The Billionaire and the Beast (Billionaire Club Book 4)
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
The Billionaire and the Beast
Copyright
Thank You!
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
Epilogue Two
More Billionaires?
About the Author
Books by Brynn Paulin
The Billionaire and the Beast
The Billionaire Club
By Brynn Paulin
Supernova Indie Publishing Services, LLC
www.supernovaindie.com
Powered by Your Imagination
The Billionaire and the Beast
by
Brynn Paulin
I’ve never been a cute, petite little thing.
And my stepsister Ella and her friends never let me forget it. In fact, growing up, I always felt like Cricket, the jolly, mean giant—not that I’m mean. More like I’m a scapegoat.
Now, I have one month until I get the heck out of Dodge and escape my family, this city and all the people who’ve called me Beast all these years. I’m never coming back. Until then, I just need to avoid my parents, my stepsister and the gorgeous billionaire she has her eye on.
Not so hard. I know how to fly under the radar.
Except…he has no interest in my stepsister. No, his eye is on me. He calls me his princess. And there’s nothing I can do to escape my fate, especially when Ella discovers his interest. She’s determined to prove I’m Cricket the Beast again.
And maybe, I should let her, just so I can leave here before I get hurt. Because hot guys like him? They’re definitely not into beasts like me.
Copyright
© 2019, Brynn Paulin
The Billionaire and the Beast
Cover Art by Supernova Indie Publishing Services, LLC
Edited by Liza Green
Electronic Format ISBN: 978-1-62344-292-7
Published by: Supernova Indie Publishing Services, LLC
Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places or occurrences, is purely coincidental.
Thank You!
Thank you for your purchase of The Billionaire and the Beast.
I hope you enjoy the story and will consider leaving a review or telling a friend about the book.
I love hearing from readers! To keep in touch and follow my news, please visit me on my website at www.brynnpaulin.com.
Dedication
To
Veronica,
Debbie Z,
and
Shannon B
Chapter One
~ Cricket ~
One month, one day, six hours…give or take. Sooner if I could make it happen. That’s how long I had until I got the hell out of dodge—AKA my childhood—and never looked back.
No seriously, I was getting out and never coming the hell back. Ever.
You know the whole Cinderella story and her crappy stepmom and shitty stepsisters and absentee dad? That was my life. Sort of. Only I had the stepmom who actually loved my dad more than anything in the world, saw me as an interloper and had the most glorious daughter evah.
Really…Ella, my stepbeast, is the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. Like catch your breath and wonder how you’re in her presence beautiful. In the Cinderella story, I guess she’d be Cinderella and I’d be the horrible stepsister. Kind of homely, kind of scarred, kind of klutzy, kind of socially awkward…kind of a monster.
Okay, not so much on that last bit. I’m not a monster at all. Have I mentioned Ella is a manipulative bitch? Since I was eight years old and our parents married, she’s made my life pretty hellish. She cries at just the right moment and blames crap on me all the time. I mean really, how do people not see this? But no, I’m the one acting out and jealous. What-the-fuck-ever.
I slashed across another day on my planner and slammed it shut. One day closer. I was so out of here come July fifteenth. I was getting a life and they could regret being so terrible to me all these years—especially my dad. He should have known better and been in my corner all this time. He should have known his daughter wasn’t anything like the monster Ella painted me as. But no, he believed Ella was all that and a bag of “the daughter I wish I had.”
“Well, he can have her,” I muttered to myself.
“Talking to yourself again, beast?” Ella taunted from the doorway of my bedroom. “I guess you have to since you’re your only friend. I’m mean who would want to hang out with you. You’re painful to look at.”
And most people got to leave their bullies behind when they entered the safety of their homes. I was never so lucky. No safe haven here.
One more month…
“What do you want?” I asked, not rising to her bait. It almost hurt to restrain myself from lifting a hand to cover the scars on my face. My clothes hid the ones on my right arm, side and leg. But the ones on the right side of my forehead and cheek were always visible. “I know my door was shut, so it must be important.”
“Why are you such a bitch all the time?” she whined.
“Why are you?”
She sniffled—fake—and tears welled in her eyes. “Why are you always so mean to me?” she wailed. “I mean I just wanted to…” She broke off with a tiny melodramatic sob.
Oh for fuck’s sake.
My father appeared at her side, and since he glared at me as he patted her shoulder, he didn’t see the triumphant gleam in her eyes. Again, what-the-fuck-ever. I was over trying to please him—or any of this family.
“Ella just wanted to tell you about the dinner plans for tonight. Why’d you have to go make her cry?”
Why do you have to be so gullible?
“Just lucky I guess. Maybe, I should stay home. You know…since I can’t be trusted to behave.”
“Sometimes, I don’t even recognize you as my daughter.”
Ditto, Dad. Ditto.
I tried to ignore the pain that arrowed through me at that, as well as the tight knot in my throat. My eyes did not sting. They didn’t! I refused to cry like the drama queen over there.
“I’m sure that would make you happy—if your only child was Ella,” I retorted. Could I just leave and go somewhere else for the next month? Somewhere away from these people?
I didn’t want to waste money if I didn’t need to. Thirty days from now, I’d be one-hundred percent on my own. I’d gotten a full-ride scholarship to Michigan State that would cover my classes, books and room and board. I might be a “horrible person,” but no one could fault my grades or my talent with science, specifically my love of biology. I’d presented my genomics work in DC over spring break and won first place. What can I say? What had started out as “How the hell can I belong to this family?” had turned into my lifelong passion. It was my only outlet for escape from the reality of my life.
Th
e people I lived with didn’t even know. They thought I’d been sightseeing in DC and had no ambitions for my life. I didn’t even bother enlightening them. Around here, Cricket was a lazy nerd, and brilliant, beautiful Ella was about to take the world by storm with her fashion designs.
No lie; she was good. I’d give her that. And if I compared her with, say, the boss in The Devil Wears Prada, I’d say she had the perfect temperament for that world, too. But she was going to school on my father’s dime. I couldn’t deny I felt a bit smug about it, too.
“You’re not skipping out on dinner,” my father informed me. “I’ll have important colleagues there. You will be on your best behavior, and maybe, we can get you a job with one of them. You won’t be lying around here doing nothing while your sister is taking classes.”
“No, I won’t be,” I agreed.
“Right,” Ella snorted.
“It’s a little late to get in anywhere. Maybe, I can talk to someone about getting you into the community college.”
I shook my head. “Don’t bother. I have this covered.”
“What are you talking about?”
Just then, my stepmother, Alicia, called and my dad turned his attention down the hall. He glanced back at me for just a moment. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“Sure.”
Ella smirked at me, and they both walked away—leaving my door open. Huffing, I stalked over and shut it, barely reining in the urge to slam it hard. I did flip the lock this time.
Pulling out my phone, I dialed my best friend—because I did have friends, regardless of Ella’s claim.
“Girl, what’s up?” Aldan answered.
“Talk me off the wall.”
“Hell,” he sighed. “What did the bitch-queen do now?”
“Nothing new. But did you know I’m lazy, and I won’t be, and I quote, lying around here doing nothing this fall. I have to go to some dinner tonight and schmooze with my father’s friends in the hope one of them has a job for me.”
“But you’re going to school in the fall.”
“I know, and I’ve told them. They immediately forgot.”
“And you have a job.”
“I’m pretty sure they think I’m getting tutoring at the academy, not giving tutoring.” Five days a week, I worked at one of those places where parents take their kids to get extra help with subjects they’re failing in school or for home schoolers to get teaching in classes outside their parents’ expertise. I’d been there since my sophomore year. Yes, I’m kind a math and science prodigy, and that plays into my whole nerd persona. I know there are smart people who are downright sexy. I’m not one of them.
“How are you so smart, and your family is so…not?”
“They’re smart. They’re just oblivious. Or uninterested. Or something.” My father was brilliant with money, and my stepmother was a fairly renowned surgeon. Plastic surgery but she was good. None of her patients looked like those celeb disaster pics in tabloids. On many levels, they were both good people. Just not to me. To me they were kinda dicks. It was all about outward appearances.
“You want to come stay here?”
I sighed. “I’ve only got a month left.”
“Yeah, and? If it’s shitty there, it’s shitty. Besides, I think you should come stay with your best guy. I’m going to miss the hell out of you while you’re gone.”
“While I’m gone? I’m never coming back.”
He sighed. “I know. You’re going to make me move, aren’t you?”
“You could come visit.”
He snorted. “And have you live without your fairy god-bro? That won’t go well. You need me.”
“What would your girlfriend say?”
“Broke up. She’s pretty sure I’m fucking you.”
“Um…”
“Yeah, I know. I picked my school, by the way.”
Honestly, I couldn’t believe it had taken him this long. We’d graduated, and he hadn’t confirmed where he was going.
“I’m heading to Kendall in Grand Rapids, for graphic arts.”
“Well, no wonder she thinks we’re getting it on. Oh my God, Ald! You’ll only be an hour and a half away.”
Pounding at my bedroom door interrupted me. “Leaving in forty-five, Cricket,” my dad yelled.
“Gotta go,” I said forlornly.
“Yeah, I heard. Think about staying here, okay? We could even leave for school early. Road trip it. Discover the wilds of Michigan before we settle in to our places.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Hey, Crick, can I tell you something?”
“What?” I laughed. He ended a lot of our conversations with his final tell you something.
“I know you won’t believe me, and I’m saying this completely platonically: You’re gorgeous—prettier than Ella, though you’ll never believe it. Knock them dead tonight.”
Then he hung up before I could respond.
Chapter Two
~ Brix ~
“And when my fashion line comes out…”
Trying not to sigh, I tuned out the blonde chattering beside me as I sipped my champagne and surveyed the ballroom. The blonde—Ella something—was the daughter of a colleague, and while she was pretty enough, I had no interest in her. Her father had dumped her here beside me then gone off with the promise to be right back—over a half hour ago.
I’m not dumb—you didn’t get to be a billionaire by being stupid—and I knew exactly what he was up to. Leave this girl here with me long enough, and I’d miraculously fall in love with her. A match made in the boardroom and all that.
Not interested.
My grandfather might be strong-arming me into settling down, but I wasn’t going for it. Someday, I’d meet my one—or I wouldn’t. But I wasn’t rushing into anything. Even if my granddad had wanted to hold leadership of our conglomerate over my head—which he wasn’t—it wouldn’t sway me. Hell, I could stop working today and have enough to support the several generations of Brixtons who might or might not come after me—if I ever met The One. Blondie here wasn’t her.
Her hand landed lightly on my coat sleeve as she went on about something-something-design-brand-name-something, and I nodded, smiling faintly and nonchalantly pulling my arm from her grasp. I didn’t want to be rude and desert her, but if her father didn’t return soon, she might find herself standing alone.
She leaned in to me, her hand going to my arm again. I turned to tell her to stop touching me, just as a flash went off. Before I could demand the photo be deleted, the photographer disappeared into the throngs of people around us. Well, fucking great! Now, my picture would be in the rags, accompanied by a write-up, rife with false speculations.
“Ms. Markawicz, please keep your hands off me,” I grated through my teeth.
She laughed and, ignoring my request, patted my bicep through my suit jacket. “Oh, Brix, Markawicz is my stepfather’s name. I’m a Conway.”
Whatever.
She gave a little squeeze. I stepped away, and she followed. Apparently, she didn’t believe in personal space.
“I’m afraid I see some people over there I need to speak with. Alone,” I told her. “I trust you can find your way back to your father? Have a good evening.”
Without waiting, I took off, thankful there was no way she’d be able to match my long strides and fast pace. While it might seem as if I were afraid of the little thing, mostly, I had no interest in being caught in whatever plot she and her stepfather had going. I’m sure it was innocuous, but plenty of men in my position found themselves in scandals over nothing. I didn’t plan to be one.
More and more, I thought I should have left after dinner and not stayed around for the rest of the dancing and networking.
Stepping out onto the mostly deserted terrace, I pulled out my cell phone to do damage control.
“Brix, aren’t you supposed to be at a party?” my publicist, Charlotte, answered.
I cut to the chase. “Need you to run some interf
erence. Find out what photographers had access to this event and block a photo of me with a Ms. Ella Markawicz.”
“Conway. Ella Conway,” a small, melodious voice corrected from the shadows.
I peered that way, seeing only a tall, curvy figure but no other indication to the identity of the speaker. “Charlotte, correction. It’s a photo of me and a Ms. Ella Conway.”
“You sure? It might get your grandfather off your back about you getting married. At least for a little while. I swear that man wants great-grandchildren more than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“True. Still, I don’t want that rumor out there. Thanks for taking care of this.” Hanging up, I turned to the shadows. “Hello?” I called to the girl hidden there. I hadn’t even seen her, and everything in me demanded to see the female who’d brought my entire being to attention with just a few words.
“Hi,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. You just seemed pretty determined. I figured you’d be more successful with the right name.”
“And you are?” I asked, needing to know.
“Staying out of the way until it’s time to leave.”
“You don’t want to be here?”
She blew out a derisive breath. “I want to be here about as much as I’d like to swim with man-eating sharks—which by the way, isn’t at all, in case you were confused.”
“So why are you here?”
“Coercion. You don’t seem much like you want to be here, either. So why are you here?”
God, I wished I could see her, but there was something about speaking to her while she hid in the shadows. It intrigued me.
“Coercion,” I replied, smirking as I echoed her.
“Family?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Mine, too. I’m supposed to be mingling in the hope of getting a job.”
“Yes, well, I’m supposed to be mingling to find a bride,” I grumbled, unsure why I’d confessed that. God knew, if the females around here knew of my quest, I’d be screwed.
Getting hitched wasn’t an imperative. My career didn’t hinge on it. But being alone and a target for all the single woman in Manhattan was tiresome. I wanted to find my one, not just anyone. My grandfather assured me I’d know her when I saw her, but I was beginning to lose heart. No one appealed to me, and I wasn’t interested in a quick fuck, either.