Page 94 of Forbidden Billionaires, Vol. 9

But he didn't. Fifteen minutes later he was back with a Grottos pizza box. He sat down on the bench and crossed his right ankle over his left knee. He took off his aviators, hooked them on the front of his shirt, and stared directly at me.

His eyes really were enchanting. I turned away from him. I needed to not look at his eyes. It was like they had a trance over me. When I turned around he was still staring at me. Stop it! I tried to pay attention to the new employee instead of my lifeguard.

"So how do you like your new job?" I asked Becca.

"It's lots of fun. I can’t believe I was lucky enough to score a position at Sweet Cravings. We’re both so lucky, don’t you think?"

Of course that was her answer. "Definitely.” I drummed my fingers against the counter.

Our shift was over, and she was looking at me expectantly.

But I didn’t want to leave. Walking out of here meant walking toward my lifeguard.

And I didn’t want to walk anywhere near him.

Even if he did have beautiful eyes and a pizza.

“Is it time to go?” Becca asked.

Classic Becca, not able to read my mind. In her defense, she didn’t know me. And she certainly didn’t know that I wanted to stay locked in here forever. Plus our replacements had already arrived. And it was in fact time to leave.

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “Let's divvy up tips and we can get going." I dumped out the tip jar and counted it out. We each got fifteen dollars. The awesome tips were the only good thing about Fridays. "Well, hopefully we'll get to work together sometime again. It was nice meeting you."

"You too!"

I hung up my apron and grabbed my beach bag. Usually I had a purse, but since I had planned to go to the beach after work I had opted for my usual beach bag. I took a deep breath and went outside. My lifeguard stood up and walked over to me.

"I think I owe you a pizza." He smiled at me.

"No, it's fine. I'm actually not hungry." I was starving and the smell of the pizza had my mouth watering. But I wasn’t hungry enough to eat with a dick.

"Oh, yeah, I heard you've been really sick." He said it normally, but I heard it in a sarcastic rude way. Because that’s what I thought of him.

"I was sick." I wasn't.

"I'm not arguing with you." He shrugged his shoulders.

"I actually have plans right now," I said and started walking toward the beach.

He quickly caught up to me. "What are your plans?"

"I haven't been to the beach in a while."

"Okay, I'll come with you." He walked silently beside me across the boardwalk, through the sand, and close to where the water was breaking.

I glanced at him. I thought he’d have left by now. I didn't know what he wanted me to say. But the pizza did smell good. And I really was hungry. Choices, choices.

"Look, I do owe you a pizza,” he said. “And you owe me an explanation. So let's eat and talk."

If anything he owed me an apology. But I wasn’t about to play whatever game he was trying to play. "We don't owe each other anything."

"Actually we do. You won this pizza fair and square in a bet." He sat down in the sand. "And you walked out on me in the middle of our date with no explanation. I want to know why."

It was a date? I looked down at him. His blue eyes were so endearing. I grabbed my towel out of my bag and spread it on the ground. He brushed the sand off his swim trunks and sat down next to me on my towel. He opened up the box and raised his left eyebrow.

"What, is it drugged or something?"

He laughed. "No."

I took a slice. He grabbed one too and closed the lid to the box.

"I'm sorry about what my friends said. I told them about you being a stalker in a funny way. Like how I kid with you. I wasn't serious. I'm sorry if that's what upset you."

"It's fine. You don't have to apologize. I just drank too much." But even as the words left my mouth, I knew they weren’t true. Because truly I had needed to hear that apology. It was nice to hear an “I’m sorry” after so much radio silence from Aiden. Maybe I’d misjudged this guy after all.

"Maybe you drank a little too much too,” he said.

"Well even drunk me completely owned you in ping pong."

"That you did." He smiled at me.

I looked back out at the water instead of at him. "I convinced myself that you had been making fun of me behind my back. I thought maybe you were just being nice to the weird girl who always comes to the beach alone."

He laughed. "The sexy, weird girl. You're missing a very important adjective there."

I felt my face flush. "And I think watching you with Abby and all the other girls you talked to made me think I had misjudged everything."

"They're all just friends."

"You act very flirtatious with every girl you talk to."

"I didn't realize I was doing that."

"Well, you do. Which made me think I was just your friend too. I was embarrassed that I thought it was more. And that's when your friend came up and called me a stalker. I just snapped." I’m on high alert for assholes because I dated one for almost three years and was blind to it the whole time.

"Well, I thought it was date. It was with a bunch of my friends, but I was trying to get to know you. If you had stayed for pizza, we would have had more time to talk just the two of us." He pulled out another slice of pizza for me.

"Thanks," I said and grabbed it. I looked out toward the water. "But even if it was a date, it doesn't really matter. I shouldn't have said yes to going. I'm really not in any place to start a new relationship." So you can leave now. But please leave the pizza. I appreciate your donation.

"Is that one of the reasons why you came here? To get away from someone?"

Why was he so intrusive? Why was he still sitting here?

I felt like I wanted to cry. It was so hard for me to talk about.

Every time I thought about it, it was like it had just happened.

But maybe it would help to talk about it out loud.

And I needed another friend because Kristen was probably sick of me by now.

Or literally sick from all the sugar we’d both consumed this week.

Maybe my lifeguard was just what I needed.

I kept my eyes on the water. "I went to SMU because I thought it would be this fun new adventure. But as soon as I moved into my dorm I realized just how far away I was from everyone I knew. I felt so alone. So when I met Aiden…” my voice trailed off.

I clung to him like a lifeline, without even really knowing him.

It was the first time I’d ever thought of it like that.

But it was true. I just needed someone…and he fell into my lap.

I shook my head. “We started dating right away and I pretty much devoted all my free time to him.

I became friends with all his friends, but didn't take the time to make any friends of my own.

I thought I was so in love with him. I thought he was all that mattered.

I know, looking back at it now, how ridiculous that was.

We were so young. I'm still young." I stopped talking for a few seconds, but my lifeguard stayed quiet.

I could feel the tears welling in my eyes.

"Right before spring break I had this stupid idea in my head that he was going to propose. Instead, I walked in on him having sex with some slut with huge breasts. He broke up with me right there. With her watching from the bed. No explanation. Just…I was out of his life. I’m pretty sure they had been screwing around behind my back for months.

And I didn't see it. He didn't even have enough respect for me to tell me the truth.

It was so hard finding out and her watching me fall apart.

And that was it. We were done in just a few minutes.

The last two and a half years meant nothing.

“All of our mutual friends turned out to not really be my friends at all.

I was so lonely. It was unbearable. And I was too upset to go out and make new friends.

I just stayed in my room like a complete loser, thinking about everything that I had lost. I tried to think about what went wrong.

I needed closure. I needed to know why. But he wouldn't talk to me.

It was like I had never even existed in his life.

So I walked around campus like a ghost."

I wiped away the tears from my cheeks. "I'm sorry, that was like the most dramatic..."

"Don't." He grabbed my hand so I couldn't wipe away my tears. "Don't act like it's nothing if it's not."

I looked up at him. "I want to feel whole again. That's why I came here. I need to figure out what I want by myself. I've spent too much time thinking about myself as half of a whole."

He squeezed my hand. "I get that. And I know what it feels like."

"For your boyfriend to break up with you?" I tried to lighten the mood.

"No." He laughed. "To feel broken. To be cheated on. All of it. I get why you ran out on me the other night. It takes time to trust people again after that."

I liked the feeling of his hand in mine. It was so nice having someone listen to me. But the fact that he understood made it even better. "Do you mind me asking what happened?"

He shrugged. "It was a long time ago. My high school girlfriend and I decided to stay together after graduation even though we were going to different schools.

She cheated on me the first semester we were apart.

I think you learn a lot from shitty stuff like that.

I learned that long distance relationships don't work.

I'll never try to do one again. And I guess from yours, you learned that you shouldn't date assholes. " He smiled down at me.