My stomach turns cold at her words. Fresh meat? “I’m sorry. Who are you?” I ask.
She purrs an obnoxious imitation of a laugh. “I’m Faleena. Damian’s woman. His only real woman, despite whatever lies he filled your head with to get you this far.”
I don’t want to believe her, but all the doubt already swirling around my mind makes it impossible not to cling to what she’s saying. “Why would he lie to me?”
“Oh, to be so naive again,” she muses. “What a luxury.” Faleena leans forward like she’s about to let me in on a grand secret. “He told you what he had to so you’d come with him. He probably fucked you too, didn’t he? Made you feel special?”
I can’t meet her eyes. My fingers curl and uncurl on the hem of my dress. I feel like the dumbest woman in the world for falling into his trap, and right now I want nothing more than to leave, to never look back and pretend this was all a bad dream.
She throws her head back and laughs. “Of course he did. Well I hope you enjoyed your one-on-one time with him. I don’t expect he’ll be very interested in you past tonight. Only a real woman can keep his attention for long.” Her voice lowers to a whisper. “I wouldn’t blame you if you ran off. But if you’re going to leave, you may not want to wait long. He won’t let you go if he catches you.”
I take my bag and push past her without a word, squeezing my eyes shut to hold back the tears of embarrassment. They come anyway. I knew it was too good to be true. I knew the perfect guy would never fall into my lap like that, but I still went along with it like an idiot.
What did I get for putting myself out there for once? For letting go and living a little? I get to look like a silly, stupid little girl. I feel like an even bigger fool when I remember the way he came inside me. At the time, I was so lost to his will that I didn’t even consider the implications. I’m an idiot. I’m going to go home. Then I’m going to wait out the rest of my vacation time, and I’ll go back to work. I’ll move on and pretend none of this ever happened. It’ll be a bad memory, and if I’m lucky, I can eventually push it so far from my mind it disappears.
Unless he got you pregnant. A nasty little voice says in my head. I scoff at the thought, shaking my head and wiping away the tears, already moving on from the self-pity stage and into the angry, resentful stage. What would be the chances of that? A guy like him probably had a vasectomy a long time ago so he could go around fucking whoever he wanted without protection like the animal he is. I should make an appointment to get tested. Lord only knows what kind of diseases the man could have.
A distant part of me questions whether I should believe the word of that catty bitch of a woman, maybe I’m latching onto the idea of his betrayal too quickly. It’s almost an excuse that will let me go running back to my simple, predictable life. After all, it’s one stranger’s word over another. But what I was about to do was so far beyond my comfort zone, it only took the shadow of doubt to shatter my confidence. Running off that airplane was easier than walking into the conference room, and isn’t that what I’ve always done? The easy thing. I don’t know why it should surprise me that I’m doing what’s easy now.
My thoughts leave an empty, painful pit in my stomach. On one hand, I believe the woman. Guys like him don’t just come along to sweep girls up into some life of romance and passion. He could have any woman in the world, so of course she was telling the truth. Luring me onto that plane was just a game for him. I guess simply sleeping--no fucking, it was definitely fucking a woman isn’t enough of a challenge for someone like him, he has to add humiliation and degradation to the mix.
Second by second, my confusion and doubt over running off the plane is solidifying into a single, overwhelming emotion. Anger. It’s getting easier and easier to explain to myself how Faleena’s words must have been true, and it’s getting easier to picture Damian as some kind of monster instead of the man I thought he was.
I make it back inside the airport terminal, using a staircase like the one he led me down just a few minutes ago, but this time choosing a different entrance at random. Once I’m back upstairs, I look out the huge windows overlooking the runways and spot Damian striding back toward the private jet. He looks so big, even from up here. So imposing. So confident.
I set my jaw. And so much like an asshole. Fuck you, Damian. I hope I never see you again.
4
Damian
My cock is already throbbing with the need to take her again when I climb the stairs back onto my private plane. Maybe I will. I’ll just tell the staff to stay in the pilot’s cabin so we can have some privacy. I bet my little kitten has never been fucked at ten thousand feet.
The grin on my face slips when I step into the cabin.
“What the fuck is she doing here?” I ask Jenny, my flight attendant, whose mouth is working silently, unable to come up with a response.
Faleena stands, smoothly pushing Jenny aside and answering for her. “I’m afraid I scared away your little plaything. I implied we were back together,” she practically purrs.
“Where is Kylie?” I ask, ignoring Faleena and searching the cabin and then the pilot’s cockpit.
“She left,” says Jenny in a voice barely above a whisper.
“She left?” I roar. “She fucking left? You let her leave?”
Jenny’s eyes well with tears, and despite my rage, I know I’m taking my anger out on the wrong person. I grit my teeth, pushing out the closest thing to an apology I can manage. “It’s okay. Go wait in the cockpit while I deal with this.”
Faleena gives me an amused arch of her eyebrow. “Really? We’re going to resort to name calling already? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You always were just a brute in expensive suits.”
“Fuck off. I need to go find her.”
“She’s long gone,” Faleena says, stopping me at the door. “She left at least ten minutes ago. Judging by the way she stormed out of here crying like a baby, she’s probably already in her car on the way home. But you two exchanged information, of course?” It’s not a question. Faleena watches me with knowing eyes. “You wouldn’t fuck someone without knowing more than their first name…” Her lips form a mocking pout. “Or would you?”
I look out over the runway, knowing how slim my chances are of finding her now. “What the fuck did you tell her?”
“Enough to make sure that cock of yours never goes near her again.” She steps toward me, swaying her hips purposefully and pulling her shoulders back to expose her cleavage. “Because I want it all to myself again.”
The anger that rises inside me is so hot and unstable that I have to hold an open palm up to stop her from coming any closer. I’ve never laid my hands on a woman in a way that wasn’t meant to bring pleasure, but I swear to God, if Faleena takes another step toward me right now… I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop myself.
“Get the fuck off my plane. Get the fuck out of my life. I never want to see your face again. Do you understand me? You’re dead to me.” I thought she already was dead to me when I broke things off a few months ago. Like all the relationships before, I didn’t let it go on for long. Every woman until Kylie has felt like an empty husk compared to her. Scratch the surface and there’s nothing of meaning inside, nothing for me to hold on to. Not Kylie though… It sounds crazy, but I just instinctively know that she’s meant to be mine. And now she’s God knows where because of this fucking bitch.
Faleena’s confidence finally slips. Her eyebrows pull down in confusion. “You’d throw me away for that little girl? She can’t handle you, Damian. Not like I can. She’s not worth your time.”
“Out,” I say quietly, already feeling the loss settling into my chest like something black and putrid knowing the feeling will fester. Not worth my time? I’ve never felt anything like I felt when I was with her. I knew I didn’t need dates. I didn’t need to know her favorite color or her zodiac sign or what her childhood was like. I felt the connection between us on such a pure, primal level that there was no questi
on.
She is the one, and now she might be gone forever. I know my chances are slim, but I’m not going to stop looking for her until I find her again. The thought of her out there right now thinking I used her is eating a fucking hole in my chest, and worse--the thought that I might never see her again is too much. I don’t care how long it takes. I’m going to find her.
5
Kylie
Three Years Later
The sound of keys clicking on keyboards fills the stale office space until the air conditioner, which is directly over my cubicle, kicks on. I lean back in my chair, cracking my neck and trying to stretch my sore shoulders. A spreadsheet stares back at me full of billing figures from the hospital’s clients. Thanks to a massive system crash, we’re having to re-enter the last two years of data. Manually.
Today is the fourth day we’ve been on what Steve, my manager, likes to call “Defcon Four.” Apparently, Defcon Four means he can force us all to work overtime without paying us overtime. I’m still trying to figure that one out, but not too hard, because I’m sure the answer is something along the lines of “because you all need this job too badly to do anything about it”.
Unfortunately, that’s very true.
Melina scoots her chair over from the cubicle beside mine, bumping playfully into me. She waggles her eyebrows. “Steve had Indian for lunch. And he just went to the bathroom across the hall.”
I roll my eyes and grin, even though it’s hard to feel anything but bitterness right now. The bathroom across the hall is the one Steve goes to when he needs some privacy for an extended bathroom stay. As gross as it sounds, we all keep an eye out for his daily visit, because it means we get thirty minutes to slack off in what is normally a day of micromanaging and whip-cracking.
But when he has Indian food, it’s practically a day off.
“How’s your work coming?” I ask.
She blows out a dismissive puff of air. “You know? Sometimes I think pretending to work is harder than the real thing.”
I shake my head, laughing. “You’re unbelievable. You know we’re all stuck here until this data gets in the system, right? What is it you’re doing that’s so important you want to keep us in ‘Defcon Four’ status any longer than we have to be?”
“Roll on over,” she says, yanking my chair over to her cubicle by force. She switches to a tab on her internet browser with search results for masquerade style costumes. “I need help picking.”
“For what? Are you filming your own version of Eyes Wide Shut or something?”
She gives me an unimpressed look. “No. I’m going to a fancy shmancy party tonight because Alec is taking me.”
Alec is her latest boyfriend. Like every guy she dates, he’s obnoxiously wealthy and handsome. I still haven’t quite figured out what bootleg version of Tinder she has where all the guys have six figure incomes, but she must have some secret beyond big boobs and a pretty face.
I raise my hands, shaking them around and making a “wooOoOo” noise.
She slaps at me. “You’re just jealous. But you shouldn’t be, because I’m bringing you as our plus one.”
“Unless it’s a plus one and a half, you had better find someone else. My sitter can’t watch Dean tonight.”
“Already taken care of. Alec arranged for a professional nanny to come watch him. Any other excuses? Go ahead, try me. I’ve covered all the usual bases, Kylie. You’re not weaseling your way out of this one.”
“I need sleep,” I say. “This schedule is killing me, and Dean is waking up all hours of the night lately--”
“Alec got the nanny through the whole week. She’ll be at your disposal for the next seven days. That’s seven days of as much nappage and sleeping in as you can handle. Only if you go with me tonight, though,” she adds with a wicked little smile.
“Tonight? Seriously? What do you plan to do, get four hour shipping on your order?” I ask, nodding to the screen.
“Nope,” she says. “In-store pickup, smartass. And if you don’t pick something out for yourself, I’m going to pick for you. And it’s going to be slutty as hell if you let me pick.”
I give her a long, scathing look, in some ways hoping she’ll relent, but she’s not budging. I can see it from the stubborn set of her jaw. “Why me?” I groan, reaching for the mouse to click through the masks, dresses, and heels.
“Because you need some social interaction. I know you’re a single mom and it’s not easy to get out, but I’m taking that out of the equation this time. You’re too young to swear off men. I don’t care what Dean’s dad did to you. You need a rebound fuck, because God knows you haven’t touched a man in years.”
“Says who?” I ask, more than a little defensively. I’ve also never talked to her about Dean’s father. I haven’t talked to anyone about him. Just the thought of it brings up the memory of Damian’s piercing blue eyes and the way he touched me, the sounds of my moans cutting through the quiet conference room.
It’s a memory that still fills me with the darkest, most shameful kind of arousal there is, because if I ever see Damian again, I think I’ll throw something at him. Something heavy.
She gives me her best side eyes.
I sigh. “Even if that’s true, do you really expect me to go to this party and just… fuck some stranger?” Been there, done that, I think with more than a little bitterness. It has been years since I let Damian take me in that conference room and knock me up. Years since the painful realization that he was just taking advantage of me. But the wound still feels as fresh as if it were yesterday. Time has done nothing to dull the pain. If anything, I feel more angry now than I was back then.
As much as I hate Damian for the way he used me, at least I got my baby boy out of it. When I found out I was pregnant, it felt like the end of the world. A stranger’s baby was in my belly, and I knew I’d never tell him, not in a million years, not that I even knew how to contact him. Maybe that was selfish of me. I don’t know anymore, but before long the baby didn’t feel like it was his to know about. He was mine. Little Dean was mine. I carried him in my belly all those months. I gave birth all by myself in the hospital and suffered the concerned looks of the nurses and doctors. I endured the judgmental looks from people in the lobby when they wheeled me out alone with my baby boy. And I’ve been raising him by myself since the day he was born and we are doing just fine.
Would Damian have helped if he knew? Maybe. I can’t fault him for not helping when he doesn’t even know about Dean, but I couldn’t risk it. If he was anything like Faleena said, there was the very real possibility he’d somehow decide to start a legal battle and steal Dean from me. No matter how small the risk might have been, I couldn’t take that kind of chance.
“Earth to Kylie,” says Melina. “You’re thinking about it again, aren’t you?”
“Let’s just pick out this stupid dress so I can get tonight over with.”
She claps her hands together and smiles. “That’s the spirit!”
I sit in the back of Alec’s car wearing the lacy white dress and extravagant mask I picked out. I have to admit, it was fun getting dressed up for this, even if I think I’ll probably end up standing in a corner somewhere. But there’s something about having a mask covering most of my face that gives me a thrilling sense of anonymity, like I could leave the real Kylie behind just for tonight and be someone else, someone who isn’t damaged goods carrying around luggage to spare.
Melina’s dress and mask are black, while Alec wears a perfectly fitted suit and a simple black mask to cover his face.
“Thank you, by the way,” I say to Alec. “It was really nice of you to pay for Dean’s sitter.”
He waves his hand dismissively. “Don’t even mention it. No offense, but I’d do anything to make my little minx happy,” he says, gripping Melina’s knee.
We join a small convoy of ridiculously expensive looking cars--all glossy and cleaned to perfection. We drive through a wrought iron gate with an embellished “P” in
the center. The path leading to the house is a winding trail that cuts through tall bushes and eventually weaves through a green, pristine field lit by so many floodlights that I can’t even see the stars overhead.
The house itself is bigger than a hotel. Countless windows twinkle across the slopes and curves of its exterior. Beautifully crafted balconies and trellises adorn the upper floors of the house, giving it an almost medieval look that makes me feel like I’m about to step into a castle.
A valet takes Alec’s keys admiring the car. Alec is kind enough to help me from the car once Melina is out and straightening her dress.
“Thank you,” I mutter distractedly as I take in the house and the crowd of black-clad party goers making their way inside, many of whom are openly staring at my white costume. Everybody is wearing black. From a single glance, it’s painfully clear this party was supposed to be a black masquerade party, and my sweet, infuriating friend failed to mention that to me.
“You didn’t tell me to pick something black,” I hiss to Melina.
She winces. “Sorry! I skimmed the invitation. I didn’t know either. I just happened to pick black.”
I cross my arms, looking toward the car, wondering if it’s too late to escape. Showing up to a stranger’s party is bad enough, but being the only one wearing white? They’ll be offering my body up to science so they can study the first recorded case of death by embarrassment. “I can’t,” I say.
“It’s fine,” says Alec. “It’s just a theme. There will probably be others who didn’t read the rules or who outright ignored them.”
“Yeah. Besides, I can totally find someone your size and drug her. We can steal her dress and stuff her in a closet somewhere.”
Bad for the Billionaires: A Bad Boy Billionaire Bundle Page 4
