Billionaire Badboy (10 page)

“Can we stay out here tonight?” She whispered in my ear.

I turned to her, meeting her eyes with mine. I didn’t care
what she might think of her feelings. I knew what I was feeling, and it was
something completely contrasting to practical. “Yes, please.”

We both lowered back to the blanket, wrapping our arms and
legs around each other, until we could get no closer. We stared into each
other’s eyes without speaking until we both fell asleep.

Even with the pang of her honesty, and the fact that we
never got farther than that kiss, that was the best night of my life.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Teddy

I could see the headline begin to focus in front of me:
Back
to the Bad Boy
by Ashley Leigh.

I remembered that morning well. It was Sunday, just two days
since the beach party. I was sitting at the table eating breakfast, as I did
every morning, when my father entered inquiring about my weekend festivities. I
gave him a vague answer, but I should’ve known by his tone that he knew what I
was hiding.

My father stood above me, his finger pointing to the line:
The two were spotted in a “compromising position”. I simply looked up at him
and smiled. What else could I have done?

“Whoops.”

“Whoops? That’s what you’re going to say to me? The woman
has been back in town for a mere forty-eight hours and she’s already caught you
in a compromising position? This is not acceptable, Theodore.”

Oh good, he Theodore-ed me. I was certainly in for a verbal
lashing right about…

“When I tell you to take care of something, I’m not speaking
in code. I expect you, as a Stoneguard, to take care of it. Our business must
remain private. We can’t have some childish, so-called ‘journalist’ preying on
your every move. That’s not how I run things, and I won’t allow you to run
things that way either. If you plan on one day taking over the business I have
spent my entire life growing, you’ll learn to do things the way I do. So help
me God, Teddy, if you don’t take care of this, I will. And this time it will be
longer than a year and a half.”

“Got it, Dad.” I stood from the table, pushing my chair in
behind me.

I needed to talk to Ashley, but she never gave me a way to
contact her. Luckily, I knew where she worked.

But I also knew that if I went down to the newspaper, I
would be bombarded. And I still didn’t know the name of her editor who so
obviously still had a chip on her shoulder when it came to me. So instead of
risking an attack, I sent her flowers, lilies, with a sweet little message.

Beach. Now.

I wanted her to know that I wasn’t messing around. She
needed to know the gravity of the situation. She needed to know that if we were
going to continue our little tryst, she would have to stop writing about me… or
else.

I gave about ten minutes after the flowers were to be
delivered, and made my way down to the beach, the spot where we had spent the night
together. To my brief surprise, Ashley was already there, sitting in the sand. She
was wearing a cute little flowered sundress and her hair was pulled back out of
her face with a few sweeping wisps falling on her cheekbones. She was also
wearing those silly blue glasses. They made me so angry. Inane, I know, but I
wanted to rip them from her face.

But as I was thinking about ripping those blue frames from
her face, I thought also about pulling her hair free from its binding, and then
ripping her dress off, button by button, and… so maybe the glasses didn’t make
me mad as much as they made me uncontrollably concupiscent. Either way, I had
met her there for a purpose; I couldn’t ignore that fact just so I could see
what she was wearing under those flowers.

But God, did I want to.

“What’s up?” She stood when she saw me.

I tossed the paper into her hands. “Do you enjoy writing
about yourself?” I wasn’t kidding around, and she knew that.

“Come on. I thought it would be funny.”

“Funny for who, Ash?”

“Us. Kind of like our own little inside joke.”

“Except for me, it’s not on the inside. For me, it’s my
personal life shared with everyone.”

“Stop taking it so personally.”

“What are you missing here? It is personal. That’s why it’s
called a personal life. And you damn well made it sound like we were fucking,
Ash. I thought… I don’t know, I thought after Saturday night, things were…
different.”

“Teddy,” she stepped toward me, “things are different. With
us. But I still have to write this column. I committed.”

“Well you can’t anymore.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. You need to stop writing your column.”

“I’m sorry, who made you the king?”

“God, Ashley, just for once, do as you’re told.”

“Do as you’re told?”

“Yes.”

“No, you don’t get to talk to me like that.”

“Ashley, please.”

“You know by now that you talking to me in such a way only
makes me do the opposite of what you ask.”

“And it drives me crazy.”

“So don’t assume you have any control over what I do, and
we’ll be good.”

“You know what? Then suffer the consequences.”

I turned around and started off, down the beach. I was
furious, outraged. I could feel every muscle in my hands as they clenched into
fists. She didn’t know what she was up against. She had no idea what power my
father had.

So why couldn’t I tell her?

How could I break it to her that she didn’t earn her
scholarship to study abroad on her own accord? She was so proud of that
accomplishment; I didn’t want to be the one to take that from her.

“Don’t walk away from me, Theodore!”

Wow, Theodore-ed twice in one day. That was a new record.

I turned around at her call, but she was already within an
arm’s reach of me.

“What did you mean by that?”

“What?” I snapped. I knew what she was asking me, but I
didn’t want to address it.

“You said I’d have to suffer the consequences.”

“You will.”

“You don’t just say something like that and then walk away. Are
you threatening me?”

No, not me. I wanted to throw back at her, but I stopped
myself. This was not the way to get what I wanted. Nor was it the way to
protect her from my father, or herself, for that matter. But I was still
raging. I hated her for elaborating on the night we shared together just for a
story. I knew our relationship would eventually come out, it always did, but
when the time came I didn’t want her to be thought of as the girl I banged on
the beach. With her, I wanted things to be different.

I took her hand and continued walking. I needed to blow off
steam, but I figured this way, she would know that I at least wanted her by my
side.

After a few paces, she spoke up. “So are you threatening
me?”

“I’m not, Ashley, I just don’t think you know who you’re
dealing with.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Power and money, remember? You don’t want to get on the
wrong side of my family.”

“Your family?” She stopped, pulling me to face her.

I guess she had never thought when she picked me out of a
crowd, she was also picking my family’s name and everyone attached to it. Her
battle was becoming bigger than just a playground fight with a bratty little
boy. She was attracting the attention of the big wigs, and with them, she was
defenseless. Unlike me, they had nothing to lose; they weren’t falling for her.

“If it looks like I’m unstable, it looks like my father
can’t run his family. When it looks like he can’t run his family, people start
losing faith that he can run an entire company. They pull their investments and
stock prices fall, all because of an impressionable young gossip columnist. It’s
so much easier to make that gossip columnist disappear. Do you see what I’m
getting at?”

She stiffened, and for the first time, I saw fear in her
eyes. They widened as she caught her breath.

“What do you mean by disappear?”

“Whoa, whoa,” I wrapped my fingers around her small
shoulders, “My family is not in the killing business.” I pulled my head back,
allowing a small, teasing smile to appear on my face. “Did you just take this
there?”

“You just told me it’s so much easier to make me disappear.”

“Not in that sense!”

“Then what sense were you talking about?”

And now I had to tell her. There was no other way. I hated
to break her heart, but it would be better than the alternative. Sure, the
first ‘disappearance’ was a dream to her, but just as easily as my father could
give her everything she always dreamed, he could take it away. And, he could
take her away from me. I wasn’t ready for that.

“He could make you disappear for, let’s say, a year and a
half.”

“What would…” Ashley’s shoulders dropped as she let sink in
the realization. “No.”

I pulled her into a hug, hoping to combat the pain she must
have been feeling, but she pushed me away. She stared at me a long while,
searching my eyes for any more information I might have to give.

“Please, come here.” I knew she needed to be held; why was
she resisting me?

“Stay away.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with this, Ash.”

“I don’t believe you.” Her lips squeezed together, fighting
the tears.

I stepped closer again, but she flailed her arms, pushing me
away. After a few rounds of the seesaw, and a few fists in my face, I finally
got a hold of her wrists.

“Let go of me.”

“No.”

“I said ‘let go of me’!”

“And I said ‘no’!”

I used a little more force than necessary, but I got her to
stop moving and look at me. She was about to break; I could see it. But I
wanted to be there for her; I didn’t want her to fight me. Slowly, and one at a
time, I pulled her arms into my chest and wrapped myself around her. I brought
her head down under my chin, fitting my palm at the back of her neck. My other
hand draped around her back, pulling her in even tighter.

“This was never my intention.”

“What? For me to find out?” She whined through her tears.

“No, not that. Of course not.”

After a while, she stopped crying, but I still held on to
her. It might have seemed like I was comforting her, but at the same time, she
was comforting me.

“Ashley, I never wanted you to leave.”

“And yet you let him send me away.”

“There’s no letting when it comes to him. He told me to keep
you quiet; I didn’t, so he took matters into his own hands. And he’ll continue
to do that until he gets what he wants.”

“So stand up to him.”

“You don’t think I’ve tried? The man always wins.” I dropped
my arms to my sides, letting go of her.

“Then try something else.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know you have to fight for what you want, for what you
believe in.”

“Yes, but the thing is, Ashley, this… this I don’t believe
in.”

“What?” She seemed hurt, offended.

“No, stop. Not you and me. That’s not what I’m talking
about. I’m talking about your little crusade with your little newspaper. I
don’t agree with my father on a lot of things, but this one… he’s right. I have
to look out for myself, for the company I plan to run one day. You’re trying to
jeopardize that, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.”

“It’s my job.”

“Stop. Just stop saying it’s about your job. Find something
else to write about. I don’t deserve this.”

“Or maybe you do.” Her words stopped me from walking away.

“If this is all some drawn out ploy to get back at me for
the night you spent in jail…”

“It’s not at all.”

“Then what the fuck are you trying to do to me?”

“Show you who you are!”

“I know who I am.”

“Do you? Or do you know who you pretend to be?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Sure, I get paid to twist words and truth around, but it still
stems from something real. You’re a public figure, you can’t fight that. But
when you’re constantly in the spotlight, it doesn’t matter who you think you
are on the inside. What matters is people’s perception of you. That’s who you
are to everyone else, so that’s who you are. And sure, I help form that picture
a little clearer, and maybe not in your favor, but if I wasn’t doing it,
someone else would. And you, you’ve been feeding that tale for years. You’ve
started to believe you are this person that you read about in the paper. And
somehow, for some reason, you’re proud of that. But the minute I got involved,
you decided I should see you differently than everyone else. And you get angry
that I don’t. But what you don’t know and what they don’t know is that I have
seen something else in you. You’ve shown me something else. You’ve shown me
your strengths and weaknesses, your fears and your goals. Why me? Why am I so
special? Why do you hide that from everyone else?”

“I don’t hide.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know exactly what I’m talking
about. Teddy, it’s human nature to put people into categories. You put yourself
into the bad boy category all on your own, and that’s easy to report on because
it’s easy for people to see as real. It’s a stereotype we all know. But you
know what else is easy for people to see as real? When you show them that
you’re human: that you have faults, just like them, fears, just like them. Then…
then when you do something amazing, it means something. And they’ll love you
for it.”