Nathan The Billionaire: The Complete Series (A Navy SEAL Bad Boy Alpha Billionaire Romance)

by Claire Adams

  I walked in and sat down on the stone bench on one side of the shower, while Chase started the water on the other side. He tested it out, and when it was just right, he reached his hand out for me to come join him.

  The fact that he reached his hand out and I still had to take three steps to join him showed just how large of a shower he had. It was perfect, and I could have stayed in that room with him for hours.

  Chase positioned me so my back was facing all of the jets, and then he pressed a couple of buttons on the wall.

  The water started to pulse in a pattern and worked its way up and down my back. It felt like there were a hundred little fingers working their way all around me. I loved every second of it. I pulled Chase toward me and his lips to mine, while the shower had its fun with my back.

  We touched and explored each other in the shower, but we were both too exhausted to do anything else. It was delightful to feel his hands on my body, and I wanted him to stay home with me and lay in bed all day long. I knew he was going to need to go to work, though.

  One thing I knew very much about successful men was that they were successful because they worked hard. Ana and I had a long conversation about how we hated when women got mad at their men for going to work, yet they wanted to be supported financially by them. If you wanted your man to provide a beautiful home and financial support for the family, you had to be all right with him going to work.

  “What time do you think you’ll get back tonight?” I asked him.

  “I actually don’t have to go in for a couple of hours. We can have breakfast first. It should be a short workday. Fridays are always that way. We have a lot of people who work four-day weeks.”

  “All right. Then let’s get dressed and have some breakfast. It can be our first date,” I laughed.

  I had never had sex with a man that I hadn’t even gone on a date with. In fact, I hadn’t even had sex with a guy without getting to know him over several dates. But, nothing about my relationship with Chase was normal. It was an experiment in something new.

  “Yes, a breakfast date sounds perfect.”

  Chase wrapped a towel around me, and I went back to my room to get dressed. I closed my door and jumped up and down. He was such a perfect guy, I couldn’t even contain myself. He was everything I had hoped for and more. Nothing could make the moment any more perfect.

  I jumped around my room like a schoolgirl who had just been called on the phone by her crush. He was so handsome and nice. I couldn’t imagine anything better than the night we had just had. All my doubts about him were gone, and I felt like I had landed the jackpot of all guys. He was successful, and I knew it was with his father’s company, but that didn’t matter to me. Chase was the perfect guy for me, and I couldn’t wait to get to know him more and spend more time with him.

  While I sat on my bed, I used the cell phone he had given me to try to get in contact with Ana or Gordon. Again, the numbers I had didn’t answer, and I felt the dread of that situation. I knew Ana would not have gone that long without getting in touch with me. She knew how worried I was about her and she knew I was going to be going crazy until I heard from her.

  But, when I thought about it a little more, I realized she no longer had a way of actually getting a hold of me. I didn’t live in my apartment anymore, and my cell phone didn’t work in the United States. The only way we would be able to reach each other would be over email or if she miraculously picked up the phone that I had been calling – and I didn’t know if Ana would think to check her email. She had never been too much into technology and had only recently started to use her phone to get apps and check email. I desperately hoped she remembered her password and checked her email sometime soon so I could know she was safe.

  When I had finished getting dressed and making myself a little more presentable, I made my way out to the kitchen where I saw Chase getting breakfast started. I stopped to admire him before he realized I was there.

  He looked handsome in his work suit, and I wondered if he usually made himself breakfast at home or if he had someone else that made it. I really didn’t know very much about him and I couldn’t wait to get to know him more.

  The house was so big – I knew there was no way he kept it clean without having someone else help with that. So, it made sense that he might have had someone else who did his shopping and cooking for him, too.

  “Oh, you’re a cook. I think I’m going to like this,” I said as I sat down at the counter.

  “I’m not a cook. These eggs are going to be the worst thing you have ever tasted,” he said with a smile.

  “I’ll pretend to like them.”

  “Uh oh. How good are you at pretending? I don’t want to feel bad about my cooking skills.”

  “I’m really good. I can make you believe I’m tasting the most delicious eggs in the world.”

  He smiled and handed me a plate of eggs. They actually did look delicious and, with my first bite, I knew he was totally messing with me when he said he was a bad cook. They had a touch of flavoring and some cheese added to them. They might have been the best tasting eggs I had ever had.

  “Mmm, these eggs are so good. Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes,” I teased him as I ate my eggs.

  “Now you’re scaring me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because those screams of ‘yes’ sounded an awful lot like what I heard coming out of you last night.”

  Chase came over toward me and leaned down to kiss my cheek gently. I blushed at the mention of my screams from the night before. In the light of day, I was suddenly shy again. It was the way he looked at me – I instantly felt like a schoolgirl.

  “I can guarantee the screams I made last night were totally genuine,” I said as I grabbed him and pulled him toward me.

  Our mouths seemed to fit perfectly together, and I wanted to keep him right there with me for the rest of the morning. But there was a knock on the door that distracted us.

  Something about the knock scared me, and I saw a little fear in Chase’s eyes as well. It wasn’t a friendly knock. Instead, it sounded like someone was angry.

  The pounding on the door came again, and this time it was much more urgent. It sounded like a fist being pounded against the door, and I was afraid. I looked at Chase to see if he was going to answer it.

  He grabbed my hand and pulled me back toward to his room. He handed me a black book and pushed me toward the back of his closet. The fear in his eyes was crazy, and I knew something really wrong was going on.

  Whoever was at the door scared Chase enough that he didn’t want me around. He opened up what looked like a safe room, like I had seen in movies. The room was hidden by a shelf of shoes, and you couldn’t even tell it was there until he had opened it. He shoved me into the room and I just stared up at him, as he started to close the door.

  Chapter 11

  Chase

  “Don’t come out unless you hear me say the word unicorn,” I said to her before closing the door.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Listen to me. No matter what you hear, no matter what! You don’t open that door unless you hear me say the word unicorn. Do you understand, Jordan?”

  “I understand,” Jordan said.

  I shut the safe room door and put the shelf back in front of it. If Jose Escabar had decided to come after me for his book, I was going to make sure that Jordan didn’t get hurt and that she would at least have the book to show the police.

  Quickly, I made my way out to the front door, but just as I was about to open it, there was a loud bang of a gun. The door blew open.

  I ducked down to the ground and looked up to see the lock had been shot off my door and three men pushed their way into the house. It was Marco and two other guys. They didn’t look like they had come for a regular visit.

  Marco stayed in the back and let the two other men come and pick me up off of the ground. They grabbed my arms firmly and held onto me so hard that I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore.

  �
�Chase, you took something from Jose, and I need to get that back,” Marco said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t fuck with me, Chase. Jose sent these two to get that book and me to make sure it gets done. We will do whatever we need to in order to get the book.”

  I was afraid. More afraid than I could ever imagine being. Although Marco and I were friends from high school, I knew he would do whatever it was that Jose told him to. The problem was, I didn’t think that handing over the book at that point was going to benefit me in any way.

  Right after I took the book, I knew I shouldn’t have. There was no assurance I could keep myself or my family safe with that book. It was an impulsive decision that I should have thought through much longer than I did.

  But it was too late now. I had the book, and I wasn’t about to give it up. If Jose and his goons knew I had indeed taken it, there would be nothing to stop them from killing me and just going after my father for the money I owed. Or, they might kill me and forget about the money owed, just be done with me and the whole mess.

  No! I can’t do it!

  The only way I could keep myself and my family safe was to keep the book and use it when I needed to. But I knew that meant I would have to try and convince Marco and his goons that someone else had actually taken the book.

  “Marco, you know me. I wouldn’t do something that stupid.”

  He looked at me and thought about my words. I knew he didn’t think I would be stupid enough to take such an important item. But yet, it was missing and I had been in the house right around that time. I had to put someone else in the line of fire. It was a horrible thing to do and I knew it, but my own life was in danger.

  “You were at the house, Chase,” Marco said.

  “You can’t tell me I was the only one at the house the last couple of days. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. What kind of book is it? I’ll buy him a new one if that will make him happy. There was a guy leaving the house when I got there. Did you check with him?”

  One of the thugs that had my arm twisted it up behind me while the other led the way into my room. They did not mess around, and I knew it was going to be difficult to get out of the situation alive. The look Marco had in his eyes did not leave me feeling very confident in my future.

  “He’s got to have a safe around here. That’s where he put it,” thug number two said.

  While thug number one looked through my room and tore it apart, Marco came close to me and whispered in my ear.

  “Chase, if you have his book you need to hand it over now. Jose will kill you if he finds out you took it.”

  “Marco, I didn’t take it.”

  I used all the acting skills I could come up with, and I looked him straight in the eyes. I didn’t want him to think I was lying to him. If he thought about another person who could have taken it, that was my only option.

  “No one else had to see Jose in the last two days?” I asked.

  “Jose noticed it missing after you left.”

  “That doesn’t mean I took it. Who else was there that day? Any one of them could have been the one who actually took it! Marco, you know me. You know I wouldn’t do something like that.”

  He looked at me, then at the thug behind me that held my arm. There was a brief moment where I thought Marco might let me go. I knew I had put a slight amount of doubt into his mind about me taking the book. But apparently, that didn’t matter all that much.

  “Break it,” Marco said to the guy.

  “No. Wait. No,” I said as I looked desperately at Marco.

  “Do you have it or not?” he asked.

  “Marco, seriously I don’t have it.”

  “Hey, I have something here,” the thug that was destroying my room said from my closet. “It looks like a safe.”

  When we walked over to my closet, the shelf had been pulled away from the wall and the door to my safe room was looking back at me. I felt the fear of knowing Jordan was inside there. I couldn’t open the door. I couldn’t put her at risk. And, I certainly couldn’t hand over the black book at this point.

  “Open the door, Chase,” Marco said as he pushed me into the closet.

  “I don’t even use this thing. I can’t open it.”

  Marco looked at me and then at the two thugs. I could tell they quickly came to the consensus that I was lying to them.

  “Open the door!” Marco demanded.

  One of the thugs thrust his fist into my abdomen, and I felt the shooting pain as it went through my whole body. It was instantly hard for me to breathe, and I suspected his fist had broken one of my ribs. I wasn’t use to all the punching that was going on against my body in the previous days. It wasn’t my cup of tea, and I couldn’t wait to get back to my normal life where no one wanted to hurt me.

  I lay on the ground in front of the door and gasped for air. The pain was horrendous until I felt the even worse pain of the man’s shoe kicking me in the exact same area. I closed my eyes as the pain shot through me, and I pictured myself in some sort of movie. Hopefully, my movie would end better than it was going so far.

  If my ribs had not been broken from the punch, they were definitely broken from his kick. I gasped for air and couldn’t seem to get enough breath at all. Even trying to pull a tiny bit of air into my lungs hurt.

  One of the men held up some of Jordan’s clothes from the other room and stood in the doorway to my closet. My heart sank, but there was no way I was opening the door.

  “He’s got a lady in there,” the thug said.

  “Chase, whoever it is, we don’t care. Just open the door so we can search the safe.”

  “Seriously, that’s just clothes some girl left here. She sleeps over sometimes and has her stuff here. I don’t know how to get into the safe.”

  Again, I tried to be as convincing as possible. But my voice shook as the pain of the moment overwhelmed me. I couldn’t breathe. With each breath I took, I felt more and more like I was going to pass out.

  I looked up at Marco and tried my best to look him in the eyes. Something had changed in him when he thought I was lying to him, though. He didn’t look at me as the friends we use to be. Instead, he looked at me like a man he wanted to destroy in order to save himself.

  Perhaps, Jose thought that Marco had stolen the notebook?

  If that was the case, then Marco was desperate to find the person who really took it. He probably didn’t care at all what he had to do to me or anyone else if it meant that he wouldn’t be killed by Jose.

  I understood his dilemma. It was exactly the same reason that I had stolen the book in the first place. Protecting ourselves and our families was far more important than anyone else. I understood entirely, but I hoped he also did when I wouldn’t tell him any more information.

  “Chase, you know we will come back and kill you if we find out you have the notebook,” Marco said as he stood over me.

  “Yes, I know. Don’t you think I would have given it to you by now if I had it?”

  “I don’t know if you have it or not. I’m just warning you that it will not end well if it turns out you have it, and I walked away from you.”

  I knew very well that things were not going to end well for me if I didn’t come up with a better plan. Marco and Jose were certainly not going to settle for me just saying that I didn’t have the book. Sooner or later, they were going to start torturing me in order to get it from me. They were going to torture anyone and everyone that could possibly have come in contact with that book.

  Marco looked so torn between who he wanted to be and who he needed to be at that moment. I never thought working for Escabar had been a choice he wanted to make; it was the first time I realized I was right. Marco looked scared. His face showed more fear than I had ever seen from him. He wasn’t just following some orders from Jose; Marco was stuck in his job and probably had no way of getting out.

  Once Jose decided that he liked Marco, Marco was stuck working for
him for the rest of his life. I hadn’t heard of anyone who ever stopped working for Jose Escabar. They either worked for him forever or they ended up having some sort of freak “accident.”

  Marco didn’t like working for Jose any more than I liked borrowing money from him. But sometimes, circumstances took control of our lives and we had to do things we didn’t want to do. I knew if push came to shove, Marco would take me out to save himself. I just hoped things wouldn’t come to that.

  Luckily, Marco and his two thugs finally left, and I closed my eyes for a minute as I tried to catch my breath.

  My body was sweaty, and I couldn’t breathe. I also couldn’t get myself to move and get up off of the ground. I wanted to get myself pulled together before I opened the safe and had to talk to Jordan.

  “Chase,” I heard her say from the safe room.

  I took a couple deep breaths and tried to pull myself up so I could open the door. I knew I couldn’t tell her the whole story. She would run as fast as she could away from me. No woman would want to be with a man who had gotten himself into the kind of trouble I was in. I needed to just tell her as little as possible.

  It was weird how connected to Jordan I already felt. I liked her a lot, and I didn’t want her to have to deal with all this stuff. I was going to have to keep the details of everything to myself if I wanted to keep trying to work on things with her.

  She was probably so terrified in that safe during the attack. The gunshots at the front door. The yelling. Me screaming in pain as I had been kicked.

  I had to figure out a way to explain things to her without freaking her out. It was going to be pretty hard, though, especially considering I couldn’t even move at that moment.

  She hadn’t gotten herself into this mess on purpose. I knew she wasn’t the kind of girl that hung around thugs like these guys. It was more than she would want. I bet she was in the safe room crying and rocking in the corner. I felt so bad, yet I had to open the door and deal with her sadness. I had to wrap my arms around her and try to pretend like everything was fine and I wasn’t hurt at all.