Devil's Food Cake [✓]

7 | hot chocolate

Learning about Zachary's family background proved to be very illuminating. It turned out his father Peter Malone's net worth was fourteen billion dollars as of this year and he was ranked in the top 100 of the Forbes Rich List, which made my mouth drop as I saw the digits next to his name.

He was the CEO of a famous beer company, which my dad was partial too.

Inherited from his grandfather, Malone had taken over the business when he was thirty or so, because his uncle was considered a liability.

Stanford educated with a PhD to boot, he'd been responsible for turning a fading beer brand into something lucrative during the 80s to the present day with some iconic campaigns, involving scantily clad models and sophisticated actors.

There was a photo of a sixty-five year old Malone in a blue suit with a diamond-patterned tie, his silver-grey hair was thick and with no intention of ever thinning, so I guess Zachary could be grateful that when he was older, he'd be lucky to still have a head of hair.

A confident grin rested on Malone's distinguished features and apart from a few wrinkles around his forehead, he looked pretty good, but having fourteen billion would make sure anyone looked their best. The photo showed a man who knew that he had the world at his fingertips.

His wife, Zachary's mother, a famous supermodel in the 1990s and early 2000s, was still incredibly beautiful to this day.

Waitressing on the side to pay her bills, Texan beauty Eve "The Face" Sutton had been studying for her college. A respected photographer dining at the restaurant encouraged her to take up modelling, bowled over by her exceptional good looks.

So, she'd gone to New York, with the intention of staying for a year, but the rest was history as she soon became an instant hit on the runway, inspiring two or three famous designers who made her their muse.

After being cover girl for Vogue countless times as well as having a successful swimsuit modelling career in Sports Illustrated, Eve had retired from modelling a decade ago to concentrate on raising her two children by Malone and finally acquired her psychology degree, becoming a doctor in the field.

Of Peter Malone's four children, including two daughters from his first marriage to an actress, I found out that Zachary was his only son and (probably) heir to his business as well as a sizeable inheritance.

His sister Heather Malone was currently engaged to an English aristocrat's son, heir to a dukedom while Zachary himself had a history of falling in and out of bed with the IT girls about town.

It made for salacious reading. When I got back home, I spend my evening reading up on Zachary, a wild child, who'd been raised in America and England because of his parent's split nationalities.

There was an image of a young Zachary and Heather with their mother which had been taken in the early noughties for a magazine spread. He must have been about seven or eight as his face was fuller. He was smiling adorably as Eve kissed his hair while she had her arm wrapped around Heather's small, bony shoulders.

Malone's children took after their mother, but I could see some of Peter in Zachary while I was scrolling through his younger pictures taken of him during the eighties.

There was a photo of a dashing Peter and his first wife Gina Chesterton at a swanky cocktail party, where she was dripping in jewels and he was dressed in a snazzy tuxedo, champagne flute in his hand. The poster couple for eighties excess.

His light brown hair was gleaming while his cheeks were slightly pink as though he'd been drinking, and there was a devilish smile on his face as the photographer had captured him, and you could tell that they were father and son by the resemblance. Zachary had annoyed me with that same smile during the times he'd teased me.

It was no wonder Zachary Malone had such a crummy attitude. He'd been given everything he could have wished for since birth!

It didn't really bother me. Being a billionaire's kid was the luck of the draw and he couldn't help who his parents were, but I disliked his air of superiority and swagger.

I hoped that Dorothy hadn't told him that I now had my shifts in the afternoon because of school. I wanted to limit my contact with him.

He was enough of a pest as it was, but I decided that even if she had, maybe it would give me more of an opportunity to find out more about him — if I had a few minutes to spare, of course.

The door opened and my mother came in my bedroom with a mug balanced in her hands.

Grinning, she set it down on my bedside table and I thanked her gratefully.

'I thought you might need it, sweetheart,' she said, peering at my laptop screen. 'Who's that dishy young man?' Mum said, pointing to Zachary's photograph in a British tabloid newspaper I was scanning.

Two year ago, he'd gone out with a rock singer's daughter and the paps had taken photographs of the pair, totally drunk in a limousine.

I almost spluttered out my hot cocoa from the surprise of my intrigued mother bending down to stare at my screen.

She was a nurse at a hospital, but I guess that didn't mean she couldn't appreciate hot male specimens like Zachary.

'Some billionaire's son.'

'He's gorgeous. How old is he?'

'Too young for you, Mum.'

She glanced at his name in the sub caption of the photograph, and she laughed a little, turning to me with a quizzical look. 'Any relation to the guy who owns Malone's beers.'

'Yep,' I said, more than a tad surprised at her deduction. 'How did you know?'

'Because I've been buying that brand for your father for years now,' she said, ruffling my hair and kissing my cheek, reminding me to turn the light off as she went back downstairs to watch another episode of my dad's favourite detective show. She usually knitted while he would make funny remarks about the storylines and characters. If my parents were in a particularly good mood, after few tipples, they would make out like they were teenagers (during those moments, I would excuse myself and run up to my bedroom).

Next was checking my Instagram. A couple of my mates Will and Adrienne had sent a few images of themselves at the latest music festival, which I'd had to miss as I'd volunteered to take an extra shift tomorrow in the morning. My dad would have been pissed if I decided to abandon my responsibilities, even though I knew that he would have allowed me to go with my friends to the festival.

I took pleasure in flicking through their images - Will and Adrienne seemed like they were having a grand time if the manic grins of their faces were anything to go by.

They'd told me that they'd bought me some jewellery from a market stall in a nearby village and I'd replied that I looked forward to seeing them over the weekend.

As I was about to get some rest, my body attempting to get into a comfortable, snug position, my phone vibrated again. Me being me, I couldn't resist peaking at the screen.

Are you awake? Because if you're not, ignore this.

It was from Jonny. Laughing, I wondered why he was messaging me at ten in the evening, something he rarely did, so I began to type my response.