Billionaire Erotic Romance Boxed Set: 7 Steamy Full-Length Novels

by Priscilla West

  “Don’t go to the studio. Stay away from my apartment. Stay away from me, Henry.” Her voice was thick with anger. But it was better than the tears that were prickling at her eyes. She blinked rapidly to keep them at bay.

  “Sophie—”

  “I know it was all about the charade and the scandal, but I thought we were at least being honest with each other, Henry. I told you things...” She swallowed audibly. “And then you went and told her?”

  “What are you talking about? Told who what?” He sounded genuinely puzzled. But she was babbling a little.

  Her thoughts were churning and her mouth couldn’t keep up. “You told Nicole about my accident. About my scars. You might as well have shoved a knife right into my heart. It would hurt less.”

  “I don’t know where you’re getting this. I never told Nicole anything about you, Sophie. If one of the papers is saying I did then—”

  “How’d she know then?” People on the street were starting to look at her. Sophie knew her voice was getting louder, but couldn’t help it. She tried to reign in the volume a little. “How’d she know what my leg looks like, Henry? I think you know how few people have seen it since the accident.”

  “Sophie, I swear. Look, please just come meet me. Or tell me where you are and I’ll come there. We can talk this out.” A car door closed with a thunk. She recalled the buttery leather seats of his Maybach beneath her thighs the morning Henry had taken her to the building site.

  Her heart turned itself inside out. “No, Henry. We can’t. There’s nothing more to say. I’m done being the pawn in whatever game it is you’re playing. Just... leave me alone.” She was shaking, the last few words a desperate plea.

  “Sophie.” Henry’s voice was soft, low, coaxing. She squeezed her eyes shut, alternating waves of rage and anguish pouring through her.

  “You’re killing me, Henry.”

  There’s was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line, followed by a moment of silence. “Don’t say that Sophie, you don’t know how much those words hurt me.”

  “I don’t know anything anymore. All I know is that my life was fine before you came into it and ruined everything!”

  When Henry spoke again, his tone was flat and distant. “If that’s how you feel—”

  “I want you to leave me the fuck alone. Is that clear enough for you?” Sophie snapped. Her voice was harsh. Her throat ached with anger, and with the sobs she was holding back. She was done with Henry Medina. Done.

  “Crystal. Goodbye, Sophie.” He hung up. Her hands were shaking so bad it took her three attempts to shove her phone back into her jeans.

  She had no idea how long she stood out in front of Bistro pretending to stare at the menu. She was pretty sure her mother called her name multiple times though, because she looked at Sophie with wrinkled brows and took her arm.

  “You ready to have some lunch?”

  Actually, Sophie’s stomach had shriveled to the size of a walnut. Whatever hunger pangs she’d had previously were totally gone. “Um... mom? I was thinking... Maybe...”

  Her mom squeezed her arm. “Not in the mood for lunch, huh?” Sophie gave her mother a wan smile. That was one of the good things about home. That was why she came here when she was at her lowest. Her parents always knew what she needed even when she couldn’t say it out loud.

  “Not really, no.” Her mom patted her hand and began leading her toward the library and her car.

  “That’s alright. We’ll take my car back home and have us a girl’s night in. Maybe watch Pretty Woman or something and pop some popcorn. How’s that sound?”

  Sophie thought of her night at Wayne and Darren’s and their discussion about Pretty Woman. The hooker and the billionaire. Her and Henry. Her stomach tightened even more. “Um, maybe not Pretty Woman. But the rest sounds nice.” She covered her mom’s hand with her own and squeezed.

  “No,” her mom said, shaking her head. “I guess you wouldn’t want to watch that one. Sorry, honey, I didn’t think.”

  They had made it as far as the Bait & Tackle when her mother spoke. Sophie stiffened beside an outdoor display of fly wheels. “What do you mean?”

  Her mother sighed. “Oh, Sophie. I saw the news. I know we’re backwoods out here, but we have the internet. And, unfortunately, the tabloids.”

  “It’s... I’m not...” Her throat clogged with tears. She blinked away the sting in her eyes. Rennie reached up and touched her cheek.

  “Of course you’re not. I never thought it for a single second. Those papers always turn something into nothing.” She tugged Sophie’s arm, getting her walking again. “Not that I wouldn’t love you, even if you were, of course.”

  “Mom!” Sophie gasped. Her mother snorted. Sophie bit her lip. “Does... does Dad know?” She’d thought neither of her parents had any idea what was going on in the City. After all, it’s not like they cared who some real estate mogul they’d never met was sleeping with, or what all five boroughs thought of her.

  “Your father doesn’t read any of those trashy papers. And anyone who tried to be mean-spirited and tell him about it... well, I just strangled them and threw out back of the woodshed.”

  “Mom!” She knew her mother wasn’t serious, but she was still shocked to hear her say it.

  “Oh, hush. I’m just messing with you. I did think about it though, when Delia Maple tried to bring it up while your dad was buying his lotto tickets. ‘Oh, Jim, I hope you win. Then that daughter of yours wouldn’t have to worry about money, huh?’” Her mother’s nasal impression of the bleach blonde old biddy who ran the beauty parlor in town was pretty spot on.

  Sophie actually felt her lips twitch. “Well, in that case, I’ll go get the shovel.”

  “That’s my girl.” Her mother squeezed her arm in a sort of hug as they maneuvered around a mother pushing a stroller and trailing a toddler. “So, am I allowed to ask what’s going on with this Medina boy? I take it he has something to do with why you’re here.”

  “Medina boy,” her mother said. Just like she’d said “that Riley boy” when Sophie was fourteen and had fallen head over heels for a boy in her class. Her mother had never referred to him by his first name, even though Sophie had nursed her crush for years. Come to think of it, her mother had rarely referred to Christian by name either. Christian didn’t even get a last name. It was always just “Where is he?” or “Are you bringing him along?” Maybe she should have taken that as a sign.

  “There’s nothing going on, mom. I was giving him private lessons. We... had a bit of a fling. It’s over now. That’s all.” Her cheeks burned as she admitted her relationship with Henry. She and her mother had never really talked about boys. Sophie had always been so focused on her dance, it hadn’t really been an issue. Even David, aka “that Riley boy”, had been a crush she’d never acted on.

  They’d had the whole birds and bees talk when Sophie got her first period, and then the whole self-respect, don’t do anything you’re not comfortable doing talk when Sophie went on her first date years later. And that was about it. Her mother studied her face with shrewd eyes.

  “You don’t look like that’s all, sweetheart. Forgive your old mom for being blunt, but you look like this young man has put your heart through the ringer.”

  Tears pricked Sophie’s eyes. This was the downside to coming home too. She cleared her throat and shook her head. “No. Not really. It was just a silly fling. He spun my head a little with all the fancy clothes and cars and stuff, but it’s no big deal. I’m just... readjusting. Getting my head facing forward again.” She forced her lips to curve upward.

  If only it was that simple. A turned head. It should be. Henry hadn’t had enough time to really get under her skin and into her heart. It was a matter of weeks since they’d first met. And yet... Sophie cut the thought off at the root.

  Her mother stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and turned to face Sophie. She took Sophie’s hands between her cheeks. “Honey, it’s important to see a thi
ng for what it is, and to let it be that. There are always going to be a lot of outside influences... people, society, whatever... all trying to add their two cents. But you have to decide what’s really what with your own mind and heart. Okay?” She let go of Sophie’s face, tucked her arm back through Sophie’s and began walking again.

  “If this thing with that Medina boy was just a fling, well... then let it be that. Don’t try and make it something it’s not. I think a lot of grief in the world gets caused because we have a tendency to forget how our lives and experiences color our perception, and correct for whatever distortion that causes.” She shook her head.

  Sophie frowned. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean, Mom.” Rennie smiled as they turned the corner into the library parking lot. The smell of sausage wafted from the delicatessen next door.

  “Well, like your rear view mirror. You know how it has the little ‘objects may be closer than they appear’ warning? It’s because when you look in it, it’s not giving you a 100% accurate view of the world as it is, right? Those things that look far away? They’re really not.” Her mother raised her brows.

  “So, you’re saying I’m making a big deal out of something I shouldn’t? Her voice trembled.

  Her mother snorted, fishing in her pocket for her keys. “No, sweetheart. I’m saying...” She sighed. “I’m saying make sure you’re not looking through the rearview mirror and mistaking how close the oncoming car is.”

  “I have no idea what that means.” She giggled. It bubbled out of her with surprising suddenness. And then she was laughing. She wasn’t even sure why, and for sure there was an edge of the hysterical in it, but it was the first real laughter she’d felt since she’d walked up outside Henry’s building yesterday.

  Her mother joined in, shaking her head. “Yeah, well. Maybe I’m just a crazy old lady. You ready to go home?” The laughter tapered off and then drained out of her. She felt a little better, more calm. But still scooped out and hollow like a gourd. Sophie shook her head.

  “I think I’m going to just walk around for awhile. Look in the mirror, or whatever. I’ll meet you at home in a bit?” Her mother brushed a kiss on Sophie’s cheek and squeezed her shoulder.

  “Of course, sweetheart. Talk all the time you need.”

  Sophie smiled, feeling for the first time in a day like it wasn’t a painful chore. “Thanks, Mom. I love you.”

  “Love you too, snickerdoodle.” Her mom always had a million and one nicknames for her. Sophie chuckled, waving as she watched her mom climb into the car and pull away.

  She watched for several minutes, just staring into the distance as the silver Saab got smaller and smaller. She sighed. Was there something to what her mother had said? Was she seeing everything in a funhouse mirror?

  Her phone buzzed. Slimy snakes coiled in her belly as she pulled it from her pocket. She really couldn’t deal with talking to Henry again right now. Or Darren. Or anyone. Sophie wanted to think. The number on the screen was an unlisted one, but she recognized it from the earlier call. Carl. He wanted her to hear him out. Well, she would. But not right now.

  Sophie tucked the phone back in her pocket and headed back to Main Street. She do a little more wandering and study her mirror. Maybe there was a warning she was missing.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It snuck up on her. She wouldn’t have thought it could, given how much time she’d spent there as a girl. But then it hardly resembled the cheerful place she’d come to every week for dance lessons. Body In Motion had been a sanctuary away from home for Sophie. Now the glass windows that looked in on the front room, where all the pictures of the kids in their leotards had hung, were boarded up. The sign was missing almost all of its letters, leaving only Bo—n—on.

  Some delinquent with more daring than brains had broken the second n. The sign now read Bo—n—or. Sad to think of her childhood refuge as a crash pad for punks whose idea of humor was misspelled penis jokes. There was graffiti on the boards too, though it was too layered to make any of it out. It just looked like random swirls in various colors.

  Compared to the elegant building of glass and plaster full of classical music and Miss Clara’s firm repetitions of “One, two, three, one, two, three,” the place was now a broken shell.

  “We used to be great once, huh old girl?” Cold sorrow filled her chest. Sophie knew, intellectually, that she still had a perfectly good life. Great, compared to a lot of people. But she didn’t feel great. She felt... derelict.

  She pressed a hand against the splintered wood where the front door had been. It too was boarded up. Still, maybe...

  Sophie glanced at the shops to either side of the boarded up building. To the left was a bar, not yet open. To the right was a florist. She bit her lip, slipping down the alley on the left hand side of the old studio. Surely the vandals had figured out a way in. She’d just take a peak.

  Behind the studio was a small grass lot, the space shared with the florist. The owner of the flower shop was using part of the area for a small greenhouse, but no one was outside. Sophie picked carefully through the small bit of refuse, mostly broken boards, near the back wall of the studio. As she’d suspected, there was a door hidden beneath the wood propped against the wall. It hung crooked, unable to shut completely. She tugged hard, and it popped open with a dull thunk.

  She entered carefully, not sure what she might find. It actually wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. It was dusty and littered with broken glass and cobwebs, but she didn’t see any rats, or condoms, or paraphernalia of partying kids. The room she’d entered had once been the office, she thought. There was a discoloration on the grey wall in the shape of a filing cabinet and another that might have been shelves. She’d never been in here when she was little.

  Only kids that were in trouble were sent to sit in Miss Clara’s office. Sophie was never in trouble. She had wanted to be there, loved being there. Time in Miss Clara’s office would have meant time not dancing.

  “And to dance is to be alive, children,” she echoed softly in Miss Clara’s dreamy sing-song. Her childhood dance instructor had been something of a cross between a strict disciplinarian and bohemian philosopher. It was an odd, incongruous combination that had somehow worked.

  Sophie stepped gingerly over some crumbled plaster as she moved out of the office and into the back classroom. The big classroom, they’d called it. There were two more small ones up front, the bathroom, and then the front room with cubbyholes for parent pick-up. Unlike Sophie’s studio, which catered to people of all ages, almost every class Miss Clara had been for children. Or teens.

  She’d offered one adult level class every 3 months, and that was it. Usually a beginner course for people who just wanted to learn the basics. “People get too old, they lose the joy of movement. They’d rather stay still. I’d rather teach children. They know how to move. You know what they say... a body at rest...” Newton’s first law was a favorite thing for her to quote. It’s where the name of the studio had come from.

  Maybe that was her problem. Maybe she was just too old. Too wounded. Her body wanted to remain at rest.

  The mirrors were all gone, of course, either taken when the place had closed or broken. Sophie had watched herself for endless hours in their silver surfaces, reveling in the twist and turn of her body, in seeing the muscles tighten and bulge as she bent and flexed.

  She scuffed a shoe against the dusty floor. It was still the same, at least, if a little worse for wear. It was these floors that had made her go with the springy wood for the classrooms in her studio. She had fond memories of the way it gave beneath her feet, the sound of her ballet slippers sliding over it. Sophie pictured the room as it had once been.

  It had been a little dark, the three walls not lined with mirrors a dove grey. She would have put in a skylight. Or some high windows to let in the sunshine. There were none in the back classroom, and only small slits in the front ones.

  Come to think of it, perhaps that had influenced her decisio
n to go along with Darren’s suggestion for the enormous glass window wall that lined the front of her own studio. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She could almost hear the faint strains of Vivaldi, or maybe Chopin, floating through the big room. Miss Clara had been fond of both.

  Sophie hummed to herself, stretching her arms up over her head. The way she had felt here! Like she was discovering a whole new world, this beautiful place of such peace. Ballet had eventually become tedious to her, which is why she had left the company for competitions. A lot of dancers thought you only competed if you couldn’t cut it as a ballerina.

  But Sophie had stopped feeling that peace, the sweet joy that had flowed through her as she danced. She’d found it again with tango, and spent the next five years in a whirlwind of joyousness like nothing she’d felt since her first few years here, in this place.

  She flexed her feet, moving up onto her toes. Not quite on pointe without the shoes, but close enough. She wasn’t a dancer anymore, after all. Just a broken woman in an abandoned building. Eyes closed, she moved through several beginner routines, her arms moving smoothly out to her sides as her feet slid along the floor.

  Sophie bent and swayed, humming, feeling the warmth seep into her muscles. The abandoned studio around her dissolved away, replaced with the floor polish smell and soft music of Miss Clara’s big classroom.

  The movement of her body grew quicker. She spun, arms up in a graceful arc. The names all came back to her as she moved, ron de jambe, eleve, plie, pirouette. Step, step, spin. Her lungs expanded and contracted. Dust tickled the back of her throat as tingles of warmth moved along nerve endings.

  Here she had felt young and beautiful and free and full of joy. The ghosts of those things swirled around her as she executed a soft leap, toe pointed, sweeping her leg. A fine sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead, between her shoulderblades. The fabric of her pants tightened around her thighs as she lifted her leg. Developpe.

  Sophie’s tendons stretched as she imagined Miss Clara’s voice in her ear.