BIG SHOT LOVE: 5 Billionaire Romance Books Bundle

by Kristina Weaver

  “You drive me insane,” he whispered hoarsely against my ear.

  “You make it so easy.”

  He laughed as he pulled back so he could see my face. “Funny, too.”

  I shrugged. “We aim to please.”

  “That is not a problem.”

  He bent and drew a nipple into his mouth. I ran my fingers through his hair, tugging him closer to me as a heavy sigh slipped from between my lips. But then I pushed him away and slipped out of his reach.

  “Hey!”

  I picked up my jeans and slipped them on, hopping a little as I tugged them up over my hips.

  “You’re not the only one who has somewhere to go.”

  “But you started this.”

  “And I’m ending it.”

  He leaned back against the wall, watching me through hooded eyes. “Cruel woman.”

  “Always leave them wanting more. That’s what my daddy always says.”

  He shook his head. “I doubt this was what he meant.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  I slid my bra on and tugged my shirt over my head. “Now I know where you live, I might come around again.”

  “Oh, you will.”

  “So confident.”

  “There’s no one like me out there, Addie. You won’t be able to resist.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed to tug my boots on. Then I looked over at him, a soft smile slowly slipping over my lips. “Cocky much?”

  He shrugged as he pushed away from the wall and came over to me, shoving me back against the mattress.

  “You love it,” he said, his voice husky from need. “You want me more than you’ll ever admit.”

  “What if I do?”

  “Then you’ll be back. Every night.”

  My eyebrows rose. “And what about you? What would you do if I didn’t come back?”

  “You’ll come, baby. Over and over and over…”

  He flicked his eyebrows and I saw the teasing light in his eyes. I slapped his shoulder, but he caught my wrists and pinned me to the mattress. His kiss was just as eager and demanding as it had ever been. Hot. I almost thought about staying. But then my phone buzzed again and reality began to creep in.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said when he came up for air.

  “I’ll see you,” he said softly, running his hand over my face before rolling away and allowing me my freedom. I didn’t look back because I didn’t want to see if he was watching me. I imagined he was. I imagined he was still lying on the bed, his eyes stuck on me. I didn’t want to believe he’d forgotten me the moment I was out of his reach. So I didn’t look.

  ***

  I took the time to shower when I reached my condo, though I was a little saddened to have his scent washed free of my skin. Then I shimmied into a tight little black dress and twisted my hair into a casual knot at the back of my head to hide the fact that it was still fairly wet.

  Angela waved enthusiastically as I walked into the restaurant. I walked over to her table and she practically bounced out of her seat, a huge smile on her face.

  “I’m so glad you’re the first to arrive,” she said, throwing her arms around me. “I am so nervous.”

  “Why?”

  “His brother,” she said, looking at me like I should have put two and two together already. “He’s the only family Kevin has and he wants to introduce me.” She led the way to the table and gestured for me to sit. “What if he doesn’t like me?”

  “I’m sure he will, Angela. Everyone loves you.”

  She blushed, her blond hair falling forward in that way she had when she was truly embarrassed. “I hope so. But not everyone is as generous as you.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I just took her hand and squeezed it.

  I ordered a glass of white wine and talked Angela into having one of those fruity drinks with the umbrellas in them. But before she took a single sip, a young man with dark hair and startling blue eyes walked into the restaurant. There was something so familiar about him…and then his face lit up and he waved enthusiastically as he headed toward our table. For a brief second, I thought there was some mistake. But then Angela bounced out of her chair and rushed to him like they were lovers estranged by war.

  This must be Kevin.

  “Addison!”

  His excitement was a little overwhelming. The way he stared at me was like we’d been good friends for years and had simply lost contact for some reason. I stood and he gave me a hug that only a little brother might offer.

  “I feel like I know you, what with everything Angela’s told me about you.”

  What do you say to that? I never knew what to say. I flashed a glance at Angela, but she was staring so hard at this young man that I don’t even think she remembered that I was there.

  “Good things, I hope,” I said somewhat lamely.

  “Of course, of course. Angela adores you.”

  He gestured for me to sit. I moved over one spot, allowing him to take the chair beside Angela. They were almost sickening, the way he pulled out her chair for her, the way she stared up at him like he was the only man in the room. And then he sat and she immediately stole his hand and lay her head on his shoulder. I felt like an intruder just sitting at the same table with them.

  “I have to apologize for my brother,” Kevin said. “He called and said an afternoon meeting ran late, so he’s going to be another twenty minutes or so.”

  “Too bad,” Angela said, but I could see relief flash across her face.

  I picked up my wine glass and took a sip. The waiter wandered by and took Kevin’s drink order. Silence settled heavy over the table.

  “Are you from the Houston area, Kevin?” I asked.

  “Yes, actually,” he said. “I was born here. But I’ve been in California for the past ten years and just recently came back.”

  “Really? Why’d you come back?”

  He shrugged. “I was offered a pediatric residency.”

  “You’re a doctor?”

  “I am.”

  Angela sat up a little. “He treated my niece in the ER a couple of months ago when she fell and hit her head. That’s how we met.”

  “Impressive.”

  “Almost didn’t happen,” he said as he glanced over his shoulder, clearly watching for his brother. “He’d kill me if he knew I was telling you this, but the only reason I’ve come as far as I have is because of my brother.”

  “What do you mean?” Angela asked, laying her head back on his shoulder.

  Kevin dropped a kiss on the top of her head, then focused on me.

  “My mom died when I was fifteen. My brother had just graduated high school, but he took care of me, badgered me about getting good grades in school, and helped me get a scholarship to UCLA.”

  “That’s generous,” I said, playing with my wine glass and thinking about Grant. Despite having taken a shower, I thought I could still smell him on my fingers, my hands. I thought I could feel him against my shoulder even though each time I reached up, there was nothing there. I didn’t really care about Kevin’s story. I wanted to go back to Grant’s and get lost in what we’d been doing earlier.

  “And then I got sick,” Kevin said.

  Angela sat up again, her eyes bright. “He had cancer,” she announced.

  That pulled me out of my own thoughts a little. “What kind?”

  “Leukemia,” he said. “I needed chemotherapy, but I didn’t have insurance at the time. The school provided some health care, but they weren’t equipped for that. They helped me apply for state assistance, but they wouldn’t cover the experimental drug that my doctors decided I really needed. And then, like some sort of superhero, my brother shows up with the cash I needed to get the drug. I fully believe that’s the only reason I’m still here.”

  “That’s why he went into medicine,” Angela announced, beaming as she stared at him like he was some sort of angel fallen from heaven.

  “Sounds like he really loves you,”
I said, my comment meant as much for Angela as for Kevin. Anyone who loved his brother that much couldn’t help but love the girl his brother loved.

  Angela snuggled against Kevin again as he shrugged.

  “I like to think so. We’re really the only family either of us has.”

  I picked up my wine thinking that Angela might like to change that way of thinking. And then I found myself remembering something Grant had said. He’d once told me that family was everything and that when we got married, we would be everything to each other. I’d readily agreed because he had already been everything to me. We were supposed to be each other’s family because Grant had no one and my daddy would never approve of our marriage. We would have been completely on our own, and we were okay with that, because we were both so incredibly young and naïve that we didn’t realize what it was we were doing. At least we had a leg up on other young couples, though. I had a trust fund that my dad couldn’t have taken away, even if he’d wanted to, because it came from my mother’s estate and he had no control over it.

  Lucky us, huh?

  “Your brother lives in Houston, too?”

  “He just moved back,” Kevin said. “He’s always wanted to come back to Texas, but he was busy making a name for himself in the tech industry.”

  Angela seemed impressed by that. “As in Silicon Valley and all that stuff?”

  Kevin nodded. “He had some money left over after my treatments were all paid for, so he invested it in a new tech company that made a sort of knockoff of the Apple tablet. You might have heard of them. The Taurus Tablet?”

  It was my turn to sit up a little straighter. “Seriously? I have like three of those.”

  Kevin smiled. “He’d be pleased to hear that.”

  “He still owns the company?’

  “No. He sold his shares a couple of months ago. He said he wants to get into some other sort of business now.”

  I nodded slowly, thinking this date might not be such a bad thing if it had taken place a few days earlier. But with Grant back in town…

  Kevin glanced at his watch. “He should be here soon.”

  As he said that, I saw a familiar face walk into the restaurant. He was standing at the hostess’s podium, displaying that charming smile that had gotten him so much over the years. I remembered he once smiled like that at a ticket girl outside a major movie theater and she gave him two tickets, free of charge, even though she could see me as clear as day standing right beside him. That smile was a free ticket into just about anything.

  Grant.

  At almost the same moment, he looked at me and his eyes instantly narrowed. He wasn’t pleased to see me.

  “He’s here,” Kevin said, nearly causing Angela to fall out of her chair as he jumped up and went toward the lobby. Toward Grant.

  A sinking feeling settled in my chest, and for a long second I felt as though I’d swallowed concrete blocks and was stuck in my chair.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  Grant was Kevin’s brother.

  It made no sense to me. Grant had never told me he had a brother. He never mentioned it in all the time we dated. Granted, we’d only been together for three months, but we were planning to get married. We were going to run away and—

  “Money.”

  “What?” Angela asked distractedly as she twisted in her seat, watching Kevin and Grant have what appeared to be a whispered argument. Grant looked right at me and Kevin followed his gaze, an expression on his face that I could read as though I’d known him all my life. I should have known who he was. He looked just like his brother.

  “I’m going,” I said, drowning the last of my wine before I stood and grabbed my bag.

  “Why?” Angela stood, but she didn’t seem to know what to do. She didn’t reach for me, but she didn’t go to see what Grant and Kevin were talking about, either.

  “Addison,” Grant said as I passed him and his brother.

  I ignored him.

  I burst through the doors of the restaurant and nearly slammed into another couple trying to get inside. I mumbled an apology and walked down the narrow sidewalk, sideswiping another innocent woman as I made my way to the small parking lot along the side of the building.

  “Why are you always walking away from me?” Grant demanded as he rushed up behind me. He was smart enough not to grab me this time, but it didn’t save him from my temper. I spun around and smacked him as hard as I could across the face.

  “I thought we were done with that bullshit,” he said as he touched his bottom lip, glancing at his fingertip as though he thought he were bleeding.

  “It was money, wasn’t it? That’s what you wanted.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You were after my trust fund.”

  Grant’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what you really think?”

  “You needed the money. That’s why you asked me to marry you, why you always insisted that we couldn’t tell my dad until the deed was done.”

  “That’s not it, Addison.”

  “Your brother was sick.”

  He inclined his head slightly.

  “That’s why you wanted to get married right away, why you wanted to go to California. You wanted to get to him, to help him with his health problems.”

  “Of course I did. Wouldn’t you?”

  “But you never bothered to tell me you had a brother.”

  “I was going to.” He moved toward me, his hands raised like he wanted to touch me. But I moved back so that he couldn’t. “I just wanted to wait for the right moment.”

  “We talked about family all the time. You told me about your dad leaving you, your mother dying. You even told me how desperately you wanted a family of your own. How you wanted to do things better than they’d done.”

  “It was all the truth.”

  “But what about Kevin? Why didn’t you ever mention him?”

  “Because I knew you would do this,” he said, advancing on me again so that his face was just inches from mine as he towered over me. “I knew you would jump to conclusions.”

  “Why wouldn’t I when you lie to me like this?”

  “That’s the second time today you’ve accused me of lying,” he said, his voice little more than a growl. “Do it again and—”

  “What? Will you finally reveal your true thoughts and feelings, Grant? Will you finally show me who you really are?”

  He stared at me for a long moment, then he stepped back, turning slightly as a bitter chuckle slipped from between his lips. I could see Kevin standing at the front of the restaurant, watching us. Angela was beside him, a look of such utter confusion on her face that I almost felt sorry for her.

  My head was spinning. I was trying to work it all out, but I felt like I was missing some important piece of the puzzle. He got together with me for my money. That was pretty obvious. Said all the right things, pulled me in like a pro. But then he walked away at the last moment.

  Yet, he had the money he needed to save his brother. How was that possible?

  “It was my father, wasn’t it?”

  Grant looked at me and I could see the truth written all over his face.

  “My dad paid you off to leave me. And you took it. You ran like the fucking coward you are.”

  Pain flashed in his eyes, but I didn’t care. Why should I care? The two men I loved and respected most in my life had conspired together to ruin everything.

  I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even put a full thought together. I felt as though someone had just ripped my soul out of my body and left me hollow. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing.

  “Addison,” Grant said softly, moving toward me.

  “Why did you come back?” I looked at him, feeling as though everything was much too clear. How could I see him so clearly when I was dead inside? “Why did you come back to Houston? Why did you come back to me?”

  “I wanted to make things right.”

  I laughed. “It’s too late.”

&n
bsp; “It can’t be too late. This afternoon—”

  “It’s too late. It was too late the moment you took that money.”

  “Addison—”

  “How much was it, anyway? How much am I worth?”

  At least he had the decency to drop his eyes as he muttered the figure.

  “What?”

  “Two hundred and fifty thousand,” he said again.

  I nodded slowly. “Well, I would have thought I was worth twice that. But I guess damaged goods…”

  I walked away. A part of me hoped he would follow, that he would pull me back the way he’d done before. But he didn’t. He let me go. And I couldn’t decide if that hurt the most, or if knowing that he so easily traded me for money—any sum of money—was the source of this unimaginable pain I knew was right around the corner, just waiting for the numbness of the moment to wear off.

  Chapter 9

  I couldn’t face anyone. I locked myself in my condo and turned off the phone, left the computers all off, and curled up on the couch with a newly purchased bottle of Jack Daniels. The idea of going into the office and looking my dad in the eye was just more than I thought I could handle. I wasn’t sure I could look at him ever again.

  And the thing was, a part of me understood that he’d done it out of love. He thought he was protecting me from someone who would ruin my life. I just didn’t understand how he could do such a thing and then hold me in his arms as I cried over my broken heart and not say anything. If he had told me then…I don’t know if it would have made a difference, but maybe I wouldn’t have convinced myself that Grant had a good reason for what he’d done. I wouldn’t have convinced myself that he was a good man and he might come back for me someday.

  I might not have fallen into bed so easily.

  I’m not the kind of person who can wallow in self-pity for long, however. I cried and I drank. Two days straight, I sat in the darkened living room of my condo. And then I decided I’d let him win long enough. Time to get back to life.