Billionaire Romance Box Set: The Billionaire's Legacy: An Alpha Billionaire Romance Box Set

by Sarah J. Brooks

  He looked at me for a moment, pausing in his action of distributing the plates to our paces at the table. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then he closed it. I cocked my head.

  “What?” I asked. “Say what you’re thinking.” I started to get a weird feeling in my stomach.

  “Cassie, the answer is no.” He set the plates down with a sense of finality, and he turned to walk back into the kitchen.

  “The answer to what is no?” I called after him, confused. “The answer to getting your son back? The answer to working together? What’s going on with you?” I was trying to keep my voice calm, but the change in his demeanor, the subtle shift that I knew him well enough to have seen, spoke volumes. He didn’t trust me. He didn’t want me to have anything to do with this.

  And, I was right. He came out of the kitchen with a grim look on his face and the pot of coffee and a pitcher of creamer.

  “Sit, Cassie, please,” he said.

  I sat, staring at him as he began to eat his breakfast.

  “Eat,” he said, nodding at me with his fork. “Your body has been through so much; you need to eat to preserve your strength. You should actually be in bed, not thinking about ways to save the world.”

  I nodded, and began to take small bites of my eggs. I watched him watching me, and, when he saw I was eating, it seemed like he began to calm down.

  “Cassie, I can’t let you participate in Antoine’s rescue mission. I have people, hundreds of people, gathering munitions and working themselves into positions as we speak. The plan I created while we flew back from Morocco is being put into action. You have no part of that plan.”

  I winced, hurt by his suggestion of “no place.” “Brad,” I said, “you need me. Without me, you would never have come in contact with Patrick. Would never have learned what he knew.”

  “And Patrick is dead now,” Brad finally snapped, his fork falling from his finger and clattering onto the floor. “Do you think Patrick would be dead today if he’d avoided his involvement with this situation? And he’s not the only one,” he continued without waiting for me to answer. “It’s only a matter of time before he comes after you. He knows you exist. He’s seen you, he’s been in your home. He’s touched your things.”

  All of Brad’s words were working; my body felt twisted, horrified, repulsed, yet I still stayed strong, insistent that I help.

  “But, Brad, I’m not saying I need to walk up to Manuel Brown’s house myself, knock, and ask for Antoine. I’m just saying I can be of use. I’ve lost people in this, too! And I don’t want to lose you.”

  “It’s too dangerous. You’re a journalist, not a militant. Have you ever even held a gun?”

  “Simon would teach me,” I said. “And I’m not a complete idiot. Remember, I was the one who was kidnapped, and I managed to hold my own just fine!” I was indignant. Part of what Brad had fallen in love with was my confidence, my tenacity, my ability to stand on my own two feet. I reminded him of us.

  He looked at me and said nothing. “Are you going to eat any more?” he asked, coldly, staring at my half-eaten breakfast. I considered my options.

  “No,” I said, pushing it away. I knew I was playing games with someone who had invented the game of holding out, of gambling, of the poker face, of winning. But, I knew I was right. “If you could do all of this alone, you would have done it already. If you could, you’d already have Antoine home with you, rather than being tortured and god-knows-what at the hands of Manual Brown. But, because you want to go in and save the day singlehandedly, because your ego can’t handle any help, he’s sitting in danger.”

  It probably would have been better if I had not told him that.

  “You bitch,” he said, when I’d finished spilling my thoughts. He grabbed me by my wrists and pulled me up from the table, shoving me against the wall behind my chair. His face was screwed up in anger and I’d never seen someone struggling so much to battle anger and hurt and love. I didn’t fight back; I stared into his eyes, let him see me as deeply as he could. Let him see the woman he had rescued that first night in Belize, let him see how much he loved me.

  He kept my hands bound, and he kissed me, hard. His lips attacked mine and I knew that it was driven by an emotion far deeper than any lustful passion. He pressed his body to mine until he was supporting me against the wall. He took my hands down, one by one, and held them behind my back with his left hand. With his right, he pulled away from me, slightly, just far enough to undo the buttons on my sheer shirt. He slowly undid them with his incredibly dexterous fingers, one at a time, until my lace cami was exposed to him. He kissed my breasts through the fabric, while still keeping my hands bound to my back. With his right hand, he reached under my cami and, tugging my hands back to arch my spine, lifted my breasts into his hands.

  He stared at me, a smile both sad and hungry on his face.

  “You will allow me to do this to you,” he said. “In this way. So violent.”

  I nodded. “I trust you, Brad,” I said. My voice was shaking, and I shamed it into straightening out.

  “Then you must trust me now. I know that you think you know how to fix everything, but this has been going on a lot longer than you know. One false move;” he pulled on my arms and, this time, it did hurt; pain radiated through my shoulder heads and I gasped, tears springing into my eyes. “One false move, and your life as you know it is over.”

  “But,” I began.

  “What would Patrick tell you to do?” he asked quietly, looking at the floor. He had relaxed his grip on my arm, but my shoulders still pulsed.

  I rolled my eyes. “You know what he would say,” I said. “He’s in the same boys’ club you’re in.”

  “He would say you should let us, him and me, get Antoine back while protecting you.”

  “Yes,” I said. “But Patrick is gone!” And, my voice raising, “I can’t lose you! I could barely lose him. Losing him made me want to die. If I knew that I could never do this again,” and I reached forward for him, kissing his mouth. “Or this,” and I yanked one of my hands free and wrapped it around his waist, squeezing his ass cheek in my hand. “Or this,” and my other hand, which he had released, slithered through our bodies to his chest, where I trailed my fingers from his broad chest down his belly all the way to his cock, which was awakening, engorging and hardening in my hands.

  “Yes, my love,” Brad whispered. “But how for me? If I could never do this,” and he pulled the straps of my cami off my shoulders, revealing my breasts to him. He grabbed them in both hands and greedily pulled them toward him, the skin stretching in arousing pain, pinching my nipples and sucking them. “Or this,” he said, pulling back and looking me up and down before dropping to his knees. I stood while he undid my belt and pulled down my jeans and fluorescent peach panties. He kissed my labia, sent his tongue exploring between my thighs, spread them with his hands to kiss me deeper. “I always get what I want, Cassie; you know that. I want Antoine… and I want you.”

  He stood up and grabbed my hands, trying to bring me into the bedroom. I stopped, pushing away the hypnotic feel of his touch.

  “No, Brad, I want to help.” I pulled my hands out of his and turned away. I began to dress, pulling my jeans back on. “I will help you. You need to trust me that I’ll be okay, that I have just as much to lose here as you do, if things go wrong. We need to work together!” I pulled my arms through my sheer shirt. “And, if you can’t work with me, then I’ll work by myself, and I’ll do it alone.” I slid on a pair of shoes by the door, grabbed my purse and phone, and I walked out, closing the door behind me.

  Brad

  Cassie closed the door and I leaned my head against it. She was just like Lorinda, stubborn as hell, bossy, and with no full awareness of the danger she was in. I pounded on the door angrily, vowing that nothing would happen to Cassie. I couldn’t let the woman I loved die a second time.

  I texted Simon to track Cassie and made sure she found a place to go. Though she had no lack
of resources, my hope was that she would stay within the Legacy building. Since we’d gotten back from Morocco, I had made it Simon’s full time job to keep an eye on Cassie, and Cassie knew it. There was no telling what Manuel might do, and, since she only knew him as Mavin, she might not recognize him if he showed up in his Manuel persona.

  Then, I made another call.

  “Sir?” Antoine answered on the first ring. He sounded surprised to hear from me; I hadn’t been in contact with him since the first time I’d brought Cassie here and had him stand in for me to pretend to give Cassie a massage until I could surprise her.

  “Antoine, old friend,” I sighed, relieved, into the phone. “Can you come to the suite?”

  “Immediately, Sir.” He hesitated. “Have you been able to leave the suite? Perhaps we might be better going down to the Monkey Ostrich? It’s quiet, we can grab a pint.”

  I thought for a moment. Out of anyone in my life, Antoine was the only advisor whose advice I was likely to take without question. He had known me so long, since childhood; he knew what I needed very often before I knew.

  “That sounds good. Better, actually,” I said. “I’ll meet you there. I’ll get our table.” Monkey Ostrich was a bar owned by a friend of the Legacy family. It was always a place where people could quietly discuss business without worrying that it was going to land all over the world.

  “Very good, Sir,” Antoine said, and he disconnected.

  I looked around the apartment, and then sent a text to my head housekeeper to make sure that all of the room service items were gone and the room tidied up within the next hour.

  Then, I left the building and walked across the street and down the block to the Monkey Ostrich. I walked in and shook my hands through my hair; it was misting in London, as always, which always set my hair curling in strange, unattractive ways. I took off my overcoat and hung it on the rack, then I scanned the bar.

  Antoine was right where he was supposed to be. Over six foot four, Antoine towered over almost everyone in the bar. Solidly built, dark skinned with dark hair, he had scared me when I was a child. I remembered thinking that Antoine was an adult, but, as we’d grown older together, I’d realized that Antoine was less than ten years older than I was; he had been a teenager when I was a child.

  “Sir,” Antoine stood, ducking to avoid hitting the ceiling.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “Sit.” I smiled and slid into the booth next to Antoine.

  “How are you feeling? That’s the first, most important thing,” I said, reaching out a hand to place it on Antoine’s. Antoine had slipped on the curb several weeks ago and had broken his collar bone and his ankle.

  “Oh, psh,” Antoine said. “It was nothing. Now, let’s talk about you. Things have been very interesting for you lately.”

  We took a break in the conversation to order and receive our pints, then we resumed. Antoine looked to me to begin.

  “Cassie is unlike any woman I’ve ever met, Antoine. I met her in Belize, of all places, and, at first, I thought she was just this typical New Yorker beach bum who wouldn’t bother to bother to look up from her blackberry long enough to actually enjoy the place around her, right? But, it turns out, not only is she the opposite of that woman, she’s also interested in me! So we hook up, right? And I think, “Okay, that’s it.” But then things keep happening. And then she starts…”

  “Getting involved in things that shouldn’t involve her,” Antoine said. “Dangerous things.”

  “Exactly!” I said. “It’s like the shit is attracted to her. She’s been abducted, she’s been tied to the death of an NCA agent… I mean, this isn’t small stuff. And now, I’m just worried about her. Manuel Brown kills people. He’s not playing around. And I don’t think she understands that. I think she just thinks this is like some CSI episode or something that’s just going to all get tidied up and fixed at the end of the hour, and everyone will be okay.”

  Antoine arched his eyebrows at me, suggesting I was possibly being a little unfair. “She knows that it didn’t end happily ever after for Lorinda,” he said. “And, she lost someone herself right, this Patrick Shim?”

  “Patrick was just an agent who had been using her to get to me,” I said, shaking my head as if waving away a fly. I couldn’t think of Patrick as anything other than that.

  “Are you sure?” Antoine asked.

  I looked at him closely, narrowing my eyes. Antoine thought there was more, too. After a long pause, I said, “You think there was more.”

  “I don’t think anything,” Antoine said. “But you have said that she is not the blackberry-carrying, beach bum, don’t give a shit kind of woman. That, to me, suggests two things: first, that Patrick Shim might have noticed that characteristic in her, and, two, that just like Cassie didn’t stamp you off as a materialistic, power hungry billionaire, perhaps she gave him a little more personal credit instead.”

  I sighed and drained half my pint. “Cassie wouldn’t cheat on me.”

  Antoine raised his hands. “I would never say that she would. Everything I’ve seen when the two of you have been together, including watching her leave Legacy today, suggests that she loves you and is loyal to you. But, a person can still be loyal with a wandering eye.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I knew all too well the truth of that statement.

  “The question is,” Antoine said, smiling kindly at me, “have you gotten yourself into a situation that you can’t get out of?”

  “I know where you’re going with this, and I don’t want to put Cassie in the middle. She wants a normal life. I want her to have a normal life. Hell, I want to have a normal life with her. With her and Antoine. But, in order for that to happen, some pretty serious shit is going to need to go down, and it’s going to need to go down fast.”

  “And it’s dangerous,” Antoine nodded.

  “It’s dangerous enough that not only am I in danger, you, Cassie, Simon, everyone I come within a five mile radius right now is in danger.”

  “What are your options?” Antoine asked.

  “I don’t—” I began to say that I didn’t have any options, but Antoine’s look stopped me. One the reasons I trusted and depended on Antoine so much was that Antoine believed there were always options. There was always a path out, a path in, a solution to the problem. Spotting it was step one. Dealing with it was step two. “I guess one option I have is to let her help me. Or, at the very least, to not shut her out.”

  “She’s a savvy one; Simon has told you as such.”

  “Yes.”

  “So…”

  “Yes, fine, okay,” I said, putting my hands up in a defensive gesture. “I’ll include her. I’ll see what she’s got. I’m just worried… I couldn’t take it if anything happened to her. I mean, what if I couldn’t save her?”

  Antoine looked at me with all the wisdom I’d come to know from my mentor. “What if, Brad, she can save you?”

  Cassie

  I left Legacy in a huff, grateful to be away from Brad and his ego, happy to be in the fresh air, yet absolutely uncertain of where I was going to go and what I was going to do.

  I couldn’t believe that Brad was still so adamant about not letting me help, especially when I’d proven to him over and over again that, not only was I willing to sacrifice my wellbeing, I was able to get answers.

  I punched Julian’s number into my cell phone. He answered immediately.

  “I want to meet you,” I said.

  “Crauler’s Pub on Water,” he said. “Do you know where that is?”

  “I’ll find it,” I said. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

  “You’ll be there in thirty,” he said, and disconnected. I plugged the bar into my GPS and, he was right; it would take me thirty minutes to get there, walking and by tube.

  When I arrived, I found him at a table for two in the corner. I glanced at him, trying to figure out if we were being secretive, but he waved openly, so I went over to his table.

  “Hey,” I said. “W
hat’s going on?”

  “This is a quiet place,” Julian said. “No worries about any spies here. Want a pint?”

  I nodded, and settled in while Julian got up to get our drinks. He was a really good looking guy; I had to give him that. I wondered if all of the men of the NCA were also GQ models, if that was a part of the job. He turned back from the bar and I turned toward the table, not wanting him to see me checking him out.

  “Cheers,” he said, tipping his pint toward mine and smiling. I found my smile broadening on my face as his eyes looked into mine. A small part of my brain sounded a danger alarm, but it was too distant, too faint. I clinked glasses with Julian and took a long swig from my beer.

  “Fuck, yeah, that tastes good,” I said.

  Julian looked amused. “Doesn’t Brad keep you well lubricated? I mean… with beer?” His mischievous smile said he knew exactly what he’d said, and I blushed in spite of myself.

  “I have all the… beer I need, thank you,” I said. “Now, let’s talk about what’s going to happen.” I wanted to get us down to business before anything even remotely resembling flirting took place.

  “I was glad you called,” he said, “regardless of the circumstances, which, judging by your disheveled appearance, include a fight from the morning…” He looked me up and down and I blushed.

  “Anyway,” I said. “Continue.”

  “Tight-lipped,” he observed.

  “Journalist,” I reminded him.

  He nodded. “Okay, I have an idea. I’ve been doing some research, and I have at least a general idea of where Manuel Brown might be keeping Antoine. I’ll need to talk to Brad about what he remembers about the last time he was with Antoine in any house that wasn’t his own, any sounds he remembers, that sort of thing.”

  “I think all of that is documented in the file,” I said.

  “It’s still always good to talk to witnesses,” Julian said. “Sometimes people forget things. Sometimes they disregard them, thinking they’re not important. Anyway, once we zero in on the exact location, two things are going to happen simultaneously. One, Brad is going to distract from the front. He’s going to call Manuel out to the front porch and talk to him. Then, you and I, and other NCA agents, will go in from the back.”