The Millionaire's Bet [BOOK ONE][#Wattys2015][#SYTYCW15][#CarinaPress]

part seventeen

ANDREW

Two months. That's how long it had been since I was a complete asshole, two fucking months, and she still hadn't managed to get over herself. She was even refusing to come anywhere near me and, every single time I did want to speak with her, she cleverly managed to avoid me and I had to go looking for her just to tell her what it was that I wanted her to know.

I had wanted to apologise properly to her, inform her that she was right about everything she said about me that night, but she wouldn't even listen to me for those sixty seconds. She would simply tell me that she had something else to be doing or that she had somewhere else which she needed to be, even though I knew she was lying and she was only saying that so that she didn't have to speak to me, and it hurt like a bitch knowing that I had pushed away the one person who had actually bothered to make an effort with me—even if she was asked to by both my mother and my brother—and she tried to help me. But I was stubborn and didn't want to take what she was offering to me.

I had to find out from my mother that she was fucking my half-brother, had been since we returned from Chicago, and she had fooled herself into assuming that they were in some kind of exclusive relationship with each other. But I knew Darren and I knew that he was never likely to change his womanizing ways, just because there was woman who had actually captured his attention for a change, and she had even been the woman who told him no, which was something Darren had never had the fortune of experiencing before.

I didn't need to be intelligent to know that she went on a date with him last night, rather than coming to see my mother with me, which left me to deal with the onslaught of questions from my mother—obviously relating to Alyssa and our relationship—the moment I walked into her flat and I didn't know what I was supposed to tell her. I suppose the truth would have been a good place to start, but I couldn't bring myself to admit to my own mother what a twat I had been that night, and I also didn't want to destroy the relationship which we had now built with each other.

But, even if Alyssa wasn't going to speak to me, she could at least speak with my mother because she wasn't the one who had treated her like shit and made her feel that she did that night. It wasn't my mother who had refused to treat her like a person when others were around and neither did she act like she cared when it was only the two of them, alone, in the same room with each other.

That was all me and, the sad reality of the entire thing, is that I wasn't actually pretending. I did genuinely care about Alyssa, though I am still unsure myself as to the reason for the concern which I held towards her, and I didn't want to see her hurt at the hands of another male. I didn't want to see someone else disrespect her in the manner as I had done, I just wanted her to be happy and to be able to live her life, two things I knew were never going to happen if she was to remain with Darren any longer than she needed to.

I checked the time on the clock which hung from my wall beside the door and sighed when I saw that it had barely hit eight in the morning, and I was sitting in my office with a glass of whiskey in one hand and a cigarette in the other, two habits which I had managed to put a stop to after Alyssa expressed her severe dislike of me in front of several of my most important clients, but today was a special occasion and it would have been rude to miss the opportunity which was being so freely presented to me—I wished to forget that I had a meeting with my delightful younger brother in which he told me there was something of importance which he needed to discuss with me.

"Drinking already, Andrew," Darren's smug voice filled the room the moment the clock struck eight and he took the seat opposite me.

"Little underdressed for New York weather. Aren't you?" I noticed the shorts and button-down shirt he was wearing, and I also didn't miss the sunglasses which sat atop his head, or the sun cream on the side of his face which he had failed to rub in properly.