Page 92 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 10

Monday

My brother’s chaos had taken longer than I’d realized.

The only thing I’d had time to do myself was send Penny a dozen non-friendship roses while I was on hold with some bail bondsman.

Luckily Ellen had grabbed everything I needed for my date without even asking any questions.

And I knew if someone had given me that shopping list, I definitely would have had a few questions.

Dr. Clark hadn’t told me to stop dating Penny.

And Ian had warned me but then dropped it pretty fast. And now Ellen was picking up things for a date without any questions.

I was surrounded by a bunch of enablers. No wonder I wasn’t able to stop.

I pulled up outside Penny’s dorm just in time. And any ideas of stopping this quickly evaporated. She was standing there in a pair of jean shorts and a tank top and she had a big canvas bag. I smiled. I was pretty sure she’d figured out where we were going.

She looked surprised by the fact that I was in a red convertible with the top down.

She knew I had money, so she probably wasn’t surprised that I had more than one car.

I had a feeling she was surprised by the fact that I had the top down even though there were students milling about that could easily see me.

But after my morning, I didn’t give a fuck who saw us.

No matter what I did, it wouldn’t be as bad as anything I’d done back in New York.

Or as bad as anything my brother had done in Costa Rica.

So who cared? We were just two adults in need of a little more time together.

Besides, my sunglasses helped hide my face.

And I’d kept a low profile here. No one had ever seen me in this car. No one here knew who I really was.

I leaned over and opened the door for her from the inside.

“New car?" she asked.

It did still have that new car smell I loved.

"No. But I haven't driven it much." I let my eyes rake over her body. Her shorts had ridden up when she sat down, exposing even more of her long legs. She was smiling so brightly and I had a feeling that she’d never ditched class before. She wasn’t that type of girl. But she’d done it for me.

Which made my smile grow as I pulled away from campus.

"So, where are we going?" she asked. The wind was blowing through her hair and I was finding it hard to focus on the road. All I wanted to do was pull over and have my way with her.

"I think you can probably guess,” I said.

"Well, it's not raining, so I'm not sure where we could get caught in the rain. But we've been caught in the rain before, so maybe you're skipping that portion. Which means you're probably going the feel of the ocean route. So I'm guessing that we're heading to the beach!"

I smiled at her.

"You should have warned me though. What if I hadn't worn a bathing suit?"

"I was actually hoping you would forget it." I’d been really hoping.

She lightly pushed my shoulder as she laughed.

I pulled onto I-95 and the noise of traffic filled my ears. I pressed down on the gas, cruising between cars to pass them on the highway.

"You're going to get a ticket!" she yelled over the roar of traffic.

I slowed down a little so I wouldn’t scare her, but I was still going faster than most of the other cars.

I liked to do things fast. But if she needed me to go a little slower, I could.

I’d already been trying to do that for her.

"You don't break the rules very often, do you?

" I asked, even though I already knew the answer. There was something about a good girl that did bad things only for me. Apparently it was my weakness. Because here I was, when I definitely shouldn’t have been.

"Not really. But I do sometimes."

"Give me an example."

"You."

I laughed. "Besides for me."

"Well. One time...no, that was okay. Well there was another time...hmmm..."

"Maybe you're right about me then,” I said. “I am a terrible influence on you."

"Yeah, you're the worst."

"Then I'll have to learn to behave myself better."

"I guess so."

I tried not to let our playful words get to my head.

Because the truth was, I was the epitome of a terrible influence.

And I was pushing it aside because I felt alive when I was around her.

She was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

I stared at the road in front of us. The best thing?

Really? I took a deep breath. Fuck. I was in so over my head here.

"I don't actually want you to behave around me, Professor Hunter. I like that you're a bad influence on me. I think you're just what I need."

I smiled. She even knew when I needed reassurance. "Penny, I couldn't behave myself around you even if you begged me to." I pressed my foot down harder on the gas and turned on the radio to drown away my thoughts.

***

We arrived at the beach in record time. I drove to the end of the boardwalk and parked on a side street. "Have you ever been here before?" I asked.

"I used to come here every summer when I was growing up." She grabbed her stuff and stepped out of the car.

"All the more special then." I climbed out of the car and grabbed the towel and cooler that Ellen had packed for me. My hand immediately slid into Penny’s as we walked toward the boardwalk.

"What about you?" she asked.

"I've come down here a few times."

"So this is where you take all the ladies to impress them?"

I laughed. "No, I've only ever been here by myself."

"You're kind of a loner, aren't you?"

"I guess you could say that I have a hard time trusting people." That’s what Dr. Clark said. But I hadn’t always been that way.

"Why?" she asked.

I squeezed her hand. But I didn’t know how to answer her question.

Today was supposed to be her ideal date.

Talking about my past was not the fun afternoon I had planned.

My phone started buzzing in my pocket as we reached the boards.

Son of a bitch, what now? I dropped Penny’s hand and pulled my phone out of my pocket.

Even though her number wasn’t saved to my phone, I recognized it.

Isabella. It was the only call I’d like less than one from my brother in prison.

Fucking hell. Not here. Not in front of Penny.

I was trying to protect her from this. That was why I’d driven to New York a couple weeks ago, to try to finalize this damn thing.

Isabella had already taken enough from me.

I wouldn’t allow her to ruin what Penny and I had.

"I'm sorry, I have to take this,” I said. I walked a few paces away from Penny, hoping she wouldn’t be able to hear me, and answered the phone. "This isn't a good time,” I said instead of a proper hello.

“It’s nice to hear from you too, James.” Her voice was laced with honey. But not the real kind. Some cheap high fructose bullshit. “I thought maybe we could meet up to discuss some of these specifics,” she said. “It’s been far too long since I’ve seen you.”

That was kind of the point. "I don't even know why we're still talking about this." It had almost been a year since we were together. And when we had been together…she’d spent most of the time fucking some other guy behind my back. How long was she going to keep up this act? We both knew we’d never loved each other. We’d both been living a lie. We’d both been stuck in hell together.

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Penny was still far away.

“We’re still talking about this because you won’t sit down and have a real conversation with me,” she said.

“I miss you. I think you should come back to New York and stop fooling around in whatever little town you’re in.

I know we both made mistakes. And I’m sorry, I’ve told you that countless times.

But honestly…the ones I made? Not quite the same as yours, darling.

And I always forgave you. Always. That’s what love is. ”

It felt like the hair rose on the back of my neck when she called me darling. And when she mentioned love? I wanted to laugh. Fake. Insincere. Manipulative. No, I didn’t want to laugh. None of this was funny. I felt sick to my stomach.

Before I could respond, she started talking again. “Come back to New York this weekend so we can talk in person. I’ll make reservations at Per Se. You owe me at least that, James.”

Making reservations at her favorite restaurant was the kind of behavior that made her motivations clear.

She just wanted to be seen out in public with me to snuff the rumors.

Even Ian knew that my favorite restaurant in the city was Totonno’s.

But Isabella wouldn’t be caught dead in a mom-and-pop pizzeria on the other end of Manhattan even if she knew it was my favorite.

Because she didn’t care about me. She only cared about herself.

And I didn’t owe her a thing. We’d tortured each other enough.

I took a deep breath. Maybe Dr. Clark was right.

Maybe I had made progress. Maybe I did deserve something good for once in my life.

And Isabella was anything but good. "I told you I didn't care about any of the specifics.

Just sign the damn papers." I ended the call and put the phone back in my pocket. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Just hearing Isabella’s voice made me feel like I was trapped again. Breathe.

But I wasn’t alone anymore. And Isabella was my past. I’d made a lot of mistakes, but being with her was the worst of them all.

I was pretty sure it was a mutual feeling, so I had no idea why she was pretending that she was still in love with me.

Especially because she never had been in the first place. She was a fucking con artist.

Breathe. I wasn’t going to let her ruin the afternoon I had planned. I plastered a smile on my face as I walked back over to Penny. "Sorry about that."

"Is everything okay?"