Taken by the Greek Billionaire (16 page)
“What more?” he repeated the words. “What more?”
“Yes what more?”
“How about you drop the defenses a little?”
“My defenses?”
Penny jumped off the desk, not liking the direction their conversation was
taking one bit, and shot him a frown. “What on earth do you mean?”
“This may not be the most conventional of relationships,” Sebastian
said. “Hell, it is far from it, but I want you to…” He ran his fingers through
his hair and shook his head. “I don’t know open up maybe. Stop treating this
like some convenient fuck.”
She started. “What! That makes no sense. It
is
a convenient fuck. You told me I had to stay here until you got
me out of your system. What was it? You can go to prison or you can open your
legs?”
“I have apologized for that remark,” he said stiffly.
“And I forgave you and I agreed to this, the sex, and that’s exactly
what we’re doing.”
“And if it’s not working?”
She gasped, his words abruptly making her heart race. “What do you
mean?”
“The more I fuck you the more I want you,” he said and it was like
the words were wrenched from him. “It’s not looking like it’ll leave my system
any time soon. Maybe it’s all your secrets. You’re full of them. They tease the
edges of you and make me want to dig and dig until I get them all.”
Penny took a deep breath and tried to slow the racing of her heart.
Sebastian’s words were…disturbing because she felt it too, the insane passion
that flared between them. The need to fuck and fuck and it never felt like it
was enough.
The suit of armor…
“I just want to check in with my sisters,” she said, giving up a
secret. “Make sure they’re okay.”
“Fine on the condition that you tell me the full
story.”
“God, Sebastian, you can’t just give for once without getting
something in return?”
“We have that in common then.”
What choice did she have? Though it was unlikely there would be an
email Penny had to check. She had to.
“Fine.
I’ll tell
you after I’ve checked my email.”
He pushed his chair back from his desk and pointed at the laptop.
“Do it here then. Put your logins in.”
She did and in moments her account flashed up. One message was in
the inbox. And it was from Madonna aka Rachel.
No!
Penny clicked on it quickly, her heart racing all over again.
When the words flashed on the screen she gasped. “My sister…I have to…she needs
me….” The words tumbled out of her.
“You sister what?
Tell me, Penny.”
“She’s in trouble. I have to go to her.”
“Let me see.” Sebastian pushed her aside and ran his gaze over the
email, comprehension dawning. “
A honey trap
.”
One that is
going horribly wrong.
She was shaking now,
jittery, needing to do something, to help her sister in some way and yet how?
The situation seemed almost impossible. Rachel was just across
her go.
Here you will remain.
“Yes.” The whispered words
were barely audible and yet Sebastian heard them anyway. “And it isn’t
working.”
“For fucks sake, Penny,” he breathed, shock lacing his words. “I can
see that. She needs help immediately and no wonder. I know Dominic
Rimeria
. He’s ruthless. He’d never be taken in that way and
if he found out he was….”
“I know that! You think we didn’t check all this out?” She shouted,
because Penny was angry now. It came out of nowhere, snapping her out of her
funk. Thank God. Anger was so much easier to channel than worry and Rachel
would need her to do just that. “Rachel was sure she could handle it though. The
plan was flawless.”
“As flawless as yours?” he asked.
“Because from
where I’m standing it was hardly a rousing success.”
“Of course it was. I got the money didn’t I, and I got you.”
“Me?” His tone changed and the look in his eyes was suddenly far
more intense than she’d ever seen.
Shit.
Penny backtracked quickly, unbelieving those words had slipped out. It was the
anger, the worry, hell she needed to be doing something.
“I mean I got to have sex with you,” she said with deliberate
flippancy. “I wanted you the moment I saw your picture. You’re hot, Sebastian,
and you’re amazing in the sack.”
“Do not do that,” he growled.
“Do what?”
“Put those fucking barriers up. Just be honest with me for once.
Tell me what in God’s name brought you all
to
this in
the first place? What could possibly send you down these roads?
A property?
Do you need a home this badly?”
Honest. Be honest.
Penny wanted to laugh but it was more the hysterical kind than the
genuinely amused. Honesty was reserved for Rachel and
Lyra
and had been for over a decade. For everyone else it was twistable, changeable,
whatever suited their purposes, their goals. But Sebastian, could she really
tell him the truth? Was there any choice anymore? “It’s not for us.”
“Then for who?”
“It’s for all the other like us, Sebastian. You ask and you ask and
now here’s your answer. Don’t blame me if you don’t like it.
Lyra
, Rachel, and I are foster sisters. We met when we were
in our early teens in a group foster home. Things were…well they were not easy.
We were all pretty cute and that is not a good thing to be when you’re a ward
of the state.”
He started and shot forward, surprising her, before gripping her
around the arms. “Are you saying…
.
”
Penny shook her head quickly
even as the memories flashed through her mind. Older boys with their rough
hands, the three sisters ensuring they never left one another alone when a male
was around. “No. At least not like that, but it was…difficult. Thankfully we were
tough. Others were not. We promised ourselves when we left that home at sixteen
with nothing but a few clothes and a nasty little bedsit that we would do
everything we could to make sure other girls were looked after properly.
Taken care of.”
His hands left her arms and he stepped back. “Then….”
“Yes.” She confirmed. “It’s for them. The Point will be for teenage
girls, the ones the state leaves in the hands of people who don’t always have
their best interests at heart and if robbing people like you, people who can
afford it, people who won’t even notice it is gone is how we have to do then so
be it.”
He looked dazed, confused. No doubt her bad girl image had taken a
serious dive, Penny thought and then hot on the heels of that was another
thought.
He won’t want me now.
Which shouldn’t matter!
She had Rachel to think about.
The mission.
It had always been about the mission and she
realized then, with that
reminder, that
she had to
make Sebastian let her go to Rachel. She had to.
Time to say
goodbye.
The thought was like a slammer
punch in the gut and yet hadn’t it been due for a while? Sebastian was never
going to keep her. Two weeks seemed almost like too much. She was nothing more
than his bit of rough.
The thief and the billionaire.
A recipe for disaster from the first and it had always been just a question of
time.
Nothing more.
Rachel came first; her sisters came first.
Sebastian was just a moment out of time.
“Why not rob offices or banks or something?” he asked, his voice,
that accent, making the slammer punch feel all the more
worse
.
“Why three billionaires?
I’m assuming the other sister
is after one, too? So tell me why?”
“Because you don’t need the money,” she said slowly.
“Because it won’t put people out of jobs or anything like that.”
There was a pause and then Penny did what she had to, the only thing that would
make Sebastian let her go, the truth at last,
the
very
final secret. “We thought about if for months and we remembered everything.
We’ve all waitressed, all worked in bars, and cleaned. We remembered how the
rich guys were always the rude ones, always the ones trying to grope the staff
or expecting us to fall at their feet. And the more we thought about it the
more we knew that it was the perfect way to get what we needed. To take it from
men like you, men who have too much money for their own good, too much for it
to be fair.”
“That logic is absurd,” he said. “I earned my money.”
“Because of the ridiculous structure of our
society!
How is it right that one man can have
so much when other people can barely afford to eat?”
“
Theos
.
You are a socialist!”
“No,” she corrected, “I’m just a thief and I stole from you because
you deserve it!”
“What?”
“You walk around in your cloud of money,” she said as scathingly as
she dared. “And you don’t even look at what’s happening half a mile away from
you. Do you have any idea what it would have meant for us if someone with your
resources had stepped in to help? Do you? But you didn’t, you don’t! You’re
selfish, you’re arrogant, and you’re conceited.”
He reared back like she’d slapped him and for just a moment Penny
thought she saw something in his eyes that had her wanting to take it all back.
“How dare you!”
Because she
had
to and
even as she said the words Penny did not believe them. Not anymore. He was
gorgeous, thoughtful,
considerate
—he was far from the
mark she’d ever thought he would be.
And because of that, because of Rachel, because of the madness she
took a deep breath, clenched her fists, and spoke again. “You deserved
everything you got, Sebastian, and more besides.”
“Jesus, Penny…you think these things and yet….” He shook his head.
“Was it always about the money? Was this, you and me—all a fucking fake?”
Slammer punch
all
over again and for one wild moment Penny wanted to take it all back. To tell
him that it was never that. That she was scared and worried and didn’t know how
to handle
any
of it.
That
she wanted him so damn much and it was so out of control.
But
then….
Rachel.
Lyra
.
The
mission.
So of course she could not.
“What else, Sebastian?” she said and she was working hard to keep
the hitch out of her voice. “What else? You’re a billionaire and I’m a
criminal. You live in a million pound house and I robbed it just to scrape
enough money to buy a wreck. We’re worlds apart.
Worlds.
The only
thing
I need from you are the deeds.” She paused
and then added, “It’s the only thing I ever needed.”
Silence filled the room. She lifted her eyes and found his. Her chest
thudded. Gone was the longing, the tenderness she’d seen in his eyes when she
entered the room. The cold hearted billionaire was back.
“Then have them.” He reached into the drawer nearest to him and
threw an envelope at her. “Have them and leave. Go to your sister. Go rescue
her, though
Rimeria
might have a thing or two to say
about it judging from her email.”
“Sebastian—”
“Just get the fuck out of my home, Penny!”
The violence in his voice made her jump back and Penny clutched the
deeds to her chest. “I didn’t—”
“Didn’t what?” he roared. “Lie to me? Take me for a fucking fool?
And the worst of it is I suspected from the very beginning and ignored it all!
I wanted you that badly and you fucking knew it, you bitch.”
Where had the weight on her chest come from? Where? Penny stepped
forward, unable, despite everything, to bear the accusations, the lies.
“Sebastian—”
“But no more,” he interrupted and he stepped forward, his hand
around her arm again. He was pulling her forward, his grip almost painful.
Through the study, the hallway, into the lobby, and then to the
door.
Her heart clenched and Penny
wanted to scream. “Wait,” she shrieked. “Just wait.”
“Never again.
So
get out, get out now or I’ll do what I should have done in the very beginning.”
He spat the words out. There was none of her Sebastian left anymore.
“Just let me explain,” she said, the words fast and frantic and
hurting! They hurt as they came out. Her throat burned.
But he was opening the door now, the lashing rain she hadn’t even
realized was there, hadn’t even heard it against the windows, marking out the
path to the gates and then onto the road, into
“There’s nothing left for you to explain. Thanks for the sex,
Kleftisa
. Was it
worth two hundred grand? Probably not, but let’s just call it a tip.” And with
that he threw her out the door and slammed it shut right in her face.