The night air hit my face as Brad opened the door for me, and I leaned into his arm.
“Cold?” he asked.
“Freezing,” I responded quietly, and he drew me closer. The car pulled up and he opened my door for me. I slid in, and he followed, closing the door behind us. The privacy glass was up between the back of the limo and the front, and he put his hand on my thigh. I crossed my leg over the other toward him, and he leaned toward me.
“I’ve been wanting to do this all night,” he said.
“Do what?” I asked, putting a mock innocent tone into my voice.
He leaned in and kissed me, sliding his hand between the skirt of my dress and my bare leg.
“This,” he whispered. He trailed his fingers along the line where my thighs came together, and, when he reached the apex, I uncrossed my legs and he slid his hand under the hem of my panties. “Mmmmm,” he groaned. “You’re wet.”
I felt a shivering stab of arousal push through me, seeming to magnetically connect with his fingertips. I spread my legs, giving him greater access, and slid down a bit on the bench of the limo.
“Lie down,” he commanded softly. He moved my knees apart as I slid down onto my back, and he lifted my dress to my waist. My knees bent, he ducked between them and began to kiss my inner thighs. His lips felt like soft, pleasurable stings on my skin, and I sighed, feeling my body relax for what felt like the first time in my memory.
His fingers stayed working; his thumb traced my labia and the slit of my pussy until he slowly spread my lips apart and guided his fingers inside me. He continued to kiss my thighs, moving closer to the center of my pleasure—then pulling back again.
“Such a tease,” I said, my voice muffled by the sigh of pleasure that followed as he glided his tongue across my clit. “Oh…”
“You taste so good,” he said. “I could eat you all night.”
“I’m inclined to let you,” I breathed. He took my clit in his lips, rolling it carefully, then he flicked it softly with his tongue. I gasped… and he did it again, over and over, until my breath became nothing more than one ragged gasp after another.
“I saw you watching me tonight,” he said, his tongue retreating just as I was on the cusp of orgasm. “I want you to know that the only thing I was thinking about all night was doing this to you, right now.” He circled my clit with his tongue once again, this time pulling it into his mouth and sucking it, hard, harder, harder, until I exploded in a spasm of heat and saw stars. I cried out, pressing my knees apart, drawing him deeper. He rode out my orgasm with me, and, when I felt the sensations begin to ebb, he gently pulled my dress back down and drew me to him.
Brad
I watched Cassie as she slept; the lull of the airplane engines combined with the exhaustion I knew she was feeling had put her to sleep the moment we’d taken off. I sipped my wine and opened my iPad. I knew I needed to focus on the schedule for our time in Morocco; everything needed to go according to a plan that didn’t yet fully exist. Yet, I was distracted. I couldn’t focus on anything except for Cassie.
It had taken some convincing—no, that’s not right; it had taken some of my best negotiation skills—to get her to accompany me to Morocco.
“No,” she’d said flat out. “No, I’m not going. And, if you go, I can’t guarantee that I’ll be here when you get back. I’m done with all of this bullshit, Brad. People are dying. Dead. Do you get that?”
I’d taken a deep breath. The only woman who had ever been able to get away with telling me what to do had been Lorinda. I had to go back to Morocco. The site was nearing completion, and there was a huge amount of highly sensitive inventory that was going to be coming in; I needed to be there.
“Listen,” I’d said, knowing that the truth was impossible, “I think that you’ll maybe find some answers there. It’s where you were abducted. It’s likely that you will find some leads, some connections…some… something that will help lead you to the answers that you’re not finding on a computer screen. If you come with me, I’ll be able to help you.”
She’d looked like she was about to object. About to tell me that she was making progress on her own, finding answers, that she was one step closer. But, she closed her mouth in the same way she’d opened it, fast, like a fish gulp.
“I want you to find answers,” I’d said gently. “I know you, and I know you won’t rest until you do. Yes, I have some business to conduct in Morocco. But, that’s not the only reason I want you there. I want you there for both of us, of course, but mostly for you.”
I watched her body language closely, watching for the moment when I knew my persuasion was working. What separated Fortune 500 CEOs and people who earned billions from those who considered themselves ordinary citizens was less a talent for verbal negotiations and more the ability to discern body language. To know where the tipping point was. To lead someone right up to it, then take one more breath, say one more thing, just enough to push them over. Nothing more.
“Patrick’s death should show you that your life was, at least at one point in time, in extreme danger. I am here to protect you, and I will protect you with my life. But, I know that’s not enough for you. I know you want to be able to protect yourself. You’re a journalist; you live to investigate and find answers. I want to help you with that.”
Maybe it was Patrick’s name, or maybe it was acknowledging that I want to protect her. Whatever it was that I’d said, it had worked. And, now I sat staring at an encrypted calendar while she dozed beside me.
She slept the entire flight from what had to have been sheer exhaustion. We landed at first light, and I told her she could sleep in the hotel and I would go conduct my business.
“Where are you going?” she asked sleepily from the bed. “I’ll come with you.”
“I’m going to a building site,” I said. “For a new hotel.” As always, the lie rolled smoothly off my tongue. I assuaged my guilt by reminding myself that I wouldn’t be lying to a woman I was fairly certain I was falling in love with for much longer. Part of the reason I’d brought Cassie to Morocco with me was to confess some of the information about my past to her. Even the thought of doing so pushed my nerves into overdrive, but I had felt her distancing herself from me and I knew that, if I wanted to keep her around, I was going to need to start giving her some of the answers she was seeking—as I’d promised I would.
I rolled my eyes thinking about Simon’s reaction. “You thought you could outsmart her,” he’d said. “But she’s no bimbo. That one, well, you got into trouble with that one from the moment you laid eyes on her. She’s too smart for her own good, and she’s definitely too smart for yours.”
That she was.
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” I said, and kissed her forehead. She moaned softly but was already sleeping once again before I’d stood up straight. I gathered my things and walked quietly but quickly out the door of the suite. I wanted to hurry. I knew Cassie was safe in my suite at Legacy, but I also knew that her life was far from secure anywhere in Morocco. The faster I could get my business done and get us back to London, the better.
The drive to the site was short, and, when we pulled up, I felt, for the first time in what seemed like ages, a sense of hope.
“It looks nearly finished!” I said to the foreman, who was waiting for me just outside the security fence, a nervous look on his face.
“It is, Sir,” he nodded, seeming to relax a bit at the sight of my smile. “There are a few electrical things we’re still working out, mostly with the security system and alarms, but it will be ready for you when your shipment arrives.”
The foreman had aged in the time since I’d seen him last, and I knew that it had probably a lot to do with this project. I held out my hand to him, and he shook it.
“You’ve done fine work,” I said. “You and your men will be rewarded for going above and beyond what I’d expected for or dreamed was possible.”
At this, the foreman beamed. “Let me show you wha
t we’ve done.”
A few hours later, I returned to the hotel, my spirits buoyed by the knowledge that the shipment coming in would be received to a secure facility, and that Manuel Brown, when he arrived, would approve.
Cassie was awake and sitting on the patio when I walked in. Her laptop was open on the table, and she was taking notes on a pad of paper next to her.
“Baby,” I said sitting down next to her. “You back to work already? How did you sleep?”
“Fine,” she said. She paused and sat back, looking over at me. Still, I could tell she was distracted. “How was work?”
“I want to bring you to the build site,” I said. She looked at me like I was crazy. “I want to bring you there so that I can show you part of what it is that I do. And, I need to tell you some things about my past. Some things involving the boy in the picture you saw.”
My heart was pounding loudly enough I could feel it in my throat and hear it inside my head.
“Your son,” she said slowly, her eyes locked on mine, daring me to deny it.
“Yes,” I said, blood rushing through my head. “My son. Antoine.”
Cassie
I couldn’t believe the day that I’d just had. Yesterday, I’d been hunkered down in Brad’s suite in London. Today, I was back in Morocco, once again at Legacy, and Brad was standing in front of me telling me that my instincts had been correct: the boy in the picture I’d found on his desk did have his eyes. The boy was his son. I felt a mix of “duh” along with “holy shit.” I remembered that the first feature of the boy that had stood out to me had been his eyes; his eyes were Brad’s eyes. But, whether I just didn’t want to believe it or something else, I’d let Brad convince me that it wasn’t his son or anyone nearly that significant in his life. I shook my head.
“What happened to him?” I asked. Of course, I feared the worst, and I felt pieces of the puzzle that was Brad beginning to fall into place. The lonely billionaire, isolated, successful in business, a captivating smile but no connections, a worldwide traveler with no roots. Of course; he was a bereaved father. Something had happened to his son. Something tragic, something that he was, perhaps, trying to atone for.
“I’m going to tell you some things today, Cassie, but we’re going to do it on my terms. I will answer only those questions that I feel your knowledge won’t endanger your life. If, at any point, I change my mind, we’re coming back here and I’m putting an end to it.”
I nodded, not because I agreed, but because I knew it was the only way to get him to continue talking. I closed my computer. “Let’s go,” I said. “I’ll get dressed.” I went into the bedroom and changed into tight jeans, boots, and a light t-shirt before Brad could change his mind.
We went first to the building site. I’d expected Brad to explain along the way, to talk about Antoine, to tell me about why he’d had this sudden change of heart and decided to talk to me about all of it, but he didn’t speak. He stared silently out the window while the driver took us through the streets of the village and, finally, pulled up to what looked like a small, modest factory. It looked slightly out of place, but it didn’t look anything like what I’d envisioned the build site of a billionaire to be.
I looked at Brad, confused. He seemed to read my mind. “Not everything is what it seems, Cassie; just wait.”
I nodded and he opened my door for me. He escorted me through the front door and into an elevator. I glanced at him, realizing that the ground floor was actually the top floor of a building that went deep into the earth. He hit the down button and we began to move.
Several minutes later, the elevator doors opened and I gasped. The room before me was immense, a full scale warehouse underground. It was empty, but along the walls and in the center were what seemed like miles and miles of empty shelving, waiting for… waiting for what?
“What is this place?” I asked.
“This is a warehouse for a shipment of… product. This is one of fifty such warehouses worldwide. There’s one in San Pedro—”
“On that tiny ass island?” I asked. He looked at me sharply. “Sorry,” I said, biting my lip.
“There’s another in London. Turkey. South Africa. Russia. The United States. Australia. Colombia.”
He added Colombia at the end, and my journalist brain caught the change in the tone of his voice. Brad thought, I knew, that he was the expert in body language and in reading people, but he didn’t know that I had a fair amount of talent in that area as well. He’d been hoping to just slip Colombia in among the others, but that country was not like the others. Colombia was known for one major thing: drugs. Drugs were connected with guns. Militia. Infidels. The manifest of weapons I’d seen on Brad’s computer shot through my mind, but I kept my mouth shut.
“And the product isn’t Hallmark cards,” I said, looking out at the warehouse instead of at him. “Are the other warehouses empty as well?”
“No,” he said. “This one is empty only because there was an attack on the building. This building that we’re standing in didn’t exist six weeks ago.”
I stared at him. The scale of this project was incredible. There was major money behind building something this strong, this fast.
“Are you the sole funder of the project?” I asked.
“That’s not a question I can answer,” he said.
“You just did.”
He glared at me, and I knew I’d pushed.
“You have no idea how big all of this is.” He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up. The light caught on his forehead and I realized he was sweating. “This was probably all a huge mistake.”
I put my hand on his arm. “Brad, I love you and I want to be able to trust you. I can’t trust you if you withhold things from me. I think you know that, or you wouldn’t be telling me things.”
“What I’m telling you can get you killed,” he whispered, and he looked at me. I saw fear, which I expected to see, but I also saw pain. A pain that spoke so loudly, moved through me in such a rush, I felt my knees nearly buckle. He was in agony.
“Let’s get out of here, then,” I said. “I’ve seen enough.”
We rode the elevator silently back up, and, when the doors opened, I was surprised to see Simon waiting with the driver.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, both surprised and pleased to see him.
He smiled. “I didn’t want to miss the tour,” he said. “Brad told me that he was going to share some information with you, and I wanted to be here to support…you both.”
“I’m going to take Cassie to Florence tonight,” Brad said to Simon.
“Italy?” I asked, incredulous.
“No,” Brad said, finally cracking a smile. “Sorry. Florence is a lounge here in Casablanca. It’s very exclusive, private, and…” he paused.
“It’s secure,” Simon finished. I caught the look of relief Brad shot Simon, and I was glad that Simon was there with us. I had the feeling things were going to get worse before they got better.
Brad
I woke early so I could sneak out while Cassie was still sleeping. Yesterday had not gone well. Cassie might disagree, but I felt like all I had done was further expose Cassie to danger, and I hadn’t gotten very far in asking for her help or in explaining anything about my past.
I traveled to the build site with Simon, who knew enough to just sit in silence with me. I barely knew he was there as I pushed myself deeper into my thoughts. I paged through the texts on my phone I’d exchanged with an unknown number that morning. Manuel. He was meeting us at the site.
We pulled up, and Simon nodded at a black town car also pulled up to the side of the security fence. “There he is,” he said.
“Yes,” I said. I got out of the car; Simon did not. I walked toward the fence, and I kept my eyes trained forward as I heard a door of the town car open. I stood by the fence, waiting.
A moment later, Manuel Brown was at my side.
“Have you been inside?” he aske
d, staring at the door of the ground level.
“Yes, Sir,” I said.
“And what is your opinion?”
I paused. This was a landmine question.
“I think the foreman did an exceptional job,” I finally said, once again feeling my heart pound loudly in my chest. “I told him that I would be giving him and his crew generous bonuses for the work that they did so efficiently and to such a high quality.”
The words fell out of my mouth, and I paused to catch my breath, closing my eyes to force myself to get a grip. I’d been in board rooms with sharks, with people who proclaimed loudly that they had no soul save for the one they’d bought for themselves. I’d stood up to negotiate for more, better, stronger for myself and for my family at every turn. I needed to be able to handle this conversation in the same way.
“Generous bonuses,” Manuel repeated, chewing the words as if he’d never spoken them before. He probably hadn’t. “Those are the words of a bleeding heart, Mr. White.”
I said nothing. I kept my eyes trained on the door to the building. I knew that there was a gun pointing at me from the town car; that was the way Manuel worked. I knew if I moved, reached, stepped, did anything out of character, the gun would become an active entity.
“And you have a young lady with you this trip, I hear.”
My body fought to respond, to turn to him and tell him to not touch her, to not even reference her, but I kept myself still.
“Mr. White, you have done good work for me in the past. I consider keeping your son alive the equivalent to that ‘generous bonus’ you so readily hand out. Your work has been slipping lately, but I am pleased with the work that was done on this site. The shipment is coming in just hours from now; it’s on its way. Perhaps this is an upswing for you. Perhaps you will get to see your son again one day.”
Bile rose in my throat as Manuel Brown brought up my son. I swallowed hard.
Billionaire Romance Box Set: The Billionaire's Legacy: An Alpha Billionaire Romance Box Set Page 20
