Baby For My Billionaire Rival (Billionaire Daddies)

16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Jake

M y phone goes off for the tenth time this morning with a text from Caroline. I haven’t spoken to her since the night at her grandmother’s house. The only reason I haven’t blocked her number is because we have to go to school together.

In my mind, our relationship is over. The second her grandmother questioned my integrity and Caroline couldn’t manage a single word, I knew I couldn’t stay.

My heart has been broken, patched together with the glue from a cheap glue gun.

I didn’t have it in me to tell my family what happened. I’ve continued to pretend like things are hunky dory in love land, and the only reason Caroline’s not coming by recently is because of her busy work schedule during our two weeks off from school. I couldn’t tell them that things beyond our control like our bloodlines were what pulled Caroline and me apart.

To her credit, other than that very first encounter, I never have felt judged by Caroline. But what if I was a poor redneck? She’d look down on me in a second, wouldn’t she? Just because I’ve got money and a thriving business I’m okay in her eyes.

Does she even really like me for me?

As I cross campus, I begrudgingly decide to look at the texts.

Good morning. I’m looking forward to seeing you today :)

How pathetic. Breaks my heart.

I think we should talk .

I scroll down to the last text. I can’t bear to read the ramblings of a mad woman sending messages into the ether that go unresponded to.

Wait for me! the last one reads.

I frown. What the hell?

Then I hear it, the clomping of high-heeled shoes.

“God, you walk fast.”

Caroline appears on my left side. I can see her gazing up at me in my peripherals. I won’t dare look at her.

“Hey.”

I keep my mouth silent. I won’t dare speak to her either. After all, it’s not like she spoke up for me.

“I know you’re mad.”

Understatement.

“But I’ve been trying to talk to you and explain.”

What is there to explain?

“Gram and I talked and I told her how I feel about you.”

I continue to bite my tongue. However, I want badly to ask, “How do you feel about me?” We haven’t exchanged “I love you’s” and I can’t even get Caroline to come out to our grad school class as a couple. So, what the hell are we even doing here?

“Would you look at me?”

We make it to the doors of Trilby. I might not care for her right now, but I’m still a gentleman. I grab the door and hold it open for her.

“Jake…”

Our eyes meet. My stomach flips. I’m nauseous and want to throw up because of how beautiful she still is to me. How I want nothing more than to kiss her and make up. I can’t though. Not after the hurt.

Around her neck, she wears my scarf.

I do my best to stare through her.

Caroline’s face falls and she walks slowly past me into the building.

Grad school just got a lot harder.

“Globalization is a necessity to the modern corporation,” Amy Trilby pipes up after Fig calls on her. “Without international influence, a company loses ninety-five percent of its market value.”

Fig scoffs. “Where did you read that statistic?”

Amy lifts her head high. “I’m trying to speak with more authority.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean lying.”

The class laughs.

“I think what Amy is getting at is that having a foothold in the global economy can separate the wheat from the chaff. More an argument of pathos than objectivity,” Caroline adds.

I laugh disdainfully on my own this time. The rest of the class is silent.

“Simmons? You have something to say?” Fig asks.

Caroline sits up straighter, not daring to look at me.

“Well, I can only speak from experience, but local economies are just as important if not more so than the global economy. We’ve learned trickle-down is a fallacy, so we have to start –”

“Says you ,” someone pipes up.

I resist rolling my eyes. “If you know your market and you cater to it, globalization can be a vestigial organ in the makeup of a business.”

“Vestigial… alright, Mr. Thesaurus,” Fig says with a gleaming smile.

“You’d be a moron to imply the global economy doesn’t apply to you,” Caroline says without even looking at me.

I stare at the back of her stupid blonde head. “Are you trying to have a conversation with me, Gladstone?”

She flips around in her seat. “Obviously, Simmons.”

“Oooo…” a group of people call out.

“Sometimes I wonder if I’m teaching a remedial freshman English class,” Fig says.

Caroline and I stare at each other. I can’t get out of this now. It’s part of the class, to argue in class. And I’ve just walked into the belly of the beast, facing off with someone who has been sitting on an argument so long she might combust.

“Globalization has led to vast amounts of human rights abuses. I can run a company, pay for fair labor, and disseminate product across the country without taking advantage.”

“But then your product might become cost-prohibitive.”

I shake my head. “Not when –”

“You’re not above globalization, Simmons. You’re going to have to deal with it at some point and if you’re going to sit here and argue with me in front of everybody you better be willing to do it one on one,” Caroline shouts, her voice tremoring.

My brow furrows.

“Alright, this is getting a little…” Fig starts to intercede but doesn’t know what to say. Neither do I, honestly.

Caroline’s eyes are filling with tears. She whips back around, shoves her stuff in her bag, and runs out of the lecture hall without looking back.

“Okay then… maybe we should take a little break and cool it on the globalization talk, huh?” Fig implores.

The next day before class, I’m talking with Greg Pollard. He’s leaning on my desk, talking low. “That was a serious tiff you and Gladstone got into yesterday, huh?”

I don’t look up from my notebook where I’m taking a painstaking amount of time to write out the date. “Yep.”

He licks his lips. “I could have sworn you guys were like friends or something.”

I stop writing.

“To be honest, a lot of us thought you were dating.”

I laugh without humor. “Good one.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Caroline descending the stairs with Amy.

I’m going to make this one hurt.

“Yeah, nothing is happening between us,” I say a bit louder.

Caroline perks up.

“Then, you wouldn’t mind if I… you know?” Greg says with a small shoulder shrug, his eyes traveling over to Caroline.

I gesture toward her with an open palm. “Be my guest. I’m not her dad or anything.”

Greg smiles. “Right on, man.” And with the subtly of a peacock in full bloom, Greg heads over to Caroline on the stairs, shouting out her name and asking if she needs help with anything.

I watch the two of them interact, Caroline smiling sadly as Greg forcefully takes her Louis Vuitton from her. He rushes toward her seat, but she remains frozen in time. We are looking at each other without looking at each other.

I don’t think she’s wearing any makeup. And her usual manicured appearance looks grayed out, like Dorothy returning from Oz to the real world.

I know I’m partly responsible for that. Maybe completely responsible…

Maybe I don’t love her like I thought I did. Because if I loved her, I don’t think I’d want her to hurt as badly as I do.