The Billionaire's Gamble

by Penny Wylder

  Frank Baron gives me an appraising look. “And what exactly made your panties knot up enough to warrant this interruption?”

  “Platinum Enterprises.”

  He gives me a small smile. “Lose your home?”

  “Not if I can help it. How can you live with yourself doing this to people?”

  “I could ask you the same question,” Frank says.

  I freeze. Suddenly the air in the room is different, and I know that I’ve missed something. “What are you talking about?”

  “How are you any better than us, since you’ve been so busy ruining Nolan’s life?”

  “Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?” says another voice, and it’s one I know. I turn to see Gerard standing up from the table. “Hello, Dani. I would say ‘long time, no see,’ but at this point I think we’ve already seen everything. You might be interested in these.”

  He tosses a folder at me and it lands on the table in front of me. I flip it open, and I feel all the blood drain out of my face. The folder is full of photos. Pictures of Nolan and me. I am entirely naked, Nolan on top of me in the back of the limo. There’s no question about what’s happening between us. I can tell from the angle of photo that it was taken from the front seat. We were so lost in each other that we didn’t even notice. Those bright lights I saw weren’t my mind playing tricks on me—they were camera flashes. “How did you get these?” I ask, even though I already know. No photographer is that good. They paid off the driver to let the photographer in the car. They paid the photographer to get as risqué a shot as possible.

  “Does it matter?” Frank asks. “We have them. You really couldn’t have come along at a better time, Ms. Hathaway. I have to thank you for being our leverage.”

  My anger rises again. They’re making a move for the company and they’re using me as blackmail. Are you fucking kidding me? There’s no way I’m going to let these men destroy Nolan because of me. “What did you do?”

  Gerard speaks up. “Once the threat was made to release these pictures to the public, he gave in to every demand we had.”

  “At the board meeting tomorrow Nolan will resign his post as CEO, and the majority of his holdings will become the property of the board of directors.”

  Despair fills me as I realize that I did this. Being with me made him lose everything. I never wanted that. My despair is followed by white hot rage. These men, these stupid, evil men, are not going to get away with this.

  Gerard comes around the table, getting way too close. His vibe is as creepy as ever. “Now that Mr. Coldwater is out of the picture, I might just consider helping you. We wouldn’t want these pictures getting released accidentally. People might believe those rumors about you being a hired whore and then where would you be?”

  My hand lashes out before I can even think to stop it, slapping him across the face with all my strength. Gerard’s eyes go black with fury, and I’m reminded of that night when I said no and he didn’t listen. But he doesn’t make a move. He won’t—not here and now when he’s in full view of people he wants to impress. He’s a coward. I grab the file full of photos and walk towards the door. Frank calls after me, laughing, “We live in a digital age, Ms. Hathaway. You can’t get rid of the pictures by destroying the copies.”

  I don’t look back.

  Outside the office, Sage is just coming out of the elevator with Derek in tow. I have to hand it to her, she thinks on her feet. I sprint across the floor to meet her. “I need your help.”

  “Dani, you should leave.”

  “I know about everything,” I tell her. “I don’t need help for me, I need help for Nolan. I know how to fix this.”

  Sage hesitates, and I know that she’s unsure whether or not to trust me at this moment. But finally, she nods. “What do you need me to do?”

  “I need you to find me a photographer. His name is Aaron Meyer.”

  19

  Dani

  I’m sitting in Nolan’s den with a glass of wine, watching the coverage. It’s all over the news: Billionaire playboy Nolan Coldwater caught in nude photo scandal. Personally I’m not sure how you can really call it a scandal, but whatever. I lazily flip through the channels, but everyone’s saying roughly the same thing, that it’s a shame he let himself get carried away—his father was such a classy man. That I’m a slut for dragging Nolan down into this mess.

  Kelly is out with Sage, who offered to take her to dinner with her girlfriend Clara and show her a good time. I need to be alone when I speak to Nolan, and I imagine that he’ll be here soon.

  The slam of the penthouse door fifteen minutes later proves me right. Nolan trudges into the den, his face going through emotions so quickly I can barely name them. I see anger and guilt and sadness. “I’m so sorry,” he says, coming over to the couch. He kneels down in front of me, and it hurts me to see how absolutely heartbroken he looks. “You have no idea how sorry I am. I did everything I could to keep those photos private. I tried, Dani.” He leans forward and puts his arms around me. I hug him back hard, because I know he needs it, and because he going to need it even more in a second.

  “I know you did,” I say. “It’s not your fault, I released the photos.”

  Nolan’s body goes stiff in my arms, and he pulls back to look at me, his eyes wary. “You did what?”

  I tell him about what happened in his office, and the fact that Gerard was there. His face grows darker and angrier with each passing second.

  “It was the only way, Nolan. If the photos are released they have nothing to threaten you with.” I see the wheels clicking in his head, and the sudden realization that I’m right. “They were trying to take everything away from you, and I couldn’t let that happen. It’s just a photo of me. No one who really knows me will care about it.”

  “How did you release it?”

  I roll my eyes. “I called Aaron Meyer. I thought that he was the one who took the photos and I was right. He gave me the originals. Plus, I got him to sign a paper saying that he was paid by Frank Baron and the other members of the board to take compromising photos of us.”

  “How on earth did you manage that?” Nolan is beaming now.

  “I promised I wouldn’t sue him for almost killing me with his car.”

  He laughs. “I still think that suing him might be worth it.”

  “You don’t have to resign tomorrow. Nothing can happen to you now. I couldn’t live with myself if I knew I was the reason you were being blackmailed.”

  “You’re amazing. Did you know that? You’ve set aside a lot of things for me.” His fingers find mine, tracing my hands.

  “Not just you, but yes. But I do need one thing.”

  “Anything.”

  I tell him what I found out about Kelly’s house—that I had to see him and know whether he had known about her house, that’s the reason I went to his office in the first place. “I want you to stop this,” I say. “I want you to save my neighborhood.”

  “It’s going to be hard with those bastards trying to stop me,” he says, “but I promise I’m going to do everything I can to get her house back.”

  Nolan kisses me, hard. He lifts me up from the couch, and I wrap myself around him as he carries me towards his bedroom. This is exactly why I had Sage take Kelly out to dinner. I want Nolan to fuck me senseless, and I don’t plan on keeping quiet. Halfway up the stairs Nolan freezes. “Holy shit.”

  “What?”

  “Baron was using the morality clause in my contract as leverage. He said the photos violated the morality clause. But he, and all the other members of the board have the same contract. A signed statement implicating them in corporate espionage and blackmail is more than enough to force them resign.”

  I start to laugh. “They’re going to get one hell of a surprise tomorrow.”

  “I can finally find board members who want to make Coldwater into a good company. People who don’t want to buy up small towns and auction them off to the highest bidder.”

  “Does this mean
we can save Kelly’s house? Save Angelica?”

  Nolan closes the final distance to his bedroom, setting me down on the bed and kneeling before me again. “Kelly’s house, anybody’s house that needs saving. Now, enough talking about business. I’m going to celebrate with all pleasure.”

  He lays me back onto the bed, pushing my skirt up with one smooth movement. His fingers are in my underwear, pulling them down, exposing me to his mouth which is so, so close. “I remember a promise I made you in Vegas, that I don’t think I’ve kept yet.”

  “Oh, and what was that?” I ask, already delirious with the touch of his skin on mine.

  “I told you that I was going to make you wait. Tease you until you couldn’t even speak because you wanted my cock so badly.” His tongue flicks out over my clit, and I groan. “This seems like the perfect night for that.”

  “I disagree,” I say.

  “Too bad.”

  Then is mouth is on me, and I’m dragged down into a world of exquisite pleasure. His mouth is slow and steady, and I know that he’s entirely serious when he says he’s going to wait, and make me wait. But that’s okay, because I know that in the end, the wait is worth it.

  Epilogue

  Nolan

  Six Months Later

  South Carolina

  The smoke coming off the grill gets in my eyes and I wave it away. I’ve never really been a grill master, but I’m doing my best. It’s fall, and South Carolina is still humid. That little fact doesn’t make the heat or the smoke from the grill feel any better.

  Dani and Kelly come out of the house, and my eyes are instantly drawn to Dani. I’ll never get tired of looking at her. I’ve thanked whatever fates were watching over me the day I ran into her. I love her more than anything I could have ever imagined. Kelly’s neighbor Andrew follows them out of the house with a side dish for the table. The three of them grew up together on this block, and now that Kelly is single, Dani tells me there may be a spark there.

  I smile to myself, imagining what Jacob would do if he showed up and saw me using his grill. He won’t though. He never got his money from the Platinum Enterprises deal, and Dani threatened him so thoroughly over the phone I think he’s afraid of what she’ll do if he even shows his face in this state.

  Andrew comes over to me. “How’s it going?”

  “If they’re not all irreparably burned then I’ll consider it a success.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be great,” he says, chuckling.

  Andrew seems like a decent guy. Dani likes him, and Dani’s only superior when it comes to reading people is Sage. “How’s it going there?” I ask, nodding towards Kelly.

  He gives me a sly smile. “Slowly. It’s going to take a while. I don’t want to push too hard while her divorce is being processed.”

  “Good idea.”

  “But I’m not going anywhere.” He nods. “You?”

  “We’re getting there.” I choose not to mention that I’ve already had a ring picked out for three months, and am only waiting to ask because I don’t want anyone to think we’re getting engaged too quickly. But we will. Dani is it for me.

  I move the burgers and hot dogs onto a plate and we join the women at the table. I give Dani a kiss when I sit down, a little deeper than I probably should. But I don’t care. I want everyone to know how much I love her.

  She smiles at me. “These look great.”

  “Keep that kind of encouragement stocked up for when you actually try them,” I say.

  We proceed to eat, and shock of all shocks, I managed to cook the meat well enough not to kill us. That’s a plus at least.

  Later, when we’re done eating, Kelly asks, “So you guys are going back to Vegas? That should be fun.”

  “I think so,” Dani says. “It will be nice to spend a weekend there actually together. See what that’s like.”

  “Well,” Kelly says, “if y’all do something crazy enough to make the papers like you did last time, could you at least warn a girl?”

  Dani laughs. “Like what?”

  She shrugs. “Flash a bunch of reporters after getting too drunk, going to the Elvis chapel to get married.”

  “The first one I can’t promise anything on,” I say, “but the second one is never going to happen.”

  The air around the table goes deathly still. Dani looks at me, her eyes look hurt. “Never?”

  I reach out and take her hand. “Never in Vegas,” I clarify. “When I marry you, Ms. Hathaway, it will be far more romantic, and it may just be the wedding of the century.” Dani blushes, and my chest gets that feeling inside, like it’s taken in too much air and it hurts in a good way. That’s what it feels like to have Dani look at me like that.

  “I love you,” she says.

  “I love you too.”

  “Andrew,” Kelly says, “you said you had some new preliminary designs for me to see for the jewelry website?”

  He takes the hint immediately. “I did. You want to go next door and look at those now?”

  “Sure thing.”

  They walk together towards the side gate, giving us privacy. I don’t waste any time. I push Dani back onto the bench of this panic table and flip up her skirt. He bare pussy greets me, and I smile. She rarely wears panties anymore—I’ve ripped up too many pairs when they got in my way. The way she tastes is something I’ll never get used to or tire of. Sucking her clit into my mouth, I hear her groan softly.

  “Should we really do this here?” she asks.

  “Yes, here,” I say. “I’m happy to do it anywhere. Let them watch. Let them see how thoroughly I please my woman.”

  She chuckles. “You’re talking in grandiose statements again, Casanova.”

  I cover her pussy with my mouth, and she’s not laughing anymore. She tastes so fucking sweet. I swirl my tongue in her wetness, savoring every bit of it. I flick along the bottom of her clit with my tongue, picking up that consistent, driving speed that I know makes her come fast and deep. She’s writhing on the bench, pinned to it by my mouth and it’s such a gorgeous sight. She’s biting her lip, trying to keep from screaming. All the neighbors are back, so there are definitely people in their yards that could hear us. The pink that tinges her cheeks is adorable.

  She hisses out a breath, grabbing my hair and riding my face as she comes. I drink her in. I promised her once that I could live on that alone. To this day I don’t think it was a lie.

  “You’re too good at that.”

  “You’re welcome,” I say.

  She scowls at me. “I need you inside me. Now.”

  “I can’t.”

  “What?” she asks, looking confused, “Why?”

  I sigh. “We used the last condom in the car on the way from the airport this morning.”

  “I was tested two weeks ago,” she says. “It’s fine.”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  She laughs. “I figured it was more important to tell you if something was wrong.”

  “I got tested last week.”

  “So,” she says, “I’m game if you are.”

  My cock, which was already hard as a rock, twitches. “No condom.”

  “No condom. Just fuck me already,” she says, opening her legs wider, taunting me with her pussy. I unbuckle my belt and yank her up onto my lap. She slides down onto my cock like she was made for it, and my god it feels so fucking good to be skin on skin. Her pussy is all wetness and heat, sucking me in, squeezing me. I’ve gone blind with the sheer pleasure of it. Her hips meet mine, and we rest for a moment, my cock firmly seated all the way inside. This feels more intimate than any sex we’ve had, because now I can feel her. I can feel her pulse around my cock, the tiny spasms in her muscles, even the way she’s breathing.

  She’s mine. Totally and completely.

  Gripping her hips, I raise her up off my cock, then pull her back down, hard. She rolls her hips with me, and I fuck her from below. Her pussy is so fucking tight, so fucking sweet, I’m not going to last long. I didn’
t realize how different it would be. I kiss Dani, fucking into her at a driving pace. I feel her quiver in my arms, and I love knowing how much I make her feel, that I can give her this kind of pleasure. She’s close, and I reach between us, sliding my thumb over her already swollen clit. She cries out, coming, her pussy contracting on my cock and it draws a sound out of me too. I’m too turned on, too enamored of the sensation to make it last, and I’m right on the edge, so close, one more…

  I come, my orgasm tearing through me with a fierce intensity. I spill inside her, groaning as I feel my cum spreading. It keeps pouring out of me, and I hold onto Dani, waiting for the storm in my body to subside. The pleasure is still dancing through me in ripples, in time with the twitches of my cock.

  When it subsides we’re both panting, both smiling. “That felt amazing,” Dani says.

  “You have no fucking idea.”

  She chuckles, getting up off me. “I think I have some idea.”

  I catch her wrist before she can wander away. “About before. I am going to marry you,” I tell her. “You know that, right?”

  Her eyes widen. “Are you proposing?”

  I grin, cleaning myself up and zipping my pants. “No.” She deflates, so I keep going. “When I propose, you’re going to know. It’ll be spectacular, and it will be a total surprise.”

  “You’re wicked.”

  My cock now contained, I pull her back down onto my lap and kiss her. “I know, and I love you.”

  She winks at me. “I know.”

  THE END

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