Top Love: An Alpha Billionaire Romance (Young Adult Stepbrother and Billionaire Romance Stories) (15 page)

She tore the dough open and plopped a dozen sloppy mounds of it onto a baking sheet. While she waited for them to bake, she uncorked the wine and carried the half-empty bottle to the couch. She brought up Netflix on the television and primed up the episode of Gilmore Girls that was next in the cue. As she did all of this, she moved as if someone had pre-programmed her. She knew that she had to deal with what she was feeling. She knew that she had to sort out her emotions. If it meant she had to cry like a heartbroken schoolgirl, then so be it. And if it meant that she uncovered from suppressed anger, that was fine, too.

She lifted the remote and was about to press play to start the episode when a knock came to her door. She jumped a bit and then rolled her eyes. Can Scott actually sense when I’m home? Is it like a needy sort of radar?

Again, it was not a fair thought. Maybe it came from the anger that she was beginning to realize she needed to deal with in regards to Riley.

She didn’t get up, though. Let him knock. She could pretend that she wasn’t home and—

“Lauren? Hey…it’s Riley. I know you’re home. Can you please open the door?”

She looked to the door as if it had spoken the words and not a man on the other side. Having Riley come to her apartment was the absolute last thing she had been expecting. She looked around the modest little place and was embarrassed at the mere thought of him seeing it. But at the same time, she knew that she couldn’t send him away.

“Wait,” she said, a bit grumpy.

She got up from the couch, the wine bottle in one hand, and answered the door. She was hurt and she was mad, but seeing him there was like a breath of fresh air. He was wearing a white button-down shirt and a tie that had been loosened at the neck. His pants were cinched tight and their charcoal gray color looked almost black in the bright lights of the hallway.

He stepped inside without being invited. He instantly brought his hands to either side of her face, leaned in, and kissed her. She yielded at first, feeling the posture of her body leaning into his, wanting to melt into him and kiss him forever. But with every ounce of willpower she had, she was able to pull away from him. She gave him a perplexed look and took another step back.

Sensing that there was trouble brewing, Riley closed the door behind him. To his credit, he stayed where he was although it was obvious that he very much wanted to approach her.

“How did you get my address?” she asked.

“I requested a copy of your application from Alderholt,” he said. “Sorry. Sort of sneaky on my part.”

It was, but she didn’t say so. “I need you to explain to me what happened when you came in the store today. What the hell was that about?”

He grinned, but it was one of disdain. He then gave a shrug, and when he looked to her, she saw genuine sorrow in his eyes. It was the first time she had seen anything like it in his expression and it made her want to instantly go to him.

“I don’t know that I could explain it.”

“Is it because there was a pretty girl there?” she asked, thinking of Shelly. “Did you not want to seem too into the fat girl with the pretty skinny girl standing right there?”

“Stop it,” he said. “That’s not it at all, and you know I don’t see you that way.”

“Then what was it?” she asked.

“I’m just…well, I’m not used to public displays of affection. I’ve always thought it was a sign of weakness to appear as if you’re attached to someone. Sure, I tried to break that wall down at dinner the other night and it was exhausting.”

“Oh, well I’m sorry that trying to make me seem ordinary or pretty or whatever tired you out,” she snapped at him.

He took his first additional step inside. They were now less than three feet apart and it was killing her not to reach out and touch him.

“It’s not like that,” he said. “I’m glad I was able to do it at dinner. You deserve it and it made me so happy to be able to tear that wall down for you. It’s just going to take some time.”

“Some time?” she asked.

“Yes. I can do it, I know I can. But today at the store, I was so preoccupied with Mr. Farr—I felt like I had to keep my business-face on. I felt like hell when I left. I knew I had hurt you. I almost called you, but I didn’t think it would help.”

She didn’t say anything. If anything, she felt bad for blowing the whole thing out of proportion.

“There’s another reason I didn’t call or come back by the store,” he added.

“What?”

He stepped forward again and reached out, taking the hand that was not occupied by the wine. “After talking with Mr. Farr, I don’t know that I can go through with the sale.”

“What?”

He smiled, nodding. “It all comes back to what you yelled at me about on that first night at the shoe store. That store is his livelihood. He’s out time and effort into it…more than I’ve ever put into anything, that’s for sure.”

“So…what?” she asked. “You’re going to put a stop to it?”

“I don’t know. But more important than that…do you forgive me? Can you understand what I was trying to do?”

She nodded and stepped towards him, setting the wine bottle down on the end table by the couch. “Of course I do,” she said. “Thank you for trying to explain. I know it must have been hard.”

“It was,” he said, their faces inching towards one another. “But not as hard as I thought it was going to be. It was easier one I saw you.”

She knew she was blushing, but she didn’t care. His mouth was coming towards hers and in that dizzy speed that she was getting all too familiar with, they were kissing. It grew intense, and the moment their tongues touched, the apartment was filled with a high-pitched beeping noise.

She pulled away and said, “That’s the oven.”

“I thought I smelled cookies,” he said with a chuckle.

“Yeah,” she said, going to the stove and taking them out. She put the tray on the stovetop and said, “This was how I was going to deal with what happened today.”

He looked around the apartment, smiling. “Wine, cookies, and The Gilmore Girls. Sounds like fun.”

“Don’t make fun.”

“I’m not,” he said, reaching out and taking one of the cookies. “Can I join you?”

She was taken aback at the idea of Riley sharing her couch space with her, drinking her cheap wine and zoning out it front of the TV. Somehow, it was a much more intimate thought than being naked in her bed with him…something else she hoped they might get to if he did indeed stay here for cookies, wine, and TV.

“Of course,” Lauren said. “That would be great.”

“It really would,” he said, kissing her softly on the side of the mouth.

And something about that little kiss, complete with the cookie crumbs on the top of his upper lip, meant more to her than anything else that had happened over the last three days.

***

The last thing Lauren remembered about that night was falling asleep, wiped out from a mind-shattering orgasm, with their legs entwined beneath the sheets. She hadn’t had a man fall asleep beside her since college…six years of loneliness and wondering if she’d ever experience it again. So she fell asleep that night feeling fulfilled in a way that couldn’t be achieved by just sex.

Still, when she woke up in the morning, he was gone. In his place, there was a note. He had written it on the back of one of his business cards. It read:

Early breakfast with boring people. I’ll call you when I’m freed up.

She read it five times, unable to stop herself. I’m giddy, she thought miserably. Oh my God, I’m falling for this man far too fast.

But there was a smile plastered to her face as she readied herself for work. She knew that there could be devastating news today, as well as a huge emotional moment for Mr. Farr. And while she knew that she should be alarmed and upset about both of those things, she simply couldn’t find the room in her heart for anything other than joy and excitement about what was happening in her life.

On the way to work, she checked her name tag, admiring how cute it looked. No matter what happened with Mr. Farr or the potential job with Alderholt Lending, she thought she might always hold into this nametag for sentiment. She again thought of what Mr. Farr might be going through this morning and of Riley’s talk of changing his mind the night before and everything seemed to be entirely unpredictable. This had the potential to be a very big day indeed.

She received further evidence of this shortly before she turned into the shoe store parking lot. It was 10:02 when her cellphone rang. She beamed for a moment, sure that it was Riley. But when she picked it up, it was from a number she didn’t recognize. She answered it hesitantly, bringing the phone to her ear as she parked in the shoe store lot.

“Hello?” she said.

“HI, Lauren. This is Robin, over at Alderholt Lending. I wanted to call and let you know that after speaking with the directors and the vice-president, we believe you’d make a fine addition to Alderholt Lending. If you’re still interested in the job, we’d love to offer you the position.”

Lauren literally could not form any words for a good three seconds. The silence on the phone seemed to grow as she drew in a breath.

“Lauren?”

“I’m here,” she said. “I’m sorry. But this is fantastic news. I’m a little shocked.”

“No need to be,” Robin said. “We liked what we saw and believe that if we can get you some additional training, you can be incredibly successful here. Now, we have a package put together for you that goes over salary, benefits, and things of that nature. Depending on the roles you end up taking, the position pays anywhere between seventy and seventy-eight thousand annually. Is that going to be acceptable?”

She was again speechless but managed to cut the silence short this time. “Yes,” she said, trying to wrap her head around such a figure. Compared to the thirteen dollars an hour she was making at the shoe store, seventy thousand dollars a year seemed like a fortune.

“Great. Can you come in tomorrow morning at nine o’ clock to get everything underway?”

“Absolutely,” Lauren said. “I’ll be there. And thank you so much.”

“Thank you,” robin said. “We’re excited to have you join our team.”

Lauren ended the call and opened her car door right away. She felt that if she didn’t start moving instantly, she would freeze up and have some sort of joy-induced panic attack in her car. She walked directly into the store, barely seeing Brittany and Shelly speaking with Mr. Farr behind the counter.

She was in such a daze that she initially missed the good mood that everyone seemed to be in. Even Mr. Farr was smiling ear to ear. From the looks of his eyes, he had also been crying recently.

“I’m only five minutes late,” Lauren said. “What did I miss?”

Mr. Farr approached her and gave her a large hug. He even kissed her on the cheek, making her laugh out loud.

“The sale is off,” he said, stepping back so that she could again see the wide smile on his face. “Riley Thomson called me early this morning and invited me to breakfast. He said he no longer needed the store and that he appreciated local businesses. But it gets better….not only is the sale off and I’m keeping the store, but Riley is giving me four hundred thousand dollars as an investment towards another shoe store. He’ll go in as my partner and earn a percentage, but I’m in full control.”

Lauren couldn’t contain her own smile. “Oh my God,” she said, starting to laugh again.

She looked to Brittany and Shelly and while they were also in good moods, there was something in the way they looked at her that made Lauren think that there was something else going on, too. In fact, they were looking at her as if they had a secret that they were bursting to tell.

“What?” she asked. “What is it?”

“We sort of know something else,” Brittany said.

Oh God, Lauren thought. “What?”

Her answer didn’t come from either of the preppy young ladies at the counter, though. Instead, it came from a male’s voice near the back of the store.

“They know about us,” this male voice said.

Lauren looked down the aisles and saw Riley walking towards the counter. For reasons that she didn’t understand at the moment, she found herself wanting to cry. This, she assumed, was her life’s weird version of the knight in shining armor that most girls fantasized about in their youth.

“I told them about you and I,” he said as he reached the register. “And I also told Mr. Farr that it was you that originally set my mind to killing off the sale. Would it make this new development I have going easier? Sure. But are there other ways around it without putting a family business in the ground? Absolutely.”

Lauren opened her mouth to say something, but Riley was suddenly behind the counter, putting his mouth on hers. He kissed her in a way that was slightly too much to be in front of three other people, but she didn’t mind. As he kissed her, Lauren heard a slight giggle from Brittany.

When the kiss was over, Lauren looked guiltily to Mr. Farr.

“What is it, dear?” he asked.

“Well, I’m glad you were able to keep the business, but I got a job offer. I got it literally as I was pulling into the lot.”