Wild Billionaire Romance - Chapter 6: Chapter 6

“I am glad you find me sexy, Zaika. But this is not my proposal.”
“What?” I asked dumbly.
“I was not asking you to marry me, Sofia. Nothing so rash as this,” he began.
“Oh, good,” I said.
I forced a laugh, turning around so I could grab tea bags from the ceramic cat jar I kept on the counter. I was really trying to hide my embarrassment. Of course, this man wasn’t proposing to me. Me? Of all people. He was Adrik fucking Volkov. He probably had some model thin Russian bride waiting for him in Siberia or some shit. What did he need with a chubby, loudmouthed American?
“I am not the marrying kind, you understand? So, I want you to move in with me for the next month,” he announced, just dropping that bomb on me like—boom!
“What?!” I screeched, dropping both mugs in my hand with two loud, messy crashes.
Tea and glass went everywhere, and Adrik cursed roundly in Russian. For a moment, I thought he was upset because I’d splashed tea on his expensive pants, then he grabbed my waist and lifted me up, sitting my stunned ass on my counter while he scrounged under the sink for some dish towels to drop on the mess.
“You must be more careful, Zaika moya. No shoes on your feet. You could be hurt,” he growled, mopping up the mess with more efficiency than I would have given a man in his position credit for.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, still too shocked to form sentences. “Did you say you want me to move in with you for a month?”
“Yes. I am a very busy man, but I am practical. I have needs, but I am in the middle of a very important negotiation. I can’t afford to spend time wooing you. Now, I happen to know you are suddenly without employment,” he said, straightening up and dropping the whole mess into the trash can, towels and all.
“I liked that daisy towel,” I muttered.
He ignored that and continued to explain his reasoning to me. I supposed I should have been flattered. But I was too shocked to appreciate the situation.
“Just like I know you are writing a novel and could use someone who has the power to whisper in the ear of the right publishing house. My proposal is you stay with me for one month, all expenses paid, including your rent, utilities, and heat,” he said, looking around dubiously. “Plus, you will have an unlimited platinum card for shopping, clothes, nails, hair whatever you want. At the end of the month, my people will arrange a meeting for you with whichever publisher you choose.”
My brain was spinning. He was like a damn devil, offering me what I wanted most of all in return for my body—or was it my soul he was really after? Of all the arrogant, half-assed—wait, what did he say? This guy knew publishers, too? That was it, the last straw that broke this fluffy camel’s back.
“Out,” I growled.
“Pardon?” he asked.
I could tell by his apparent confusion he really did not understand what was happening. So I slid off the counter where he’d placed me like I weighed next to nothing, and I pointed to the door, stomping my foot, which had no effect considering I wore socks and no shoes.
“I said get out.”
“Zaika—”
“My name is Sofia, as you somehow found out—creepy, by the way. And I don’t need your help whispering into anyone’s ears, got it? I don’t care who you know. I will publish my book based on the merits of my writing or not at all!”
Adrik looked at me, a mixture of admiration and exasperation on his face. It was the look you gave a spoiled child, or someone who did not know any better, and I found it completely demeaning.
How dare he?
“You are an innocent, Zaika moya. That is why you do not understand, it is always about who you know,” he said slowly, as if I was too dim to get what he meant.
Ooooh. That made my blood boil. And not in the happy times fun way that had occurred between us the previous night. An image of the reflection I’d seen of myself, legs on his shoulders as he ate my pussy like a starving man, in one of the ceiling to floor windows of his penthouse flashed inside my brain, and I wobbled a little on my feet. Then I narrowed my eyes at him. Why deny what happened?
“Considering I was riding your face last night like a rodeo cowgirl, I don’t think I’m all that innocent. So, fuck you very much for that indecent proposal. You can leave now.”
“But that’s just it. I can’t leave,” he growled angrily, and no, he did not look happy about it.
Wasn’t that too bad? I was pissed as well. So much so, I was vibrating with it. Smug bastard. Did he think this was Pretty Woman? Did I look like Julia fucking Roberts? For a moment, I’d actually thought he was proposing to me, when really, he was proposing I be his whore for a month.
I didn’t know why I was so disappointed. I didn’t expect the man had fallen in love with me overnight. Yeah, I mean, he looked a little nuts hunting me down the next day, but that was probably because rich men were used to getting their way. Maybe I should have been flattered. Maybe later, I would be. But I was too angry and confused, and cold to think straight.
Did he have to look so good in his exquisitely tailored coat and suit? Even cursing and pulling on his thick dark hair, he was sexy as sin. I looked down at my furry sock covered feet and closed my eyes. Him proposing to me? I must have been suffering from a senior moment to think something like that.
But really, what the heck was he thinking, finding my address, and coming here to proposition me? Poor billionaire. He’d been duped. Last night I had been in costume. Not anymore, though. Sweatpants and hoodies were my usual weekend attire. He needed someone who wore silk stockings and stilettos. That was not me. It never would be. And if I’d given him the impression I was for sale, I guess maybe I was to blame, too.
“Look, I am sorry to interrupt your tirade, but I really don’t know what to tell you, Adrik. I am not a prostitute. But I am sure someone with your connections can find one. I mean, you look like you can definitely afford to buy anyone you want. Except me. Now, goodbye,” I said stiffly.
“No.”
He shook his head, looking like a beast instead of a man as he stalked from wall to wall, wearing a path across the old carpet with his expensive shoes.
“No?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
Adrik expelled a breath and stopped his pacing to answer me.
“Yes, to the first no. No. That is my answer to your rebuttal. You do not understand, I don’t want anyone else. I want you. Now, I have already bought this building. If you refuse me, I will take over all the apartments. You and your neighbors will have nowhere to go⁠—”
“Then I will go home, I have family, you know. And shame on you for threatening to put poor people on the streets,” I said, furious he would even suggest such a thing.
“I would do worse things than that, Zaika. I have done. And yes, let us talk about your family. Your father is unemployable. Alcoholic, yes?”
“Don’t talk about my father! He’s had some problems, but he’s doing his best and Nonna⁠—”
“We shall agree to disagree about what means his best. As for your grandmother. She is a good woman, responsible. She cared for you, yes?”
“She raised me,” I whispered, hating where this was going.
“Yes. Like I said. Good woman. But also deeply in debt. The rest of your family can barely get by. But they all live together. Nice family. Loving. Unfortunately, the mortgage is past due, and the property taxes have been unpaid for six months.”
“W-what?” I asked, sitting down hard.
It bothered me that he brought up my father, but he was not saying anything that wasn’t true. Dad was an alcoholic. His broken heart after my mother died allowed for nothing else. There was no room for anything but grief. Certainly not me.
But all that was in the past. I forgave my father for his sins long ago. What I did not know was that Grandma was so far behind. Fear filled me and worry, too. My grandmother had paid for my college. Helping me when my father was incapable. I always swore to pay her back someday.
“But do not worry, Zaika moya. I bought the lien on this property in North Bergen right before we got here. I now hold the mortgage on it.”
“Y-you did that in case I said no to your crazy and insulting plan to have me be your whore?” I asked, eyes so wide I wondered if it was possible for them to pop right out of my head.
“No, Zaika. Not my whore. Just mine. For one month. I wanted to make sure you understand how valuable this one month is to me.”
I could not believe this man. He’d dug into my life, violating me in ways I had never experienced. And what for? To have me as his beck and call fuck buddy? It shouldn’t have stroked my ego that he thought I was good in the sack, but it did. Good enough to warrant him going through all this trouble just to fuck me again. But I couldn’t help it.
Yep. There was something definitely wrong with me. That I would even consider being flattered by this monster. But even as I thought the word, I couldn’t help the quiver rolling through me. My body swelled and clenched at the remembered passion between us. That much was undeniable. Adrik and I were fire when we touched.
“Your phone is ringing, Zaika. Take the call.”
My body moved automatically to obey his rough command, but it was too late to stop. My grandmother’s name flashed across my cell phone, and I answered it immediately.
“Nonna? Wait, slow down. The bank called? Uncle Frank? No! Do not give him power of attorney, Nonna. I will be there in one hour. Promise me you won’t do anything. Just promise! Okay, yeah, I am on my way.”
My heart was beating me to death, but not because of the figure he cut in his tailored suit or because of how out of place he looked in my crappy apartment. Uncle Frank was a prick, and whatever manipulations Adrik set into motion to get me to agree to his cockamamie plan, he obviously hadn’t dug deep enough into my family to know about my father’s sister’s husband. A man I hated more than any other on the planet. A look of confusion crossed Adrik’s face, and he flashed a glare at one of his henchmen.
“On it,” the man murmured, already on his phone.
“Come. My car is outside.”
I put my ugly, puffy winter coat on, and my over-socked feet shoved inside a pair of scuffed-up boots, not giving two shits what I looked like. Grabbing my backpack, which doubled as a purse, I shoved my wallet inside, knowing my tablet and other crap were already in it.
Adrik’s men held the door of his sleek limousine open for us and I slid inside, too incensed to do much but get in. I had to get Uncle Frank out of there before that sleazeball did something that couldn’t be undone. I’d stopped the fucker once, but I didn’t know if I could live with myself if he took Nonna’s building from her.
“We will be there in forty-one minutes. Less if Carlo speeds, and he will. Now, tell me what I need to know about this Uncle Frank.”
I turned my head and looked into Adrik’s impossibly dark eyes. A minute ago, this man was my enemy, and I really should not look at him like he was a savior. But if he could help my grandmother, whom I owed everything to, then I would just have to trust him.