ROMANCE: The French Billionaire (A Dark New Adult Billionaire Romance) (Billionaire Romance,Contemporary Romance,Untamed Billionaire,Short Stories) (15 page)

Xander decided he couldn’t stand to watch this anymore. He had to do something before Mia got any more intoxicated and actually slept with Jayden.

              “Hey!” he yelled. “Jayden! What are you guys doing here?”

              “We were just out on a date,” Jayden said. “What are you doing here”

              “Um.. I was just waiting for a friend, and I saw you guys. I think I should take Sarah here home. She looks like she’s had a little too much.”

              “No, that’s okay, I got it,” Jayden said, looking confused. “She’s my girlfriend, after all. You don’t need to worry about it.”

              “You know, Jayden, I trust you, but I would feel better if I at least came with you and make sure she got home in one piece. After all, you’ve been drinking too.”

              “Alright, whatever you say, boss,” Jayden said, completely bewildered by Xander’s possessive behavior.

              They decided to use Jayden’s car to take Mia home. She was so drunk, she couldn’t even give them an address, so Xander called the head of the HR department at Will Golden to get it.

              Mia was passing in and out of consciousness the entire car ride home. At some point she started crying.

              “What’s wrong, hon?” Jayden asked, concerned. Xander glared at him in the rearview mirror.

              “I.. I
dunno
. Everything.. everything’s spinning.” Mia said, bawling. “I
wanna
go
hoommmeee
.”

              “We’re almost there!” Xander said, trying to calm her down. “We’ll get you home and tucked in bed with a glass of water, okay? Just try and keep it together for a few more minutes.”

              By the time they finally found Mia’s place, she was totally passed out in the backseat. Xander and Jayden had to carry her up three flights of stairs to her apartment.

              “I’m so sorry about this,” Jayden said. “She’s not normally like this, she’s normally very reasonable at parties. I don’t know why she got so crazy tonight. I should have stopped her.”

              “I’m just doing this for the company’s reputation,” Xander said, coldly. “And for yours. She’s your secretary, after all. And our employees can’t be seen in public behaving like this. We have an image to maintain. It’s for both of your own good, I promise.”

***

Xander had to pick the lock on Mia’s door, because she was too intoxicated to find her key. Jayden then carried her to her room and started helping her clean up. He helped her wash her face and got her a glass of water, and then slowly started undressing her so she could take a shower.

Xander felt extremely frustrated. He wanted to stop Jayden, tell him that, she was his girl, and that she didn’t care about him. But he had promised Mia that she could be the one to tell him, so he kept his mouth shut.

But still, he watched Jayden, who was taking care of her so gently, and he wished he was the one doing it to her. He kept his eyes on them to make sure Jayden didn’t take advantage of Mia, but started looking for a set of tools to fix Mia’s lock, which he had broken. He finally found a set under the sink.

              As he was fixing the door, Jayden came out of Mia’s room.

“I think she’s going to be all right,” he said. “She just needs to sleep it off. I think I’ve learned my lesson about taking her to the bar, poor thing.”

              “Thanks for taking care of her, Jayden,” Xander said reluctantly. “I’m not too sure what’s going on with her, I don’t think she’s always like that. I haven’t had a chance to tell you this yet, but Robert Jackson stopped by your office while you were gone. I was passing by and I happened to notice him talking to Sarah. I don’t know what exactly he said, but she was white as a sheet. He clearly was making her nervous.”

              “Do you think this has something to do with that horrible deal he wants me to sign?” Jayden asked. “I’ve been trying to put him off as long as possible, but I think he’s starting to catch on to the fact that I’m not actually planning on signing it.”

              “Sarah said that it had something to do with that, but she wouldn’t give me any details,” Xander said. “I think he might be threatening her or blackmailing her in some way. I don’t know if he knows about the nature of your relationship with her, but I think he believes that she can influence you to sign it.”

              “I’ll have to ask her about it myself when she’s feeling better,” Jayden said. “If she tells me what’s really going on, we can fix this. She shouldn’t have to deal with it by herself.”

              “I agree,” Xander said. “Just please watch out for her, okay? She seemed really scared. I don’t want her to get in over her head with this.”

              “I will. But I think for now, we should probably both go home and get some sleep. It’s been a long night.”

              “I’ll be right behind you, I just have to finish putting in this last screw, and then I’ll be right down. Do you want me to drive you home? I know you’ve been drinking, and I want you to stay safe.”

              “Sure, that will be fine” Jayden said.

They took his car and Xander dropped Jayden off. After safely parking Jayden’s car in the garage of his building, he called his limo back and circled around to Mia’s apartment again.

***

When Xander had been fixing the lock on Mia’s door, he found a spare key hanging on the wall next to the door inside the apartment. He had sneakily taken it without Jayden noticing, so he could get back into the apartment later. He snuck up the staircase of Mia’s walk-up and made his way inside as quietly as he possibly could. He wanted to stay the night with her and make sure she was okay. She’d been acting strangely all day, and he was very worried about her.             

              He opened the door to Mia’s bedroom to find her in a very deep sleep. She had washed her hair and was wearing an old, oversized UCLA sweatshirt. He gently lay down next to her on the bed and pulled her into his arms. She was sleeping very fretfully, and he tried to soothe her as much as he could, even though she was sleeping.

              “I’m sorry!” Mia said, vehemently. Xander jumped, as he hadn’t expected the noise. He then realized that she was talking in her sleep. “I didn’t mean it!” she kept saying. “I didn’t mean to do it! I’m sorry!”

             
“Shh…”
Xander said softly. “It’s okay, Sarah. It’s going to be alright,” he added worriedly. However, she was so deep into her dream that she didn’t hear him.

              He was still extremely worried about her. What had Robert said to her yesterday that was making her so scared and tense? But he realized that he was no longer angry about her date with Jayden. Clearly, she was under a lot of stress, it was understandable that she didn’t want to break up with him right now. Everything would work itself out later, he hoped.

              Mia work up with a start. She was instantly confused. Why was Xander here, in her apartment!? What had happened last night?

She remembered being with Jayden, and having a few drinks at a bar, but she couldn’t really remember anything that had happened after that. How had she gotten home, and when had Xander shown up? Her head was throbbing. She had to find out what was going on.

              “Xander?” she said, gently tapping him awake. “What’s.. what’s going on?”

              “Oh, Sarah, you’re awake!” Xander said brightly. “How are you feeling? You had quite the night last night!”

              Mia groaned. “I don’t really remember what happened at all,” she said.

              “You went out with Jayden last night, remember? I found you at a bar, completely out of control. You were all over him, Sarah! What happened to our plan of breaking things off? You’ve almost made the situation worse now.”

              “I know,” she said, tears starting to fill her eyes. “But I saw how happy he was to see me, and I just couldn’t do it! It didn’t feel right. I got cold feet. I’m so sorry, Xander. I know this isn’t fair to you, or to Jayden.”

              “It’s okay,” Xander said, calming down now. “We can always deal with it later. Right now, I just want to make sure you’re okay. I doubled back here after Jayden left last night, because I was so worried about you.”

              “Speaking of, how did you get my address?” Mia asked. She was starting to get concerned about the fact that Xander and Jayden had both been in her apartment all night. What if they had found evidence of her secret identity, or her deal with Lillian?

              “Oh, I called one of the HR people at Will Golden,” Xander said casually. “I figured they would have it. I hope you don’t mind.”

              “No, not at all,” Mia said. For now, her cover seemed safely intact. She looked around the apartment. Everything seemed to be in order. None of her mail, or her computer for her detective business, had been disrupted.

              “Hey,” Xander said, tenderly grabbing her hand. “I have an idea. What if we go out of town again? I think you really need to rest after all of the excitement and stress you’ve had over the past few days. We can go back to Southampton, do it right this time.”

              “Are you sure we can take that much time off of work? We already skipped out early the other day.”             

              “I’m the boss,” Xander said with an arrogant grin. “I can do whatever I want. And Jayden’s not going to expect you to be up to doing secretarial work, after the night that you had.”

              “Well, I guess you’d better call your limo, then,” Mia said, with a wink.

              Xander and Mia spent the day on Xander’s private island again, relaxing on the beach with some sandwiches they had picked up on their way out of the city. They were really enjoying each other’s company, joking around and making each other laugh. But there was one problem. Jayden kept texting Mia, trying to check up on her.

              After the fifth text message, Xander grabbed her phone away, tackling her in the process. “That’s it, I’m taking this!” he said, as they playfully rolled around in the sand. “You’re all mine today.”

              “No, Xander, he’s just trying to be nice,” Mia said. “I’m not going to answer him or anything.”

              “No, see, this is payback for not breaking up with him,” Xander said sarcastically. “No breakup, no phone.” He winked at her, but he still took her phone and went into the house, hiding it in his locked briefcase.

              “Now, where were we?” he said when he came back out, finding Mia lying on the beach, eyes closed, wearing a bikini that showed off her perfectly toned stomach. He laid down next to her, and leaned over, kissing her deeply. He then pulled her on top of him, and slowly reached up to untie the strings of her bikini.

              “Are you sure it’s a good idea to do this outside?” Mia said to him. “We’re sure there’s no one else on this island, right?

              “It’s just you and me, babe,” he replied. “My family bought this island a few generations ago, and I’m pretty sure I’m the only one that still comes here. We’re totally safe.”

              They continue to make out, and Mia started grinding her hips against his. She could feel him starting to develop an erection, and reached down to slowly remove his swim trunks. She took off her bikini bottoms and moved him inside of her, slowly and deliberately.

              “Damn it, Sarah,” Xander said in a low moan. “That feels incredible.”

              She slowly started to ride him, picking up speed as she went along. Although she had been worried, Mia loved the adrenaline rush of having sex outside, where anyone could have seen them. They climaxed at the same time, and she slowly rolled off of him, lying next to him in the sand again. She leaned over and kissed his neck sensually.

              After a few minutes, Mia fell asleep. Xander carried her into the beach house and set her down on the bed in the master bedroom, and then joined her for a nap.

After a few hours, Xander was awakened by the pinging noise of Mia’s phone receiving a text message. Thinking that it was Jayden, sending another one of his “caring” texts, he grabbed Mia’s phone out of his briefcase.

              After looking at the number for a minute, he realized that it was Lillian texting Mia!
How do they know each other?

Hey love, how’s our little plan going? Looked like you were doing a great job when I saw you the other day! Keep it up!

              Xander was instantly confused, and terrified.
What plan!?
Panicked, he started looking through the rest of her phone. He found out that her name was Mia, not Sarah, and that she was a private detective. It seemed that Lillian had hired her to look into Xander’s suspicious activity when they were still dating, and then when they broke up, she hired her to get revenge on him by seducing and then dumping him. Although, she hadn’t dumped him yet, which meant that clearly something was going wrong, because she’d had plenty of opportunity to.

              Xander was absolutely furious. Why would these women do this to him!? Sure, he’d cheated a few times, and he knew it was wrong, but he didn’t think he deserved this sort of elaborate punishment. Shaking, he put Mia’s phone back in her bag, and tapped her on the shoulder to wake her up. It was time to go home.

              Xander was extremely quiet on the ride home, to the point where Mia was starting to get worried. She thought they’d had a wonderful little afternoon getaway. After all, what was more romantic than sex on the beach?

              “Xander, what’s wrong?” she asked. “You’re awfully quiet.”

              Xander’s face was stone cold.  “Oh, I don’t know,
Mia
,” he said acidly. “Maybe, it has something to with the fact that you’ve been plotting revenge against me with my ex-girlfriend the entire time I’ve known you?”

Mia’s heart practically stopped beating.
He knew.

“H-how... when?” she stuttered.

              “I saw a text from Lillian on your phone. I was obviously confused by that, so I did a little digging. Did you really think you were just going to be able to hide this from me forever? Even if you didn’t go through with Lillian’s plan, I still was going to find out about it eventually. Was this whole thing a lie, Mia?”

              “No!” she yelled, in tears. “It may have started off as something I was just doing for Lillian, but it’s certainly much more than that now. I was going to tell Lillian the plan was off and give her money back. I just haven’t had the time yet, what with everything that’s been going on at work.”

              “I don’t really want to hear your excuses right now,” Xander said. “You know what, actually, I’m just going to have the driver drop you off here. You can find your own way home.”

***