Arrangement with a Billionaire (Bad Boy Billionaire Brothers Book 1) COMPLETE

Chapter Twenty-Four - What Are You Up To?

Chapter Twenty-Four

The ride in the back of Arturo's luxurious limo, with his heated leather seats, soft music, and the champagne, was awkward and silent.

Isla felt like she was fourteen all over again, being dragged back home after getting caught sneaking out with a boy.

She was sitting pretty much the same way. Her knees pressed together, hands on her thighs, and head down as she tried to look as small as humanly possible.

She wished Arturo would say something to her, instead of staring out the tinted window with his champagne flute in one hand, an his chin in the other.

Isla opened her mouth no less than ten times, thinking of all the ways she could tell this man that she was very sorry, but nothing was coming out. She was stuck. Stuck because she was an idiot who had to open her big mouth.

She hadn't even meant those things. Not really. They were all true, but she'd been angry, and she hadn't meant to sound as harsh as she knew she had to have sounded to him.

It had to hurt, hearing someone else describe him and his family like that.

Or be incredibly irritating.

Isla thought over and over again about what Arturo must think of her, and what a horrible person she must be, that it didn't even occur to her that he might want to cancel their contract because of this.

When that scary as all hell thought flitted through her head, Isla nearly stopped breathing.

Oh shit. Oh God. What if he canceled her contract? What if this date was now just a charade that he had to put up with because there was no one else to go with him?

No, that didn't make sense. Arturo would always have someone on his arm if he wanted it. He might just be taking her to...wherever it was they were going, because he'd told someone else that she would be his date. That seemed to make sense.

Kind of.

But who would matter enough that he wouldn't just dump her and find someone else anyway?

Maybe she was just putting too much thought into this. Maybe she needed to hurry up and say something before the limo stopped, and Isla would be in public and unable to speak at all.

"Arturo, I'm really very sorry," Isla said. His dark eyes snapped over in her direction. She nearly froze, but continued on. "I wasn't trying to say those things like that. Martina asked me not to hurt you, and I got...really angry."

She wasn't about to use the word offended. That would imply that her feelings mattered in this situation enough to get angry and say the things she had said. Her feelings didn't matter right now. Not in the least.

Arturo was still saying nothing. He was still just looking at her.

She had to take in another deep breath. Her heart was pounding and everything felt tense. "I didn't want to...I wasn't trying to hurt you by saying those things, and I wasn't trying to say anything against your mother either."

Arturo's face remained impassive and stony. "But you meant what you said against me?"

He got her there. Isla nearly answered him that one with another apology and a denial, but then snapped her mouth shut before anything could be said. If she said no to that, he would know she was lying.

"Well, to be fair, you do sleep around with a lot of women." She shrugged as she said this, and smiled, trying to play the entire thing off like it was supposed to be a joke.

At first she worried that it didn't work, but then the corner of Arturo's mouth pulled up in that now familiar smirk, the one that made him look only about a hundred times more handsome than he actually was.