Billionaire In Hiding: The Complete Series (Alpha Billionaire Romance Western Love Story) (55 page)

“Yes.” I chose my words very carefully.
“It’s promising, but certainly needs more work and some solid data.”

She bought my bluff and her face fell. All
the better for when she would finally learn about the publication. I felt a
rush of excitement. If that didn’t do it, I didn’t know what would.

“I knew it,” she said in a disappointed
voice. “I am sorry for putting you through reading that crap. You don’t have to
help me with it if it’s beyond hope. I don’t want to waste your time on
something that sucks.”

“If you only knew how much time I waste on
things that sucked,” I winked.

She gasped. “That’s awful. And 23.”

“Huh?” 23 what? What was she talking
about?

“Since the beginning of our contract, you
have objectified or insulted women a total of 23 times.”

“You’ve been counting?” I widened my eyes.

“Not consciously until about 17,” she
shrugged helplessly.

“Does it really bother you that much?”

“Men are all a bunch of pigs who cannot
think without their dicks for more than five seconds in a row,” she said with
so much feisty passion; she was turning me on. “How did that feel?”

“Like the truth,” I smiled.

She pursed her lips. “You are beyond
hope.”

“Your paper doesn’t suck,” I replied
without thinking.

“But you just said-”

“I said it could use some work, which is
what we are going to do. Don’t worry.”

“Can we do it without being sexist?” She
bit her lips, as though she didn’t really mean to say that. “Sorry, I didn’t
mean to imply you were sexist.”

“You straight up called me a sexist.
That’s not implying anything,” I frowned. I really wasn’t. I just had been
searching for a woman who could match my intelligence, and I had yet to meet
one in the financial industry. I still hired plenty of women and they all got
equal pay. Aria was intriguing though.

She mumbled something inaudible.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” she flashed me the brightest
smile she could muster. “Would you like some coffee?”

“You keep offering to make me coffee,
what’s your game?” I eyed her suspiciously.

She looked furious. “My ‘game’, is giving
you some caffeine for energy while you seem to be working hard on whatever big
important thing you’re working on. It’s called being nice; some people do it
sometimes without an alternative agenda in mind.”

Oh. Shit. I must have hit the wrong
button.

“I did not mean to offend you,” I said
after a few moments. “I’ll take that cup of coffee.”

She walked out without saying a word, and
I felt a strange emotion that I couldn’t quite identify. Remorse? That couldn’t
be true, why would I feel guilty about questioning her motives? Everyone had
ulterior motives. I was doing so many nice things for Aria, and not a single
one of them without the intention of fucking her. Am I so horrible to assume
she was attempting to do the same for some unspecified intentions?

Yes, yes I was. It was just coffee. For
the second time in the last twenty-four hours, Aria Roberts had unintentionally
managed to make me question my cynicism. I was starting to believe that this
girl was simply a terrible influence. Another, much smaller part of me was
intrigued by the very possibility that I could question my outlook on life.
That thing she had said about objectifying women, for instance. It stuck with
me. I wasn’t deluded enough to think myself innocent of such behavior, but
twenty-three times in just a few days’ worth of conversation with a single
person? That felt like a little too much, even for me. I would have to be very
conscious of that around her from now on, especially if I was going to seduce
her. It was essential that she believed that it was a good idea.

---

By the time she returned, I had already
heard back from the Economics Journal.

“I have good news,” I said as soon as she
walked in.

“I’m out of the contract and now you’re
just going to loan me the money out of the goodness of your heart?” she asked
with a straight face.

Technically she didn’t have to do anything
significant as a part of the deal, so I was surprised by her attitude. I felt a
surge of rage begin to bubble up when I made the mistake of catching her eyes.
They were shining and there was a slight hint of a dimple on her soft cheeks.
She was joking.

“We both know that I don’t have that good
of a heart,” I said.

“I think you have a better heart than you
think you do,” she shrugged.

Hearing those words made me feel way
better than it should have. She thought I was a good person? That wasn’t
something I was used to. The best I got from people, as far as positive
reactions go, was fearful reverence. People respected what I had done with the
company, they were impressed by how successful I had managed to become at a
relatively young age. Never, or at least not in a very long time, had somebody
actually appreciated my character. Not even me, I realized. After my dad passed
away, all my morals began to intertwine together into a deeply gray area, where
right or wrong only differed in the dollar value it brought to the company. Or
in my personal life, on how easily and frequently it got new women to my
bedroom. My dad was the person who always kept me on my toes and insisted on a
regular morality check. After he passed on, it almost didn’t seem to mean
anything anymore. Who should I have to be a good person for since he was no
longer there? Mom wasn’t anything close to the epitome of any virtue; more
importantly, she couldn’t care less what kind of a person I was turning into,
as long as I showered her with gifts and nice fat checks.

What Aria had just said really startled
me, because the truth of the matter was that my heart had nothing to do with
anything I was doing for her; a whole another organ was responsible for my
actions. But she knew that. And I had never made any attempts to conceal my
true intentions. That’s what surprised me the most: she thought I was a decent
person, despite my intentions! Maybe she was just sucking up to me, maybe she
just needed something, maybe she was just playing a game. The cynical part of
me had all these suspicions, but somehow they didn’t seem to matter in the face
of the knowledge that there was at least one person in the planet that didn’t
think I was a total and complete douchebag. And that meant a whole lot more to
me than it should have. Which made me wonder if what I was supposed to tell her
next was a good idea.

“You are getting published,” I said as
though I was merely complementing her hair.

She looked confused for a few seconds, and
then looked behind her as if to check if I was talking to someone else. Then
she looked at me, followed by my computer and I watched in satisfaction as her
eyes widened in realization and her whole face turned as bright as the
daylight. Her gasp was loud enough to echo throughout the whole office
building, and she probably realized that and covered her mouth.

“How?” It came out as a little squeal.

“I sent your abstract to the Economics
Journal.”

“The Economics Journal?” She was
practically shouting.

“Yep, it’s published at my alma mater.”

“Of course!” she exclaimed, realizing
where I had gone to school. “But, but, would they just like-“

“Not usually,” I said slowly. “But they
review anything that comes from me directly and they were blown away by your
ideas. And when I say blown away, those were the words used by the editor in
his email, which I have forwarded to-”

I cut myself short because she lunged on
to me and gave me a very tight hug. I could hear her sniff as she grabbed my
body with her tiny little hands. I tried to control myself, but just feeling
her smooth skin against my hands, her perfectly perky breasts against my torso,
and her soft skirt rub against my crotch was enough to make me forget what the conversation
was about, what was happening right now, or even what day of the week it was.
All I knew was I wanted to rip her dress up right there and shove my hands into
her panties, shove my fingers deep inside her as I kissed her breasts until
they were sore. Then I would throw her on the couch and fuck her like she had
no idea was possible, deep and fast and I would come inside her sweet-

She jerked apart from me, probably able to
feel my excitement through her skirt.

“Okay, that’s all for hugs, I guess,” she
said, her voice almost shivering. Wow, was she…

I studied her face; it had turned a very
deep shade of red. Her right arm was tugging nervously at the hem of her skirt
and she was looking squarely on to the ground. She wanted it too! If there was anything
I knew about women, it was the look of desire on their faces, and right now,
Aria’s face was nothing if not complete and utter longing. Should I say
something? Was now my only chance?

If a simple hug could cause her to react
this way, wait until I kissed her; she would melt. I felt a slight
disappointment at the thought of the game getting easier, but knowing Aria as
much as I had gotten to know her, just because she wanted it didn’t mean she
would just give it up. The odds that she had been wanting it all along were
always very high; what made her stand out from all the other women was that she
resisted, not that she didn’t feel. I knew she felt it, every woman did.
Somehow she had managed to convince me through her tough exterior that she
didn’t for a little while, I realized, feeling idiotic for ever entertaining
doubts. This was definitely going to be much easier than I had been
anticipating, but the fact that she just jerked away meant that it would still
be a challenge. I simply had to teach her to succumb to her desires. I would
show her the things she was capable of feeling and teach her to accept the
greatest pleasures of life. I couldn’t wait. For now, however, I had to play it
cool.

“I’m sorry about that,” I said, feigning a
look of genuine remorse. “But it tends to do that. I can’t really control it.”

She tried speaking a few times but her
lips were visibly trembling. She took a deep breath and tried to conceal it
with a cough. Finally she said, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Of course she didn’t, I internally rolled
my eyes. She would have felt my rock hard cock if she were wearing a space
suit.

“Oh, never mind then,” I played along. She
knew. I knew. What was the fucking point of this?

“Thank you so much!” She exclaimed, trying
to change her expression to that of delight.

For what? For my hard on? It took me
almost an entire minute to realize what she was talking about. I had completely
forgotten the conversation that led up to that moment.

“Oh, my pleasure entirely.” I gave her a
crooked smile. It would be my pleasure soon enough. I could not wait much
longer. More hugs like that and I would forget all about the contract and the
challenge and seduce her right away. “And you don’t really have to thank me, it
was your hard work and intelligence that got them to accept the paper. I was
merely the middle-man.”

“A middle-man that pays to run that whole
department,” she said with almost a hint of envy. “Let’s be honest, if the
email had not come from you, they would never ever give an undergrad the time
of the day and my abstract would go straight to their virtual bin.”

“Yes,” I had to say. There could be no
confusion about the fact that this would have been impossible without my help.
But I also thought it important to add, “But they could read it and turn it
down with ease if they didn’t like what they saw.”

“Seriously, Zayden.” I liked the way she
said my name. Zay-den. It sounded intoxicating. “Thank you so much.”

“Don’t thank me just yet. That was simply
the abstract. You have a whole paper to write,” I reminded her. “We have a
paper to write.”

I killed it with the “we.” I could see the
joy in her face. “You’re a really good friend,” she said.

Friend? Did she think of me as someone she
could call a friend? That was a weird sensation, hearing her call me a friend;
and not necessarily in a bad way. Of course, I wanted to be more than that
physically, but I wondered if it was worth keeping her around as a friend after
I got what I wanted? I didn’t really have any friends aside from Ned, and if I
was going to allow a girl in my life in any capacity, that word seemed to
nicely describe it. Her intelligence was obvious, and maybe if we could remain
friends, it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world to have her work for me. I
knew I could gain a lot from her talents, and she could make more money than
she would anywhere else. I definitely needed to consider this in more depth: it
all depended on how she would react if – when – we eventually have sex. There
was a good chance that she would hate me forever for taking her virginity and
not wanting anything more. Would it, though? She seemed like a very rational
and together girl. I wasn’t entirely sure she would want to get emotionally
involved with me if she knew that the alternative would grant her the career of
her dreams. Her ambitions almost reminded me of myself in my college years. In
those days I would never have let anything stop me from my aspirations, and I
suspected that Aria Roberts wasn’t the kind to either.