Alpha Billionaire Series
Hot Mess Chapter 8

NICK

"Isaac!" Where the hell was that man when I needed him?

"What the hell Nick? Stop bellowing at me." Isaac jogged down the hall.

I stood outside of my bedroom holding up two different shirts.

"Are you kidding me?" He flashed his bright eyes at me and glared. "I just had to postpone a conference call with your trainer and nutritionist because you were whining like a little boy. I work for you, let me work!"

"But which shirt?" I help up two dramatically different styles, one plaid button-down with western details, and the other a t-shirt. One would make me look wholesome and trustworthy, the other was to show off my muscles.

"You're an adult, do the eenie-meenie thing. Play rock-paper-scissors. Close your eyes and throw a dart. I'm not your dresser." He groused at me and then waved me off dismissively as he turned and headed back toward his office located downstairs next to the kitchen. About halfway down the hall he stopped and turned around.

"Wait a minute. Wait a fucking minute." He strode back to me. "Show me."

I held up the two shirts.

His gaze bounced back and forth between them before settling on my face. "Those are your first date shirts. What's going on?"

"I met someone at that awful Halloween party."

"Hardly awful if you met someone, you're pulling the date shirts out for. Is this the woman who you gave your pants to?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I called her earlier asking her out for lunch-"

"Where are you going? Shit, I'm going to have to divert the paps, aren't I? Didn't you tell me she was famous? Who? I know it wasn't Marci, she would have plastered that shit all over her socials."

He continued talking, practically to himself as he turned and started to walk away again.

I had no idea where I was taking Kayla. Frankly, I didn't know if I was taking her anywhere. I wanted to be prepared. She hadn't returned my calls or my texts in days. But she was seeing them. My number wasn't blocked.

Any other woman and I would have shrugged the lack of response off. But Kayla wasn't any other woman. She had been uncomfortable at that party already, and I went and made it worse.

I wanted to tell her in person how sorry I was about everything that happened. I was supposed to be some super suave actor, but when her dress came off in my hands, I panicked. There was no other word for it. Sheer unadulterated panic.

Idiots, probably high on one substance or another, knocked me into her. Ripping her clothes off. I won't deny that I certainly had thoughts of doing just that. But I had wanted to be in the privacy of my bedroom, not where any number of celeb wannabees and cameras were.

I remembered with perfect clarity how perfect her exposed breasts were. Ripe and plump with dark nipples calling out to me. I couldn't get the image of her nude figure out of my head. I didn't want to.

She was a Venus rising, all gorgeous curves, and flawless skin. Her image was burned into my memory. As was the sensation of touching her. A mistake I couldn't help but not regret.

In my panic to shield her from prying eyes that did not deserve to witness her beauty, like some kind of moron, I had covered her nakedness with my hands. I never should have touched her. It was one hundred kinds of inappropriate.

But I could still remember how soft her skin was, and exactly how her nipples poked into my palms. It was a memory I should be ashamed to have. She hadn't deserved that kind of treatment and I was an a*****e to treasure that moment until I could touch her with consent.

I growled at my revelry and stormed back into my bedroom. I threw the shirts on the bed and continued into the bathroom to scrub my hands. It felt too right. But I knew it had been wrong. After drying my hands, I picked up my phone and shot out another text message.

"Kayla, this is Nick. I wanted to see how you were doing. If you are still in LA, I'd like to take you out to lunch. I owe you a thousand apologies and would like to start making them in person."

I pulled on a basic gray tee and headed downstairs to Isaac's office.

"Here, I didn't see you with anyone at the party. You're going to have to tell me who she is." He dropped a stack of what looked like printouts on the edge of his desk.

I picked up the images. "What are these?"

"You're kidding me, right?"

I raised my brows and shook my head. I didn't know what he was going on about.

"After everything you do, part of my job is to scour the socials to see what got picked up. I need to make sure you don't have an ex out there who has just announced she is naming her baby after you and hinting you might be the father, even if you haven't seen her in two years." "Okay." I started looking through the pictures.

"You were at a costume party with industry and industry leeches. I've been collecting pictures for days. Anything and everything to see what they caught of you."

Shit. "Fuck." I spit out under my breath. I tried to remember everything about my time with Kayla. I couldn't recall cameras, or flashes. My memory's vision was clouded over with nothing but her body. It wasn't a bad memory, I really enjoyed being able to close my eyes and see her but right now I needed to not be focused on those perfect breasts.

Had anyone been there with a camera? I didn't think so. We had been pretty well secluded.

I flipped through the stack of pictures.

"What are you looking for?"

"Any images of Kayla?"

"Oh, her name is Kayla? How was she dressed?"

She wasn't and that was the problem. "Ishtaria."

"You're shitting me, right? Nick, you did not hook up with some chic dressed as Ishtaria while you were Mithrandes. Please tell me she at least knew who you were?"

"I think she was the only person to have recognized me. And what's ironic, she didn't even watch the show. She was in the costume because someone gave it to her.'

I pulled out the printout of the picture with me and one of the other Mithrandes. The guy had posted it with the caption, "Mithrandes represent. Rumor was Nick S. was at the same party but never saw him."

I scanned over the comments. People were not kind. It cracked me up, there I was in costume looking the exact same way as I did on screen and people were still dogging me saying I didn't look a thing like the character or the actor.

"Did you have to print out the comments too?" I asked.

I tossed the picture onto Isaac's desk. He picked it up and chuckled before putting it back.

"Please, those comments are gold. I wonder at what point will any of them realize you were you?"

I sat back in the chair across from his desk and propped my feet up as I continued to look at pictures. I pulled out all the Ishtarias and Mithrandes ones I could replace. Either Isaac hadn't found the picture yet, or the girls I had posed with hadn't posted it. I did replace one picture of a few Ishtarias posed together. "Do you need this?"

Isaac shook his head, not looking up from his computer.

I folded the image for later and put it in my pocket. I continued to sort through pictures. I wasn't seeing anything. No other pictures of me, and none of Kayla. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. I mean I was glad the accident hadn't been captured on film. But there was nothing for me to look at, nothing to remind me of how sweet and beautiful her face was.

I put the stack back on Isaac's desk. Shifted the Mithrandes and Mithrandes image to the top and sat back.

"Anything else pop up from that party?" I asked.

"Other than this mystery date of yours, no." Isaac looked up at me. "Shouldn't you be getting ready?'

I shrugged. "She hasn't texted back yet," I admitted.

"What's wrong with her?"

"What's that supposed to mean? Nothing is wrong with her. She's beautiful. She's-"

"Not calling you back. You are a hot commodity right now Nick, even if no one can recognize you in your Mithrandes costumes. If you had walked into the party wearing a Captain Wonder shirt everyone would have been trying to get a piece of your action. Hell, Marci would have plastered herself to your side and called it true love."

"I saw she got you cornered at one point. What did she want anyway?"

Isaac rolled his eyes. "She wanted me to set her up-"

"Please no. She is not my type."

"Ego much? Not you, dumbass, your agent. She wants a cable series. I guess she's trying to move away from rom coms."

"I thought rom-coms were lucrative." Not that I had ever been in any. I didn't have the right pretty-boy looks that the industry typically wanted. My looks were on the rough side. I hadn't grown into my looks until I hit my mid-thirties, and by then I was too old for standard rom-con casting. And my career had taken a different direction. I was barbarian king material, not the quirky love interest. "She's getting to be of a certain age. Too old to be considered the 'It' girl, and not old enough to be a matriarch."

I grimaced. Hollywood was cruel. It demanded certain looks. Marci was fresh-faced, and though a little wild, they loved her. The same features that improved my employability as a rugged man, crow's feet, laugh lines were someone like Marci's worst enemy. "As long as I don't have to sit next to her at Kathleen's big client dinner parties, why not? Good luck to her." I pushed to my feet. "And good luck to you navigating that."

I wandered out of his office. I pulled the photo I stole out of my pocket. Two skinny Ishtarias smiled at the camera, a third one looked over her shoulder. Behind them, looking off to the side, stood Kayla. The photo had that look of trying to get a picture with someone without them knowing about it. They didn't even have the decency to invite her into their group picture, and she was the prettiest of them all.

I pulled out my phone and tried to call Kayla again.