by Cynthia Sax
Dedication
To my dear, wonderful hubby for loving my special brand of crazy;
to Elizabeth Benanti, Lauri Chadwick Heanue, and Lori Green for being so super supportive of Sinful Rewards (big hugs);
and to Tessa Woodward for polishing my stories until they shine.
Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
About the Author
Also by Cynthia Sax
An Excerpt from Various States of Undress: Virginia by Laura Simcox
An Excerpt from The Governess Club: Louisa by Ellie Macdonald
An Excerpt from Good Guys Wear Black by Lizbeth Selvig
An Excerpt from Sinful Rewards 1 by Cynthia Sax
An Excerpt from Covering Kendall by Julie Brannagh
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter One
NICOLAS RAINER, CHICAGO’S most sought-after bachelor, is kissing me, Belinda Carter, daughter of a hardworking waitress and a biker who didn’t stick around long enough to see my birth. The billionaire cups my face with his hands, pressing his lips gently against mine as he slowly, leisurely explores my mouth.
He’s everything a woman should want—handsome, wealthy, intelligent—and I’m his focus, his top priority. He has given me his phone to hold for the next twenty minutes, ignoring his real estate empire for once in his ambitious life. I should be thrilled, ecstatic, swept off my feet.
And I would feel this way if it weren’t for the guilt churning my stomach. My phone hums against my right hip. Hawke, my tattooed former marine, is trying to contact me. I told him to call when he reached the condo complex. He returned to the building to see me, to spend time with me, not knowing that Nicolas had planned a surprise visit.
“Do you need to answer your phone?” Nicolas breaks our embrace, gazing down at me with eyes darkened by passion.
Yes, my soul screams. “No.” I force the word past my tingling lips. “These twenty minutes are ours.”
“Twenty minutes,” Nicolas repeats, sounding stunned. “With no contact to the outside world.” His gaze lowers to his phone, the device clutched in my left hand.
“You can last that long.” I laugh, clipping his device to the waistband of my white pants, the fabric sagging under the combined weight of the electronics. “You’re Nicolas Rainer. You can do anything,” I tease.
“That’s true.” His grim lips curl upward, the smile rendering his already gorgeous face even more attractive. “I am an asshole.”
“You’re a complete asshole.” I dance away from him, my bare feet slapping on the hardwood floor. The shopping bags filled with clothes remain near the door, tempting me, but I can’t look at the garments now. If I peek into the bags, Nicolas will ask about them and I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t share that Lona, the escort in five oh one south, is paying me to have lunch with a man. He wouldn’t approve of that, of me.
Seeking to draw him away from the bags, I move toward the kitchen. “Can I get you anything—coffee, water, candy?” I wave my hand over the bowl of jelly beans set on the red countertop.
“The Wynters make good candy,” Nicolas states begrudgingly as he peers into the bowl. “I have to give them credit for that.”
I say nothing because it is the truth. Cyndi Wynters, my best friend and roommate, is heir to the company, and they do make good candy.
Nicolas pops a couple of jelly beans into his mouth and chews. “Where is your messy roommate?”
I hear the disapproval in his voice and my spine straightens. “Cyndi went to LA for the weekend.” I shake the bowl. This jostles the jelly beans, erasing the dip Nicolas’s fingers made in the colorful candy. “She’s my best friend and a nice person.” And I won’t tolerate anyone, not even my billionaire, talking badly about her.
“She’s a Wynters.” Nicolas scowls.
“I don’t know what her dad did to you.” My fingers curl around the edge of the candy bowl. “But it has nothing to do with Cyndi. She’s a wonderful human being.”
“You’re right.” He squares his shoulders. “You don’t know what her dad did to me.”
“I’ll never know unless you tell me.” I stalk toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, needing to be closer to Hawke. “Cyndi has no idea why you hate her. And I have too much respect for your privacy to call Mr. Wynters and discuss your personal business with him.”
Nicolas says nothing, his response to any unpleasant situation, and I glare out the window, unable to craft a solution without knowing the details.
Hawke stands on his balcony with his arms raised, military-style binoculars covering his eyes. He’s watching us. I clench my fists, splay my fingers against the cool glass, clench my fists, and flash my fingers, signaling that I need twenty more minutes.
An uncomfortable silence stretches, emphasizing the fissure that I have caused between Nicolas and me. My reclusive billionaire has a right to his feelings and to his secrets. Although he had me investigated, he doesn’t know everything about me either. He certainly doesn’t know about the conflicted feelings I have for Hawke, the man he hired to investigate me.
He must never know. I inhale deeply, count to five, and release my breath.
“I don’t like anyone speaking negatively about the people I love,” I confess, my gaze fixed on Hawke’s big form. He’s wearing clothing today. I can’t see the details, as he’s too far away, but I suspect his black T-shirt is plain and his blue jeans are faded and torn.
His taste in fashion is deplorable, unlike Nicolas’s sense of style. I glance over my shoulder. My billionaire is clad in a formfitting black suit, an immaculate white shirt, and a beautiful forest green silk tie.
My gaze returns to Hawke. Did he understand my message? Needing to be certain, I splay and clench my fingers two more times.
The man I should be thinking about claims the space to my right, his hand brushing against mine, his expensive cologne filling my nostrils. Hawke would have positioned his big body behind me, wrapped his arms around my waist, engulfed me with his heat, his scent, his hard muscle.
Nicolas must be able to see his rival. I chew on the inside of my cheek, dreading the questions he’s certain to ask, not knowing how I’ll answer them.
“The investigator warned me you were loyal,” my billionaire murmurs, remaining focused on our conversation.
I frown. That investigator was Hawke, and he meant it as a compliment. “Loyalty is a good trait. It isn’t something you need to be warned about.”
“It can be a good trait,” my well-dressed executive concedes. “It can also cause problems.”
It has caused problems for me. My foolish heart, having sworn loyalty to Hawke, won’t allow me to focus on Nicolas, a man who can offer me everything I want. I touch the ball chain hanging around my neck. The dog tags Hawke gave me dangle between my breasts, concealed by my pale blue blouse.
“I can switch my loyalties.” I make this statement more for myself than for Nicolas. “But I need a good reason to do that.”
Avoiding a lifetime spent working minimum-wage jobs as my mom did, unable to help her, to afford rent, the fashions I love, is a good reason. Hawke doesn’t earn enough money to furnish his condo. He can’t give me the life I want. He can’t ensure my mom has a rodent-free place to stay and food in her fridge.
“An unexplained dislike of Cyndi’s family isn’t a good reason,” I add, unwilling to betray my buddy
to gain the man and the lifestyle I deserve. “You have to give me more than that.”
There’s another long pause. This time I don’t apologize, don’t fill the silence with words. Cyndi has been my best friend for years, I’d do anything for her, and if Nicolas doesn’t understand this, doesn’t appreciate this, then he isn’t the man for me.
“Your loyalty to her will cause problems between us, won’t it?” he asks, his voice soft.
“Yep.” I’ll continue to defend Cyndi and he’ll continue to make snide remarks.
The light dims as clouds cover the sun, the day deteriorating as quickly as my impromptu date with Nicolas. Below us, in the tiny park, the branches of the big maple tree sway, the wind rustling its leaves.
“I planned the complex around that tree,” Nicolas shares. “As soon as I saw it, I knew I couldn’t cut it down. It’s been here for over a century.”
He values longevity, tradition, constancy, as I do, which makes his stance on Cyndi even more puzzling. “So you built around it.” And every morning, he sits alone in his park and gazes at his tree, cherishing everything it represents.
“I did.” Nicolas nods. “I hired the best arborist in the city to ensure the tree survived. She was here every day, driving the construction crew crazy with her demands.”
“But it was worth it.” I hear the love warming his normally curt voice.
“It was,” he agrees. “The leaves turn a brilliant red in the fall and, when the snow falls, we string lights in the branches.”
I sigh. Cyndi and I have lived in the complex for mere months, moving here after graduating college. I haven’t seen his tree lit up, surrounded by a blanket of snow. “It must be beautiful, like diamonds sparkling on white silk.”
“Like stars hovering within our reach.” Nicolas surprises me with this romantic description.
Silence falls between us, heavy with emotion and meaning, both of us lost in our own thoughts. I picture his tree in the winter, envisioning the future.
A sturdy little dark-haired, blue-eyed boy bundled in an army green snowsuit stands by the tree’s thick trunk, gazing up at the big maple with wonder on his face, his chubby cheeks rosy from the cold, his breath puffing in the air. He knows he’s loved, that I’m standing by the window watching him, a pot of bubbling homemade hot chocolate set on the cooktop.
“Constructing a complex like this requires many lots of land,” Nicolas says, his somber tone breaching my reverie, his thoughts not as happy as mine. “These lots are often already developed.”
I glance at his reflection in the glass, note the grim set of his lips and the hard look in his eyes, hearing Hawke’s voice in my mind as I try to read my billionaire’s thoughts. Pay attention, my military man would tell me. Notice as much as possible.
Nicolas plucks at his shirt cuffs. He does this when he’s upset. I remain still, waiting for him to continue, suppressing the urge to fill the quiet with senseless chatter.
“Today, I’m careful about how I obtain the land,” Nicolas adds. “When I was young and stupid, I hired a company to approach the owners. I was told they got results, and I didn’t think to ask how they convinced the holders of the lots to sell. They used. . .” He pauses as though searching for the words. “Harsh tactics. People were hurt and businesses were destroyed.”
When I see something, someone I want, I’ll do anything, even destroy long-lasting friendships, to stake my claim, Nicolas told me during our first meeting.
Judging by the bleakness in his voice, he has destroyed more than friendships. I struggle to maintain a blank expression, to conceal my horror over a mistake he clearly regrets and is ashamed of making. If Hawke had made this admission, he’d easily read my reaction. Nicolas is a different man, and he’s focused on his own demons.
He takes a ragged breath. “One of Harry Wynters’s customers was involved. He had proof—not enough to put me in jail, but it would have ruined my reputation—and that would have destroyed me. That would have benefited no one, making a bad situation even worse.”
I hear the truth in his voice, that if his destruction had benefited the victims, he wouldn’t have made an effort to save himself. He would have taken the punishment, paid for his mistake.
He’s a good man, my billionaire, although he doesn’t believe this. I step closer to him, bumping my shoulder against his arm, silently offering him support.
Nicolas stops playing with his cuffs and lowers his hands. I slide my palm along his and our fingers entwine, linking us together. We’re one.
“I made a deal.” His words are filled with shame and remorse. “In exchange for his silence, I’ll give Wynters one unit in every complex I build.”
“Forever?” I raise my eyebrows. A unit in one of Nicolas’s complexes is worth millions of dollars.
“Forever.” His handsome face darkens. “I thought he’d sell the units, convert them to cash, but no, he holds on to them.” Nicolas’s tone is bitter. “His ownership is a constant reminder of the mistake I made, how sloppy I was, blindly trusting someone like an arrogant fool.”
“And now you investigate everyone,” I conclude. This is why he hired Hawke to investigate me, why he was so cautious when we first met. He doesn’t trust his own judgment. “You’re not the same man. You won’t ever make that mistake again.” I squeeze his hand.
“No, I won’t.” Nicolas sighs. “But I won’t ever be free of my mistake either. It follows me everywhere.”
“That’s how mistakes are. They haunt you.” My mom’s mistake will cling to her forever. I gaze at Hawke as he stands on his balcony. My former marine will never forgive himself for not preventing his best friend’s death. “Hating Cyndi won’t make your mistake disappear.”
“Nothing will make it disappear.” Nicolas tugs on his hand. “I should leave.”
I grip his fingers tighter, holding on to him. “You’re not going anywhere, Mr. Rainer.” I pivot on my bare heels and face him. He avoids my gaze, his expression bleak and his lips flat. “You promised me I’d have twenty minutes of your time.”
“Do you want twenty minutes of my time?” Nicolas asks. “I’m not a nice person, Bee.” The anguish in his voice makes my heart twist. “You heard what I did.”
I release his hand and slide my palms over his chest, the fabric of his suit luxuriously soft under my fingertips. “Yes, I heard what you did.” I’m not certain of the details, knowing only that Nicolas made a mistake, the consequences were terrible, and he’s been living with guilt since that day. “A truly bad man wouldn’t care about his actions.”
“A good man wouldn’t have made that decision.” Nicolas plucks on his shirt cuffs, clearly agitated. “How can you forgive me?”
He asks this because he can’t forgive himself. I read this truth in his dark eyes. Is this why he hasn’t yet formed a lasting romantic relationship—he doesn’t think himself worthy of love, doesn’t believe a woman can accept his past?
I wish I could tell him I loved him but I don’t, not yet.
“You’re not perfect, Nicolas.” I rise onto my tiptoes and press my lips against his chin. The phone on my right hip hums as Hawke, my possessive former marine, tries to interrupt the embrace. I ignore the call, focusing on my upset billionaire. “I knew that before I met you, before I decided to be your friend.”
“I’m a terrible friend also,” Nicolas mutters.
“You are a terrible friend,” I admit and a gold sparkle returns to his brown eyes. “But you have potential. I believe, after two or three years of constant training, you could progress from being a terrible friend to being a really bad friend.”
Nicolas’s lips twitch. “How many years will it take me to become a great friend?”
“More years than you have.” I laugh, skipping away from him. “You’d have to be immortal to achieve great-friend status.”
Nicolas grins, his white teeth flashing against his tanned face. “You’re priceless.”
My smile wavers. Hawke used priceless to descr
ibe me when he presented his report to Nicolas. I yearn to ask my billionaire what he thinks about me. Instead, I flop on the purple leather couch. “I’m a bargain at the moment, as I’m still unemployed.”
Nicolas joins me, the seat cushion dipping under his weight, causing me to slide into his long, lean form. “Not many employers interview candidates on the weekends.” He places his arm around me, his body seductively warm. “Only asshole real estate developers work seven days a week.”
“Asshole real estate developers need to take more breaks.” I rest my head in the curve of his shoulder, feeling safe and secure and a little bit guilty.
“This was a good idea,” he murmurs.
“Yes, it was.” I don’t know which idea he’s referring to—talking about his past, spending time without his phone, or visiting with me. “We could add a couple of minutes every day until we reach half an hour.”
“What happens then?”
“Then we have enough time to bake chocolate chip cookies.” I grin, diffusing the tension swirling between us. “You could return to the office with freshly baked goodies for all of your hardworking employees.”
A long pause follows. Nicolas doesn’t express his thoughts about the cookie plan, and I should be fine with this. I will be fine with this. He’s talked more today than he has ever talked, shared more than I suspect he’s shared with any woman.
I fill the silence with my childhood cooking adventures, telling him about burned cookies and visits from the fire department. He listens, laughs, holds me. The voice inside me, the one protesting his touch, quiets.
As I chatter about nonsense, I snuggle deeper into his lean body, slide my hand under his jacket, and explore his form. Nicolas doesn’t have Hawke’s bulging muscle but his strength is undeniable, his iron core appealing to the woman in me. I stroke his cotton-clad stomach with my fingertips, waiting for him to kiss me, to caress me, to purge my brain of all other men.
Nicolas doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything, doesn’t laugh at my silly jokes.
I gaze upward, studying his face. His eyes are closed. His breathing is level. My lips twist. We have a mere twenty minutes together and the man falls asleep.
