Dating A British Billionaire (BWWM Romance) (2 page)

I looked away to keep myself from punching him in the face. My eyes surveyed the hall, taking stock of everything from the glistening chandeliers, their light bathing the entire room with their warm glow. Everything felt diamond-encrusted, from the railings on the staircase to the dresses on the people. “They look like little wax dolls,” I muttered, more to myself than to Peter.

Peter narrowed his eyes in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“They all look the same. No one is distinguishable.”

Peter released one of his boisterous laughs. “This is high society. We're all distinguished,” he replied.

I scoffed. “Is that what you tell yourself so that you can sleep at night?”

This seemed to go right over Peter’s head. He seemed more concerned with finishing his glass of alcohol, than actually having an educated conversation with me. “I’m not really sure I follow,” he replied.

I chuckled, the sound of it lost in music, laughter and small talk. “Of course you don’t,” I replied as he leaned off of the marble counter, dropping his empty champagne glass on one of the trays that was circling around. I gazed around him. There was always a little part of me that enjoyed these types of evenings.  I loved the London accents, viscously slipping in and out of my mind like the finest honey. I loved the champagne I could just taste the money in… even though it was bitter and intolerable. I loved all of this because my parents had. Standing here with two adults on either side of me, toting me around to their best friends, were some of the only moments when I truly felt a part of something. And now that I had nothing, the memory of that… and, by extension, anything that could bring about this memory, was enough for me.

But then Peter stepped right in front of me, completely obstructing my view; as if I didn’t already have enough reasons to hate this conversation and the man that I was having it with. “Really, Ed, what is bothering you? You’ve got the whole world at your fingertips. Is it Alice?” he asked.

I groaned at this. The last thing I wanted was to talk about my ex-girlfriend. “I don’t have to talk to you about this.”

“I am your advisor,” Peter asserted with his slurring words.

I grabbed another glass of champagne and took a healthy first sip before I responded. It was only then that I was beginning to feel a little light headed, that I found it more difficult to hold on to. “Hardly,” I replied with a harsh voice. “You were the manager of my account before I turned eighteen and could handle it myself. Now, you’re just the accountant of my company… with no obligation to advise me on anything… the very least, my love life.”

Peter, whose eyes were glossed over as he seemed to stare right through me, looked as if he hadn’t even registered anything I said. “I just want to see you happy,” he replied as he slapped me on the shoulder.

I took a step past him to recover my balance without losing my drink. It was just so much work waiting around for a whole ‘nother glass and then having that same, infuriating internal debate about whether or not I should have another glass. “If only that were true, Pete,” I replied as I drank the rest of my champagne and slammed the glass on the marble behind me.

Perhaps it was the quick movement, or the speed with which I had that final bit of bitter alcohol, but somehow my dizziness felt far more than just a side effect of being in high society. Perhaps it was my heavy head, but somehow, my wandering mind had become nearly untraceable. Perhaps it was my tired eyes but, all of a sudden, I was sure I had seen something over Peter’s shoulder. At first glance it looked like an angel, or some sort of exotic princess.

My eyes were wide and time seemed to have completely stopped. The world went on around me, but I felt oblivious to it. It was as if she had lifted me off of the ground and out of this world. As she reached the bottom of the staircase, I got a better look. She was tall, much taller than any woman I had been with, at least five foot, ten inches. But maybe that was just on account of the fact that she was wearing black stiletto heels. I glowered at them, my mind working a mile a minute because no other woman in that room had the balls to wear black stilettos to a cocktail party such as this. A skimpy, yet classic red dress draped her curvy frame, the crimson fabric contrasting beautifully against her dark skin. Her large, brown eyes were expertly framed with makeup only a professional could have done and her thick lips were covered in a matte red lipstick.

I was so preoccupied with trying to convince myself that this was real, that I wasn’t completely imagining this woman, that I had failed to realize that she was headed right for us until it was too late. “What have you been up to, Peter?” she asked, placing a dainty hand on his shoulder.

Peter turned to investigate where the hand had come from, but when he laid eyes on her he let out a boisterous laugh and wrapped his hand around her torso. “Oh nothing of note, darling. What kind of adventures have you got up to?”

She shrugged, “Oh nothing too exciting.”

I cocked my head to my side. There was no way she was dating this man… “I’m sorry, and who are you?” I asked, cutting into their conversation before they had a chance to forget that I was there in the first place.

She flinched. It was a small movement she quickly masked with a fake smile, one that twinkled nonetheless, but I saw the curious movement. All at once, she went from visionary to human, and somehow, that only made her even more stunning. “And what makes you think you are entitled to that information?”

Her accent stuck out beyond the rest. It wasn’t exactly a change from the BBC that I got accustomed to having my head filled with, but then again, it wasn’t necessarily a departure from it. My drunken head had decided that this was enough to dwell on, until, "Ed, man…” Peter slapped my shoulder yet again. I really hated it when he did that.

“What?” I snapped.

“You were wondering who I was?” The woman gave me a knowing smile that drew me in and pushed me away all at once.

I nodded once, trying my best to maintain a composure that was slipping right from my fingertips. “I haven’t seen you around.”

She shrugged. “I guess you can say that I’m new to South Kensington.”

I would have thought up something smart to say back at this, but it was then that I noticed that Peter wasn’t looking at either one of us or paying attention to the conversation at all. In fact, he had fixed his gaze right on her bum, his hands slowly trailing down her back. When I glanced back at her, it became apparent that she was having just as much trouble ignoring this as I was watching it. “Where are you from?”

She bit her lip, her hand flying to his, stopping him in action. “The country,” she replied with a tight voice.

I nodded, but I could not deny the frown on her face, or the fact that she looked extremely uncomfortable. She stood tense and stiff in front of me, her eyes rapidly darting around the room. I opened my mouth, to say what, I hadn’t decided, but before I could embarrass myself any more, she slammed her champagne glass onto the next tray that came by.

“Look, I’d love to stand here and have a fake conversation with you, but I am far beyond my patience with this crowd,” and with a glare in Peter’s direction she added, “And my date. So if you’ll excuse me…” With that, she disappeared into the crowd.

Peter hadn’t even realized what happened until he watched her scurry up the stairs. “Nisha! Come back!” he roared.

Everyone within several meters’ radius turned to see what all of the fuss was about.

I ignored him and the crowd and followed her outside. I didn’t know why I did it or what I would hope to come of it. I didn’t really know who she was and barely had a name to go off of…but what I did know was that if I didn’t follow her, if I didn’t force her to remember me, I was going to regret it for the rest of my life.

Chapter Three – Edward

It was a small piece of paper, torn out from a personal diary. A number- ten digits- was written on it in shaky handwriting with a gel pen. I didn’t know why, but she seemed nervous… very nervous, which didn’t make any sense. She was the one who looked like a goddess. Nevertheless, it was the nerves that assured me that she would call. In fact, the first thing I did when I woke up that morning was check my voicemails, texts… all of it. My eyes flipped open and I was already thinking of her.

But out of the four text messages, three missed calls, and two voicemails, none of them were from her. By the time I got into the office and took my place on the top floor, with my trusty secretary sitting guard, I was beginning to rethink my whole decision. She probably thought I was a bit odd… and completely drunk. If I called her now, she might think I was the stalker type. She might not want to talk to me. But if I didn’t call her… and she never called me back, I would never see her again. The first choice was a gamble.

The second choice wasn’t a choice at all.

This thought had only just crossed my mind when I heard a knock on the door. I scoffed. Why hadn’t Bridget buzzed...

“Mr. Worthington, Felix Horace.” Her sharp voice followed a quick buzz.

In the next second, the door opened and Felix stepped in. “What the hell are you up to, mate?”

“Look,” I started, taking my feet off of my desk and pulling the chair up, “Just because I’ve known you my whole life, doesn’t mean you’re okay to come barging in to my office like this.”

Felix raised an eyebrow as he took a seat across from me. “I’m not just your best friend. I’m your campaign manager… And this is unacceptable.” He slammed the Morning Star onto the desk.

I picked it up, my stomach lurching at the sight of an extremely unflattering photo of myself standing at the top of the staircase at that party. I peered at the photo, wondering how I could have been so oblivious to the state of my pasty face. “I look sick,” I muttered in horror.

“No,” Felix countered. “You look bloody drunk,” he replied, folding his arms across his large chest and setting his hefty jaw.

“Well, fuck the Morning Star,” I muttered, taking a sip of my coffee. I winced. It had gone cold. “No one takes them seriously anyway.”

“It doesn’t matter whether people are taking them seriously or not,” Felix countered. “You can bet millions of blokes saw this…and when you hit the trail tomorrow, this is all they’re going to be thinking about.”

My stomach turned at this.

“Does this even bother you?” Felix demanded.

“What are you even talking about?” I snapped. Wasn’t it enough that I had to be alerted of how awful I looked the night before? I didn’t need anyone driving in the knife even harder.

Felix leaned in, his brow furrowed in a way that I knew after all these years meant business. “Look, you’ve been at the head of this company since you were eighteen years old. People expect you to have learned how to act by now.”

Leave it to your best friend to reprimand you like he is your mother.

“Yeah? Well, I don’t care what people think,” I lied.

Felix scoffed. “Bull shit. You eat it up. I can see you looking at that headline with that smug grin on your face, like you’ve accomplished something.”

I set my jaw. It really was too early for all of this.

But Felix wouldn’t let off. He leaned in so closely to me that I could see the crack in his teeth from when he fell of his motorcycle when we were both at university. “You’re running for office. Knock it off. No one is impressed by you.”

I hated the way his words hit me right in my gut. “I told you. I don’t care what they think.”

Felix stood up, shoving the chair under the desk. “I’m not going to try to get you to tell the truth, because, at this point, I don’t have the time. We used to run around uni talking about how we were gonna change the world. Now, you’re sitting on over a billion pounds and a possible parliamentary seat. And for some reason, now you don’t care what people think.”

I couldn’t think of a real response before he turned and made his way to the door. It wasn’t until he had wrapped the knob in his sausage-like fingers that he stopped and turned back to me.

I braced myself for whatever his last comments might be.

“You have a meeting in the lower conference room. You will do well not to miss it.”

“I thought I didn’t have any business engagements for the morning,” I called after him.

But he just kept walking, shutting the door behind him anyway. Not wanting to sit in my office any longer and continue to ponder whether or not calling Nisha was even worth the trouble, I stood up and followed him out. After I had stalked down the hallway, into the elevator and down a floor, the doors swung open to the conference room that filled up half of the 57th floor of my office building. I stepped inside, my eyes sweeping the room, taking in everything from Bridget, who sat next to Felix with her nose buried in a binder, to the campaign officers that Peter and I had handpicked from a massive slush pile. This wasn’t a business thing.