Page 72 of Billionaire Grump
I lean against the railing, letting my face drop into my hands. Oh, Josh.
Alexander comes up behind me, stroking my hair away from my neck, his fingers settling on my shoulders. “You’re okay, sweetheart. Whatever this is, we’ll figure it out. I’ve got you.”
Here he goes again with the I’ve got you. I turn to face him. “Thank you for buying me some time. But I don’t actually have a lawyer. So I’m going to?—”
“Luckily for you, baby girl, I do. A whole fucking brigade of them.”
I begin to push past him. “Since there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that I can afford your brigade?—”
“Ivy.” He snakes his brawny arm around my waist.
I look up at his outrageously handsome face and I can’t help it: I burst into tears. I really try not to, but it’s no use. I’m not good at confrontation and I’m definitely not good at being questioned by a private investigator who’s followed me here like some kind of stalker.
How the hell did I get myself into this mess? I’m lying to a guy my dad hired to chase after me, I’m lying about being in a relationship with Alexander Maddox, and I’m lying to the whole world about how glamorous my life is. Lies, lies, lies.
It suddenly all feels heavier than I can bear.
Alexander wraps his arms around me, pulling me against his chest. It’s so tender, so disarmingly sincere that it causes more tears to stream down my face.
“Hey,” he croons. “We’ll work it out. You’re okay. Everything will be fine. You’ve got me now.”
It feels more like a spear to the heart than a reassurance. I’ve literally known this man for a day. Yes, it feels like we’ve fast-tracked this whole thing. We clicked, or whatever you want to call it. Our souls meshed from that very first moment and have continued to entwine with every glance, every smile—and every fucking orgasm. But that doesn’t make him my prince in shining armor.
He can’t just make promises like that. It’s not fair.
I wriggle from his embrace. “I need to go back to the room.”
His arm is still around me, supporting me. And we don’t have far to go. When we get back to our suite, Alexander faces me, holding my shoulders with strong hands. “I’m going to go out to the patio and make a couple of phone calls. You get ready for bed and I’ll be back in a minute.”
I wipe my tears.
I get ready for bed, searching through my bag and finding the other nightie Cleo packed for me, a pink cotton babydoll number that once again barely covers me. I slide under the cool sheet and the plush duvet and force myself to think only about the extreme comfort levels of this bed.
It doesn’t work.
We’ll figure it out. Josh will have returned the money by the time he gets back. He promised.
I’m so comfortable I’ve almost drifted off when I feel Alexander’s warm weight settle in next to me. He feels so good, instinctively, I curl up against him. His arms wrap around me.
“Is it true?” His voice is deep, lightly graveled. Not accusing, just curious. When I don’t reply right away, he says, “You can trust me, Jones.”
I don’t know if it’s his top-shelf pheromones, which seem to be pulling all the little strands of my DNA toward him, like flowers seeking sun. Or if maybe it’s just nice to hear the sincerity in his voice when he says the word trust. It’s so new, this soothing, comforting effect he has on me, like he’s carrying some of the weight of my burden.
And so I end up telling him everything. I tell him about what an asshat my father is and how I was trying to reach out to him one last time. I tell him about how Josh has struggled with feelings of abandonment but has still managed to rise above it and get himself into Columbia, and what a huge accomplishment that feels like. How he’s a good kid. I tell him about losing our mother and feeling so alone with all the responsibility of keeping both of us on track, I sometimes felt like I was drowning. I tell him about how I don’t love putting all the details of my life on Instagram, but how, the more I shared, the more money I made. And about how it was the best feeling in the world and one of the best days of my life when I was able to buy us the loft in Soho.
Alexander listens to all of it, asking questions here and there. He gently coaxes every secret, every emotion and every lie, explained, out of me, until I’m sobbing in his arms. But as my tears start to ease I find that I feel lighter. So much lighter, like he’s taken some of the existential weight I’ve been carrying and offered to carry it himself.
“God,” I exhale a sigh of relief or maybe regret. “I’m sorry. Now you know everything about me. And here you thought your fake date would make your life easier, and not bore you to tears with my pathetic backstory.”
“It’s not pathetic,” he says. “It’s heroic.”
It might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. And it helps. I look up into his eyes and I make a wish. I’m scarred, but in this moment, he feels like a beautiful, magical gift.
I wish he was mine. I wish I could keep him.
I reach up to touch his face. I softly kiss his lips. “Thank you for listening, Maddox.”
“Thank you for trusting me, Jones.”