Billionaires In Love (Vol. 2): 5 Books Billionaire Romance Bundle

by Glenna Sinclair

  He grew quiet, so she turned, facing him.

  “This is my life,” he said in a low tone. “I’ve reserved the rooftop for us. Are you hungry?”

  He had her pinned against the railing, his hips pressing against her, his hands holding her back firmly. Resisting wasn’t easy, and part of her wanted to allow him to sweep her up into his world, being wined and dined and throwing caution to the wind. But Rose had come here for a reason.

  “When are we going to talk?”

  “Whenever you want,” he said easily. “After we eat. Before.”

  “Before,” she said. “Lead the way.”

  She tried not to gaze longingly at his four-poster bed as they passed the bedroom rounding through the hallway. The very thought of having him all to herself between the sheets was enough to disarm her, but by the time they stepped into the elevator, riding it two flights higher, the urge had passed.

  When the door slid open with a ding, she stepped out onto the rooftop garden where lounge chairs were clustered around various glass tables and a bartender was waiting eagerly behind a long, oak bar. The hostess, a young woman wearing a black cocktail dress, her blond hair slicked up into a high ponytail, greeted them then escorted them to a table near the glass wall that lined the perimeter.

  As they sat, Taylor asked her for two coffees, and Rose mentioned she’d like cream and sugar in hers. The hostess returned with their drinks a minute later.

  “So did you want to start, or should I?” she asked.

  “Ladies first,” he said with an amused smile.

  “Good,” she said, gathering her thoughts and trying not to get sucked into his alluring looks. He leaned back in his chair, tilting his head and eyeing her with interest that seemed to go far beyond the points she was preparing to make.

  “The Starlight trench,” she began, “runs through Bellevue, weaving between schools and residential homes, and I get that the project obtained the necessary permits, and that you’re not in violation of veering too close to the community.”

  “Correct. We aren’t. We measured carefully.”

  “But those regulations don’t take into account how far gas could leak if the pipes erode or aren’t installed properly. A spill could contaminate drinking water. It could make people sick. Not to mention should a fire break out, the pipeline could explode.”

  “You’re talking about worst-case scenarios.”

  “I am,” she asserted. “And unfortunately, worst-case scenarios happen more than six hundred times a year. Last year, alone, seventeen people died and seventy were injured nationally. The property damage was just shy of three hundred million. Taylor, the worst-case scenarios are occurring far too frequently. And if you look at the response history of these oil companies, they aren’t doing much after the fact to help clean up, pay restitution and restore property, and prevent future spills.”

  Listening to her, Taylor’s eyes had shifted, widening in such a way that told her he hadn’t known the statistics. He drew in a deep breath as if absorbing all she’d relayed, and then took a carefully measured sip of his coffee.

  Finally, he said, “The track record of the construction company we’re using is flawless.”

  Rose held her tongue, though she wanted to jump down his throat. He’d listened to her, so she was prepared to hear him out before she poked holes in his faulty logic.

  “We have every reason to believe the build will go smoothly and without incident.” Taylor studied her scowling face. “Go on. Say what you’re dying to say.”

  “The construction company you’re using hasn’t caused any spills,” she said, warming him up by agreeing to the only point that was true about what he'd said. “However, the actual materials they use are toxic, and they’ve been getting away with it because the regulations on materials affords a lot of room for error.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the aluminum materials they use to fasten the pipe segments together. I’m talking about their sealant, which is highly flammable, as well as toxic. Do you realize that besides the one water tower, the majority of Bellevue gets their drinking water from their own wells? As soon as those pipes go into the ground, chemicals are going to leech out into the earth.”

  Concerned, he asked, “How do you know this?”

  Rose pressed her mouth into a hard line, praying that the argument she was about to make wouldn’t be easily dismissed.

  “One World has been tracking them. Over the past five years we’ve tested the soil and drinking water in towns where they’ve laid pipes for similar projects. Taylor, in some of these areas, the wildlife lays dead near ponds, frogs are floating belly up. We’re still gathering data and working on a class-action lawsuit, but it’s been really difficult proving it’s from their materials.”

  “Then maybe it isn’t from their materials,” he suggested, though his tone sounded worried.

  “The correlation is too exact to be mere coincidence,” she went on. “These have been healthy areas. Then, within one year of those materials going into the ground, people started getting sick, cancer has been on the rise, and animals are dropping dead. What else could it be?”

  He considered her point. “What if we engaged a different company?”

  “And reduce the hazard to leakage and spills?” she countered. “The people of Bellevue don’t want that pipeline running through their homes.”

  “The era of trucking natural gas is over, Rose.”

  “We can still reach a compromise.”

  “Not yet,” he said, silencing her. “I’m going to have to look into this.”

  She gaped at him. “Look into what? Government reports? They’re all clean. You aren’t going to find anything.”

  “I can’t uproot a pipeline project that costs billions of dollars just because you feel strongly it’s bad for the environment. I need proof.”

  Sighing in exasperation, she leaned back in her chair, shaking her head and gazing out at the view of Seattle, the bay, and Bellevue in the distance.

  “I thought you said we’d settle this matter here and now,” she said, disgruntled.

  “I wish we could. I need to look into this.”

  Meeting his gaze, she asked, “Will you promise to keep the pipeline on hold while you do?”

  Taylor clenched his jaw as though he were torn. “I’m not sure I can afford to.”

  “Which means you aren’t really listening, and you don’t really believe me. You’re just placating me, and I don’t appreciate it.” After a long moment, she added, “If you go back to work, then so do I.”

  “I could have you arrested.”

  “You could,” she said, getting to her feet, “but you won’t. I need to get back to One World.”

  Staring up at her, his jaw dropped. “I was looking forward to spending the day.”

  “You don’t have time,” she said. “You’re going to be looking into things. And so am I.”

  Chapter Five

  Taylor didn’t want to let her go as he walked her across the red carpet outside the Escala and helped her into the limo, but it would be selfish to try to convince her to stay, and quite frankly, he was disturbed by all that she had brought to his attention. As someone who used to save lives on the operating table, the possibility that his pipeline could be detrimental to the health of an entire community was jarring.

  He closed the limousine door, pained to see Rose disappear behind tinted glass, and then watched as the limo rolled off down the street.

  It was a long ride up to the fiftieth floor, and when he reached his suite, Taylor heard giggling through the door.

  Entering, he found his father, Porter Montgomery, fixing himself a drink at the bar in the far corner of the room, while two women who looked like models passed a cigarette between them from where they sat on the leather couch.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Porter straightened his back then turned, facing him. His white hair was combed so slick to
his scalp that Taylor could see the teeth marks from across the room. As always, his father was dressed in a sharp, Armani suit. He angled his dark eyes on Taylor and a sly grin formed at the corners of his mouth.

  “Don’t be rude, Taylor,” he said. “You’re acquainted with Jasmine and Cassandra. Say hello.”

  Taylor offered the call girls a curt nod, but wouldn’t hold their flirtatious gazes. The mere reminder of them turned his stomach. Months ago, in an effort to keep Taylor relaxed and help his head stay in the game, Porter had hired the women to pay him a visit. It had been an impulsive and admittedly fun night, but had left Taylor feeling empty and unsatisfied the next day. It hadn’t been the first time his father had made that kind of arrangement for him, and wouldn’t be the last, evidently. But now that he’d met Rose, the thought of indulging in the company of two women who cared about nothing more than the cash they’d collect unnerved him.

  “I think you know why I’m here,” said Porter, motioning for the escorts to excuse them.

  “We’ll be in the bedroom, Taylor,” said Jasmine, whose long black hair cascaded over her shoulders and down her tight, red dress.

  “How about the terrace,” he countered, but it only made Jasmine laugh.

  Following Jasmine, Cassandra shut the bedroom door, affording father and son a bit of privacy.

  “Who told you?” asked Taylor, who was furious that any of his subordinates would have told his father about the activist explosion after he’d specifically instructed them not to.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Porter. “It’s my right to be informed.”

  “You handed me this project,” he said impatiently. “If you didn’t think I could handle it, if you assume you need to watch every move I make, then what was the point of putting me in charge?”

  “Taylor, if you’re going to be snappish, I’m going to have to insist we resume this conversation after Jasmine and Cassandra have worked their magic on you.”

  “You shouldn’t have brought them here. You’re only wasting their time,” he said.

  Porter lifted his brows, as he stalked over to the couch and sat.

  “What's the damage on the pipes?” he asked after drinking his whiskey.

  Porter’s capacity to knock back hard liquor at any hour, no matter how early, never ceased to amaze Taylor.

  “It was only one stack of pipes,” he began. “It would’ve made up five hundred yards.”

  “I don’t need the details,” Porter interjected. “I need the amount, so I can revise the budget.”

  “I’ll revise the budget,” he countered, but the look on his father’s face told him he had better be forthright with an answer. “Twenty thousand.”

  “One stick of dynamite and you lost twenty thousand.”

  “Apparently.”

  “And those rebels are locked up? You’re pressing charges?”

  “I’m handling it,” he said through his teeth.

  “You have to press charges and file copies of the police report with our attorney so we can sue One World for damages.”

  Arguing with his father would be a futile effort, so he neither agreed nor refused, but lowered into the adjacent lounge chair.

  “What do you know about the construction company we’re using?” he asked.

  “Construction company?” he said as though it was a foreign term. “What do you want to know about them?”

  “It’s been brought to my attention that their materials could be hazardous to the environment.”

  Porter steadied his gaze on Taylor and his eyes grew dark, narrowing as if to caution his son. Drawing in a deep breath, he then lightened his mood and had another sip of his drink.

  “Everything we do is by the book and legal,” he stated. “You know that.”

  “But what if the materials are harming the environment and it’s going undocumented?”

  “What if, what if,” he mused. “If such a thing were occurring, and it were brought to my attention, why I’d rectify it immediately. But it isn’t. We’ve been using Davey Construction for decades, not to mention we own them.”

  “We own them?”

  “We bought them out six years ago.”

  Taylor tried to wrap his head around the legal ramifications of owning a construction company that was in the habit of using hazardous materials. Starlight wouldn’t be able to argue they had no idea, should Rose’s class-action lawsuit ever see the light of day. If Starlight owned Davey, then they were ultimately responsible for everything Davey did, which meant that Taylor would have to make it his business to find out what precisely was going on over at the site.

  “Taylor?” his father asked when Taylor had drifted into thought, staring out the window at the view of Seattle. “You can’t put this project on hold. Now, what do you need in order to get underway?”

  He glanced at his father, whose mouth was lifting into a strange smile. Seeing Porter smug made him want to roll his eyes and snort, but he held his expression steady.

  “I’m not interested in those women,” he said in an even tone.

  “Oh, come now. Every man is interested in beautiful women.”

  Taylor was tempted to throw it in his father’s face that he’d found a beautiful woman he was quite happy with.

  “Are you pouting because you prefer when I send them over to you in a crowded bar or restaurant? I know bringing them here and having them wait in your bedroom doesn’t exactly afford you the same thrill, but it’s the best I could do. Taylor, you need to indulge in a few vices, clear your head, and then get back on this project.”

  He agreed, but the only person he wanted to clear his head with was Rose, and the reality of getting back on the pipeline project might not turn out entirely how his father was envisioning it.

  “Well, I’ll leave you with the girls,” he said, rising from the couch.

  “No, take them with you,” said Taylor. “I need to be alone. I need to think.”

  Porter frowned, but didn’t fight him. Once he’d collected Jasmine and Cassandra from the bedroom, he crossed to the door and gave Taylor one last look.

  “I’m not leaving town until the project is underway,” he said, the words coming across as a warning.

  Taylor shot his father a glaring look then returned his gaze to the window, listening to the door click shut.

  Why was this the position he had to be in? Why did Rose have to be on the opposite side of the divide and working against him? And why did he feel intuitively that she was onto something huge, not to mention downright detrimental to the life he’d chosen? Natural gas pipelines were flowing all over this country. It was a way of life, something that couldn’t be changed. Starlight might not be innocent, but they weren’t the only guilty company. But since when was that acceptable logic? Taylor prided himself on being conscientious, and the thought of putting anyone at risk was unacceptable. Was he slowly turning into his father? Was his sense of ethics and morals gradually eroding as badly as the pipelines running through this country?

  There had to be a way to build a pipeline safely. And the first step in that effort would be to carefully examine the protocol and materials that were in place.

  If only time weren’t running out.

  Chapter Six

  “Where have you been?”

  Carter filled the doorway of her motel room, his dark eyes probing her for an explanation.

  She had barely scurried from the limo to her room, breathless with anxiety as she made sure her entrance went unnoticed, and had changed into her jeans and a tee shirt before Carter had knocked and opened the door.

  “I had a meeting with the CEO of Starlight,” she said, feeling decent to be telling the truth. Her thoughts skirted over Taylor—his lips, the firm wall of his chest that she’d caressed, the way he felt inside her, the wild impulse they’d both succumbed to in the back of the limousine. “I got him to pause the project for the rest of the day.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, he’s going t
o review the possible hazards of the materials and reconsider.”

  Carter snorted a skeptical laugh. “Possible hazards? It’s common knowledge Davey uses toxic materials.”

  “To us it’s common knowledge. You know we’ve been fighting an uphill battle to prove as much. This is a good sign, Carter. Taylor Montgomery is open minded, but he won’t act based on my word. He needs to look into things.”

  “And you trust him?”

  “I don’t know.” Rose thought about it a long moment. She really wasn’t sure if she trusted him when it came to the pipeline, and yet she felt deeply conflicted, because in a strange way she completely trusted him as a man. But blind faith, joys of the flesh, wouldn’t be enough to cause her to give him the benefit of the doubt. She wrestled her sneakers on, explaining, “If the site’s vacant, there’s no better time for us to get some hard evidence that those materials are detrimental to the environment.”

  “You can’t go alone,” said Carter, which gave her pause before she could reach the door.

  “You think I need your help?” she challenged.

  “And Layla’s. We’ll take the Jeep.”

  “After the stunt you pulled this morning, there’s no way I’ll let you come along.”

  “Oh, come off it, Rose.”

  “Come off it?” she gaped.

  “That’s right. I made a rash decision, but the fact of the matter is that it panned out. It bought us time.”

  “Taylor bought us time,” she countered, putting her hands on her hips. “And you have Taylor to thank for the fact that you aren’t sitting in a jail cell right now.”

  Carter cocked his head, narrowing his big brown eyes on her with a hint of suspicion.

  “Just how exactly did you convince him to postpone?”

  “I have my ways,” she asserted, keeping her response vague. “I’m the president of One World for a reason.”

  “You started the company. That’s the reason.”

  She glared at him.

  “Layla and I mapped out where their materials are located along the twelve-mile trench.”