Billionaire Brothers 2 : Love Has A Name (30 page)

While Lori fussed herself, I thumbed away on Blackberry Messenger, giving Trudy the low-down of Lori trying to find a
dress
I’d like.

Trudy: Lmao! Why don’t you just tell the woman you don’t wear dresses, Axia?

Axia: Heck no! It’s too funny watching her.

Trudy: You know, sometimes I wonder how is it even possible that you’re straight.
What woman doesn’t like dresses other than a butch?

Axia: Well I’m not a butch. I just don’t like the damn things.
Btw, did you do your full routine this morn?

Trudy: Stupid woman. Smh. You weren’t there, of course not!

Axia: Typical you. Taken any more massages from Tish?

Trudy didn’t answer right away and that gave me time to turn my attention back to Lori. My eyes were instantly drawn to an open suitcase that contained the kind of garments that I obsessed over. My fetish. Why didn’t she open that suitcase all along?

“What brand of lingerie are those?”

Lori glanced up from where she was riffling through another rack, and followed my gaze to the suitcase with the lingerie. “Oh, um, Bordelle, Carine Gilson and La Perla.”

In a millisecond, I was crouched over the suitcase, selecting everything that was in my size.

Say lingerie and you’ve said my name.

XVI

E
ven though I’d silently hoped for it, Lovello didn’t visit me that night. The weekend came and went without him making a single visit. He did, however, message me when I played stubborn and ignored his calls. Whenever I did answer, it would always escalate into some stupid argument where I’d be accused of being “difficult” and he’d be proclaiming himself to be “freakin’ frustrated”.

Difficult
wasn’t what I was.
Pissed
was more like it.

Pissed at myself and my silly emotions for chasing him away. Now when he was giving me my ‘space’, I was miserable beyond all measure. I wanted him to be around. I’d grown accustomed to waking up next to him, curling up with him on the sofa, having breakfast and dinner together, talking crap, arguing, and humping like bunny rabbits. Even cleaning up his mess.

On the night I’d last seen him, he’d sent me an email titled ‘Home’ that enclosed his address, landline, and pass code. But I was more than reluctant to use it. Didn’t want to be the thousandth girl getting nailed in his debauched bachelor pad. As the days slipped by, however, and he continued giving me space that I really didn’t need, I began contemplating using the address.

By Wednesday night as I sat at the dinner table eating dinner alone, the weight of loneliness became so unbearable that I almost wanted to cry.

Cry.

That
weakness thing that I hadn’t done in years.

Timo was curled up in a furry ball at my feet under the table, breathing contented rhythmic breaths as he reaped comfort and companionship from me that I was craving from someone else. I pushed the half-eaten plate of scampi away and picked up my phone to call Lovello, but then decided to just swing by his place instead. After bundling a disgruntled Timo in his lair, I grabbed my car keys and fled the big, cold and empty house.

Like a beast, I wove through the traffic as Celine Dion’s
Drove All Night
blared in my ears. Ever since Zane, I’d vowed never to allow myself to become weak enough to fall for anyone again, nor depend on anyone for my happiness. And yet, I’d heedlessly broken my vow. Lovello had prized his way into my life and had made me need him. Had made me fall in love with his kisses, his touches, his scent, his smile, his beautiful face. Had made me fall in love with taking care of him, feeding him and giving him comfort while receiving. Had made me want him. Need him. Had made me fall in love with
him
? Nah. Just things
about
him. Not
with
him.

As I pulled up outside a stately, wrought-iron gate, I cursed my jeep’s GPS for being unreliable. Wasn’t I supposed to be turning into a complex of some skyscraper building, where I’d then hop into an elevator that would whisk me up to a penthouse suite on the 99th floor? But when I checked the address again, I realized the GPS was accurate.

Spotting a security monitor on a column, I powered down my window and hesitantly punched in the code from the email and was surprised when the gates started opening at their own lazy pace. Once they were fully opened, I drove down the gravelly, tree-lined path to the sprawling, Mediterranean-style, two-storey house that more resembled a family palace than a bachelor pad. This was unforeseen.

I parked next to a gushing water fountain, hopped out and mounted the crescent of limestone steps that led to an imposing double-door entrance. A few seconds after I rang the doorbell, Rosa swung it open and broke into a smile. “Ah, Miss Blacksille, so nice to see you.”

She remembered my name? Lovello must’ve trained her to mark all his women’s faces in order to prevent any kind of cock-blocking blunder. “Hi, Rosa. Is Lovello in?”

“Oh yes, yes. Come in, come in,” she fussed, beckoning me forward with a stumpy hand, her Spanish accent heavy. “Mr. Nelson upstairs. I go get him for you.”

Rosa bustled away on her short legs with her huge butt rolling behind her, while I took in my surroundings. The flooring was of high-polished marble tiles and the ceiling was rather high, granting a palatial aura, while a tremendous chandelier glowered down in extravagance. A grand stairwell with golden banisters wrapped the wall on the right, winding its way up to the second floor. It was quite exquisite. Nothing that I wasn’t used to. Just not what I expected a man like Lovello to reside in.

“I see someone’s finally checked their email inbox.”

The sound of Lovello’s voice prompted me to look up. He was standing on the landing at the top of the stairs, half-naked in only black silk pajama bottoms. The light gold tone of his skin glistened under the sparks of the chandelier. His abs and muscles were prominent as always, a sexy trail of hair disappearing down his silk bottoms that hung right below his hipbones …
Jesus.

“Hola,” I greeted as I started up the stairs towards him. “This is not the ‘bachelor pad’ I was expecting. I thought a guy like you would be living in a cloud-covered penthouse made of glass and stainless steel, with uncomfortable furniture and insipid decor. How do you woo your girls with this?”

“This is my
home
. I don’t bring women here. My penthouse in the city is who they want me to be. But this here is who I am. I’m sorry if you weren’t wooed,” he deadpanned.

“So why am I here, then? I’m a woman.”

Lust whispered across his face, darkening his gaze as I halted in front of him, only a foot apart. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

I frowned when I noticed that he’d finally cut his overgrown hair, but not really, because it wasn’t his usual haircut. About an inch had been clipped so that it wouldn’t keep falling into his eyes. “Who was it?”

“Who was what?” he asked with a puzzled expression.

“Who told you that you look damnably sexy with your hair like that?”

“What made you think —”

“Love,” I sighed with impatience. “You’d been carping every darn day about your hair being in your face and eyes. Yet when you finally found the time to cut it, you only clipped an inch, leaving it as is. So someone, and my guess is a woman whose opinion matters, commented that she liked your hair like that. Who?”

Lovello’s hand reached up to caress my cheek with his knuckles. “What on earth took you so long to come by?”

I slapped his hand away from my face and glared. “I’m the master of the distraction technique, so it won’t work on me, Pretty Boy. It’s just a damn compliment, you know. I’m not gonna start breaking dishes because someone complimented you on your
hair.
“

He grabbed my hand and started down the hall and into what I believed to be his master suite. “Just a friend,” he muttered, as he pulled me inside the room.

“Does this friend have a name?”

“Netta Williams.”

“The pop singer Netta Williams?”

“Yes.”

Oh. A compliment from a
very
famous and
very
hot person. “When did you see her?”

“Last night in New York.”

I wrung my hand free from his grasp. “You were in New York yesterday? How did I not know this?”

When he spun around to face me, his eyes were swimming with irritation. “Maybe if you’d
call
me sometimes or answer the goddamn phone when
I
call, you would know my whereabouts,” he snapped.

True. “So you two were together … where?”

Lovello released an exasperated sigh and flopped down on a red velvet love seat situated at the foot of his ginormous bed. “She was at a gala I attended.”

“And she just told you that she liked your hair? Is she really a friend?”

“Not in so little words. And no, she’s not really a friend. I only met her last night,” he mumbled.

Ha! “Ah, so she came onto you then?”

Lovello tossed an arm across his eyes as he stretched out on the love seat. “Can we change this subject, please? This is just silly and pointless.”

There was something I’d recently discovered about myself. A shocking discovery actually: I, Axia Blacksille, was a jealous bitch. A seriously jealous bitch. An irrationally jealous bitch.

I never knew I had that ugly green monster dwelling inside me until I met Lovello. It was when I met Lovello that I realized I didn’t like sharing. I didn’t want anyone else to have what I was having. Not even to compliment what I assumed was mine. My jealousy, I believe, was bordering on lunacy. That I might drive my own self into insanity. Yep, I also discovered, in that very minute, that I needed
help
.

“Did you fuck her?”

Lovello shot up to his feet, displaying his annoyance. “Jesus, Axia, no!” He fixed his hard, penetrating eyes on me. “I’m not going to screw every chick that comes on to me.
You
are who I’m about. Can’t you see that? Do you not trust me?”

Honestly … “No. I don’t.”

“Huh, well, that’s nice to know. Does that mean I shouldn’t trust you either?”

“No. You shouldn’t.” And I was as serious as a judge.

“Maybe you should just leave then,” he growled, gesturing towards the door, his eyes frosting over. “There’s no point if we can’t trust each other.”

My heart lurched in my chest and my insides felt lacerated. This time
I
was the one being kicked out. It pained me. And not even the sight of his all-male sexiness in front of me could temper that pain. Not even the way his pecs tightened with every angry breath he took. Not even the way his silk bottom had somehow slipped lower down his hipbones and was displaying a good amount of his dark hair. Not even the thought of knowing that just an inch further beneath that silk, was the source of my pleasure: a very large, venous, beautiful cock. If anything, it made the pain worse. Knowing that he was done with me and my shit. Damn you, jealousy. “Fine! I will, hijo de puta! I shouldn’t have come here anyway. You’re a double asshole!”

Flouncing from the room in a fit of pique, I power-walked down the hall trying to reach the exit as fast as I could. Apparently I wasn’t moving fast enough, because Lovello’s hands grabbed me around my waist from behind, lifting me off the ground as he walked backward to his room with me wriggling about, fighting to get free. “Te odio! Let me go! Te odio!”

Lovello kicked the bedroom door shut once he was inside and tossed me onto the bed like a stuffed animal. Before I could command my body to move, he launched his masculine hardness on top of me, pinning me to the mattress with his weight and glaring down at me with anger blazing in his eyes.