Tempting Me: A Bad Boy Romance (21 page)

The hurt and rage that swirl in his now-piercing icy eyes feel like a stab in my heart.

“I’m sorry,” I say, knowing that this is it. This is the end of the rollercoaster and I have to tell him the truth. All of it.

Devlin gathers clothing and belongings at a furious pace. He’s angry and has every right to be.

“I was hired by your father,” I continue.

He expels a breath of air, shaking his head and flaring his nose.

“Should’ve known that he was involved,” he snarls.

“He wanted me to help manage your anger and get you to enjoy life a little more,” I explain.

This time when he looks at me, there is no trace of the anger. It looks as though he is biting back tears, and that hurts my heart. I feel lower than dirt.

“Tell my father that I’m fixed,” he says, reaching for his wallet.

He throws a credit card at me and four hundred dollars in cash.

“Use this to get home. I’ll make sure that you are paid generously for your services,” he says with no emotion before walking away.

“Devlin!” I call to him. “Wait,” I tell him, rushing from the bed. It doesn’t matter that I don’t have any clothes on. He has to talk to me.

“If you ever cared for me a little bit at all, stop,” I cry in an unrecognizable voice. “Listen. Please. I’m begging you.”

He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t look at me. He moves away swiftly as though I had not been there at all.

A slamming door echoes through the suite, and I feel like it echoes through me as well.

I crumple onto the floor with no words left.

Tears explode like waterfalls and the heaving sobs from my stomach won’t stop.

I am alone, again. Just how it always ends.

Chapter 16-Devlin
 

I can’t leave New York and Ayron fast enough. I knew that Ayron had been holding back, but damn. I thought that I would find out that she dropped out of school before finishing her doctorate or something, that maybe she didn’t tell me where she lived because she used to have a stalker. I thought that she was scared to take it to next level and that this weekend would show her that I was sure about her, that it was all right to open up to me.

Big fucking mistake.

My father had paid her to be my girlfriend and therapist? I know why my father did it. He’s a businessman. Everything is a business transaction to him. He knows how to get his way. He had done it before with my tennis instructor, but I never thought that my father would go this far. A woman? All of the clues were there. I was so blinded by her beauty that I couldn’t see it.

It’s only been two weeks since getting back home, but the pain was still there.

I push my fist against the punching bag I had installed in my bedroom before an urge to rip the weighted bag down surges through me. Ayron had suggested it. Although I have a workout area in my home, Ayron had suggested that having something closer to punch out any aggression as soon as I wake up or before I go to bed could be beneficial.

I hit the bag again. She’s everywhere in my home. I had the housekeeper donate every pair of jeans I bought and all of the stupid cookware that Ayron loved. I can’t even eat a goddamn egg without thinking of her because it had become our routine to eat breakfast together lately.

“Hello,” I growl into my ringing phone. Somewhere deep, I hoped that Ayron would call to explain herself, at least apologize.

“Damn, buddy. What’s going on?” Kevin asks in his usual chipper voice.

I sigh and explain the situation to my friend. I don’t have many associates, and losing Ayron has lowered my options in confidants significantly.

“The only bright spot in the situation is that because I took her to the stupid Gala I was able to get some dirt on Trevor’s snake ass,” I confess, finishing a recount of the past events to my friend. “The private investigator forwarded me the video of Trevor sneaking around on my sister with one of the secretaries while I was in New York.”

“Are you serious?”

“I wish that I weren’t. How idiotic? Even I know--don’t shit where you eat,” I say, shaking my head. “Damn, now I’m even talking like Ayron. She had a saying for everything.”

Kevin laughs.

“She really got to you?” He chuckles.

“I’m glad you find my misery comical,” I say. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Wait man,” Kevin adds, stifling his laugh. “I called to tell you that I’m getting married.”

I move the phone away from my face to make sure that I have the right caller. Sure enough there is the picture that I have saved of Kevin on the screen holding on to two leggy blondes.

“To who? Why? You have to tell me this story.”

“I will, my friend, but we have to be face-to-face, passing a bottle of some old stuff for you to really understand,” he explains in his normal, lighthearted way. “I need you to be my best man, though.”

“Uh. Sure man,” I tell my friend. I want to be happy for him, but right now there is no space for anything other than the emptiness that Ayron left. “Just tell me when and I’ll be there.”

I pad barefoot from my bedroom to the open living room at the entrance of my home.

I scrub a hand over my gruff, unshaven face. Without work or Ayron, I haven’t had a reason to dress or shave or clean. Leaning back on the sofa facing the fish tank, I allow my mind to drift where it always goes lately, my beauty, my Angelfish. I imagine her soft lips against me and her soft body pressed against mine. Her almond-shaped eyes rounding with excitement. The look of her vulnerable, round eyes when she lay under me, or the rolling of her sarcastic eyes—the scenarios play like a movie in my mind.

Fuck. I miss her. I should call, check on her. I had left her naked and alone and not even called to see if she made home all right. That shit was wrong. Would she even talk to me? I had thrown money at her like a damn prostitute.

My hand restlessly slides into the pair of yoga pants that I couldn’t bear to get rid of and clasps around my hardened dick with memories of Ayron’s bubbly ass bending over on our first date. Damn, she had ruined me. I close my eyes and sigh. I need her.

I open my eyes. My hand won’t help, won’t stop the ache that I feel for her. I have to find a way to get past the feeling. The days haven’t mattered, time hasn’t helped a bit: I still fucking want her.

I look over at the tank and something is odd. Mufasa is aimlessly swimming around the tank, alone. He is alone. Then I notice the pattern. He is swimming from the rock cave where he and Sarabi usually hang out to the top of the tank and back. I look up and notice Sarabi floating at the top on her side, lifeless.

I run to the kitchen and empty a cereal box and rush back to the tank. I grab a net and fish Sarabi from the top before plunking her into the empty box. I wouldn’t feel right flushing the loyal friend. Damn.

I place the box next to the tank and then notice the flickering, thrashing movements as Mufasa swims jerkily in circles.

“I can relate, Mufasa,” I tell the fish after tapping the glass.

***

Today, my key card worked when I entered the office from the parking lot and strolled through as if it were any other day. Everything in the building is still abuzz, a hive of people bustling, as though I were never absent. The empire hadn’t broken or fallen to ruin in my absence. Everyone and everything is still in place.

I walk past my office to Gloria’s desk and pick up my work phone. I had emailed some information to it earlier and asked her to help me with a project. Today’s review meeting would be interesting to say the least.

When I reach the board-room, I lock eyes with a familiar face. A young woman with a round face and big round eyes. She startles with recognition as she rushes past me to her desk on the second floor. I wonder if she had been in the board room to assist Trevor.

Sitting in front of my father, brother, sister, Trevor, and a myriad of other straight faces that make up the executive board is a sobering experience.

Trevor’s smug face moves into a sneaky smirk as he sits forward and calls the review to order.

“On the recommendation of President Emeritus David Masters, we are holding this review to determine the future of Devlin Masters as the Chief Operating Officer of Finance and Operations after his display of hostile actions against another member of the executive board.” Trevor looks over at me. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

I look into the solemn faces of each of the members. They all look so miserable.

My brother is spineless and basically floating through life without purpose. My sister is bitter and unkind. My father is lonelier than he admits. The death of my mother, his partner, his friend, who held him together in life as they built a fortune together, killed a piece of him a long time ago. The others are assholes, whoremongers, or jerks with no real love or connection in their lives. I don’t want their story to be mine.

I should be worried about my job, but I am thinking about her again.

Ayron’s voice rings in my ears and I speak my truth to the board.

“Life is the sum of our experiences and what we learn from them. I apologize for my actions, but I am grateful for the opportunity to become better, to grow. I have made changes in my life to funnel my aggressions and control my actions,” I say.

“What about the counseling?” Trevor asks, sitting back as though he had placed the nail in the coffin. As though he knew I hadn’t completed it. Under normal circumstances, he would have been right, but because my father is a smart man, there are no worries.

“I completed three weeks of counseling,” I tell them.

My father slides over manila folders to the members.

“Inside you will find a sworn notarized statement from a certified psychologist as to his cooperation,” my father explains.

Ayron again. Damn. I miss her.

The executives read over the information, nodding and smiling as they do.

What the hell could she have written to make these people smile?

Trevor looks irritated.

“Are there any other questions before we begin making our decision?” he asks.

I roll my eyes and smile because it makes me think of Ayron.

“Is this funny to you?” Trevor huffs. “This lack of respect for the company—”

“Let me stop you right there,” I say. “Dana, please go out of the room for a few minutes.”

She looks confused, but does as she’s told. I then pull my phone from my pocket and press play.

On the large flat-screen mounted in the conference room, the video of Trevor screwing a second-floor secretary, who is also the niece of one of the board members on a company desk, pops up. Gloria had connected my phone to the screen through an app prior to the meeting.

Eyes bulge, mouths drop, faces twist and turn away.

“What did you have to say about respect?” I add. “While I may have punched you after you provoked me—using my insecurities about my mother’s death was really low, might I add—I refrained from hunting you down and knocking in your face when I found out how you treated my sister and several other women in this company, who were shuffled around after you used them.”

Trevor’s face reddened.

“I—if you—this is not about me,” he says, sounding frustrated as he stands and stomps out of the room.

I turn off the video.

“For each action, there is a reaction or consequence,” I recite. “Because of my actions, I have learned so much more about life and myself. I look forward to hearing your decision. Thank you for your time.”

After the meeting, I walk evenly to my office.

Gloria sits forward anxiously at her desk, which is right next to my door.

“Did it work?” my assistant questions.

“Like a charm.”

I give her a high-five.

“Devlin,” my father calls out, moving toward me. “Let’s talk in your office.”

I mirror my father’s serious expression.

“Yes, let’s talk,” I agree.

Inside my office, my father sits quietly.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Trevor?” he says in a crisp tone.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Ayron?” I counter.

It doesn’t faze him.

“Would you have gone to counseling otherwise? Would you be on the verge of getting the company you’ve been fighting for if I hadn’t?” he responds in that know-it-all voice.

“But to pay Ayron to make me fall in love with her?” I protest, raising my voice. Damn respect at the moment, David Masters had crossed a line. “Why not a housekeeper or another tennis coach?”

My father has a steel poker face, but the short snort he releases, his lips slightly cocking to one side, reveals a hell of a lot.

“You didn’t think I knew about that.”

“Since you have it all figured out then, son,” he says, standing. “It’s true. I have not always been the present father that you needed.” He moves closer to me, straightening my not crooked tie. “I made sure to strategically appoint people in your life that could help you, give you what I couldn’t. Shit, what I didn’t know how to give.” He steps away then and looks me in the eye. “My mother didn’t even know who my father was. Six kids, at least four fathers, was a lot to keep track of. I wasn’t always equipped.”

I sigh.

‘’I just want you to be proud of me,” I tell him, biting back any emotion like a damn child. And I realize, it’s true.

“Son,” his face brightens. “I was proud of you the day you were born. I don’t even know where to start. Smart, strong, determined.”

“Well, you don’t have to try and fix me anymore,” I tell him honestly. “I’m all right.”

He smiles.

“All right.” He nods and moves toward the door.

“Have you already paid Ayron?” I question. “I was thinking of giving her a little extra for the hassle.”

He ponders for a moment, as though questioning whether or not tell me.

“She had a friend return the money, along with her statement,” he says.

“Oh,” I voice, and can’t think of any words to say, just her face.

Ayron needs money. I’d seen her car.

“If you love her, son, you should go to her,” my dad says. “I know the burden of heartbreak.”

“No fixing me,” I remind him.

He laughs before exiting.

I had confessed out loud that I loved Ayron. Do I? It had to be a slip of the tongue. I just needed to prove a point to my father.

***

Walking through the door of my home, I feel like a weight has been lifted. I don’t care what they decide. There is so much more to life than the business.

Mufasa had retreated to the rock cave. He rarely came out to swim to spot where Sarabi had been.