The Big, Bad Billionaire

by Ashenden, Jackie

  Her mouth opened on a little sigh, color creeping into her cheeks. “Oh, I see. You have a bit of a situation.”

  He gave her a grin. “Is that that what the kids are calling it these days?”

  Ella blushed and looked down, her mouth curving in another delicious smile, making him want to bend his head and taste it for himself.

  “Oh no,” he said softly. “No embarrassment this morning, surely? Not after last night.”

  She glanced up at him from beneath her lashes. “Hey, this is new for me. First time I’ve ever woken up with a guy after . . . well, you know.”

  “A night of hot fucking?”

  Her gaze narrowed. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

  Oh, was she mimicking him? Certainly sounded like it. Minx.

  He laughed and ran a hand down her side, coming to rest on her hip, gripping her lightly. “I don’t know what the kids are calling it, but that’s certainly what I call it. In fact, while we’re on the subject . . .” He flexed again, sliding his cock against her, loving the slick feel of her flesh against his.

  She gave a shiver, her hands spreading out on his chest. “Sure, but there’s actually a question I want to ask you.”

  A question. Shit. He didn’t know if he liked the sound of that. “What question?”

  She glanced up at him again, gray glinting underneath gold lashes. “You told me yesterday that you came to all my performances. Every one. Since I was sixteen. I just . . . wanted to know why. And I mean the real reason, not just because you like ballet. Why did you come to see me?”

  He didn’t miss the emphasis. “Why you, you mean?”

  “Yes.” Her thumbs stroked over his skin, the effect oddly calming. “What did you see, Rafe? What did you see when you watched me?”

  He hadn’t liked the question when she’d asked him the day before in the limo and he didn’t like it any better now. Because the truth would mean revealing too much of what he wanted—needed—to keep hidden.

  “Why do you want to know?” He was prevaricating yes, but still. He’d like to know the answer.

  “Because it’s important to me.”

  He didn’t want to tell her, didn’t want to expose himself like that. It would be better to lie. Then again a lie didn’t feel right. Not now, not here. Not with her naked in his arms. And especially not after last night.

  Fuck. It was going to have to be the truth.

  For some reason he found he couldn’t look her in the eye, easier to focus on the pale silky skin of her shoulder, left bare where the blanket had slipped from it. Moving his hand from her hip, he trailed his fingers lightly over her collarbones before caressing the curve of that shoulder. “When you were small, you were the only person who wasn’t afraid of me,” he began. “Every time your parents visited and brought you with them, you’d run to find me and put up your little arms, wanting to be picked up. I never knew why that was. Why a little two-year-old wasn’t frightened when just about everyone else was. But . . . I liked it. It made me feel good. Made me feel like I wasn’t . . . as broken as my family thought I was.”

  Ella said nothing, but he could tell she was looking at him. He kept his gaze on her shoulder, tracing circles on her skin with a fingertip.

  “I had difficulty controlling my emotions, that was the problem. I got angry very easily and when I got older, I got more violent with it. I’m not sure what kind of condition it was—Dad refused to acknowledge it was a problem so I was never diagnosed, but I do know it affected my little brother Xavier to a certain extent as well.” He drew another circle that curved over her upper arm. “Anyway, my moods made people afraid, but you never were. You just seemed to like me and since you were about the only person who did, I liked seeing you.”

  Her thumbs moved across his chest, stroking his skin, and part of him wanted her to stop and part of him wanted her to keep touching him forever, because he could remember the last time someone had touched him with such gentleness.

  “Then I had a meltdown on my fourteenth birthday,” he went on. “I can’t even remember why. I got angry, threw some chairs, punched a wall. You were there and started crying, and your parents thought I’d hurt you. Of course, I’d have slit my own throat before I’d have done anything like that to you, but they didn’t know that. They told me I couldn’t see you again, which only made things worse.”

  Her caressing fingers paused. “I don’t remember.” She sounded almost angry about it. “I don’t remember a thing.”

  “You were so small. Not much older than two, so there’s no reason that you’d remember.”

  “I want to though.”

  Again he felt the pressure of her gaze, but he didn’t meet it. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I was sent to live with my grandfather not long after that.”

  “Why?”

  He gave a short laugh. “Because my father was sick of having to deal with me. He didn’t have the time to manage me, and my mother was emotionally fragile and couldn’t. So they sent me to someone who had the time and who was strong enough to fix me.” No, he wasn’t bitter about that. Bitterness was something else his grandfather had taught him was an unnecessary emotion. Only action counted.

  There was another brief silence.

  “Fix you?” She sounded puzzled. “Because you got angry a lot?”

  “I was unmanageable.” His tone had become shorter and he let it. He didn’t really want to talk about this. “Having one of your sons punch holes in walls and scare small children isn’t quite what being a de Santis is all about. Anyway, do you want to hear about why I watch you dance or not?”

  The soft movements of her fingers on his skin resumed. “Go on.”

  “My grandfather taught me how to manage myself, and by the time I came back to New York, I was better. It had been a few years, and I wanted to see you. Wanted to see how you’d grown and if you remembered me. But every time I asked about visiting you, I was given all kinds of reasons why you weren’t able to see me. I let it go then. You were a kid and I had other things to think about.” Such as laying the groundwork for his father’s eventual fall. “But I never forgot about you. It wasn’t until your parents died that I met you again and . . .” He stopped, for some reason finding it hard to say. It had been a long time ago, that moment when he’d first laid eyes on her after all those years. Hoping for that smile, the way her face had lit up whenever she’d seen him. Yet there had been nothing in her face this time but fear. He’d told himself that it hadn’t hurt. Except it had. Terribly.

  “I was scared of you,” she finished for him.

  “Yes. You were.” He drew his thumb across the curve of her shoulder, concentrating on the feel of her satiny skin. “And nothing I could do or say made any difference. So I left you alone. Until I came with Dad to one of your performances. And I saw you on stage and you were . . . amazing. You had the same look on your face that I remembered from when you were small—just bright with joy and happiness. And I knew it wasn’t for me, that it was because you were dancing, but I felt . . . at peace. That’s the best I can describe it. So I went the next night without Dad. And the next, and the one after that, and the one after that . . .” He stopped again, conscious that he’d said too much, revealed far more of himself than he’d meant to. Yet he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “I thought if I could simply watch you dance, that would be enough for me. And it was, it really was. Until you were eighteen and I saw you in Romeo and Juliet, and I decided I wanted more.”

  She shifted against him at that and this time he couldn’t help himself from looking down, to find her staring back, her eyes wide with surprise. “But you never said anything.” Her hands were still once more on his chest. “I mean, you didn’t—”

  “You were too young.” He gave a short, slightly bitter laugh. “Hell, you’re still too young.”

  A spark glinted in her eyes. “I’m twenty. That’s not young.”

  “Yeah and I’m not twenty and haven’t been for a long time, a
nd whether you like it or not, it is young.”

  “So what are you saying? I magically became old enough for you a couple of weeks ago even though I’m apparently still too young?”

  Shit. He didn’t want to reveal the extent of his machinations to her, certainly not about her guardianship. She didn’t need to know just how manipulative he truly was.

  Why not? Afraid she might not like you anymore?

  The thought unsettled him. It seemed ridiculous to be afraid of one woman’s negative opinion of him, nevertheless, he didn’t like the idea. Then again, he’d always cared what she’d thought of him, no matter how often he’d told himself that he didn’t.

  “Circumstances with my father changed,” he said evasively. “And you became my ward and I thought it was a good opportunity to reconnect.”

  She glanced down at his chest, her fingers resuming their caresses, slow and easy. “Ah, so is that what we’re doing here? Reconnecting?”

  Wait. Was that . . . disappointment in her voice?

  He took her chin in his hand and tipped her head back so her gaze met his. It was wide and dark, the anger gone. “You don’t like that idea?”

  “That wasn’t what I said.”

  “But what else did you want?”

  “I didn’t say I wanted anything else.”

  “But you sounded disappointed.”

  “I’m not.” She tried to pull away.

  He tightened his grip. “I’ve been honest with you, Ella. More honest than I’ve been with anyone in my entire life. Can’t you be honest with me?”

  Her gaze flickered at that, her lashes lowering. She was silent a long moment. “So now that we’ve ‘reconnected,’ I guess you’ll want me to leave, right?” There was an edge to the words. “I mean, you’ve gotten what you wanted. You don’t need anything else from me.”

  He stared down into her pale, delicate face, for a second not understanding why she was sounding so angry. And then it hit him. Christ, did she actually . . . want to stay with him? Was that why she sounded upset? Was she afraid that sex was all he wanted and that now he’d gotten it, she was afraid he was going to kick her out?

  “Ella,” he ordered. “Look at me.”

  With a very obvious show of reluctance, she did so. “What?”

  “Do you want to go?” Not that he would let her leave, but he wanted to hear it from her all the same. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  Again, her gaze flickered, as if she was deeply uncomfortable. “I just . . .”

  “Tell me. Now.”

  “No.” Her eyes met his all of a sudden, angry and defiant. “No, I don’t want to go. You wanted me, Rafael. You went out of your way to seduce me and it worked. So now you have me. And if you think that now you’ve gotten what you wanted, you can get rid of me just as easily, then you picked the wrong girl.”

  Rafe stared at her, at the glittering sparks of fury and challenge in her eyes, daring him to disagree with her. And half of him was tempted to try and get rid of her simply to see what she’d do.

  She would fight, he could read it in that magnificent gray gaze of hers.

  Desire rose inside him, thick and hot and overwhelming, and he pushed her onto her back, sliding himself between her thighs before he’d even had a chance to think straight.

  “The question isn’t whether I can get rid of you,” he murmured, putting his hands down on the couch cushions on either side of her head. “It’s whether you can get away from me. And if you don’t know the answer to that, here’s a hint.” He lowered his head so his face was bare inches from hers and whispered, “Never.”

  She didn’t look away.

  She lifted her hands, pushed her fingers into his hair, and pulled his mouth down on hers.

  Chapter 9

  “Oh my God, that was amazing!” Ella grabbed Rafe’s hand as they came out of the auditorium, her excitement bubbling over. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a performance of Swan Lake quite like that one before.”

  His long fingers curled around hers and he grinned, looking a little smug it had to be said. “Told you they were good.”

  Ella wrinkled her nose at him. “Like I didn’t know that already.”

  “Sure. But this is the first time you’ve actually seen them, right?”

  Rafael had surprised her a couple of days earlier with tickets to a matinee of Swan Lake performed by the Bolshoi Ballet, and she’d been so excited she’d hardly been able to wait.

  And the performance had been everything she’d hoped it would be, reminding her of those precious times when her parents would take her out to movies and plays and ballet performances. Except it wasn’t her parents at her side this time, it was Rafe.

  He’d unilaterally decided to take a couple of days off since she was performing nights, taking her to the Met to a Van Gogh exhibition the day before—which she’d never seen before and loved—and then surprising her with ballet tickets.

  He was obviously going all out to do things for her, and she had to admit that she liked it.

  Yes, it had been strange that first morning, waking to find herself in his arms. And she’d been very unsure of herself, not knowing what to say or how to act. She’d never woken up with a man before and it had been weird. He’d been all about revisiting the sex of the night before, but that question about why he’d attended all her ballet performances had popped into her head and she simply hadn’t been able to dismiss it. She wanted to know why he was so fascinated by her.

  Turned out that the impact she’d had on him back when she’d been a kid had been even bigger than she’d thought. She hadn’t known quite how to take it either, especially when she had no memory of any of the things he’d told her about. It made her feel guilty, too, that she couldn’t remember, that she’d been afraid of him, because the fact that she hadn’t been afraid as a kid had clearly meant a lot to him.

  Of course, his answer had only led to more questions, but she’d gotten a little distracted by the thought that now that he’d gotten what he’d wanted from her, he’d get rid of her. And it had surprised her how angry that had made her feel.

  She’d decided he should know that straight up, which had led to more passionate sex on the couch. “Never,” he’d whispered to her. And then, as he’d pushed himself inside her, “I’m never letting you go.”

  He wasn’t serious, of course. It had been something he’d whispered in the heat of passion. He hadn’t actually meant it. How could he? When they hardly knew each other? Still, she couldn’t deny that the possessive way he’d said it made her feel good. As if he’d claimed her, and she liked that. Since her parents had died, she felt as if she wasn’t really anyone’s.

  He’d gone to work not long after that, leaving her with strict instructions to not move from his apartment. To rest and look after herself until he got back. And it wasn’t until after he’d gone that she realized she had no intention of disobeying him. In fact, she didn’t want to go back to the empty silence of her parents’ house. She didn’t want to go back to the loneliness waiting for her there.

  She wanted to stay here. With him.

  So she had. All week.

  As the foyer began to fill up with other people, Ella tightened her fingers around his, knowing what he wanted to hear from her. “Yes, Rafe. This is the first time I’ve actually seen them.”

  His smile turned rueful, which wasn’t something she saw often from him. “Am I that transparent?”

  She laughed. “God, no. Just very smug.”

  “What can I say? I like introducing you to new things.”

  And he did. As the days had passed, she’d slowly come to realize that he, in fact, got a lot of pleasure from doing things for her, or arranging new experiences for her to try. Admittedly that had involved a lot of sex, but not exclusively.

  She’d also slowly come to realize that his pleasure made her feel good too, though she wasn’t sure why that was. She hadn’t thought his feelings would matter to her as much as they did, but she wa
s wrong. They did matter.

  “Speaking of,” Rafe continued, glancing meaningfully toward the theater exit. “Since I’ve taken the rest of the day off, what say we go home and I introduce you to a couple more new things?”

  Her heartbeat quickened. “Are there any more of those new things left for me to try?”

  His silver blue eyes glinted wickedly. “Oh, Little Red. You wouldn’t believe how many new things I haven’t shown you yet.”

  She didn’t actually believe it, not until he’d gotten her home and shown her. Explicitly and in great detail. And she couldn’t say she wasn’t a little stunned and shocked, though more stunned and shocked about her own passionate response to them than by the acts themselves.

  God, she was way more sheltered than she’d thought.

  A couple of hours later, wearing nothing but one of his business shirts—since that was the first item of clothing that had come to hand—she stood in front of one of the bookshelves in the living area, curiously peering at the spines of the books while Rafe lounged on the sofa behind her. He was on the phone, his rich voice filling the space, and she let the reassuringsound wash over her.

  He’d suggested that they go out for an early dinner, but suddenly, looking at the bookcase, she had a much better idea. Except . . . it seemed a bit lame and unexciting compared with visits to the Met and the Bolshoi and dinners in expensive restaurants.

  Reaching out, Ella extracted the exquisitely packaged boxed set of DVDs from the bookcase, and turned it over in her hand. Star Wars. Limited edition.

  She remembered watching it with her dad one rainy Sunday when she’d been about eight years old and had loved it, the experience spawning a love of science fiction movies that had stuck with her ever since.

  What was Rafe doing with this? She’d never have guessed him for a Star Wars fan, though he must be, surely? To have this sitting on his shelf?

  She glanced at the bookshelf again, grinning as she spotted yet more DVDs, this time the original Star Trek TV series, as well as the Star Trek movies, plus a number of the spin-offs.