“Your wine,” the woman said as she came back to her and placed two glasses in front of us.
“Thank you,” Fiona and I said in unison.
“Are you ready to order or would you like a little longer?”
I glanced at Fiona, and she nodded. “We’re ready to order,” I said and motioned for Fiona to go first. The girl took our order quickly and left us. I stared out the window, watching as the cars passed.
Okay, so I hadn’t really needed pictures of us, but it was going to make the relationship look more real, right? So it was a good idea.
“This place looks nice,” she said, snapping me back to the real world.
“Hmm, I’ve heard good things about it.”
“I’m surprised it’s so empty.” She looked around. Of course, not a single person had come in since we’d arrived. I pay damn good money for this, I thought, but I didn’t say anything to her. She stared at me. I could feel her eyes on me, and finally, I turned to look at her.
“See something you like?”
Her cheeks flushed. “No, I mean …” She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. “ I was just wondering if you’re okay.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well … with what happened earlier.”
“Oh.”
She was going to try to get me to talk about Kurt. That wasn’t something I planned on doing, especially in public. I wasn’t sure I could control myself well enough for that, and I had no interest in finding out, so I just shrugged. “I’ll be fine.”
“So you’re not.”
Again, I shrugged. It wasn’t a big deal. “It’s all in the past.” It hadn’t even been seeing him that had been so hard. It had been seeing that kid. Knowing that it wasn’t Sam. Knowing that … I mentally shook myself.
“It doesn’t seem like it is in the past. It seems like … whatever happened really shook you up.”
I swallowed, looking away from her. I didn’t want to admit just how much it had shaken me up. It was … stupid to get so shaken up by that. It’s in the past.
That was what I’d been telling myself for years, and for some reason, it wasn’t making me feel better. It just made me feel worse knowing I couldn’t get over it.
“Have you heard from Josh recently?”
“Nope.”
I wasn’t going to tell her just how long it had been since I saw him. After all, she didn’t need to know I’d lied to her about a couple things. I know, lies aren’t a good way to start a relationship of any kind, but whatever. If it worked, then it worked, and that was what mattered.
60. Chapter Thirteen
Lunch was far better than the dinner that we’d had last night. Though maybe that was because I actually got what I ordered. As we headed for the door, I grinned. He pulled the door open for me, and I nodded my thanks as we fell into pace with each other and headed for the car. I didn’t say anything as he unlocked the door and I slid into the passenger side. I watched as he circled around and slipped into the driver’s seat, unable to stop thinking about what he had said back while we were waiting for our food. He said it was in the past, but the way he was acting didn’t seem like it. When I’d tried to change the topic to Josh, he didn’t seem very interested in talking about him either, and he looked away from me when he’d answered.
“Adam, you know if there was something Kurt did to you …”
“Really, you’re going to try to talk about this again?”
“Yes, it’s obviously been nagging at you. Why don’t you just tell people what he did? Whatever it was. You mom wants to know.”
“She didn’t. She doesn’t care what he did. None of them did.”
“I do.”
Adam turned to me, his eyes locked on mine as he took a deep breath. “You clearly don’t realize how crappy my family is. They don’t care about outsiders. They care about keeping their family looking good. They care about how they look, and if they do something that could make them look bad, they will deal with it, either with money or threats.”
My heart did a double backflip. What the hell was he talking about? Kathrine didn’t seem like that kind of woman. Was there any way he was actually right about her? Was there any way that she was the kind of person that Adam had just described.
“It doesn’t matter what they do to the people around them, as long as they come out of it okay.”
He said ‘we’ before. He hadn’t said Kurt had done anything to him. He said it was someone else. Hadn’t he?
I bit my lip. It was a risk to say anything after what he had just said. But I had to take a risk, didn’t I?
“What did Kurt do to her?”
Adam’s eyes went wide. He stared at me, his face going pale. I watched him swallow dryly as he took a deep breath and turned away from me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered. It was clearly a lie.
I shrugged. I wasn’t going to fight with him about it. I wasn’t going to make him tell me anything if he didn’t want to. That wouldn’t be good for us. If I still had to pretend to be his girlfriend, then we needed to keep on reasonable terms, right?
Without a word to me, Adam gunned the engine and pulled out onto the street. He drove me to my house without a word. As he parked in front of my apartment, he looked at me. I forced myself to look back, my eyes locking on his gorgeous blue eyes. My heart skipped a beat as a smile spread over his lips, revealing a pair of perfect white teeth.
“We still have to get a couple pictures,” he said.
I swallowed dryly. I wasn’t sure what it was about the way he said it … but something made me nervous. I nodded, not trusting my voice as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and then closed the distance between us. Of course, for a selfie together we’d have to be nice and close. Plus, we were acting like a couple, so it would probably be a good idea to pretend that we liked being close to each other.
His lips crashed against mine.
My heart skipped a beat as I felt his warm, soft lips, and then my pulse raced as I sucked in a deep breath. One hand tangled in my hair as if he was scared I would pull away.
I had no intention of that. My eyes closed, savoring every moment of it.
A soft moan passed through my lips as our kiss deepened, and my heart raced faster.
I heard the click of the camera. Right. Of course, it had all been an act.
His lips didn’t move away from mine. Our kiss became more passionate, his teeth grazing my lower lip softly.
His other hand traced over the curves of my body, staying a respectable distance from anywhere too mature.
My eyes opened, and our eyes locked again as mine sparkled.
It was safe to say I had never been kissed like this, and I didn’t want it to end.
As if reading my mind and trying to torture me, he pulled away from me, clearing his throat.
I ran my hand through my hair, trying to pretend I wasn’t half as flustered as I was. “Did it turn out?”
“It should be fine.” He nodded glancing down at the phone. I caught sight of it. My heart leapt as I looked at it. Oh, I liked that too much.
Get a hold of yourself! Why was I acting so … I couldn’t even find the right word for how I was acting. That’s the issue, I’m not acting. This was all a show, right? It was all just us acting like we were in a relationship. For a split second, while I’d kissed him, I hadn’t been acting. Well, don’t get too caught up in that. It would only end with me getting hurt.
“You know … my family wants us to go camping next weekend after you and the girls go get your nails done.”
“Yea, I’ll have to check my schedule to see if that even works,” I said quickly. He bit his lip as he stared at me.
“If you don’t want to … I get it. I mean, we could just break up. It’s just … They all like you so much, I don’t want to take that away from them.”
I got it. I could see where he was coming from. I didn’t want to take it away from them either.
“
If we keep this up, it’s just going to make it harder on them when we do pretend to break up and go our separate ways. Don’t get me wrong, I think your family is awesome … but if they get too attached to me, then it’s going to be even harder on them when everything … stops. I don’t want to hurt them.”
“We’ll have to make them hate you in some way.”
Great. I didn’t want them to hate me, but it would probably be a good idea. At least then they would understand why we broke up.
“Just have me cheat or something.” I shrugged unbuckling myself.
Adam’s arm wrapped around me and pulled me close. My heart did a backflip, wishing he would kiss me again. He didn’t, and I hated the fact that I was disappointed by it. He lifted the phone to us, and I plastered a fake smile over my lips as he took the picture.
“I have to say, we look damn good together.”
“Well, that’s important,” I muttered.
“Trust me, for my family it is.”
My brow furrowed. “You make it sound like your family is so …”
“Fucked up? Yea, they are.”
“They didn’t seem it.” I mean, sure there were a couple issues with his family, and they obviously valued expensive stuff, or they wouldn’t live in that house or drive all those cars and wear all those clothes, but they seemed … nice.
“My family, the house I grew up in, is the least of them. If you met my extended family and got to know them, you would know what I mean.” He bit his lip and looked lost in thought. “They are the kind of people who will pay a family off to move after someone takes advantage of a little girl and ruins her life, without a second thought about how the family or the little girl will be.”
My heart skipped a beat. Was that why he hated Kurt? Was that why he had attacked him when they were younger?
“I see.” I said nothing further, not sure of what else to say.
“Anyways, it doesn’t matter.”
My brow furrowed. I wanted to push, just a little. Just to see if I could get something more from him. I reached out and touched his hand. “But you and your dad are close, right?”
Adam smirked. “Yea. He sees right through them, too. He hates it, despite the fact that he’s the major reason all of them are well off.”
“He is?”
“Yea, how do you think they all got their jobs? He has connections. He’s the one who put them in touch with the right people once my stepmom married him. She didn’t do anything, though, she never tried to manipulate him.”
“Others did?”
“They tried until he made it clear that he saw right through it, and if they weren’t careful he would stop talking to them. Of course, they were more worried about losing a connection.” He frowned. I opened my mouth to say something, but he spoke first. “Anyways, I don’t get why I’m telling you any of this.”
I swallowed dryly. “Well, I’ll let you know if I’m free or not at the weekend—”
“What, you have a date with that guy or something?”
“Jealous?” I raised an eyebrow.
His cheeks flushed. “No, but if you ruin this for me …”
Oh right. Of course, that was what he cared about. For a split second, I had kind of thought he might be jealous. I mean, we were spending time together. He was opening up to me a little. I swallowed dryly. “Don’t worry; I won’t ruin it for you.” I turned, opened the door and stepped out of the car without saying a word, closing the door a little louder than I really needed as I made my way up to my apartment and dropped my purse on the counter.
“You look pissed.”
“I just don’t get it! Why do guys have to be morons? I mean … does it kill you guys to open up a little? As soon as you show any sign of emotion, you get all passive aggressive and all but kick me out of the car.”
“Considering I don’t have a car, I’m going to guess you’re talking about someone else …” My brother trailed off, looking me up and down. My cheeks flushed, and I didn’t dare look at him. “But … to answer your question, guys are weird about that, even more so if they went through shit growing up.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, still angry as I dropped down.
“Look, just think of it this way … I have this friend, and I have no clue what it was like for him growing up, but I know his mom did something … and since then, he feels like he can’t tell anyone anything, because why bother? They don’t listen. He doesn’t open up much to me, but he has opened up enough to tell me that he doesn’t bother opening up because it’s pointless. Because people just pay attention to what they want, and they will ignore everything else.”
I bit my lip. I guess … maybe that makes sense.
If Adam’s family hadn’t cared about seeing his side of the story, or whoever had been hurt by Kurt, he would feel like they only paid attention to what they wanted.
I turned to my brother and gave him a smile. “Thanks.”
“Anytime,” he grinned, “so how was the date?”
“I … it wasn’t a date! I’m just trying to help a friend out,” I said quickly.
“Yea, you’ve mentioned that before. Funny, you forget to mention it was a guy.”
61. Chapter Eleven
I avoided Adam as much as I could, but there were only so many times I could slip into his office when he wasn’t there to clean it, and for some reason, I was the one who always got stuck cleaning it. I didn’t get it at all, but as long as my job kept paying, that was fine.
I came to a stop in the doorway of his office. Crap. I’d been doing so well at not running into him, and now here he was. Staring at me.
I swallowed hard. “Hi.”
“Hi, Fiona.” He stared at me for a couple of seconds. I couldn’t bare it. I hated it. Deep breath. I forced myself to remember what my brother had said. Maybe he had a hard time opening up because, like my brother’s friend, he had people who didn’t want to hear his side.
Still. I hadn’t wanted to run into him, and I’d done well. I knew I was eventually going to have to face him, but now, here I was. It was Tuesday, which meant I’d only made a full day without seeing him at work.
“There was something I wanted to talk to you about.”
Great. What did he want from me now? I made my way into the office, crossing my arms over my chest and waiting. He didn’t say anything for a while. He just looked me up and down, a smile spreading over his lips. “It’s nice to see you. You’ve done a good job at avoiding me.”
Yes. Yes, I have. I didn’t say it out loud.
His head tilted to the left. I could feel his eyes burning into me.
“Why?”
“What?” I stammered.
“Why are you avoiding me?”
“Because I’ve been busy,” I lied.
I just knew that if I was around him too much … there was something about him. He was … he was damaged, and I wanted to help him. It was that stupid ‘save the damaged boy’ thing, and I knew that he wanted nothing more than for me to pretend to be his girlfriend. It had been over a week since we started pretending that I was his girlfriend. He had to go back home, and he wanted to take me. He paid me damn well for it, and I needed the extra money for school, so I went with it. Not to mention, I got new clothes. But then … suddenly his cousin wanted to have dinner with us, even though he had bailed, and he wanted to get pictures of us so that his family really believed it—the next thing I knew, I was being invited to girls’ days with his mom and sisters, and camping with his family. I couldn’t believe it. I knew I was in way over my head, but for some reason, he didn’t want to put an end to it yet. He seemed to want to keep the act going.
“So, have you decided what you’re doing this weekend?”
I bit my lip. I knew Matt would be mad at me if I didn’t make plans with him. Since he’d been fired from work, we hadn’t seen each other at all, and I kept spending my weekends with Adam.
“I … no, I haven’t.”
“Let me know as soo
n as you do, please. My mother is highly looking forward to you coming. So are my sisters.”
Guilt tugged at me. I wanted to go for them, but they were the same reason I knew I shouldn’t go. I bit my lip and forced a nod. “Alright, I’ll let you know.”
I knew I had to make a choice sooner or later.
“Alright, that’s all.”
My brow furrowed. Hadn’t he called me in here to clean up his mess? I looked around the office. There was no mess. That’s uncommon.
I had no clue how this boy managed to get the place so messy, but he did. Without another word to him, I headed for the door and let myself out. It sucked, working in this place, but my brother had pulled a major favor with a friend of his to get me this job, and I wasn’t going to blow it. Just because Adam was an ass and, for some reason, I always got called to clean his office. It didn’t help that when at his parents I’d learnt that Adam’s father was the boss. Which meant if I acted out too much, Adam might get me fired, and get my brother’s friend in trouble for giving me a chance.
I’ll just convince him it’s a good idea that we break up soon. Yes, I had tried suggesting it a couple times, but the last time we saw each other had been … stressful. I still didn’t understand it, but when we ran into Kurt, Adam had totally changed. It was almost scary how quickly it had happened. But I knew there was something between them in the past. Something he wasn’t willing to tell anyone. I bit my lip as I padded into the women’s washroom and double checked that everything was still clean.
Thankfully, Adam didn’t seem to need me to clean up after him at all that day, which was a surprise for me and, in a way, left me worried and feeling not quite whole. Maybe someone else finally did it, I thought, and for a split second had a ting of jealousy. Just a split second, then the idea sounded amazing.
When I got home from work, I was beyond tired. I wasn’t sure what it was about the past couple of weeks, but I’d been going to bed at such an early time, I hardly had time to get anything productive done during the evening.
It wasn’t until the next morning that everything made sense. I woke up with a killer headache and my throat was dry. I opened my mouth to take a deep breath, but a cough came out, instead. Shit. I couldn’t believe I was sick.
Interview with a Billionaire: Billionaire Romance Box Set Page 40
