Page 139 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 10

Sunday

I pressed my foot down harder on the gas as I thought about the conversation I needed to have with Penny. About the kind of man I was.

"So you liked my parents okay?" she asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Your parents are fantastic.” Even if her father was playing some kind of elaborate, long, strange prank on me. “And I appreciated that they tried to ignore the fact that we're, well...you know."

"Banging?"

I smiled. "You're very eloquent with your words, Miss Taylor."

"Are you going to get in trouble for canceling so many of your classes?"

"I haven't canceled that many classes."

"You cancel class all the time."

I laughed. "Well, no one has said anything to me yet. I doubt any students would complain about having more free time."

"True. But I really do feel better. Maybe we should both go to class tomorrow."

"The doctor specifically said to take tomorrow off."

"I know. But I've been skipping class a lot recently. And when I went I barely paid attention."

"I noticed,” I said.

She bit her lip. Normally I liked when she did that. But today she looked…nervous.

What wasn’t she telling me?

She turned her gaze away from me and stared out the window. "I'm going to fail statistics. I've never failed a class in my life."

"Then why do you think you're going to fail?"

She looked back at me. "My Stat professor has a really thick accent and it's hard to understand him.

I was teaching myself by reading the book but I was so unmotivated recently that I've fallen really far behind.

And there's a test next week. And I don't even understand why I'm bad at it.

I was great at math in high school. I took A.P. Calculus and I never had a problem."

"It's more business oriented than math oriented."

She laughed. "I guess I suck at business then. That's not great for the major I chose. Either way, I think I need to hire a tutor."

I did not want her hanging out in the library for hours with someone else. "I can tutor you."

"In Stat? You're a marketing professor."

I laughed. "So you really haven't read that much about me online then?"

"Not much, no. Are you secretly a statistics expert?"

I couldn’t help but laugh again. "No, I wouldn't say that. But it is your lucky day, because you're dating a genius."

"I know that you're intelligent, but you took Stat ages ago. You're forgetting that you're an old man."

Oh, I was going to spank her later for that. "Do you want my help or not?"

Penny laughed. "Yes."

"Good. You're definitely not going to fail Stat."

"That's very sweet of you to take such an interest in my education, professor."

"I have selfish motivations."

"And what are those?"

"I don't like to see you upset. And I'm pretty sure you'd be upset if you failed a class."

"Yeah, probably." She ran her fingers across the palm of my hand and up the inside of my forearm, sending shivers down my spine. "Any other reason?"

"If you have to retake classes you'll be in school forever."

"And that would bother you?"

"Yes, it would bother me." I didn’t want to have to hide our relationship for any longer than necessary.

I hit my turn signal and pulled into the parking garage underneath my apartment building.

I slid into one of my spots and cut the engine.

"When you graduate I can finally have you all to myself. "

I grabbed my sweatshirt out of the back seat and climbed out of the car. I opened the door for Penny.

She grabbed my hand, but she looked apprehensive for some reason.

We stepped onto the elevator and the doors slid closed. Silence surrounded us. And I wondered if I’d said something wrong.

"Well after I graduate, I'll get a job,” she finally said. “If anything, we'll probably have less time together."

Oh. So that’s what this was about? Because I said I’d have her all to myself? I meant it. "Maybe."

"You don't think I'll be able to find a job?"

She was taking this all wrong. "I didn't say that." I dropped her hand and leaned against the wall to stare at her. She had to know what I meant by this. She knew I was wealthy. She wasn’t going to be working as an unpaid intern after graduation. Not when she didn’t need to.

"Then what do you mean?"

I shrugged. I had a feeling she wasn’t going to like what I had to say. "I just meant that you won't really need to work."

"Of course I will."

"Not necessarily." It seemed like this was leading towards an argument. And I was so sick of fighting with her. I lifted her into my arms, hoping it would make her laugh. It did not. But I still carried her into my apartment.

"So that's your master plan for after I graduate? You want me to stay in your apartment all day while you work? I'd be bored out of my mind."

"Well, it would be our apartment, not mine."

"No it wouldn't. I wouldn't have any money to pay for my half of the rent."

This was ridiculous. I couldn’t help but laugh as I put her down on the couch. I knelt down on the floor beside her. "I have enough money for both of us, Penny. Besides, I don't rent this apartment. I own it."

"James...I'm getting a job after I graduate. I want to be able to provide for myself. I'm not going to mooch off of you."

Hmm. I lifted up her tank top and kissed her right below her belly button. God, her skin was so soft.

"Hey, stop trying to distract me." She cupped my chin in her hand.

I smiled at her. How could she not see how silly this conversation was?

"It's a good thing I am young. Because now I have extra time to convince you that that's a terrible idea."

"Mhm. It doesn't sound that terrible to me right now," I said.

"Certainly you'd be sick of me by then anyway."

Did she seriously think that? I lifted her legs, sat down on the couch, and put her legs down on my lap.

"No, I don't think so." I’d never grow tired of her.

I loved every inch of her. I slowly unlaced one of her sneakers, pulled it off her foot, and dropped it on the floor.

I repeated the process with her other shoe.

"Are you hungry?" she asked.

I was surprised but relieved by the change of topic. "I'm guessing that means you are?"

"I'm starving."

"What would you like?"

"Can we order a pizza or something?"

"That sounds fantastic." I pulled out my cell phone. "Where do you want it from?"

"Is Grottos okay?"

"Sure. I haven't tried their pizza yet."

"Are you serious? How can you live here and not try that?" She bit her lip, like she could already imagine biting into a slice.

"I'm assuming you like it?" I asked.

"It's the best."

"Grottos it is then." I found their number and pulled my phone to my ear. "What kind of pizza do you like?"

"Plain."

"Is it weird that I didn't know that?" I rubbed my thumb along the inside of her ankle. I should have known her favorite everything by now.

"We've never had pizza together before. How would you know?"

I guess. I kept caressing the inside of her ankle as I ordered.

When I hung up I smiled at her. I’d learn her favorite everything in time.

Because she was stuck with me. And right now we had all the time in the world.

At least until we had to go back to reality on Tuesday.

"So what makes their pizza the best? Because I'm from New York, and I'm pretty sure New York pizza is supposed to be the best."

"You'll just have to wait and see."

"What else don't I know about you?"

"You know me pretty well. Although, we don't do much talking when we're together." She tried to raise her eyebrow at me but failed miserably.

I laughed. "I'm glad you can't give me a scolding look."

"I'm not trying to scold you. I think that being intimate is time well spent." She pressed the sole of one of her feet against the zipper of my jeans.

I grabbed her wandering foot. "Except you're supposed to be taking it easy. Which gives us a perfect opportunity to talk."

"Okay. Let's play a game."

"What did you have in mind?"

"Truth or dare."

I laughed. But then I saw how serious she was. "Wait, really?"

"The idea of playing truth or dare with a guy I liked has always excited me. I don't know, we don't have to. You can just ask me some questions."

I liked that I was that guy. The one and only guy that would give her what she wanted. "No, I'll play."

She smiled up at me. "Okay, truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"What do you usually do in your free time?" She was looking around my very empty apartment.

"I grade papers."

"That can't be all that you do."

I swallowed hard. It wasn’t possible that she knew about the cameras. Or that I spent a good chunk of my time jerking off to a really fucking hot tape of us at my country club. No. She definitely didn’t know that. "Recently I've been busy thinking about you." I smiled at her.

"So you grade papers and think about me? But what do you do for fun?"

Jerk off to images of you. "Thinking about you is fun when you're not mad at me. But I believe it's my turn now. Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"Why didn't you tell your parents you were dating someone?"

"I thought our relationship was supposed to be secret."

"At first. But then things changed. You told Melissa."

"I didn't want to lie to them about you being a professor."

Fair. "So are you mad that I met them today?"

"No, not at all. I think they both liked you."

"Only because they don't know that I'm your professor."

"Maybe. My mom thought you were hot."

I laughed.

"Truth or dare?" she asked.

"Truth."

"So back to my original question. What do you do for fun?"

"You."

She playfully kicked my leg. "Seriously, James."

I shrugged. I was worried that maybe she did know about the cameras because she kept pushing this question. Maybe Dr. Clark was right. I should have Ian take them down. "I exercise most days."

"Obviously. What do you do for exercise?"

"There's a gym in the building. And I like to run outside."

"Do you even have a T.V.?" she asked.

"No. I can get one if you want."

"Don't you get bored? Alone in your apartment?"

"I've been toying with the idea of starting a new company. It keeps me busy."

"Another tech company?"

"Yeah. I've been working on some logistics for a while. But it's in the beginning stages. It doesn't make sense financially to start it right now." Fuck, why had I said that last part?

"Do you mean, it's better to wait until after you're divorced?"

I ran my fingers through my hair. "I'm not giving her half of this too." Just thinking about Isabella made me feel sick to my stomach. Mr. Pruitt said they’d have another look at the papers. But I hadn’t heard from either of them.

"Truth or dare?" she asked.

"I think it's my turn, Penny."

"Truth or dare?" she said more firmly.

I sighed. "Truth."

"Why did you go to New York while we were broken up?"

"I needed to talk to her." I didn’t want to talk about this. It was done. I didn’t like picturing Ian’s concerned face. Or Dr. Clark’s for that matter.

"About what? Why didn't you just talk to her on the phone?"

"I was hoping I could convince her to sign the papers." Actually, I was hoping to convince her father to get it done.

"By having sex with her?"

No. "It wasn't like that."

"So what then? You went to talk about getting divorced and ended up sleeping with her? One step forward, two steps back."

I had nothing to say to that. Isabella had her version of events.

And she’d threatened to show up to my Comm class and tell Penny herself if I didn’t comply.

I’d already made up my mind here. I tried to swallow down the lump in my throat.

"I missed you. I was a mess. I'm sorry, Penny.

" I knew that wasn’t good enough. But it was all I could offer her.

"Do you still have feelings for her?"

"No." Absolutely not.

"Then why did you sleep with her?"

For fuck’s sake, can’t we drop this? Penny had slept with someone too. And she fucking remembered it. She’d fucking wanted it. Breathe. "It's not like I made love to her. It was just sex."

"And what about the first time we had sex? Did that mean nothing too?"

I sighed. "No. It meant everything. It's different with you. Everything is different with you. I don't know what else I can say. I was upset. I made a mistake. End of story."

"It's not the end of the story because you're still married." Her voice cracked.

I was so tired of hurting her. But I didn’t know how to fix this. I hated that I didn’t have control over the situation. And I swear I was seconds away from snapping. "Truth or dare?" I asked.

"Dare."

What the fuck? "Penny..."

"Fine, truth."

"And what about Tyler?" I seethed. Okay, I’d already snapped.