The Stubborn Billionaire (a Muse novel)

by Lexxie Couper

  Trying to temper the desire heating her blood, or at least ignore it until she and James were alone again, she turned back to Thomas. “So you’re not here to seduce me away from James?”

  The American laughed. “No, goddess. I’m not. I think it’s fairly obvious that Mason over there has your heart, and you have his.”

  “St. Clair,” James said from the kitchen, his voice blunt. “Stop.”

  An icy pressure prickled over her body. Her scalp crawled. She stared at Thomas, her throat so tight she could barely draw breath. “What did you call him?”

  Thomas frowned at James and then gave her a puzzled smile. “What did I call the dude? Mason?”

  She nodded. Around her, the room became a furnace of suffocating air. “Yes. Mason. Why did you call him Mason?”

  “Sienna,” James’s voice scraped at her sanity. She didn’t look at him. Didn’t look away from his friend. “You need to let me explain.”

  “Why did you call him Mason?” She ignored him, her stare locked on Thomas. Her hands balled into fists at her side. Her stomach roiled. Oh God, she felt brittle. Like she was about to shatter into a million pieces.

  Thomas frowned again. “That’s his name. Jamieson Xavier Aloysius Dyson. He never uses it, of course. Shit, with a mouthful like that, why would he, but that’s his full name. I’ve only ever called him Mason, although I don’t think anyone else does. In my opinion it suits him more than—”

  Sienna spun toward James. Found him standing beside her, his expression unreadable. “Si,” he said, his voice as enigmatic and guarded as his face. “I need to explain. I need to—”

  “You’re Mason Xavier?” She stared at him, her mouth dry. When had she swallowed the entire Simpson Desert? “You’re my mysterious benefactor?”

  He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just studied her silently. Calmly.

  She narrowed her eyes. An invisible vise wrapped her chest. “You’re the secretive venture capitalist commissioning all these paintings from me? Paintings of people fucking?”

  “Si,” he said, his voice a deep rumble.

  “Don’t Si me. You’re the man who’s been paying me to paint these erotic scenes? No wonder I’ve never seen them anywhere. What do you do with them when you get them? Burn them? Laugh at them, at me, and destroy them?”

  He stepped toward her, shaking his head. “No. I’ve never destroyed any of them. They are too good to destroy. Sienna, you need to let me explain.”

  He reached for her. She slapped his hand away and took a step back. Her breath burst from her in shallow pants. Her head roared. Her stomach clenched.

  “You’ve been playing me this whole time, haven’t you?” Beside them both, Thomas said something. Words. Maybe? She ignored him, her heart pounding. “Manipulating everything. Controlling it without me even knowing. Why?”

  A muscle in his jaw bunched. His chest swelled with a deep breath.

  “Let me guess.” She crossed her arms over her breasts, refusing to break eye contact with him. “Because of what you think I did to Clinton. Revenge for your brother, yes?”

  “Dude,” Thomas said, the word little more than an exhalation of breath.

  James’s nostrils flared. The muscle in his jaw bunched again. “Sienna, I made a mistake.”

  “No, I made the mistake.” A cold emptiness churned inside her. Radiated through her, from her heart, into her soul. “I stupidly believed that you were actually a decent man. I forgot you were a Dyson.”

  …

  The world was unraveling around him. He stared at her, the woman he’d fallen in love with, the woman he would change his life for. Watched her eyes fill with hate and tears. Thomas stood—silent—beside them.

  Finally, the bastard shuts up.

  James ground his teeth, guilt sour in the back of his throat. Self-contempt lashed at him.

  Dyson. It seemed he was a true Dyson after all. Dysons didn’t make people feel good. They made them feel weak, beaten. Worthless.

  No. I’m not like that. Sienna showed me that. Fix this. Fix this now.

  “Sienna.” He took a step toward her. She retreated, disgust etching her face. “I started the Mason Xavier plan the day after Clinton’s funeral. Before I got to know you.”

  Thomas cleared his throat. “I think I should—”

  “The Mason Xavier plan?” Contempt sliced her words. She hugged herself tighter, her knuckles white. “What other plans do you have? Was there also the Monet Exhibition Opening plan? Is that why I suddenly got an invite to it?”

  He tried to stop his jaw clenching and failed.

  “I really should—” Thomas began again, but James couldn’t tear his attention from Sienna.

  She slumped, her eyes closing for a second. Pain twisted her eyebrows, and then she straightened, glaring at him again. “Of course. And let me guess, the director wanting to talk about my work was a plan of yours as well, yes?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I’d intended to encourage him to contact you, but I didn’t get the opportunity at the opening. He did that without my influence.”

  A dry laugh tore from her, mirthless and cold. “Without your influence. Well, I guess I need to be grateful you were too busy parading me around that night to get around to it. Tell me, why did you take me there? Was it to show off your trophy? The woman stupid enough to put herself at your mercy?”

  He balled his fists. “That’s not what I was doing.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Really? Now I understand why you didn’t want your sister to see me with you. It would have ruined your plans. Care to tell me what they were? All of them?”

  He drew a deep breath. Thomas’s stare burned into his profile. Christ, he wasn’t prepared for this. To feel like this. To feel so…wrong.

  “To destroy you,” he answered. Honest. He needed to be honest with her now. Now, before any chance of mending this was lost. “Emotionally and socially. Out of revenge.”

  “Dude,” Thomas muttered.

  Tears shone in Sienna’s eyes. Her lips parted, as if his confession robbed her of breath. “Revenge for Clinton?”

  “Yes.” James kept his voice calm. Modulated. He had to. If he cracked, every minute of self-doubt and self-contempt he had would crash over him, drown him, and he’d lose any ability to form words. “For his suicide.”

  “I think I need to go.”

  Thomas’s low voice flayed at James.

  He looked at him, his gut clenching at the disappointment in Thomas’s face.

  “No,” Sienna said, the word blunt. “You need to stay. Until I’m finished, you need to stay. I don’t want a Dyson able to say I was alone with him.”

  The implication behind the statement cut James. As did the pain and torment flickering over her face.

  “Do you want me to tell you what Clinton did, James?” She wiped at the lone tear trickling down her cheek and met his gaze, her eyes flinty. “The night I supposedly cast him aside?”

  He drew in a slow breath, his head swimming, his chest tight. When the fuck had he swallowed the brick in his throat?

  She didn’t blink. Held his stare. She shook. Trembled. “He asked me to marry him. And then tried to attack me when I said no. He ripped my shirt. And then, when he realized I was never going to say yes, when he realized all he’d ever been to me was a friend, he left. And clearly poured poison into your ear about me.”

  She let out a shaky breath, fresh tears spilling from her eyes. “And even after that, I didn’t hate him, although I had every reason to. Even after that, I ached for the hurt he was feeling. I didn’t tell anyone what he’d done to me, what he’d tried to do. No one. Not even Carrie. I kept it to myself because he was my friend, and my heart tore for him. I felt sorry that his family hadn’t supported him. I felt sorry that he was lost in this world, so lost he wanted more than anything to belong to someone. I felt sorry that I’d hurt him by not being what he wanted me to be. And then you came back into my life, and I thought, for a ridiculous moment, that yo
u weren’t who you really are. I thought the arrogance and ruthlessness you’re known for was a persona you wore in business. And I fell…”

  She stopped, shaking her head.

  “Sienna,” he said, her name little more than a husky rasp.

  Fuck, what have I done? What did Clinton do?

  Lifting a hand to him, she turned to Thomas. “If you’re still interested in buying the drawing, it’s yours.”

  James’s gut clenched. She held herself with such poise, even as her voice cracked.

  “I am.” Thomas flicked James an unreadable look. “Definitely. Name your price. I’ll pay it.”

  “3,842 dollars.”

  The very specific number snagged James’s reeling brain.

  The exact total of the broken violin and the Barton National Portrait Prize entry fee.

  Thomas held out his hand. “Done.”

  She took it. She didn’t look at James. “I’ll have it ready to collect within the—”

  The warehouse door banged open.

  “You prick!” Zach charged through it, rage etching his face.

  “Zach?” Sienna dropped Thomas’s hand as he stormed toward them. “What’s—”

  “You fucking prick,” he snarled, smashing his fist into James’s jaw.

  White-hot pain detonated in James’s cheek and jaw. The force of the wild punch knocked him sideways.

  “You’re a prick, Dyson,” Zach raged, bearing down on him as he regained his balance.

  “Zach,” Sienna gasped. “What the hell?”

  He ignored her, throwing a newspaper at James instead. “Get the fuck away from my sister.”

  The pages fluttered to the ground at James’s feet, but he kept his focus on Zach. On the fury burning in eyes so like his sister’s. “Zachary. Let me—”

  Zach slammed his palms to James’s chest and shoved.

  “Hey, hey, hey?” Thomas lunged at them both. “I think—”

  James held out his hand toward Thomas, his pulse pounding. “It’s okay, mate.”

  Black hate twisted Zach’s face. And something else. Betrayal? “It’s not even close to okay, you fucking prick.”

  Sienna scooped up the newspaper on the floor. James didn’t need to see the front page to know which newspaper it was. He’d helped design the new logo for it when he was twenty, after all.

  The rustle of pages being tidied and organized filled the charged silence. James watched her, the air pushing down on him. Suffocating him.

  “Page four, sis,” Zach snarled, staring hard at James.

  More pages rustling. James drew a slow breath, preparing himself for what was to come.

  He deserved it. Whatever it was, whatever she did or said, whatever hell she flung him into, he deserved it. All of it.

  “Criminal’s daughter’s gold-digging plans,” she read, her voice devoid of emotion.

  James bit back a curse. The headline was pure sensationalism. In the image accompanying it on the page, Sienna smiled up at him, her stilettos in her hand, as they exited the art gallery.

  He’d been clueless to the shot being taken, just as he had to the article being written. He’d thought he’d shut down anything like this last night with the call to Clarinda, but this had apparently slipped through somehow.

  Christ, what have I done?

  The paper rustled again as Sienna turned to the front page.

  “It’s one of his.” Zach scowled at James. “I already checked. He can’t blame a rival paper just trying to create a scandal.”

  My paper. My karma. My hell.

  Sienna didn’t move. Didn’t lift her head to look at him. Just continued to study the paper in her hand. His paper. Dyson Media Corps’ second-highest daily rag. The most tabloid paper to be sure, but still, one of his.

  Response after response reeled through his mind, each one an attempt to pacify her, to deflect her rage. He rejected each one. If this was a business confrontation, he’d know exactly how to handle it, how to shut down the situation, how to crush the opposition and accusations. But it wasn’t. And anything he said in an attempt to lessen the monumental fuck-up would result in Sienna hating him even more than she already did.

  And still, he searched his mind for what to do, what to say. He had to do something. He couldn’t let the best thing in his life go without a fight. He refused to. He wouldn’t. He would fight to keep what he had. He would…

  Behave like a Dyson?

  He swallowed, his Adam’s apple like a jagged rock in his throat. “I didn’t know this was going to print. I tried to shut down the plan…” He swallowed again. “My plan, last night. I left a message with my assistant—”

  “Last night,” Sienna finished for him. Nothing in her face told him what she was thinking. “You tried to stop it last night.”

  James ground his teeth at the significance of those two words. Cold contempt twisted through him. Less than twelve hours ago, his plan had still been in play. They’d slept together twice before that, and his plan had still been in motion.

  Zach was right. He was a prick. A selfish, arrogant fucking prick.

  “Sienna,” he began. What did he say? Sorry? Huh, sorry wouldn’t even come close to expressing how shitty he felt.

  She sighed, shaking her head. “Y’know what? I’m done. We’re done. You and I. Done.” She turned to Thomas—standing beside them, quiet and motionless. “Mr. St. Clair, if you send me your details, I’ll arrange for the drawing to be delivered to you.”

  Thomas nodded, even as he flicked James a quick look. “Sounds good.”

  Sienna returned her attention to James. “Mr. Dyson, you can leave now. I won’t be completing your portrait. I’ll find someone else to paint for the Barton.”

  His breath tore at his tight throat. He reached for her hand. Christ, he was aching all over. Maybe if they were touching, maybe if their fingers were threaded together he’d stand a chance of stopping this nightmare? “Please let me—”

  She stepped backward. “If you’re not leaving, I am. I can’t be in the same room as you.”

  She turned and hurried through her studio space, heading for the door.

  “Sienna!” He hurried to follow.

  A firm hand on his arm stopped him.

  “Dude.” Thomas released his arm. “Don’t. I know what a woman who needs to be left alone looks like. You go after her now and keep talking to her, you’re only going to make it worse.”

  Right. Thomas was right, but goddamn it, every fiber in his body demanded he chase her. He clawed at his scalp, the cold weight in his chest turning to shards of ice when she pulled the door shut behind her.

  Gone. She’s gone.

  “You’re a fuckwit, Dyson.”

  He let out a ragged breath at Zachary’s flat statement.

  “I agree, dude.” Thomas grimaced, wry disappointment in his voice. “I have no clue how you’re going to fix—”

  A scream outside cut him off.

  James’s blood ran to ice. Sienna’s scream. High and angry and scared.

  Scared.

  He ran for the door.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Bright sunlight blasted his eyes as he yanked open the door, bleaching everything in a glaring light for a split second. And then his vision adjusted and fear engulfed him.

  A beefy man gripped Sienna’s upper arm, growling at her as he tried to drag her toward a white van parked in the gutter. Sienna bucked and thrashed in his hold, lashing out at him with her feet, swinging at his head with her free hand.

  For a surreal moment, James registered the blood trickling from her attacker’s bottom lip, and then the world froze as the man yanked a knife from behind his back. “Get in the fucking van, bitch.”

  No.

  “Si!” Zachary yelled.

  James charged the man. Drove his shoulder into his flabby gut. Smashed him backward into the side of the van.

  The knife clattered to the ground.

  Sienna screamed.

  A distant pa
rt of James’s mind heard Thomas shout something and then what felt like a sledgehammer struck James in the gut.

  “James, stop it.” Sienna grabbed him before he could launch himself at the burly bag of fat and muscle again. “Stop it.”

  Hot pain radiated through his body. Sucking in a breath, he glared at the man over her shoulder. “Thomas, call the cops.”

  The man sneered. A wave of cold pride swelled through James at the blood oozing from the split in his lip. Sienna had done that to him.

  “Reynard wants the money your father owes him. Now.” The man slid a look to Zachary, now standing beside her. “And he’ll get it, any means necessary. Doesn’t matter where you go, he’s got a long reach.”

  She lunged at him. James grabbed her, hauling her back to his body. “I’ll kill anyone who hurts my brother,” she growled, straining against his arms.

  The man raked a lecherous, piggish gaze over her. “Reynard says he’d be happy for you to clear the debt, no money required.”

  Kill him. Kill the fucker now.

  He ground his teeth, stare locked on the creep. The need to pound the man’s leering face into the ground damn near overwhelmed him, but it wouldn’t fix the situation, and he needed to fix the situation. Now. “Pablo Reynard?” He forced a calm curiosity to his question. “The bookie? How much does Platinum Joe owe him?”

  The man snorted, and then spat a wad of blood and snot at the ground in front of him. “Two hundred and sixty-four grand. Thirteen percent interest daily.”

  “Tell Reynard he can get—” Sienna began, but James turned to her and pressed his finger gently to her lips.

  She looked up at him. His heart twisted at the fear and fury in her eyes.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Trust me.”

  With a quick nod to Thomas, a silent take care of her, he turned back to Reynard’s grunt.

  Pablo Reynard. Clinton had gambled through the dubious bookmaker more than once, much to James’s displeasure. The bastard was the go-to bookie for Sydney’s financial and cultural elite, dealing only with those with the means and motivation to never make a scene when they couldn’t pay their debt. He’d be most displeased by the fact Sienna’s father had screwed him.