The Billionaire Matchmaking Club Book6-Chapter1

Blair and I sat across from each other, surrounded by fancy people in a fancy restaurant with food before us that didn’t look appetizing enough to try. It was still the only place I could confront her without her possibly killing me. Would be an accident? Couldn’t be sure with Blair.
She acted pretty oblivious, but it was possible she was just happy with the current turn of events. Her fingers scrolled across the screen of her tablet, eyes skimming with glee over the news.
“Does this count as a blow to your career?” she feigned curiosity with a glance at me. I gave her a sarcastic smile, scrunching my nose in contempt and stabbing a fork into the ravioli on my plate. Of course, it didn’t, failed engagements didn’t count. She raised her brows at me and went back to reading the article, no doubt about Cristo’s and Suzan’s failed engagement. Her eyes narrowed onto something so violently that it even piqued my interest. “Has his family lost his mind?”
My hand froze before the ravioli could sit in my mouth, “What happened?”
“They’re looking for someone else for him,” she grunted, knuckles going white around her fork as she slammed the end of it onto the table cloth. “It’s never going to end, is it?”
“You have any insight into the way these guys work?” I asked cautiously, hoping she’d let me in on any information at all that could be useful to me.
She shook her head, genuinely exasperated, “Selene only cares about money, Lilith. Their business isn’t doing well these days because John isn’t in the best health. Obviously, they need Cristo to take the lead and expand the empire. Selene’s too used to the luxury.”
I shook my head at the levels of greed Selene was reaching. No one but Blair and I, and Cristo too, knew the truth about Selene. Hell, was John even aware of how manipulative she was? I don’t understand what Selene could’ve said to John back in Greece that got them married so soon…
Something clicked in my head.
“I’m not sure why you target the girls Cristo is paired with,” I sighed. “No wonder it’s taking so long to get Cristo out of this mess.”
Her head shot up to look at me in confusion, and I just shrugged. “I mean…” I started softly, “clearly his mom is the problem here, no? Once she’s out of the picture, things calm down.”
Blair only blinked at me, the realization in her eyes making her rethink everything she’d been doing. I could see the gears in her mind finally starting to turn after a good oiling, her lips parting in surprise. With a slow nod, she turned her tablet off and straightened up, placing all of her focus onto me. With her hands clasped and eyes trained on mine, she breathed deeply as if nervous.
“Selene’s not an easy target,” she said softly, leaning forward towards me. “I’m not sure it will work out as well as you think it would.”
“Because stuff like this needs planning,” I deadpanned. “We don’t have to ram our heads into it without thinking it through like you usually do.”
“We?” Blair scoffed. “I have a hard time believing you’d want to help me with anything.”
I rolled my eyes at her, “I’m helping myself, Blair. We could use each other’s expertise to get Cristo out of this hellhole of a situation and then I’m the only thing standing between you and him.”
“You know Cristo will choose me eventually,” she said smugly.
“Frankly, I don’t care,” I lied. “He’s been a good friend to me. I want to help him have a life of his own.”
Blair looked a little surprised at my words, but nodded. “Fine, I could use a hand. What do you suggest then?”
I had to bite down on my lip to keep from smiling. I finally had Blair right where I wanted her.
 
Lyra seemed stunned when I filled her in on my lunch with Blair.
“I can’t believe you got her on your side…” she breathed in awe.
“Well,” I sighed, “not quite? I mean, she’s only doing this to get Cristo. I’m doing this for…ulterior motives.”
She looked even more confused than she was before, which was weird since I thought she would piece my intentions together with hos calculating she was. I decided to explain it to her, “I need to get Selene out of the way without jeopardizing my life, Lyra. Who do you think is going to take the brunt of the backlash when things finally come into the open?”
Her jaw dropped open as it finally dawned onto her, “Lilith…this is new. I didn’t think you’d go this far for anybody.”
“I’m doing this for my own peace,” I insisted. “As long as Cristo has his eyes on me, Blair won’t stop even if he cuts her out of his life.”
Lyra nodded solemnly, “That’s definitely true. She’s quite the lunatic. I just…hope you don’t over-exert yourself. With the club and all, it must be tiring you out.”
“I’m bringing in a manager to deal with the company,” I said decidedly. “I push myself too hard. I need to focus on the club.”
“Will operations proceed as normal?”
“Yes, I’m the only one going on a hiatus from taking on elite clients. The rest will remain to provide the services to the upper-middle class and below.”
She nodded, “Looks like you’ve thought this through. Will I still be working at the office?”
“No,” I shook my head, “You’ll be working with me on the club. A lot of matchmakers have already responded to the invitations. Could you sort through them for me?”
“Of course,” she smiled at me.
My phone rang. It was Hugo. “I better take this,” I sighed.
“Remember, Lilith,” Lyra said warningly, “Boundaries.”
“I know,” I groaned. I was aware that Hugo wasn’t completely over me and that we had a lot to work on emotionally if the Billionaire Matchmaking Club was going to be a success at all. This was just the beginning, and there were lengths to go to that could take years and I wasn’t willing to take any more risks that could jeopardize it. I didn’t have anything besides my company, and it was important to expand my streams of income if I was going to stay financially afloat. I was nearly 30, and while people say that its young enough to dip into more endeavors for trial and error, they didn’t realize how volatile the marriage industry was in the world of billionaires.
The faster the money came, the faster it went. I couldn’t keep working myself to the bone and expect to live peacefully. This club was the one thing that could finally be the key to earning while having the time to actually relax for once.
I needed this.
“Hey,” I greeted him as I walked towards the balcony. “What’s up?”
“I’ve been reading the news,” he sighed. “Are you all right?”
“There wasn’t much I could do about Cristo and Suzan,” I sighed. “She was the one who wanted to back off.”
“I asked about you, Lilith,” he said exasperatedly. “Think about yourself for once?”
“Not like I’m suffering because of it,” I said pointedly. “My name hasn’t been in the papers for a while.”
“I guess that’s a good sign,” he agreed. “What about the club? My assistant’s been getting some responses.”
“So did Lyra and I,” I nodded. “I think we should have a welcome event soon.”
“That sounds great,” he said. “Somewhere around the holiday season? A lot of us go on a break during that time of the year.”
“Sure,” I said hurriedly as my eyes spotted a very familiar car driving towards my apartment complex. “Would you want to take care of that? I think I have a lot on my plate already for this month.”
“Ah, you must be going to check out the main HQ for the club.”
“Exactly,” my voice came out breathily as a familiar silhouette stepped out of the car and disappeared into my building. “Hugo, I really have to go. I’ll shoot you an e-mail with updates.”
“Sure,” he sounded hesitant, but I guess my voice made it obvious what was going on. There was a disheartened sigh before he hung up. “Take care, Lilith.”
I felt bad for Hugo, but there was only so much I could do about it. He was the one who chose to be around me after everything that had happened. I realized that maybe I needed to apologize to him at some point for leading him on at the party. It wasn’t just him, but the both of us that screwed up things between us. Hell, I was starting to accept that it was mostly me who messed up.
The guilt was starting t creep onto me now, and it sucked because I opened the door to the one man I’d ever really wanted and he wasn’t the one I was thinking about anymore.
“Hi,” he smiled softly at me, but it soon to concern. “You don’t look okay.”
“Oh, yeah, uh,” I stammered and shook my head. “No, I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
With a sigh, I beckoned him inside and closed the door behind us. This wasn’t a good time to bring up Hugo, and perhaps he wasn’t the right person to discuss this with. While I understood that I needed to let Cristo in more if we were truly going to get anywhere, I felt like there were still certain boundaries to establish. One, Cristo didn’t know the details of our relationship. Two, I had history with Hugo even if it didn’t go all the way. I don’t think Cristo could give me sound advice without being biased about it.
I ushered him towards the couch, “Tea? Coffee?”
“I’ll get some myself if I need it,” he assured, grabbing my hand to pull me onto the couch next to him. “I know that face, Lilith. You’re trying to hide your problems again.”
I hated how well he could read me.
“Umm…” I trailed off uncertainly, “I do have a problem, but I’m not sure I can explain it well enough to get a proper judgement, honestly.”
“I get the feeling it’s something you don’t want to share with me specifically,” he pointed out, “which is fine, really. I’d like to try, though.”
“Trust me, you don’t.”
“I want to trust you,” his grip tightened gently around my hand. “Let me.”
His eyes were so sincere that I could feel my heart start to melt. But there was still a hint of hesitancy on both our parts. I could see he was nervous about what I was going to say, and I was nervous about how he would react.
We didn’t quite trust each other fully yet.
“It’s…it’s about Hugo.”
I could practically see the strain in his neck as he tried to hold himself back from reacting. With his bottom lip pulled under his teeth, he nodded gently and asked me to go on.
“Okay so I feel bad about…like…I feel like I clearly used him emotionally. Nothing really happened between us sexually because I just couldn’t do it, and it’s good because I don’t think it was something we could recover from to focus on the match-making club. But he feels for me, and I did toy with him just to distract myself from my own pain.”
“You’ve yet to apologize to him?”
“I do,” I sighed, my shoulders deflating like a balloon. “I just wish I could swallow my pride and get it over with, but I feel like a horrible person and not sure if just saying sorry will cut it.”
“How he responds isn’t your responsibility,” he reminded me with a gentle squeeze of my hand. “You just need to do your part. Apologize to him, you clearly feel terrible about it.”
“I don’t know,” I shook my head. “I can’t forgive myself for putting us in such a situation in the first place, you know?”
Cristo chuckled, his fingers resting under my chin and turning my head to him. His eyes bored into mine, important but kind. “You’re not perfect, Lilith. I’ll be honest, it as something I had to come to terms with about you and myself. We expect too much from ourselves and in turn, from each other. You’re going to fuck up a lot more later on that right now. Learn to forgive yourself and move onto the next best course of action available.”
“What if he doesn’t forgive me?”
Cristo only shook his head, “Do you know how many people even bother apologizing for what their fuck-ups? If he’s smart, he’ll see it through. Plus, I don’t think he can afford to lose any place in the match-making club now that it’s in action.”
That didn’t sound too appealing to me. I didn’t want to corner Hugo into forgiveness just because he had something to lose. I didn’t want to lose my spot in the match-making club either, which didn’t seem possible given how much more influence I had compared to Hugo. Still, the club was his idea, it didn’t seem right to take it away from him.
I needed to find a way to apologize to him sincerely. That would mean us having to be alone and a long, deep conversation.
Nodding, I breathed deeply to expel the last of my nerves and smiled at Cristo. He smiled back, bringing my knuckles up to his lips and pressing a tender kiss. I wasn’t going to lie, I felt a little lost on how to react because this was a first, someone being soft with me. The look on my face must’ve been ridiculous because he laughed aloud.
“Too soon?”
“No, no.” I shook my head. “Just not used to it…yet. It’ll take a while.”
“Take all the time you need,” he reassured me, his voice barely a whisper and eyes bright with something I couldn’t put my finger on, but it made my heart strangely warm. “I waited this long.”
My heart dropped deeper into my chest, the fuzziness engulfing my skin as my hand automatically slid under his jaw, strong and firm under my palm. The electricity in the air practically pulled me towards him and before I knew it, our eyes fluttered shut against each other’s cheeks as our lips met, gently at first. He stole the air from my chest and sent my heart jostling around, making me tremble lightly from the way his large hand pressed onto my waist to pull me closer.
I felt like a teenager. Then again, I’d never had the chance to be a teenager at all.
“Lilith, you won’t believe who just respo–oh, hi. Didn’t see you there, Cristo.”
Cristo and I jumped apart from each other as we were middle school kids walked in on by their mother. Lyra only gave us a sly smile as she gathered her things from the coffee table. “Anyway, I’ll be heading out to arrange a meeting with a potential sponsor for you. See you tomorrow, all right? And be safe!”
“I’m an adult, Lyra!” I groaned. She only laughed as she closed the door behind herself.
Cristo chuckled beside me as I huffed, still feeling embarrassed. He pulled me towards him and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, rubbing my arm comfortingly as we settled back into the couch. I reached for the TV remote and turned it on as we decided to try and relax for the day.
But relaxation was a foreign concept to me. My mind was pulling itself into a million places at once. Hugo, Blair, Cristo, Selene. Good grief, why was life so difficult? Why couldn’t I just have a normal life with a normal job and a normal boyfriend with normal parents and normal exes? It shouldn’t be misunderstood, I really liked Cristo. Desired him, wanted him. But my heart was closing up and feeling numb again to the aspect of loving him because…he wasn’t actively putting up a fight with his parents still.
“Cristo,” I mumbled, “there’s still something you’re keeping from me.”
He sighed, but nodded lightly. “I am,” he said. “It’s something I’m trying to figure out on my own before I say anything. A lot of things could go wrong in the span of minutes if I’m not careful.”
“How big will be the disaster that ensues?”
Cristo chest shuddered under my shoulder, “If you think what’s happening right now is unbearable then you probably don’t want to know until we’re out of that zone.”
“I just wish I knew what steps to take,” I insisted and turned to him. “Even now I feel like I can’t fully tell you everything.”
It was true. He had no idea what I was planning regarding Blair and his mother. Cristo only smiled at me and stroked the back of my hand with his thumb. “I trust you,” he whispered, and brought my knuckles up to press his lips to them. “I’m behind you on whatever you do.”
“Yes, but…” I bit my lip nervously, “what are you doing to help yourself out of this?”
Cristo looked a little troubled, and it sucked to be doing this when we were supposed to be winding down after the disastrous week we had. It had been long days of constantly talking things out, getting bitter and unspoken feelings out of the way, and trying to decipher our own thoughts getting in the way of our truth.
It was clear that Cristo and I had a lot of personal issues to work through before we could even start dating, but that didn’t mean to couldn’t give into that attraction and see where it took us. We both had secrets, and I still hadn’t told him about my history with Mark.
“I have my plans, Lilith.” He said and pulled me into his side, leaning back to glue his eyes to the screen.
My bottom lip was clenched between my teeth. Uncertainty. But I needed to trust what he was doing. He was doing the same for me, wasn’t he?