The Billionaire's Sweet Trouble

34

"How could you say that? You know nothing about my chairmanship! I did not manipulate my position, they all voted for me!" She snapped at me defensively.

"Okay, okay. I'm wrong. I'm sorry, but please, stop blaming Sweet."

Her eyebrows rose, then she nodded.

"You must really like her, huh?"

"I won't be dating her if I don't," I leaned forward, looking at the documents on my table, then signed a voucher.

She chuckled, "you've dated her for what...four times already? That's a new record in your dating history, Sebastian. And yeah, I can see that you've changed. No late night partying, no heavy drinking and hooking up with different girls. Either you're falling for Sweet Treble, that you changed for her, or you've outgrown those childish irresponsible acts."

I chuckled, shaking my head, "neither. I changed for our family business, mother. I'm going to prove to you and to the board that I can run our company and make it so big."

"You seemed confident in cleaning your reputation to secure the CEO position. Well, let's see. You still have three months to prove that." She reminded me of her ultimatum.

"Of course," I said confidently, "I heard that a Japanese steel tycoon is open to venture in our Mars project. Care to tell me about it?"

"Yeah, Mr. Takashi has been talking to your dad. He's open to invest in our project, but still needs convincing. He wants to see the whole picture first."

"Sounds like a challenge to me. Why don't you allow me to handle it?"

"It's an important project, Sebastian. Your dad will handle it himself. We can't afford to lose it. We're talking billions of dollars that he'd invest on our project."

"Of course I know that. Don't you trust me? Let me handle it. I closed the Taiwanese deal, I'm sure I'm going to ace this one too."

"Well," her eyebrows rose, "if you insist. But remember, this is a huge project, so don't mess up with this one, okay? I'll tell your dad to turn it over to you. He'll be happy to take it off his hands, so we can spend our anniversary in Bali without many things to worry about."

"Yes!" I clenched my fist, "thanks, Mom."

This is my chance to prove to my family and everyone in the board that I have the making of the future CEO of our business empire.

"Remember, that Mr. Takashi is known to be hard to convince. You have to make presentations for the negotiation. He's very strict and punctual, and doesn't give second chances. So, you have to be careful when dealing with him."

"Of course. I won't fail you," I gave her a salute.

"Good. I have a meeting in five minutes. I'll see you later." She stood up and left.

***

After office hours, I entered the gym at the Stavrakos Hotel, to work out with Max. I collided with three women, who looked like Victoria Secret models. They stopped and boldly checked on me.

"Hi," they greeted, their thick fake eyelashes batting at me. I just raised a hand in return, then ignored them.

I recalled, I used to be very responsive when it comes to women. I'd talk to them and start flirting. Mostly, it ended in one of the suite rooms of the hotel. But now, I lost interest in meaningless flirting and hookups. It was just a waste of time.

We started working out. I was doing biceps exercises - dumbbell curls, to build my muscle while Max was doing crunches to work on his abs.

"It's crazy, you know. I was kind of worried for Sweet, after seeing her father, looking so mad at us. I know I shouldn't," I chuckled, then continued, "I was tempted to call her last Sunday to check if she was okay."

"It's good that you didn't, since your agreement says that James is your means of communication only, on both sides."

"Yeah, I know," I let out an exasperated sigh, and put down the dumbbell. "After Sweet and I shared a kiss, I can't stop thinking about it."

I admit, now that I kissed her, I'm desperate not just for her kisses...but more.

I tried to erase every image that kept popping in my brain, how she'd look spread out under me, panting...moaning and squirming with intense pleasure, begging for release.

Dammit. Just the thought of it made me so fucking hard.

"That's pretty normal, because you're attracted to her." Max shifted position, doing side crunches.

"Yeah, and it gets stronger every time I see her. It messes up my plan," I groaned, and did another set of dumbbell curls on my other arm. "She told me that she felt nothing in our kiss. Fuck, how couldn't she feel anything? That was an earth shattering kiss!"

"She's numb if she doesn't feel anything."

"That's what she told me. She's numb and doesn't catch feelings easily. Damn, I couldn't be the only one feeling the spark in that kiss. I'm sure she also did but refused to admit it."

"Hmm...you could be right. But what if she was thinking of her ex-boyfriend? Some women do that, you know, thinking of other men while kissing their boyfriend."

Fuck. I'll be damned.

I hated that Max could be right. What if Sweet was thinking of her ex-boyfriend while kissing me?

"Nope. That's not possible. She responded to me, eagerly," I chuckled, denying the possibility and convincing myself at the same time.

He smiled, shaking his head.

"So, what do you have in mind for your next date?"

"Hmm...I thought of us spending a day in Cancún, but I don't think that would be a good idea."

"Why? Seems good to me."

"It's not suitable for my next scheme. I'm going to step up to the next level, and seduce her. The harder she falls for me, the more pain she gets when I break up with her."

"I can't believe you're still into your revenge plan on Sweet," Max shook his head, "I thought you like her."

"Yeah, but I can't forget how she ruined my reputation. I'm determined to give her a taste of her own medicine..." I stopped when I looked up and saw Tucker standing in front of us.

Fuck. How much did he hear in our conversation? But I guess he didn't.

"Hey Seb! Long-time no see. Glad to find you here, man. We missed you in the bar." Tucker looked like he just came out of the shower, with fresh hickey on his neck.

"Sorry man, I got so busy lately."

"Come on, you're always busy. You need to relax, man. I'm having a party this Saturday night at my place. It's my birthday." His grin turned wider.

"Oh, yeah." Actually, I forgot when was his real birthday, since I often used his birthday as an alibi when I partied with friends before. "I made a plan already, but, let's see."

Saturday is reserved for my dates with Sweet.

"Come on. You've never been absent from all my birthday parties. You have to be there, man. A lot of smokin' hot chicks are coming."

Suddenly I was indecisive. Should I miss a date with Sweet and attend his party?