by Julie Kriss
Bad Billionaire
Julie Kriss
Contents
Also by Julie Kriss
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
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Copyright © 2016 by Julie Kriss
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Join Julie’s newsletter list for cover reveals, sneak peeks, giveaways, and new release news!
Also by Julie Kriss
Bad Boyfriend: A Bad Boy Romance
Bad Wedding: A Bad Boy Romance
Break Me: A Stepbrother Romance
Play Hard: A Stepbrother Romance
Bad Billionaires, Book 2:
Dirty Sweet Wild
Chapter 1
Olivia
Of course it had to rain the night my car broke down. What was it they said about San Francisco weather? If you don’t like it, wait a few minutes and it’ll turn into freezing cold, wet rain ruining your night? Or maybe that was just me.
Still, after getting home from work downtown, changing at the speed of light, and gathering my art supplies, I’d had to take the bus to art class. Hardly anyone had shown up—it was just a ‘continuing education for adults’ thing, and most of my classmates were hobbyists—and we’d spent two hours doing watercolors, which I hated. Now I was standing at the bus stop in the dark and the icy rain, my sketchbook clutched to my chest, the watercolors on the pages probably soaked and running. I sighed and stared hopelessly down the darkened street, trying to glimpse a bus.
It was my own fault. What was I doing taking an art class, anyway? I had a good job—or it would be a good job, once I moved up the ladder—as a junior graphic designer at an ad agency. I didn’t make much, but it was enough to pay my bills. I just had to keep my eye on the goal so I could move up to a senior position and forget about being an artist. I’d been down this road before, and it had gone down in flames. When was I going to learn?
I tucked myself beneath an overhang as the rain came down harder. I had to get home and fall into bed so I could get up and go to work early tomorrow. I didn’t technically have to go in early, and they wouldn’t pay me for it, but it was a good way to impress my bosses for the next time there was a promotion on the table.
I had no hope of affording a place downtown, where I worked, so here I was in the south end of San Fran. Luckily for my tiny paycheck, I’d found a small apartment in an old 1960s complex called Shady Oaks, which boasted low rent, a nowhere location, a complete lack of upkeep for the past fifty years, and a dried-out pool. Shady Oaks, for all its grotty ugliness, was the best thing about living in San Francisco. Because along with the water stains and the iffy management, it also featured the hottest guy I’d ever seen living across the way.
My sexy neighbor was an accident. Honestly. Shady Oaks was built in a square around an inner courtyard, featuring the mentioned dried-out pool, with the doors and walkways outside instead of in—kind of like a motel. It was with pure surprise that I’d looked out my window the first night I moved in and saw Mr. Hot Dark and Handsome walking up the stairs and along the open corridor to his place across the way. Dark hair, worn just a little long and tousled. Big, tall body that moved like liquid mercury. Black shirt that stretched across his shoulders and worn jeans that lovingly cupped his ass. Work boots. Stubble. Cue Olivia, standing in her dark window, practically drooling, watching him walk.
I don’t normally do that—stare at guys all pathetic and forlorn. I was used to artsy guys. Beanies, soul patches, corduroy pants. Their idea of a date was to smoke some weed and take you to an art gallery while politely hoping for a blow job later. Mr. Hot Dark and Handsome was not, in any way, an artsy guy. He looked like his idea of a date was to give you a few shots of tequila, throw you down in his back seat, and give you anal. He was unlike any guy I’d ever had anything to do with, which somehow made it insanely hot. And from my window, I had a perfect view of him. For two months and counting.
I wasn’t stalking him—I didn’t even know his name. You just can’t help seeing someone often when they live across from you, you know? Especially if you look out the window a lot. So I had learned a few things about him: 1 – He had a tattoo on the back of his left hand that I hadn’t seen up close. 2 – He never had a woman over that I could see. 3 – He kept regular hours, so he must have a job somewhere, though occasionally he was gone at night. 4 – He drove an old Chevy that he parked in the crappy gravel lot right next to my semi-functioning Civic. 5 – He kept to himself and didn’t talk, so I didn’t know what his voice sounded like. 6 – I’d sketched him exactly sixteen times. 7 – He knew what I looked like, too.
It happened when he saw me get out of my car, on one of the days it was actually working. I’d come home from work, and when I hauled my junk out of the car and turned around, there he was. Mr. HDH—Hot Dark and Handsome, getting out of his own car and looking at me. I was still wearing my office clothes, which were now wrinkled, and I’d tied my hair back and mostly lost the day’s makeup. Up close, in daylight, I saw that he had amazing dark green eyes beneath the slashes of his brows, watching me with brooding intensity. I was so startled I barked out a quick “Hi” and nearly ran up the stairs to my corridor and my door. I didn’t look back, but I felt him watch me the whole way.
I’d run into him since then, once almost literally—I came around the corner of my corridor, heading for the stairs to the parking lot, and nearly bumped straight into his chest. I stepped back and looked up to find those green eyes watching me again. He had a great chest. An awesome chest, from what I could see. I was wearing a cotton skirt and a t-shirt under a hoodie that time, because it was Saturday, and for a brief minute I wished I was a sexy siren type like my sister Gwen, instead of a twenty-five-year-old office nobody who had flunked out of art school.
Mr. HDH didn’t seem to mind. His gaze flicked over me, checking me out in a way that was quick, thorough, and unmistakably male. Then he gave me the ghost of a smile and went on his way.
I should have been offended. But all I could think was: My hot neighbor just checked me out, and he liked what he saw. The quick, dirty smile told me that. I could tell an appreciative look when I saw one. I’d floated a little for the rest of the day, cotton skirt and hoodie and all.
It was exciting, but none of it changed my life. I still went to work every day, then came home and secretly worked on my drawings and my art projects at night. I called my mother and my sister. I went to art class. I read books. I didn’t date. And I often watched out my window in the dark, looking for Mr. Hot Dark and Handsome so I could sketch him yet again.
My sketchbooks were definitely getting wet in the rain. I had them tucked tightly in my arms, but the rain was blowing its cold drops everywhere. The
wind blew back the hood of my rain coat and sent water down my neck, into my eyes. It was dark, and I was the only one at the bus stop. Apparently the handful of other people who came to art class all had working cars, or at least rides. Or money for cabs. None of which I had. Where the hell was the bus? Should I pull out my phone and check if it was even coming?
A car pulled up in front of the bus stop and slowed to a halt, breaking into my musings. My heart sped up double-time in my chest. Even in the dark, in the rain, I recognized that car.
The passenger window powered down, and the face of a man appeared, leaning over the passenger seat. A familiar face with high cheekbones, a scruff of dark beard, and eyes that seemed to look right through me.
“Hey there,” my sexy neighbor said. “Need a ride?”
Chapter 2
Olivia
I hesitated. Sure, in my mind I felt like I knew him. But I didn’t know him. I didn’t even know his name. And I was a lone woman at night in a strange city, being asked to get into a dark car.
He seemed to wait, understanding. A car behind him honked, and I took a step forward, my foot splashing into the wet gutter. I leaned in to the open passenger window, trying to juggle my notebooks and not let them fall. I reached out a hand to grip the door. Great—now I looked like a prostitute picking up a client.
“I, um…” I said, and then I stopped.
His hand was resting on the wheel. His left hand. I could see the silver of a watch peeking from his sleeve, and beneath that the ink on his skin, the tattoo he carried on his hand. It was intricate, elaborate, a tangle of elegant lines. And across the top of his hand, just beyond the knuckles, two words were scripted.
No Time.
I’d glimpsed his tattoo, but I’d never been close enough to read it. Now I could, and it stopped me dead. What did No Time mean? What was so important about it that he’d had it inked onto his skin? Who did he think had no time? Him? Why?
I tore my gaze from his hand and raised it to his face. He was watching me from those dark, unfathomable green eyes. He quirked an eyebrow as I watched. “You wanna get wet?” he asked.
My jaw dropped. “What?”
Now a smile touched the corner of his mouth. “You’re getting wet,” he explained. “Is that what you want? If it is, I’ll keep driving.”
His voice, it turned out, was like dark chocolate. Maybe it was the tattoo that decided it. Maybe it was the smile. Maybe it was the fact that I was getting wet. But I opened the passenger door and slid inside.
It was warm and dry. It was a spacious car, like they used to make them, and the seats were refurbished, as comfortable as sofa cushions. I dropped my art pads in my lap as Mr. HDH—I needed to stop thinking of him like that—powered the window up, and I watched the wet night roll by as he drove away.
It smelled good in here. Warm and sort of masculine. I wondered if it was him, and my body relaxed while my heart accelerated into my throat. I opened my mouth to introduce myself but he spoke first.
“I thought you had a car,” he said.
So he’d noticed. “It wouldn’t start,” I said.
“Did it make a noise when you tried?” he asked. The vibration of his voice made my insides shake. “Or just nothing?”
Why was he asking me this? “Um, it made a noise,” I replied. I held out my hand. “I’m Olivia.”
He frowned for a second, looking ahead through the windshield, then lifted his right hand—the one without the tattoo—off the wheel. “Devon,” he said, and shook my hand.
Oh, hell. That hand. It was big and warm, the skin sliding over mine. I felt a shiver when it brushed the base of my palm, right above where my pulse beat. “Nice to meet you,” I managed.
“I’ll fix your car,” he said, letting my hand go and putting his back on the wheel. “I’m a mechanic.”
I clenched my fingers once before I realized what he’d said. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Sure I do,” he said. “You think I’m going to abandon a woman to taking the bus every day?”
“There’s good transit in San Francisco.”
For some reason, that made him laugh quietly. “I’m still fixing your car.”
I had to say it. “I can’t pay you.”
“Then don’t.” He signaled and made a turn. “You take an art class?”
I looked down at my sketchbooks, which must have given it away. “I do. It’s continuing education, but I like it.”
“You an artist?”
I ran my thumb along the edge of my book. “I’m a graphic designer at an ad agency.” Junior graphic designer.
“But also an artist.”
“When I’m not being a graphic designer, I suppose. Do you do anything other than being a mechanic?”
“I drive,” he said.
I stared at him, wondering if he was joking. “Drive what?”
“Whatever needs driving,” he said. “Sometimes it’s goods. Sometimes it’s a person. I take it where it needs to go.”
“I don’t follow,” I said, confused. “Like an Uber?”
That made him laugh again, but he wasn’t laughing at me. He seemed to be laughing more at himself. “Maybe a little like an Uber,” he said, “but a fuck of a lot more shady.”
I wondered if that was the reason he was gone at night sometimes. I’d wondered if he had gone to see a woman. “What exactly do you drive, then?”
Devon shrugged. “If someone pays me, I don’t ask.”
“Dead bodies?”
“No.” He completely killed the reassurance of this statement by adding, “Not yet.”
Oh, my god. My sexy neighbor was some kind of gangster. “Why are you telling me this?” I asked him. “I could be a cop.”
The look he gave me was wry, taking in my bedraggled hair and my wet notebooks. “I don’t think you’re a cop.”
“Fine. But maybe my dad is a cop.” He wasn’t; he’d been a washed-up actor, like my mom. “Maybe my boyfriend is a cop.”
“You don’t have a boyfriend,” Devon said. “Unless he’s invisible.”
My jaw dropped. He’d been watching me? I hadn’t noticed. I tried to summon some outrage, but I’d been watching him, too. I’d been drawing him. “Maybe it’s a long-distance relationship,” I argued, unwilling to admit that he somehow already knew everything about me.
“Maybe,” he said. “So we’ve been talking for ten minutes, and I’ve already admitted I’m a criminal and you’ve admitted you have cyber sex.”
“I do not have cyber sex,” I nearly shouted, shocked. The corner of his mouth twitched. Since he’d been so blunt, I tried shocking him in return. “Well, I never see women coming and going from your place, so maybe it’s you that does the internet sex thing.”
“I don’t have internet sex.” His voice was low, gruff. “I have the old-fashioned, one-handed kind. Alone.”
The silence was deafening.
“You’re the strangest person I’ve ever met,” I said.
“Likewise.” He made a turn, the car slowed, and I realized we were in the parking lot of Shady Oaks. He turned off the engine, and we could hear the rain beating on the roof of the car, spattering on the windshield. I felt off-balance, but I also felt electric, like I’d just woken up. I didn’t exactly trust the man next to me, yet I didn’t get out of the car. I didn’t quite want the ride to be over yet.
And there was no ignoring the warm, persistent pulse I felt between my legs.
He didn’t seem in a hurry either. But he put out his hand, palm up, and said, “Give me your car key.”
“You don’t—”
“Give me your key, Olivia.”
The sound of my name in his mouth made the pulse beat harder. I looked at his face in the shadows and I was greedy. I didn’t care about drugs or dead bodies. I wanted to know everything, everything.
He held his hand out, waiting.
“Why do you have No Time tattooed on your hand?” I asked him.
“I’ll tell
you after I fix your car.”
Damn. Blackmail. “How do I know you won’t use my car to stash drugs? Or commit a crime?”
“Because I promise not to.”
“Say it,” I said, trying to stretch time, trying to get just one more minute.
He sighed, and I saw his green eyes flash with irritation. “I promise I won’t use your car to stash drugs or commit a crime,” he said.
Oh, God. I had the crazy impulse to lean over and kiss him.
To cover it, I reached into my pocket and fumbled out my keys, sliding my car key off the key ring. I held it out to him. “It’s—”
“I know which one it is.” He took it from me, his fingers sliding over mine—deliberately, I thought. I tried not to show the shiver that went down my body. “Good night, Olivia.”
Belatedly, I remembered my manners. “Thank you,” I said. “For the ride.”
“Anytime.”
I grabbed the handle, opened the door, and got out of the car. I pulled my books to my chest and made a dash through the rain to the outside steps of Shady Oaks. I didn’t stop until I was under the overhang, ready to climb the steps to my apartment.
He should have gotten out, too. He lived in the same building, after all.
But when I turned and looked back, he was still sitting in the car, watching me. Just like I knew he would be.
Chapter 3
Devon
All my life, I’ve been dirty.
I was born dirty, in a rundown apartment, to two people with no money who hated each other. My brother and I ran wild on the streets of LA like stray cats, and we grew from dirty kids into dirty teenagers. I got my first car at sixteen, a used Datsun with half the floor rusted out, and I stole the money to get it.
I drove the Datsun until it wouldn’t go anymore, and then I got an ancient Chevy that looked like it had been junked from a 90’s TV show. I could drive that car over LA’s freeways better than just about any new car, and I never got tired of doing it. It was the only talent I had. While other guys my age were going to college and learning to be bankers and doctors and lawyers, I was becoming what you’d call a skilled driver. It was a profitable skill, if you knew who to sell it to.
