Billionaire's Amnesia: A Standalone Novel (An Alpha Billionaire Romance Love Story) (Billionaires - Book #9)

by Claire Adams

  His words came in angry spurts. I tried to remove my wrists from his grasp, but I couldn’t. My eyes looked up to him, searching his face. “You can’t leave her. You know what that will do for us? Nothing. It will do nothing.” My voice was so pained I almost couldn’t recognize it.

  He frowned and turned to the side, looking at the painting of George Washington on the side. His face was still seething. “I just want to know if you love me,” he nearly spat. “I want to know that I’m not crazy, that there’s something between us. I’ve been thinking about you non-stop since Sunday. And you disappeared. I was certain you’d never come back.”

  My heart quickened. He was asking me if I loved him, and God, it was probably true. It was probably that I did. But I couldn’t let him know of these confused feelings. It wasn’t fair to him. So I swallowed. I cleared my throat. “How do I know? I can’t know. Not yet,” I whispered. I felt my voice crack.

  He lowered his eyes. They wouldn’t look at me again, I knew.

  Suddenly, a huge rush of regret washed over me. I felt so frightened that if I didn’t say I loved him too, if I didn’t assure him of my feelings, he would never see me again. And in that moment, I knew that wasn’t an option for my happiness. “Baby. I don’t know. But that doesn’t mean—that doesn’t mean we have to give up,” I whispered.

  I knew I shouldn’t have. I knew I shouldn’t have handed this over to him, like a peace offering. I swallowed, and his face brightened for just a moment. But then, a thought passed through him once more. “You can’t tell me not to divorce my wife,” he hissed for a moment. “I’ve been so miserable for so long. You can’t tell me not to divorce her. All I’ve wanted—for years and years—is an escape. A love to call my own. And now I have you. And yet, you don’t want this.” He bowed his head subtly.

  I shook my head slightly, watching the way his eyebrows chiseled over his eyes. “Baby,” I whispered. I felt the way my throat caught with the words. “I know your feelings. I know it’s frustrating to live in a marriage with someone you don’t care about—someone you can’t care about. But I don’t think it’s a good time to leave her.” I was thinking from a public relations standpoint. And also from a selfish, fearful standpoint. If he left his wife for me at that stage of my career, I’d be nothing. If Monica Lewinsky could have a do-over, she’d surely have done something differently.

  “Why not?” he asked me gruffly.

  I shook my head. “You’re risking the presidency if you leave her. You know the American people respect you. You know they’d respect your decision—at least in the middle of your term, if you choose to go through with it. However, you’re currently in the middle of a campaign. If you divorce her, now, you won’t win the presidency. No one will trust you to get us through the next several years of office if you can’t even hold down your wife.” I bit down on my lip.

  His eyes grew large with anger. But I rubbed at his fingers once more with my thumb, allowing him to ease up on his grip. “It’s okay, Xavier,” I whispered. I remembered the way his dick felt in me, the way he kissed me and made my knees give out beneath me. I closed my eyes—if only for a second—and allowed the passion to drive through me.

  He nodded and collapsed back on the couch in the center of the office. The age of the furniture creaked beneath him. He nodded. “All right. All right. I see your point,” he said resolutely. “But it has to happen soon.” His eyes were dark, direct. “I will leave her soon. And we will be together, Amanda. Because I love you. And I know you love me, too.”

  I nodded, feeling my stomach jolt into my throat. I felt such unease. But I collapsed on the couch next to him and allowed him to drape his arm over me. I allowed my head to rest against his shoulder, and I felt his heart beating inside his broad rib cage. This was our life: constantly hiding, plotting, driving forward to an unsure future that we could only plan half-heartedly from a distance.

  We were making it all up as we went along.

  Chapter Two

  I went back to Rachel’s house that evening, naturally. She was watching an old made-for-television movie and eating ice cream. She had oversized sweatpants on around her thin waist, and she tapped at the couch beside her, asking me to sit down. I did it, bringing my hands over my stomach. It still quaked from my conversation with the president.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I asked Rachel, then. I dipped my own spoon into the ice cream—chocolate mint—and stabbed it into my mouth. The sugary drippings slid down my tongue.

  “Shoot,” Rachel told me, nodding.

  “Well. I wondered. I wondered if you’d ever been in love,” I said quietly. I felt the pangs of my love for the president—was it love??—coursing through me. I took another bite of ice cream.

  She considered my words for a moment. She allowed the ice cream to pass over her tongue. “I think I loved my high school boyfriend. Isn’t that silly?”

  I laughed, feeling a bit of joy escalate through my body. “It’s a little silly. You can still feel the love? That’s how you know?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I don’t feel the love, exactly. It’s more that I feel a memory of that love, you know? I remember loving him. His name was Alex Crawford, and we fought constantly—constantly! It was a mess. But then I’d cry, and he’d apologize over and over again. And then it was okay. You know?”

  I shook my head, cackling a bit. “I don’t think I loved anyone before,” I murmured, bringing my head back to my affair with the president.” I took another bite of the ice cream. “This stuff is going to make me sick.”

  Rachel laughed, setting the ice cream on the coffee table before her. A small dripping from the spoon landed on the coffee table. She blinked at me. “How long do you think you’ll stay?” she asked me. Her voice quaked.

  I pursed my lips. I couldn’t go back to the apartment. I’d been there a few times, of course—only to grab clothes, to dash in and dash out. But the place felt like a wasteland. A wasteland in which a single eyeball—like a great sun—burned into me. “I’m not sure, Rachel,” I whispered, feeling terrible. I couldn’t put her out like this. “But I’ll—I’ll definitely be out soon.”

  She brought her hand over my hand. “You can stay as long as you like. I’m just worried about you, is all. That something bigger is going on.” Her eyes searched my face, but I wouldn’t give it away.

  I nodded. “You’ll be the first to know when there’s danger afoot,” I stated, shrugging a bit.

  She brought herself up on her feet and raised her hands to the sky, stretching her back. She cracked her neck a bit. “All right, Amanda. Goodnight.” She clattered to her room. I heard her flop onto her bed; I heard her light snores emanating from the back bedroom. I shivered and brought a blanket over my body on the couch.

  The next morning, I awoke with a pit in my stomach. God, the stress was eating me alive. I brought my hand over it, kneading at the skin, at the internal organs that seemed to scream up at me. I walked into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water. I closed my eyes as I drank it, feeling the cool rain pass over me.

  It was still very early—before 6—and I got dressed quickly, thinking I could head into work early to get things done. All the while, as I tugged a new skirt over my hips, as I applied my makeup, my mind replayed the events of the previous few weeks. Not only were there photos of Xavier and I out there in the world, controlled only by the scariest, most dangerous man alive, but Xavier—that stunning man—had told me that he wanted to leave his wife for me. I pictured Camille’s face as I brushed my teeth, only for a moment taking delight in the fact that Xavier wanted to dump this woman for me. This incredibly powerful, beautiful woman. He wanted me, instead.

  Or did he?

  It was never easy to note what the passing fancy of a gentleman was when comparing it to a real, tactile, true love.

  Of course, I was flattered. I could still feel his penetrating gaze, the way he wrapped his hand around my hips as I fucked him, feeling him so deep inside me. He
was the most attractive, most assertive, most powerful man I’d ever met in my life. And our attraction to each other seemed to rival anything else.

  I grabbed my bag and swept into the morning. Washington D.C. was glorious in the September sunshine. I knew it would grow cold soon, that the winter would drape over the city and leave us in sadness and big, oversized coats.

  I hailed a taxi and popped into the back, telling him to take the long way to the White House. I knew that I would be the first to arrive; I knew that when I crowded into that front door, even the president himself would still be sleeping in his bed—beside his wife. I shivered but kept my head up, my nose toward the sun.

  The monuments were gleaming as we passed them. The Washington Monument snuck up into the coming blue like a surprise. I lurched forward in my seat to catch every image of the monuments, like I’d never seen them before. It seemed that the morning—so early—was untainted. I swallowed.

  The taxi dropped me off at the White House, and I stepped toward the door. A Secret Service agent stood outside, waiting for me. He wore sunglasses in the coming light. He nodded toward me. I nodded back and snuck into the massive home. I imagined myself, in those moments, entering the White House in several years as the Secretary of State, as the Vice President of the United States. Perhaps even as the President of the United States herself. I shivered as I sauntered down the hallway, knowing that if I had agreed to be with the president, to allow him to leave his wife for me, my career would have halted at the wall. I would have watched it fizzle and die before me. I’d be popping out kids in a few years—kids for the president. And then, we’d retire together.

  I wasn’t ready for that life! I wanted to live; I wanted to experience so many things.

  I found myself at my desk once more. I began finalizing the press release from the previous day, nodding my head along with the words. I felt the people on the campaign team appear around me, dip into their chairs, and prepare themselves for the day. I was their leader. I had to begin acting like I cared, like this meant something to me. I had to refute my feelings for the president.

  In a perfect world, I would have had everything. I would have had leadership; I would have had love. But right then, it wasn’t in the cards. So I stood up on the other side of my desk. I clapped my hands loudly, with authority. “Attention, team,” I called to them. They turned toward me, their eyes bright. “We have a big day ahead of us. I want serious productivity out of each and every one of you. This will be the most difficult job of your career. But it’s one that will ultimately put you ahead in life. And you know it.” I sniffed toward them and watched as they scurried back to work, like mice.

  I sat once more, peering down the dark hallway that I knew led down to the Oval Office. Figures at the other end of the hallway—all the way toward the president’s living quarters—appeared. The woman had draped her arm over her husband’s. They didn’t speak. Rather, they held their faces forward and walked like a massive animal—all of their parts lining up so well.

  I nodded to myself and leaned back toward my computer. I knew it was Camille and Xavier. I knew that all was right in the world, that this was where I was meant to be—that they were where they were meant to be, as well.

  Life would go on the way it was meant to.

  Chapter Three

  The day swept by quickly. I received several emails from across the country and had a Skype call with a woman from California who would be greeting us on our next campaign trail. I met with Jason in the small office in which he’d initially shown me those horrific photos all those weeks ago. We talked about normal things, but all the while, I sensed a sort of humor about him—like he knew precisely how much power he had over me, like he knew that he’d altered the course of my life with just a few clicks of his spy cameras. Check. Mate.

  “You don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go to California with the president, do you?” Jason asked me, his face a bit shiny with grease, with acne. His eyes were filled with offbeat humor.

  I frowned. “I don’t know what you mean, Jason,” I calmly. “I’m the campaign manager. I’m obviously going to California with the president to oversee all the events and keep him on track.” I shrugged. And then, I leaned forward. “And if you think there’s anything still going on with me and the president, you’re sorely mistaken.” My breath was lined with hatred, with anger. I scowled at him.

  But Jason just laughed. “All right. But you do know that I have the ultimate power over you. Right?” He smirked at me. “Otherwise, I can bring out a few of those photographs.”

  I stood up quickly from my chair across from him. “Are you ever going to grow up?” I hissed at him, shaking my head. “Fuck you.”

  I spun around, feeling haughty. I felt like I couldn’t turn anywhere without being accosted by something, without someone propositioning me. Both Jason and Xavier were like brick walls before me that I continually banged my head against, hurting myself over and over. But I saw no sign of release, I saw no sign of help. I sighed and pushed into the breezy hallway, hearing the laughter from Jason in the room behind me.

  Everywhere I looked on the walk back from the small office, I felt like people’s eyes were on me, like they were watching me. I felt my heart constrict in my chest. Suppose—suppose they suspected something? Suppose they knew that I was sleeping with the president? Suppose they knew that I was essentially under Jason’s thumb, without any control? I cleared my throat, ready to attract some people’s eyes. But no one looked up, like I was invisible or something. I shivered.

  I sat at my desk and tapped my fingers against the wood, feeling incredibly foolish. I watched as Jason sauntered back into the room. His shirt sort of poked out around his belt. So unkempt, I thought; what a goddamned mess. And yet so organized that he could actually get the better of me. Incredible.

  The terror of my life was escalating around me. I felt like I was losing my grip. I couldn’t even go back to my beautiful apartment—the apartment I had worked so hard to get, to organize, to decorate. The apartment that felt so dirty now.

  I looked down the hallway and saw that Camille had just exited the Oval Office. She looked arrogant. She was all elbows, with this short, pixie haircut. She nodded to the Secret Service agent and then stomped down the hallway. I wondered what sort of discussion they’d had. I wondered if she knew he was having an affair, if she could smell it on him like some women could. I remembered that the man I’d slept with from Congress had had a wife. She’d suspected, he’d told me. She’d known just from the happiness about him, from the jaunt in his step. “We’re meant to die unhappy,” he’d said, stroking my back in bed. His hair was coarse on his chest.

  I tapped my fingers: one, two, three, four, five, as I watched Camille storm into the other side of the house. I thought of her husband—a man, I realized then, who I’d come to believe was far more mine than anyone else’s. Was I okay with sharing him? I wasn’t sure. I felt the rage billow through me; I felt that I should absolutely dart down the hallway and take advantage of this one thing in my life that gave me joy, that gave me an escape from everything else continually going to shit.

  Xavier. Xavier.

  Even his name was so sensual. I was always so worried about us, about what was going to happen if people found out. But I knew that Xavier didn’t have these fears. So why was I so eternally befuddled with this problem? Why was I running away from the only thing that made my heart brim, made my lips smile? Why was I falling away from it?

  I took a deep breath. I closed my eyes, and I tried to listen to my heart for the first time in my all-too-professional life. I felt the beats course through me. This was a bad situation. But I had to take advantage of it. I had to feel his dick inside me once more. I had to be a part of this.

  I had to follow this pleasure down the White House rabbit hole, certain that I’d never come back for air.

  Chapter Four

  I tapped the long rod against the board behind me, explaining the campaign to
a few of the team members. “We have to assert to the American people our sure and steady comprehension of education, of readying American children for a better future.” I nodded my head, gazing at each of the team members’ assertive eyes. They were each ready to go into the campaign world and take over, make something of themselves. Truly, I was rooting for them.

  Suddenly, I felt a shadow pass over the back of the crowd. My eyes darted up, and I found myself eye to eye with Xavier. I hadn’t spoken with him in several days, and just his presence in the room seemed to make my entire body shake. I raised my eyebrows. “Any questions?”

  A man in the front row raised his hand. But my eyes were still drawn toward the president. I wanted him to speak.

  He brought his hands together then, after a long, terrifying, full-of-tension pause. He clapped loudly, allowing the echo to course through my spine. “Amanda. That was a beautiful presentation.”

  Several of the campaign team members nodded their heads in agreement.

  “With a team like you all,” Xavier continued, moving next to me. He brought his hand behind my back, almost too low. I smiled, unsure, knowing what he was risking. “I don’t know how I could possibly lose.” He winked at us all, and a few people laughed. “Now! Back to work.” He barked these words with a grin on his face, bringing an overall sense of calm to the area. The people on the team knew who they were working for; they knew that he was a good, kind-hearted person—a person who’d worked the past three years, fighting tooth and nail with Congress to pass some of the most essential bills in our country’s history.

  I spun toward him, blinking wildly. I placed my hand on his and removed it from my back. “How are you, Mr. President?” I asked him. I could feel Jason’s eyes on us from across the room, but I didn’t care. “I see you’ve been quite busy lately. You haven’t been answering my emails about the campaign.”