Sleeping with the Billionaire (Rendezvous with the Billionaire Book 3) (8 page)
Read Sleeping with the Billionaire (Rendezvous with the Billionaire Book 3) Online
Authors: Eve Adrian
“I’m Cynthia Mott. You’re safe now.” And she must have possessed some kind of magic because I believed her.
They had to take me downstairs in a stretcher. The EMT’s preliminary assessment identified two cracked ribs and a concussion along with a few dozen bruises. He told me that I wouldn’t be running any marathons soon, but that I’d survive. Somewhere between the end of the elevator ride and getting to the ambulance everything got very fuzzy. I couldn’t focus on anything and felt myself slip into unconsciousness.
Everything moved very fast after that. I got the vague impression of flashing lights, of people moving frantically around me. But I couldn’t process anything. I came to in a brightly lit hospital room sometime later. Andrea was biting her nails and pacing back and forth at the foot of my bed.
“Hey.” I wanted to say something funny, but it hurt too much to think right then.
She rushed over and grabbed my hand, sitting down hard in the uncomfortable looking chair next to the bed. “Holy shit, how do you feel? Are you okay?” She reached over and tried to pour water out of an ugly pink plastic pitcher. But doing it backwards and one handed meant she made a bit of a mess.
But my throat was parched and I accepted the water gratefully. “How long have I been out?”
She let go of my hand and curled her arms around her midsection, leaning back in the chair. “Just since last night. I heard the doctor say that they gave you something to help you sleep. I called your parents. They’re flying in this afternoon.”
“It was Dylan.” She looked confused, I guess the news hadn’t gotten out yet. “He sent the video, and he killed Nicholas Bitterman.”
Realization dawned. “The cops wouldn’t say anything to me after they realized we weren’t related. I’m sorry I didn’t find it out sooner.”
“What? No.” I spoke too loud and my throat hurt again. My next words came out barely more than a whisper, “That is so not your fault. Why would you ever think it was him?”
An orderly came bustling in rolling a cart full of flowers and stuffed animals. My eyes widened, but she picked up a simple bouquet of roses and placed them on the table by the window. She grinned and said, “Looks like someone has an admirer.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that and she rolled out of the room before Andrea said anything. “Is there a card?” I asked. I was pretty sure I knew who they were from.
I’m sorry that I can’t be there with you now. I wish you the quickest recovery.
Yours,
Evan
After that, I didn’t stay in the hospital for long. My parents checked me out two days later and whisked me off to their hotel where they insisted I stay with them for the week. Mom begged me to go back home with them. She couldn’t imagine anyone being kidnapped in our hometown. Dad clearly wasn’t happy with what happened, but he didn’t try to change my mind about staying.
After a week I had to go back to work. I was already busting through my sick days and I couldn’t hide forever. I hadn’t heard from Evan at all since he sent the flowers.
A few of the members of my team took me out to lunch, half out of sympathy and half out of a desire for all the grisly details. I gave as much as I could, but the police had talked to me shortly after my discharge from the hospital and had advised me to keep quiet about the details. A consult with my attorney, Carmen, informed me that I didn’t need to, but it wouldn’t hurt.
On the Friday of my first week back, Evan and I were the only two people in the elevator headed down. It was the end of the day and the first time I had been alone with him since before the abduction.
“My father hired Carmen.” He said with no preamble. “Apparently I was not as discreet in my interest as I thought.”
“Oh.” So his dad knew about us too. Wonderful. “Thanks. It looks like I won’t need her anymore.”
The elevator stopped on the sixteenth floor and people got on, cutting off our conversation. But when I stepped out of the elevator on the ground floor, before I could get too far, he said, “Wait!” And took a few jogging steps to catch up to me.
I waited for him to say anything, but he didn’t. We walked silently through the lobby and out onto the busy street. After two blocks I looked over at him. “Are you escorting me to the subway?”
A dash of pink appeared on his cheeks. He was embarrassed to be caught out. “I was hoping to be more subtle.”
“I don’t need a protector, Evan.”
“You were abducted because of me, beaten because of me, and now—“
I held up a hand. “Whatever you’re doing here, just don’t. I survived Dylan. I can walk a few blocks alone. If I couldn’t, I’d figure something out. Just…don’t do this to me, okay?”
I left him there on the street and walked the rest of the way to the subway alone.
When I was at home the next day he called and asked me to go downstairs. I wanted to leave him alone. He wasn’t taking this well and I wasn’t going to coddle him about it. But if we were going to have it out, better sooner rather than later.
He was standing outside my building wearing faded jeans and a green t-shirt. He looked casual, young, relaxed. Just downright good. If I wasn’t a bit mad at him my mouth would have watered. Okay, it did water but I ignored it.
We walked down the street to a little park. Somewhere along the way our hands sort of glided together and ended up fingers entwined. I didn’t pull away. We sat on a bench together in silence for a few moments, the only sound was the chirping of the birds and the faint sound of the street.
“My parents split when I was really young.” He was still holding my hand, his thumb idly tracing along the skin. “My grandparents all lived in separate houses. I can think of maybe one couple that I knew personally that was happy together.”
“Evan…” I didn’t need to hear his whole sob story.
He squeezed my hand lightly, “I know, not exactly unique. And it wasn’t like I was sad. My parents loved
me
. But I never realized that you could love your spouse. That you could want to be around a person all the time and not resent them. That you could just be happy.”
My heart skipped a little and a part of me wanted to run. The rest of me was planted in place, desperate to hear the next words.
“It’s over between me and Amanda. Officially now. In light of Dylan…” He didn’t elaborate, thankfully. “She needs a friend, and I want to be that friend. But nothing more.”
“Of course, you’ve known each other forever.” I didn’t have the right to give him approval, but it felt like I should say it. And he smiled which made me grin.
“So here’s what I’m saying.” He took a deep breath, and this time looked straight at me. “I probably make a horrible boyfriend. I have no idea what I’m doing and I’m going to make you so mad that you want to pull your hair out.” To emphasize his point he tucked a lose strand of my own hair behind my ear. “But I’m a quick learner. And according to some people, very sexy.”
I wanted to close my eyes and hide in shame at the memory of that text message. It felt like it had been ages since I sent it.
“And most importantly, I love you. I want to make you happy and to be happy with you. So what do you say?”
I should have weighed the pros and cons. Made lists and consulted Andrea. Everything with Evan was so much larger than life that I half expected his helicopter to land and take us on a tour of the city after I said yes. But even if it did, I knew I was going to step right in.
“Not a secret.” It wasn’t a question. “If we’re going to do this, it’s for real.”
He grinned, his eyes lighting up. “You think I want to keep you secret.” He kissed my forehead. “You’ve got another thing coming.” And then he kissed me, in the middle of the park in broad daylight. Anyone could walk by and see us. And I didn’t care.
This wasn’t my final rendezvous with my billionaire. I was just getting started.
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About
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Eve Adrian is the author of erotic paranormal romance novels and short stories. Her works are available online through many retail outlets. She lives in Austin, Texas.
Other
books by this author
Please visit your favorite ebook retailer to discover other books by Eve Adrian:
The Werewolf Mates
Rendezvous with the Billionaire
Rendezvous with the Billionaire
The
Alpha's
Mate
Kelly Shaw should have spent more time researching the bar and less time making sure her notes were perfectly assembled for ease of readability. The exterior of Cafe Merge did little to suggest the loud interior that didn't look like any cafe that Kelly had ever seen. The room felt clustered and loud. Dark red curtains hung from the walls, interspersed only by metal light fixtures which barely cast illumination worthy of the room. A few tables dotted the corners of the room, but a massive bar overtook one of the walls and the mainstay of the room was the dance floor full of writhing bodies of men and women. None of the brochures had made Boise seem like a place with much nightlife, especially of the hedonistic variety, so surely this must have been one of the few bars of its kind in the city. How on Earth had Kelly managed to choose this one?
The outside was perfectly unassuming. Nestled in an old brick building, Cafe Merge looked like any other restaurant. No bouncer stood outside the door, no line waited to enter. Of course, seven o'clock at night was probably a little early for the main crowd, but no one had even tried to make it seem like the cafe was anything other than a restaurant. Kelly had ordered her dinner from the limited menu, already noting the club-like atmosphere, but it wasn't until the bass started thumping and the lights dimmed to barely perceivable levels that she understood she was not where she wanted to be.
But the food was okay, so she stayed long enough to eat, besides, being the new girl in town, she couldn't afford to pay for two meals in a single night. Kelly didn't plan to end up in Boise, Idaho, but she had always knows she would live out west. It was not only the call of the beautiful mountains and lakes, the wilderness that spread on for days and days until civilization was just the faintest of memories. The west was one of the few places left with wild wolves. Their reintroduction over the past several years had spurred on her hope of being able to study them in the field, and already her dreams were coming true.
At twenty-nine she had just finished her PhD at the University of Oregon and had been selected to do post-doctoral work with an animal research project right out of Boise. They studied migration patterns and were performing studies to ascertain whether projects to expand the reintroduction of the wolf into the wild would be beneficial to modern life. And she would start tomorrow at Silver Sky Research.
As she prepared to leave, something gave her pause. Kelly looked around, trying to identify the sight, or the sound, or the smell that froze her in place. Her eyes had long since adjusted to the dim and she could make out several people around the room. For a moment she paused at the site of an attractive, tanned man with dark hair, but dragged her gaze away after a moment. It wasn't him. Though she could not for the life of her say what it was.
And there he was.
He was everything.
The thoughts crashed into her at the same time and Kelly rocked in her seat from the shock of the contact. Attraction, heat, lust, the urge to rut and rut until there was nothing left but the two of them flooded through her and she felt her nipples harden under the practical fabric of her beige bra.
Who was he?
The man held court beside the bar, perched atop a stool. Each of the men and women around him kept anyone else a safe distance away. From this distance Kelly couldn't make out everything about him, but she stalked across the floor, closer and closer, before she could even contemplate her actions. The man wore a black leather jacket left open over a gray top and tight, oh so tight, jeans which trailed down to serviceable shoes. His brown hair hung around his shoulders and his brown eyes tilted up. He exuded the tightly coiled power of a born leader.
Boldness flowed through her as she surged forward through the throng, not edging along the dance floor, but cutting directly through it. Before she could reach the man, he stood from his seat and met Kelly halfway. That handsome, powerful, dangerous man grabbed hold of Kelly's hand and pulled her close, his breath whispering in her ear. Breathing her in as he spoke. "I'm Max."