Billionaire In Hiding: The Complete Series (Alpha Billionaire Romance Western Love Story) (88 page)

“That makes me so hap—” she cut herself
mid-sentence with a loud gasp.

The shopkeeper had returned with an
enormous and beautiful princess cut diamond engagement ring in his hand. I had
to open my eyes and close them again a few times before taking the image in. It
was, to honor the name of the store, and Aria herself, dazzling. I chuckled to
myself.

“That’s,” Stacey said, looking like she
was trying to find the right words to describe it. “I have never seen anything
like it.”

“I will take it,” I said in a single
breath. “That’s the one.”

“You don’t want to know how much it
costs?” The shopkeeper eyed me quizzically. “I get a lot of people with a lot
of money here, but never has anyone agreed to make such a purchase without even
asking about the price.”

“It doesn’t matter how much it costs.
That’s the ring, that’s it,” I said, not removing my eyes from the jewel in his
hand. I pictured what it would look like in Aria’s pretty dainty little
fingers.

It would be perfect.

“All right then. 18 carat on platinum and
I can engrave anything you want on the band for a total of five million.”

Stacey’s gasps upon hearing the cost could
be heard in the entire neighborhood, I had no doubt. It didn’t matter. It was
Aria’s ring and I would have reacted the same way if he had said it was for a
hundred million dollars. She deserved the best of everything.

“Like I said, I’ll take it,” I said and
looked at Stacey who I was afraid would faint any moment.

“Are…you…sure?” she asked, looking from me
to the ring and back to me.

“Would Aria like it?” I asked earnestly.

“Are you kidding? She will adore it, as
long as you don’t let her find out how much you paid for it.”

“I won’t tell her if you won’t. I will be
right back, I forgot my credit card in the car.”

I walked out with a grin as an idea hit
me. I hadn’t really forgotten my credit card. I just needed to get away from
Stacey and into another part of the jewelry store across the hall. The rings
were all in one room, while the rest of the jewelry items had their own
separate areas.

After making the necessary purchase,
Stacey and I returned to the car, and as she continued to look utterly stunned,
I presented her with two boxes. “Congratulations on your engagement!” I smiled
at her.

“What now?” She looked confused. “You
didn’t—”

“I hadn’t given you and Mr. Nick anything
for your engagement. I thought you would like—”

“It’s just Nick, I’ve never heard him
called Mr. anything,” she tried to joke, but there were tears tingling around
her eyes again. “You didn’t have to get us anything.”

I shrugged. “You are Aria’s best friends!
This is the least I could do for all that you have done for her over the
years.”

No longer attempting to hide her tears,
Stacey opened the boxes sniffing, to find two matching platinum Him and Her
bracelets that read “together forever.”

“This,” she sniffed back tears.
“This…is….perfect. You really shouldn’t…I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You already have. Aria is very lucky to
have friends like you,” I said, starting to feel uncomfortable since I didn’t
know how to make her stop crying and wasn’t expecting this reaction at all.

“No, Zayden.” She looked up and wiped her
face with her sleeves. “Aria is very lucky to have you.”

Chapter
3

Aria

“Wow, Aria.
That’s…shocking…utterly…surprising,” Nick mumbled while determinedly avoiding
eye contact. I had just told him and Stacey the whole story with the very
awkward situation at my mom’s house, followed by an even more awkward proposal.

“We couldn’t have guessed that Zayden
would propose to you so quickly. At all,” Stacey added, also avoiding meeting
my eye. Something was obviously amiss.

“You guys already knew,” I concluded based
on their joint reaction. “Both of you knew. I can’t believe this. How?”

“What are you talking about?” Stacey gasped
accusingly. “How could I possibly? I mean how could we? We have barely seen you
in a week!”

She had a point, but their reactions were
certainly out of the ordinary. There was more going on here than I understood
and I hated not knowing things. But they hadn’t seen me in over a week, how
could they? Unless…

“Well, there were two people in that
bathroom that night. If you know about the proposal, it had to have come from
the second source.”

Stacey burst out laughing in a mocking
sort of a way. “Yes, because Zayden Sinclair told us. A rich, billionaire guy
had absolutely nothing else in the world to do but gossip about his life plans
with your sorry-ass roommates.”

“Don’t call yourselves that.” I frowned.
“And don’t act like you haven’t been known to scheme with him regarding me in
the past.”

“Scheme?” She gasped, trying to look
horrified. “That’s a little much, Aria. At best we exchanged some polite emails
and under totally different circumstances! It was just about dating him – or
contracting him or working with him or whatever you were calling it back then –
and I already knew you wanted to so I just gave him a little nudge in the right
direction. This is completely different.”

“Well, you haven’t yet once outright
denied that you have been helping Zayden in some fashion.”

“The oven!” Stacey exclaimed and got off
her chair. “Do you smell it? The cookies are done. For you, Aria. See how much
I love you? Don’t question me.”

When she was back with the chocolate chip
macadamia cookies, she had won. There was no way I was going to give her a hard
time about anything after she bestowed me with the delicious crunchy, sugary
goodness. If she was scheming with Zayden, let her. It almost made me feel kind
of warm and fuzzy thinking of the two of them getting together to plan my
proposal. When we got married – I meant if we got married – Zayden would have
to get along with Stacey anyway, so it only made sense for them to start now.
That thought, along with the cookies, made me light hearted. So much so that I
didn’t really feel like discussing what I was about to mention. But I couldn’t
put it off much longer. The divorce was sure to finalize soon enough and he
would pop the question any minute. I definitely needed some advice as soon as I
could get it.

“I don’t care what you guys know or how
you know it, but the important thing I need to know is what you guys think I
should do? Is this at all a good idea? Getting married to Zayden, I mean. I
have only known him a few months.”

“You’re joking, right?” Nick raised his
eyebrows at me. “You’re obviously not considering saying no?”

“Why not? I mean, it’s a big commitment.
And I love Zayden! I do. There is no question about that anywhere in my mind. I
have never felt like this about anybody in my life before. He makes me feel so
smart and funny and beautiful and these past few months with him have been the
most thrilling of my life. Like a rollercoaster. So marrying him will kind of
be like…uh, moving in to live to Six Flags.”

Stacey and Nick both chuckled. “I’ll be
down for that move!” Nick said cheerfully.

“But seriously, Aria,” Stacey chimed. “If
you don’t feel like you’re ready—”

“No, no! It’s not that I’m not ready,” I
jumped in a little too quickly.

“There you go. A little hint of my advice
going the other way and you were so quick to stop me. You obviously want to do
this and you love each other. I don’t see why—”

“You’re right,” I said, finally accepting
even to myself that the answer had been “yes” since the moment Zayden first
asked the question. “But I’m only twenty,” I added, just for argument’s sake.

“And you have the intelligence and
maturity of a fifty year old. To the point of boredom, some might say,” Stacey
said. Upon meeting my reproachful look she hastily added, “Some might say, not
me. In any case, stop looking for excuses. If you want to marry the guy, marry
the fucking guy. It’s literally that simple.”

With a final misplaced frown, I
surrendered. Even though I was pretty surprised by their eagerness to have me
jump to get married to Zayden, deep inside, I had hopes that they would approve
without a protest. Now that I was sure, with the blessings of two of my best
friends, the only thing keeping Zayden and me from being engaged was his
divorce…and his ability to plan a real proposal of course.

---

Classes had lately become impossible to
sit through, not because of certain inherent displeasing qualities in the
classes themselves, but because of the state of mind I had been in. It was like
a cheesy yet exciting romantic comedy was constantly playing in my head,
featuring Zayden and I as the classic hero and heroine, destined to find each
other against all odds and the harsh realities of life. My daydreams usually
ended with him getting down on one knee at some exotic locale only suitable for
the movies of the highest budgets featuring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Either that
or some scenario where he made a public declaration of his love to me as I am
about to go away forever – at an airport or a wedding – or I go crying, running
into his arms.

As dramatic as it all sounded, thinking
about the various ways in which our love story would find it’s worthy climax
made it slightly easier to get through classes and count down to the time to go
to work. Under the pretenses of doing my job, I could stare joyfully at Zayden
for the rest of my day. Now that he had loudly professed his love to me in
front of everybody at the bank, I was free to stare at him all day, answer his
calls as his girlfriend, or flirt with him every time he came over to my desk.
It still annoyed Mrs. Brian endlessly – as experienced by her constant
disapproving sounds – but now that she knew Zayden took this seriously, she
tried her best to keep her unsolicited opinions to herself. All in all, work
had suddenly become my favorite place to go.

“Is everything alright, Aria?” I heard the
professor, Mr. Weber, say, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“Uh…yes. Sorry, I am a little out of it
today. Didn’t get much sleep last night, was working on your paper.”

“Of course you were!” he exclaimed
happily. “Wouldn’t expect anything less of you. And don’t worry, we are all a
little out of it sometimes. Plus, you’re the top graded student in this class.”

I heard some grunts around the room, but
couldn’t help but feel really flattered and guilty at the same time. The guilt
made me try hard to focus on the Public Finance lecture – but my mind kept
trying to take me back to that day Mr. Weber had brought in Zayden as a guest
speaker – what an incredibly dramatic ordeal it had been.

No, stop. Pay attention. He was saying
something about mortgages and government loans. I looked at the time; it was
half way through class. One more quick lab later and I could run to work…I
muffled a giggle, trying to pass it off as a cough, at the thought of being
that person who actively looked forward to going to work.

Mr. Weber was discussing tax breaks and
housing bubbles when there was a knock on the classroom door.

My heart leapt. I must have been imagining
it this time. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them
again, Zayden was still standing by the door of my classroom, looking directly
at me, with an enormous grin on his face.

“Oh hello, Mr. Sinclair!” Mr. Weber
exclaimed delightedly. “What a wonderfully pleasant surprise! You should have
mentioned you were paying us a visit! I would have made arrangements. Did you
just want to sit in on my lecture? Or were you looking for something else?”

“Actually,” Zayden said, taking small
strides into the classroom. “I was hoping I could talk to one of your
students.”

“Oh, for some kind of a market research or
something?” Mr. Weber asked curiously, as my heart started thumping so fast I
could hear it beating. When I tried to move my legs they seemed to have given
in to complete paralysis. I had no idea what was happening, but I felt like I
knew where this was going…it had to be…but here? In front of my whole class?
Would he really?

“I have a particular student in mind, Mr.
Weber. And no, it’s not for research or survey. It’s…personal.”

The whole classroom went entirely silent
and Mr. Weber looked confused. Zayden walked towards me. I wasn’t sure whether
I was imagining it because the whole scenario was rather cinematic, but it felt
like somebody had paused the live Zayden and set him in slow-motion. He was
walking insanely slow, not helping the situation of my heartbeat at all.

When he reached me, he fell down on one
knee, rendering me completely incapable of feeling anything other than my own
thumping heart which seemed to have picked up a pace three times its usual.
Shit, shit, shit. This was it.

Tears began welling up in my eyes as I
became aware of the entire class staring at us, making no attempts to hide what
they were looking at. The class had never been as silent as it was now, to Dr.
Weber’s immense frustration I didn’t doubt. At the thought of Dr. Weber, I
flicked a quick sideways glance to see his reaction and he appeared to be
embracing a coronary, while his face assumed an expression of utter confusion.