by Tessa Blake
Taken By Him
The Billionaire Black Sheep: Episode 2 - ADVANCE READER COPY
Tessa Blake
Happy Ever AFter
© 2019 Tessa Blake
Happy Ever After, September 2019
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, institutions, news anchors, or bad boy billionaires is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
1. Miles
2. Brigitte
3. Miles
4. Miles
5. Miles
6. Brigitte
7. Miles
8. Brigitte
9. Brigitte
10. Brigitte
What’s Next?
About the Author
1
Miles
I hail a cab on Rivington and give the driver Rafe’s address. It’s been a hell of a day, and I really just want about a gallon of water and eight hours of sleep, but I need to fill him in on my exchange with Brigitte.
The verbal one, that is. I think I’ll just keep the rest of what we exchanged to myself for now.
Then—unless he’s got some other fucking mess for me to clean up or problem for me to manage—I can head back to the Baccarat.
And jack off on their expensive sheets.
I can’t believe I said that to her. I may not have my brother’s preternatural facility with women, but I’m generally a little more fucking smooth than that. But she rendered me insensible. I look out the window as we cruise uptown, thinking about the way she tasted, the way her body felt against mine.
I honestly think I could have convinced her to let me in. She wanted to, deep down, no matter how much she might have convinced herself she didn’t.
But she’d also been drinking. Not a ton … but enough. Just enough that I wouldn’t have been able to look at myself tomorrow.
At Rafe’s, I pay the cabbie and stand, just looking at the building, as he drives off. They call this stretch of Fifth Avenue ”Millionaire’s Row”—Central Park views don’t come cheap, after all. My brother is comfortable in this place. He belongs here.
I don’t. I honestly never have. My parents gave me an apartment in a building one block south of here when I graduated from college; I sold it not long after, and used the money to move to California. It was the right choice. And I’ve built something there, something that matters. Something that will outlive me.
I didn’t feel the need to slap my last name on it, either.
I head inside and nod to the doorman. He picks up the building phone as I cross to the elevators, and when I get to the 15th floor, Rafe is standing at his open door.
He looks like hell, with bags under his eyes that you could smuggle drugs in and his hair sticking up all over as if he’s been raking his fingers through it. I’m not sure what he’s been up to since we parted ways at the warehouse this afternoon, but I’m going to guess it involved a lot of wallowing in self-pity and the liberal application of alcohol.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” he says. The sibilants are just slushy enough to tell me that he’s set his feet firmly on the path to drunk.
“Just wanted to catch you up on my evening.” I move past him, down the hall into his living room, and take in the pizza going cold on the coffee table, the empty bottle of Scotch. The television is blaring; onscreen, some idiot in a tight black t-shirt is talking about … the ghost of a prostitute? What?
Rafe heads over to the bar and pulls another bottle of Scotch from the cabinet underneath. “You want?” he asks, waving it in my general direction.
“I would actually like some water,” I say, still trying to make sense of the television. “What are you watching?”
“Ghost Adventures.” He pulls a bottle of water out of the minifridge. “I’m out of ice.”
“That’s fine. Ghost Adventures?”
“It’s … never mind. It’s stupid.”
“I can see that.”
He uses the remote to turn it off. “So what did you want to catch me up on?”
“I just spent the evening with Brigitte.”
I sit on the couch and open my bottle of water. He takes a seat in one of the enormous overstuffed chairs, looking at me quizzically.
“You mean Ainsley’s friend?”
“No, Brigitte Bardot,” I say. “Of course I mean Ainsley’s friend.”
“But why? We talked about this—”
“Yeah, we talked about this at the warehouse, and you said not to worry about it. But I had to ask myself, is Rafe right about this?” I put my feet up on the coffee table and drink some water. “I mean, is Rafe really firing on all cylinders right now?”
“Of course I am.”
“Or is he too busy living in an Elliott Smith song, moping around waiting for a girl to call him and mend his broken heart?”
“Fuck off,” he says, but there’s no fire in it.
“I assume, from this scene I’ve stumbled on, that she hasn’t called.”
“She’s not going to call.”
Brigitte seems quite certain that she will, but I’m keeping entirely out of this. She will or she won’t, and giving him hope—false or warranted—isn’t going to change anything, and could possibly make things worse. I keep my lips zipped on that one.
“Maybe she will, maybe she won’t. But whether she does or not, I figured someone needed to get a sense of what sort of shape they’re in, mentally, after last night.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I wanted to talk to her. Make sure she knows how to keep her mouth shut—and that she should.”
I think about Brigitte’s mouth, then push the thought away.
“I don’t want her telling Ainsley you threatened her—”
“Well, for one thing, I didn’t threaten her.” I sit up, set my water on the table, and turn to face him. “And as for whatever’s going on with you and Ainsley, I actually don’t care about that. You can spend all your energy thinking about your girlfriend if you want, but if you’re gonna do that, someone has to think about keeping you out of fucking jail.”
He raises his hands, palms out, and nods. “Sorry. You’re right. What did she say?”
“That she would keep her mouth shut.”
“Did you believe her?”
“You know, I did.” I shrug. “I’ve been wrong about people before, but she seems solid. She really cares about Ainsley, and she’s pretty sure hurting you would hurt Ainsley, which she obviously would never do.”
“I don’t think Ainsley cares one way or the other,” he says bleakly.
“That’s between you two.” I am absolutely not going to sit here and nurse my brother’s broken heart. And honestly, when he sobers up, he wouldn’t thank me for having done so. Some things a guy just has to go through alone. “What I can say is, I don’t think either of them plans to run to the cops, and that’s my part of the situation handled, as far as I’m concerned.”
“So what now?
Back to Malibu?” He doesn’t exactly sneer it, but it’s clear Rafe still considers my life—well, the life he thinks I have—beneath him.
I shrug again, and stand to leave. “I think I’ll probably stick a few more days, just in case something else goes sideways. Then, yeah, back to the beach, I guess.” And, of course, I’ve got that date with Brigitte tomorrow.
But I don’t mention that. That’s not for him, not yet.
As I close Rafe’s door behind me, I think about her mouth again, the way it sighed open against mine. Think about the way every curve of her body molded to mine like she was made for me.
Yeah. That’s not for anyone but me to think about.
And thinking about it is exactly what I plan to do, all the way back to the Baccarat, where—let’s be honest—I will absolutely be jacking off on their expensive sheets.
2
Brigitte
I need a haircut.
I mean, not right this minute, because Miles is supposed to show up for our date—my God, how do I have a date with Miles Garrett?—in twenty minutes. But, like … soon.
I should have never let it get this long. This is the first time since grade school that I’ve had really long hair. I decided to try it because I thought it might fall down my back like a sheet of black silk the way freakin’ Ainsley’s does—but nope. Where she has this gorgeous waterfall of sleek hair, I look like I just got back from Woodstock. There’s a subtle but very real difference.
So here I stand, scowling into the mirror, with a head covered in giant, violently pink hot rollers under a plastic cap. I look like a 50s sitcom housewife woken in the night for some hilarious reason that’s sure to send the laugh track into hysteria. My entire wardrobe is spread out on the bed behind me. I mean, the whole thing. I’ve tried on everything in my closet, and half of it I’ve tried on twice.
The thing is, I don’t really know what to wear. I don’t know where we’re going, for one; for two, I don’t know what he’s wearing. Both of those things matter.
I mean, you could assume someplace insanely expensive—hello, literal billionaire—but Miles doesn’t seem the type. Rafe’s got that wretched excess thing down to an art, with his casual drop-ins at Per Se and whatever, but I can’t imagine Miles doing that.
Although, he did name-check the Baccarat last night.
Just thinking about that gives me a shiver. Not gonna lie, that visual he left me with gave me a couple of sleepless hours.
And none of this is getting me dressed, with only fifteen minutes left. I have to pick something.
I settle on one step above casual, but very expensive. That ought to work just about anywhere. That decision alone eliminates half my clothes, so that’s good. I grab a sleeveless black cashmere sweater and pull it on over my head, trying not to disturb the hot rollers. It’s D&G—bought on clearance, because fuck paying six hundred dollars for a freaking sweater—fits me like a glove, and it might be the softest piece of clothing I own. I pair it with stretchy, cropped Armani pants in stoplight-red.
I nod at myself in the mirror. He wants killer curves? Well, he’ll get them.
I wish Ainsley were here; she’d just know if this was right. It’s part of why her cover as a fashion reporter works so well—she looks like a fashion reporter. Frankly, she looks like a model.
But I haven’t heard a peep from Ainsley since I woke up this morning to a text from her: Rafe knows, everything is fine, catch up soon. Probably been shagging nonstop all day.
Unlike some people who haven’t been shagged at all, let alone all day, for longer than they care to think about.
And by they, I mean me.
Ah, well. It’ll be a while longer. Miles has a bit to go before he meets the three-date requirement.
I choose some sparkly diamond studs for my ears, do a few minor repairs to my makeup, and head for the bathroom to pull out the rollers. As I pass the bed, I stop. I should make the bed.
Why? my brain taunts me. Who’s going to see it?
Nobody, that’s who. Three dates. That’s the rule.
Except … under my clothes I’m wearing a matching pushup-bra-and-panties set in candy-apple-red satin and lace. I didn’t put those on for me, did I?
I take a minute to make the bed, telling myself I just want to be tidy, then go to deal with the rollers.
I’m just finger-combing my hair to jumble the curls all together so it looks like my hair just does this naturally—Lord, the things we go through to look like we didn’t even try—when there’s a knock on the door.
I’m going to have to chat with my neighbors about not letting strangers in the building.
I open the door and have to intentionally stop my jaw from dropping.
Holy shit.
Okay, Miles is handsome. I wasn’t exactly paying attention the first night we met. I mean, I noticed—I have eyeballs, don’t I?—but we were in a bit of a situation. I sure as hell noticed last night, though. He’s got this jaw, and this smile, and… ugh, he’s got everything. And even in jeans and a long-sleeved tee—and that stupid vest—I could tell there was a hell of a body under there.
But at the moment, he’s wearing a deep green silk button-up shirt that makes his eyes look incredibly blue, and that I can tell is custom-fitted just by looking at it. Black pants—I’m not as good as Ainsley is at eyeballing labels, but they definitely did not come from the Gap. Nice shoes. No stupid vest in sight. He’s been a bit scruffy till now; tonight his hair is combed up and to the side a little, showing off the streaks where the sun has bleached it, and his facial hair has been trimmed short. It’s a good look for him. Very good.
“Hey,” he says. His eyes sweep over me from head to toe, then back up, and when his gaze meets mine, it’s clear he’s pleased with what he saw.
Good.
“Hey, yourself,” I say. “You look really nice.”
“You look…” His eyes roam over me again, then: “Incredible. Absolutely incredible.”
How am I supposed to reply to that? Rather than try, I step out into the hall and turn around to lock the door instead.
Downstairs, I pull my phone out of my purse. “Want me to get an Uber?”
“We’re not going far,” he says, and eyes me as I put my phone away. “No back pocket?”
“Huh?” I almost turn to look at my own ass, but stop myself. I know what my pants look like. “I have pockets, yeah. Why?”
“Never mind.”
He takes my hand in his, and we cross the street like that, heading down Orchard. His fingers curl around mine loosely, casually. Like we do this every day. I want to smile—I mean, I actually have to fight back a giant smile. Why?
“Where are we going?”
He stops and smiles at me, reaching for the door right beside him. “Here, actually. You said Wildair for date nights, right?”
“I guess I did.”
Inside, it’s packed as always. There are no seats at the bar, and only a couple of single seats left at the row of two- and four-tops pushed together into a long communal table. I wonder if we should ask someone to switch seats, to free up two seats next to each other, but before I can ask Miles what he thinks, a slender man with long blond hair in a ponytail crosses the room quickly and reaches out to shake Miles’s hand.
“Mr. Garrett,” he says. “We’re so pleased to have you visit. Please—” He gestures to a small two-top they’ve pulled away from the longer tables and tucked in a corner near the front windows. “As you requested.”
Miles palms him a folded bill, and we take our seats.
“You didn’t need to bribe him to get in,” I say.
“I didn’t bribe him to get in.” He smiles at me across the table. “I bribed him to hold a table where I wouldn’t have to share you.”
“Share me with whom?”
“Anyone.” He leans across the table and lays his hand over mine, drops his voice. “Every man in this place turned to look when you came in. They haven’t stopped looking.”
“That’s not true.” I have an almost irresistible urge to look around, see if he’s right, but I stifle it. “I’m sure no one even noticed.”
His fingers trace tiny patterns on the back of my hand. “They noticed,” he says. “The guys at Max Fish noticed. I’m guessing wherever you go, guys notice.”
“I assure you, that’s not true.”
“And I assure you, I happen to be a guy, and I know what I’m talking about.” His fingers slide upward, circle loosely around my wrist. “Especially when you’re wearing the tightest sweater in the known universe, and painted-on pants that could stop traffic.”
“Miles—”
“Hush. I’m going to say this once, and then we’re going to put it away for a couple of hours.” His gaze is intense. “You know what I want. I’ve been up-front about it.”
“Okay.”
“Tonight, I’m taking you to dinner. No strings. What happens after is up to you.”
“So we’ve established.”
“And that’s fine with me. Either way you go with it, it’s fine.” He lets go of my hand. “But if you put those clothes on with any other intent than to make me crazy, I’ll eat this napkin.”
“You said you wanted curves.”
“I did. I do. But you wouldn’t have given me what I wanted if you weren’t interested. You know it, and so do I.”
I think about making my bed, think about the red satin and lace beneath my clothes. My face gets hot.
He’s right; I do know it. And so does he.
3
Miles
Before Brigitte can reply, a server—cute, blond, with a short asymmetrical haircut—bustles over with a tall bottle of water. “Is this your first visit?” she asks as she pours.
