by Sierra Rose
Heart of the
Billionaire
Part 7
Sierra Rose
Copyright © 2017 by Sierra Rose
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Heart of the Billionaire (Taming The Bad Boy Billionaire, #7)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Remember Charlie from the island? Stay tuned for the next book with Charlie and Jaime in, Fake Wife.
www.authorsierrarose.com
Chapter 1
AS THEY SAY, LIFE AS we know it really can change in the blink of an eye. I never really believed or understood that until it happened to me, until...now.
The next few moments passed in a blur, like a parade of stilted snapshots, each more surreal and confusing than then last. First, there was Max, a giant Italian and a stranger to me. He literally appeared out of thin air the second he saw that look of panic on Nick’s face, and I would later be informed that he was a bodyguard. He was almost invincible and incredibly loyal, an unbeatable enforcer who had been around so long that he was practically part of the family. The second Nick raised a finger, Max was by our side, angled protectively between our tiny group and the swarms of paparazzi that were already closing in.
As if someone had flipped a switch, Abby went from billionaire’s wife to billionaire’s former publicist. Half a decade of training kicked in as she swept bravely forward, slipping beneath Max’s restraining arm. In what looked like slow motion, she lifted her hands to command silence, quieting the ever-growing horde of cameramen and drama junkies, so she could deliver what I was sure was the world’s most tasteful back-the-fuck-off speech.
I didn’t hear a single word of it though. From the second Ferdie walked down the steps and delivered that fateful news, I only had eyes and ears for James.
“It’s your father. I’m so sorry, James. He’s dead.”
Wait. Dead? Dead, dead...dead.
The grim word laced with horrible finality echoed over and over in my head, growing louder with every pass. Benjamin Cross. Founder and CEO of Cross Enterprises. International tycoon, global humanitarian, and quite possibly the most significant mover and shaker the corporate world had seen in the last half-century was gone. The world had just lost a giant, and things would never be the same.
Of course, while the world would mourn that loss of a great businessman, James would mourn the loss of his father, and by the looks of things, that loss had yet to fully register.
There was shock, and then there was shock; James was infected by the latter. There was a strange tension in the way he was standing, as if he might leap from the ground and take flight at any moment. His eyes, which usually sparkled like the brightest of gems, were dull and glassy, and, no matter the chaos around him, he kept those eyes locked on the exact place where Ferdie had stood when he delivered the news. His lips parted just a hair, as if they demanded to free a gasp he couldn’t let go of, and I could have sworn he hadn’t even taken a breath in far longer than humanly possible.
“James...” I said quietly, slipping my hand into his with a gentle squeeze. “Honey, we should probably get inside.”
Abby did a fine job handling the crowd, but realistically, she could only control them for so long. Already, the security personnel who worked in James’s building was discreetly placing barriers along the sidewalk, and Max was about two seconds away from just lifting Nick off the ground and carrying him into the lobby.
Nick, however, wasn’t about to leave James’ side. He knew full well that in that moment, he was probably the only person who could get through to him. Surprisingly enough, James wasn’t the only person worthy of Nick’s concern. I had no idea when it happened, but I’d obviously made it onto that short list as well.
“Della...”
I literally jumped when he said my name, then turned around to stare into a pair of anxious blue eyes.
“You and Abby should get inside. This is bound to get worse before it gets better.”
“But I want...” I trailed off, my eyes flickering between James and the giant, pulsing crowd that was straining to close in on him. I wasn’t sure what was more frightening, the rabid, frantic faces of the media that flanked him on every side or the fact that James seemed paralyzed in front of them. “I want to help. I can’t just leave him—”
“You can help by getting Abby inside,” Nick said firmly, an unexpectedly cool head in times of crisis. “Don’t worry about James. I’ve got him.” Then, without another word, Nick bypassed his own security and strode forward to place his body squarely between his friend and the cameras. He turned to face him with a look of unshakable calm as a halo of electric blue illuminated his face.
At the same time, I hurried to do as he asked, darting toward the impromptu security barriers to retrieve Abby. My fingers wrapped around her thin wrist, and we shared a silent look. A second later, she was thanking the various news outlets, and the two of us were storming through the double-doors, walking double-time. It wasn’t until I was safely inside that I realized Nick didn’t just send me after Abby for her protection. In doing so, he was really looking after me as well.
“Hey, are you okay?” she said, and before I even realized what was happening, she had pulled me into a tight embrace, turning me away from the flashing cameras and toward the dimmer lights of the building.
It took a second for my eyes to adjust, for my racing heart to return to normal, for me to realize I was trembling. “I... Is it always like this?” I asked, shaking from head to toe. “They just pop up out of nowhere, and...”
Abby took one look at me, her eyes brimming with sympathy, before she pulled me in for another hug. “Yeah, hon’, always. It takes a little getting used to. Trust me on that.”
“Nick...” I said in a daze, my ears still ringing with the screams and shouts of 100 people I’d never know and didn’t want to know. “H-He asked me to get you inside.”
A rather tender look swept across Abby’s face as she glanced outside at her husband, then turned that gentle smile back on me. “The first time I set foot in Nick’s world as something more than his publicist, as his actual girlfriend, I just... I completely froze.”
Abigail Wilder, renowned PR maven extraordinaire, just froze? It didn’t seem possible. Then again, I had made speeches and presentations in boardrooms full of a lot more powerful people than the paparazzi swarm on the street, so I didn’t know why I froze either.
“It’s a specific kind of shock,” she explained, g
uessing my thoughts, “not something you can really prepare for, but you’ll get used to it. I promise.”
To be honest, I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to get used to it. And speaking of shock...
My eyes roved the lobby, which seemed to be drowning in an almost tangible tension, then flicked out to the two men standing behind a barricade, just a short distance from the raging mob.
Nick was talking to James, speaking in a fast-paced clip too low for anyone around them to hear. Twice, James nodded in a daze, his mind a million miles away. Then, he looked up sharply, unwilling to commit to whatever Nick was saying, but Nick held firm, and a second later, they both headed inside.
“That was fast,” Nick muttered the second he’d reached me and Abby. He planted a quick kiss on his wife’s cheek before glancing back to the frenzy of cameramen threatening to break through the barricade. “I wonder who tipped them off.”
Abby nodded grimly. “Probably someone at the hospital or maybe Ben’s hospice worker. I know they did their best to be careful, but with that many people around, someone was bound to talk. For all we know, it could’ve been one of Rob’s people.”
Rob? Ben? The nicknames caught me by surprise, and it took a second for me to recall that Abby and Nick actually knew them. In fact, they knew them both quite well.
“I’m sorry,” I heard myself saying before I even made any conscious decision to let those words tumble out. “Benjamin Cross,” I was quick to explain, “you, uh...knew him. It’s a terrible thing, and I’m very sorry for your loss.”
Abby bowed her head to the ground while Nick gazed thoughtfully out the window.
“He was a good man, actually a lot like James.” His voice faltered a moment, and he dropped his eyes to the floor. “I can’t believe he’s actually gone.”
Abby stepped quickly forward to take his hand.
“James?” I stood up on my toes and craned my neck to peer out over the lobby crowd, searching for that telltale mop of dark, luxurious hair. “James! Where are you?”
Nick was quick to pick up on the hunt while Abby frowned and speed-dialed him on her phone. A second later, she slipped it back in her pocket. “Voicemail,” she said, looking decidedly worried. “Nick, didn’t he come in with you? I saw you both heading this way together.”
“I thought so, but he musta doubled back.” Nick’s dilated eyes scanned the area with a predatory efficiency, only to come up blank every time. “Shit! I shouldn’t have let go of him!”
I’d learned that those who grew up under the spotlight learned to live by a certain set of rules, and they harbored a rare protective streak not often found in others. Nick and James operated as a team. When life threw a little more at them than they were able to handle, one always had unspoken permission to check out while the other instinctively took the reins. This was most definitely James’s turn to break down, and as such, it was Nick’s sworn duty to hold at bay any forces that would disrupt that deserved breakdown.
“Shouldn’t have let go of him?” Abby repeated in disbelief. “Babe, c’mon. You can’t keep a literal hand on him at all times. It’s a miracle you got him past that rope line. Now just calm down and think for a second. When James is upset, where does he go?”
“Switzerland,” Nick responded instantly. Then, when Abby and I shot him equally incredulous looks, he lifted his hands defensively. “What? He likes the cider.”
Abby pursed her lips with endless patience. “Isn’t there somewhere a little closer, perhaps in the same country?”
Nick thought for a moment, then turned his head toward the door. “The Dorchester,” he said softly. “He and his dad loved booking the penthouse there on the weekends. If I was him, that’s where I’d be now.”
I knew the room well, and I also knew Nick was right. It was a brilliant idea, yet another place kept tugging at the corner of my mind, like a persistent voice, whispering in my ear. “Check there,” I said quickly, flipping up the collar on my coat at the same time. “I’ve got another idea, so I’ll check it out, just in case.”
“What idea?” Nick asked quickly as he and Abby turned to me in surprise, as if they couldn’t fathom anyone knowing Nick better than they did. “Did he tell you where...” He trailed off as his wife lay a silencing hand on his arm, her eyes dancing with a knowing smile.
“Let her go,” Abby said softly. “Four eyes looking are better than two, right? I’ll stay here in case he decides to come home.” She glanced at the swelling, screaming throng just outside the window and let out a resigned sort of sigh. “Hopefully, one of you will find him before those vultures get to hack off a piece for themselves.”
Nick glared through the window and shook his head, but I followed her gaze with a stab of fear. She’s right. The second we step out, they’re gonna be all over us. Unless...
In the blink of an eye, I shed my coat, opting for Max’s discarded blazer instead. In an instant, the sunglasses were on, my hair was stashed safely away, and, just for good measure, the cap of a passing bellboy was pilfered and smashed squarely over my head. “There. Perfect,” I said as I spun around for Nick’s and Abby’s approval.
“That’s...interesting,” Abby said with a great deal of restraint.
“Amateur at best,” Nick scoffed under his breath.
“Hey!” She smacked his arm. “I was an amateur once too.”
“You never wore a hotel cap.”
I blushed but paced quickly toward the door. “It’ll be fine. You can get me on my cell, and we’ll come back straightaway if I find him...or even if I don’t. I’m sure he’ll want to—”
“Della?”
I glanced back and saw them both staring at me with the same patient smiles.
Abby took a step forward, cocking her head toward the hallway. “At least use the back door,” she cautioned.
Chapter 2
MY BRILLIANT DISGUISE may have earned me a good-natured reprimand, but it worked like a charm in terms of camouflaging me from the general public, albeit there were really only two people to avoid in the alley. One was on the phone and didn’t even notice me, and the other one was a six-year-old, busy on a quest to catch a stray cat. In any case, I still considered it an undercover success, and I hopped into the first cab I was able to hail down.
As the cabbie took me uptown, I just stared out the window at the ever-expanding crowd outside James’s building. Shit, there must be 1,000 of them out there, I thought. Some had come bearing tealights and photos for some sort of memorial or vigil, but most were armed with nothing but cameras and a distinct lack of human decency, screaming rude, intrusive, and random interrogations toward the door, trying anything and everything to get his attention. In that moment, I had no idea how he managed to slip away unnoticed, even by us. Unless he’s playing a bellhop too, I thought with a slight grin as the visual image hit my mind.
Less than ten minutes later, I arrived at my destination. The building looked exactly as I remembered it: too tall and narrow and embarrassingly run down. Nevertheless, all of those lackluster attributes made it the perfect place for an on-the-lam billionaire to lie low. It was the ideal hideout, and from there, one could gaze at the river and lick his wounds undetected, out of sight of all those nosy lenses and away from all those unrelenting questions.
The door was closed but unlocked, so I made my way inside. I took great care with each footfall as I eked my way up the stairs, searching for any sign that James was there or might have been there recently. I really wasn’t sure what I expected to find as evidence. A diamond cufflink in the lobby? An abandoned churro on one of the stairs? Mostly, I was just stalling, because it hadn’t even occurred to me up to that point that he might actually not want to see me, that the man might have just wanted to be alone.
Trying my very best to be as quiet as possible, I wedged my fingers in and ever-so-slowly nudged the hidden door ajar. After a quick trip through the dark, there I was, standing on the same rooftop where he’d taken me that first night, and sure enough,
I wasn’t alone.
As I predicted, James was perched near the edge of the roof, gazing out at the rippling river. For a second, I simply stared. I had never seen anyone so simultaneously beautiful and sad in my entire life; he was like the embodiment of some ancient classical music. The golden sun gleamed against his dark hair, its rays flickering and dancing in his eyes like renegade flames. His entire body was balanced precariously upon the narrow stone railing that preceded a mighty drop, but not for a single moment did I worry that he might fall. I was quickly coming to understand that James Cross didn’t do anything by accident, and it was even harder still to catch him by surprise.
“James...”
There was no reaction, except for an imperceptible hitch in his breath. His head turned slightly my way, but he didn’t answer me for a second. Finally, he asked, in a voice as quiet as the whisper of the flowing water below, “Are you alone?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s just me.”
He paused for another moment, then returned his gaze to the glowing skyline. “Good.”
At that point, I had no idea what to do or what to say. I truly couldn’t tell if he was happy to see me there or not, and I still wasn’t sure he’d even registered the news of his father’s death. Clueless as to how to proceed, I was about to pull out my phone and text Nick for reinforcement and advice, but James spoke once again, keeping his eyes fixed on the river.
“I went to see him, you know, just yesterday morning, while you and Madi were finding out the results of the competition. I wanted to tell him everything we’ve done these last few weeks, to let him know things are back on track, that everything...that everything’s going to be okay. I guess it was too...” His voice broke, and his chin fell against his chest, his lovely face tightening with an indescribable kind of pain. The next second, he was in my arms.
“Oh, honey...” I eased him down off the ledge, stroking the back of his head as he pressed his forehead into my shoulder, his body shaking with quiet, gentle sobs. “I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t know your father, so I’m not even sure what to say. I do know that anyone who meets you even once would have to love you, and I know he had to be proud of you. How precious you must have been to him. I am sure he was glad that if that was one of his last conversations, it was with you, with good news.”
