Chapter Six
Aria
I couldn’t believe what Zayden had been saying and wished I could stop the damn tears from pouring all over my face. The last thing I needed was to show weakness in this situation, yet I felt completely lost in terms of words to produce from my mouth. Scammed. He had said he felt scammed. That I had, somehow, unintentionally scammed him!
My gut felt like it was falling low on a downward spiral of a dangerous roller coaster when I had heard him use that word. How could he? In the time we had gotten to know each other, he had most certainly gotten some idea of the kind of person that I was. If not, then this whole relationship itself was a scam. After how much I had insisted that he add the clause about me paying him back to the contract, how dare he question my character.
He had overheard the whole conversation between me and Mom, which meant that he knew very damn well that I was completely clueless about this and intended on telling him everything. He found out as soon as I found out.
It was not good enough, though! None of it was apparently good enough for him. He had decided what I was doing was my fault even when it wasn’t, and demanded payment – literal and figurative – even though he knew the insinuations would hurt me. It wasn’t that I minded the idea of paying his bank the money my dad owed it. After all, if things all went as planned, I was going to be successful in a couple of years, and it would only make me feel good to know that I cleared up the mess my dad left behind. This was regardless of whether I had ever found out South National Bank’s involvement. No, the money was not what hurt me so much. It was the fact that he sat there, looking me straight in the eyes, and asked me to pay him that money, as though I had personally stolen it from him.
The fact that he could make me feel so low made me furious!
To think I was coming to believe our relationship had been making progress. Maybe it had. To Zayden’s credit, he had gone out of his way to make me feel like our relationship was, at last, real, even going so far as to asking to meet my mom. Obviously, when he had asked for that he wasn’t expecting all these revelations and neither was I. It wasn’t some trick or an effort to make me feel as shitty as I was feeling right now. He was genuinely interested in my life and getting to know my mom.
I tried imagining myself in his place when he overheard the conversation, from the point of view of a guy who had just gone against all his reservations and jumped into a serious relationship with me. After all that he had been doing for me these past few months, a part of me understood why hearing about my dad must have completely ticked him off. His running off last night was completely justified. I would have run out of there myself if I could have, given what I had heard.
I couldn’t run every time things didn’t go the way I wanted to. Perhaps it would take more time to earn Zayden’s complete respect, and if I wanted to keep this relationship, I was going to have to be okay with that. As angry as I was, I was not willing to give up what we had built over the past few months. It would be much easier and more respectful to just agree to pay him the money that my dad owed.
“Option two,” I spoke after what felt like an eternity, wiping off my tears. “One business-oriented person to another, I will pay you every single penny back. Happy?”
“Far from,” he snapped, somehow looking even angrier for getting what he had wanted. He had expected me to put up a fight, or argue in some way, or most likely of all, walk away. I had thrown him off with my response, undoubtedly, and it felt oddly like the ball was in my court all of a sudden.
“But well, good,” he said, standing up from his chair. “That’s settled then. Is that all you wanted?”
“Are you kicking me out?” I looked at him quizzically, now beginning to feel amused.
“I don’t know, last time I checked, it was still my office.”
“So, you are kicking me out?” I pressed, trying not to laugh out loud.
“I have a bank to run, Aria, so if there isn’t anything else you need from me today—”
“My paper,” I cut him off. “Remember the paper I was telling you about? That you so nicely volunteered to help work me on? Well, the deadline for that is coming up, so I was wondering if you were up to helping me out?”
“I seem to be making a career out of helping you out.” He snarled at me trying to look menacing, but simply appeared comical to me.
“I mean, you don’t have to help me. I was just reminding you because you volunteered.”
He sat back down and played with his stress ball for a bit before speaking. “We will do it tonight,” he eventually said. “Now for the rest of the day, please just let me be, okay?”
“Gladly.” I smiled and walked out of his office.
---
Later that night, I told the whole story to Nick and Stacey, who for some reason found it hilarious and burst into a chorus of laughter.
“Oh, my supportive best friends,” I said sarcastically. “It wouldn’t be so funny if you were in my place, would it?”
“No,” Nick said, trying to straighten up his face. “It wouldn’t at all. And it’s not funny that this is happening to you, Aria. Not at all!”
“That’s not the impression one would get based on your uncontrollable laughter,” I snapped.
“It’s just that,” Stacey, who had finally managed to catch a breath, spoke. “What are the odds, you know? Very, very low. But then, you’re not going to believe,” she started laughing again. “I can’t, Nick, you tell her.”
“Well, after you and Zayden had gotten over your last set of – uh – complications, Stacey and I were talking about it – we were glad!” he added immediately upon seeing the expression on my face, which wasn’t exactly that of glee. “We are always happy to see you happy, Aria, you know this. But Stacey and I were talking about how, well, theatrical this whole thing between you and him has been. So full of twists and turns and popcorn-worthy. He’s a handsome billionaire and your boss. How often does stuff like this happen in real life?”
“I don’t understand why any of it is funny yet,” I said, still annoyed. “Enlighten me?”
“Okay, okay.” Nick sighed. “So Stacey and I were talking about it and she jokingly said, ‘What’s next, we find out that Aria’s dad banked with South National before he went bankrupt?’ and we just laughed about it.”
“That is eerie,” I said with my mouth hanging open, and then burst out laughing myself. If this hadn’t been so utterly bizarre, perhaps I would have been really pissed. “My goodness, Stacey, you should become a fortune teller!”
“No,” she gasped. “It’s not like I was predicting this or would ever wish for something like this to happen to you. The reason I had even said it was because it seemed so absurdly far-fetched to be true.”
“It is. Too absurdly far-fetched to be true. And yet it’s true. If this wasn’t all happening to me, I wouldn’t believe it could happen to anyone in real life.”
“Are you okay though, Aria?” Stacey now looked serious, as though only just registering the full implications of what I had told them. “What are you going to do?”
“I am going to pay him back.” I shrugged. “Eventually.”
“Oh God, Aria. This is ridiculous! You shouldn’t have to. You’re not the one that lost him all that money!”
“He knows that. He is just angry right now and you can’t exactly blame him. I did for a bit, but then I put myself in his shoes and it kind of makes sense why he is so frustrated, with the money he is paying for my mom and everything.”
“You are so mature about this, Aria,” Stacey said in amazement and looked at Nick. “If you ever made me pay you 500,000 dollars for something I didn’t do, I would dump your ass.”
“That is never going to be a problem, since I doubt either one of us will have that kind of money anytime soon. And if we do in the far, far future, it won’t matter, cause it will be both our money since we’ll be marri—” he immediately stopped talking. His cheeks flushed hard. I turned to look at Stacey, who seemed to be about ready to pass out.
“So, you guys ready for when I invite Zayden over for pizza?” I asked brightly, trying to change the subject and making a mental note to ask Nick if a proposal was coming up. It was essential that I helped him pick out a ring that Stacey would like, or else she would never forgive me for not fulfilling my best friend duties.
Neither of them answered for a while, but Nick finally broke the silence. “I actually really am. Let’s see what the big deal about the dude is anyway!”
“You will soon enough.” I sighed, relieved that the awkward moment had passed. “For now, I have to go to his house. He is helping me with my paper after much cajoling. He thinks he has made a career out of helping me out.” I rolled my eyes and walked towards my bedroom to gather my stuff. I was glad to be able to leave the two of them alone.