Rock Star Billionaire: A Standalone Novel (An Alpha Billionaire Romance Love Story)

by Claire Adams

  “No, just the bank. But I work insane hours, so it’s practically two jobs,” I laughed nervously. He was not amused.

  “I see,” he said and typed something on his computer.

  There were a few minutes of silence during which the moths in my stomach participated in an intense war. I was just about ready to throw up. This loan was my only bet— the only way I would be able to pay for my mom’s surgery without dropping out of college. The future of my entire life depended on whatever this Wilson guy was typing on his computer.

  When he finally looked up, my heart was pounding.

  “Here’s the thing, Aria,” he said without a single expression on his face. “You seem like a smart girl with a very promising future. However, between your college tuition and loans and your own living expenses, and just this job to sustain yourself – even if it is, as you put it,” he paused to make air-quotes, “‘practically two jobs,’ there is just no way you will be able to handle a loan for 60,000 dollars.”

  My heart fell, and I could feel my eyes start to prickle.

  “But I will be out of college in a little over a year.” My voice was shaky. “And I will have an excellent job, I assure you, and my situation will change completely.”

  “When that happens you can reapply for the loan.” He actually looked a little apologetic.

  “I need to pay for my mother’s heart surgery.” I don’t know why I said it. Studying to be a loan officer, I knew that there was nothing Wilson could do personally. His reasoning was completely sound.

  “I’m really sorry to hear that, and I wish the bank could help you out, but right now there is nothing we can do.”

  “I understand.” I did. That didn’t stop me from wanting to run into the bathroom and bawl my eyes out. “Thank you.”

  My face was swollen and covered in tears by the time I made it back to the teller’s booth.

  CHAPTER 4

  ZAYDEN

  She was crying. Crying women made me uncomfortable. My mother knew this so well that I didn’t remember the last time I saw her without tears in her eyes. At first it was about my dad’s death, so I used to try and make her feel better, but slowly it became directed towards my dad, in bitterness. At first I didn’t understand why she would speak of her dead husband as though he were some sort of a monster, but snide comments here and there about how I was handling my billions and it all started adding up. She couldn’t believe that he hadn’t left a single penny in her name, which made no sense to me at first either, but eventually the truth came out: she had been cheating on him for years. With his lawyer. Who also happened to be one of his best friends. He tolerated it while he was alive because he loved her or some nonsense of that sort, but apparently this “love” thing was not that big of a deal because he found a way to get back at her from the grave. It made me hate her for a little bit, which added to the endless crying, but she was still my mother and I found a way to tolerate her. I bought her a giant house in California, thousands of miles away from me.

  Why was Aria Roberts crying? I debated whether to go over to her and what the implications of that would be. There was no question about the fact that I wanted her body, but approaching her at an emotional time might suggest I wanted more. That I cared about how she was feeling. Well, maybe that’s exactly what she wanted; maybe believing exactly that would be what broke her restraint. I got a strange feeling in my gut that I didn’t understand. I was the master of manipulation. I messed with women’s emotions all the time. The hint of moral fiber had to be because she was crying.

  I shook my head and trotted over to the booth. She was the only person there. Her mascara had slightly run down her smooth, blushing olive cheeks, which made her look surprisingly sexy.

  She seemed to be so phased out that when she noticed I was standing in front of her, she jumped. Quickly wiping her face with her palms, she said in a squeaky voice, “Good morning, Mr. Sinclair!”

  “Liar,” I teased. “It doesn’t seem to be that good of a morning for you.”

  “Oh, yeah, I am sorry about this. I’ll cut it out before a customer walks in, I promise.”

  “Well, obviously, that’s what I came over here to say.” I was smiling. “It’s okay, Aria.”

  That made her burst into a whole new bout of tears. I guess it wasn’t okay, whatever it was. Completely unsure of what to do, I told her, “Take a paid hour off. Walk around if you need to, take a break.”

  “I can’t,” she said between sniffs. “Mrs. Brian won’t be here until noon and Kevin is sick. I’m the only teller on duty right now.”

  “That’s okay, just take some time. I’ll man the booth,” I heard myself say.

  She looked perplexed, but that made the crying slow down significantly. “What? You can do that?”

  “The thing about owning the company, Aria, is that I can do whatever I damn well please.”

  I must have come across strong because her expression turned into that of slight fear. I tentatively put a hand on her shoulder, expecting to feel her muscles relax; instead, I felt them tense.

  “It’s okay. Just go for a little bit. It’s not a request.”

  “Alright, alright,” she said, starting to sniff again. “I’ll just take a walk around the block and be back soon.” She pointed towards her face. “No more of this after that. I promise.”

  The minute she walked out, I felt myself get angry. What the fuck was I doing? Teller in my own bank? To get into a girl’s pants. She better be worth it when I finally made it in there. I was working way too hard for this otherwise.

  I even wanted to punch the young guy who had just materialized in front of me.

  “I need to deposit a check,” he said.

  I pointed towards the front exit. “There’s the ATM Machine. They take checks these days. And by these days, I mean the past ten years.”

  He looked terrified and strutted out. I was lucky I was the CEO of the company and never had to work customer service.

  ---

  When Aria returned a half-hour later, her make-up was freshly painted on, with no trace of the crying fiasco on her face.

  “Thank you so much and I am so sorry!” she exclaimed.

  She should be. It was the worst half hour of my goddamn life.

  “Don’t worry about it! But if you really feel that bad, you can make it up to me by telling me what’s bothering you.”

  I wasn’t sure I cared for the answer, but that seemed like the right thing to say.

  She scrunched her nose like she wasn’t sure it was a good idea but eventually said: “My request for a loan got turned down. My mother recently had heart surgery and without insurance she owes the hospital 60,000 dollars. She can’t apply for a loan herself because my family is still recovering from a bankruptcy.”

  Well that was easy enough. I could take care of that right away. I didn’t want to make it so easy though.

  “Who was the loan officer you spoke to?”

  “Wilson. I don’t know his full name.”

  “I will talk to him.” I chose my words very carefully, making sure not to make any promises I couldn’t keep. Or didn’t want to keep, more like.

  Her face visibly changed colors and her eyes widened. “You can do that?”

  “What did I say about owning the company?”

  She jumped and for a second it looked like she was going to hug me but changed her mind.

  “Oh my god, thank you so so much! You can get him to approve the loan!”

  “That’s not what I said.” I spoke slowly. “I said I would talk to him.”

  Her face fell. “Oh, of course – I am sorry I didn’t mean to-”

  “It’s okay. Try to cheer up. I’m sure we can work something out.”

  I walked back to my desk and called the loan office. “Wilson, please.”

  “Mr. Sinclair! To what do I owe the pleasure?” The guy sounded absolutely thrilled to be getting a call from the CEO of the company. This could be so very easy if I wanted it to
be. But a very different idea was forming in my head altogether. I would rather this be fun than easy.

  “Why did you turn down Aria Roberts’ loan request?”

  There was a short pause. “I’m sorry, sir, it’s classified-”

  “Do you like your job, Wilson?” I spat. “Do you enjoy having somewhere to go to every day and getting a nice fat paycheck at the end of the month?”

  “Yes, of course! I am sorry, sir. The situation was completely out of my hand. As you know, we run all loan requests through a software that processes applications and calculates risks. Aria Roberts’ risk was almost a 100 percent. She has no savings, spends all her money from the job paying for college and even though her credit is pretty good for her age, she simply does not have any assets or any kind of solid foundation. Not 60,000 worth anyway.”

  “I see.”

  “However,” he said a little too quickly, “ultimately I call the shots, and I can change the shots I called if you want.”

  Is that what I wanted? No. I wanted this to be fun. This was going to be too much fun. Aria Roberts had no idea how much fun we were going to have together.

  “What I need you to do is to send Aria an email letting her know you heard from me today, and that you explained to me why her loan could not go through. Make it very clear that I tried to get you to change your mind, but the system simply did not allow for it, so you were personally writing to apologize to her for the inconvenience. Copy me in the email.”

  “But, sir-“

  “You said you liked your job. Is that right?”

  “Of course. Would you like me to add anything to the email?”

  “That will be all for today. Thank you.”

  ---

  I finished drafting up the document and briefly considered running it by my lawyer, but decided against it, more for Aria’s sake than my own. If she was going to agree to this deal, I might as well have her feel comfortable about it. I looked at the bouquet of red roses that had been returned to my office that morning and grinned. One down, twenty-nine to go. After today it probably wouldn’t take twenty-nine days before I got to screw her. After printing the document, I removed a rose from the bunch and placed it over the pile of papers on my desk.

  I picked up the phone to call Aria. It was game time. I watched her answer the phone, looking somber.

  “South National Bank, how may I help you?”

  “Come into my office. Mrs. Brian seems to be doing quite well by herself over there.”

  “Did you get a chance to talk to Wil-”

  “Come into my office,” I repeated and hung up.

  The nervous look on her face as she tentatively walked towards my office worried me a bit. What if she didn’t take the deal? What else could she do, though? I had made it all but impossible for her to get a loan at this bank, and could repeat the process for every other bank within a thousand mile radius.

  She would have to take the deal.

  As she stepped into the office my eyes were fixated on her skirt. I could offer to give her 60,000 dollars upfront in exchange for letting me throw her against the glass window, lift that tight skirt of hers, pull down her panties and fuck her. But that would be no fun. When I finally felt the sweet warmth of her pussy, it would be because she asked, because she couldn’t resist me. Nobody was allowed to resist me when I decided I wanted them. That is what made Aria seem so fascinating, and making her decide all on her own that she was wrong to ever resist me was going to be the best part.

  “Sit down, Aria,” I ordered.

  When she did, the hem of her skirt lifted a few inches upwards, revealing her toned, smooth thighs. I felt myself tightening in my pants.

  “So did you talk to Wilson?” she asked again, looking ready to burst into another round of tears.

  “I did and it’s not good news. Well, it’s not the particular piece of good news you were hoping to receive.”

  The tears began to fall onto her cheeks. I would have to get her to stop doing that.

  “So I’m not getting the loan?”

  “You are just too young with too many responsibilities,” I said, trying to sound sympathetic. “I’m sorry.”

  The crying was in full swing now, her makeup all smeared. Should I wait a little to make my proposition? I decided against it. Knowing she felt helpless right now made it significantly more likely that she would accept.

  “Thank you for trying,” she said, starting to get up.

  “Wait! Did I say I was done?” I said more harshly than I had intended. “Sit back down.”

  “But you said that-”

  “The bank cannot give you a loan right now, but that does not mean you there aren’t other ways you can make that money.”

  Her eyes widened. “No!”

  “You haven’t even heard me out yet.”

  She was shaking her head vigorously. “I can’t sleep with you for money. That’s wrong. And illegal.” She looked horrified and softly added: “And I’m a virgin.”

  Oh fuck. I hadn’t considered that a possibility at all. A girl so attractive should have caught every guy’s attention, which meant she was a virgin by choice. Did I really want to go through with this? Regular girls could be troublesome to get rid of, but virgins were on a whole other level. But I wasn’t paying her to sleep with me. The document in front of me mentioned nothing about sexual favors – though I had assumed that would naturally be the outcome sooner or later, and that she would initiate it. This changed things. But those damn thighs and that damn skirt and most importantly, that goddamn restraint of hers.

  “That’s not what I was going to propose,” I said, making the decision to go forward with the plan. “But glad to know you hold me to such excellent standards.”

  That got a laugh out of her. “What? You’re really going to sit there and act surprised that that’s what I assumed after relentlessly hitting on me? Even the note on your bouquet said you were counting down the days until you supposedly convinced me to sleep with you.”

  “That is not inaccurate.” Why was she so bold? It was endearing and it pissed me off. “But hitting on you and paying you to get naked are two completely different things, I would say.”

  I leaned back in my chair with confidence.

  “Are they to you?” She looked genuinely surprised.

  “You’re really flattering me here with your allegations to my character.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to do that. But you do have quite the reputation.”

  “Huh.” I raised my eyebrows. “Tell me about this reputation that I have.”

  “Well, the three tellers that were let go last month, all of them had this thing in common, you see,” she winked. The girl actually had the nerve to wink at me. “Well they had two things in common actually. An apparently mind-blowing night with you, and the ability to tell tales about it.”

  “This is different, Aria.”

  “I’m sure they all thought so too,” she snapped.

  “I never made the proposition that I am going to make to you. Never had to, really. Trust me when I say that this really, truly is different.”

  “Yeah, cause you’re like in love with me because of the conversations I have with our customers regarding my future as your wife.” She was laughing hysterically now.

  She used the word love. That was a trigger.

  “Look, Aria, I don’t want to mislead you. I don’t do relationships or romance or any of that bullshit. This is honestly 100 percent about me wanting to take your clothes off and have my fucking way with you.”

  Her face erupted into flames and I could swear I saw her shiver as she started to speak. “I-”

  “No, let me finish,” I stopped her. “There is no question that I want your body and hope that you will willingly give that to me at some point. But I am not offering to buy your body. Even I am not that much of a scumbag, despite this reputation I seem to have accumulated around here. I don’t need to buy your body when there is plenty of ass that
I could get with the snap of my fingers.”

  “Then what are you offering?” She looked utterly confused.

  “I am offering to buy your time.”

  “What?” She looked like I had just said that I was flying out to Mars tomorrow.

  I moved the rose to the side and handed her a copy of the document I had drafted.

  “This is my offer: I will pay off your mother’s hospital bills in six installments, one for every month you spend dating me.”

  Her mouth was open. “What do you mean dating you?”

  “What the hell do you think it means? A guy and a girl dress up and go places together. Dinners, movies, parties, whatever they like. At the end of the night there is usually some kissing and usually something more.”

  She rolled her eyes. Damn. She was ballsy with her own boss. “Thanks for the pop-culture lesson, but I am aware of how dating works. I may have even experienced it in practice here and there.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at her acting feisty.

  “Then does that sound like something you’re interested in?” Things were starting to look positive on that front.

  “Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?”

  What? Fuck no. Why would there be a legal document in your hand if that was what I was asking? I thought she was smarter than that.

  “Not exactly,” I said with caution. My next words would make or break the deal. “I am asking you to go on dates with me whenever I ask and spend time with me on my schedule for the next six months. You know what I wish to accomplish in that time, but that is not a requirement in this deal. If at no point in those six months you feel like you want to sleep with me, then hey, I tried, and we part ways. If you do, then I get what I wanted. In either case you get what you need, which is money to pay for your mother’s surgery. It’s a win-win for you any way you look at it, but quite the risk for me because there is no guarantee that I will get what I want. A risk I am willing to take.”

  I also needed a date for upcoming events I had to attend to keep the businessman’s wives occupied while I tried to secure important deals. She didn’t need to know that. She looked at me and the document back and forth a few times, her mouth agape. She finally burst out laughing.