Aria

 

 

I sucked on the cannoli as I stared at Alex. He wouldn’t look at me. For the past fifteen minutes, we had been eating in his huge dining room. Me on one end of a massive, rectangular, dark wooden table and him at the other.

Alex had his head down, staring at his food as he ate. I pulled the pastry out of my mouth and placed it back on the white china dessert plate.

“I’m sorry, Alex. There, are you happy? That’s the third time I had to apologize for misjudging you.”

He lifted his head. “Here’s an idea, Aria, why don’t you stop judging people? Maybe, and I get this may be a novel concept for you, but maybe take the time to get to know them.”

I clenched my jaw, pissed at him. Here I was trying to make amends and he had to rub my nose in it.

“Some of us don’t have the luxury of getting to know men. Some of us have to do what we can to protect the people we love before we get to know strangers,” I said and immediately wish I hadn’t.

Alex raised his head even farther, sitting at his full height. I surprised him. I didn’t mean to, but he seemed to know how to push my buttons.

I wish he had accepted my apology and moved on, or just kicked me out. Anything but the curious eyes of a recluse.

“Why would getting to know someone be a luxury? You appear to have friends, Aria. Tiffany and those two women from a few weeks ago, Morgana and Evaleen. You must have taken the time to get to know them?”

I took a bite of the cannoli. No point in pretending to give it a blow job anymore to get Alex’s attention. I got it, and now I wish he would stare at his food again.

“That’s different,” I said after I swallowed the dessert.

“How is that different? Are they robots? Do they not count as people?”

Taking the napkin, I wiped my mouth before leaning back against the chair.

“What about you, Alex? Or should I call you Mr. Recluse?”

Alex pushed back his chair, got up, and walked over. I tried not to stare at his very worn and very fitted sweat pants but the closer he got, the more I focused on what I shouldn’t.

My eyes became level with his as he sat in the seat next to me. “I wasn’t talking about me. I was asking about you.”

“If you get to ask about me, then I should get to ask about you.” I raised my eyebrow.

The corner of his lip ticked up and he nodded. “On one condition.”

“You have to take your clothes off,” I said.

“What? No.”

“I have to take my clothes off?”

“No. That’s not what . . . uh, not unless . . . I mean no,” he said as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down his neck.

“We both have to take off—”

“Aria, there will be no nakedness.” Alex waved his hands at me.

“Fine, but this sounds kind of boring to me.” I rolled my eyes.

“You were the one to suggest the questions to begin with.”

I shrugged. “I figured you would turn it into a drinking game that required us to remove a piece of clothing for every question answered, or a non-drinking game that required us to remove a piece of clothing for every question.”

“You sure do like to get naked.” He laughed and it was the sexiest thing in the world.

He had laughed a few times since I met him, but they weren’t intense belly laughs—the kind that came from deep within your soul. That was what he was doing now and it was mesmerizing.

“Only in front of men.”

His laughter stopped. But it was how he stared at me that caused my smile to fade too. Those hypnotic eyes drifted to my lips and stayed. They sat so long glued to some imaginary string attached to my mouth that it wasn’t until Bradley entered the room that Alex moved.

“Alex, a fax came from your mother.”

He glanced up as Bradley walked over. Bradley’s eyes bounced between us and I couldn’t tell if he was surprised to see me here with Alex or worried.

“Yes, the lease. Here you go, Aria. You can read the bylaws about what is permissible here.” Alex slid the paperwork over to me. When my fingers grazed his as I took the document, I was caught off guard. The spark shot up my arm and straight to my mouth, causing me to gasp.

“Alex, can I have a word with you?” Bradley said while staring at me.

“Of course. I’ll be right back, Aria.” Alex gave me a soft smile before he stood and walked off.

Once the two men left the room, I wiped my hands and lips with the cloth napkin from my cannoli show. The food we had for lunch was delicious. I figured Alex would order pizza but when he told me he had a personal chef, I almost swooned like a Victorian woman who wore her corset too tight and was prone to fainting.

I had to take advantage of that. When it came to food, I was a whore. There’s no food that I would turn down. I had no shame as to what went into my mouth—from a cheap, street corner dirty-water dog to a tarted up steak at a classy restaurant, I didn’t discriminate.

Sitting back against the surprisingly comfortable wooden chairs I massaged my belly as if it contained a precious baby and not a three-course meal. After reflecting wistfully at the empty plates, I grabbed the lease and perused it while Alex was out of the room.

Most of it was standard contract jargon that I was familiar with. I may only be an artist but my father was a lawyer. When my sister and I were young, we would play in his home office and he gave us old contracts to entertain ourselves. After a while we asked him what certain words or phrases would mean. I retained a lot of what he told me.

I also remember a lot of the terrible things he showed me.

I stopped when I noticed one paragraph in particular. It made me wonder about Mrs. Hawthorne’s words from earlier. But before I could ponder more, Alex came back into the room. He reached a hand toward me.

“My mother wanted my lawyer to look at the lease. I wasn’t meant to hand it off to you, Aria. Sorry.”

I reluctantly lifted the contract and placed it into Alex’s hand. “But she told me to look at it so I knew what not to do to the walls.”

Alex glanced down at the papers in his hand. “That’s my mom for you. She will tell you anything you want to hear to your face, but make everyone else force you to do what she really wants. Bradley just got confused when he handed over the lease.”

He was about to walk away when I stopped him. “Do you own this building?”

Alex turned back to face me and lifted his arm to rest on the doorframe. The fabric of his shirt tightened around his bicep and I couldn’t keep my eyes off it.

“No, actually, my mother owns the building. My mother is the one with all the money. When my father died twenty years ago, she got the bulk of his estate and money. That’s why I can’t do anything without her approval.”

I shook my head confused and tried to piece together my thoughts. “But you’re a billionaire. You’re famous for being a billionaire.”

Alex walked back over to the table and sat back in his seat, throwing the paperwork on the table. “Again, that’s my mother. She wants the world to think I am the most eligible bachelor. She likes to control people, even me, and she controls how the world sees me. I’m surprised she let you and Tiffany in here today. As far as I knew, my mother didn’t know about you.”

“She knew who we were.” I chuckled, turning my head toward the table.

“What?”

“Nothing.” I shook my head and turned my attention back to him. “Alex, this may be none of my business but have you read that contract?”

“No. I have a lawyer for that. That’s why I have to send it over to him.”

Alex leaned forward about to get up. He placed his hand on top of the lease, hesitating when I gently laid my hand on top of his.

“Your lawyer has seen this lease before?” I don’t mean to sound annoying asking so many questions but the more he answered them the more confused I became.

He nodded. “Of course. There have been small revisions over the years for building upgrades to meet city code regulations, but most of it has stayed the same. He has seen this many times.”

“It’s just . . . You know what? Never mind. I probably read something wrong. It’s been years since I eagle-eyed a contract.” I shook my head.

That must be it. I’m sure an experienced lawyer that got paid top dollar had a better handle on this lease than I did.

Alex paused for a second but finally stood taking the lease with him. When he got to the door he turned toward me. “Was there something in here that didn’t seem right?”

I waved my hand at him. “I’m sure your lawyer would know more than me.”

Instead of smiling for reassurance, I frowned. What I saw in that lease was either one hell of a typo or his lawyer needed to be fired.

His lifted his arm against the doorframe again. The combination of his thick, corded muscle straining against his shirt and his soulful gray eyes was too much for me to resist. He didn’t have to utter a word and I broke. I tried to play it off. The last time I meddled in someone else’s financial life they disappeared.

I swore then I would only ever worry about food, art, and hot men bringing me orgasms from that point on. Here I am with two and a half of the three satisfied.

And yet, with almost nothing to distract me from using my awesome contract superpower, I screwed with Alex’s life. I told him something that was none of my business because sometimes I can’t seem to shut up.

“According to that lease, your mother doesn’t own the building. You do, Alex.”