Page 11 of The Billionaire's Romance

“You have to go? Why?” I knew I sounded whiney. That wasn’t like me at all, but damn it I’d just got out of the hospital and he’d just told me how sorry he was…..

“I have a surprise for you. I have to go so I can organize it. Hopefully it won’t take more than a day or two….”

“A day or two? Aaron, I don’t want a surprise. I don’t need anything…I just want to spend time with you. Please get that, I don’t want anything except you!”

“I want to spend time with you as well. But this is something important, you’ll be happy about it, I promise.”

“But…”

“I really have to go.” He kissed me on the forehead…and he left. I sat there looking at the door, stunned. What was wrong with him? What was wrong with me? Why did I keep letting him push me away and then pull be back in? Why did he even bother to tell me back at Christmas time that he wanted to be with me if this was the way he was going to be? Why can’t he see that I don’t want things…? I have everything I want and need….except him.

AARON

I left Robyn’s place feeling at least a little better than I had when I got there and found out what happened. I’d been so upset with her for just showing up at the New Year’s party. She just doesn’t seem to understand sometimes that life is just not always fun and games. But, no matter how upset I was with her, there was no excuse for either my rudeness or the fact that I let her leave alone. It was almost midnight and I was more concerned with ringing in the New Year with a bunch of business men than I was with ensuring her safety.

The next day when I got the message from her that “something had come up,” I assumed that she was just angry. I decided to give us both a day or two to cool down. Then on Friday morning, I went down to marketing hoping to find her in her office. I ran into Max instead. He told me about Robyn’s friend dropping off a note and that he’d called her to check in but she said she was okay. Max of course didn’t know Robyn and I were dating, he was telling me as her employer. I asked questions and Max answered them to the best of his ability.

At first, I was angry that she’d not told me what happened when she called. We were supposed to be dating. Wasn’t that something you told someone that you were dating? I went back to my office, stubbornly determined to wait until she called me before I did anything else. Max said she was going to be okay, that meant she was capable of making the first move.

I tried to get my mind off of her as I worked. I’d find myself in the midst of reviewing a contract and thinking about the soft, throaty chuckle of hers that made me want to say funny things for the first time in my life. I wasn’t normally a funny guy. I thought about how she’d shown up at one of the most exclusive restaurants in Manhattan in an elf suit. That had made me really uncomfortable. I’d called up the memory specifically trying to lose the sentimentality I was feeling. But it didn’t do the trick. When I thought about it tonight I told myself that it was so juvenile…so risky….so…damned attractive. The fact that she didn’t give a crap what any of those high society fools thought of her was such a turn on…I’d wanted to take her right there on the table. The problem was, I had to care what they thought. That was what she didn’t get. That was what ended up frustrating us both, I think.

“Janice!” I’d said into the intercom, much too harshly. She stuck her head in the office. She had her bag on her arm. She was getting ready to leave for the day.

“Get Hal on the phone and tell him I want to go over the Xiong numbers before we leave today.”

“Sir…it’s after five.”

“Did I ask for the time?”

“No sir.”

“Then don’t give it to me. Get Hal in here…now!”

When she closed the door I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw. I willed Robyn out of my mind. She had come into my life like a tornado…turning it all upside down. Work was the antidote to her power over me…it had to be. I couldn’t go on with nothing but her on my mind….my company couldn’t survive it.

Hal was in my office with the numbers within fifteen minutes. In that short amount of time, I’d decided that I was a complete ass…to Janice, to him and most especially to Robyn. I couldn’t do this; I couldn’t pretend to ignore the fact that she was hurt, no matter how minor. If I didn’t go see her myself, I’d drive everyone around me crazy over it. I pretended to go over the numbers with Hal…quickly and then I apologized to Janice and sent her home. I told myself to get some rest and go see her first thing in the morning.

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