Crash (A Billionaire Contract Romance)

New Relationships

Masons sitting on the couch in new clothes when I come out of the bathroom.

It’s pissing me off that he’s still here, a little less so when I realize he’s in dark blue, worn jeans, and a black t-shirt, making him look even more mouthwatering. Still, he’s something I really don’t need today.

My plan is to come out here, ignore him and lose myself in my kitchen. I think today calls for The Rolling Stones, while I make a Peach mousse trifle. I also want to play with my Candy Cookies, figure out the best portions for a large crowd. Jude will love them, and they will store easy and last a while for sweet Jude.

My music is loud enough to be rude to my neighbors but I just don’t have it in me to care, today has been awful. Getting my mixing bowl, flour, eggs, cream, peaches, and everything else I’ll need out, I line it up on the counter. Already feeling some of the tension ease, more than in my tear-filled shower.

Mason is leaning in the doorway, watching me, looking like a god. I ignore him, concentrating on making my egg base for my peach mousse trifle, I have to make sure the temperature stays perfect. It’s a slow, delicate process that requires my extreme attention if I have any chance of pulling this recipe off.

I love baking, it’s like a science, and I get to experiment. I make minor or sometimes major adjustments. Throw things together that I really don’t think should go together, and sometimes I’m right, they shouldn’t. Other times I bite into my very own slice of magic.

I can experiment with temperatures, textures, techniques. Until it’s everything I am looking for. Once a recipe is perfect, I get the satisfaction of seeing someone’s reaction, that’s magic too. My recipes bring joy to people, laughter, and love. I live for that, giving people something beautiful in a broken world. Something I can create and re-create. Something I can depend on, and so can they.

Baking has never betrayed me, never hurt me. Of course, some cuts and burns here or there but nothing that I can’t get over. It’s all I need, I just can’t wait till I can one day open Shirley’s Café, watch customers come in for my recipes, have little kids grow up asking their parents to take them to my Café after they have a bad day. I want memories to be made alongside my blueberry muffins and Tiramisu cake.

“What are you making?” His voice carries over Mick Jaggers.

I ignore him. He sighs. Sympathy for the Devil comes on and I can’t help but chuckle noticing how some of the lyrics fit Mason pretty well.

“I talked to Josh, he said he’ll see you Monday, normal time.” That makes me stop.

“You talked to Josh.” I draw the question out, astounded at this man’s arrogance.

“I own the restaurant.”

“You own the restaurant.” Of course, he f*****g does. With the eggs ready, I’m happy to be peeling the peaches, it gives me the opportunity to be much more aggressive than the beautifully ripened peaches deserve.

He never ceases to amaze me.

“I do, I watched the tapes, it’s clear Claire tripped you. You’ll be getting a dollar raise as well, no one should have to go through that under my employment.”

“First off you’re really telling me that you’re not only my landlord you’re my employer as well?” He nods his stupidly beautiful head as my eyes narrow, irrationally angry that he’s embedded in my life without me even knowing it. “You can keep the job, Mason! I don’t want to be employed by you!”

“Never learned how to say thank you huh?” He spits back growing as angry with me as I am with him.

“I can say thank you just fine. You had the opportunity to do something the whole time that scene was playing out Mason! You didn’t become the boss after the fact. No, you sat back while Lauren and her minions humiliated me in front of the whole restaurant! All because she was jealous that YOU know ME?”

“The second time meeting you and you fell again Aria, not exactly what I’m looking for in a server.” Oh, he knows just how to push my buttons. Sighing he drags his hand down his face before looking at me resignation clear in his blue gaze. “No one knows I own El Tentacion, only Josh and few people on my legal team. I want to keep it that way.”

“I am clumsy” for the second time today I’m poking my finger into his chest, I must enjoy poking him probably because it’s nothing but muscle. I’ve touched him on my own twice now, he’s held my shoulders earlier and I didn’t panic, it’s surprising and confusing, but my anger wins so I continue with my finger grinding into his granite chest. “I’m also a very good Server. I’ve never once spilled a tray of hot food on anyone, in six years, not once. Your girlfriend was being petty and bitchy the entire time Mason. You were there. You let her demand that I would be fired when you were right there!”

“I reined her in more than once Crash. There’s only so much I can do when it comes to Lauren. I told you, no one knows I own that place, I don’t want anyone to know.”

“Why can’t anyone know you own a restaurant, don’t you own billions worth of s**t? What’s so special about El Tentacion?”

“My family and our board own billions. I own El Tentacion and a handful of other businesses as a separate entity entirely away from my family’s reach. My father and I don’t always see eye to eye, him staying in the dark is necessary.”

It’s strange but what do I know about the business dealings of billionaires? What do I care? It still doesn’t make me feel better knowing that he could have stood up for me then and there, but he chose not to.

He is right about putting Lauren in her place a couple of times earlier. Still, the anger and embarrassment of the whole encounter burn, but I can’t give the job up. It took me three days to find this one. Even though Mason is willing to keep me on staff I can’t imagine any business owner, in Boston at least, will be so generous. Not in this viral world.

“Fine I’ll stay because I need the job but you know everyone will be wondering how and why I’m still there. You fire people for far, far less. Especially less visibility than what just transpired.” I don’t understand why he wants to keep me, or why he told me, a grade above a stranger, a secret that is clearly important.

“Let them wonder.” He shrugs like that’s all there is to it. Like I won’t have to go in there every day and face the piranhas. Only now, it won’t come from just the clientele but my coworkers too. The first people to become anything like friends in my new life.

Distant friends but they weren’t enemies, and I wasn’t creating any waves.

I came for peace, happiness, and dreams. Today was a nightmare that will keep on giving.

Who am I kidding? My whole life is a nightmare that keeps on giving.

“K. It’s settled then; you can show yourself out, right?” I bend my head to the peaches in my hands. I’m still being too rough with the delicate peaches, their skin falling away with chunks of juicy flesh still attached.

“What are you making?” He comes up behind me, his chest to my back as if recreating our first encounter. Like that moment this one doesn’t hold the fear or revulsion that I’ve grown to expect when I’m in close proximity to anyone else.

What should be worse, this isn’t just anyone. It’s a man. In this quiet enclosed apartment with no witnesses or buffers. Should it come to it, it’d be my word against his, but I’m positive he has enough wealth and power to suppress anything he deems a threat. He could do whatever he wants to me and get away with it, I’m sure.

I should be shaking in fear. Or scurrying to my room where I can lock the door. Better yet, I should be shoving him out of here by his collar before he has a chance to do anything.

Strangely, I feel no need to flee. Nor do I sense my incoming doom. Even irritated and angry with him I can’t deny the shock to my system his attention and presence are since the instant he picked me up from the hard tile floor.

I want to lean back so his earthy scent can fully develop me in a safe, warm cocoon. I would rest my head on his shoulder, tilted so I could look into his eyes that seem to hold a depth to them that I don’t know how to describe.

He feels so familiar, so safe.

I’ve been tricked in the past. My gut, my instincts, they’ve to lead me wrong. So, wrong.

Twisting around I crane my neck back, set my shoulders straight, and glare up at him in question. “What are you still doing here Mason? Your girlfriend was pretty upset. I can’t imagine she’ll be pleased you aren’t there to wipe her miserable tears away.”

“Lauren is… she’s not my girlfriend.” He shifts his eyes away from my own, looking instead at the dark bags underneath them.

I chuckle, “Yeah that sounded super convincing. Leave.” I point to our side in the direction of the door.

His sigh sounds defeated, his eyes pleading. They’re so opened and vulnerable, I can see his range of emotions as they swirl within.

“She’s a huge nuisance. Our parents started planning our marriage the second they learned they conceived a girl.” This moment feels too intimate to fit what he’s saying. Admitting really.

“You’re going to marry Lauren?” I ask shocked. I couldn’t imagine having to put up with her lovely personality for the rest of my life.

I’m less shocked to learn my gut can’t be trusted. Clearly, he isn’t as kind and appealing as I would like to imagine. Here he is engaged yet standing here, much too close to be considered innocent.

“No, never. She’s still a family friend, and her father is an important ally to have. I suffer through her presence only when necessary.” His voice lowers, hitting me in the pit of my stomach, warming me like the sweet thick taste of German hot chocolate on a bitter winter night.

He steps forward, crowding me back until I hit the counter and he can effectively cage me in. Again I’m shocked that I don’t want to

duck under his arm and run.

The beat of my heart rushes through my ears, my hair lifting as heat pools and bubbles over. He feels it too, his full lips are twisted up, looking sexy and wicked. The feel of his rough fingers running down my cheek leaves me breathless and wondering. Why does a rich man like him need to use his hands to the point of calloused and rough skin?

“You, Crash. It's you I enjoy being around. Which is weird because I barely know you, but this,” He lifts my chin with two fingers drawing my eyes to his heated gaze. “This chemistry I’ve never felt anything like it before. I don’t intend to ignore it.”

“Too bad for you because that’s exactly what I intend to do.” I push at his chest trying to get him to move back, he gives in a little, leaving me some room to breathe. “I know you have a problem listening, so pay attention. I will not be having any sort of relationship with you, ever.” Even to my own ears, I don’t sound as convincing as I would like. As I should be.

“You’re telling me you don’t feel it?”

“My only plans for the next five years are work and baking. By then I should have enough saved to open my own bakery. I won’t let anything stand in the way of that. Relationships are drama I don’t want and time I don’t have. Now I’ve had a super shitty day, I want to finish making this peach mousse trifle, and then make about two hundred Candy cookies for the morning so if you’ll excuse me I would like to get to it.” Someone knocks at my door pulling both of our attention.

Seeing my escape, I duck out from behind him, hoping the interruption will be enough to get my head back on straight.