Chapter Three
ARIA
My roommates Nick and Stacey were having the hardest time deciding on the kind of pizza to order, as the three of us curled up on our living room couch watching “Friends.”
“God Stacey, you’re such a Monica!” Nick exclaimed.
“Well excuse me for not wanting to give us all cancer,” Stacey snapped back.
“Get off WebMD, Stace. Pizza crust cannot give you cancer.”
“You would be surprised by the kinds of things gluten could do to you if you took some time out of playing space games to actually read about important things on the internet.”
Nick sighed and looked at me as I began to cover my face with my palms.
“I am not going to play judge to yet another pseudo court drama about the importance of video games in your burgeoning career as a programmer,” I mumbled. “Deal with your girlfriend yourself.”
Stacey gasped. “Traitor! You’re supposed to be my best friend!”
“I am. Which is why I am staying out of this.”
They both looked confused and annoyed, as though they were completely clueless about where to go from here. It was comical. Nick and Stacey were the best couple I had ever seen; they were best friends first, and argued over everything from Nick’s video games to Stacey’s Cosmo-inspired women’s blog to pizza and gluten. I also happened to secretly know that they were both working extra shifts – Nick at the Southern Eastern University’s IT help desk, and Stacey at the library – to save money so they could surprise each other on their three-year-anniversary.
Stacey had been my best friend since 9th grade, and when she had met Nick – a freshman in college at the time – we were in our senior year of high school. At first, I was worried sick that we would grow apart after she had found a boyfriend, but it turned out that Nick was incredibly cool and we got along well. So much so that when Stacey and I joined him for college at SEU two years ago, moving into his two-bedroom apartment seemed the natural thing to do. Most people seemed surprised to learn that I lived with a couple, but to us it was just three best friends being roommates and goofing around the house. And my room was far enough away from theirs for me to not hear things I wouldn’t want to hear. I was going to miss them when we all graduated and they moved on to get married, have babies, and do other things couples do. I was a tad envious of what they had. They really were perfect for each other.
Watching their relationship had been one of the reasons I had grown to become ridiculously picky about men. The other reason was a guy I had dated my freshman year who cheated on me with a sorority girl. Rick – a dick if there ever was one – was my first boyfriend, and things seemed to be going great as our first anniversary was approaching. I was going to lose my virginity to him that night. Everything was planned. Nick and Stacey were on a weekend getaway, I had cleaned and double-cleaned the apartment, bought candles and incense and all kinds of other romantic crap. I had cut my shift short so I could set everything up, but when I got home I caught him in bed, in my bed, with a blonde girl I had never seen.
I ended up getting drunk to try and wipe away the sadness, and that led to having sex with another bar-goer. When I woke up and saw my mistake next to me, I pledged that I would not casually date men, I would not settle for anything less than what Nick and Stacey had. One year later, I was still going strong on the pledge. Except for the part where I often dreamed of my boss’s naked body. These dreams were sporadic at first, but were occurring more and more frequently. I was still very firmly set on never acting on my feelings or falling for his advances.
I turned my attention back to Nick and Stacey’s bickering and gave up. “Guys, just get a medium pizza with rice crust and a medium regular. Problem solved.”
After a short pause, I looked at Stacey with amusement. “I’ll be eating the regular, Stace, but I am still morally on your side.”
She threw a pillow at me and we burst into simultaneous giggles.
Half an hour later the doorbell rang.
“That should be the pizza,” Nick said, popping up.
“God, I am starving. I hope they sent the extra pepper flakes. They always mess that up,” I said.
“I don’t understand your inability to consume any kind of food that doesn’t burn your soul.”
“It doesn’t burn, that’s the point. Not in a bad way, at least. Spice makes me appreciate the flavor more.”
“Weirdo.”
“Says the girl who refuses to eat regular pizza because she read something on The Great Internets.”
She scowled. “God, you’re starting to sound just like Nick.”
“Where did he disappear to anyway? It shouldn’t take this long to-” she stopped as Nick showed up looking utterly confused.
Instead of two pizzas, however, he was holding a giant bouquet of red roses.
“When I said I wanted gluten-free, that’s not what I had in mind,” Stacey said. “But how sweet, Nick!”
His eyes widened. “No! No, no. Shit. I can order you some flowers if you want! Sorry, baby. These are for Aria. From someone named Zayden.”
Stacey gasped loudly, covering her mouth. “Zayden as in-“
“As in her boss Zayden,” Nick finished her sentence, looking equally confused.
They were both looking at me sharply, as though I would know what to say. As though I had been expecting flowers from my boss, who very likely had his assistant Lana order them for every teller he hadn’t yet gotten his hands on.
Nick handed me the flowers after picking out the note.
“Hey!” I shouted trying to reach for it. Nick was 6-foot-5. I wasn’t going to win.
“Dear Aria,” he read out loud in a dramatic voice, his right arm over his chest. “I hope you enjoy the roses. One rose for each day until I change your mind.”
Nick gasped as Stacey counted: “Thirty roses!”
I felt myself get hot in the face with embarrassment, but a tiny bit of me fluttered in excitement. What the hell was wrong with me?
“There’s a P.S.” Nick announced. “P.S. I picked out the roses myself, so don’t bother thanking Lana tomorrow.”
“Have they developed technology to intercept brainwaves yet?” I looked at Stacey.
“No Aria, he can’t read your mind.” She flashed a huge grin. “You have a lover!”
“What?” I said louder than perhaps necessary. “I do not have a lover. Zayden – Mr.Sinclair – is not my lover.”
“Looks like he will be in about,” Nick surveyed the roses, “30 days.”
I sighed. “No, he won’t. I’ll return the roses.”
“No, you won’t!” Stacey yelled, looking like I had just said I would amputate her imaginary puppy. “He’s a multi-squillionaire. And so handsome. So, so handsome. Are you stupid?”
“That’s not the point-” I stopped myself mid-sentence and gave her a suspicious look. “How do you know he’s handsome?”
“What?” she said defensively. “I read ZEN Magazine.”
Oh, right. That. I had a copy of the issue with Zayden’s interview under my bed.
“I found it under your bed,” Stacy added. “You’re already kind of sleeping with him.”
“Shut up, Stace! Let’s just eat the pizza, watch some TV, and never speak of this again.”
“Sure, if by never you mean 30 days,” Nick butted in.
“Thanks for the unsolicited opinion, Nicholas,” I said turning up the volume on the TV and getting under a blanket.
They continued to offer what they thought were clever comments, but I tuned them out, focusing instead on the giant bouquet of red roses. Was I in trouble? Would he manage to get what he wanted in 30 days? He couldn’t take what I didn’t want to give. I felt a strange pang in my chest. The problem was, I was not entirely sure I didn’t want to give in. My cell phone rang, breaking the dangerous train of thoughts.
“Hi, Mom! How are you feeling?” I answered the phone.
“Hi, sweetheart. I am doing much better. The doctors said I’ll be running around by the end of the month.”
I smiled. “I am so happy to hear that, Mom.”
“Don’t be, we still have to pay for the stupid surgery. If I hadn’t gotten the damn surgery-”
“If you hadn’t gotten the surgery, I wouldn’t have a mother,” I cut her off. “So you just worry about getting yourself all better, and I’ll worry about the bills.”
“Like you don’t have enough expenses paying your way through college. I’m sorry for being such a lousy mother, baby.”
“Don’t say that!” Tears formed in my eyes, ready to break free. “Having to file for bankruptcy because Dad bailed on you after forcing you to co-sign on his loan does not make you a lousy mother. It makes you a good person who faced terrible consequences for being one. You need to stop blaming yourself. You took care of me all my life, now let me take care of you. It’s going to be okay.”
“But-”
“No but. I’ll figure out a way to pay the hospital bills. You relax and get all pretty. It’s 9 o’clock, John will be over with his daily tea service.”
She chuckled nervously. “What do you mean get pretty? He’s just my neighbor who likes to help out sometimes. And bring me mugs of tea. Just a…friend.”
“Okay Mom, have fun with your neighbor-friend,” I laughed. “I love you.”
“I love you too, sweetheart. Take care of yourself.”
“Mom, I love you, bye!”
I hung up with a smile still on my face and tears in my eyes. I still couldn’t believe what my dad had done to her. I had no idea where he was now, what he was doing, if he ever thought about us. He left us to take care of ourselves and I started working at the age of 14, while my mom tried her best to fend for us, living paycheck to paycheck, while dealing with her heart condition. It all motivated me to work hard and excel in college so I could become a successful loan officer and give my mom all the things she deserved.
This was exactly why I could never let Zayden Sinclair get into my head again. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath with new reserve.
The flowers had to be returned.
---
I walked to the loan officer’s desk feeling nervous. This morning, Stacey had helped me dress up in her black suit, so I looked confident and mature enough to handle the situation. I had hoped the attire would kill the moths in my stomach, but no such luck so far.
“Hi, I am Aria,” I said, offering my right hand.
“Wilson.” His handshake was curt. “Take a seat, Aria. You’re one of the tellers here, correct? I see you whenever I walk in through the front.”
I nodded.
“How long have you been working here?” He was looking at his computer screen.
“Just about three months. I worked at State Park Bank for almost two years before that.”
“As a teller?”
I wanted him to get to the point.
“Yes, sir,” I said meekly.
“And you’re still in school?”
Why was he asking me these questions when he was obviously looking at a document that told him all the answers? Mr. Wilson was not helping the moth situation in my stomach.
“Yes, at Southern Eastern. Junior year.”
“Really?” He finally looked at me with raised eyebrows. “It says here that you have only been in college for two years.”
“Yes, but I had excellent grades in many AP classes so I had a whole year transferred over.”
“Impressive.” It didn’t sound like a compliment, for some reason. “Do you have any other jobs besides this one?”
“No, just the bank. But I work insane hours, so it’s practically two jobs,” I laughed nervously. He was not amused.
“I see,” he said and typed something on his computer.
There were a few minutes of silence, during which the moths in my stomach participated in an intense war. I was just about ready to throw up. This loan was my only bet— the only way I would be able to pay for my mom’s surgery without dropping out of college. The future of my entire life depended on whatever this Wilson guy was typing on his computer.
When he finally looked up, my heart was pounding.
“Here’s the thing, Aria,” he said without a single expression on his face. “You seem like a smart girl with a very promising future. However, between your college tuition and loans and your own living expenses, and just this job to sustain yourself – even if it is, as you put it,” he paused to make air-quotes, “‘practically two jobs,’ there is just no way you will be able to handle a loan for 60,000 dollars.”
My heart fell, and I could feel my eyes start to prickle.
“But I will be out of college in a little over a year.” My voice was shaky. “And I will have an excellent job, I assure you, and my situation will change completely.”
“When that happens you can reapply for the loan.” He actually looked a little apologetic.
“I need to pay for my mother’s heart surgery.” I don’t know why I said it. Studying to be a loan officer, I knew that there was nothing Wilson could do personally. His reasoning was completely sound.
“I’m really sorry to hear that, and I wish the bank could help you out, but right now there is nothing we can do.”
“I understand.” I did. That didn’t stop me from wanting to run into the bathroom and bawl my eyes out. “Thank you.”
My face was swollen and covered in tears by the time I made it back to the teller’s booth.
Chapter Four
ZAYDEN
She was crying. Crying women made me uncomfortable. My mother knew this so well that I didn’t remember the last time I saw her without tears in her eyes. At first it was about my dad’s death, so I used to try and make her feel better, but slowly it became directed towards my dad, in bitterness. At first I didn’t understand why she would speak of her dead husband as though he were some sort of a monster, but snide comments here and there about how I was handling my billions, and it all started adding up. She couldn’t believe that he hadn’t left a single penny in her name, which made no sense to me at first either, but eventually the truth came out; she had been cheating on him for years. With his lawyer. Who also happened to be one of his best friends. He tolerated it while he was alive because he loved her or some nonsense of that sort, but apparently this “love” thing was not that big of a deal because he found a way to get back at her from the grave. It made me hate her for a little bit, which added to the endless crying, but she was still my mother and I found a way to tolerate her. I bought her a giant house in California, thousands of miles away from me.
Why was Aria Roberts crying? I debated whether to go over to her and what the implications of that would be. There was no question about the fact that I wanted her body, but approaching her at an emotional time might suggest I wanted more. That I cared about how she was feeling. Well, maybe that’s exactly what she wanted; maybe believing exactly that would be what broke her restraint. I got a strange feeling in my gut that I didn’t understand. I was the master of manipulation. I messed with women’s emotions all the time. The hint of moral fiber had to be because she was crying.
I shook my head and trotted over to the booth. She was the only person there. Her mascara had slightly run down her smooth, blushing olive cheeks, which made her look surprisingly sexy.
She seemed to be so phased out that when she noticed I was standing in front of her, she jumped. Quickly wiping her face with her palms, she said in a squeaky voice, “Good morning, Mr. Sinclair!”
“Liar,” I teased. “It doesn’t seem to be that good of a morning for you.”
“Oh, yeah, I am sorry about this. I’ll cut it out before a customer walks in, I promise.”
“Well, obviously, that’s what I came over here to say.” I was smiling. “It’s okay, Aria.”
That made her burst into a whole new bout of tears. I guess it wasn’t okay, whatever it was. Completely unsure of what to do, I told her, “Take a paid hour off. Walk around if you need to, take a break.”
“I can’t,” she said between sniffs. “Mrs. Brian won’t be here until noon and Kevin is sick. I’m the only teller on duty right now.”
“That’s okay, just take some time. I’ll man the booth,” I heard myself say.
She looked perplexed, but that made the crying slow down significantly. “What? You can do that?”
“The thing about owning the company, Aria, is that I can do whatever I damn well please.”
I must have come across strong, because her expression turned into that of slight fear. I tentatively put a hand on her shoulder, expecting to feel her muscles relax; instead, I felt them tense.
“It’s okay. Just go for a little bit. It’s not a request.”
“Alright, alright,” she said, starting to sniff again. “I’ll just take a walk around the block and be back soon.” She pointed towards her face. “No more of this after that. I promise.”
The minute she walked out, I felt myself get angry. What the fuck was I doing? Teller in my own bank? To get into a girl’s pants. She better be worth it when I finally made it in there. I was working way too hard for this otherwise.
I even wanted to punch the young guy who had just materialized in front of me.
“I need to deposit a check,” he said.
I pointed towards the front exit. “There’s the ATM machine. They take checks these days. And by these days, I mean the past 10 years.”
He looked terrified and strutted out. I was lucky I was the CEO of the company and never had to work customer service.
---
When Aria returned a half-hour later, her makeup was freshly painted on, with no trace of the crying fiasco on her face.
“Thank you so much, and I am so sorry!” she exclaimed.
She should be. It was the worst half hour of my goddamn life.
“Don’t worry about it! But if you really feel that bad, you can make it up to me by telling me what’s bothering you.”
I wasn’t sure I cared for the answer, but that seemed like the right thing to say.
She scrunched her nose like she wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but eventually said, “My request for a loan got turned down. My mother recently had heart surgery, and without insurance she owes the hospital 60,000 dollars. She can’t apply for a loan herself because my family is still recovering from a bankruptcy.”
Well, that was easy enough. I could take care of that right away. I didn’t want to make it so easy, though.
“Who was the loan officer you spoke to?”
“Wilson. I don’t know his full name.”
“I will talk to him.” I chose my words very carefully, making sure not to make any promises I couldn’t keep. Or didn’t want to keep, more like.
Her face visibly changed colors and her eyes widened. “You can do that?”
“What did I say about owning the company?”
She jumped, and for a second it looked like she was going to hug me but changed her mind.
“Oh my God, thank you so, so much! You can get him to approve the loan!”
“That’s not what I said.” I spoke slowly. “I said I would talk to him.”
Her face fell. “Oh, of course – I am sorry, I didn’t mean to-”
“It’s okay. Try to cheer up. I’m sure we can work something out.”
I walked back to my desk and called the loan office. “Wilson, please.”
“Mr. Sinclair! To what do I owe the pleasure?” The guy sounded absolutely thrilled to be getting a call from the CEO of the company. This could be so very easy if I wanted it to be. But a very different idea was forming in my head altogether. I would rather this be fun than easy.
“Why did you turn down Aria Roberts’ loan request?”
There was a short pause. “I’m sorry, sir, it’s classified-”
“Do you like your job, Wilson?” I spat. “Do you enjoy having somewhere to go to every day and getting a nice, fat paycheck at the end of the month?”
“Yes, of course! I am sorry, sir. The situation was completely out of my hand. As you know, we run all loan requests through a software that processes applications and calculates risks. Aria Roberts’ risk was almost 100 percent. She has no savings, spends all her money from the job paying for college, and even though her credit is pretty good for her age, she simply does not have any assets or any kind of solid foundation. Not $60,000 worth anyway.”
“I see.”
“However,” he said a little too quickly, “ultimately I call the shots, and I can change the shots I called if you want.”
Is that what I wanted? No. I wanted this to be fun. This was going to be too much fun. Aria Roberts had no idea how much fun we were going to have together.
“What I need you to do is to send Aria an email letting her know you heard from me today, and that you explained to me why her loan could not go through. Make it very clear that I tried to get you to change your mind, but the system simply did not allow for it, so you were personally writing to apologize to her for the inconvenience. Copy me in the email.”
“But, sir-“
“You said you liked your job. Is that right?”
“Of course. Would you like me to add anything to the email?”
“That will be all for today. Thank you.”
---
I finished drafting up the document and briefly considered running it by my lawyer, but decided against it, more for Aria’s sake than my own. If she was going to agree to this deal, I might as well have her feel comfortable about it. I looked at the bouquet of red roses that had been returned to my office that morning and grinned. One down, 29 to go. After today, it probably wouldn’t take 29 days before I got to screw her. After printing the document, I removed a rose from the bunch and placed it over the pile of papers on my desk.
I picked up the phone to call Aria. It was game time. I watched her answer the phone, looking somber.
“South National Bank, how may I help you?”
“Come into my office. Mrs. Brian seems to be doing quite well by herself over there.”
“Did you get a chance to talk to Wil-”
“Come into my office,” I repeated and hung up.
The nervous look on her face as she tentatively walked towards my office worried me a bit. What if she didn’t take the deal? What else could she do, though? I had made it all but impossible for her to get a loan at this bank, and could repeat the process for every other bank within a thousand-mile radius.
She would have to take the deal.
As she stepped into the office, my eyes were fixated on her skirt. I could offer to give her 60,000 dollars up front in exchange for letting me throw her against the glass window, lift that tight skirt of hers, pull down her panties, and fuck her. But that would be no fun. When I finally felt the sweet warmth of her pussy, it would be because she asked, because she couldn’t resist me. Nobody was allowed to resist me when I decided I wanted them. That is what made Aria seem so fascinating, and making her decide all on her own that she was wrong to ever resist me was going to be the best part.
“Sit down, Aria,” I ordered.
When she did, the hem of her skirt lifted a few inches upwards, revealing her toned, smooth thighs. I felt myself tightening in my pants.
“So, did you talk to Wilson?” she asked again, looking ready to burst into another round of tears.
“I did, and it’s not good news. Well, it’s not the particular piece of good news you were hoping to receive.”
The tears began to fall onto her cheeks. I would have to get her to stop doing that.
“So I’m not getting the loan?”
“You are just too young with too many responsibilities,” I said, trying to sound sympathetic. “I’m sorry.”
The crying was in full swing now, her makeup all smeared. Should I wait a little to make my proposition? I decided against it. Knowing she felt helpless right now made it significantly more likely that she would accept.
“Thank you for trying,” she said, starting to get up.
“Wait! Did I say I was done?” I said more harshly than I had intended. “Sit back down.”
“But you said that-”
“The bank cannot give you a loan right now, but that does not mean you there aren’t other ways you can make that money.”
Her eyes widened. “No!”
“You haven’t even heard me out yet.”
She was shaking her head vigorously. “I can’t sleep with you for money. That’s wrong. And illegal.” She looked horrified and softly added, “And, I’m a virgin.”
Oh fuck. I hadn’t considered that a possibility at all. A girl so attractive should have caught every guy’s attention, which meant she was a virgin by choice. Did I really want to go through with this? Regular girls could be troublesome to get rid of, but virgins were on a whole other level. But I wasn’t paying her to sleep with me. The document in front of me mentioned nothing about sexual favors – though I had assumed that would naturally be the outcome sooner or later, and that she would initiate it. This changed things. But those damn thighs and that damn skirt and most importantly, that goddamn restraint of hers.
“That’s not what I was going to propose,” I said, making the decision to go forward with the plan. “But I’m glad to know you hold me to such excellent standards.”
That got a laugh out of her. “What? You’re really going to sit there and act surprised that that’s what I assumed after relentlessly hitting on me? Even the note on your bouquet said you were counting down the days until you supposedly convinced me to sleep with you.”
“That is not inaccurate.” Why was she so bold? It was endearing and it pissed me off. “But hitting on you and paying you to get naked are two completely different things, I would say.”
I leaned back in my chair with confidence.
“Are they to you?” She looked genuinely surprised.
“You’re really flattering me here with your allegations to my character.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to do that. But you do have quite the reputation.”
“Huh.” I raised my eyebrows. “Tell me about this reputation that I have.”
“Well, the three tellers that were let go last month, all of them had this thing in common, you see,” she winked. The girl actually had the nerve to wink at me. “Well they had two things in common actually. An apparently mind-blowing night with you, and the ability to tell tales about it.”
“This is different, Aria.”
“I’m sure they all thought so, too,” she snapped.
“I never made the proposition that I am going to make to you. Never had to, really. Trust me when I say that this really, truly is different.”
“Yeah, cause you’re like, in love with me because of the conversations I have with our customers regarding my future as your wife.” She was laughing hysterically now.
She used the word love. That was a trigger.
“Look, Aria, I don’t want to mislead you. I don’t do relationships or romance or any of that bullshit. This is honestly 100 percent about me wanting to take your clothes off and have my fucking way with you.”
Her face erupted into flames and I could swear I saw her shiver as she started to speak. “I-”
“No, let me finish,” I stopped her. “There is no question that I want your body and hope that you will willingly give that to me at some point. But I am not offering to buy your body. Even I am not that much of a scumbag, despite this reputation I seem to have accumulated around here. I don’t need to buy your body when there is plenty of ass that I could get with the snap of my fingers.”
“Then what are you offering?” She looked utterly confused.
“I am offering to buy your time.”
“What?” She looked like I had just said that I was flying out to Mars tomorrow.
I moved the rose to the side and handed her a copy of the document I had drafted.
“This is my offer: I will pay off your mother’s hospital bills in six installments, one for every month you spend dating me.”
Her mouth was open. “What do you mean dating you?”
“What the hell do you think it means? A guy and a girl dress up and go places together. Dinners, movies, parties, whatever they like. At the end of the night, there is usually some kissing and something more.”
She rolled her eyes. Damn. She was ballsy with her own boss. “Thanks for the pop culture lesson, but I am aware of how dating works. I may have even experienced it in practice here and there.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at her acting feisty.
“Then does that sound like something you’re interested in?” Things were starting to look positive on that front.
“Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?”
What? Fuck no. Why would there be a legal document in your hand if that was what I was asking? I thought she was smarter than that.
“Not exactly,” I said with caution. My next words would make or break the deal. “I am asking you to go on dates with me whenever I ask and spend time with me on my schedule for the next six months. You know what I wish to accomplish in that time, but that is not a requirement in this deal. If at no point in those six months you feel like you want to sleep with me, then hey, I tried, and we part ways. If you do, then I get what I wanted. In either case you get what you need, which is money to pay for your mother’s surgery. It’s a win-win for you any way you look at it, but quite the risk for me because there is no guarantee that I will get what I want. A risk I am willing to take.”
I also needed a date for upcoming events I had to attend to keep the businessmen’s wives occupied while I tried to secure important deals. She didn’t need to know that. She looked at me and the document back and forth a few times, her mouth agape. She finally burst out laughing.
“You’re joking. Is it April 1?” She looked behind her as though expecting to find an answer there. “Are there cameras around here? I’m being pranked.”
“No, you’re being fucking ridiculous,” I said, slamming my fist on the desk.
“But- but this is too damn easy to be true! You’re saying you will pay 60,000 dollars for me to get pretty and go out on dates with you, with no obligation for me to provide any sexual favors.” She scanned the documents again. “I mean, there has to be a loophole somewhere. Some clause where it says I have to let you tie me up in a dungeon and-”
“Seriously, Aria, a little respect would be nice. You have already made it clear what you think of me, and you’re not that far off, but there is no need to constantly stab me with your scathing opinions. I’m still your boss.”
“I’ll have to have my lawyer take a look at this,” she said laughing. I was not amused. “See, that’s funny, because I don’t have a lawyer. Us regular people in regular people land don’t have lawyers or butlers or-”
“Do you want me to hire you a counsel before you sign anything?”
She rolled her eyes. “Humor, Mr. Sinclair.”
“Zayden. There is a clause in there about calling me that,” I said, pointing to the contract.
Her laughs got hysterical. “There is a clause? So what, if I don’t call you by your first name you take money off my contract?”
I furrowed my brows. “I wouldn’t do that. But I’d like it if you called me Zayden.”
“Only if you add a clause that says you need to work on your sense of humor.”
“Yeah, we can make that work.” Her eyes were twinkling. “Oh. You are being facetious. Very meta.”
I laughed, and then I realized that she was agreeing to the contract.
“So you are accepting!” A kind of excitement I hadn’t experienced in a long time started to bubble up.
“I have two conditions.” My lips started twitching again but she added; “Real ones.”
“Oh. Go on.”
“First, the money will be a loan, not a gift. I don’t feel comfortable taking your money just for spending time with you.” She noticed my smirk and added, “I guarantee you this won’t end in me sleeping with you, so you are not going to get what you want. It’s not fair on you, in any case.”
“We will see about that,” I said, the smirk still on my face.
“We won’t. I already know the outcome of this, Zayden.” She was at least calling me by my name already. “Hypothetically, though, if I were to sleep with you, I would be especially uncomfortable taking money from you. That would kind of make me a prostitute.”
“I never intended to make you feel like-”
“It doesn’t matter, since I will not actually be sleeping with you. It’s a loan, which I will pay you back in monthly installments, with a 10 percent interest rate after I graduate from college.”
Her words, combined with the fiercely confident look on her face, made her all the more attractive. “I refuse to take interest, but sure, if it makes you feel better about the whole thing, after you have spent a few years working a real job you can start paying me back. I won’t hold you to it though. I have plenty of money.”
“You will have to; it will be in the contract. And 5 percent, starting a month after I graduate.”
“Zero percent interest, but you can start the payments six months after graduation. And I’ll put it in the contract. Final offer.”
She sighed. “Okay, fine.”
“What’s your other clause?”
She opened her mouth and closed it a few times, as though unsure if she should speak her next words. “You cannot be physically involved with any other woman during these six months.”
Wait, what?
“That’s fucking ridiculous. I don’t think I can do that. Especially since you keep stressing on just how much I am not going to be sleeping with you, either.”
She shrugged. “If we are going to be dating, in public, I cannot be okay with the idea of you going home at the end of a date to entertain some other woman while thinking of me the whole time.”
“It’s cute you assume I’d be thinking of you.”
“You have obviously never been on a date with me.”
“It’s not going to happen, Aria. Anything else?”
“I know that seems somewhat unfair but-” She was screwing up the corner of her mouth, looking like she really did feel bad about what she was asking. “But I have been cheated on before and it was one of the worst feelings in the world. I know it wouldn’t be cheating in this case, since we aren’t going to be in a relationship, per se. But if I know you have been sleeping around, it will be difficult for me to spend time with you without some kind of resentment. I do appreciate you offering to help me out and I don’t want to feel resentful towards you. You obviously don’t deserve that. So if this is too much to ask, we don’t have to make the deal at all and I will still be grateful for your offer.”
I hated the fact that, even with 60,000 dollars in my hands, the ball was in her court and I was the one playing by her rules, yet it made her all the more fascinating, the challenge more exciting. Backing out now would be accepting defeat, and Zayden Sinclair did not do defeat. I would make Aria Roberts beg to join me in my bed, if that was the last thing I ever did. Agreeing to her terms would definitely not mean six months of celibacy, since I was going to have her in no time.
“I will add your terms to the paperwork and have you sign it tomorrow,” I finally said.
She grinned.
The game was on.