The Billionaire & The Barfly (Coming Home)

by Adrianne James

  Aubrey just shook her head and closed her bedroom door behind her. Plopping down on her bed, she buried her head in her pillow and screamed. Her voice was muffled by the fabric, and it’s a good thing too, after telling the two teenagers in the next room that screaming wasn’t the answer to anything.

  She wished she had Henry’s number. She wanted to talk to him. She needed someone to talk to about the terror that was currently still arguing with her brother in the next room. Had she jumped too soon when inviting them to live with her? Probably.

  Aubrey scrolled through the contacts on her phone. Not one of them did she feel like calling to talk to about this. Her parents would just pull the ‘I told you so’ card. Three of the others were random hook-ups that put their number into her phone that she never deleted, and then there were work numbers.

  Sadness crept into her heart. Henry was right. She didn’t let anyone in. She was lonely and it sucked. A lot. A tear fell from her eye, but instead of wiping it away and pretending it never happened, she let it roll down her cheek and drip onto her pillow. Proof that she did have feelings and that a crack was forming in her hardened shell that protected her from everyone else.

  ~*~

  Aubrey’s phone rang out loudly with the beep beep beep of her alarm. Sitting up, she wiped the sleep from her eyes, and then turned it off. She didn’t remember going to sleep, and when she looked down and saw the same clothes from the day before, she knew she had fallen asleep while contemplating her own loneliness. She huffed to herself. Pitiful.

  She wondered how she would get in touch with Henry. Although, if things kept going the way they had been, he would find her first. A smile played at her lips as she thought about how he kept finding ways to run into her.

  Aubrey showered and dressed for the day and headed out of the apartment a full twenty minutes before normal hoping to get coffee and see Henry in the process without being late to work. She left the comic book wrapped safely in the plastic and tissue paper nestled inside of the box that Carl had placed it in with such tender care. She had to stifle a giggle at the idea of the comic book being treated like a glass vase.

  Aubrey had already made it halfway down the apartment hallway when she heard a door open behind her. She quickly looked over her shoulder to see her brother running toward her in his pajama pants. He still hadn’t put a shirt on, and his hair was a disaster. She stopped walking and turned toward him, waiting not so patiently. She didn’t want to miss her chance at seeing Henry.

  “Hey, sorry, but could you pick up some milk on your way home? Mackenna has been craving cold cereal at all hours, and she finished it off last night. She is going to be seriously cranky today without it.”

  “Not that I mind, but why can’t you get it on your way home from school, which if you forgot starts in an hour.”

  “I actually got a call a minute ago for a job interview. I don’t even remember applying, but hey, maybe it was one of those online job search things I put my information on.”

  Elation flooded through her. She was so proud of him. He was really trying to do the right thing and had grown up in a way that she was just figuring out. “Ben, that’s great! Where is it?”

  “This coffee cart thing in one of the big buildings. I have the address, but can’t remember now. I know it’s just making coffee but—”

  “No buts! It’s a first job, and it’s better than nothing! They know about school and will work around it?”

  “Yeah, the lady said that they like hiring high school students to help teach them work ethic before the ‘real world’. I wanted to laugh and say ‘Lady, this is real world for me’ but I didn’t. Figured just thanking her was better.”

  Aubrey laughed and nodded her head in agreement. “Absolutely better. I’ll get the milk on my way home, but I might not get here till after dinner. I’m presenting a huge idea today to Mike, and I might have to stay late if he wants me to help implement it.”

  “Okay, I will tell Mackenna. If she has an issue, she can take the bus to the store and get it herself.”

  Aubrey just closed her lips into a tight smile and nodded at him. She wouldn’t open it and say anything about Mackenna. She wanted to. There were so many things springing to mind in that moment, but none would actually help. What was the saying her mother used to say all the time, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

  “Okay, I need to get ready for school, and you need to get to work. Good luck with the big idea thing. Keep your fingers crossed for me.”

  Aubrey made a big show of crossing her fingers for him. He laughed and ran back to the apartment. Shaking her head she turned and went down the stairs. A smile lit her face as she opened the walking gate that kept her apartment complex nestled away from the busy street. Leaning up against a black town car was Henry with two coffees in his hand and a smile on his perfect face.

  “Hey,” she said, a little softer than she had intended. Recognizing the flutters in her stomach as more than physical longing had made her lose her confidence. She was a bit shy and nervous around him. She took a deep breath and stepped forward.

  “Hey,” he said back and stepped toward her. Standing on the sidewalk, they stared at one another. Neither was quite sure what to say. Aubrey didn’t know how to talk to him now that she actually had real emotional feelings for him, and from the looks of it, he was waiting to take her lead. “Is that for me?” she asked, pointing at one of the cups of coffee in his hand. He laughed and stepped closer, handing her the hot cup.

  “Sorry, yes, it’s for you. Can I walk you to work?” Henry had a hopeful look in his eye but his normally cool and calm demeanor was fidgeting. Could she make him as nervous as she felt?

  “I would like that.” She smiled at him, and the two walked side by side in a quiet, comfortable silence all the way to her building.

  Chapter Thirteen

  As her building loomed into view, she knew her time was coming to a close with Henry. They hadn’t said a thing since he handed her the coffee, which he somehow got perfect without ever asking her what she drank, and that was okay. She didn’t need words to feel close to him, but all of a sudden, it felt like wasted time.

  “There’s my building,” she said pointing at the almost skyscraper just a few building in front of them.

  “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  “I was thinking last night about how I don’t have your number.”

  “Did you want to call me?” he asked with a cocky grin.

  “No!” She said out of habit. She shook her head, irritated with herself for constantly pushing him away, even when she knew she wanted him closer. “I mean, yes. I wanted to talk to someone about my horrible argument with my brother’s girlfriend, and then realized that the only people in my phone either were work related or people who just wouldn’t care. I knew you would.”

  “Tell you what, give me your phone number and I will text you later today. And you can tell me all about your brother’s girlfriend.”

  She smiled at him while rattling off her number. He cared. Her heart swelled while a nervous and terrifying energy flowed through her with the thought. She knew he would care, and suddenly, the fact that Mackenna was the wicked witch didn’t bother her so much. She knew Jenna would be waiting to complain about something upstairs, but that didn’t bother her much either. What mattered stood in front of her. And he looked at her as if she had hung the moon.

  Aubrey leaned forward and kissed Henry on the cheek, simple and chaste. But the heat she felt through her lips, and when his hands gripped her waist, made her want so much more than chaste.

  Henry pulled her body flush against his and wrapped his arms around her, cocooning her in his warmth. His hug was better than any other… and for a hug, that said a lot. She tucked her head into the crook of his neck and breathed him in. All too quickly, he let her go and stepped over to the curb where his town car was waiting.

  She gave him a little wave and opened the large glass door. After steppi
ng inside, she fought the urge to turn around and look at Henry one more time. She made it five steps before she lost the battle. She whipped around just in time to be rewarded with a killer smile and a little wave before he disappeared into the car.

  ~*~

  “Mike, don’t you see? The best way to market the old games is to make them new!” Aubrey said with exasperation. She had been pacing his office for ten minutes going over every bit of research and dead end ideas she had come up with in the search for the perfect plan. So far, he wasn’t as excited as she was.

  “That wasn’t what I asked you. I said we needed to market the old games, not make new ones. Aubrey, can you please just focus on the job I gave you?” Mike was sitting at his paper covered desk with a waste basket full of coffee cups and another full one on his desk. He looked tired, and his hair seemed to have a touch more grey than what she remembered.

  “I know. You asked for a way to market the titles in the envelope. You wanted an idea to make the companies resign with Viola. This is it. We keep everything about the games the same. We just need to make them playable on the new platforms. We can call it a retro line and offer it to all the clients, eventually. How many parents out there used to play these games but don’t have a system anymore? They have the newest system for their kids. These games will give them the chance to play the game they loved on the system they already have.”

  “And what about the majority of the market? Why would they want to play these games?”

  Aubrey pointed to the stack of papers she brought in. They were print outs of the forums where the kids were saying how great the story lines sounded. “Look, they are interested. As for the graphics, if we market it as retro and get some musician or hot actor to play it since a lot of them remember these games, then the kids will follow.”

  “Huh,” Mike said as he looked over the papers in front of him. Aubrey could see the wheels turning in his head and started to get excited. “How much would it cost to make one game playable on all platforms?”

  “I am still putting numbers together for that, but it will be less than half the cost of a new game because the story line and graphics are already done. It’s just in the coding to make it playable, then the marketing campaign, which I have ideas for as well.”

  Mike and Aubrey spent the next four hours huddled away in his office going over the entire plan. By the time their stomachs began to grumble, Aubrey was pretty sure that Mike was going to green light her project. She was proud of herself. All that was left was to pitch it to the company on the first of the month. That meant they had three weeks to perfect everything.

  The two left the office with smiles on their faces. Mike kept his as he headed for the elevator in search of food to sop up the copious amounts of caffeine in his stomach, but Aubrey lost hers the moment she saw Jenna leaning against the wall with a sour expression on her face.

  “You two seem mighty cozy in there. Give up on the billionaire and decide to make your way to the top one boss at a time here at Viola instead?”

  “What the hell is your problem? We were working. The walls are glass, for crying out loud.”

  “You didn’t deny it.”

  Aubrey couldn’t believe the audacity of her. Her mouth dropped open and quickly shut.

  “What was it, Jenna? Was it how I always made sure you were on time for every meeting? Was it how you had your entire week scheduled perfectly, or how I kept your notes and ideas from going into the realm of insanity? Or was it how all the time I was your assistant that I never once let you down? Which of these horrible things made you decide I was your enemy?”

  “Like you don’t know. I thought you were the perfect assistant for so long. But all you were after was a promotion. Apparently, you got tired of waiting and had to make me look bad. You had to throw your ideas out there when that isn’t your job, and you had to kill any chance I had of making this company a ton of money just so that stupid woman would tell Mike that she didn’t want me to handle her company business, but you.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Aubrey honestly didn’t have a single clue what was going on. What woman? She never tried to make Jenna look bad. She managed to do that on her own. Aubrey was always the one smoothing things over so that she didn’t look bad.

  “Oh, like you don’t know. The contracts came through last week, and Leslie Hunter specifically asked that you run lead.”

  Aubrey was dumbstruck. Why hadn’t she been told? She never intended to take anything away from Jenna. She was trying to help her and smooth things over like she always did. She handled Leslie no different from any other client. But maybe that was the problem. Leslie was different. They had a heart and money weren’t their sole interest.

  “I didn’t know,” Aubrey said as Jenna stormed off. She didn’t even give her a chance to explain. She was intent on believing that Aubrey was a she-devil out to steal her job. For the first time, Aubrey believed that she was good enough for Jenna’s job. But she didn’t want it. She liked being in market research. She excelled at creative ideas. Schmoozing people wasn’t her thing. She could do it, but she wanted to be more than the pretty face who entertained company. She wanted to be the one coming up with the numbers. She wanted to be the one coming up with the campaigns. Jenna could keep the fancy dinners and business meetings all over the country. She wanted her little apartment, a little office, and enough time at home to really be with Henry.

  Her cell phone alerted her to a text. Knowing it was Henry before she even pulled the phone out, she smiled.

  Hey beautiful. Save my number and you can call me whenever you want.

  She read the text a handful of times before responding. He called her beautiful. Not sexy or gorgeous or anything else. Beautiful. She hadn’t been called beautiful in a very long time. There was something special about that word that no other physical description held. It made her feel special. It made her truly feel beautiful.

  Saved. I think I just might have to do that.

  She saved his number into her phone and thought about calling him right then and there but decided that it might seem a little desperate. The phone pinged in her hand.

  You want to call me now, don’t you?

  Her mouth dropped. How did he know? She looked around quickly wondering if he came into the building to surprise her, but he was nowhere in sight.

  I was thinking about it. How did you know?

  She waited for his response. And waited. And waited. But it never came. She sighed and headed to the little cafe the building put in a few years prior to grab an apple or a banana and a bottle of water. She was going to work through her lunch, but she needed something to tide her over until dinner.

  Aubrey sat at her table in the abandoned office just as she had the day before. She poured over numbers and graphics and looked through the list of celebrities that the company had contracts with. After an hour, her eyes were beginning to cross. The information she needed was right there in front of her, but putting it all together was harder than she thought. Every other time she gave her ideas over, she just handed the data she had found on their database over to the person leading the team. This time, there was no team and she was the lead.

  She had a new respect for Donna and Jamison downstairs.

  Leaning back and closing her eyes, she reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose before rubbing her eyes. When her phone rang out in the silent room, it startled her, causing her finger that was soothing the sore muscles around her eyes to slip and poke right into one.

  “Damn it!” she yelled before answering the phone. “Hello?”

  “Aubrey? Did I catch you at a bad time? I can call back.” Henry’s voice flowed into her ear causing her to smile despite the burning sensation in her cornea.

  “No, not a bad time. Just hurt myself. I’ll be fine. Promise. No need to call back.”

  “Not another coffee incident, is it?” She laughed and said no, telling him what she had done. “Then it’s my fault, and I have
to make it up to you. How about dinner tonight? I can pick you up from your office.”

  That sounded wonderful but having the CEO of the rival company walking into her building might not go over so well. “How about you meet me outside? I just—”

  “No need to explain. I get it. I will be waiting outside for you. I hope you don’t have plans tonight. We aren’t eating in the city.”

  “We aren’t?” she asked in a little whisper. Excitement raced through her. Where was he taking her? Was it a surprise? What if it were horrible? She could fake it, of course. She stifled a giggle. She was good at that even if she rarely did it. If the guy sucked, she refused to make him feel like he didn’t. But she cared if she hurt Henry’s feelings, and she knew that at least she wouldn’t have to fake it in bed.

  “Nope. Got this huge thing coming up and the tabloids are everywhere. I figured we would escape the madness. Just you and me instead of you, me, and a dozen flashing cameras.”

  “That sounds like a good plan then. I never thought in a million years that would be a dating problem,” she laughed. Only, he didn’t laugh back.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Henry, there is nothing to be sorry about. We will go and eat wherever you are comfortable. It’s okay. Really.”

  “Does six work for you?” he asked. His tone still hadn’t gone back to the cheerful one that they started the conversation with, but at least he wasn’t apologizing for things out of his control.

  “Six is perfect.”

  They hung up, and Aubrey got back to work.

  ~*~

  The minutes ticked by agonizingly slow. Aubrey felt like she could have gone from one end of the city to the other in the amount of time it took the clock hands to turn from five twenty-five to five twenty-six.

  A knock at the door made her jump. Looking up from her piles and piles of papers sitting before her, Bridgette stood in the doorway of the empty office with two coffees in her hands and a smile on her face.