Mad for the Billionaire (2 page)

The jealousy, the insecurity, all of it would’ve made me into a monster and eventually Alexander would’ve hated me. That was something I couldn’t bear to see.

His contempt—yes. His hate? No.

My stare scored into his, moody bravery manifesting because it dealt with a reflection—nothing real, flat to the touch, and forever out of reach.

“You should thank me. At least I saved you the trouble of dumping me again. That way it wouldn’t be your problem, right? We can blame me for the second time and this time if it makes you feel better.”

I paled. God, why did I become so loathsome again? It’d become my default reaction whenever I ventured too close to feeling vulnerable—something I only developed when I got back together with him.

I wanted to slink away. I was so ashamed of myself. Why was I trying to push him away like this?

Alexander dipped his head. A mirthless smile took hold of his lovely mouth. “I knew it would turn out this way but hope springs eternal. Come with me, Sophia.”

Alexander reached for my hand. Clasping it in his, he ushered us from the bathroom, body tight and notched as if ready to pierce me if I tried so much as to wiggle away. I swelled as the venomous memories from a million similar fights tainted my mind’s eye.

* * *

Nine Years Before

Alexander opened the bedroom door and immediately slammed it shut. Two vases exploded against the recently-shut surface. Emerald glass shattered in a brilliant, satisfying display.

“What in the hell is wrong with you?”

His bellow armed me with two more projectiles. I bent down, long hair brushing against the dingy carpet, and ripped them out of their cardboard box. Twelve more mementos to single-stem, sacrifice roses and baby’s breath traditions were lined up and ready to go. I gripped them by their long, narrow necks, fingers clenched so tight I wondered if the glass would spider web beneath the pressure.

Fuck it. There was no point in keeping these anyways. He never gave me flowers just because I inspired pretty devotion. They always came on the heels of a major blowup. Who needed the souvenirs? The memories were bad enough.

“Get the hell out, Alexander. You know you can’t wait to do it anyways!”

“What are you talking about?” Alexander cracked the door open. “Why are you so pissed off?”

I made my best knife-thrower impersonation. Neither faux blade struck true. More glass shattered against the wall, becoming a cutting reminder against bare feet for months to come.

“Why am I so pissed? Seriously? Gee, why do you think? You don’t come home anymore, you bastard! You sneak in when I’m sleeping. You’re too tired for sex. Do you think I’m stupid? You’re cheating on me!”

“Bullshit!” Alexander shoved the door open, heavy boots crunching over glass. The knob hit the drywall hard enough to dent it. His gorgeous mouth shriveled tight. “Oh, no you don’t!” He kicked the box away from me before I could arm myself again. “That is fucking bullshit!”

“It’s not bullshit.” I shoved him over and over again, a volatile fury fixated on ruining us both. “I’m not stupid. I know the signs. You did it before, you’ll do it again.”

Alexander’s fingers made perfect manacles for my wrists. He yanked me hard against him, angular face contorted in outrage. “I never cheated on you!”

“But you did leave me six years ago, didn’t you?” My petty ego cackled in delight over the psychic crater left on Alexander’s conscience. “Just like now you pulled away from me, avoiding me whenever you could. Everybody could see you were gone but me. Well, screw that! I’d be a fool to not see it coming this time.”

“Sophia—”

“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to sit still and wait for it to happen again. Now leave! You know you want to!”

Alexander walked us both against the wall. Shoving his face into mine, he bit out, “When are you going to let this go?”

Raw, maddened beyond good sense, I picked out my best sneer. I felt ugly, spiteful, and rude but regret would come later. “That’d be so easy for you, wouldn’t it? Especially since you were the one who dicked me over!”

“Jesus Christ, Sophia. I was only eighteen!”

“I don’t give a shit! You left me!”

My agonized howl voided Alexander’s defensiveness. He blew out a long, shaky breath. When he spoke, it was with the delicacy of a condemned man confessing his sins before the executioner. My blade hung low as Alexander spoke in a papery whisper, as if afraid to summon his own inevitable ruin once again.

“I’m sorry, Sophia. I really am. I only did what I thought was best, what was best for my mom, for you, and me.”

His regret pulled my pin. My body deflated. I wanted to sink into the wall, to disappear. “It wasn’t for me. Not for me at all.”

“Ssh.” Alexander pulled me into him. Cupping the back of my head, he brushed his lips against my neck and whispered, “I’m never going to leave you again. I swear it. It’s in the past, little chick.”

My voice came from far away, echoing the betrayed teenage girl I still was and the unforgiving woman I’d become. “Not for me. You broke my heart, Alexander. Twice. I don’t think it’s there anymore. All that’s left is something ruined…pathetic. I’m so sorry that I love you. Really I am.”

* * *

Present Day and Time

I blinked back reflexive tears. Those ugly, humiliating memories would dog me for eternity. I stared at the passing ground, watching the marble turn into cherry hardwoods before morphing into an oversized rug.

Can’t you understand me yet? It wasn’t that I didn’t love you. I loved you like a maniac. I hated who I had become around you, Alexander. Jealous, insecure, violent—everything I didn’t think I was capable of being. Especially since I wasn’t like that with you the first time around.

Love isn’t supposed to be that way.
I’m
not supposed to be that way.

Alexander stopped. His polished shoes pointed to the exact spot of our savage lovemaking. He maneuvered me so I stood next to him. Side by side, fingers still entwined, we viewed the scene of our crime.

“I didn’t know it then, but it didn’t matter who left who, Sophia. It was going to end anyways.”

“I know.” I shifted so my free hand could reach out for him. I wanted to touch Alexander as I mourned the passing of what could never become. I brushed his arm in short strokes. Illusion stated as long as my palm didn’t stay still I wouldn’t really be bound to needing him.

It was simply the gesture of one friend comforting the other. Nothing more. Definitely much less.

Definitely, definitely a lie.

“We should’ve never happened, right?” I grimaced, wanting so badly to bite my tongue for saying the words again and again. Why did I have to point out the crack ruining all our shared memories?

“No. You’re wrong.”

“No?” Damaged, wilted, and neglected, something akin to hope sprang from the dormant ashes of my wounds.

“We absolutely should’ve, should, and will happen.”

I tripped over his name, finding it impossible to do anything else. I tucked my wandering hand behind my ear, using the messy strands as an excuse for abandonment. “Do you really want to go back to who and what we were?”

“No. Never, actually.” His clasp pulsed once. “At least not like it was.”

“Then what? We’re the same people, Alexander. Nothing’s changed, you see?”

“Everything’s changed and I can prove it.”

Alexander’s words led me down the candy trail, away from stagnant pools, cold ashes, and miserable endings. “What do you mean?”

“There are things about us I understand now but didn’t before.”

“Like what?”

He crooked a smile at me. Alexander lifted our linked hands and turned mine towards his lips. He kissed it reverently, eyes closed for the sanctity of the gesture.

“Like what?” I repeated inanely, unnerved and unsteady when he released my hand. Alexander ignored me. He strode to the massive monstrosity of a desk and sat behind it.

I stood in place, anchored to the spot he had left me. The symbolism mocked me. Forever on the shelf, put away and no longer needed until nostalgia drew attention to my dusty form.

Just a porcelain figment of his sexual imagination.

I planted hands on hips and prepared to walk away when Alexander commanded me to “Come here.”

Present Day

Six Hours Before

I tapped my foot in nervousness. Grateful for the conference room’s carpeting, I jiggled my left leg while my stomach flirted with nausea. Low murmurs padded the undercurrent of respective silence.

I’d been dreading this meeting for weeks. When I originally had gotten the news from up top that MLM Industries had been bought out, I’d been just as ecstatic as the next executive.

MLM wasn’t going down in flames, ripped apart and sold off in pieces for profit by their major competitor Source West Financial. The morale-destroying bouts of layoffs were finally at an end. Instead of just focusing on staying afloat, MLM could turn its sights on being great again. The new owners were liquid and prepared to pour as much money as needed into MLM until it was safely back into the black.

Unfortunately, elation died a gruesome death when I learned exactly
who
had saved our collective bacon. Our white knight was none other than Draven Systems International. Implosion courted the calmest musings in me even as my world rolled off its axis.

Things can seem fine…better than fine…and then things can go to shit. Just. Like. That.

When our CFO commented on my white face, I had smiled weakly and passed it off as delayed relief. Thankfully Mark bought it, eager to continue basking in the ephemeral glow of surviving just long enough to see MLM finally turn the corner.

I smiled on cue, throwing out the obligatory joke or two of how I really,
really
knew we were going to make it all along, before spending the rest of my day alternating between numbness and a sick sense of anticipation.

Can this be happening? After all this time?

Alexander Monroe Draven II, my ex-boyfriend, love of my life, and object of my secret unwavering obsession, could
not
have bought out MLM. What were the chances?

When I went home I fired up my laptop and clicked on a folder named “AD.” An array of photos and PDFs filled the screen. I systematically cycled through each picture, studying every line of his face, noting the changes I hadn’t had the privilege of witnessing in person. My favorites were those of him alone, arms crossed and smile cool as it ever was. The worst were of Alexander accompanied by some young starlet, exotic fashion model, or aristocratic socialite.

He goes through them like paper.

What hurt the most, beyond the obvious of Alexander being with someone other than myself, was each beautiful woman looked nothing like me. Taller, willowy, with hair spun the way of fairytale gold, all of Alexander’s companions were the anti-Sophia Carter.

I couldn’t help but feel it was a purposeful statement.

Haven’t I done the same? Dated men who wouldn’t remind me of Alexander? Shorter, blond, and blue-eyed? Not as intellectual or as driven? Safe, easy to fuck, easier to forget. No hard feelings, light friendships even after things came to an evitable end.

The ultimate anti-Alexander.

I blinked away the ridiculous prickles assaulting my eyes. Fatigue pulled at me like a needy child. I doggedly kept clicking, ignoring my basic needs as I kept at my unhealthy fixation—one I hadn’t indulged to this degree for a while.

I haven’t gotten anything new. Maybe six or seven months? Wouldn’t hurt to bring everything up to date.

I hunched over the keyboard, knowing the thought would continue to drill at me until I rectified the situation. Bringing up an incognito browser window, I typed his name and waited for the illicit cornucopia to appear. Shame diseased me as link after link populated the screen. A quick glance showed several new images I’d yet to capture. Cheeks aflame, I blew out a sharp breath.

You can stop right now. Close it out and walk away.

I spun in my desk chair. I got up, paced throughout the house, mindlessly tidying up and trying to pretend I didn’t want to race back to the laptop. I went into the kitchen and poked around in the refrigerator. Water, fruit, leftover KFC. Nothing appealed.

Who was I kidding with this?

I slammed the door shut. I knew what I wanted, what I was going to do. Stalking back to the laptop, I yanked back the chair and threw my rigid body onto it.

Five minutes and you’re done, okay?

Mouth compressed into a nonexistent line, I powered through the images first. Click, right-click, save as, name, OK. The articles took a bit longer but soon I had a ridiculously long list of web pages added to my stash.

I eyed the PC clock, satisfied I overshot my prescribed time by only seven minutes. There had been too much new information to gather, too much guilt to manage. Each click brought an instinctual glance over the shoulder, afraid for the phantom audience to correctly judge me deviant. Now bloated with new file names, “AD” promised to provide hours of delicious torment.

I caught sight of my reflection in the window. I cringed at the thought of anyone seeing me like this—mascara smeared from rubbing my bleary eyes too many times, old lipstick clinging to the corners of my dry mouth, and hair knotted and tangled from nervous, tugging fingers.

Where was the clear-eyed, even-tempered, meticulous Controller of Accounting & Finance? Just when I dared to believe I’d moved on, wiped clean the dirty remnants of that time, it all came back. I should really have known better by now.

Dormant, but never dead, obsession had that way with me and always did when it came to Alexander Monroe Draven II.

When asked, most people can’t answer exactly when they fell in love for the first time. They remember the general time period, maybe a few snapshot memories to fill in the blanks, but not me.

I remembered everything.

Alexander Monroe Draven II had sat next to me in fourth grade. I had thought he was cute, smart, but not so friendly. He was very solemn and serious, hand always raised with the right answer. Whereas I had a pitiful number of outfits to wear, Alexander’s clothes were numerous, fashionable, and neatly pressed. My sack lunch held a sandwich and maybe a piece of fruit if I was lucky. His colorful lunchbox was always filled with the tastiest of snacks.