Her Guardian Billionaire (Forbidden First Time Romance) (9 page)

“Hey! You can’t just get up and leave. You need to go to the hospital.”

“We’ve been over this. I’m fine. I was standing by the side of the road when you showed up, wasn’t I?”

“Yes, but you still need to be checked out.”

“No, I don’t.” She gave him a tight smile and walked around the ambulance to stand at the edge of the grass. She was officially rid of James Davenport. She didn’t even have his car.

She should be ecstatic. She’d wrecked a machine that cost more than the house she grew up in. A car that he’d babied and cared for more than most things. More than her. But all she felt was hollow. The anger hadn’t survived the crash.

As she ground her toe into the dirt, a rumble of an engine made her turn.
What? Oh no
. James jumped out of a black Porsche and jogged over.
Great. Now I get to suffer through round two. At least there are witnesses this time
. She turned around and stared at the rolling hills as his footsteps approached.

“Anna!”

She blew out a breath as he stopped behind her and asked the obvious. “So are you here to yell at me about the car?”

“What? No! Are you okay? Have you been hurt?”

“Not by the accident.” She swallowed and forced herself to turn and look at him.
Whoa
. He didn’t look like…James. His hair fell in his face, and his deep brown eyes were full of fear and something else.
And was that a…no, James Davenport did not just wring his hands.

“Anna, I’m sorry. I was a complete asshole. Just give me a chance to explain.”

She ran her hand over her forehead and waved the paramedic over. “You know, I think I will go to the hospital after all. I’d like to get checked out. I think I’m hallucinating.”

“Anna, I mean it.” James stepped closer, reaching out to touch her until she shied away. “Come home with me.”

“I don’t have a home anymore, Mr. Davenport. Don’t you remember?”

James opened his mouth to respond, but the paramedic butted in. “James Davenport! I knew it! So that’s your car, isn’t it? That’s a real beauty, sir. Too bad she wrecked it, huh? So are you two having a lover’s quarrel or what?”

Anna rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “Last time I checked, I thought you were a paramedic. Or are you a reporter now, too?”

“Hey, just makin’ conversation. If you want to go to the hospital, you can hop right on up into the back and we’ll go.”

Before the idiot opened his mouth, that’s exactly what she’d wanted to do. But knowing that he knew James? It wouldn’t be long before he put it all together. He might be a total jerk, but she didn’t want salacious gossip hurting James’s career. Not when it was already over. Biting her lip, she glanced between the two men.

Turning to the paramedic, she smiled. “Give me just a minute, okay?”

“Sure.”

She waited until he walked away before turning back to James. “Go home James. Go find some woman you can buy for a night who doesn’t come with real feelings. That way no one else can get hurt.”

“No. I’m not leaving without you.”

“I’m not your ward anymore. You can’t order me around.”

“I’m not ordering.” He fell to his knees in front of her and her mouth fell open. “I’m begging. Come home with me, Anna. Let me make this right.”

“I should say no.”

“Don’t. Please, just hear me out.”

Anna swallowed and glanced up to see the EMT with his phone out, holding it in front of him like he was taking a picture.
Shit
. “James, get up. That jerk is taking your picture.”

James turned to the man and waved. “I don’t care. Let the whole world find out about us, Anna. Let the whole world see how much I love you.”

Anna blinked and sucked in a breath.
He loves me
. “You kicked me out. You called me…terrible things.”

“I know. And I’m sorry. If you’ll come back to the house, I’ll explain everything. Why I doubted you. Why I don’t let anyone in. Please, Anna.”

She glanced up, staring the paramedic as he snapped picture after picture. They’d be all over the news. He’d risked everything for her. As she turned back to him, James stood up and took her face in his hands.

“I love you, Anna Sinclair. And I don’t care who knows it.” His lips met hers and she softened, moaning into his mouth as he wrapped her in his embrace. She didn’t know if his proclamation of love in front of the world was enough. But it bought him a chance. She owed it to him after that.

He pulled back and she smiled. “I don’t need to read the tabloids to know what they’ll say tonight.”

“Let them talk. Just say you’ll give me a chance.”

She nodded. “I’ll give you one.”

With a wave at the paramedic, she let James escort her to the waiting car. She slid into the passenger seat and laid her head back. It was just a conversation. She could always leave again. If it went south, maybe he’d let her leave with another car.

A
NNA
SIPPED
THE
coffee as she tucked her legs underneath her on the couch. James had brought her home, ushered her into the living room, and buzzed Malcolm to bring a tray before she’d even had time to breathe. And now she sat across from him, waiting for the answers to all her nagging questions.

As Malcolm slipped out of the room, James sat opposite her and gave her a small smile. “I know you’ve always wondered why I’m so closed off. Why no one’s ever been a part of my life until you.”

She nodded and took a sip of coffee.

“Well, it’s because of a woman. A girl, really. Bianca MacMillan. Our families were neighbors in the Hamptons, and we spent every summer together. One year, when we were both seventeen, we started dating. In secret, mind you. Both our families had great dreams for us—matches that would advance the families, not our personal happiness.”

“That’s awful.”

“That’s wealth. Anyway, we…became involved in some heavy things. She introduced me to bondage, domination, more. She liked to be controlled, spanked, brought to the edge again and again. And the farther down that road we went, the more it turned me on. One night in the summer, she called. Said her parents had left for the city and she had a surprise for me.”

He paused and swallowed, working his jaw before resuming the story. “I came in and she’d set up this scene—a bench with chains and ties, a flogger, a whip, a whole set of devices. I couldn’t believe it. But I just went with it, it was what she wanted, so I wanted it too. We’d worked ourselves up, me spanking her as she laid bound and gagged, ass up on this wooden bench. As she orgasmed, I entered her, fucking her harder than ever before. It was amazing. I thought I’d found the girl I was going to marry.”

He paused and ran a hand over his face and Anna steeled herself for the rest.

“And then her father walked in.”

“What?”

“That’s what I thought. There I was, balls deep in his daughter’s pussy while she laid on a bench, chained and gagged. It was horrifying.”

James stood up and walked to the windows. “I pulled out and Bianca started screaming through the gag. When he’d gotten her free, she claimed I forced her, that I’d gotten her drunk and told her it was all a game. That I raped her.”

Anna’s hand flew to her mouth. She knew something terrible happened in his past, but she never imagined he’d been accused of a serious crime. “Oh, James. Tell me she recanted. That she admitted she lied.”

“I wish I could. But she didn’t. It was her word against mine. And all the evidence…”

“But she planned it. Set it all up.”

“Yes.”

God, people could be so cruel
. “Do you think…did she do it on purpose? To get caught?”

James swallowed and gave a brief nod. “I think so, yes. I didn’t know it at the time, but she’d had an affair with my older brother the summer before and he’d shunned her. Taken her virginity and told all his friends what a shitty lay she was. I think it was her way to get back at the family. If she couldn’t ruin him, she’d ruin his brother.”

“What happened?”

“Neither family wanted to press charges—bad publicity, you know. So I was cast out. Became the black sheep. And my parents settled with the MacMillans for some outrageous sum.”

Anna set her mug down and stood up, walking over to James. She rested her hands on his back and he sagged into the window. She couldn’t imagine how it felt—the fear and anger he’d lived with for years. The betrayal. But now she understood. “You thought I was doing the same thing. Lying to you so I could sell you out. Use you for my own gains.”

“I’m sorry, Anna.” James turned around and she could see the hurt in his eyes and the shimmer of unshed tears. “I treated you no better than my father treated me. Jumping to conclusions, throwing you out. I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”

“Stop.” She looked up at him and smiled through tears of her own. “I’m sorry you suffered so badly, James. I’m sorry you’ve been alone all these years—refusing to love in case you get hurt. But I promise, I’ll never intentionally hurt you. I love you too much for that.”

James smiled and wrapped his hands around her waist, picking her up and twirling her around. “Oh, Anna. Thank god I didn’t lose you.”

He nuzzled her neck and she let out a small laugh. “I’m sorry about your car. And the mirror…And the diamond. I was kinda mad.”

James laughed and shook his head. “I don’t care. I’d get rid of all of this if it meant keeping you.”

“Don’t do that! I love it here. And you know one place I especially love?”

“Mmm. Where’s that?”

“Your bed. How about we make up for lost time? There’s something I want to give you.”

James scooped her up like she weighed nothing at all, carrying her out of the living room and down the hall. “I’d be honored.”

Slipping into his bedroom, James toed the door shut behind him. He carried Anna over to the bed, laid her down and smiled. He’d cycled through more real emotions in the past three days than he had in the prior three years.

And to think, it all changed with a last minute invitation to drinks. If he hadn’t succumbed to a moment of weakness, he’d never be standing there, staring down at his future as she sprawled out on his bed.

“Thank you for coming back with me. I won’t ever be able to apologize enough.”

“You might change your mind when you read the papers tomorrow.”

“I told you, I don’t care what the papers say. Let them gossip about us. Let the tabloids tell the whole world that I’ve taken advantage of you, that we’re wrong for each other. Immoral. I don’t care about any of it anymore.”

“You should. It will ruin your company.”

“So what? I spent twenty years of my life creating this perfect veneer, only living in a few twisted moments now and then. And look what it got me.”

“Billions of dollars?”

James snorted. “An empty house, shallow life, and ward I didn’t even know until she was almost gone.”

He stepped up to the bed and she rose up onto her knees to greet him. Running his hand through her chestnut hair, he pushed back the strands to stare into her eyes. He’d been apologizing for hours, but he’d left the hardest one for last.

“I want you to know, Anna, that I’m sorry my employee took your mother’s life.”

“James, you don’t—”

“No, let me finish. I’d let the company grow too big, too fast, taking on employees right and left, adding locations without my personal oversight. I’d hired managers I thought were sound, but not all were. Some cut corners, some skirted the rules. The man who shot your mother never should have been wearing a Daven uniform that night. I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

Anna leaned back, palms stroking his chest as she looked up at him. “It’s not your fault, James. I don’t blame you for what happened. If two men with rifles hadn’t stormed the bank, my mother would have deposited her paycheck and come home. Your employee was trying to protect everyone, not hurt my mother.”

James shook his head and sighed. “I’m still responsible.”

“How do you think Mr. Williams feels?”

“The security guard? I’m sure he felt terrible.”

“Shooting a bystander because you panicked and accidentally pulled the trigger makes you feel more than terrible. I know—I tracked him down a few years ago, right after I’d turned eighteen.”