Mr. Handsome: A Billionaire Romance (17 page)

“Christina, she just showed up at my office. I was kicking her out and she just fucking kissed me!” I said, my tone a little high pitched, but I needed Christina to understand I’d never hurt her like that, especially intentionally.

“That kiss didn’t look like it was just some girl throwing herself at you. You kissed her back, you two were in an embrace. Who is she?” Christina looked at me angrily and I could see tears threatening to fall. I cursed, this wasn’t what we needed right now, Christina had just finally opened herself up for me.

“I promise you, I didn’t kiss her back, Christina. She just showed up,” I pleaded with her and I saw her jaw clench as her eyes flashed with anger, confusion, and hurt.

“Who
is she
?” Christina asked me forcefully that time and I sighed heavily.

“Roxanna…”

Christina took the news like a blow to the chest. I saw it in her eyes. She closed them briefly and a tear escaped down her cheek, I went to wipe it away but Christina slapped my hand away from her.

“Don’t touch me. I can’t…I can’t compete with an ex. We’ve only been going out for a few days anyway …she can have you.”

Christina pushed the button for the elevator to continue its descent.  I couldn’t think of anything to say to her and I knew that only made things worse. The elevator doors opened on the lobby level and Christina sent me one last hurt glance before she left.

My heart dropped through the floor and I wanted to scream with my frustration. How was I ever going to prove myself to Christina after that? All she would do now is convince herself that Roxanna is better for me than she is, when I barely felt for Roxanna half of what I felt for Christina; in fact nowhere near half. Roxanna was really just there from college. We were more friends than lovers.

I cursed and then ran after Christina, I caught her just before she got into her car. I reached for her arm and she wrenched it away from me. She was trying really hard not to cry and I hated that I did that to her.

“Leave me alone, Jeffrey,” she said angrily, her voice shaky from unshed  tears. I shook my head and grabbed her keys from her hand so she couldn’t go anywhere.

“I promise you, Christina, Roxanna just showed up out of the blue. She saw some of my modeling pictures, saw that I was successful and all she is after is my money or status or what-the-hell-ever. Please, you have to believe me, I’d never do anything to hurt you.

I was kicking her out I swear and she just…” I sighed and tried to think of a way that I knew would fix things for sure. “She’s nothing to me, I feel nothing with her. It’s you I want, you all the time,” I said earnestly.

Christina’s head was down as she stared at the pavement of the sidewalk and listened to me.

Eventually, after moments of excruciating silence, Christina looked up with a wary expression. “You need to make sure she gets that, Jeffrey. I can’t handle it; you know I can’t. That was too far…I never want to see her around you again.”

Christina made herself very clear and I nodded. I was going to have Roxanna fucking thrown out of the building by security if that’s what Christina wanted.

“I swear you’ll never have to worry about her again. I’ll make sure she gets the picture and that will be the end of it,” I promised earnestly and Christina studied my gaze for a moment before she nodded slowly.

“Fine…” Christina reached for her keys, but I withheld them. I needed to make sure we were okay.

“Will I see you at home tonight?” I asked her anxiously.

She sighed and then nodded.

“Yeah…I’ll be there.”

Christina reached for the keys again and I leaned forward for a kiss from her. She dodged my lips and pointed to my mouth.

“Her lipstick is all over you…look, I’ll be home later; can I just have my keys please?”

Christina asked in annoyance. I gave her the keys, reluctantly, while I wiped Roxanna’s damn red lipstick off of my mouth.

“I will see you later then,” I said slowly and Christina nodded before she got into her car, started it up and pulled away. I sighed deeply and then went back up to my office where fucking Roxanna was still present.

“Well, she needed a lot of reassurance that’s for sure. You need someone stronger anyway, someone that can represent you and complement you, not someone that brings you stress and has you always running after her.” Roxanna tried to get in my head and I showed her the door.

“If you are not out of the building within ten minutes, I’m going to have security escort you out,” I said firmly.

Roxanna rolled her eyes and then walked down the hall that would lead her to the elevators without a second glance at me. Well shit, at least that bit of drama was fucking over.

Chapter8

Christina

As I drove to nowhere in particular, I simply couldn’t believe what I walked in on. It looked like two lovers in a passionate embrace to me. Plus, it was
Roxanna
, Jeffrey’s ex-girlfriend who he had loved once.

It wouldn’t be difficult for them to fall in love again…I didn’t even know why I gave Jeffrey a chance, either. I knew he was going to hurt me somewhere down the line and even though the kiss might not have been his fault, it still hurt like hell to see. Roxanna was gorgeous, like supermodel gorgeous and she was probably perfect for Jeffrey.

She was confident, she didn’t require any of the constant reassurance I needed from Jeffrey and she had been his at one point. How would I compete with that? I wouldn’t, I simply would not. I wasn’t stupid enough to put myself through that.

I took a deep breath and stopped driving around aimlessly. I decided to go home to my apartment and take a much needed nap. I hadn’t been getting as much sleep with Jeffrey the nights I slept over, which was every night so far. I also needed to try and recover from the entire Roxanna debacle. When I got home and locked myself inside, I went straight to bed and collapsed into a thankfully dreamless sleep.

When I woke up, it was darker than I expected it to be. I usually never took longer than one hour naps. I had no idea I had been that exhausted. I sat up, stretched and yawned before slowly getting out of bed.

My phone vibrated over on the coffee table and I went to check it. Of course it was Jeffrey messaging and calling me. It was six-thirty in the evening and he had probably just stepped out of his office to head home. I sighed and decided to simply send a text, I told him that I had stopped by my apartment and had fallen asleep, but that I was on my way to his place.

I wondered if I
should
even go. I realized today that I let myself get dazzled by Jeffrey, that I let myself start falling for him. I needed some separation from him, a break so that I could get my head on straight. Things had been moving really quickly ever since we started dating and it was proving to be particularly dangerous for my heart.

I sighed and texted Jeffrey that I was staying at my place for the night. Then I put my phone on silent so that I could ignore his calls and texts for the rest of the night. I really did need some alone time. I’d be starting work at Six Fountain the next day and I needed all my wits about me. I decided to order in some good pizza, have some wine with it, and take a nice bubble bath while I waited on the pie to get to my apartment.

I went to get the bath ready and put in my order for a veggie, New York style pizza, and then went to soak in the tub for the twenty minutes it would take the pizza place to make it and deliver. I had just sunken into the nicely hot water when a persistent knocking started up at the door.

I checked the timing. It was
way
too soon for the pizza to have been delivered already. I got out and wrapped my robe around me to walk to the front door. I checked through the peephole and saw it was Jeffrey waiting on the other side of the door.

“Please open the door, Christina, it’s me…” he said and knocked again. I sighed and then opened the door. He took one long look at me as he stepped into the apartment and locked the door behind him. “I had to see you to make sure you weren’t mad at me. You didn’t answer your phone when I called…”

Jeffrey was wearing dark jeans, a pristine white t-shirt and a dark grey cardigan. His hair was disheveled from him pushing his hands through it too many times, perhaps, and his green hazel eyes were tired and anxious. I could tell from his expression that he really wanted me to believe him about Roxanna and the kiss.

“I’m sorry I made you anxious…I just need some alone time right now. We’ve been spending too much time together lately. I mean I fell asleep and slept for like six—seven hours straight,” I explained and Jeffrey nodded his head in understanding.

“I get it…so can we make plans then for dinner tomorrow night?” he asked tentatively.

I nodded and gave him a small smile.

“Yeah, that sounds nice. You’ll pick me up here then?” I asked softly and Jeffrey nodded.

“Yes, at seven, and dress kind of nice, I want to take you someplace special.” Jeffrey grinned at me, his normal boyish charm and playfulness came back.

“
Kind of
nice? I don’t know what that means exactly,” I said, teasing him.

“Yeah, like semi-formal, semi-club…” Jeffrey wanted it to be a surprise for wherever he decided on taking me.

“Sounds intriguing…” I said slowly and Jeffrey nodded.

“It’ll be fun…so I’ll let you get back to your shower or bath, or whichever.” I nodded and he slid his arm around my waist to pull me against him for a kiss that was searing hot and left me breathless.

With that he quietly left and I had to take a deep breath to center myself once he was gone. I went back to my bath and soaked until the pizza came. Once I was in my pajamas I grabbed a bottle of wine out of the fridge and brought the pizza over to the living room area to watch some TV or a movie.

I ended up watching a marathon of
The Nanny
. I fell asleep feeling pretty much back to normal as far as being back in my own company, but I couldn’t deny that I missed Jeffrey and was looking forward to being in his arms that following evening.

My alarm woke me, headache free, and excited about starting at my new job, I got up with a huge smile on my face. I quickly readied for work and then left my apartment thirty minutes earlier than I needed to. Maybe I would go out and grab a quick breakfast for
myself
at the bagel place on Second Avenue. Six Fountain was over on Madison, so it wouldn’t be too far for me to risk being on time to work.

I drove to the bagel shop and stood in line to order a single bagel with smear and coffee. As I stood in line though, I recognized Jeffrey’s profile as he sat at one of the tables outside. People were blocking my view, but he was obviously with someone, talking to them. I wondered if it was Victor. The line moved forward and I stepped past the people waiting in the pickup line.

It
was
Jeffrey, but he was sitting across from Roxanna and speaking with her intently. She looked amazing of course in a white sun dress, perfectly put together and every part the kind of woman one would expect Jeffrey to actually be dating.

Confusion and insecurity sluiced through my veins, sickening me a little bit and I left the line. My appetite was gone and my good mood had walked out with it. I hurried back to my car and prayed they didn’t see me. I drove to Six Fountain and showed up twenty minutes early to work.

The Six Fountain Marketing office was modern and made up of a lot of wide open space. There were collaboration tables situated intermittently throughout the office and people sat there working on their own or with a partner or team.

There were a couple of long rows of desks, similar to that at Urban Plus, where everyone’s computers were side by side and there weren’t any distinct office spaces. It reminded me of a cool library with photography of the city blown up and pasted to certain feature walls. Each team manager had their own office, though, and there was a break room, also.

“My diamond in the rough! You’re here early.” Austin approached me as I was taking it all in and he gave me a kiss on the cheek, I still hadn’t gotten used to how familiar he was with people.

“Yeah, I was excited to start working,” I admitted a bit bashfully and Austin grinned.

He was wearing a forest green checkered button up shirt that was tucked into khaki pants with a white belt to accent. I think all male models just had an innate talent of looking like they just walked off of the cover of GQ. Austin chuckled at me and he led me over to the line of computers against one of the feature walls.

“This is basically everyone’s desk when we need a computer or have a task that has to be carried out on desktop. Everyone is assigned their own, of course, to avoid pandemonium, but we also give our employees company laptops that you can take home, it’s yours for as long as you work here.

The only thing is, if you break it you have to replace it.”

Austin gave me a tour of the office and assigned me a desktop as well as gave me a brand new MacBook. Good thing I brought a big purse that day. I’d have to get a laptop bag for it soon, though.

“Alright, now I shall introduce you to the rest of our five-man team,” Austin took me over to one of the collaboration desks right outside his office nook and four guys were sitting around the table, talking about some action movie that recently came out.

“Hey guys, this is Christina, our newest team member.  Christina, that’s Bryce, Caiden, Tristan, and Trent. Trent isn’t officially a part of our team, he’s more of a floater, jack of all trades sort of guy. One day, we’re sure he’ll own the company.”

All the guys laughed and I smiled politely at them.

“It’s nice to meet you all. I’m excited to be on the team,” I said honestly while I took in who would be my closest coworkers.

Bryce was a sandy haired, blue eyed, cutie who had a really nice smile. Caiden was a stocky guy; he was pretty built and it was easy to see maybe some Italian roots in his dark hair and eyes. He had a square jaw and intense brow.

Tristan looked tall, even while he was sitting down. He was lanky too, and reminded me of Clarke Kent with his thick black framed glasses and curly black hair. He was very handsome and had shockingly blue eyes.

Trent was, for lack of a better term, hot. He had caramel colored skin and his black hair was curly and styled into a short afro, and he had an angular jaw. His chin was slightly cleft and his nose a straight line. He had well-formed cheekbones and very pretty light brown eyes framed by thick eyelashes. He also appeared to work out, from the looks of his arms under his white button down shirt as they rested casually against the table.

“Welcome to the team, Christina, glad to have you on board. Finally, a woman to keep all these idiots in check,” Trent said with a charming smile. I laughed lightly at his joke while the other guys all threw him under the bus for being the slacker when things got slow in the office. I could tell I’d like working with them, they had a brotherly vibe about them that was instantly comforting.

“Awesome, so now that introductions have been made, let’s get down to business, shall we? I’m really excited about this next project.” Austin plugged a laptop into a screen. It was sitting by itself on the desk which I assumed to be Austin’s. I took a seat at the table. With everyone.

“So, alcoholics, this time around we’ve been assigned Tru Rum, it’s Pina Colada flavored so we already know what that means…” the guys groaned and I simply figured it would probably be a bit on the sweeter side. Obviously, the folks who made the rum had the female demographic in mind. Making rum appealing to women could be easier than the guys thought, especially if it’s flavored.

“Christina I can’t help but notice that you’re the least worried out of everyone here,” Austin was smiling at me and I shrugged slightly and shared my thoughts. Austin’s smile widened and he sighed happily. “That’s why I’m so happy she’s here.” The guys all laughed at Austin and called him a sap.

Austin finished telling us about our product and we began brainstorming ways to market it and advertise it. I was in seventh heaven and completely in my element, finally doing what I knew I was good at. Time flew when we were brainstorming and it flew even quicker when working on something you were passionate about.

I completed a lot of the tasks Austin gave me quickly enough that he had me go and hop around from group to group with Trent.

“So are you new to the city?” Trent asked me politely as we sat at an empty table and worked on a few things for Austin. He gave us a big digital media task to work on together.

“No, I’ve lived here for about six or seven months now. I just finally found a job in my chosen field,” I explained and Trent seemed impressed.

“Wow, how’d you make it so long in the city without a solid career yet?” He seemed genuinely curious, as it wasn’t private knowledge that living in any of the boroughs or the city was pretty expensive compared to a lot of other places in the state.