Page 21 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 11

Thursday

"Were you guys just drinking straight vodka?” Melissa asked. “No chaser or anything?"

"We both just really needed a drink," I said and sat down in one of the stools at the counter.

"Gross." Melissa opened up the fridge like she’d been here a hundred times.

She was very different from Penny. I stared at her as she poured a can of cherry coke into a glass, topped it off with some vodka, and leaned against the counter.

Actually, she was pretty much the opposite of Penny.

I wondered what they had in common. Or maybe it was something about them not having anything in common that made them friends?

"Why did you both need a drink so badly?" Melissa asked.

"The cops showed up," Penny said and shrugged.

"Wait, what?"

"To interview me for that stupid investigation they're doing."

"Did they tell you how the investigation was going?"

Penny looked at me.

"Apparently two of my former students said I was asking for sexual favors in exchange for giving them better grades. Or something along those lines."

Melissa already hated me. This wasn’t going to help.

"And..." she said.

"And nothing. It isn't true. Either the girls made it up, or the detectives did to try to get information from Penny.”

"You have a history of lying."

Yes, Melissa hated me. And I was starting to hate her too.

But I knew I needed to squash this nonsense.

If I could get Penny’s parents to like me, I could get her supposed best friend to like me too.

"Here." I pulled out my phone and set it on the kitchen counter.

I pushed it and it slid across the counter to her.

"Check my phone. I'm telling the truth."

"So I can just look at your phone?” Melissa asked. “At your texts? And contacts? And emails? And pictures?"

"Suit yourself."

Melissa swiped her finger across the screen. "What's your password?"

"Oh." I laughed and raked my fingers through my hair. "Actually it's Penny." I couldn’t get her out of my head while we were on a break. Every time I grabbed my phone, I’d hoped there’d be a text from her. I was trying to be strong and I’d thought if I could type her name when I unlocked my phone, I could resist actually typing anything to her. And I hadn’t changed it back.

Because I liked thinking about her all the time.

"I'm your password?" Penny slid into the seat next to mine.

"Yeah, I happen to like thinking about you." I put my arm around her.

Melissa tried to hide her smile as she started to scroll through my phone. "I hate that I'm mad at you right now, James. Because you two really are adorable.”

Penny leaned her head against my shoulder. The scent of her cherry perfume affected me even more when alcohol was coursing through my veins. I really wished we were alone.

She put her hand on my thigh. Apparently she was thinking the same thing.

"Insatiable," I whispered.

Penny’s throat made that adorable squeaking noise I loved.

"Who's Jennifer?" Melissa asked.

"My sister." That made sense that she was checking my female contacts. If I had access to Penny’s phone, I’d definitely look at her male contacts. And immediately delete Tyler freaking Stevens. And Brendan whatever face. Fuck those guys.

"Oh." She looked back down at my phone. "What about Ellen?"

"That would be my housekeeper."

Melissa wasn’t going to find anything incriminating. Because there was nothing incriminating to find. The worst thing that I had was X-rated footage of Penny. And that was on my computer. And Ian’s. I frowned. I needed to make sure he wiped those recordings from his computer.

"Okay, fine, there's nothing on here." She placed my phone back down on the counter. "Actually there's barely anything on here. Which is suspicious all by itself."

"Sorry to disappoint you."

"Well I'm adding myself into your phone. Because if Penny winds up in the hospital again, I want to know."

"You'll be the first person I call," I said. I had her number written down somewhere. But I hadn’t added it to my phone. Because I didn’t particularly like her. I’d thought she was a bad influence on Penny and honestly not a great friend.

But…I could admit when I was wrong. She clearly did have Penny’s back even if she was rather abrasive about it.

"I'd better be. And her parents. Have you talked to them yet, by the way?"

"We did,” Penny said and lifted her head off my shoulder. "It went pretty well actually. My dad was not thrilled about me losing my scholarship, but other than that...it was good."

"Oh crap, Penny. I didn't realize you lost your scholarship. What are you going to do?"

"I don't know why everyone is making such a big deal out of this,” I said. “You know I have the money to pay for it.”

"The perks of having a loaded boyfriend." Melissa smiled. "Speaking of which, I'd love a tour."

Melissa was finally smiling. Which meant this was probably a good time for me to bow out and let the two of them talk.

Besides, I needed to get to the bottom of what the hell was going on with those detectives.

And the girls that were lying about me. "I will let you handle the tour, Penny.

I need to get some work done." I stood up.

"But you're not a professor anymore," Melissa said.

"I'm working on some other stuff." I kissed Penny’s cheek. "I'll be in my office." I walked out of the room and into the hall.

Behind me I heard Melissa say: "Oh my God, this place is so cool! Show me everything!"

I smiled. She’d come around eventually. If I stopped fucking things up with Penny. And I was definitely done doing that. I was all in here. I walked into my office and closed the door behind me.

I hit Ian’s name in my phone. He answered in one ring.

“I can’t wait to listen in on this,” Ian said.

“We’re not listening to their conversation.” I sat down at my desk.

“Wait, what? Why?”

“Because it’s an invasion of their privacy.”

Ian laughed. “ This is but watching Penny with those detectives earlier wasn’t?”

I pressed my lips together. I don’t know.

Apparently my morals are all messed up. But that situation was different.

I was trying to protect her. I didn’t need to protect her from Melissa.

I think. Unless Melissa was whispering poison about me to Penny…

Stop. “We have something else we need to do. We need to get the bottom of who the two girls lying about me are. And why they’re doing it. ”

“I’m already on it,” Ian said. “I’ll figure it out soon enough. But I want to take a break and see what Penny and Melissa are saying.”

“No.”

“But they’re obviously talking about you. Don’t you want to know what they’re saying?”

“Of course I want to know,” I said and eyed the black screen on my computer.

I could easily just…switch it on. And see what Penny was saying about me in private with her best friend.

But that was the whole problem. It was supposed to be private.

And as inappropriate as me filming Penny with me was, it was a shared moment between us.

For some reason I could rationalize that better.

“So we can watch?” Ian asked.

“Ian, when did you become such a voyeur?”

“I don’t know,” he said very seriously.

“I was kidding, Ian.”

He laughed. “I know. Me too.”

Was he though? When was the last time Ian had mentioned going on a date?

I pressed my lips together. Wait, had I ever heard him talk about a date before?

I didn’t think so. The only girl I ever heard him talk about was my sister.

And I didn’t think that was sexual. At least, I really hoped it wasn’t.

Because that would fucking suck if he moved to California with Jen and left me without a security detail.

Also…I’d miss him. He’d somehow become my best friend since he moved into the building.

I cleared my throat. “We’re not watching.”

Ian groaned. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll turn it off.”

“Wait, you were already watching?”

“Yes.”

“Well…what are they saying?”

Ian laughed. “They’re in your closet talking about clothes. They’re not even naked. And there’s no pillows or anything. Lame.”

I shook my head. “You thought they were going to have a naked pillow fight?”

“I don’t know. Isn’t that what college girls do?”

I laughed. “I mean…sometimes.”

“Well, they’re not doing it. Maybe we should send Ellen in with some extra fluffy pillows…”

“Now you want to see Ellen naked?” I asked with a laugh.

“No. She’ll put the pillows on the bed and leave. I’ll give her very specific instructions about that.”

I laughed. “Speaking of naked pillow fights, I need you to delete that video footage of Penny from your computer.”

“Which video footage?”

I pictured my favorite one. With Penny on her knees worshipping my cock at the country club. “All of it.”

“If I delete it from the server I’ll be deleting it from your computer too.”

“I know,” I said.

There was a long pause. “You already saved it somewhere else, didn’t you?” asked Ian.

“No,” I lied. But I didn’t even believe me.

“ Sure. ”

I sighed. “How the hell do you know that I already have a backup?”

He laughed. “You back up everything. But I know the footage is on your external hard drive. Top right drawer of your desk. Because I saw you do it.”

“You’re out of control, Ian. Stop watching every single thing I do.”

“It’s literally my job.”

“You need to get out of the apartment more.”

“You need to get out of the apartment more,” he mimicked back at me.

I laughed. “Whatever.”

“Besides, last time I was out of town, Isabella broke into the apartment. And you freaked the fuck out. I won’t be doing that again for a long time.”

“Good.” I really didn’t love the fact that he’d lost track of time talking to my sister.

“Good,” he agreed.

Well, that was settled then. He’d keep watching and… Wait . That wasn’t what I wanted. I shook my head. It was fine. He was right, I felt more comfortable knowing he was on the other side of the security cameras.

We were both silent for a few seconds.

“You want to know what they’re saying, don’t you?” Ian asked.

“Fuck yes.”

“They’re just talking about Rob visiting this weekend. Speaking of which, is he coming tomorrow or Saturday? Or is it Sunday? Ellen wants to know.”

“I don’t know, he just said this weekend. Actually he said this weekend-ish. So who knows. Let me text him.”

I stayed on the call with Ian and sent Rob a text.

He responded right away: “I’m banking on the fact that you’re willing to break your co-ed rule for one night to celebrate my homecoming. So I’ll be there early enough for you to take me to the best party on campus tomorrow night.”

Well that’s not happening. I read it out loud to Ian.

He laughed. “You haven’t told him about Penny yet? Or anything that’s going on?”

“Nope. I thought it would be a fun surprise.”

“Absolutely. I can’t wait to watch the whole thing.”

Of course.

There was a knock on my door.

“I gotta go, Ian.”

“I’ll text you if there’s a naked pillow fight.”

I laughed.

“Oh wait. It’s actually Melissa at your door.”

“Thanks for the heads up.” I hung up just as Melissa poked her head in.

“I just wanted to say goodnight,” she said. “And to thank you for having me over.”

“Of course.”

She looked over her shoulder and then back at me. “And thanks for making her happy,” she said a little quieter, so Penny wouldn’t overhear.

Yeah, maybe Melissa really was a good friend. “That’s my job.” Actually, it was my only job. And I was going to take it very seriously.

She smiled. “I guess so. Goodnight, James.” She closed the door behind her.

That felt like progress to me. I stared at the top right drawer of my desk. If I destroyed the hard drive, that would be progress too. I opened the drawer and stared down at it.

But Penny on her knees… Oh, and when she crawled to me? How was I supposed to permanently delete that? It was fucking art.

And I could feel myself getting hard just thinking about those videos. I kind of wanted to make a new one right now.

I slammed the drawer shut. Making another video sounded a hell of a lot better than deleting the others.