Resisting the Billionaire Collection (44 page)

MJ looked at her desperately.

"Oh my God. Alison, no. Don’t listen to this
crap. This is just some twisted shit this billionaire asshole has
done to you. Don’t believe him. He just used you to pay his debt
and now he wants to rub it in by screw--"

"Let the man talk, young lady." An older
woman said. "People do crazy things for love. He isn’t speaking to
you anyway."

"When I started working here, I knew I'd
found the one from the moment I laid eyes on you." Sebastian
continued. "Alison… you are the one -- the only one." He gazed into
her eyes. "No one has ever made me feel like you before." He turned
back to the crowd of onlookers. "Who here has ever been in love
before, truly in love? So deeply in love that they have done things
they never would have dreamed of doing otherwise?"

Nearly everyone put their hands up.

"Now who here has experienced love at first
sight? From the absolute first glance? Anyone?"

About three people held their hands up: an
old man, an old lady, and a teenage girl.

Sebastian addressed himself to the older
lady.

"Can you tell us what it was like
ma'am?"

"Not much to tell, kid." She said. As soon
as I laid eyes on him, I knew. It was 57 years ago next week."

"Do you still know him?"

"I sure do. I married the son of a gun."
There was a small round of applause. "And he's right here next to
me. We ain't been hardly a day apart since then."

There was a collective sigh and round of
applause.

Sebastian now spoke to the teenager. "What
about you ma'am? What was it like for you?"

The young girl blushed and dropped her gaze.
"I'm not sure I want to say."

"Come on young lady, don't be shy, we all
want to hear." The old lady said.

“
Okay, then. It was right
here in this café."

"Oh my God."

"Ain't that sweet."

"When did it happen, ma'am?" Sebastian
asked.

"Today." She said very quietly.

The crowd murmured.

"About ten minutes ago." She added.

"Is the person still here?" Sebastian asked.
The girl blushed even more as she nodded her head and people looked
around to find who she was talking about.

Sebastian stood tall, towering in the center
of the little crowd he had captivated.

"Do you know who you are?" He said. "Is
there someone else here who looked at this beautiful girl today and
felt it? Love at first sight?"

At first, there was no movement, but then a
thin hand went up in the air at the back. A tall young man with a
dark gaze lifted his head. He glanced over at the young woman and
she smiled shyly.

"What are you waiting for man, go get her!"
The crowd parted between the two young lovers to be and they walked
to each, first to shyly embrace and then to kiss passionately. A
cheer went up from the crowd. People hugged each other and then
surrounded the two young strangers, clapping and cheering.

Alison and even Olivia were in tears.

Only MJ held on, seething, waiting.

Sebastian turned back to Alison and then
went down onto one knee in front of her.

"Alison." He said, reaching inside his
pocket he took out a small, silk lined box. "It was love at first
sight for me. Please say it was for you too."

Alison was too distraught to speak. She
nodded her head as tears streamed down her face.

"Alison, will you please do me the honor of
becoming my wife?" Alison could hardly breathe.

"Will you marry me?"

The crowd held its breath.

Chapter
Twenty-Five

"Wait!" The crowd turned collectively to see who the
interloper was. "Olivia, what are you waiting for?" MJ said. "Let’s
show all these true romantics exactly what took place last night.
Let’s see how many of them will believe in this love at first sight
crap then."

"What are you talking about, MJ?" Alison
felt a knot in the pit of her stomach. She looked at Sebastian and
saw nothing but confusion. There was no fear. MJ was just being
crazy.

"It’s too late, MJ." He said with complete
confidence. "It’s all over. You can give up this insane crusade you
have to keep us apart. Just admit that I beat you already. The game
is over."

"Game?" Alison said. "What game?"

"Yes, MJ." Sebastian repeated. "Why don’t
you tell Alison all about it?"

"Oh I plan to, lover boy." MJ said. "Olivia,
come on, show all these good people what you got last night."

Olivia was still crying from the proposal.
Despite her supposedly promiscuous lifestyle, she was still a true
romantic at heart.

"MJ… maybe we should just leave this alone.
These two cuties could be so happy together. They were made for
each other."

"That’s not what you said last night." MJ
spat at her.

"That was then. This is now. Hell, the kid
has come clean with her. It’s all out in the open now."

"Not everything." MJ strode over to Olivia
and plunged her hand into the front pocket of her apron.

"Get your hands off me." The two women
struggled for some moments until Sebastian intervened.

"Olivia." He said in his commanding voice.
"I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’ve got nothing to hide.
Not anymore. Give MJ whatever it is she wants."

"You don’t want to do that Daniel, believe
me." Olivia said.

"Yes I do." He said. "I’ve never been more
sure of anything before in my entire life. I want the whole truth
to be out there. Now and forever. Give her what she wants. Do it
now for God’s sake, whatever this thing is. Don’t drag it out."

Olivia still hung onto MJ’s hands,
preventing her from withdrawing them from the pocket of her apron.
She looked at Sebastian, begging him to reconsider. She knew he had
no earthly idea what MJ wanted to show them all.

"Go on, Olivia." He said. "Whatever it is
you think you’re afraid of, just let it go."

She held on for a few seconds more, then
took in a big deep breath and on the exhalation let go of MJ’s
hands.

"Yes!" The redhead hissed. "Now we’ll see."
She had a mini-tablet in her hands. "So you think this guy was
somewhere pining for you last night?" Alison’s face was ashen. She
still had no idea what was going on. She had just been proposed to
by the man of her dreams who turned out to be a billionaire. What
could possibly change that?

MJ swiped into the video gallery and when
she found what she was looking, for she shoved the tablet into
Alison’s hands.

"What the hell is this, MJ?" Her friend
asked her.

"I hate doing this to you." MJ said her
voice nervous now. "But you have to know the truth. And you won’t
get it from him, so I have to do this."

The crowd heaved in to get a look at the
hazy pictures. At first, nothing was clear but eventually Olivia’s
face could be made out through the shadows and then things became
clearer still. She was in a room filled with candles.

WTF?
Sebastian thought.
That’s the
honeymoon suite at Alex’s hotel.

Olivia was semi-naked, in her underwear,
lying on the bed.

"Smokin’ hot ass." A young man said, but
Olivia didn’t respond. She knew what was coming next.

A man appeared in the picture, his back was
turned to the camera, and he was naked.

"What is this, Olivia?" Sebastian could feel
his stomach churn into a knot as he watched the man climb up onto
the bed and begin to kiss Olivia’s legs, her thighs, her
abdomen…

Olivia held her head down. She wasn’t
ashamed of her body or of her lovemaking on camera. But she had
something far, far deeper to be ashamed of.

She watched herself whisper into the man’s
ear and then he picked her up like a doll and turned them both
around to face the camera. Still his face was out of view. There
was a lot of laughter and unclear talk.

Alison looked at MJ. The fiery redhead was
trying to keep the smile off her face.

At last, the two lovers lay down on the edge
of the bed, the top of their heads close to camera and clearly
visible now. Olivia threw back her head over the edge of the bed,
her eyes closed, surrendering to her pleasure. The man on top of
her finally lifted his head up and looked straight into the
camera.

"God yes." He said. "It’s your lucky day
girl. Sebastian Drummond is back, hell yeah!"

Sebastian looked with horror into his own
eyes. He searched his memory but could find no recollection that
came even close to this.

"Nice ass." A lady quipped. Sebastian looked
back to the screen. His head was down again as he devoured Olivia’s
gorgeous neck with his hungry lips. His round, muscular ass was
clearly visible, softly thrusting into the generous Latina's
body.

"Jesus Christ." He gasped. "It’s not
there."

Alison stared at him, her eyes full of
anger, hurt and hatred.

"Tell me that’s not you, Daniel. Please.
Tell me that’s your brother Alex with her."

He stared at the screen again. The guy’s ass
was still softly thrusting. Olivia was writhing in pleasure,
laughing wildly. There was nothing on that ass to say it was his
brother. The only obvious physical difference between them was the
distinct crescent shaped birthmark on his brother’s left butt
cheek. It would have been clearly visible from that angle.

"Daniel, please…" Alison’s desperate eyes
pleaded with him.

"I’m so sorry, Alison--"

He never got to finish the sentence. Alison
slammed the tablet across his face and knocked him to the
floor.

"You go girl."

"Get his punk ass."

The crowd had turned again.

"And as for you--" Alison turned to
Olivia.

"Don’t do it Alison. She was only helping
you." MJ tried to intervene but it was too late. Alison delivered a
sharp slap across her friend’s face. The strong willed Latina
barely flinched, but she made no move to react. Her eyes sank to
the ground in shame.

"Whore!" Someone hissed from the back of the
café.

Alison pushed her way through the crowd
trying to escape. MJ put a hand to her shoulder.

"Alison, please--"

"Get away from me!" Alison hissed. "Don’t
ever come near me again. Any of you."

She tore off her apron and slammed it to the
ground.

"All of you make me sick."

The crowd parted to let her through.

"Oughta be ashamed of yourselves. Whole damn
lot of you. Look at that poor girl go." An old lady said.

The crowd began to melt away.

Chapter
Twenty-Six

An old man looked up from the conversation he was
having with the single customer in his run-down, greasy spoon
diner. He stared for a moment in disbelief and then took off his
soiled work apron to come out from behind the counter.

"WowWow." He said softly.

Nobody called her that but him. It was how
she had said his name when she was a little girl.

Alison had only been back once to
Winterfield, Ohio in all the time since the death of her parents to
help her uncle Howard when he had been sick for a while. He was the
only family she had in the world and even though she had always
called him regularly, she felt guilty now that she hadn’t come back
to see him more often.

"It’s good to see you, girl." He said as he
hugged her close to him.

Alison couldn’t say a word. It had been so
long since she had seen her kind uncle. He reminded her so much of
her dad that it was almost painful to see him.

Howard felt the shudder of tears against his
shoulder.

"WowWow." He said. "What is it Ally? Come
over here and sit down."

She pulled herself away from him.

"It’s okay, Uncle Howard." She hurriedly
wiped her tears away. How could she ever tell the kindly old man
the truth about what had happened to her?

The customer left money on the counter and
stood up to go.

"Guess I’ll be on my way." He said. "Nice to
see you again, Ally."

"Don’t go, Mike." She said. "Please.
Nothing’s wrong. I’m just happy to be back home again."

"It’s okay, Ally. I was just on my way
anyhow. Be seeing you around." He shuffled out the door.

"I’m sorry, Uncle Howard. I didn’t mean to
drive your only customer away like that."

"Don’t worry about it, Ally. If I ain’t got
no customers in here, it ain’t your fault."

The diner had been much busier when she
worked there as a teenager, but then the new Interstate came in and
had taken most of the business away. What was left of that began to
disappear when the town got a boost of employment from an
international book shipping company. The industrial park they went
to opened up a branch of an international coffee chain and anyone
who had a job in town drank there. Howard’s place was dying a slow
death on the custom of a handful of old regulars who didn’t like
the high prices or the journey elsewhere.

"So tell me Ally, what brings you all the
way out here to the middle of nowhere?"

Where to begin?

Uncle Howard looked at her with the same
infinite patience in his eyes that he always had. Alison always
thought he should have been a minister or a counselor instead of a
diner manager. She had shared many of her problems with him in the
past but this time it was too much, too crazy.

Her tears began to well up again.

"It’s okay, WowWow." He put his frail arm
around her shoulders. "You don’t have to talk about it. Not now or
not ever if you don’t want to."

"I’m sorry, Uncle Howard. I want to, but I
just can’t."

"Is it guy trouble?"

She nodded her head.

"Don’t worry, I understand. You don’t want
to tell stuff like that to an old man like me. Maybe I can’t help
you with that but if you need a place to stay, you know you’re
always welcome."