Billionaire's Game

by Summer Cooper

  “Ok. I’m listening.”

  “Well, Dean wasn’t sure what to do. He was really in a bind. If he didn’t marry her then she was going to make him pay out the ass for child support for years to come. Based on his earnings and some extra doctoring from the judge with the court documents, the man was looking at paying a king’s ransom for a kid with a woman that he barely knew.”

  “Wow. So what happened?”

  “That’s where it gets weird. Dean decides to marry the girl and a few weeks before the wedding the girl is driving home from work when she loses control of the car and rolls it over a big hill. She was found dead at the scene.”

  “Wow, that’s awful. Did he ever recover from it?”

  Alex laughed. “You don’t understand. The girl meant less than nothing to him. He had been forced into marrying a woman he hated and suddenly in a flash all of his problems are solved.”

  “No, way. You aren’t suggesting that he actually did something to make her crash so he wouldn’t have to marry her.”

  “That is what the cards are showing.”

  “Did the cops ever look suspiciously at him?” Jess asked.

  “No, of course not. It was a pretty clean, textbook case.”

  “So, you have no way of knowing he did that.”

  Alex smiled. It looked wicked in the moonlight.

  “Did you know that Dean’s dad was a mechanic?”

  Jess shook her head no.

  “Did you know that Dean worked there part time until he was in high school? The man knows how to mess with an automobile. His dad used to do it all the time. You know, a customer comes in who knows dick about cars and needs a repair. He cuts them a deal and fixes it, but then he tampers with something else that is a lot more expensive so they have to come right back for that.”

  “That’s messed up. You really think he did that?”

  “I don’t have any irrefutable proof and neither did the cops, but there are far too many coincidences there to ignore for my comfort.”

  Jess thought a moment about what Alex had said. Was that what they were talking about before? Was it possible? Could Dean actually have gotten away with murder? Maybe more than once? If it was true then who was to say that he wouldn’t do it again if the opportunity presented itself to him?

  But it all could be a coincidence. There was no proof and why would she believe Alex about any of this? He saw Dean as competition where she was concerned and he wasn’t past saying anything to tarnish Dean’s good name to put him in better graces with her.

  “So, where is Chelsea?”

  “Oh, God. I had to get away from that girl. She has a body that will melt your mind, but she has a brain that will fill it with air.”

  Jess laughed.

  “So, your weekend is a bust?” Jess asked.

  “Well, not totally. I still get to spend time with you.”

  “Yeah, but I’m here with Dean.”

  “Well, actually you are here…with me,” Alex replied.

  Jess smiled. She was now aware that Alex had closed the gap and he was invading her personal space. What was weirder is that she seemed to have no problem letting him. She did not know what it was about this man that had such a huge allure over her, but she wanted to touch him, almost like a driving need. It was weird because between him and Dean she was being pulled equally hard in two directions. She knew that she had to pick one of these guys. She understood now as Alex pressed his mouth against hers and began to pull her close to him—as she wrapped her arms around his thick neck and enjoyed his lips massaging hers—that she needed to make a decision. She could not have it both ways here. This feud of theirs was getting out of hand and she was the cause of it. They were best friends and business partners who had built a hugely thriving business that was in jeopardy of being dismantled with some stupid jealousy and lies.

  As she enjoyed Alex’s lips on hers she realized that she had made a decision. She was going to tell them both who she was going to pick on Monday. It had to end.

  It had to end.

  Chapter Eight

  “You’ve probably wondered why I’ve called this meeting with you both this morning,” Jess said.

  Alex and Dean sat across from her in the large conference room. With just the three of them sitting at the table the room looked awkwardly humongous and out of place. Jess found it very distracting, but she tried to remain focused. This had to be done.

  “Sure,” Alex said.

  Dean remained silent, but the look on his face told Jess that he knew what this was about.

  “I really like both of you guys and I know that I’ve made things difficult by dating you both.”

  “Difficult isn’t the word I would use,” Dean said.

  “What word would you use?” Alex asked.

  “Exciting.”

  “Exciting?” Jess asked. What was he, high?

  “What are you, high?” Alex asked.

  Dean smiled at him.

  “Well, anyway I have asked you both here because I have made a decision.”

  “Drum roll, please,” Alex said.

  “I have decided to choose…Alex.”

  Dean didn’t move. He didn’t speak for several seconds. Neither did Alex. It was as if they both expected that she would either choose the other one or that she would never really choose at all. Jess wasn’t sure if she should say anything else or wait for one of them to speak, but the silence was awkward and deafening.

  Alex cleared his throat before he finally spoke. “I have to admit that I feel a bit odd waiting on a woman to say she chooses me, but I have to say that I am flattered as well,” Alex said.

  Jess wasn’t sure if she should be offended or if she should just be relieved that it was all over. The back and forth of everything was just turning out to be too much for her to take and she had found it was even starting to affect her work. She’d had to pull several all-nighters as of late and forgone sleep entirely on those nights just to maintain where she needed to be with her work. But she found this made her a bit dopey in court and that was not fair for her clients.

  Dean snorted just then as if he was mock laughing at the whole thing. He was obviously pissed and Jess was a bit put off by his somewhat immature handling of the situation. Dean was a man who was not used to not getting his way and not getting what he wanted. Jess had the feeling that he had not heard the word no very often in life, especially when it came to women. It was reinforcing for her that she had made the right decision.

  “This is somewhat humiliating, but I’ll have to accept it. Not to mention how tacky it is that you called a meeting to discuss this. You could have sent a simple text or email,” Dean began to stand up to leave the room.

  “Dean, don’t be a sore loser,” Alex rubbed it in. Jess thought for a moment that Dean was going to turn and slug Alex, knocking him off the chair.

  Dean smiled and flipped him the bird as he slammed the door.

  “Well, he took that really well,” Alex said as he stood up and walked to the other side of the table. He kissed Jess sweetly on the lips. She felt like she was about two inches big right then. She hated hurting Dean’s feelings. She knew that he would never admit to having feelings, let alone feelings that could actually be hurt, but she could see in his eyes that his heart had been broken just then.

  Was he actually in love with her? Was Alex? She felt that it was far too soon to feel that way about either man, but part of that had been because she had closed off her heart to the idea of it. She had decided for herself that she would not allow her feelings to become a factor and that was why she had allowed her stupid little game to go on for as long as it had. She had really been playing herself the whole time.

  Now was different. She had decided that she was not going to let her heart become a piece of stone anymore. She was tired of planning out every little detail of her life. There was no passion to anything when you did that. It was like everything became emotionless and void of any sort of joy. She could not liv
e like that anymore.

  “He will be ok. He’s a big boy,” Alex said.

  “I know, but you have to wonder what he is going to do now,” Jess said.

  “I’m not so sure he will do anything other than get raging drunk and boink about twenty college girls from that Crow Bar place, where they all hang out. “

  “Really? He goes there? He doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb?”

  “Apparently not. I guess he still has the cool factor left over from his law school days. He used to go there all the time, but then he chilled a bit with it. Now he may start back again. Or he might find some other place entirely.”

  “Well, good luck to him.”

  Alex pulled her close in his arms. He felt strong and warmly inviting wrapped around her.

  “So, why did you pick me?” Alex asked.

  “I’m not exactly sure, but it just felt right. Sometimes you have to follow your heart.”

  Jess was feeling pretty good when she drove up to her house. The day of work had flown by and it had ended up being a pretty productive day in court. She was actually starting to think that she might get Dr. Jones' sentence reduced from fifteen years to five by having him take a full psych evaluation that would declare him to be a pervert essentially and that he was incapable of helping himself. He had a problem and a need that screamed out for him to satisfy it. He was a sex addict. She was pretty sure that at least one of those things was true and it was going to become apparent in court. The man had issues; there was no doubt about it.

  Jess was looking forward to just relaxing and enjoying a nice evening of quiet television and a few glasses of wine. She and Alex had made plans to go out the following night. He was going to take her to some new fancy restaurant he had heard about that was supposed to be all the rage. Jess was never up on any of these types of things. She just didn’t pay attention to where all of the cool kids hung out these days. But Alex seemed really excited about it. After dinner he was taking her to the opera, which she had never really been to before. It sounded boring and weird, but she was willing to give it a shot.

  She walked into her quiet, dark house, instantly poured herself some wine and sat down on the couch without even bothering to remove her work clothes. Somewhere between leaving her office and the twenty minute drive home the exhaustion had set in.

  Even though the day had been good the overall week had been brutally stressful. She sipped her wine slowly, enjoying the flavors swirling around in her mouth and then swallowed it. She felt like she needed a vacation - a real vacation without any drama or anybody. In fact, thinking of it right then she decided that the perfect vacation for her would be to coop herself up inside her house for a month and never step foot outside. If she didn’t have to see or talk to anybody for a while that would be just fine with her.

  That included Alex, even though she really liked him. It was just one of those times that she just wanted to be alone. It would pass. She knew herself too well. If she were away from people and away from her job for more than a few days she would be tearing her hair out by the roots.

  She was in the middle of her third episode of Breaking Bad when the email came in to her phone. She thought about ignoring it because something really intense was about to happen with the show. She had never watched that show when it had aired originally but she had heard so much hype about it on Facebook and at work that she decided she just had to check it out.

  Her phone buzzed again as she continued to ignore it. She was tired of people having so much access to her and she was tired of feeling chained to the world by a piece of electronics. She had wanted to throw her iPhone against the wall so many times. Jess had actually stopped herself a few times while in the middle of the act. The anger issues were something that she was working on. She wondered how Alex might react to the first time she lost her shit and weirded out on him. Well, if he really loved her he would find it endearing and give her a sweet kiss to let her know that everything was ok. She smiled at the thought.

  Her phone buzzed again. It seemed that she was popular all of a sudden and she was already wishing she could take back every wish she had ever made to any magic genie she had ever seen.

  Jess grabbed her phone after putting Breaking Bad on hold. She finished off her glass of wine, enjoying the buzz begin to kick in and checked her email on her phone. She noticed she had three messages from the same sender, but she didn’t recognize the name. At first she just imagined it was some scammer looking to trick her into giving out her credit card number or trying to hack her email. Or it could be a virus or some other piece of malware that was trying to accomplish all of the same things.

  She figured it was probably nothing and opened it up anyway. It was a message that said “Stay away from him, Bitch!”

  Jess felt her heart skip a beat as she leapt up off of her couch. She suddenly felt very much alone and very much afraid. Jess was not the type of girl who felt fear that often. She was always in control and she had a firm idea of who she wanted to be in the world and nothing would ever stand in the way of that. She had decided that a long time ago.

  But she was very afraid now.

  She had dropped her phone on the floor when she leapt up, almost knocking over the bottle of wine that had about one glass left in it.

  She began racking her brain for possible subjects of whom could have sent this email to her. Who had access to her email address? Who knew about her and Alex? Was it Dean? She figured that he might not take this type of humiliation lying down; she didn’t share Alex’s cavalier attitude about the whole thing. She was a bit more cautious and now it was turning out that she had been right. Dean was going to demand that they not be together.

  It had to be him, right? Unless… it might have been that woman from the bar that night when she had first gone out with Alex. Who’s to say she was going to give up so easily? Or it might have even been any number of scorned lovers that Alex Mathers was hiding in his past. What had she gotten herself into?

  She poured the last bit of wine and drank it down swiftly. She picked up her phone and dialed Alex. It rang several times before going to his voice mail. She dialed him again and the voicemail picked up again.

  Damn! Where was he? She was starting to feel like the type of woman she had always swore she wouldn’t be. She wasn’t about to start defining herself by a man and she wasn’t going to get clingy or weird and demand to know where he was every second. That was not going to happen. She was going to remain the strong and independent woman she had always been.

  But right now she really wished she could hear his voice. She needed to talk to him about this. She was not a nervous person, but she had a strong feeling that all of this was going to end up going south in some way.

  Her breathing was coming in short gasps as the tears streamed down her face.

  Was this message only the beginning? She was going to be damned if she gave in and left Alex alone. The more she thought about their relationship, and she had been thinking about it often, the more she realized how much she was actually falling for Alex. She saw the way he looked at her and knew that the feeling was well reciprocated and every time she looked into his eyes she felt like she was on top of the world. There was no way in hell she was going to be intimidated by a faceless voice.

  But she needed to talk to Alex.

  They needed to find out what they were dealing with.

  Before things got worse.

  End of Part 2

  Chapter Nine

  Jessica Bilson felt her sides begin to split in two pieces. Her body was trying to force her to double over in pain, while her lungs gasped for just one ounce of sweet air, but she was denied this luxury. Her head began to spin and she truly felt dizzy on a scale that she had never known before. Her head pounded down the back of her skull, rocking from the base of her neck to the very top of her cranium, pinging out like laser beams to her temples. She felt nausea rocking through her stomach, turning to sharp pains as it reached her chest and dissipated
to a dull ache in her jaw.

  Still she would not let up.

  Her feet pounded the pavement harder as she pushed her legs further. The morning sunrise was just coming up over the horizon and she was trying to fixate on that to take her mind away from the sheer misery that she was putting her body through. This was the third day of her new fitness regime that she had committed to and she hated every single second of it, still, but she had to admit that she was starting to find parts of it exhilarating—addictive even. It was a weird thing to explain. How had she become addicted to something she loathed?

  Maybe it was the way she felt afterwards. It was like her body finally felt truly awake. She had found her mind was sharper and her energy levels were through the roof. She slept better and she found her body craving healthier foods. The sight and smell of greasy and disgusting fake foods were no longer nearly as appetizing as they had been. She found herself craving the crunch of leafy greens and the natural sweetness of fresh fruit over the refined carbohydrates that had been her staple diet for so many years.

  She knew that the workouts would get easier, even though right now she was so sore she could hardly stand it. While her energy levels were great, her muscle aches were still nonstop. They were rebelling against her and the newfound work out she was putting them through.

  The idea to start working out had come after she had seen that message warning her to stay away from Alex. Jess wasn’t sure why that was the catalyst for her newfound health obsession, but she had been all consumed with getting fit and healthy. She didn’t give a damn about being thin or having a rocking body—her body was already pretty damn sexy, she felt—but she did want to get stronger and feel better.

  It was mostly due to the stress she had been under both at work and in her personal life. She had never had a problem handling the stress load at work. That was something she loved and craved even. She had always been a workaholic and she was damn proud of it, but her personal life had always been a non-issue because she didn’t really have one. Now with the past few weeks of juggling two budding relationships it had become rather difficult to deal with.