Billionaire Brothers 2 : Love Has A Name (29 page)

“I don’t have to pleasure myself. I know exactly where to —” I stopped myself, knowing that talk like that always pissed him off. But then, he
should
be pissed off.
I
was tremendously pissed off; it was only fair that he was pissed off, too. Yet deep down, I knew I didn’t want him to walk away from me again like he did in L.A. “I’m cleaning. Just finished with the master bathroom and on to the bedroom now.”

When he spoke again, the good humor he’d had in his voice was gone. It seemed that even though I hadn’t completed the sentence, I’d still managed to irk him. “Cleaning? Why are you cleaning?”

“What kind of stupid ass question is that? I’m cleaning because the house needs to be cleaned.”

“That’s not what I meant. Why are
you
cleaning? Don’t you have a housekeeper or something?”

Is this guy for real? The man had been living in my home for over two weeks and he’d never once seen a housekeeper here. Now wasn’t that question stupid? “No, Lovello, I don’t have a housekeeper and I don’t need one. I live alone and can take care of myself. I’m not inept or handicapped.”

Lovello made an exasperated sound. “Axia, you’re too beautiful and delicate to be scrubbing tiles and scouring toilets. Your hands should always remain soft and callus-free. I’m gonna call Rosa’s agency and have someone assigned to your place.”

“I don’t need a frigging housekeeper! You didn’t seem to have a problem when I was walking behind your messy ass picking up your shit from every crevice and corner of the flippin’ house and cleaning up your bloody mess as if I were babysitting a damned toddler.”

Lovello’s sudden mutism had me checking the phone screen to be sure the call was still connected. “Axia I … Jesus, I’m sorry. I’m so used to having Rosa around that I wasn’t even … shit.” And then he burst out laughing. The deep waves of his laughter sent chills down my spine. God I missed him. “No wonder you wanted a break!” he managed, laughing so hard that
I
eventually broke into a grin. I loved it when he laughed, and I was wishing I could see how bright his face might be at that moment. “I’m sorry, Axia. Why didn’t you say anything? I would’ve tried to monitor my, um, behavior. I’m aware that I’m a slipshod, that’s why I have a live-in maid. And Rosa doesn’t even keep my place clean on her own, she gets help on the weekends. God, I’m so sorry, baby. But you need a housekeeper, though. No more cleaning. I’ll get Rosa’s agency to send someone over within the hour.”

Ugh, was he even listening to me? “I told you, I don’t want a freakin’ maid. I’m good.”

“No more, Axia,” he steadied. “And oh, expect a call from my cousin, Lori, later this evening. She’s a stylist and she’ll be calling to find out what time she can stop by your place so you can choose a dress to accompany me to Sadie and Natalio’s wedding next week. She’ll hook you up with any brand you like, Gucci, Prad —”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down there, Pretty Boy. First of all, you didn’t
ask
me if I would accompany you to your brother’s wedding. Second, I have my
own
money to purchase my own clothes
if
I were to accompany you anywhere. So I don’t need a damn stylist. And third, I don’t wear dresses — in case you haven’t noticed.”

Lovello grunted a sound that implied I was the most incorrigible person on earth. “You’re my woman. I don’t need to
ask
you to accompany me. You know the wedding’s next week, of course I’m going to take you. And yes, I have noticed. But what are you going to wear to the wedding? Short shorts and tank top? Be logical here.”

“Dios, you are so…” Gah!

“Beauts, you’re making everything that used to be easy all of a sudden complicated for no damn reason. You seem to be afraid of something and I don’t know what it is, so I’m giving you space and time to sort your shit out. But I won’t allow you to ruin us, and I won’t allow you to complicate what is not complicated, okay? So grab a breather and chill the hell out.”

And that was Lovello Nelson. The man who was the observer of all observers. He remains quiet when needs be, sits back, observes and analyzes. He wasn’t keen on arguments, neither was he keen on anger. His favorite game was playing the fool — just like he did when my mother and I conversed in Spanish, thinking he didn’t understand — and he simply watches on with his favorite expression of no expression and calculates everything. There you are, with no knowledge that you’re being calculated. And whenever he decides to speak, the hammer hits the nail right on the head, just once, but with such force that the nail plunges right through the surface.

That was my Pretty Boy.

It had taken me a while, but I was getting to know him and the way he functioned.

“I like it when you’re silent,” Lovello’s voice broke through my thoughts. “It means you’re thinking sensibly. Expect your new housekeeper within the hour and expect a call from Lori. If Lori doesn’t have anything you like…” he trailed off in a cadence that heralded a jest. “Then we can fly to Paris. And if Paris doesn’t have anything you like … Hmm … I don’t know. Nowhere beats Paris. So, we’d probably have to buy our own island and…” The sonuvabitch was humoring me.

“Why did you flush my necklace?” I asked in a calm voice, even though I was anything but.

That seemed to have taken him by surprise, because it took him a few moments to reply. And when he did, he chose to be an a-hole. “Ah shucks, the damnable thing didn’t go down?”

I swear he drives me barmy. “You had no right to flush something that didn’t belong to you! Why didn’t you flush your frickin’ head instead?”

“No, it doesn’t belong to me, but
you
do. And you won’t be wearing anything that some other man got you.” His tone began tracking down a serious path. “So I suggest you give the cheap shit away, flush it so it goes down this time, or hide it somewhere I won’t find it.”

This man can’t be serious. “Just who the hell do you think you are? Are you trying to control me? You can’t dictate to me what I can or cannot wear, assface! Since when did you become so forceful?”

Lovello heaved an exaggerated sigh down the line. “You see, Axia, sometimes a man’s got to be a
man
in order to keep the woman he wants. I want you. Badly. But you’re like a snake, always trying to wriggle your way out of my grasp and darting that venomous tongue out at me. You’re hardcore. And it has taken me a month too long to realize that a woman like you don’t need a Prince Charming. You need a
Hulk
.”

My hand left Timo’s hair to twist a fistful of my own hair and pulled. Hard. “Jesús Cristo, you’re overwhelming me!”

“I am, am I? You think I’m like poison, too?” he asked, referring to Beyoncé’s song,
Poison
, that was playing through the integrated system.

There came a sound like a knock on a door in the background. Lovello requested I hold for a minute, then I heard him telling the person that they could enter. But I didn’t ‘hold on for a minute’, I hung up. The man was driving me berserk and I was grateful for whoever disrupted our conversation that was on a train to Nowhere-ville.

He constantly accused me of being difficult when
he
was the one being difficult. One minute he was sweet and flattering, making me just want to grab him and eat him. And the next minute he was forceful, making me think twice about being mutinous. Was I the one making him so variable? Was I hard to put up with? Reasonable was how I’d say I’d been over the past few weeks. I hadn’t been difficult, had I?

My cellphone began hollering again but I declined his call. Just one phone call from him and he had me threading down another lane of anger. My phone declared a text message and I did that girly thing of rolling my eyes as I opened it, knowing it would be him.

It’s hard to believe you are the daughter of Vince Blacksille; you possess no decorum whatsoever.
You are VERY ill-mannered, woman!
How could you just hang up on me? I thought I was your Pretty Boy.
Not happy :(
Enjoy the rest of your day, beauts. And no more cleaning!
Love,
Love
**See that? With this guy, you get Love x2.
Can only win if you choose my team, baby. You can only WIN.**

Unbelievably so, after that maddening conversation with him, all I wanted to do was see him and have him. God, I needed help.

Waking Timo from his peaceful sleep on my belly, I peeled myself from the floor and resumed cleaning, disregarding a certain order from a certain someone, while singing along to Beyoncé’s
Halo.

Within the hour, as Mr. Nelson had promised, Bill rang the intercom receiver to declare the new housekeeper, Donna. She was a petite Hispanic like Rosa. Polite, all smiles, and eager to start working. Though I was loath to succumb to Lovello’s orders, I briefed Donna and left her to work. Then I got dressed and headed out for the gym.

Friday at the gym was, well, Friday. Packed, springy and sweaty. As I began preparing for my two o’clock Strength class, my cellphone howled, and I groaned, praying it wasn’t Lovello. A number I didn’t recognize blinked on the screen, but I answered nevertheless because this was my personal phone; all impersonal calls went to Tish.

“Axia, hi, it’s Natalio.”

Natalio? Why was he calling me? “Oh God, did something happen to Love?”

Natalio chuckled. “No, no. No need to panic. Love’s good. He just gave me your number, actually.”

A puff of breath that I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding whooshed through me as I waited for Natalio to continue.

“There’s a new all-in-one gym station that I have coming out called Musclix Trainer. The launch is in a few weeks. I’m doing a few television commercials and I want you to be the face.”

Lovello couldn’t have informed his brother that I wasn’t interested in these kind of things? “Why? Is it because I truly have a great bod, or is it because I’m Vince Blacksille’s daughter? ‘Cause a lot of people seem to want me to do all kinds of shit because I’m my father’s daughter. It’s seriously annoying.”

Natalio was laughing even before I had finished my last sentence. “Love told me to expect this attitude from you. And you’re just like he said. The coward vehemently backed out of asking you for me.” Natalio paused and asked that I hang on a second, then I heard him barking a string of obscenities at someone in the background and mumbling something about an “inept dolt” before he came back on the line. “A bit of both, Axia. You know PSFC is the most luxurious and acclaimed training center in SF. If I were you, I’d open branches in New York and Los Angeles, too. And, Christ, have you seen your abs? They’re pretty damn impressive. I’ve seen your photo on the cover of Prime Size magazine and you seem to be a hot take right now. So I wanna snatch you first. What do you say? We can shoot on Thursday?”

Brilliant men like Natalio Nelson always know just what to say to get what they want. It’s as if he’d dipped his tongue in a glass of honey before he made this call. “Sounds like you’ve already planned the shoot and put everything in order as if I’m a foregone conclusion.”

“You can play nice and say I’m optimistic, or be a bitch and say I’m cocky. The latter is more fitting.”

“Why bother to call me, then? You could’ve just turned up on my doorstep, bundled me up and taken me to the shoot.”

Deep chuckles flowed down the line. “Just protocol. So Thursday, then?”

“I’ll get back to you on that.”

“Would you now? Thursday, Axia,” he affirmed. “I’ll have my people contact you tomorrow to discuss the contract and such.”

“You’re a heck of a lot more commanding than your brother,” I grumbled, appalled at the man’s assertiveness.

“Welcome to the Nelson family. Have a lovely day, Axia. Bye.”

And that was it. Another phone call where I had no say.

What in God’s good name had I gotten myself into?

Later that night, I lay stretched out on my sofa with Timo snoring softly on my belly. I was idly texting on Blackberry Messenger with Trudy, while Lovello’s svelte cousin flurried around in my living area, laboring to find a dress on her racks that I’d like. Being my usual self, I showed no interest in getting to know her and only responded in monosyllables to her queries. Her discomfort and irritation were translucent. Without even fitting on the dresses she suggested, I kept wagging my head with the words “Nope. Don’t like it”.

What she didn’t know was that I was never going to like
any
dress she showed me because I didn’t like dresses, period. Ever since I’d been able to dress myself, I’d only ever worn tight jeans, short-shorts, yoga pants or athletic wears. If the occasion was one that required showing your sexy, provocative side, then I’d normally go with leggings and six-inch-heel thigh-highs or breast-enhancing corsets, short leather shorts and thigh-highs. For me, thigh-highs always beat a cocktail dress. Or maybe I just enjoyed looking like a nasty little stripper. It didn’t matter, I just downright hated dresses. Dresses were too much of a girl thing. And I didn’t like feeling like a girl. A woman. But not a girly woman. Just a woman who’s in a category all by herself. I was just me. Axia Blacksille.