The Billionaire & I

17.

"Because I'm not a complete jerk to be oblivious to when someone isn't in a good place Ophelia. And you clearly aren't in a good place for reasons only known to you."

"I don't want your stupid pity," my eyes narrowed at him.

"You want to call it pity then fine. This job, you not getting fired, the apartment is all part of my pity. Whether you accept it or not, it remains the truth." He said adamantly.

"You are such a self righteous jerk!" I hit his chest once, "you annoy me so much!" I hit his chest again. His hands held on to my clenched fists and stopped me from going into a launch of punches against his hard chest. We remained in that position till my laboured breathing calmed.

When I looked up at him, he was patiently staring at me and I sighed. I released my hands from his hold and quietly moved to one of the couches. Barely seconds later, the couch dipped and he was next to me.

"My situation wasn't this desperate a year ago," I whispered. "It was great infact. I had my three bedroom house, a car and a thriving business consultancy company in Seattle."

"I never knew you started your company." He said and I laughed then shook my head.

"How would you have known? It's not like we were keeping tabs on each other or something. But yes, I started my company nearly two years ago."

"So what happened?" I felt his eyes on me but my gaze was glued to the center piece on the table.

"A terrible bastard called Gavin Thompson happened," my shoulders slumped as the painful memories returned. "We met at a work party for the company I worked at before moving on to start mine. We became fast friends. He was there when I started my consultancy business. He was a good financial analyst so I hired him. Eventually he became a share holder, a business partner and a few months down, my boyfriend."

"Oh." I felt him shift backwards.

"But everything bright suddenly turned dark. It was towards the beginning of June last year I started noticing the irregularities. But It was already too late and by mid June, my company had crumbled to dust. Gavin was actually a con artist." I shook my head. "He bought into my shares through fake aliases and eventually sold and gambled my company away leaving me not only penniless but with a lot of debts. By July, I was shoulder deep in debts I didn't even know of. I was almost arrested, literally everything was taken away from me. The bastard of course disappeared, took off with all my money and assets but he was smart so I had zero proof against him because at the end, everything was in my name."

"How did you manage all the debts?" He sounded angry but I was still facing the table and couldn't see his face.

"I couldn't take loans so I went to my sister but she was of no help, only critics," I laughed bitterly. "I didn't want to burden my parents but I had no choice. And by August I was back in my parents house, back to square one and heavily depressed."

"Hey," William slowly turned me towards him by my shoulders, "come here." He held me tight within his arms and I quietly rested my head on his shoulder. A wave of dejavu hit me. This moment seemed to be a reoccurring one lately. Comfort was indeed a beautiful thing.

In the months following the tragic end of my company, I did nothing but sit and stare blankly at the walls. When my mind wasn't blank, I'd contemplate all the what ifs. In rare occasions of expression of emotions, I allowed myself to cry and curse every living thing. That was the cycle that spiralled me in and out of depression for months. My parents tried cajoling me into therapy but I desperately wanted to be alone with my thoughts. I just wanted to wallow in all the pain and self pity.