Page 45 of The Billionaire and the Nanny: Part 2

Zayden

There’sa party in Chelsea this weekend. I’ll be there because I can’t stay home alone anymore. If I see my empty house, the colorful rooms where Bailey and Olivia slept, I’ll fall into deeper depression, and it’s bad enough I still have to sleep there. Staying sociable is what’s kept me alive. It’s an act, I know it is. What used to feel familiar and normal now feels forced.

As much as I’ve tried to get back into the swing of things, my regular routine, I’m a different person. For one thing, I haven’t slept with a single woman since Bailey left, something that infuriates me to no end. Why can’t I just go back to who I was before she came to work for me? It’s not like someone flickering into your life for five months should make such a difference. You’d think I could’ve hooked up with someone bynow.

But I’m determined to keep trying. I’ve gotten close, going so far as to bring a woman into my room, hoping to erase the ghosts of Bailey, only to claim that I’m suddenly sick and send the woman home with one of my drivers.

But one way or another, I have to become myself again.

The party is for Ada Benson, one of my low-profile celebrity friends I haven’t seen in a while. She just got the lead role for a new Netflix series she can’t stop talking about. Maybe when she moves to LA next week, I finally won’t have to hear about it anymore.

An older woman with a great rack and red dress has been hanging off of me all night, talking about her ex, what a jerk he turned out to be, and how she would so engage in revenge sex if she could only find the perfect guy to do itwith.

Her smile appears and disappears in my field of vision like the Cheshire cat. I’m half drunk and not listening to her. I nod and pretend to, but I keep scanning the trendy apartment. I know that Bailey would never be here, yet I keep imagining that she is, that any moment, she’s going to walk in with that little attitude of hers and I would be so happy to see that. I’d give anything to see her again, even if it’s to catch the rage and hate she surely feels for me thesedays.

Shit, I hate me too. I can’t blameher.

My friends Carson and Jackie are there, and Ada announces that something is about to make the night even more special. Then, right there, in the middle of the flowing champagne, endless snaps of Instagram selfies and socialite conversation, Carson takes Ada’s spotlight with her full permission.

He gets down on one knee and pulls out a box, and right away Jackie’s hands fly to her mouth, and I get a sinking feeling in my stomach. “Jackie, you’re the light of my life, the apple of my eye, and the pain in my ass, but I can’t live without you. Will you marryme?”

“Don’t do it,” the woman talking to me mutters behind her wine glass then joins the chorus of cheers and laughter erupting all atonce.

I feel myself spinning through my alcohol fog, raising my glass for a toast as Jackie accepts, happy for them but hating them all at the same time. Why does your friends’ happiness upset you? This is what you wanted, asshole, I tell myself. Now own it. Loveit.

Fuckit.

I stay a reasonable amount of time so it won’t look like their engagement sparked my leaving in any way, even though I’m dying to get out of here and erase the pain. “I’m taking off,” I tell the woman whose name I still don’t know. Better that way. “Do you want to come withme?”

Her green eyes sparkle. “I thought you’d neverask.”

After hugging Carson and Jackie one last time, telling them I better be in the wedding party if they know what’s good for them, I bolt out of the apartment with red dress lady, slamming back one more drink on the way out. My driver is there, and we crawl into the back seat. “Your place or no place,” I tell the woman.

She stares at me strangely, trying to figure me out. If only someone could, I wouldn’t be in this state of mind. Her hands are all over my chest, my hair and neck, and at one point, she dips down and reaches for my cock, which is completely dead. Carson and Jackie’s engagement left a bad taste in my mouth, though that’s a fake reason. I know the real reason and I can’t think aboutit.

“Save it,” I tell her, pushing her handaway.

The delay of gratification only makes her more horny, as she bites her lips in anticipation the rest of theway.

Fifteen minutes later, we reach her apartment building, which fucking great—happens to be right across from the MetroLife Building, the same building where I first met Bailey. I ask my driver to wait for me. If I go through with this, it won’t take long, because I don’t plan on cuddling. He winks and closes the door. Once in the elevator, red dress woman smashes me against the mirror and presses her red wine stained lips ontome.

“You’re driving me crazy, Hawthorn,” she breathes. “But now you’re in my territory.”

If it’s possible to feel absolutely nothing when a beautiful woman with a great rack is kissing you, then this is it. I do my best to kiss her back but, no offense to her, it’s like kissing an ash tray that’s been washed with peppermint water. Great—a smoker. Before even getting to her door, I already know this ain’t gonna happen.

“Hey,” I say, regretting that I still don’t know her name after spending half the party and a whole car ride with her. “I just remembered I have somewhere I have tobe.”

“Can’t it wait?” Her hands are now on myass.

“No, but I can come back later.” I don’t know why I say that other than to protect her feelings because now I see the insecure little girl in her starting to creep in. “Actually,” I add, doing my best to stay honest. “I probably won’t. I can’t. I’m so sorry.” I kiss her cheek and take off down the hallway.

She shouts some choice expletives at me, but I’m too far gone to evencare.

Besides, she’s right. I am all those things and more. I don’t blame her for being angry. I am and always will be the biggest asshole I know. And now I’m the loneliest asshole, too, because as I get to my building and walk in through my door, I can hardly breathe from the emptiness in the house.

The silence screams at me. The bar calls to me. And I can’t bear to go upstairs with the darkness looming, all light and love totally sucked out of the bedrooms. You had to do it, I remind myself. To save them from futurepain.

But then, as I’m pouring myself yet another drink in the hopes of poisoning myself slowly, I think about the mantra I’ve been repeating since the day Bailey took off on me, leaving me to spend hours trying to console Olivia when she woke up without the person she was closest to being there to greet her with familiar routines andlove.

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