Alpha Billionaire Series
Billionaire and the Barista Chapter 2

NATHAN

Gabby slept next to me. She murmured and made soft comfortable murmurs in her sleep. I slipped from the sheets. They were rough, the cheap kind, low thread count. But with Gabriella in my arms, I didn't much mind the sheets. She kept them clean. She kept her entire little apartment clean. She rented the upper floor above the bakery where she worked, where the bikers hung out for coffee after we tore up the streets, where I met her.

I slid into my pants and cast around for my shirt. She had been eager to get me out of my clothes; she usually was. I found my shirt, tossed all the way across the room. I looked down at her and watched her sleep as I finished getting dressed. The mattress dipped and creaked as I sat down to tie my boots up.

Her soft touch trailed down my back. "Are you leaving?" Her voice was thick with sleep.

"Yeah, I promised my mother I'd be home for breakfast. You know how she gets," I chuckled.

"Only from what you told me. Drive safe, okay?"

storm.

"I always do." I leaned over and kissed her. She was warm from sleep. I could so easily fall back into bed with her, let her wrap her arms around me, and hold me to her breast all night. She was my balm, my comfort. She was like a sanctuary and safe harbor in a "See you later. Race night," she murmured as she snuggled back against her pillows and fell back asleep.

I hated leaving her bed, but I was expected home in the morning. It was easier to get in late, in the dead of night than it was to roll in early in the morning with the sun up. I was expected to behave a certain way. As long as I made a pretense for my parents' sake, I was left alone.

Gabby was right, she didn't know my parents because I hadn't wanted to introduce her to their judgment. They were controlling enough as it was, the last thing I wanted was for them to decide who I chose to be with.

There were more than enough bikers, mostly racers, in her neighborhood so I didn't worry too much about parking my bike outside of her place. If my bike got jacked, no one would be able to unload it locally. Everyone knew the black bike with red lightning belonged to me. We were a tight community; we didn't do that kind of shit to each other. I typically left it around back anyway. No need to tempt anyone with a prime piece of racing machinery.

I pushed my bike out to the street, so that I didn't start it under her window. I took the long way home, speeding through empty streets, opening up the throttle, racing only myself.

The sky was still dark as pitch when I finally rolled through the front gates of my parents' property. Dawn was still a distant thought, though it was closer to daylight than I usually cut it. I rode into the garage and parked my bike next to the row of cars I know my mother would have preferred I take out. She didn't understand the thrill and need for speed, and I couldn't explain something there were no words for.

One of the staff left a light on in the study. Dad had probably been up late reading and they simply hadn't gone in there after him to turn it off. If he discovered it in the morning, he would be livid, and no one would be safe from his wrath. He would blame anyone and everyone for being irresponsible for leaving the fucking light on, when it had been him all along.

I sighed. I was old enough that I should have been out on my own. But truth be told, their money kept me living in a style that I was reluctant to give up. It wasn't that I didn't have access to money. I did. I had plenty. It was the patience and time it took to replace a decent place, get everything set up, and get a staff in place. Why bother when my parents already had taken care of everything?

"Where have you been?" The sharp accusation from my father caught me off guard.

I had to blink a few times to convince my brain that my father was sitting there in his study in the wingback chair while wearing his plaid bathrobe. It was him who had left the light on, only he was still up.

"What are you doing up? Get sucked into your book? Did you forget to go to bed?"

"Nathan!" His reprimand was a simple bark of my name.

"I've been out with friends," I answered his initial question.

"What friends?"

I wasn't a child. It rankled to have him checking up on me. But it was the price I paid for continuing to live under their well-heeled roof.

"Sydney Cartwright had a DJ in from Ibiza. I ran into Carmen." I figured dropping names should calm him down. And he knew Carmen, even if he didn't remember Sydney. He should, most of my friends were children of his colleagues, or mom's committee friends. "Don't you think you are getting too old for all of this running around?"

I didn't answer. It was a rhetorical question. I was thirty. I was still young, and parties had no age cap on them.

"You need to stop running around on that motorcycle. It scares your mother."

I knew it scared her, that's why I had offered to take her out. I huffed a small chuckle thinking of my round old mother sitting bitch on the back of my bike.

"It's not funny, son," he bit out.

"It's not that," I started. I stopped before I said anymore. He wouldn't understand, he never did.

"Well maybe you will think this is funny, you're going to work with your uncle."

"What? No. Is James moving back to the States?" I had no interest in property development. And I didn't particularly like my uncle. He was father's younger brother, and he had an attitude because he lived in Europe. Like fucking so what. He could live anywhere in the world, and he would still be more impressed with himself than anyone else.

"It's already arranged. You leave in two days. That should give you time to say your good-byes. And pack what you need."

"You expect me to pack everything up, let everyone know I'm leaving the country, make arrangements to have my bikes and cars shipped overseas? What the hell?"

"You won't need to ship anything overseas. You don't need a car in Amsterdam."

"I'm not going to The Netherlands." I crossed my arms and breathed heavily through my nose.

My father had the gall to sit there and look down his nose at me. He had made a decision, and that was it as far as he was concerned.

"You are going. It's time to grow up and be a man."

"I am a man," I growled.

"You are an old boy. You have to grow up and learn responsibilities. We have coddled you for too long."

"I won't go." It was a simple decision. He couldn't make me.

"Then you have two days to be out of the house."

"Mother would never let you," I wanted to lunge for him.

"She is in complete agreement with me. You need to grow up son. It will either be through family guidance, or on your own. And when I say on your own, I mean without any assistance from us. You leave here with your clothes, and that's it. I paid for all your fancy cars and toys, so technically they are mine."

Pain and anger shot through my head. It was as if a hot railroad tie was piercing my skull, and my brain was melting like whipped butter. Red fire glowed behind my eyes, and my pulse throbbed in my temples. He had a vice around my balls. Cutting me off was a low blow. I couldn't imagine that mother would be okay with this.

We stared at each other for a long time. There wasn't anything else to say. He won and he knew it. I had packing to do. I stormed out of his study, leaving him sitting there in a pool of light in that stupid old man bathrobe.

Normally I would walk quietly up to my room so as not to disturb my mother. This morning, I no longer cared. I stomped as I stormed up to my room. I slammed the door behind me. I glared at my four walls. My mother had insisted on remodeling my room after I graduated college. Any tiny bit of character that it had acquired during those four years was gone. I had no desk, no posters, nothing that hinted at the needs of a college student.

Four and a half years before that, the summer between high school and college, she had remodeled the room to reflect my needs as a college student. High school trophies from sports were removed from display, my gaming posters were taken down, the walls of my youth were painted to reflect a more mature student.

Now they reflected a generic adult presence. This wasn't my room, and if I opened my eyes, I would realize it never had been. It had been my mother's showcase to interior decoration that reflected an age, not a person, and certainly not me, her son. The part I hated the most, the part that burned my soul was that dad was right. I didn't need to grow up and get the hell out of his house and away from him. I hated that I had a price, and he knew it.

My entire life I was told what I would be doing, what I would be studying. I never formed any of my own plans or dreamed my own dreams because I knew I wouldn't have a choice in the matter.

I turned when I heard a soft tapping and then my mother's voice, "Nathan?"

"Did I wake you up, Mom? I'm sorry."

"No, I've been waiting for you to come home. I guess you spoke to your father?"

"And you agree with him?"

It broke my heart to see her nod. "You need to become the great man I know you are to be. But if you keep partying and being a playboy, I'm afraid you have lost your way."

"I don't want to go to Amsterdam." I sat on my bed and lay back with a flop.

Mom sat next to me and patted my leg.

"I don't want you to go either, but it's for the best."

"He wants to cut me off," I complained.

"That's also for the best."

I sat up and looked at the woman who was my mother. It felt like I didn't know her. My father had always been a bastard, but Mom had always had my back. Always, until now.