Page 30 of Adonis: The Cost of a Billionaire's Heart
I sighed. “Go ahead.”
“Yes!” Mason cheered with victory.
It was something so simple that shifted my focus back on what was most important—my son’s happiness and well-being. Mind over matter was a terrible fucking thing sometimes. As furious as I was about the situation, I couldn’t let my fear of the unnecessary attention on Mason turn me into a coward. I still had a few more days until I finished our arrangement and could collect the other half of my payout.
“C’mon, let’s go get that milk,” Adonis told him.
At that moment, I realized something new. Even though our relationship wasn’t real, Adonis was unlike any man I’d ever dealt with in the past. He wasn’t just a man of wealth, power, and respect. He was someone I realized I could trust around the most important person to me. But could he trust me if he ever found out my secret?
Adonis spent most of the early morning locked away in his personal gym, taking out his frustrations with the media on the punching bag. I couldn’t blame him. I was mad enough to hitsomething or someone too. While Mason watched cartoons and ate his breakfast, I found myself standing barefoot outside the gym, gripping a cold bottle of water to offer him. Only, I hadn’t moved. I was too busy salivating over Adonis’s shirtless, sweat-slicked body as his fists hammered into the swinging black bag. My arms were wrapped around me as I stared him down, almost mesmerized while silently praying for God to free me from the shackles of the erotic fantasies in my head.
Cleanse me, Father God. This chocolate man looks too damn delicious.
I licked my lips, eyes glued to the sweat glistening across the tattoos etched into his back and his repeated rhythm—step, jab, step, punch. Then he stopped and turned toward me. His chest heaved in and out as his gaze connected with mine. We stared at each other for a few fleeting seconds—the words unspoken were hot on my tongue like the heat radiating from his melanin skin.
I watched him unstrap his gloves and cross the room in a few straightforward strides before opening the door.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” I replied, clenching my thighs together.
“That for me?” he questioned, gesturing toward the bottle of water in my hand.
I handed it to him. “Oh, yes. It is. I figured you could use it. You've been in here beating that thing for over an hour.”
Adonis nodded before untwisting the cap and chugging down half of the water inside the plastic bottle before coming up for air. “Thanks. And yeah. I needed to think.”
“You feel better now?”
“I do. You were watching me?”
“I—uh, well, only for a second. I wasn’t being weird.”
His gaze softened. “Did you like it?”
“Like what?”
“Watching me.”
“I mean . . . it was cool, I guess.”
“Then stay,” he said, slightly leaning in. “I’m about to wrap up in a minute. I’ve got a meeting with the lawyers in half an hour, but after that, I’m free for most of the afternoon. Did you want to take Mason out to do something? Maybe visit an air and space museum or something low-key?”
“You mean like leaving the house? After all of this, I never want to let him see the light of day again,” I grumbled, clearly still working through my frustrations.
“I get it, but after all that shit with my ex, I learned that the easiest way to let something die is not to pay it any attention. I’ve already got the lawyers doing their part. All we need to do is keep living our lives,” he said while resealing his gloves and returning to the bag.
“I can’t imagine. I mean, reading a headline or two is one thing, but living it had to be burdensome,” I replied.
He jabbed at the bag with his right glove. “It was, but you live and you learn, right? That was six years ago, so I’ve been let it go.”
I bobbed my head. “You’re a better person than me. I know harboring onto old shit doesn’t help, but I’m the type of person who doesn’t forgive or forget. You do me dirty, and you’re dead to me, period.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m like that, too, depending on the situation,” he answered, throwing another couple of punches. “But when it came to Lola, I can’t stand here and act like I didn’t know she wasn’t the right fit for me. We were both just going through the motions of being a celebrity couple.”
“Would you have married her if the baby were yours?” I inquired, unable to hide my curiosity about his private love life.
He shrugged lazily before slowly shaking his head. “Probably not. Like I said, I always had my doubts. I may not have spoken on them, but they were there. After that, I told myself I was donewith relationships. People make them more complicated than they need to be.”
