head on her chest.

Polly was also incredibly large breasted, which also helped her snag the men. And although she was a bit of a ditz, somewhere in there she was actually a really intelligent young woman.

“So how was work, did you bring me money?” She squeezed me a little tighter, and I gasped—unable to breathe.

“Uh, why don’t you ever bring me money?” I breathed, my face feeling crushed by her large breasts. “But yes, I did. But it sucked.”

“Why? Evil boss?”

“Of course. I can’t for the life of me understand why women are drawn in by him,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Because he’s hot,” she said nonchalantly.

“He is not hot.” I sighed. I was honestly a little sick of hearing it.

“Yeah he is!”

“He’s good-looking, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a total Mr. Crabby-Pants. He doesn’t deserve so much female attention.”

“He’s hot,” she repeated, as I rolled my eyes. “But whatever, I’m just glad we’re not eating ramen anymore.”

I laughed. “I actually like ramen!”

It was true, I did.

“Yeah, the good kind; the kind we can’t afford!” she laughed. “Well—we can now!”

“Isn’t it weird that we lump all of our money together like an old married couple?” I asked.

“You’d be lucky to marry this,” she said, gesturing towards herself and jiggling her breasts just a bit.

“I’m going to bed, weirdo.” I laughed, slapping her on the thigh just before using every ounce of strength I had left from the day to lift myself up off the couch. I stood, looked down at her, blew her a weak kiss, and sluggishly stumbled towards my room.

“Goodnight, gorgeous!” she called after me, but I was gone, and I wasn’t coming back. I was exhausted, and I just wanted to sleep.

The room was dark when I entered it, as my heavy drapes were still drawn from the previous night. I smiled. At least that was one less thing I had to do before bed. I would have never been able to sleep with the drapes open. The city’s lights flooded in harshly, almost as if the sun was still shining.

The only negative thing was that when I slept in my room with the drapes pulled, I lost all track of time. There was no sun in the morning, only darkness. And when I didn’t have an alarm to keep me on track, I was lost in the night for a lot longer than I needed to be.

“Catching up on sleep” is what I used to call it when I was a little girl. I had to be up hours before dawn to help take care of our farm animals before getting my butt to school, and on the days that my parents let me sleep in, I thanked my lucky stars. I thought that I was catching up on all the sleep that I had lost, but turns out, you can’t actually “catch up” on it.

A girl could dream though.

I didn’t even bother brushing my teeth, washing off my makeup, or anything really. I simply fell onto my bed, fully clothed, and found myself quickly drifting off to sleep.

I
couldn’t believe I actually slept. It didn’t feel like I had. Overly fatigued, I staggered towards the bathroom to remove yesterday’s makeup and brush my disgusting mouth with minty goodness.

However, as I continued my trek towards the bathroom, I couldn’t shake how completely zonked I still was. Much more than usual. I couldn’t believe that I felt like I hadn’t slept at all. It was strange. Usually there was nothing that a good night’s sleep couldn’t fix.

But this time that clearly wasn’t the case.

I had even gotten more sleep than usual because Derek had let me go home early. It didn’t make sense. Not even a little bit.

Brushing my teeth was much more of a chore than it had ever been before. The toothbrush felt heavy, and my arms felt like jelly. They flopped around, asleep and tingling with an aching persistence. My mouth never felt or tasted clean, no matter how much I brushed, and my thick brownish hair was a frizzy mess that would hardly tame. I could feel it continue to frizz even after I thought I had finally brushed it in a way that was appropriate for going out in public.

I didn’t have to take off my makeup though. Somehow, miraculously, my face didn’t seem to hold any sort of remnant of the previous day’s products. I wasn’t sure how; maybe my makeup was just terrible quality or something, but there was definitely no remnants.

At least I get to start fresh with something
, I supposed. It still wasn’t an easy feat though. In fact, I groaned, looking at my final appearance. It was fine, probably no different from usual, but it didn’t feel like it. Nothing had quite ended up the way I projected it in my mind. Besides, I felt tired, my breath still tasted like a garbage can, like it did every morning, and I just wanted nothing more than to go back to bed.

But, unfortunately, that wasn’t an option.

I had to get to the King’s house.

I sighed, hoping with everything that I had that Derek wouldn’t continue hitting on me. I wasn’t sure why I was suddenly thinking of it. I usually put it to the back of my mind, and it didn’t matter.

I wasn’t sure if it was just being tired and the overall disdain that I felt at the very thought of being pestered while my body ached and remained exhausted for the entire day.

I mean it was flattering, sure, but only because he was incredibly attractive. I was just so sick of turning him down because that is always what would happen. I would always turn him down—for as long as he continued to ask. And it was all because of the simple fact that his personality completely sucked. And because of that, I was
not
interested. Not even a little bit.

My daddy definitely would have loved it though. Derek Sholts was rich, successful, and masculine, and to be honest, that was all my dad ever wanted for me.

He always wondered why I hadn’t just “gotten hitched” as he so eloquently put it. And although he knew I was more than just a daughter to marry off to a well-off, secure man, he still wanted me to find someone.

I understood that.

Somewhat.

But the fact of it remained, that he would have loved it if I had taken someone like Derek Sholts as mine; and that bothered me for the simple fact that Derek Sholts was a complete jackass. I would hope that it would take more than simple success for my daddy to be happy, but all in all, I wasn’t sure that I could give him that sort of credit.

I felt bad thinking it... but a part of me knew that it was likely the truth.

My sister, Laura married a man—an electrical engineer—and he was a total douchebag, but because he provided a great financial security and way of life for her, Daddy was happy.