by J. S. Scott
J. S. Scott
The Billionaire’s Game
Copyright © 2014 by J. S. Scott
All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the Author.
Edited by Faith Williams – The Atwater Group
Cover Design by Cali MacKay – Covers by Cali
ISBN: 978-1-939962-43-0 (Print)
ISBN: 978-1-939962-42-3 (E-Book)
This book is dedicated to my two favorite people who have Telugu Indian blood: my dear friend, Rita, and my husband, Sri. Thank you for your help and for the insight into the Indian culture. Both of you are so extraordinary, and have been the wind beneath my wings when I needed your support. Thank you for answering my endless questions about Indian culture and history with so much patience.
Last year was an incredible year for me, and I’d like to thank all of my readers who continue to fall in love with my alpha billionaires. You are all so awesome and supportive. I’m grateful for every single one of you for helping my dreams come true!
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Southern California, Two Years Ago
The beaten, battered, and bruised woman lying on the living room floor of her apartment moaned weakly, barely conscious after the beating her husband had given her. She’d tried so hard to hide, to be in any room other than the one her husband had been in when he’d come home from work that day. Strangely, sadly, she was starting to know exactly when she was going to feel the pain of his wrath. Lately, it had been more and more often, usually for reasons she didn’t exactly understand. She didn’t talk back to him, she wasn’t disobedient, and she got all of her household chores done. It didn’t seem to matter. There was always some infraction, something that made her deserving of punishment.
Survive! Survive! Survive!
Opening one swollen eye, she stumbled painfully to her feet. Her husband had left in a rage. It was time. If she didn’t get out soon, she knew the day would come when she could no longer rise to her feet and leave. Her endurance was gone, but her will to live was stronger than guilt and shame.
Run! Run! Run!
Stumbling to her closet, she put together a few essentials, stuffing them into a battered bag. Grabbing her purse that held less than fifty bucks, she made her way painfully back to the living room, stopping as she heard heavy steps in the hallway.
Was he back? Please let it not be him.
Holding her breath, she waited until the footfalls passed her door, her entire body trembling with relief as she released the breath in a rush, and put a shaky hand on the doorknob. She took the keys from her purse and dropped them on the table beside the door, a symbol to herself that she was never coming back. Whatever happened to her in the future had to be better than her past.
She was alone.
She was damaged.
She was broke, with less than fifty dollars to her name.
And she was afraid.
But none of those things was going to deter her now. Taking one last, quick glance around the apartment, she acknowledged that nothing here belonged to her anyway, and it had never been home. It had been her hell, her prison. She had nothing to lose. She’d find a way to make a new life for herself.
Survive! Survive! Survive!
The woman fled and never looked back, hoping to leave her painful history behind her.
Kade Harrison had always liked games. He might even have to say that he lived and breathed just to engage in almost any type of sporting event. It was the one thing he was good at—the only thing at which he’d ever excelled—and he didn’t like to lose. Unfortunately, he’d been losing for the last two months, and it was really beginning to piss him off.
Where the hell is she?
Tracking down Asha Paritala had almost become a competitive sport. Kade had been working on cornering Asha for two months, traveling from one side of the country to the other, only to come up empty-handed every single time. He was losing this particular contest, and he didn’t like it. The woman was smart, ditching him before he could quite catch up with her. Kade had no doubt he and Asha were playing a game of cat and mouse, and she was avoiding him. God knew he’d left enough messages in various places that she must have gotten at least one of them. She was evading him for some unknown reason, but the cat was going to pounce. Just as soon as he could corner the cagey little mouse.
Letting himself into his Nashville hotel room, Kade pulled off his baseball cap and collapsed on the king-sized bed with a sigh. He’d have to call his brother-in-law, Max, and let him know that he’d failed…again. Asha had just left the homeless shelter a few minutes before he had arrived, and no one there had any idea where she was headed. She’d left her few meager belongings behind, so Kade had some hope she’d return, but nobody at the shelter really knew her, and nobody seemed quite certain where she was or if she would be coming back.
All’s fair in pursuit and winning this game. Newsflash, little mouse: I can fight dirty. You know where your stuff is…come and get it.
Grinning, Kade rolled over on the bed and grabbed up the bag with Asha’s belongings, only wrestling with his conscience for a moment about taking her things and leaving her a message where they could be picked up. He’d give them back if and when she showed up. In the meantime, he’d use any clue he could find to figure out exactly who she was and if there was any chance she was a lost sibling to Max. He’d wasted two months getting this favor done—tracking down a woman he didn’t know, a woman who could possibly be related to Max—and he was going to bring it to an end. Although his twin, Travis, did most of the work in Tampa for the Harrison Corporation, Kade did have some responsibilities that he’d insisted on taking over once his football career had ended, and he eventually needed to get back to Tampa.
He grimaced as he stretched his body out on the bed. His lame right leg was aching from two months of nonstop searching for a woman who he was beginning to think was nothing more than a phantom, an illusion. But he knew Asha Paritala existed, that she was real, and he was determined to find her. Maddie and Max deserved to know if this woman was their sister. Never mind that he hadn’t even gotten one tiny glimpse of Asha. He would. Soon. In some ways, he almost didn’t want the search to end. He’d felt more alive in the last two months than he had since his accident. Matching wits with the unknown female was a challenge, and there was nothing Kade loved more than winning a difficult game. Gut instinct told him that she knew he was looking for her. The question was…why was she running away? It wasn’t like he wanted anything except information from her, and it could gain her two siblings who she’d never known existed. There weren’t many people who wouldn’t want to be related to Max and Maddie, seeing as they were two of the richest people in the world— in addition to being two of the kindest individuals Kade knew.
“I’m not sure why I’m so damn impatient. It isn’t like I have
anything else to do until Travis needs me,” he said to himself grimly, admitting that his twin rarely called on him for anything, and Travis never needed anyone. And it had left Kade feeling useless, restless. His days as a pro football player were over. His stint as a star quarterback for the Florida Cougars was nothing more than a memory, the one thing he loved having been torn away from him almost two years ago when a drunk driver had failed to see him on his motorcycle. His leg had been mangled all to hell when the inebriated idiot had moved into his lane and caught Kade’s leg between his truck and Kade’s bike. He didn’t remember much of the accident. But one of the first things he remembered with crystal clarity was waking up in the ICU, his longtime girlfriend, Amy, frowning at him as though he’d disappointed her. And obviously…he had. She’d dumped him right then and there, letting Kade know in no uncertain terms that she refused to be with a cripple who wouldn’t be a celebrity anymore.
Trying to slam his mind shut on the unpleasant and painful memories of his accident, he focused on the belongings he’d dumped on the bed: a few articles of worn clothing, a hairbrush, a toothbrush that had definitely seen better days, a large pad of paper and some well-used charcoal blocks and pencils. Pushing the other articles aside, he opened the pad of paper, mesmerized as he slowly flipped the pages, studying each drawing before going to the next.
Each image nearly leaped from the page, so real that it almost seemed as if they could jump from the paper and come to life in front of him. The drawings were fanciful—many of them looking like mythological creatures or animals—in the first part of the collection.
She’s an artist. A fucking amazing artist.
“Damn,” he whispered in an awed voice as he skipped some blank pages and came to another section, revealing her portraits. He didn’t recognize any of the individuals she had drawn. Obviously, they were ordinary people going about their daily activities, but he could feel every emotion on a drawing of an elderly woman’s face, a woman who looked like she was sitting on a bench at a bus stop, and he could almost share the joy of a group of children playing on a playground. Flipping through the rest of the pictures of people, he was dumbstruck by Asha’s talent. He was no artist, but the drawings could touch even his emotions, and he wasn’t a particularly emotional type of guy.
Kade felt his mouth go dry, and his gut lurched as he revealed the last picture, a man and a woman poised to engage in a passionate embrace. The male’s face was shaded, his head turned to the side, but the woman’s desire was so potently drawn that he could feel her naked longing, her desperation as she waited for the man she was embracing to kiss her. Long, silky hair cascaded down her back, her head tilted for his kiss, her face revealing unguarded need.
The words scrolled beneath the drawing hit Kade with a visceral reaction:
Someone! Someday! Somewhere!
Damned if Kade didn’t want to be the mystery man in shadow, the guy to kiss the woman breathless, provide the passion he could sense she desperately wanted. He knew exactly how she felt; he’d felt the same way. In fact, he still felt like that every time he saw his little sister Mia and her husband Max together, or his friends, Sam and Maddie, and Simon and Kara. All of them had found their mates, the person who made them feel whole, and the happiness that surrounded those couples was almost ball-bustingly painful for a man like him who felt so alone, so solitary. He was damned happy for all of them—every one of them deserved to be happy—but it wasn’t easy not to feel lost, not to mention a little odd, when he was around them. He just didn’t roll that way, and he kept his emotions in check. He’d been conditioned to keep a grip on himself since he was a child, and he’d learned to keep a handle on himself throughout his football career. It was too vital for him to stay cool and detached. Letting his emotions rule him would have meant mistakes, and he’d rarely made errors when he was on a football field. Besides, a guy coming from a father as crazy as his had to have control. He and his siblings had all tried to never do anything that could be misconstrued as the least bit emotional or out of the ordinary. It was their way of trying to separate themselves from their sire.
Kade sighed heavily and continued to stare at the picture, wondering what it was like to feel that type of passion. Yeah. Sure. He liked sex. What guy didn’t? But the desire was short-lived and easily resolved. Granted, he hadn’t had to resolve that problem for two years. There was something about nearly losing a leg and two years of grueling rehabilitation that pushed that particular desire onto the back burner.
The woman’s not real. It’s just a picture.
Kade closed the drawing pad with more force than necessary, disgusted with himself. He’d never been a romantic sort of guy. He was a jock. He’d been with Amy since college, and she’d hated open displays of affection. The only things she’d ever really liked were the expensive gifts he’d lavished on her and the extravagant parties he was forced to attend because of his celebrity status and endorsements. And now that he was lame, he wasn’t the type of guy to ever have a woman look at him like he was the only man in the world for her, wealthy or not. Not that any woman ever had looked at him that way, even before he’d fucked up his leg. He was, after all, one of those crazy Harrisons with the old man who had offed his own wife. Although a woman might appreciate his monetary assets, he was fairly certain no woman would covet him. He was damaged goods, unable to ever play football again—the one thing that had made him feel valuable. He might have money, but that was about all he had to give anymore. Honestly, maybe it had always been that way for him; maybe he just wasn’t capable of having a woman who felt that way about him. He wasn’t exactly any woman’s ideal of a knight in shining armor and he was pretty doubtful that he was entitled to own that kind of love. He’d had a batshit crazy old man who beat up his kids and his wife often, and his father had eventually killed Kade’s mother, and then himself. Was there ever a happily ever after for a fucked-up and dysfunctional family like his? Mostly, all he, Travis, and Mia had concentrated on was survival.
Mia found her happily ever after with Max. She’s happy now.
Kade released a heavy breath and stuffed Asha’s meager belongings back into her bag. His younger sister, Mia, was happy. But her road to bliss had been pretty damn rocky. His sibling deserved every bit of happiness she now had with her husband, Max. God knew she’d suffered dearly for it.
Kade wished his older twin, Travis, could find some peace, but Kade knew that he and Travis shared the same darkness, a dimness of their souls that would probably always keep them isolated and alone. Travis wore his blackness like a mantle; Kade tried to hide his own. But it was still there, the yawning, dark emptiness that never went away; his accident had only made it worse, blacker and emptier than it had ever been before. His football career had kept him busy, given him a purpose. Without that, there was nothing that stood between him and the shadowy memories of his past.
I’m different. I’m just not cut out for a relationship any deeper than what I had with Amy.
He’d always known his relationship with Amy had been superficial, but it had always suited both of them. What the hell did he know about love? He was fairly certain he wasn’t even capable of really loving a woman. Since his break-up with Amy, he’d been alone. Strangely, he didn’t feel much different than when he was in the relationship. Her cruel words had hurt, but had he really expected anything different? He’d broken all the unspoken rules of their relationship when he’d had his accident, and his recovery had taken close to two years. Had he really expected her to stick it out with him, to stay by his side when everything had changed? Amy was a beautiful supermodel, and she hadn’t signed on to take care of a critically ill man and then two years of rehabilitation. She’d wanted the parties, the expensive presents, the recognition of being the girlfriend of a famous quarterback, a man who didn’t walk with a limp and count his blessings every damn day that he actually still had his right leg. Not surprisingly, she’d taken up with another risi
ng star quarterback soon after his accident—ironically, one he’d introduced her to at a party—and never looked back.
Kade rolled off the bed and stood up, telling himself that it didn’t really matter. He’d always had Travis and his friends while he was recovering. The rehab was over and his life was moving on. He had Mia back in the family fold again after having gone missing for two years, and he had a favor to do for Max—a favor that he was determined to see through to the very end. Kade knew that Max would be haunted by not knowing if Asha was his lost sibling or not, so he’d agreed to go find Asha Paritala and discover the truth. It wasn’t like he had much else to do since his days as a quarterback were over, and the distraction had been a good one, something he’d desperately needed.
I needed something to take my mind off the fact that I’ll never play football again. Kade was dealing with that reality, rationalizing every single day to accept it. So what if he missed his football career as much as he would miss the air that he breathed if it were suddenly taken away? It wasn’t as if he could have played football forever. He just wished he hadn’t had to end a career he’d loved so abruptly and so damn soon. He’d only been thirty years old, and still would have had a lot of good years ahead of him. And he’d been a good quarterback. Damn good. Football had been a very big part of his life for so long that he felt like he was just drifting now, as though he wasn’t quite sure what he should be doing. He owned Harrison Corporation along with Travis, but his twin had run Harrison so smoothly when Kade was playing football, that he now felt unneeded in his own company. Travis liked control, and Kade really had no reason not to give it to him. His brother spent most of his time in the Harrison offices, but it was by choice, a diversion for Travis. They had competent upper management, and Travis didn’t need to spend every waking moment in the office, but it was his brother’s way of controlling his life, burying the pain of his past in work.
