Romance: The Billionaire Alpha Collection (30 page)

Chapter 14

When the sun streams through the curtains the next morning, I wake in the afterglow of magical sex.  I reach my arm across, expecting to find an empty bed again…

I am emotionally prepared to find an empty bed next to me.  I am emotionally prepared to be alone again.

And I almost want to find an empty bed. 

It would justify all my feelings about Jackson.  It would prove that I was right all along. 

An empty bed would also relieve me of having to take the biggest risk of my life.  It would be comforting to have the choice taken away from me. 

My arm comes across the bed…

But it isn’t empty.

What I find is the solid muscles of the handsome man lying next to me.  My hand rubs up and down his arm, and then his torso.  I have never felt anything as wonderful.

“Come to dinner with me,” he states as I wake up.

“It’s a bit early for dinner.”

He smiles, gazing at my body.

“On Friday, come to dinner with me.”

“Where?” I ask.

“Back in New York.  I’ll take you to the finest restaurant in the city. I would love to get to know you better.”

“But you’ve already seen me in the only nice dress I own.  I don’t have another dress to wear,” I mumble with my mind going back to planning mode.

“Don’t worry about that.  I’m sure you won’t be wearing it long,” he smiles playfully.

I smile back.

Staring at his gorgeous face, I become lost in his gaze.

After staring at him for an eternity, I fall back to the pillow and look at the cracks in the roof of this old, country hotel.

“This morning, we are officially step-brother and sister.  We are officially part of the same family.  Don’t you think that is a bit weird?”

“No,” he shakes his head, “You and I are of no blood relation.  I don’t even see my father, let alone his new wife.”

I ponder the thought for a while.

As wild as I am about this man, we are now stepsiblings.

I don’t know how I feel about that…

It feels strange.

“Take a chance in your life,” he states firmly. 

“But I never take a chance, remember?  That’s what you said to me.”

“Prove me wrong.”

I smile to him, roll out of bed, get dressed and begin to pack my bag.

“I’m going to start to drive back to New York today,” I mention.

“And?”

“And during that very long drive, I am going to consider how I feel about dating you.  I am wild about you.  You are the most amazing man I have ever met…”

“But?”

“But I need to consider the fact that we are now family.  I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“It’s only dinner,” he grins.

“It wouldn’t be only dinner,” I smile back, “You and I could not have ‘only dinner.’  Whatever time we spend together, it is likely that we will end up back in the bedroom.”

He nods, and he understands.

This situation is weird.  Although we are not related by blood, it feels strange that our parents are married.

Jackson writes on a piece of paper and hands it to me.

It reads, ‘Javier’s restaurant.  8 o’clock Friday.’

“I will have made my decision by then,” I smile to him.

“I’ll be there.  I hope you are too.”

I collect my bags without saying another word and leave the hotel room to go to my car.

I have three days to drive back to New York and by then I will have made my decision…

What would you choose?

The End

Romance:

Her Fighter

Penny Ward

Chapter 1

Birthdays had never been fun for me and today was no different.

Five o’clock couldn’t come soon enough - I wanted out of this hell-hole, and quick. Didn’t everyone want to leave sooner rather than later on a Friday? Surely I couldn’t be the only one.

Maybe my reasons were a little different than everyone else’s, though. While some wanted to be off because it was the gateway to a weekend of freedom, I was ready to be off because it was my birthday.

Yes — I was the grand-old age of twenty-five.

My younger sister, twenty-one as of two weeks prior, had tried to convince me to call in sick today, but I hadn’t. I told her I couldn’t afford the time off, although really I could.

I am an accountant.

I am good with numbers and finances. That’s what I do well.

I had enough saved up that I could last at least a month without worry, but that didn’t matter. I didn’t want to miss time if it wasn’t necessary. Kate believed it made me a stick-in-the-mud. I believed it made me a reliable employee.

Still, tonight was supposed to be special.

Michael had sent me a text around lunchtime, mentioning he had something to talk to me about tonight when he came over to my apartment, and Kate and I were planning on seeing the midnight showing of some new movie she was dying to see.

I love Kate, but her choice in movies sucks.

I mean, really sucks.

This was some new vampire romance I knew nothing about. The next best thing since Twilight, which I still had mixed feelings about. I’m a firm believer that vampires are monsters. I had more love for Count Dracula than I did Edward Cullen. Kate loved it though and she wanted to see this new movie. I didn’t know anything about the storyline, but I’d take her to see it because I love her.

“Claire?” I glanced up at the sound of my name and saw Don, my boss, standing at the entrance of my cubical.

His face, which always looked frazzled and drawn, looked even more so.

There was a mixture of worry and sorrow in his eyes that made a cold fear develop in the pit of my stomach.

It settled down like a cold, dead weight, and I swallowed hard around the lump caught in my throat.

“Yes, Don?” My fear burrowed in my brain like worms in the earth, but I didn’t let it show in my voice, which I kept sweet and pleasant, as I did with all the clients I spoke to as well.

Granted, most of my work was done via email and over the phone these days, but—as my mother would say, “A woman whose tongue is thick with honey is taken more seriously than that thinned with barbs.”

I never understood the phrase, but somehow it still made sense.

“Can I see you in my office before you leave for the day?”

“Of course, sir.”

He gave me a quick nod and turned away.

I couldn’t imagine what he wanted to talk about.

Fear filled my stomach, like a glop of hardened oatmeal, making me sick with worry.

I spent the last hour of my shift going over every account I’d worked on for the last month with a fine-tooth comb, trying to see if I had messed up.

If there was anything to see, I was blind to it.

Just before five, I stood from my desk, satisfied that whatever was going on, it wasn’t due to lack of funds in any of the accounts I’d been working on.

The notion made the sour feeling in my stomach disperse somewhat, but I noted that it was still there, just quiet, waiting. My heels clacked against the floor as I walked toward Don’s office, the silence echoing around me.

Where was everyone?

Had they gone home already?

The worry I’d been trying to get rid of raised its ugly head and struck with full-force once more. Panic threatened to choke me again.

I paused outside Don’s office door, my hand shaking as I reached for the knob.

There’s nothing to be nervous about, I thought. He just wants to tell you happy birthday, and then you’ll be on your way.

I knew it wasn’t the truth though.

I had never told anyone at the office when my birthday was. Something else was going on. It was just a matter of finding out what and figuring out how to handle the issues that revolved around it.

“Come in,” Don said, making me realize I had lifted my hand and knocked.

I opened the door and stepped inside. “You wanted to see me, Don.”

“Yes, Claire. Come in and have a seat.” Don shifted in his chair as he waited for me to sit across from him in one of the two free chairs.

He pressed his hands together and pressed them against his mouth, as if he was contemplating what he was going to say and studying me with the same mixture of worry and sorrow he’d had earlier.

A knot formed in my stomach and I wondered what was about to occur.

He lowered his hands and his eyes at the same time.

“Claire, the company’s not doing so well. As you know, we’ve been losing clients lately, a lot of the larger-named clients who bring in the most business.”

I nodded, silent.

I had noticed such occurrences, but I had thought it to be just a slow season.

“The truth is we’re going bankrupt because of it, and as a result we’re having to cut our staff.”

My eyes widened as it dawned on me why I was sitting in Don’s office.

I was being let go.

Damn.

“But…” I started to say, about to plead that it was my birthday.

“I’m sorry, Claire.” He honestly seemed apologetic, but I couldn’t tell if it was an act because he wanted to avoid a scene or if he was honestly sincere. In the end, it didn’t matter.

I hung my head. There was nothing that could be said.

It was done.

Damn.

I somehow found the strength to find my feet and shuffled out of his office.

There wasn’t much in my cubicle.

Even though I’d worked there Monday through Friday for the past five years, I’d never stored many personal items there. There was one picture frame that held an image of my whole family—before Mom and Dad’s divorce—and another of me with Michael, my boyfriend of two years. There were notes and lip balms I’d shoved in the desk as well, but in the end, everything I’d ever brought to the office fit in my purse.

It took all of my strength not to break down into tears as I cleaned out my desk, but I managed it. The whole time, I wondered what I’d done to deserve this, and what I was going to do about a job in the meantime.

The truth was, I’d gotten hired here while I was still in college and had no idea where else I might submit my resume.

The idea of job searching was foreign to me, but I knew I needed to get on that as soon as possible. Walking out the front door, I drew a deep breath and hailed a taxi.

After giving the driver my apartment address, I pulled out my phone and scanned through the messages left for me while I’d been at work.

There was a missed call from Michael and a voicemail, as well as three texts from Kate.

I responded to the texts first, asking Kate where she wanted to meet and when, letting her know that I had some bad news when she and I saw one another.

My phone buzzed before I had a chance to listen to the voicemail on my phone.

Kate wanted to know what was going on. I told her it was something I wanted to discuss with her in person, not through text. If she sent a reply, I missed it as I dialed my voicemail and listened to the message that had been left for me.

“Please give me some good news, Michael,” I whispered to myself as the taxi driver pulled up in front of my apartment complex.

I paid my fee and climbed out just as his voice sounded in my ear.

A wave of calm washed through me upon hearing his voice, but it was soon wiped away upon hearing what he had to say.

“Claire, when you get this message, call me as soon as you can. We need to talk. I’ll see you at your apartment around five-thirty if I haven’t heard anything from you by then.”

There was no goodbye, no “I love you.”

A feeling of dread enveloped me.

What was going on?

I glanced down at my watch and saw it was a little past five-thirty now.

Catching the elevator up to the third floor, I read over the message Kate had sent me with a groan. She wanted to meet at Dad’s apartment around nine.

Dad’s. Why Dad’s?

Ever since the divorce, Dad and I haven’t gotten along so well.

He left Mom for a woman about my age, a woman who’d since filed for divorce herself and left him a broken-down drunk who spent his days watching
I Love Lucy
re-runs.

He was pathetic, and I groaned at the thought of having to go by his place.

Of course she wanted to meet there though. She was the one staying with him, supporting him.

I had taken off, gotten my own life.

She was the one stuck having to care for him as he slowly drank his life away. In a way I felt guilty, but in another, I knew he’d pull out of his funk if she weren’t around babying him all the time. It was a double-edged sword, and I was always careful not to stand too close to the blade.

The elevator dinged, and I climbed out.

The hallway toward my place was quiet, but I saw Michael standing in front of my door. He was pacing back and forth before my door, as if he was waiting for me to open it for him.

He clearly didn’t know that I wasn’t home yet.

I always got off at five, and it was only a twenty-minute walk. Driving was always faster though.

He glanced up and started when he saw me walking towards him. “Claire, where have you been?”

“Work,” I said, tears threatening to spill from my eyes now that I was around someone who would understand my pain and help me through it. “I was let go today.”

“What?” The shock was evident in his voice. The way his eyes widened made me feel so much better.

I nodded. “Apparently, the company’s going bankrupt, and they’re letting people go.”

He rubbed my arms. I noticed how he hadn’t pulled me in for a hug, which was what I really needed.

A hug, a kiss, and maybe a little more after that.

“Oh, Claire. That’s horrible. What are you going to do?”

That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? What was I going to do?

“I guess I’m going to start job hunting.”

I tried to smile, but it was weak and I felt my armor crack a little more when I still didn’t receive a hug. In fact, Michael was trying his hardest not to touch me at all.

“Michael, what’s wrong?” I asked.

I unlocked my apartment door and switched on the light as I stepped inside, setting my purse on the coffee table in the living room.

It took me a few moments to realize he didn’t follow me inside.

That made the anxiety inside grow even more, and I returned to the door. He was still standing outside my apartment, his shoulders sagging, looking miserable.

“Claire, I know you’ve had a hard day, and I hate to make it worse, but I have to say this…”

“What?”

“I don’t think it’s working out between us.”

It was as if he’d kicked out his feet and caught me in my throat. I staggered back a step, as if from a physical blow and stared at him.

A small whimper escaped my mouth.

My eyes widened, and the tears I’d been holding back all afternoon flowed freely from my eyes now. Not now. Not today.

“What?” I asked.

He shook his head. “We just want different things in life, and I . . .”

He paused as if saying these words physically hurt him. They were nothing to him compared to what they were to me. Each word felt like he was taking a dagger, driving it into my heart and then yanking it down to shred the last of whatever dignity I had left.

“I just can’t do this anymore.” Without another word, he turned and walked away down the hall.

I just stared after him, dumbfounded.

This was not turning out to be a happy birthday.