Resisting the Billionaire Collection (53 page)

The bike came away with a screech of tearing
metal, the wheels separating from the frame.

"Oh shit!" Adam gasped. He stood with his
hands to his head. It was clearly beyond repair. He had spent
$15,000 on that bike.

His last $15,000.

In fact, it was more than his last. He had
borrowed most of it from Blake. 

The remaining letters and parcels of his
delivery were scattered around the avenue, battered and crushed. He
set about retrieving them, whatever bits and pieces he could,
ignoring the honks and yelling of irate drivers. The delivery truck
driver continued to scream at him. Once he had collected up
everything he could see, he took his wallet from his baggy pants
and gave his business card to the driver.

"What the hell is this?" He asked.

"Just tell me how much the damage is. It'll
get covered. Don't worry, I'm good for it. Sorry about your
van."

The guy jammed it into his pants.

By the time Adam got back to the depot, it
was empty except for the shift manager.

He looked at the remains of the bike.

"What the hell is going on?"

He looked at the remains of the
packages.

"Do not freaking tell me those are your
items."

Adam dropped everything to the floor.

"Thanks, Joey." He said. "I'm all
right."

"I didn't ask you if you were all right. I
asked you if that pile of crap right there is your deliveries for
the day."

Adam stared at him. "What's the drill for
this? Do I get a replacement bike?"

"Huh? You ain't been a courier long Adamski,
have you?"

"What's the drill?" Adam repeated.

"Here's the drill, Einstein. Your paycheck
will cover the crap you ruined today -- you hope. Next, you get
yourself a new bike. I don't care how or where. Next, you deliver
what is left of these items tomorrow--"

"Tomorrow is Friday, I don't work--"

"You do now. You deliver and you don't get
paid. Next part of 'the drill' is we decide if you get to work here
as of Monday morning or not. Now get this shit sorted and do it
fast, because I’ve got a home to go to."

He turned his back to Adam and headed to the
dispatchers office, muttering as he went. "Pretty boy college
asshole." 

It took another hour to sort the mess of his
botched delivery. Joey gave him the balance of his month's pay and
there was enough left over to buy a bike. It would be second-hand
and a piece of crap but at least it would keep him on the roads. He
changed out of his courier gear and then hit the streets,
looking for a bike shop. When he eventually found one, he realized
that what he could get for under $500 bucks would severely impact
on his ability to make money as a courier.

"Seriously, dude. Can this day get any
shittier?"

Chapter Fifteen

MJ did her grocery shopping in a daze.

She fed Blackjack in a daze.

She took a long, warm shower in a daze.

"I don't want him." She kept telling
herself. "I don't want his long, lean, sexy body."

She covered herself in shower gel.

"I don't want him inside me, thrusting,
pounding, heaving--"

She let out a little scream as she felt the
tiny flash of an orgasm, just a taster, almost a forgotten
sensation at this point. She had been so stressed about everything
else in her life of late that she had given up on even taking care
of herself as an unnecessary waste of time.

It was getting to the point where she would
have to schedule a romantic date with her dildo to make it come
back to bed with her for woman-machine make-up sex. The only thing
getting less action in New York City than MJ’s dildo was MJ’s
clit.

She washed off all the soap and stepped from
the shower. Hopefully she would be able to dry herself with the
fluffy towel without getting herself all wet again.

"God damn you--" She still didn't know his
stupid name. "--sexy, courier, loser, sexy guy who saved my damn
ass and turned me on like the national grid. Damn your hot ass to
hell."

She sniggered to herself. Blackjack looked
at her like she was crazy.

MJ scanned her apartment and her heart sank.
Her stuff was everywhere and she had to be ready to move out by
8:00 tomorrow morning.

And what are you doing, MJ? Wasting time
getting horny about some stranger with a dead-end jobs whose name I
don't even know.

"I’m worried about my dildo usage but I
don’t even know where I’m going to be sleeping tomorrow." She put
on a set of clean pajamas and set to organizing her possessions.
Most of her life was in storage from when she had first had to
downsize her living space, so thankfully there wouldn't be much to
move tomorrow.

Most of it would fit into
a standard size shopping cart. 
Great,
one step short of a bag lady. Maybe I'll be stealing people's
wallets on the subway tomorrow as well.

She thought of people she could call for
help. Parents gone. No siblings. No ex-boyfriends worth calling.
Alison and Olivia had been her only true friends, but then Olivia
had gone crazy and tried to really sleep with that Drummond
billionaire asshole and lied to her about it. Then Alison had gone
and married the guy.

Who was she going to call? What was she
going to say? She had less than five dollars in her wallet and less
than twenty in her bank account.

Blackjack came and rubbed the length of his
silky body against her and then settled down beside her.

"You're the only one, Blackjack--" her voice
turned into a croak as tears came to her eyes again. She took out
her wallet and looked at the old faded picture of her mother. She
could have lived without the cards, the cash, and the other things
in there. But if she had lost her one precious picture of her
mother, she didn't know what she would have done. It might have
been the last straw.

She choked her sobs back down, wiped the
tears from her face and picked up the phone.

"She's your friend, goddamn it. She'll want
to help you. Wouldn't you help her if the shoe was on the other
foot?"

MJ selected Alison's number from her contact
list and hit the ‘Call’ button. In seconds her friend picked up.
She nearly choked up again. Alison always picked up her calls
almost instantly.

"MJ, my favorite New York City angel. What's
going on big sis?"

She put the phone down as she gulped back
tears.

"MJ? MJ! Is that you? I can't hear you?"

She put the phone to her mouth again.

"Hey Ally," she said, her voice shaking,
"It's so good to hear you."

"You too, baby." Her voice was soft, full of
care and love. "Are you okay? You don't sound so good."

She struggled to speak.

"I... I... " she forced in a deep breath of
air. "I'm just fine Ally, how the hell are you?"

"I'm really good baby, but I miss you so
much. When can we come and visit you?"

'We'. It was always 'we'.

"Couldn't you just come? You know, just you
alone?"

Alison hesitated.

"I guess so. But you know Daniel and I, we
kind of don't like to be apart for long periods of time."

"Would a weekend be too long?"

"I guess not. I mean, we could travel
together, Josh could come too and then--"

Joshua Drummond. This damned blind date
thing again.

"Look, it's not a good time, so let's forget
about it for now. I'm kind of in the middle of moving apartments
anyway."

"You are? But you haven't been in the place
you are now all that long. How come you're moving again so quickly?
Is there a problem?"

"No, nothing like that. This place is just a
little too small and the neighborhood isn't great, so I'm looking
for somewhere better."

"Have you found a place already?"

"Not yet. Not exactly. But I'm working on
it."

There was a pause.

"MJ, you know if you need any help, you only
have to ask, don’t you?"

"It’s okay, really."

"If you need money for a deposit or
anything, we'd be happy to help out."

That damned 'we' again.

"Ally, stop, please, I’ve got it covered,
really. But thanks for asking. Look, I really gotta go. Just wanted
to hear your voice is all."

"You must really love the sound of my voice
big sis. We just spoke a few hours ago."

It was true. At work, before she got
canned.

"I've got to go, Ally.
Give my love to... you know, to
him.
"

"I'll tell him you said 'hi'."

"Yeah, that's better actually." She
laughed.

"Are you sure--"

MJ cut the call before they got into that
whole 'are you okay' loop again. She put the phone down and looked
at her list of exactly two names.

Olivia. Crazy, sexy, sweet Olivia. She
hadn't spoken to her in the full year since they had been fired. MJ
took a deep breath and hit the ‘Call’ button, then held the phone
nervously to her ear. It went through to voicemail and she heard
Olivia's warm familiar voice like an echo from the past.

God how she missed her old friend.

Then the tone came but she found no words to
speak. What could she say? It was so hard. She had always been the
leader, the tough girl, the independent one; the one the others had
come to for help.

She cut the call and just sat there,
dejected. There had to be someone else she could call.

Or give her vile, disgusting landlord a
blowjob. She shivered in horror at the thought of going anywhere
near his body.

She scrolled through her list of contacts
again and then it hit her.

"Don!" Of course. He was a good man. Sure,
he had fired her, but only because he had to. They had always
gotten along well together professionally and who knows? Given a
little more time together, they may have become an item.

It took another ten
minutes before she hit the ‘Call’ button. She got ready to leave
her message explaining that somehow she had arranged a lease for a
day or two
after
her current lease was up and so she was kind of stuck for a
few--

"What is it?" Don answered abruptly. She
gasped in surprise. She hadn't expected him to answer.

"Oh. Don. How are you? I mean, how the hell
are you buddy?" She tried to sound familiar. It didn't suit
her.

"Who the hell is this?" He said gruffly.

"It's MJ. Remember?"

"No." He said. "You got a wrong number."

"No really, Don, it's MJ from Tête-á-Tête,
remember? Red hair? Me and Alison and Olivia all worked together. I
was manager there for three years." How could the asshole
forget?

"Oh yeah." He said. "Red hair, I remember.
Nice rack too."

Her jaw dropped.
Jesus.
She
thought.
How could I have ever
considered...

"Thank you." She forced the words out.

"My pleasure." He laughed. "What do you
want?"

"It's like this Don, I'm kind of between
rental leases at the moment and--"

"No way. Forget about it. I'm a married man
now. I got a kid as well."

"Congratulations, you should have
told--"

"Goodbye." He hung up the phone.

"God damn pathetic little asshole." She
lifted the phone to throw it across the room but then stopped. Lose
the phone and it would only make things worse.

That was it. There was no one else to call.
She was going to be officially homeless in less than twelve hours
and she was due to work her volunteer shift at the homeless shelter
in under two. When Alison had given her the number and suggested
she do some volunteer work to get her mind off her own problems,
she never expected she would end up being a client there.

MJ looked at her phone again and scrolled
down to the number of the homeless shelter. If she wanted to stay
there tomorrow night she knew what the drill was. You needed to be
there early in the day or you wouldn’t get a bed. She wouldn’t have
time to volunteer there tonight because she would be too busy
getting her stuff together to stay there tomorrow night.

"I can’t believe this is happening to me."
She whispered into the empty kitchen. No one was listening.

Chapter Sixteen

"What is it? I’m about to board a flight to
Washington DC."

"You Drummond guys really need to learn some
manners."

"I’m sorry, Ally. I’m just in a big hurry
here. What is it?"

"It’s MJ. I think she’s in some kind of
trouble."

"Shit, I just left her. What the hell can it
be?"

"You just left her? What are you talking
about Josh? Did you already meet up with her?"

"No, nothing like that. We’ve never met,
I’ve just been keeping an eye on her through Drummond Security to
make sure she’s safe."

"Is that the billionaire version of
stalking?"

"It’s nothing like that, Ally. I just don’t
want anything to happen to her. New York is a big dangerous city
and MJ is a beautiful girl all alone and very vulnerable right now.
It would be irresponsible of me not to use my resources to make
sure she’s okay."

"Stalker."

"It’s not stalking, it’s protection."

"Let me guess, round-the-clock surveillance,
a set of eyes on her at all times, followed to and from work with a
growing dossier on all of her activities, likes, dislikes, habits,
routines--"

"Okay, okay, you’ve got me. Yes, I am
officially a stalker. But you want me to check on her for you, so
what does that make you?"

"Always have to get the last word in, right?
Typical Drummond boy."

"Not when Alison Myers is around. Getting
the last word in is a distant memory."

"Just wait until you get to meet MJ. You
won’t get the first word in."