Page 3 of Billionaire and the Barista

NATHAN

Gabby slept next to me. She murmured and made soft comfortable murmurs in her sleep. I slipped from the sheets. They were rough, the cheap kind, low thread count. But with Gabriella in my arms, I didn’t much mind the sheets. She kept them clean. She kept her entire little apartment clean. She rented the upper floor above the bakery where she worked, where the bikers hung out for coffee after we tore up the streets, where I met her.

I slid into my pants and cast around for my shirt. She had been eager to get me out of my clothes; she usually was. I found my shirt, tossed all the way across the room. I looked down at her and watched her sleep as I finished getting dressed.

The mattress dipped and creaked as I sat down to tie my boots up.

Her soft touch trailed down my back. “Are you leaving?” Her voice was thick with sleep.

“Yeah, I promised my mother I’d be home for breakfast. You know how she gets,” I chuckled.

“Only from what you told me. Drive safe, okay?”

“I always do.” I leaned over and kissed her. She was warm from sleep. I could so easily fall back into bed with her, let her wrap her arms around me, and hold me to her breast all night. She was my balm, my comfort. She was like a sanctuary and safe harbor in a storm.

“See you later. Race night,” she murmured as she snuggled back against her pillows and fell back asleep.

I hated leaving her bed, but I was expected home in the morning. It was easier to get in late, in the dead of night than it was to roll in early in the morning with the sun up. I was expected to behave a certain way. As long as I made a pretense for my parents' sake, I was left alone.

Gabby was right, she didn’t know my parents because I hadn’t wanted to introduce her to their judgment. They were controlling enough as it was, the last thing I wanted was for them to decide who I chose to be with.

There were more than enough bikers, mostly racers, in her neighborhood so I didn’t worry too much about parking my bike outside of her place. If my bike got jacked, no one would be able to unload it locally. Everyone knew the black bike with red lightning belonged to me. We were a tight community; we didn’t do that kind of shit to each other. I typically left it around back anyway. No need to tempt anyone with a prime piece of racing machinery.

I pushed my bike out to the street, so that I didn’t start it under her window. I took the long way home, speeding through empty streets, opening up the throttle, racing only myself.

The sky was still dark as pitch when I finally rolled through the front gates of my parents' property. Dawn was still a distant thought, though it was closer to daylight than I usually cut it. I rode into the garage and parked my bike next to the row of cars I know my mother would have preferred I take out. She didn’t understand the thrill and need for speed, and I couldn’t explain something there were no words for.

One of the staff left a light on in the study. Dad had probably been up late reading and they simply hadn’t gone in there after him to turn it off. If he discovered it in the morning, he would be livid, and no one would be safe from his wrath. He would blame anyone and everyone for being irresponsible for leaving the fucking light on, when it had been him all along.

I sighed. I was old enough that I should have been out on my own. But truth be told, their money kept me living in a style that I was reluctant to give up. It wasn’t that I didn’t have access to money. I did. I had plenty. It was the patience and time it took to find a decent place, get everything set up, and get a staff in place. Why bother when my parents already had taken care of everything?

“Where have you been?” The sharp accusation from my father caught me off guard.

I had to blink a few times to convince my brain that my father was sitting there in his study in the wingback chair while wearing his plaid bathrobe. It was him who had left the light on, only he was still up.

“What are you doing up? Get sucked into your book? Did you forget to go to bed?”

“Nathan!” His reprimand was a simple bark of my name.

“I’ve been out with friends,” I answered his initial question.

“What friends?”

I wasn’t a child. It rankled to have him checking up on me. But it was the price I paid for continuing to live under their well-heeled roof.

“Sydney Cartwright had a DJ in from Ibiza. I ran into Carmen.” I figured dropping names should calm him down. And he knew Carmen, even if he didn’t remember Sydney. He should, most of my friends were children of his colleagues, or mom’s committee friends.

“Don’t you think you are getting too old for all of this running around?”

I didn’t answer. It was a rhetorical question. I was thirty. I was still young, and parties had no age cap on them.

“You need to stop running around on that motorcycle. It scares your mother.”

I knew it scared her, that's why I had offered to take her out. I huffed a small chuckle thinking of my round old mother sitting bitch on the back of my bike.

“It’s not funny, son,” he bit out.

“It’s not that,” I started. I stopped before I said anymore. He wouldn’t understand, he never did.

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