The Ruthless Billionaire: A Clean Billionaire Romance (California Elite)

by Evangeline Kelly

  The Ruthless Billionaire

  A Clean Billionaire Romance

  The California Elite Series

  Evangeline Kelly

  Copyright © 2018 by Evangeline Kelly. All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book shall be used or reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the author. The Ruthless Billionaire is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. https://www.esv.org/resources/esv-global-study-bible/copyright-page/

  Table of Contents

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  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

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

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  Chapter 1

  Lucas

  Base jumping off the Perrine Bridge in Twin Falls, Idaho, was not for the faint of heart. Sometimes people died. And sometimes that was the point.

  I leaned against the railing overlooking the Snake River, the bluish-green water glimmering in the sunlight four hundred and eighty-six feet below. It was a favorite tourist spot, and most came for the view, some for the adventure, a few for the adrenaline rush. But me? I came to escape the daily pressures my father laid on my shoulders.

  The kind of pressures only a billionaire’s son would understand.

  I might be recognizable back in Los Angeles, but here in Idaho, no one even gave me a second glance. And that was just as I would have it. The last thing I needed was the media catching wind that Lucas Armstrong was around. I wanted to do this on my own today—without televised witnesses.

  My heart pounded an unsteady rhythm as I glanced from side to side. A man and a woman walked by holding hands, but they didn’t look my way. Most on this bridge were tourists like myself, and I didn’t appear too conspicuous. Not yet, anyway.

  A sign nearby said: Need hope? Call . . . It listed a number, but I didn’t recite the digits in my head. Why bother? Hope wasn’t something tangible you could hold on to. It was smoke and mirrors . . . an illusion. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  Heart beating faster, I puffed up my cheeks and blew out the air, jumped in place to psych up the nerve to do this, wrung out my arms and rolled my neck a few times.

  The cold morning air chilled my skin. Adrenaline pulsed through my veins, and I felt it like a rush of wind against my face. I wiped my clammy hands on my legs and tried to ignore the nervous jitters in my belly. The growing anticipation of what I was about to do stole my breath and pressed down upon my throat until I knew I had to get this over with or I’d chicken out.

  Rising up on my toes, my stomach pitched as I climbed over the railing and stared down at the enormous drop. A wave of dizziness swept over me, standing on that ledge, heart nearly beating out of my chest now, hands gripping the railing like a lifeline.

  My eyes widened as I took in the scene of the snake-like river surrounded by land on both sides. One wrong move and I would plummet to the ground below. But then again that was the point of this little escapade.

  Still, I didn’t want it to come as a surprise. It needed to be on my terms. When I was ready.

  A small inner voice urged me to give in to the fear and walk away from this bridge, to listen to my gut. To go home.

  It was almost comforting in a way; a reminder that despite what most people thought, I wasn’t a cold emotionless robot. I had emotions like everyone else even though most of the time I tried to numb those feelings. It was how I coped with life, how I dealt with the responsibilities that had been thrust upon me against my will.

  A man could have everything the world had to offer and still feel empty. And that was why I’d come to Idaho. To this bridge. And why every bone in my body knew I had to do this even though I didn’t want to.

  I readied myself, breath nearly choking in my throat, knees almost buckling from the tension. Spreading my arms out like a bird, I leaned forward.

  And then I jumped.

  Chapter 2

  Lucas

  Free-falling through the air . . . It was surreal. Like a dream. Like a fantasy in my head. But the force of the wind against my body was a tangible reminder that this was no dream. Gravity yanked me down, down, down.

  I counted to myself . . . one-thousand-one. One-thousand-two. Before I even reached one-thousand-three, I considered . . . If I didn’t pull my chute, everything would end. Could I do it?

  I pulled my parachute and immediately my descent slowed. I floated now, and my heart steadied though I wasn’t out of the woods yet. Scanning the horizon, I allowed myself a moment to take in the beauty of the river and the canyon and the deep blue sky.

  When my feet touched the ground, my shoulders slumped forward now that the pressure was gone, and my body tingled with the sensation only an adrenaline rush could deliver. I was safe and everything was fine. The rush, the high . . . It was over. That was all it had been. And now . . .

  Time to go home. Back to the grind, to the relentless pace of L.A.

  Base jumping was something I did now and then. My dad didn’t understand it, but he chalked it up to reckless youth and didn’t say anything most of the time. If he knew how dangerous it was, he might have tried to convince me to stop. Not because he cared. Not because he worried about my safety. But because he would’ve seen it as an inconvenience. Cleaning up a mess wasn’t on his to-do-list.

  If anything, he grumbled more over my skydiving activities because I did it more often, and it occasionally interfered with work.

  People thought skydiving was the more precarious sport because you fell out of a plane, jumping from heights of up to fifteen thousand feet. One man had even made a record of jumping from one hundred and twenty-eight thousand feet. But most didn’t realize that skydiving was fairly safe. The chances of dying were on par with getting struck by lightning. You had time to think, to deal with a situation gone wrong. With base jumping you had seconds—now that was dangerous.

  If your chute got tangled in your feet, you were a goner. You needed a minimum of two hundred skydiving jumps under your belt before you could even learn to base jump.

  But the rush was something else, and it was the one thing that kept me sane these days.

  I caught the ferry to shuttle out of the canyon since climbing would have taken too much time. The private plane I’d chartered was scheduled to take off in a couple of hours, and I needed to get back to Los Angeles.

  Once I boarded the plane and settled in, I stared out the window and tried to igno
re the sinking sensation in my stomach. My escape to Idaho was over and it was time to face reality again.

  Time to face my responsibilities.

  Time to find a wife.

  The thought made me queasy. I didn’t let people get close—never had. Somehow, I had to convince one of the women on my father’s list to marry me, while at the same time making it clear I wanted separate lives. Most women had preconceived ideas about marriage, such as falling in love and other stupid notions along those lines. My father’s demand that I find a pre-approved wife in order to inherit his real-estate empire was ridiculous, but it was all about image for him. He wanted everyone to see me as a family man because it was good for business.

  Ironically, our family had never been close, and we hated being around each other most of the time.

  I’d resigned myself to the fact that I had to go along with this because my father had made it clear there was no other way, at least in his mind. So, considering I did whatever he asked, I’d have to pull out the charm and woo the next woman on the list since the first had already shot me down.

  The plane landed in L.A. at three in the afternoon. I took my carry-on and headed to the front of the airport where my driver, Sam, picked me up in a black limousine.

  “Good day, Lucas. How was your trip?” He was an older man in his late fifties with a receding hairline and gray hair.

  “It was fine.” I shut the partition separating the driver from the passenger seat so I’d have privacy. My phone rang, and I closed my eyes for a second to gather my wits before answering. “Hi, Dad.”

  “I take it you’re back from Idaho?”

  “Yeah. Driving to the office now.”

  “Good. You have a meeting with Henry Townsend at four. You need to put on your A-game with this one. He’s hesitant to sell to us.”

  “Got it. I haven’t forgotten the appointment.”

  “We need that land. It’s prime property for our next office building. We should be able to get companies willing to pay a high monthly rent because of the location. Make sure you do what it takes to secure the deal.”

  “I will. I understand how important this is.”

  “Good. Don’t let me down.” He cleared his throat. “Speaking of letting me down, you really botched things up with Alexa.”

  My ex-girlfriend, Alexa, had been first on my father’s approved list to marry. She was beautiful, from a good family, had money. Only problem was she’d fallen for Dylan West, a lowlife artist who struggled to make ends meet—the last guy I’d expected to see her with. It was embarrassing that she’d picked him over me, but that was another story. I wasn’t exactly brokenhearted or anything. Alexa was a nice girl, but I’d never had feelings for her.

  I sunk down in my seat and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Do we have to talk about her? That wasn’t my fault.”

  “It was your fault. You didn’t pursue her hard enough. I told you how to take Dylan down, but you stalled and now it’s too late.”

  “Whatever,” I mumbled.

  I’d done my due diligence by using my private investigator to show Alexa the kind of man Dylan was, only she hadn’t cared, not even when I showed her a picture of Dylan engaged in a fight. It appeared she actually loved him. And that was a testament to how love made people do stupid things.

  Dad had wanted me to take unscrupulous action to destroy Dylan’s reputation in an attempt to win Alexa over. He’d wanted me to use the photographs my investigator took to get Dylan kicked out of a contest at Coastal Heritage Museum. I’d made a lot of threats to Dylan, but in the end, I’d refused to go further than showing Alexa the pictures. Maybe I actually had a conscience, but it seemed Dad didn’t—obviously. I’d never known him to have one.

  “You’d better start caring if you want to take over,” Dad yelled. He blew out a loud breath into the phone and started coughing. He didn’t sound good, but he hadn’t for a quite a while now.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” There was a pause, and it sounded like he was sipping water. “On to the next. Hillary Fineman is vacationing in Kauai and I’ve heard through the grapevine she was pleased you and Alexa broke up.”

  I rolled my eyes and tipped my head back, staring up at the ceiling of the vehicle. “Can’t I skip her and go to the third on the list? Our break-up didn’t end well, and she’s too high maintenance for my taste.”

  She and I dated during a brief separation from Alexa. Hillary was . . . How would I describe her? Beautiful? Yes. Self-absorbed? Absolutely. But that hadn’t bothered me—I could be self-absorbed as well. It went along with the money and the lifestyle. What I couldn’t tolerate was her constant chatter about unimportant things. Conversation with her was like dying a slow death of complete boredom. Not to mention, she’d wanted me to love her, and I couldn’t do that. I’d never loved any woman, and that wasn’t about to change anytime soon.

  “She wants too much,” I said. “Wants what I can’t give.”

  “What are you talking about?” Dad cleared his throat again and muffled another cough. “Start making sense. I don’t have a lot of time here.”

  “She wanted me to love her, and I can’t . . .”

  He laughed, and it sounded almost wicked . . . like how a villain in an old movie would laugh. It would have been funny if it had been a joke, but Dad never joked around. “You don’t have to love her,” he said. “You just have to make it seem as if you do.”

  So that was the secret of his unhappy marriage to my stepmother, Sharon. No surprise there. No one ever accused them of living in wedded bliss, least of all me.

  “I’m not an actor. If I don’t like someone, it’s obvious.”

  “Well, then I suggest you hire an acting coach,” he bellowed, “because this isn’t going away.”

  He was yelling into the phone, so I lifted it a few inches from my ear. Standard practice when it came to talking on the phone with Dad.

  “If you don’t convince one of the women on the list to marry you, your inheritance will be in jeopardy. Alexa would have been perfect, but now that she’s not an option, Hillary is second best. She’ll look good enough on your arm, even if she’s a big spender. The other three . . .” He chuckled. “Let’s just say the other three will be a lot harder to persuade, and you’ve never even met them.”

  “Fine. I’ll convince Hillary to marry me.”

  “Good. Get on it right away. Now, there’s another matter we need to discuss.”

  I shook my head in disbelief and pinched the bridge of my nose again. His demands just kept coming. “What’s that?”

  “You need to make an appearance at Coastal Heritage Museum this evening for Dylan’s award ceremony. We don’t want anyone to think you’re holding a grudge.”

  “You can’t be serious—”

  “Put in an appearance. You don’t have to stay long.”

  “No, I’m not doing it.”

  “You will go.” His voice held a quiet, lethal tone to it. “You will represent the Armstrong family. Do you hear me?”

  If I defied him, he’d make my life a living nightmare. He’d done it before, and even as sick and frail as he was now, I wouldn’t put it past him to do it again.

  “Fine. I’ll make an appearance.”

  “Good.” He hung up without saying goodbye as he always did.

  I rested my head against the back of the seat and sat quietly for the next few minutes, trying to calm the growing anger. Dad manipulated people like puppets, and I was just another puppet to him since we’d never had a warm father-son relationship.

  Maybe I should have jumped without the parachute back in Idaho.

  ***

  “Thank you for meeting with me.” I looked Henry Townsend directly in the eye. “I believe we can come to an agreement we’ll both be pleased with.” I wrote down a sum on a piece of paper and slid it across the table.

  Henry took the paper and his eyes widened.

  We sat in my office, and I tapped a pen on my
desk as I waited for Henry’s response. He stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking downtown Los Angeles. The view was amazing since Dad had given me one of the best offices in the building. Of course, that came with a price.

  “This is much more than I anticipated.” He glanced away. “It’s not the offer that concerns me. The amount is more than I expected for the land, but . . .” He trailed off, appearing slightly dismayed.

  “What is your concern, Mr. Townsend? How can I make you feel more comfortable with this decision?”

  “Well, you see . . .” He shifted in his chair. “My mother made me promise before she died that I’d sell the land to someone who promised to use it for altruistic purposes.” He chuckled uneasily. “But she didn’t realize how much this land is worth.”

  “Can you expand on that a little more?”

  “She wanted that land to be used in a way that would help the community in some way. Something like low-income housing or maybe a park or senior citizen center.” He glanced at me. “You haven’t said what you plan to do with the property.”

  I frowned for a millisecond and then schooled my features before he noticed. “Construction on an office building will begin immediately. After that, I’ll rent to prospective businesses.” Only to those who can afford the price. “But if it makes you feel better, I’ll make sure to give non-profits first choice. I can promise you that.” I tried not to wince at the last statement. It was mostly true. Well, it was true only as long as that “altruistic renter” was willing to pay top dollar. This was business after all.

  “How can I be sure you’re telling the truth?” Mr. Townsend asked.

  “I’m a man of my word.” The words flowed easily from my lips. It was just something you said during a business transaction. I reached across the table and extended my hand. “Do we have a deal?”

  The corners of his mouth tipped up just slightly. “We do.”