Billionaire On Fire: The Complete Series (A Bad Boy Alpha Billionaire Romance)

by Claire Adams

  The taxi steamed into the White House once more. I blinked up at it as if I had never seen the monstrosity in my life. At one time, I’d thought it was my home. And now: it was far more like my prison, like a cage. I hoped that one day, I could escape it. But I was far too strong to allow this place—and the people in it—to get to my head.

  I paid the taxi driver. He gave me a curt nod and eyed my ass. I wanted to smack him, to tell him that I was a high-level official in the White House. But I was keeping my cool, I told myself. This was my journey toward a better self—a self that kept her emotions in check.

  I allowed the Secret Service agents to fondle me on my way in, checking for bombs, for guns, for anything and everything. And then, almost immediately, I marched toward the Oval Office, pursing my lips.

  The Secret Service agent who stood outside the door held his eyes wide as I approached. He nodded curtly toward me. “I see you’re feeling a bit better. We were worried about you.”

  I frowned toward him, as if it were inappropriate for him to even mention that I might have been ill, that I might have been under the weather. “Is he in?” I asked, nudging my head toward the door.

  The secret serviceman pulled himself taller. He shook his head. “He is, but I don’t think he’s expecting visitors.”

  “You don’t think he’d like to talk to his campaign manager?” I asked him, giving him an evil stare. “I’ve been out of the office for nearly a week. Surely he’ll need to update me on the proceedings of the previous several days. Don’t you think? You don’t want to mess with the intricacies of the campaign.” I raised my left eyebrow at him, giving him a saucy look. The look told him not to take a single step out of line—that I owned this moment and I was not to be messed with. He raised his hands up and allowed me to enter in that moment.

  I spun toward the door and clunked into the Oval Office, bringing the president to swing around in his chair. Beside him, standing at the desk, was his wife. Camille. I raised my eyebrow at them both, unafraid but still feeling that emotion-filled pit in my stomach. “Hello, Mr. President. Hello, Mrs. Callaway,” I said to them both, nodding primly. “I’d love a chance to speak with you about the campaign. So sorry, Mrs. Callaway. I’ve been out of the office for several days, nursing this horrific cold.” I clutched at my throat and coughed lightly.

  Camille tapped her heels a bit on the floor, giving me an evil eye. I had clearly interrupted an argument between them. The air in the room hung heavy, like clouds. It looked like Xavier wanted to crawl beneath his desk and hide from the two women before him. He looked desperately toward me, his mouth snapping shut as I stood there.

  “Ah, yes. Miss Martin. It’s a sincere pleasure to see you,” Camille stated. She didn’t budge. “You have a good deal to talk to my husband about, is that right?”

  I took a step forward, trying to maintain my lack of fear. Unfortunately, I knew that my anxiety was growing. I had plunged head-first into the deep end. “Yes, Mrs. Callaway. The following next few months are essential to the plot of the campaign. You must understand that, don’t you?” I gave her an evil smile—one so similar to the smile I’d given to the agent outside.

  Camille flounced toward the couch, then, in an effortless move that caught me off guard. I stepped back, allowing her to bounce on the gleaming fabric. She brought her hands around to the back of her head and gazed at the ceiling, batting her eyelashes lightly. “Go ahead, Amanda,” she sighed evenly. “Speak with him. He won’t find reason with me. I don’t see why you’d have any better luck than I. Of course, you’re not his wife. So what you have to say is far, far more interesting.” She winked at me, then. The moment seemed disastrous, like it was about to fall from a precipice, down to a rocky grave.

  I tapped toward the president’s desk. With the confusion in this moment, I had actually completely forgotten what I was meant to speak with him about. I cleared my throat and looked toward him, searching for the words. “I’ve been out of the office for several days, and I do apologize for that,” I began. I hoped that his wife wasn’t getting any sort of context clues from what I’d just said; I hoped that she wasn’t assuming something that was—of course—very, very true. “Will you please update me on the events of the previous week?”

  Up until this moment, I realized, Xavier hadn’t spoken. He gaped at me and then brought his hands toward his mouth, gliding across his cheeks. He shook his head, exasperated. His voice was harsh when he spoke. “Miss Martin. I expect you to do your job.”

  His words stung, even though I understood that they were well-acted, beyond anything else. But I still felt his anger deep in my heart. I remembered once more how he had pushed me from bed, how he had pushed me into this cruel world. I shivered at the thought.

  “I’m doing my job to the best of my ability, sir,” I responded. Behind me, I heard his wife, Camille, pop a bubble from bubble gum rather loudly, allowing it to echo off the walls. I swallowed, knowing that this sort of observation would get him and me nowhere.

  Sure enough, he shook his head toward me, biting his lip. His expression said so much. It stated that we couldn’t speak plainly, that he regretted everything. In that moment, so much of the strength I had built for myself fell away. I wanted to fall into his arms, to weep about my struggles. I wanted him to take care of everything with Jason. For the first time in my life, I wanted a man to take care of things for me—to hold my hand and fight for me. I had always fought for myself. But this seemed bigger; this seemed like too much.

  “If you want to do your job, you had better get back to work,” he finally said harshly. His eyes were apologetic, keeping us in this strange, round-and-round conversation. I listened only to the expression that churned from his eyes.

  I found my voice, finally. I took his cue. “I’ll get back to my desk and have a report to you in two hours.” I nodded curtly and turned back around, toward the door. Camille still laid on the couch, popping bubbles lightly—almost expertly. I imagined her doing them, over and over in the east wing, waiting for her husband to come home.

  “Good day, Miss Martin!” Camille spewed toward me, her voice lined with malice. As I pulled the door closed, I could hear her as she approached the president’s desk once more. “What a dirty cunt,” she flung her words toward him, loud enough for me to hear. I slammed the door and blinked up toward the Secret Service agent, lost in a sea of memories.

  He back toward me, shrugging his shoulders. “I told you not to go in there,” he murmured.

  But I turned on my heels and swept back toward my desk. I didn’t understand how this man—the President of the United States—could alter my emotions like this. It seemed all too easy, really. I could remember the first day I had ever truly met him, there in the Oval Office. He’d been interviewing me to become leader of the campaign. Me! A twenty-nine-year-old—a girl who was meant to grow and flourish in this political world. And then, I’d resisted him. I truly had. We’d become such fast friends, of course. I’d felt safe with him. Had he forced himself on me? Had I forced myself on him? I couldn’t be certain about anything anymore. All I knew was that I was truly, very much in love with him. Beyond that? I knew nothing.

  I couldn’t understand, as I sat at my desk and surveyed the room, how this had all landed upon my shoulders. I had wanted so much from my life. I had wanted to be someone special. And yet, the president had used me, had abused me. He had turned me on my head and disallowed me to care about anything else, in many ways.

  I bit my lip and laid my head on my desk. I heard a younger girl, toward the door, whisper to her friend about me. “She’s looking worse for wear, isn’t she? And so skinny. I think she’s losing weight.”

  “I’ve heard she’s an alcoholic,” the friend whispered back.

  But I couldn’t care anymore. I was “one of them” for these girls. And the president was “one of them” for me. We were ever at war with those who controlled us, I knew. I should have known better, from the beginning to trust him—this politici
an at heart. I should have known better than to ever trust Jason, my supposed second in command. I was a puppet to these puppeteers. And I would have to float on like this, continually at war with myself, as well, and my continued adoration for Xavier.

  Suddenly, I stood up. I walked toward the girls who sat, whispering about me in their chairs. I hovered over their desks, and they peered up at me with such scared, big-eyed expressions. They’d been talking about me, and they’d been caught. I remembered that feeling as a schoolgirl. I brought my hands toward the desk, and I grabbed their papers, their folders, their everything. I swept them from their desks, whisking away the water bottles, the cups of coffee, everything. The cups clattered to the floor and crashed, sending wet specks of dried clay through the great room. The girls blinked up at me with alarm. I felt my anger and emotion pulsing through me. I wanted to scream at them. I wanted to tell them to fucking run, to get out of the White House, to get out of the political center. But I also wanted to tell them that I was on their side—that I wasn’t maniacal, like the rest of them. But I had shoved their lives off their desks, I had clattered their mugs to the ground. They blinked at me with fear, and I struggled with my next move.

  The only move I had was this:

  I brought my hands over my chest and tapped my foot, anger dripping from my face. “You girls want to talk that trash someplace else? Be my guest. The people in this fucking room are working for the betterment of human society. They’re working to align the best President of the United States to be in the position to lead this country once again. Please, ladies.” I glared at them, even as their eyes fell to the table before them—even as one of the girl’s tears fell toward her lips, salting her tongue. “Go work at a fucking fashion magazine if you’re going to spread that gossip through my office.” I slotted my finger toward my chest and spewed the anger toward them.

  The girls flung themselves away from their desks. They gathered their things. One of them had begun weeping. They fell down the hallway, toward the steps. They held no words for me, and I knew that I would never see them again. I stood in the remains of their papers, their mugs, their water. It dripped around me. Everyone in the office stared at me like I was a ticking bomb. I knew I had their attention. I spun around and addressed them, a new sense of zeal braced on my lips. “Everyone. Get back to work,” I called harshly.

  Everyone—even Jason at his corner desk—did what I said.

  Perhaps my moral compass was about as skewed as the politicians I slept with, I thought to myself as I sat down at my desk once more, thoughts only of pulling through this battle, of coming out on top in my mind.

  I wouldn’t let Xavier destroy me. I wouldn’t allow my emotions to overwhelm me. I was stronger than that.

  Chapter 5

  That afternoon, Jason and Xavier had arranged a meeting to discuss the campaign. I was invited, since I had arrived back to work. I marched ahead of Jason, toward the back conference room. I could hear him huffing behind me as I walked. “You were a prime bitch to those girls. The stress is getting to you, isn’t it? The stress of the photographs, of fucking the President of the United States? It’s all getting to be a bit much, isn’t it?” Jason whispered toward the back of my neck, making me shiver.

  I cleared my throat, wanting to rear back toward him and slice his neck with my long fingernails. But we arrived at the conference room. I sat at the side of the table, knowing that the head seat would belong to the president. I sat across from Jason, glaring at him with heavy eyes. He averted his, not liking the eye contact. “Haven’t seen you around your apartment lately,” Jason murmured toward the floor.

  I raised my eyebrow toward him. I knew he could sense my lack of passion toward this subject at this time. “What makes you think I care if you can see me at my apartment? It’s all yours. All of it.” I snapped my fingers up by my ear, and I could see him tremble at my strange mood.

  But suddenly, Xavier marched into the room. I knew I needed to ignore him. He was the only person who could control me; he was the only person who made me feel anything, any amount of love in this world. I had to ignore him. I had to break away, to be myself.

  “Good afternoon, team,” he stated. He cleared his throat and spun his eyes from Jason to me. “I heard we had two members of the campaign team quit today.”

  Jason turned his eyes toward me. I remembered my temper, and my face turned red. I knew it was my turn to speak up. “Yes, sir. We were having trouble with them from the get-go,” I stated, speaking to somewhere behind the wall. “It was time for them to move on.”

  Xavier nodded, turning his attention toward the books. I knew that he didn’t like it when I called him sir. He hated the way my cold voice stuck into him, making him feel like an alien. I knew this. Jason probably knew this, as well. Jason cleared his throat, then, and Xavier turned toward him, anger boiling in his eyes. I swallowed, afraid suddenly. I realized that Xavier knew all about Jason—that I couldn’t pretend that Jason wasn’t a part of this overarching design any more. Would Xavier bring it up?

  But no. He wouldn’t.

  He sighed into his book, instead, and asked us the typical questions of our Friday afternoon meeting. He asked us about the progression of the campaign. He asked us what to expect in the following few months, when he was meant to be on the road. He asked us about our influence over the education bill; he asked us what we were telling the greater reporters, the people all over the country. He nodded primly over his pages, and he seemed so distant from me. I wanted to shake him. But I also understood I needed to keep my mouth closed. I needed to find a beautiful existence, even in this harsh reality.

  Jason began speaking, then, and I thought about the girls I had pushed out of the political world. I had probably ruined what could have been flourishing political careers. But perhaps I had allowed them to escape true terror, the terror I was experiencing. Sure, I had made fun of the higher-up women in my time. But I had placed my nose to the ground, ready to claw my way to the top, no matter what. Perhaps I should have been heard. Perhaps I should have been kicked out of the political sphere.

  Finally, Xavier placed his hand in the air, interrupting Jason. He shook his head and caught his thumb in his temple. He rubbed at it. “Jason. I hate to stop you. But I—I have this horrific tension headache.”

  Jason brought his eyebrows in the air, allowing his round cheeks to stretch out. “You okay, Mr. President? I hope there’s no trouble at home?”

  My heart sank to my stomach, knowing what Jason was referring to. But his eyes were so innocent, so bright in his head.

  Xavier gave him a long, cool stare. He brought his hand away from his temple. And he spoke, his voice both collected and fueled with anger. “I think that will be enough for today,” he said again.

  Jason shrugged his shoulders, a grin plastering itself across his face. He brought his folder into his arms, perhaps understanding that the President knew Jason had power over him—that he had found the very point to flick to take down the whole kingdom.

  I stood up, as well, ready to pummel home. I remembered that Rachel was going to make a special dinner that evening: something that would allow us to conk out early, ready to relax over the weekend. “You haven’t been sleeping,” she’d told me the previous day, her eyebrows furrowed.

  Jason pounded from the office, his shirt becoming un-tucked with each long stride. He added a slight bounce to it as he got closer to his desk, as he grew sure in his safety. I followed after him slowly, feeling the weight of this next year’s campaign riding on my shoulders. How was I going to get through this, both with Jason’s assured riotousness and Xavier’s both steaming smile and sheer anger at what I hadn’t told him—at what I had hidden from him, just to protect him?

  But as I walked from the office, I heard footsteps behind me. “Wait.” The voice was quiet, yet firm.

  I spun back around to find Xavier before me, a look of earnest in his eyes. I brought my hands across my chest. “What is it?” I whispered. I wa
s so conscious that Jason would exit the campaign office at any time, that he would see us talking here. We didn’t have much time.

  “I need to speak with you. It’s urgent.”

  “And I told you I’d make time very soon,” I returned.

  “The last time you said that, you disappeared for four days,” he whispered. His eyes skirted from left to right across the hallway. “Please. Hear me out. It’s all I ask.”

  But I shook my head. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. I wanted this all to pass over us like a bad storm. I wanted the winds to die down. I wanted Jason to lose interest in the entire operation. I wanted this universe—this universe in which Xavier and I had loved each other—to close and leave us in peace. I opened my mouth and hissed toward him: “This conversation will have to wait.” I wanted to be a professional once more. I knew that the first moment he erupted with any “love” stuff, I would lose my cool. I would falter, fall away. Perhaps someday, when all this fell away and we were just two normal people, alone somewhere in the world, we could discuss what had occurred between us. But not there in the White House.

  Never again.

  But he reached toward me. He grabbed me at my elbow. Not hard. Just hard enough, though, to make me rear back, as if I’d been shocked. His eyes were dark, at this moment. He evoked such seriousness. In that moment, I understood why the people respected him enough to name him as their leader. I swallowed, feeling pain coursing up and down my arm.

  “This is serious, Amanda,” he stated, then. “I need to discuss the campaign with you. As you can see, the campaign is faltering. You’ve fired two people today and Jason is a goddamned nervous wreck.”

  The words turned over in my stomach, making my eyes grow wide.