One Night With The Tycoon (Billionaire's One Night #1)

by Roxy Sinclaire

  We had a future where we could be us, and it thrilled me.

  Chapter 27

  Elda

  "I looked out the window and saw the grounds," Luke said out of the blue.

  I frowned, wondering what this had with what we were talking about. "Well, yes. The closest house is miles from here, it's why I loved this spot so much when I found it. It’s the best place when you want to have some anonymity."

  If I was being completely honest with myself, when I bought the house, I hadn't imagined a time where I wouldn’t still be looking to take Greco's life, working for crime syndicates. It wasn’t all I thought, but it had been my reality when I first bought it. But I'd realized quickly I couldn’t rest there before he was gone, it was too far away from the action of the city.

  "Is it your land, or…"

  "It came with the house, actually, so yes. I don’t know the exact area, but I could equate it to something larger than a couple of city blocks. It wasn’t exactly cheap, and I worked my ass off for months, actually had to put my mission on the back burner so I could save up the money and pay it all off as soon as I could."

  He hummed. "Did you plan to do anything with it?"

  I bit my lip, hesitating slightly. "Well, I did have an idea one day, that I would build houses and rent them to holidaymakers. I'd have to separate what I want to be part of the house, and then divide the rest of the grounds into plots for each house. It would be the perfect spot for tourists because we're near the sea."

  "Really?" he sounded partly surprised, partly amazed.

  "Yes. The plot leads all the way up to a beach in the back. I bought the place for quite a hefty amount from the previous owner. The contract was fulfilled, all the money paid before he passed on. He didn’t want his money-grabbing family to have it, although I don’t know whatever happened to the money, and it wasn’t my business so I didn't really ask."

  It had been a pure stroke of luck that I even stumbled onto the place. There was an ad on TV and it got me interested. I'd started taking gigs, small ones that included me working for some goons, luring people for whatever they wanted them for, still going through fight training. It was a year before I could master fighting on my own and start looking for assignments, then moving up to making kills and not just fighting.

  "Well, what are you waiting for?" I startled out of my memories as Luke's sudden words.

  "What?"

  "It's your dream, right? Why wait? We could build those homes and make the dreams a reality. I mean, we both have free time on our hands now. And the idea sounds pretty interesting."

  "Really?" I asked, and I could hear the hopeful tone in my voice.

  "Yeah. I've never considered it, to be honest, but I'd love to help. We can start as soon as possible."

  I looked up at him, but his eyes were closed and he was grinning to himself. The expression was goofy, but I was grateful he couldn’t see whatever was on my face.

  "Just like that?"

  "Just like that. It would take some planning, but if all you do is dream and never take action, nothing would ever be done."

  Luke, I already knew but felt like I had yet to find out, was a man of action.

  After we talked about my idea, we lazed around a bit more before we fell asleep. I woke up, several hours later to find he wasn’t in bed with me. I ended up searching for him, and I finally found him in the living room, on his phone. When I joined him, I realized he was Googling about building.

  "We're gonna build a list," he explained, sounding distracted, eyes and fingers never leaving the phone. "Architects, the construction workers, the supplies. We'll have to work up a budget, too. It's better we start soon, right?"

  I just sat, dazed, and listened to him as he built up a mental list.

  He pushed me on it, even pulled up searches online, using an online translator to be able to read the website information from different local companies, vetting each for himself. His enthusiasm was catching, and soon he pulled me into working out the considerations with him.

  He had funds stored in some secret account, and though I still had enough of my own, he offered to let me borrow some of it. We could always take a loan at some bank, but he thought it better to avoid the risk. With nine years’ total of working as mob assassins between us, we had both accumulated enough that it really wasn’t necessary, anyway.

  He came up with the idea of building up half the plot first, and then focus on the second half after that.

  "Why, though? Wouldn’t it be better if we just did the whole thing in one go?"

  "Well, yeah, but if we do it like this, you can add some differences to the houses. And it would make sense to see how well the first half works, so we can minimize on doing a lot of stuff the wrong way. Say, like, we make a mistake somewhere, and we'll know not to repeat it again."

  It was sound advice. As we worked out the plans, it was added in. But we wouldn’t wait for the first half to be done, once the foundation was down and some houses were going up, we'd start the second half, so the houses didn't finish so far apart. It was my condition for going ahead, and he agreed to it.

  "I don’t know much about building, but I want to go around, looking at the grounds. I'd like to have a map of the area drawn if there's a way we can get that?"

  I couldn’t help myself getting fired up right alongside him.

  Chapter 28

  Luke

  It was difficult.

  Oh, Elda was having the time of her life, but I couldn’t get past the language barrier. I wasn’t good at learning languages, and picking up Italian wouldn’t be quite so simple. Some words I could get, but I didn’t hear them when people talked too fast. Elda even tried to work with me at night, but I didn’t seem to get better.

  I was starting to think the only way I was going to learn Italian was to sit in a class, and I dreaded it. Elda promised I didn’t have to, though. Not that I would, regardless. Not when I could self-teach myself on the internet, no matter how long it would take.

  There were a few people that spoke English, not all quite fluently, but I could understand. Still, I wouldn’t let that deter me. I was good at doing anything I put my mind to. And I didn’t need to speak a language to know how to do hard labor.

  Because of the language barrier, Elda ended up doing a lot of the negotiations. She also talked to the men brought to work on the houses about my hanging around. I could take care of myself if they wanted to mess with me anyway, but I was glad she told them I wanted to help where I could, so I didn’t have someone get in my way. When I wanted to do something, it was a simple thing to lend a helping hand.

  I started to watch and observe them building the houses so I could understand exactly how to work. And I participated in laying the bricks and the hard labor of putting the villas together. It was grueling work, not the kind I was used to, but I took it as a learning experience. It was better than sitting idle all day when most everyone else had something to do. Even Elda was busy a lot of the time, dealing with the paperwork and the business side of things.

  Besides, I loved when, after a long day of hard work, I'd wander to the back porch where Elda waited, sitting under an umbrella on the back patio with a pitcher of something waiting for me; water, or juice, but usually lemonade with ice in it, and after working under the heat for hours, I appreciated it.

  I'd laughed the first time she did it, sitting back under the shade in a loose dress and dark glasses. When she saw me come up, she got up and poured me a glass of lemonade. She smiled as I reached for it, and said something unexpected.

  "Reward for the handyman."

  I had the drink, we had an intense make-out session, and I went back to helping the workers. The second day, I dragged her inside for a quickie on the kitchen island. I took her from behind as she leaned over the counter, it was fast, dirty, and rough, and we both loved it.

  It turned into a game of sorts, I would come back, and she would be out wearing the most provocative thing she could and still be de
cent in case anyone else saw her. Once she'd been out without a bra, wearing a simple white dress that was practically see through up close. Or she would be without any underwear entirely, and it drove me crazy. I'd be tempted to take her outside, under the heat where everyone would see, but instead dragged her into the house. We pretty much christened every room and most of the flat surfaces in the house because of that little game.

  "Why the hell do you keep doing this," I'd asked one afternoon when we were sitting on the tiles in the kitchen, clothes still out of sorts, catching our breath.

  She'd laughed. "Remember when you told me you'd always fancied living in Italy, and mentioned something about all the women? Well, this is me distracting you so you don’t look at anyone else."

  I'd sputtered, not sure if I was amused or indignant. "But we hardly see any women out here. All the construction workers are guys, and who else would be coming out here?"

  She'd just laughed, turned around on me and took my cock in her hand. It hadn't been ten minutes, and I needed to go back out again, but she held me in her hand until I was up for another round.

  Between our afternoon activities, our night activities, and the hard labor I was working on in between, I would either work myself into exhaustion, or I would grow stronger from the workout.

  I didn’t miss my past life, and that was a surprise to me. The killing wasn’t exactly what appealed to me, but the high adrenaline and the action definitely had. The few times I nearly got myself killed aside, I had loved that part of the job. but it felt just as good mastering a new skill, even if that skill was putting up a building from the ground up.

  Though occasionally, I would think of the family I'd lost and how they would have loved her. Elda seemed to have some sixth sense for when I was feeling down and she was always there to distract me, and I did the same for her the few times her emotions overwhelmed her. It was a give and take sort of relationship, something new and wonderful that I had no idea could exist.

  It wasn’t something I ever thought I would have.

  I was happy in my new life with Elda.

  Chapter 29

  Elda

  As the building went on, I made other preparations. I knew if I was going to attract people, I'd have to advertise it in some way, and there was plenty of other paperwork that would be involved. While Luke helped with the building, I worked on the business side of things.

  I didn’t have much of a head for business, but when I'd had an idea, I'd looked into it. Not as extensively as Luke had made us look, but I wasn’t a novice. I had images from the architects, so I'd picked up what the houses would look like when finished, and I made use of those.

  I had to hire a lot of freelancers, to open a website and fill it with content, handle the advertising for me. When I found the time away from the paperwork, and I wasn’t waiting on Luke, I went around, taking photos of the surroundings.

  The graphic images went on the website first, though I had some specially made just for that and not the blueprint ones I got from the architects. We were still working out plans for the second half plot of the grounds, and I kept them mostly busy with that. I wanted the deadline for planning to be over when the walls of the first buildings started to go up, so we could stick to the plan. Luke tried to help with that when he realized what we were doing. But even though he could sort of understand from the pictures I got, he didn’t hear a big part of the negotiations until I had to translate for him later, and that grew annoying for him, but he still insisted on getting updates.

  I talked to a few designers and suppliers of interior pieces. My grandmothers ended up helping me a lot with that part when I got around to introducing them to Luke and letting them in on what I was doing. They were both glad to help, and they became my unofficial employees. They were a lot more helpful than I could have imagined.

  They were also the happiest I'd ever seen them. My grandfathers even appeared for a visit, and the four of them had grown closer in their friendship, now that they no longer had to worry about Greco anymore. The news had, of course, brought it home, and while I had gotten busy to the point I even forgot to tell them, they had heard about it on the news.

  It was a chapter of our lives we were all looking forward to closing.

  The photos I took of the surroundings went on the website next, once the word content was built up and I was sure I had the best compilations of photos. I'd walked all the way down to the beach, even though it was a bit of a long walk, to have some of that area as well. I could have brought in some professional, but it was fun learning something new, and it was an excuse to walk outside. Plus, I didn’t want some stranger roaming the grounds. Usually, Luke kept an eye on the workmen so they didn’t do anything stupid.

  I'd have to remember to bring him to the beach with me sometime before people started coming in and the place filled up with people. I was sure he'd agree to go if he thought he could convince me to have sex under the palm trees.

  I posted the best photos to the website, after getting instructions from the guy I put in charge of the website on how to change and edit it by myself.

  There was some work with a lawyer, building up contracts, calculating the worth for each house and such. I'd been training to be a lawyer, so this was the easiest part of the whole thing, even though it was still long and tedious, but I still needed a professional's help. I used a firm recommended to me by my grandmother.

  It all took longer than I would have thought. I'd added plenty of time in the plan, but it was still a surprise how it took months just to handle everything when I thought the building was going to be the most grueling task. By then, the houses on the first half plot were nearly all done, the ones from the other half of the grounds were getting close as well.

  Once I had everything up and ready, and all the information on the website, all I had to do was wait and keep doing whatever other work was still there. Within a short time, I started to get bookings.

  The first one was surreal, and I got it maybe a week after the bidding went live. I attacked Luke when he got home that evening and fell asleep crying in his arms. He freaked, of course, assuming I was upset because something was wrong.

  But I was crying because it was so hard to put the happiness I was feeling into words.

  The happiness I was sure I'd lost when I stopped being that naïve college girl. That I wasn't sure I ever would have gotten back if Luke hadn't been with me.

  Epilogue

  Luke

  I got back one evening to find Elda sitting in the kitchen. It was darkening outside, but she hadn't turned on the lights yet. She didn’t even move when I turned on the lights.

  It wasn’t something surprising, she did it often, but she was sitting looking pensive, hands wrapped around a mug. It took me sitting across from her for her to even realize I was there. Her eyes met mine, then skittered away as her hands nervously played with the cup in her hands. She lifted it up for a drink, barely took a sip and grimaced, letting the cup fall gently back onto the counter.

  I frowned at the uncharacteristic behavior. Recently, she had two extremes; floating happily or exhausted from too much work, but still happy. She always seemed to have enough energy to attack me in the kitchen, or the shower, or the bedroom, practically every night.

  Instead of either, she looked uneasy, and that worried me.

  "What is it?"

  Her eyes met mine as she bit her bottom lip, thinking about whether she was going tell me. I could feel my impatience grow, but I made myself wait for her. When I was on the verge of snapping, she spoke.

  "I've heard word."

  I stayed silent, waiting for her to continue. After taking in a shaky breath, she did.

  "I can't be sure of its validity without any proof, and I don’t know how to get that without leaving the country—which I won't do. But word on the street is that Greco's son, the eldest, took over the family's business empire."

  That wasn’t enough to be this worried over. It was bound to happen
, though I would have imagined some uncle or older cousin vying for the spot. I remembered the kid, though, in the few times I'd met him. He was a lot like his father, so it wasn’t really a surprise to me that he'd managed to secure the position.

  "We expected something like this, remember? They're a family business, so when you take the head, someone must replace it. I'll admit, I didn't expect his son. But why are you so upset?"

  She frowned, hands squeezing hard around the cup until her knuckles turned white. I pulled it out of her hands before she hurt herself, felt the drink was cold—it smelled like chocolate. I put the mug aside. Her hands folded around each other, fingers twining together and squeezing in stress, and I put a hand on both of hers, hoping to comfort her, just a little bit.

  "I was also told he's looking for the one that killed his dad. He's not just assuming it's some local mob hit, or whatever. He's sending word to pretty much every affiliate his father ever had, and there are quite a few all over the country. I only heard this, because one of the syndicates I worked for here got the news from the boy himself. He's offering reward money to anyone that can give him clues that they can prove. Luke, it’s a lot of money."

  Well, I'd expected that, too, and planned for it before we even left the States. I didn’t need to know how much the prize money was, but the family was rich and only getting richer with lots more to spare. I could foresee some idiots trying to take advantage and getting themselves killed, but I didn’t care about anyone else.

  I was careful, though. I did my job well. No one would know it was me that killed Greco.

  The day before we were to board the flight, when we didn’t get enough sleep and Elda insisted on going out with me, I'd taken care of everything. Even if someone made a shot in the dark and brought my name up after my convenient disappearance, there was nothing that would lead them to me.