Alpha Billionaire Series
Billionaire and the Barista Chapter 28

NATHAN

How had everything gone so wrong so quickly? One minute I had Gabriella warm and supple in my arr This was all Gavin's fault. Every last bit of it. I would even venture going as far back as him being born But he wasn't around to yell at anymore. How like him to f**k up my entire life, and then go and die, a It was easy to lay the blame at the feet of a dead man. Getting Gavin to take responsibility was imposs one of his disappearing acts. He had not gotten on the plane to Amsterdam that I told him to be on. S I had stayed far too late a second day in a row trying to work out the minutiae that needed to be align I rubbed my eyes and forced myself to focus. I had to expedite this paperwork to get the assessment Including my number one choice. A location that could have been ours if Gavin hadn't been playing a I slammed the papers from my desk onto the floor and stormed out of my office. I was sick of this pro I slid into the Jag and let the roar of the engine replace that place in me that wanted speed. I wanted acti And that was my father's fault as well. And Gavin's, if he hadn't started having real estate agents houn "Fuck, fuck, fuck," I pounded the steering wheel. I needed to get away from myself.

I downshifted and hit the gas. The old car had been driven so carefully over the years. It had lived in a been waiting its entire life to show off.

The streets were relatively empty, especially downtown in the business district. I cut around corners a At a light, some kid on his racing motorcycle revved his engines at me. I knew the signal, I knew what with beehives. This was going to be fun; I'd show this guy what four tires on the ground could do. The light changed and we were off.

I swerved around the occasional car going the speed limit, so did the bike to my left. We turned, and I

I laughed. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, and I remembered what living felt like. No more offic

the next I was alone and dealing with the fall out of my cousin's negligence and no girlfriend.

source of my problems. But that was some bullshit between my father and his uncle. That essentially made the situation I was currently in my father's fault. manage to f**k me over.

wasn't interested in even letting him try. My mother was still upset with me over firing him. And she had stopped talking to me because he pulled another urse, now his father and my mother were blaming me for something far more nefarious than my cousin out there getting wasted.

hake everything run smoothly again. And at the end of it, I didn't have the softness and comfort of Gabriella's arms waiting for me.

n-site at the properties in Texas. Of the shortlist I had left with the agent, two of those properties were already under contract with other developers. stead of doing his job.

k of doing Gavin's job. Sick of my own part in all of it.

violence, and I wanted speed. I wanted to lose myself in Gabriella. But that was no longer an option.

er, I never would have admitted that was the only bright thing he had managed to get done.

e-controlled garage and had been driven maybe once a month. Such a waste on a piece of motorsport machinery as this. The jag responded as if it had ve entirely too fast.

looking for. I revved my engine back. The Jag sounded like the big cat of the jungle it was named for, while the racing bike sounded as if it were powered

ized the old racing route.

contracts. Comfortable clothes, not the daily strangulation of wearing a necktie and pretending that suits were comfortable. Why did I give a shit how anyone dressed at work when I hated it? Why should I give a shit when no one else did? Who gave a shit about meeting deadlines and putting up combo housing shopping experiences?

I shifted and followed the biker around another corner. I lifted my foot from the gas when I got too close to his bumper but kept ongoing. Car versus motorcycle. I shouldn't have been surprised at the power of the engine on that bike. After all, I had raced once, too. I knew what a good bike could do when opened up.

I laughed more, and I could picture Gabs in the seat next to me. Her hair whipping in the wind, holding on as we cornered. Laughing with me and we careened through life, too fast, together. But she wasn't here with me. Never would be. She no longer trusted me, and part of me didn't blame her.

Maybe I should have told her about suddenly being responsible for the property development next to her building. But once I saw her, I forgot all about properties. All I saw was the woman I had been so in love with I became stupid. I just could not see anything beyond her whenever she was with me.

She would love this. She loved going fast with me. At least I had thought she had. She had always laughed and seemed to be happy when we took the bike for long rides in the country. I thought she was the one who would be by my side through all of it, all the good and all the bad. We had lost so much time together while I was away. I had thought that nothing would ever get between us again.

After all, my father was gone. But my family was not. I was sick of them controlling my choices.

I stayed on the backside of the bike, letting him determine our route, even though I had once known this way so well I could do it in my sleep. He leaned into corners, his knee millimeters above the pavement, and I discovered this old Jag could drift through corners like it was sliding on ice. Together, his bright red bike, my darker British racing green Jag, looked as if they were dancing. Moving fast and in synchronization like couple figure skating. There was artistry to racing through the streets, not just skill and survival. There was poetry in speed, love in danger, audacity in daring.

The motorcycle and I blasted through a red light and rushed toward the next intersection. As the light in front of us turned from green to yellow, both of us sped up. And then we were f****d. A panel truck entered the intersection.

I roared as I slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel. The Jag skidded sideways, smoke rising from the squeal of tires leaving marks. The truck grazed the side of my car, scraping metal on metal with an inhuman screech. I saw the bike swerve and fishtail as it cut in front of the truck by a hair's breadth.

The driver of the truck braked, lay on his horn, and then kept going. The Jag bumped the entire time the truck was in contact with it.

As quickly as it happened, it was over. I was alone as both the truck and the motorcycle kept going.

My car sat in the middle of the intersection, stalled out, tires smoking. I saw the biker wobble, right himself, and then speed away. He didn't look back.

I let out a long hard breath. He hadn't gone down. He hadn't gone down. My heart thudded in my chest. I had to fight to catch my breath. I gripped the wheel and hung my head. That had been entirely too close. Too f*****g close.

I couldn't close my eyes because when I did, that biker hadn't made it. I had laid my bike down, and the truck rolled over my back tire. I ended up with a bad case of road rash up my thigh because we had been f*****g around, and I wasn't wearing riding armor. I had walked away, scraped up, and pissed off. But Fred hadn't. His bike hadn't been fast enough, he hadn't missed the front end of that panel truck. That driver hadn't slammed on his brakes.

I jumped from the car and began kicking it. What the f**k had I been thinking?

I slid down the side of my car and sat on the pavement. Too wrapped in the emotions of the past to do anything. My mind could still see the broken body of my friend, smell his blood, hear the tirade from the man driving the truck that had killed Fredrik. Cars swerved past me, and I ignored them all. I didn't look up again until I heard the whoop of a siren, and the bright red and blue lights of a cop car assaulted my vision.

"Everything okay here? Are you hurt?"

I couldn't see the cop who was asking, blinded by their headlights.

Yes, I was hurt, my friend was dead. My lover wanted nothing to do with me. I was sitting next to a stalled-out car in the middle of an empty intersection in the middle of an uncaring city.

I lifted a hand to block the worst of the glare, and wobbly made it to my feet.

"Yeah. Some idiot ran a red light."