Sleeping With The Billionaire - A Standalone Royal Alpha Billionaire Prince Romance (New York City Billionaires - Book #2)

by Alexa Davis

  I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t believe it. Why would my best friend do this to me? She must’ve known what the pictures meant, and she did it anyway. Sure, I wasn’t the best person in the world right now, but that... that was another level of low.

  I hammered nosily on her door, getting some of my frustration out on the wood. I had so much red rage deep inside of me that I didn’t know where it could all go. I was actually shaking with it all, I’d never felt so crazy.

  “Oh, hi.” Maddie had the audacity to look shocked as she swung the door open to see me standing there. “What are you doing here?”

  “What am I doing here?” I jammed my finger into my chest. “What the fuck did you do? How could you do that to me?”

  “To you?” She raised her eyebrows and smirked nastily. “What did I do to you? Oh, I’m sorry. I thought the pictures were of Prince Marcus. I assumed he would be the one who I hurt. Why would naked pictures of Marcus on your flash drive hurt you?”

  “I... I...” I was stumped. “Well, I think we both know what that means.”

  “Yeah, that you betrayed me by hooking up with the guy that I liked.”

  “But aren’t you with someone else?”

  “That hardly matters, does it? You didn’t even speak to me about it.”

  Our words were firing at each other like bullets. We were both being relentless, refusing to back down. She did something wrong by using those pictures without my permission, to expose both me and Marcus, tearing us apart. She knew that I’d done wrong, too. We were at an impasse.

  “You didn’t even have the decency to tell me that you liked Marcus. I had to find out by borrowing your flash drive and seeing those pictures. How do you think that felt?”

  “I get that, I do, but that doesn’t make it right what you did. You used me and you used Marcus to further your career.”

  “I didn’t use anyone!”

  “Are you kidding me? Do you hear yourself? You didn’t use me? You used my private pictures to your own advantage and you didn’t even warn me.”

  “You know how long I wanted to become a journalist. This was the best chance I’ve ever had.” She shrugged and smirked, showing how little she thought about all my points.

  “So, you don’t care about screwing over the people in your life? Maybe you’ll be amazing at it.”

  “Don’t be in my life then.” She pointed toward the door, indicating for me to go. “Just get out – we aren’t friends anymore.”

  “Is that what you want? You don’t want to see each other anymore over this? Is your career really that important to you?”

  “It’s more important than a friend who thinks it’s okay to screw the one guy I liked behind my back. It’s more important than thinking one thing about you, just to learn something else. You know, you act like you’re this wonderful, carefree person who loves art and is nice to everyone. But that’s all a cover up for the bitch that you really are.”

  “No, it isn’t like that... I just... It’s complicated,” I stammered, tears filling my eyes. I wished I could find something to make this all less shitty but there was nothing. We’d both done wrong, and it was possibly irreversible.

  “Fuck you, Blair; just go. I never want to see you again. I wish I never met you.”

  We stared at each other, panting heavily, before I spun on my heels and turned to leave. There was no point in wasting any more time here. My friendship with Maddie was done forever – there was nothing to gain from arguing when we both thought that we were right. She really thought that was the best way to deal with things, and I would never agree.

  I felt lost as I thundered down the stairs, leaving my longest-standing friendship behind. Maddie and I had been through a lot together, I was going to miss her, but there was no way we could go back to the way we were.

  Anyway, I had bigger problems to deal with.

  I needed to figure out a way to fix this with Marcus. I needed to make him see that this wasn’t my fault, that the only blame I had was being a little careless. I couldn’t do it now, not in the middle of the night. I was going to have to wait until the morning. As hard as it was going to be, I was going to have to go home and try and get some sleep. I already felt restless about it, but where else could I go?

  Maybe this would be a good thing. Maybe giving Marcus some time to cool off would be the best way for us to discuss it rationally. I couldn’t see any way his temper could calm down after all of that – mine probably wouldn’t – but he couldn’t hate me forever, could he?

  I glanced at my phone once more, wishing desperately that he’d called me back, but still there was nothing. I attempted to phone him, but still the voicemail woman was the only one to greet me.

  I sighed deeply and continued on my awful journey home. This was a real mess, the worst that I’d ever gotten myself into, and I wasn’t sure how to dig myself out of the hole.

  And then, of course, there was Cameron. There was no getting out of that now. He would find out, he would kill me, and he’d probably hate me as much as Maddie did. Why did I have to act so selfishly? I kept thinking about the consequences, but I didn’t really think I would have to face them.

  What the hell was I thinking?

  Chapter 31 – Marcus – Tuesday

  Fucking, fucking hell! How the God damn hell did I manage to get myself into such a mess?

  I’d been up all night long thinking everything through, and still I didn’t feel any wiser. I’d trusted Blair, I really liked her, and I could not understand why she’d betray me in such a way. She didn’t exactly the need the money, and she had some notoriety in her own way, so why did she have to do any of this?

  And why did I fall for it?

  I guess that was what hurt the most. I thought I was smarter than that. I assumed I was better. I’d spent my entire life pushing people away, not letting them in, because of this exact thing. And now it had happened anyway. I opened up my heart, I gave some of that to Blair, and she threw it back at me without me even seeing it coming. That tore my damn heart out of my chest.

  I forced my aching, weary body out of bed, giving up any pretense of sleeping, and I padded across my apartment with a sinking sadness consuming me. Even glancing out the window at the view I loved so much did nothing to change my mood. It didn’t have the same pizazz and sparkle anymore; it was just another gray city to fix my eyes on.

  Knock, knock.

  “Just come in, Cam,” I called out loudly, expecting some harsh words from my friend, too. It was one thing to learn that your best friend had betrayed you and started dating your sister, it was quite another to have their sex lives shoved in your face. “But before you start yelling, just know that I’m really sorry and that I didn’t know any of this was going to happen.”

  “Open up, will you?”

  The voice that responded to me sent sickness cascading around my entire body. It was almost as if the floor had fallen away from beneath me and I had nothing left to stand on. Of all the people it might have been turning up at my door, this was the last person I was expecting.

  “Dad?” I stepped tentatively forward and touched the door with a shaking hand. I didn’t want to open it, to unleash all the problems I thought I’d left behind, but at the same time, I had to see it to know it to be true. “Is that really you?”

  I tugged the door open with my heart thundering in my chest, and then I saw him. The man I’d run cowardly away from. My father.

  He looked weird in America. I wasn’t used to looking at him so intently in a different country. It made me feel odd.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Can I come in?” He had that familiar frown plastered across his face, the one he seemed to reserve just for me, and as always, I instantly reverted to the nervy teenage schoolboy in front of him. “I think we have some things we need to discuss.”

  I couldn’t turn him away – he’d flown all the way around the world to come see me, after all. It was time to be a man and face
up to everything. Things had gone to shit here, my runaway escapades hadn’t exactly turned out in the way I wanted, so maybe it was time to really see where I was going to go next.

  “Sure, Dad, come in.”

  I stepped aside and invited him into my home. The disapproval that crossed his expression was obvious, but I didn’t really care about that. It was time my father and I were both honest with one another... This was much more me than the person he knew me to be back home.

  “Would you like a drink, or anything?” I felt like I was acting too formal, like it was a virtual stranger in my home, but I couldn’t act in any other way.

  “No, thank you. Please, take a seat. Let’s have a talk.”

  I perched on the edge of my couch and leaned on my fists, waiting for him to finally get out everything that needed to be said. It was all there, bubbling between us, and eventually, he’d explode.

  “So, are you enjoying your time in America?” His voice was stiff; he was still trying to hold some of it in, which made me even more anxious. The anticipation was worse than the actual yelling, I would much rather get this over and done with.

  “Erm, yeah, I am, thank you.”

  “I can see that.” His eyes darkened, and in that second, I knew what he was referring to. It was clear that thanks to the wonder of the World Wide Web, the pictures hadn’t just stayed in America. They’d circulated the world.

  The thought of all my family seeing them made me want to scream. Paul was going to have a freaking field day. Did Blair know that she was going to cause all of this?

  “Is there something that you wish to tell me?”

  “Look, none of that was intentional. I didn’t know it was going to end up – ”

  “You must have posed for the pictures.” Accusation fell off his tongue.

  “I did.” I sighed sadly, remembering my naivety as I allowed myself to be used by the one person I thought I was falling for. “That was stupid, of course, but I never would’ve done that if I’d known...”

  “You are in the public eye. Haven’t you learned this yet? You must be more careful. What you do doesn’t just reflect on you, it reflects on your whole family, on your country.”

  “Well, maybe I don’t want all that pressure on my shoulders!” I yelled, throwing my hands up above my head, finally allowing some truth to burst past my lips. “I hate that I’ve been born into all this responsibility. I’ve never been able to live; it isn’t fair.”

  “You think that’s not fair? You should try being born into a family without privilege. Then you’d know what it’s like to not have freedom. Right now, you sound pathetic. You sound like a poor little rich kid – Oh, boo hoo, poor me.”

  I hated when he said that; it sent cold guilt washing over me, mostly because I knew it was right. I did sound like that, and it was pathetic, but it was years in the making. This tantrum had been building up for a very long time.

  “Yeah,” I gasped out sickly. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “I am right.” Dad looked relieved because finally he was getting through to me a little bit. Maybe all we’d needed all this time was to be truthful with one another. “I’m glad you’re finally being smart. You need to understand that you’ve been given the life you have because it comes with responsibilities. I feel like you’ve had your fun, you’ve always had much more fun than your brother.”

  It took all that I had at that moment not to roll my eyes.

  “You need to come back to your real life now. This has been a fine time out for you, but with the magazine scandal, it’s time to give it up and come back home. I need you, your family needs you, and your country needs you. You don’t have these responsibilities for no reason; they need to be undertaken.”

  His words struck a chord with me. Maybe my next move should be running away – but not really running away, just going back home. Without Blair, there was nothing for me here. Without Cameron – and I had no doubt that I’d lose Cameron – there was no one else for me to hang around with. Maybe it was time for me to finally grow up and to become a man.

  “We love you, son,” Dad struck the final blow. “You know we do. And maybe you and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, but that doesn’t make me love you any less.”

  “I love you, too, Dad.” Without any warning, tears pricked my eyes, and I felt myself falling apart a bit. This was insane, what the hell was wrong with me. “And, I really am grateful that you came all this way to speak to me.”

  “Well, I couldn’t get through to you on the phone, so I wasn’t really left with much choice.” He chuckled a little, a sound that I’d never heard come out of his very serious lips before. “So, what do you say?”

  I moved my head to nod, but before I made that happen a knocking sound at the door made me jump. Fearing that it might be Cameron finally come to yell at me, I leaped up to have that confrontation out in the hallway.

  “Hold on a sec, Dad.”

  I swung the door open and closed it behind me so quickly that it took me a second to see that it was Blair standing in front of me... not Cameron.

  “Oh,” I cried out, shocked. “What are you doing here?”

  “Please, listen to me,” she pleaded, reaching out her hands to me. I ran my eyes over her, noticing she looked as dreadful as I felt. Clearly, the night hadn’t been kind to her, either. “Please, let me explain.”

  “Explain what?” My words fired at her like bullets out of a gun. “How you betrayed me? How you took pictures of me knowing that you were going to send them off to the media? How you used me? How you let me...” I clamped my lips tightly together before I burst out with my emotions. This was sad enough; I didn’t want to make that worse by adding in my near love experience.

  “No, it wasn’t me – it was Maddie.”

  “You took the pictures, not Maddie. There is absolutely no excuse. I think what you need to do is go.”

  The more I looked at her, the easier my decision became. America had nothing for me anymore. I couldn’t live here in the same city as her; it would damn near kill me. For the very first time in my life, my dad had told me that he loved me and he wanted me. I had to at least give life in England a try. “You need to get away from here and don’t ever contact me again.”

  “Please, no.” A sob fell out of her mouth, and her wet eyes almost had me changing my mind. “Please, don’t do this.”

  “I’m going back to England, so there really isn’t anything for us to talk about anymore. Just leave.”

  And with a deep sigh, I turned on my heels and slammed the door shut before falling against it. That was the hardest thing that I’d ever had to do, but it was for the best. I was falling for Blair, and she screwed that up. Now at least I knew that I could open up my heart. I could be faithful to just one person. I’d just picked the wrong one.

  “Okay, Dad.” I finally managed to force a grin onto my face. “Let’s go. Let me start packing up my things and we can go today, if you like.”

  “So that’s a yes?” He looked so pleased that I felt bad for all that I’d put him through. I had been childish, turning my back on life. I could see that now. Luckily, I had the rest of my life to make up for that – and it would provide a good distraction from the car crash I’d made of everything else. “That’s so great, son.”

  “It’s definitely a yes.”

  Getting away from here, leaving the States behind, it would be the best thing for me. I was sure of it. All the positivity I felt coming out here was now all aimed at home. I wanted to get back there, and I couldn’t wait until I did.

  Chapter 32 – Blair – Friday

  I’d been on the verge of tears for four whole days now. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Marcus really was gone; that wasn’t something he’d said to me in the heat of the moment. I’d been over to his place a few times and even tried calling him. He was long gone now. I’d lost my chance to explain.

  Now, I had no one.

  Maddie was dead to me, just as I was to her. Our f
riendship was long gone, and there was no clawing that back. She’d blocked me from Facebook. I had deleted her phone number. It was as if all the years of her and I were no more. It hurt like hell, of course it did, but we’d both betrayed one another. It didn’t matter who had done worse to each other, we’d both done wrong, and there was no coming back from that.

  And then there was Cameron.

  I was too scared to talk to him, and he hadn’t tried reaching out to me, either. I had no idea how much he knew, what he felt about me, but until he was prepared to come forward, there was nothing I could do. I just had to continue existing in this never-ending loneliness. It was just good that I had so much work to keep me distracted.

  My heart leaped up into my throat as I spun around to stare at the front door to my apartment at the sound of a knock. I had no idea who was there, but I couldn’t stop myself from praying it was Marcus. He certainly hadn’t given me any sign that he’d be back anytime soon, but I could hope all the same.

  “Hello?” I called out nervously, edging toward the door. If it was him, I’d need a moment to sort myself out. I couldn’t even remember if I’d showered today, never mind put on any makeup or run a brush through my hair. It only took one glance downward to remember that I was in sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt. “Who’s there?”

  “It’s Cameron. Can I come in?”

  Cameron... Oh, my God, that wasn’t much better. My eyes darted over my apartment, as if hunting for an escape, while my mouth ran bone dry with utter terror. I wasn’t ready for this. I thought I’d be prepared whenever he wanted to talk, but it seemed that I was wrong.

  “Right, okay...”

  “Blair.” He sighed deeply. I could almost hear the disappointment falling from his mouth. “Will you just let me in? I think we need to talk.”

  I hunched over, fixed my eyes ashamedly on the floor, and pulled the door open. I didn’t need to look up to see that he was in his usual white, designer attire. For some reason, I was almost expecting him in some sort of punisher outfit, ready to string me out.