The Forbidden Billionaire (The Sinclairs Book 2)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Text copyright © 2015 J.S. SCOTT

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

www.apub.com

Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.

ISBN-13: 9781477830550

ISBN-10: 1477830553

Cover design by Laura Klynstra

CONTENTS

PRELUDE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PRELUDE

Five Years Ago, Cambridge, Massachusetts

“Where the hell am I?”

The inebriated man on the living room floor was muttering, only partially coherent, mumbling to himself as he experienced a rare moment of consciousness. Not wanting to be awake again, he groaned in protest. Getting up awkwardly, he stumbled to the bathroom, his bladder ready to explode if he
didn’t
move.

Looking at himself in the bathroom mirror after awkwardly taking care of business, he squinted at the image, his vision still blurred and hazy.

Oh yeah
, he recognized the face beneath the growing beard, swollen eyes, and gaunt features.

Still the face of a killer.

He promptly put his fist into the mirror with what little strength he had left in his body, the reflective image shattering on contact. “Bastard!” he rasped weakly, a cut from the shattered glass starting to bleed, blood trickling from his still-fisted hand. “Stupid, ignorant, fucked-up asshole.”

The relief of not seeing his repulsive counterpart anymore was brief and hardly noticeable. He turned and left the bathroom, not bothering to clean up the glass. It hardly mattered. His entire house was a disaster, and he couldn’t have cared less.

Shit!
He hated these moments of lucidity. They sucked. All he wanted was some reprieve from the agony of thinking.

Anger or guilt?

Hatred or love?

Fury or remorse?

Disoriented emotions entangled inside his head until he couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe because of the anguish it caused. A brutal pain ripped through his chest, his gut cramping as he thought of
her
. And
him
.

Don’t think about it. Don’t think. Don’t. Think.

He tried not to reason, not to try to make sense of anything, but his brain wouldn’t allow it. So . . . fury or remorse? Christ . . . he just didn’t know, but the two emotions warring inside him were tearing him apart, piece by piece.

Escape!

Did he hate
them
. . . or
himself?
Or both?

He decided he loathed himself most of all, and stumbled into the kitchen, rummaging through the liquor cabinet until he found another bottle of whiskey. He tore off the top and drank straight from the bottle, gulping a healthy portion of the contents.

Landing facedown on the living room couch as he staggered out of the kitchen, he laughed bitterly at the irony that until recently . . . he rarely drank. The harsh sound echoed through the large home that was devoid of another living soul except him.

I don’t give a fuck if I don’t usually drink. That person who didn’t imbibe often was a different man—a guy so stupid and so naive that he actually believed in love and friendship.

Not anymore. He was done giving a shit about anything. Caring about anyone or anything hurt too damn much.

Lifting his head, he tipped the bottle again, needing oblivion before the voices in his head drove him crazy and the pain in his chest killed him off. Not that he really cared.

Coward. You screwed up. Deal with it.

Problem was, he couldn’t handle any of his raveled thoughts.

Rage.

Confusion.

Despair.

Pain.

Betrayal.

Everything was bombarding him, destroying him.

Starting to feel the solace that he sought in darkness, he sighed and hit the bottle one more time.

“I’ll never give a fuck about anything again,” he vowed in a slurred voice.

As his vision started fading to black, a tiny, lost part of his soul started to rise inside him, a portion of his old self that wanted him to get his shit together.

If I keep this up, I’m going to die.

He had no idea how long he’d been doing this, waking and finding oblivion again. But judging by the emaciated, bearded figure he’d briefly seen reflected back at him in the mirror for that horrifying moment, it had obviously been a while.

You can’t do this forever. Get up.

Taking another pull from the whiskey bottle, he squashed the small voice of reason and closed his eyes, his hand falling to the side of the couch limply, the bottle dropping from his hand to land soundlessly on the carpet.

I killed two people who betrayed me.

There was no dealing with
that
for
him
.

The grim hopelessness descended just as the dim void he was seeking swallowed him whole, obliterating all thought, cutting off the well of agony he was wallowing in. Welcoming the darkness he sought, the man suspended consciousness and let the black shadows take him.

CHAPTER 1

The Present, Amesport, Maine

She’s crying.

He shouldn’t give a shit.

He didn’t want to care.

But unfortunately, he damn well did.

Jared Sinclair rested one muscular shoulder against the brick exterior of Shamrock’s Corner Pub on Main Street, watching as Mara Ross left her doll shop and walked briskly across the road, swiping angrily at her cheeks. He held his breath as she passed within a few yards of him on her way down to the boardwalk, feeling like a damn stalker. Her gaze was focused straight ahead, and he released the air from his lungs as Mara walked right by him, completely unaware of his presence.

She never even saw me.

That shouldn’t bother him, either, but somehow it rankled that he was so fascinated by Mara, enthralled enough by her that he stopped everything to watch her, and she never even acknowledged him.

Why is she crying? She’s always smiling.

Pushing himself away from the building, he followed her, unable to resist the compulsion to chase after her, selfishly hoping her unhappiness wasn’t caused by his actions.

She shouldn’t know . . . yet.

It could be anything. Maybe she was just hormonal. That happened to women, right? Or perhaps her dog died. Tragic, but animals
did
have short life spans compared to humans, and they
did
die. He’d never had a pet, but Jared imagined losing a canine companion would definitely make Mara cry. Problem was, Mara didn’t have a dog, and her only close relative, her mother, had passed away a year ago.

It could still be anything, some other reason.

He cursed himself for caring, his curiosity getting the better of him as he continued to trudge after her.

She’d disappeared from the boardwalk, obviously making her way to the sandy, deserted beach. The weather was dismal, and it had been raining all day long. Yeah, there was a temporary break in the storms at the moment, but all Jared had to do was take one look at the sky and he could see the next one quickly moving into Amesport. The dark clouds were coming straight toward the small Maine coastal town—which was the primary reason most sane people were indoors right now. The streets and beach were nearly deserted.

Cursing his fascination with the curvy brunette, he took a slug of his coffee from Brew Magic and headed for the boardwalk. Personally, Jared loved the darkness of the stormy day, the crashing of thunder and deluge of rain matching the agitating restlessness he felt inside himself. He didn’t much care if he acted like a prick most of the time. It was better than trying to fake a happiness that didn’t exist for him.

I wish I’d never left the Peninsula and come into town. I wish I had stayed indoors and dry like the tourists are doing today. Then I never would have seen her, never would have known she was even upset.

Since he was probably the worst cook in the world, he’d driven from his home on the Amesport Peninsula into town to get something to eat. Just as he’d been heading back to his vehicle, he’d stopped to stare across the street at Mara’s store. Two very different, odd compulsions struck him deep in his gut whenever he saw the monstrous old structure that was Mara Ross’s shop and home. Certainly, he was drawn to the old residence because it was part of the Sinclair history in Amesport, a house that had belonged to a sea captain who was his ancestor. Every time he looked at the home, he wondered what it had looked like two hundred years ago. Hell, he was an architect by education. Wasn’t it normal to imagine seeing the rambling old structure as it had been in its glory days? Jared could shake
those
feelings off because of his education and occupation. He loved old houses in general, the sense of history he felt when he was near them. Understandable, perhaps—considering his background. What really disconcerted him was his obsession with the building’s occupant, Mara Ross.

She helped me out a few times. It’s normal to feel a certain amount of gratitude, right?

Jared was bullshitting himself, and he knew it. There were a lot of people who had helped him research the Sinclair history in the town of Amesport since he’d arrived there for a visit to his vacation house weeks ago. Intrigued because he’d never known just how entrenched the Sinclairs had been in this community historically, he’d sought information just for the hell of it in the beginning. The more he learned, the more he wanted to put all the puzzle pieces together of his family history. Although he was grateful to everyone who had helped him put the mystery of his Amesport ancestors together, he didn’t feel any inexplicable pull toward a single one of them—except
her
.

Oblivious to the damage he was doing to his casual but expensive Italian leather shoes, Jared left the boardwalk and went down the small incline to the beach, his feet sinking into the wet sand.

Where the hell did she go?

His heart hammered in alarm as his eyes swept over the deserted beach, not seeing another living soul. The violence of the crashing waves hitting the shore increased his urgency to locate her . . . until he finally saw her, sitting alone at the end of the rock formations near the pier, her head bowed in what looked like defeat.

Leave. Don’t get involved. It’s none of my damn business why she’s upset. She obviously wants her privacy. Go. Now.

He avoided emotional scenes like incurable diseases. The last thing he wanted to do was get involved in some female’s problems, a woman he’d only talked to briefly a handful of times. He hardly knew her. And he didn’t do drama. Staying in control of his own emotions was critically important to him. The only way he’d found to accomplish that was to avoid caring about much of anything. And that included sad, crying, beautiful women like Mara Ross.

She’s trouble.

Jared tried to turn away. He really did. But for some unknown reason, he found himself drawn to her sorrow like a magnet. His brain might be telling him to go before she noticed he was there, to let her sort things out herself. But instead, he found himself striding across the sand and to the rocks, making his way stealthily to the end of the stone edifice where
she
was sitting.

Face it, man. You’ve been screwed since the moment you saw her big brown eyes, genuine smile, and curvy figure. For some reason, she messes with your head, and you can no more walk away from her pain than you can stop breathing.

But dammit, he wanted to. Badly.

Sure, he liked a good fuck as much as any guy who was almost thirty years old. He made it a point to deliberately find women who wanted something from him other than emotion. He gave them whatever they wanted materially in return for a night of hot, pleasurable sex for him with no strings attached. Jared didn’t do relationships, and he didn’t do emotional entanglements. The women he screwed didn’t either. And he liked it that way.

Then what in the fuck am I doing here?

He halted behind Mara, wondering again if he was losing his mind along with his ever-present control. The rough seas were spraying his black jeans and button-down green shirt with moisture, slowly saturating his clothing. Mara looked like her jeans and T-shirt were already drenched, but as she stared blankly out at the Atlantic, Jared was pretty certain she hadn’t even noticed that her garments were soaked. Despair seemed to be rolling off her body in waves, and it reached out and wrapped around his icy heart with a vengeance.

Shit. This has to stop. Whatever her problem is, I’ll help her solve it. Then maybe I can get over this inexplicable obsession I have with her. She’s throwing me off balance, and I can’t afford to lose control.

Done fighting with himself, Jared admitted defeat just for the moment and made his way to her side, sitting down on the rain-soaked rock next to Mara. Plucking the glasses from her face, he tried to dry them on his semiwet shirt. “Very few things in life are worth crying over.” He’d learned that lesson a long time ago.

Startled, Mara finally jerked her head to the side to look at him, as though she was astonished to see him sitting next to her. “What are you doing out here?” she asked warily. “It’s going to start pouring again any minute now.” She glanced up at the approaching dark clouds.

Jared shrugged and perched her glasses carefully back on her nose. He could hardly tell her that
she
had drawn him here, that she’d pretty much seized him by the balls the minute she’d first spoken with him and had never let go—even though it was lamentably true. “I could ask you the same thing. This isn’t the safest place to be right now.”

Jared’s jaw clenched as her previous comment about the weather reminded him that the ocean was incredibly rough, and yet another violent storm looked to be coming their way. His eyes swept over her, and a raw possessiveness surged tempestuously over his entire body. Mara looked small and vulnerable, and he didn’t like it. Her dark eyes were swirling with sadness, and she wrapped her arms around her body protectively as she responded. “I wanted to think. This is where I come when I need to figure something out. Sometimes it makes me realize how small my problems are when I see how vast the ocean is.” She raised her voice so he could hear her over the loud surf slamming against the rocks.

Jared cringed at the vulnerability he could hear in her voice, wanting to snatch her up and take her somewhere—anywhere—to make her forget whatever her problems were. “And is it working?” Judging by her look of distress, it wasn’t.

“Not today,” she admitted with a large sigh, resting her elbows on her knees and clenching her fingers together, her gaze once again focused on the rough sea.

“Want to talk about it?”
Jesus, I sound like Dr. Phil.
When did he
ever
encourage anyone except his brothers and his sister to talk about anything emotional? And even
that
was rare. The Sinclairs weren’t exactly prone to spilling their guts to anyone, or wearing their emotions on their shirtsleeves. He and his siblings had been born wealthy, part of an elite class of old money. Showing any emotion except polite social behavior was prohibited, and that trait had been pounded into every one of them since birth. They were loyal but rarely demonstrative in their affection for one another, even though it was there.

Strangely, he still wanted Mara to talk about whatever was bothering her, even though he was pretty sure he’d have no idea how to respond. Wanting to know her thoughts was a very strange impulse for a guy like him.

What the hell was she doing to him—besides giving him a perpetual boner? As he chugged down the rest of his coffee, Jared realized that he really
did
want to know what was wrong so he could help her fix it. Maybe then he could get some damn peace, maybe he’d stop feeling compelled to wring every single detail of her life from her gorgeous, plump lips.

Jared watched as Mara shook her head, her damp, limp ponytail swaying behind her head. “I don’t really want to talk about it. We hardly know each other.”

Barely able to hear her, Jared moved closer, his thigh brushing against hers as he replied, “Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone you don’t know, get an unbiased opinion.”

Then I can kill whoever is making you so damn unhappy. Problem solved.

Jared squirmed restlessly, unable to stop the incredibly uncomfortable protective instincts he was having toward a woman he barely knew. Truth was, he hated seeing Mara this way. The fact that she was obviously discouraged and unhappy was eating at him. Every time he’d visited her store in the last few weeks, she’d been unguarded and enthusiastic about helping him learn about the Sinclair history in Amesport, leading him to other sources to help him with his research. Hell, he’d just seen her yesterday, and she’d given him one of her bright, cheerful smiles—a genuine expression that told him she was glad to see him for no particular reason, a look he’d never had focused his way before by any woman other than his sister, Hope. In his world, almost everybody wanted something from him, and nobody was going to give without getting something in return. Mara Ross was pure light, and for a very short time, she’d illuminated the darkness that seemed to cling to him almost every waking minute of the day. She was so damn sweet, and always seemed so intoxicatingly innocent. When they had a conversation, he could sense that she was looking at him as a person, not a billionaire, her entire attention focused on helping him just because she wanted to. Not once had she expected anything in return. Those were traits that had Jared wanting to run the hell away from her as fast as he could, yet drew him inexplicably toward her at the same time. Something about her fascinated him, and for the first time in a long time, he was unable to exert the proper control to stop himself from exploring that unwelcome attraction.

After a long pause, she answered hesitantly, “Okay. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I do need to talk about it, and I don’t have anyone I can tell. I’m being evicted from my house. The owner is selling the property. I have to leave.” Continuing to stare out to sea, she clenched her fingers together tighter. “My grandmother ran the shop, then my mother, and now me. Everything I have left of them is going to be gone.”