Admit You Want Me: An Enemies to Lovers Romance (Irresistible Billionaires Book 3)

by Ajme Williams

  The way it felt when I finally slid into her, you would think it had been years since we had had sex. Nope, just a few weeks. She rode me as the water in the tub sloshed around loudly. We were totally alone, nobody for miles, and all I wanted right then was to stay there just like that. I had never been so happy to have been purchased like a piece of meat in my life.

  Of course, with her wrapped around me, pulling me closer and closer to climax, I didn’t last. I held her immobile and thrust up into her, blowing my load. I leaned back against the side of the toe, hearing her stand up. My eyes were closed, I opened them to look up at her. Even from that angle, she was utter perfection. The curves of her body covered in a sheen of water.

  “Where are you going?” I asked her.

  “Oh, I thought you were done,” she said to me. The glint in her eye told me that she was just playing with me. I was far from finished with her. The sun was on its way down when we finally emerged from the bathroom. The fire in the fireplace had burned itself out, and the water in the tub was completely cold. I lit up another fire in the living room fireplace so we could warm ourselves up with cups of hot cocoa. When the fantasies of spending more time in the cabin with her, or even worse, living with her on a more permanent basis in New York City, came up in my mind, I didn’t push them away. I loved the way it felt. That was the reality that I wanted. We spent our last several hours in the cabin huddled together, warm, savoring the last of the experience before it was over.

  The next day, it was time to go. We emptied the refrigerator and cleaned up, getting packed. We didn’t talk much, I knew the reason why I was silent, but I wasn’t sure why she was so silent. During the entire weekend, we hadn’t really had a formal discussion about anything. Things were still very undefined and as much as I hated that, I felt that some progress had been made.

  I drove us to the airport and we got a flight back on the company jet. Thousands of miles up in the sky, Missy fell asleep, resting her head on my shoulder. I felt this incredible urge to say it. I wanted to tell her, even though she wouldn’t be able to hear me. I loved her. I knew that was true for a while now, but I finally felt comfortable enough to tell her. I needed to find a way to make her stick around now that our professional relationship was technically over and we weren’t obligated to spend time with each other anymore. This weekend was supposed to convince her that and I needed to be sure that it had worked.

  The mood was somewhat subdued when we got back to the city. Since we didn’t have the helicopter this time, we spent a good amount of time in traffic getting from the airport to her townhouse. I knew that she had had a good time, but I couldn’t tell much more than that. She hadn’t given me any indication of where her head was at, or what she was feeling. I felt pretty safe making the assumptions that I had made, but they were still just assumptions. Nothing would be as strong as her just telling me herself. When we got to her townhouse, I walked her to her door, carrying her bag for her. We stood facing each other like the end of a date where neither party was sure what the next step was.

  “Thank you so much for the weekend away. I definitely needed it and I had a lot of fun.”

  I nodded.

  “Don’t mention it, I’m glad you had a good time.”

  She smiled and looked down. I dug my hands into my pockets. There was a driver waiting so I was not going to see whether I could get invited into her place. That left only one way to end the date. I got my hands out of my pockets and cupped her face so she looked up at me. I kissed her, telling her all the things that I hadn’t said yet. It was long and lingering and it would’ve been even longer if I didn’t feel bad about making the driver wait. I pulled away.

  “I want to see you again.” Her lips were still parted and her cheeks were pink. The whole trip, she hadn’t done her hair or makeup, spending the days in comfy loungewear; that was the way I liked her the best. She was gorgeous and I wished she would let that shine through without all the extra stuff more often. She nodded.

  “I’d like that.”

  The ride to my loft was almost painful. I immediately wanted to be with her again. We hadn’t made plans, so it didn’t matter when I called her up to be heading out again, did it? As long as she was free, I didn’t see what the problem was. The weekend together had spoiled me already. I didn’t want to wait until the next time she was free. If we lived together, we wouldn’t be having this problem. I reeled it back in because I knew I couldn’t afford to move back quickly with her. She hadn’t asked for it and technically, we had only just gone on our first date.

  I made myself busy when I got back home, starting on my laundry. If I didn’t do anything, I’d just end up thinking about her. I had only been gone for a little while, and it had been a weekend, but I still routinely got work emails when I was out of the office. When the machine was running, I turned on the TV and plopped onto the couch to see how many I could get back to. I looked up when I thought I heard my name on the TV. I hadn’t paid attention when I turned it on, it was just some random channel, seemed to be an entertainment show.

  Missy was on it too. It was an interview and they were talking about a feature in a magazine. It looked like I was being featured as well since I was her latest client. I turned the volume up a little bit.

  “We heard that Easton Schultz is your first male client,” the interviewer said. Missy scoffed on my TV screen.

  “He needed the help; you should have gotten a look at him before we met.”

  “He was a challenge, then, you’d say?” the interviewer asked.

  “Easton Schultz was half-nerd, and half-rube who thought it was acceptable to run a company in a stained t-shirt and pajama pants.” I bristled hearing her. She seemed out of it, a little drunk, or a lot drunk but she was lucid enough to express that. They kept cutting back and forth between her and clips of me and her from the carpet.

  “So, we have you to thank for his look tonight.”

  “He’s barely paying me enough. He was a mess when we met. Couldn’t dress himself with a Youtube tutorial.” That was it, I got up and turned the television off. My chest hurt. Part of me wanted to hear the rest but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. So… that was the truth, huh? That was what she thought of me.

  Well. Good to know.

  30

  Artemis

  “Have you seen it?” I asked.

  “Wait, I’m watching it right now,” Brenna said over video chat. She was standing, holding her baby while the sound of the interview played from her laptop. I was sitting at my table, pulling my hair out.

  “Oh… oh wow,” she said.

  “You’ve seen it? Has Eddy seen it?”

  “She’s with Riley right now, not yet. Is all of this real, or has it been doctored somehow?”

  Unfortunately, it was all real. It was the interview from the night of the charity auction when I was drunk, and upset, and jealous and the interviewer asked me about Easton. Every spiteful and angry thought that I had ever had about him had made an appearance and I just let it all out. I couldn’t say that the clip had been shown out of context or that it was some sort of deep fake situation. That was me. I had said what I had said, and now it was out there for everyone else to hear.

  “It was real. I said all that stuff.” Brenna looked surprised. I had just found out about the interview coming out today. A couple of days ago, the promised feature with the very prestigious magazine that Toby had promised had come out, detailing my transformation process with Easton. I hadn’t thought much about it because things had progressed for me and Easton beyond our professional relationship. I had no reason to think about the magazine. The feature in the magazine, even though Toby had offered it as a means to entice me to take on Easton as a client, had not been the reason why I took him on.

  I had taken Easton on because I didn’t have a reason to say no. I wanted the challenge and in our time together, we had ended up meaning a lot more to each other than we previously anticipated. The interview was a complete mistak
e. I said what I said but I didn’t mean it. I felt ambushed at the time and it was just the right circumstances to make me say things that I knew were hurtful and that had been true at one time, but they were no longer true. Maggie had called me this morning telling me about the interview clip making rounds online and on television. She had been at work trying to get various outlets to pull it, but it hadn’t worked. They all offered instead for me to put out another statement, but I didn’t want to do that. There was only one person who deserved an explanation for the things that I had said.

  That person was not taking my calls. He hadn’t answered a single one of my text messages even though my phone indicated that he had seen a lot of them. I didn’t know what to do. I was spiraling.

  “Missy, why did you do that? I mean, you didn’t mean those things, why did you say them? Or did you actually mean them?”

  “A lot of that night is actually a blur. By the time the interviewer had shoved the camera and mike into my face, I was drunk. I know that doesn’t really sound like a good excuse, but I was feeling kind of reckless and just let it all out.”

  “So you really feel those things about Easton?”

  “No, I don’t. I will admit when I first met him that I was absolutely mortified. We had a very bad first impression and I didn’t think highly of him at all. That changed once we got to know each other, and I don’t think any of those things anymore. He’s brilliant, he really is. He’s a good guy but that’s not what I said that night. It was the night of the auction and…”

  “And what?” Brenna asked.

  “And, as I was on the carpet there was another woman, this beautiful lady who was cozying up to him way too much for my comfort. You see, Easton was a lot in the auction and I bid on him, ending up winning. The woman had been bidding against me, and I guess when she saw Easton alone after the auction, she went and tried to cozy up to him. I was jealous. I was angry and I said those things not realizing where the footage or the recording would end up.”

  “All right, I can see how everything got to this point, but does Easton know any of this? Have you told him? Because he’s the person who deserves an apology in all of this.” I had tried to. Because he wasn’t getting back to me, that meant I still hadn’t. All that he knew at the moment was that I had done an interview not long ago and said horrible things about him that I didn’t really mean. They were mean-spirited things that I said out of jealousy and he thought that I still felt like that.

  “He won’t get back to me. I’ve been trying to talk to him all day.”

  “Maybe try a different day? Maybe after some time has passed? You have to understand that if he is angry right now and doesn’t want to talk to you, he actually has a good reason for it.” My eyes filled with tears. This was a huge mess. It was so outside of what I intended; it was ridiculous. I had somehow, because of my big mouth, managed to communicate to the man that I loved that I thought so little of him.

  The thought was why this bothered me so much. I loved Easton, almost to a dangerous level. I never wanted to get this far into my feelings, but here I was. Not only was I in love with him, but I had also offended and hurt his feelings and now he wouldn’t talk to me.

  Well, a relationship with him was what I was avoiding initially and now I wasn’t going to get it, so I guess I had gotten what I wanted in the first place.

  I felt sick.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “I’m really sorry that this happened to you, but since it has, you can’t control how or when he wants to see or talk to you again. That’s his decision.”

  He could make the decision never to see or talk to me again. What if a few more days didn’t make him less angry and instead made him angrier? There was a chance that the last time I saw Easton was going to be the actual last time I ever saw him. What if we were done before we ever began? That he had found someone and moved on in a matter of days.

  That would be his right if he wanted to do it. Were we ever truly together? No, because I pushed him away when I wanted to say yes. I sniffed feeling the tears again.

  “You’re right. I know. Thanks.”

  “I’m sorry babe,” Brenna said.

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  “It’s going to be okay. I know it doesn’t seem that way right now, but it will.” I thanked her and hung up. I hadn’t told her that I had already tried to go to Easton’s loft, and he had refused to buzz me in. I was embarrassed. It was an attack of Missy from the past who, when something happened between me and a guy, went off the handle and did something impulsive. He didn’t let me in though so at least I had spared myself the embarrassment of whatever would have happened if he had.

  I didn’t have to hold the tears back anymore. I buried my face in my hands. I didn’t know what to do. The thought of what I had done to Easton was making me feel ill. I had to do something. I couldn’t let things lie like this. I got up and ran upstairs for my bag. Coming back down, I let myself out and hailed a cab.

  I asked the cabbie for Easton’s office address. If he wasn’t at home, that was where he was. I didn’t want to go there to ambush him, I just wanted him to hear what I had to say. What he did with that information was up to him, but I had to get it out. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight if I didn’t. I was so nervous on the ride there that my hands were shaking. I couldn't imagine any confrontation going well, I just didn’t want to lose my composure as I spoke to him, provided I got the chance to speak to him.

  On the way up to the office, I unreasonably thought that everyone was staring at me. That wasn’t possible of course because I had only been to the office once and nobody should have been able to recognize me. My guilty conscience was making me run even though no one was chasing me. I wasn’t turned away when I said I was there to see Toby at the reception, so that gave me a little bit of hope. When I was finally summoned into his office, he was sitting at his desk.

  “I was surprised to hear that you were here,” he said to me.

  “I know. This is a totally inappropriate visit. I’m here to see Easton.”

  “Well, you are out of luck because he’s working from home today.” He was extremely cold. We had never got to the point of being friends, but he was always friendly towards me in the past. He must have seen the clip of the interview.

  “I haven’t been able to contact him today.”

  “Well, obviously that means he doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  “I didn’t mean the things that I said. I was in a bad place and I said things that I knew would be hurtful.”

  “What you said could have had a very negative impact on our business,” he said. “You’re lucky that the red-carpet pictures seem to be getting more attention than what you said.”

  “That’s lucky, I suppose.” Easton was not here. Toby seemed to be working, and even if he wasn’t, he didn’t seem like he was in the mood to talk to me. What more could I do? “Toby? You and Easton have been friends for a long time. Do you know how I can get through to him?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you if you have tried to contact him and he isn’t letting you through. He’s hurt right now. It’s not just his pride either. You basically said that he wasn’t good enough for you. It was one thing if he thought that was true, and now the whole world knows. To be honest, I don’t know if you can win back his trust. It’s going to take a lot because it took a lot for him to even believe that he had a chance with you in the first place.”

  I felt like there was a rock in my throat and I was struggling to swallow. That was the worst thing he could have told me. I did not want to think that I had fucked up so badly, but if even Easton’s closest friend didn’t think I had a chance, then what else could I do? I left, walking myself to the lift, thankful that it was empty, so I didn’t have to hide it when I cried.

  31

  Easton

  For the fiftieth time in about ten minutes, I found myself looking over at my phone. There was nothing there, I knew that already, but I picked
it up anyway. Just as I thought, no new notifications.

  Well, if you want to hear from her so bad, why don’t you just text her? Call her?

  I sighed and put the phone down. I looked back at the TV, at my paused videogame. I knew things were going badly in my life when I got out the video games. I knew that people liked to use them for relaxation, but for me, they were purely a tool for zoning out, so I could stop paying attention to what was happening in my real life. It was this little world that I had complete control of for when my real life didn’t feel that way.

  I could just call her, I could just text her, but the thing was, I didn’t want to. I knew that even if my phone did light up and it was her, I probably wouldn’t answer. Toby had told me already that a little while ago, she had shown up at the office, looking for me. That was a few days ago though, and the calls and text messages had completely stopped. That didn’t mean I wanted that.

  I knew it didn’t make sense, but that was the way I felt. I didn’t want her to stop even though I didn’t want to give in. It bothered me that she was essentially done already. How long had it taken? Not even a week and she had given up trying to contact me. In my mind that just meant one thing. She meant everything that she said in that interview. She thought I was beneath her and that I wasn’t even worth her time when she was the one who had done something wrong to me. Even worse than that, anytime that I might’ve thought I was good enough for her, I really wasn’t.

  There was never going to be a chance. Even after she cleaned me up and taught me how to wear a suit, even when I looked the part, I would never be good enough for her. She thought I was an idiot who probably couldn’t feed myself since I couldn’t dress myself when she met me. I wasn’t worthy enough to be at her side. I didn’t want that to be true, I wanted to hear her apologize, but with all the time I had had to sit and think about it, I wondered whether it was worth it. Whether my self-esteem was so low that I would try and gain validation from someone who had told basically the whole world exactly what she thought about me, and none of it was good.