The Stubborn Billionaire (a Muse novel)

by Lexxie Couper

  To the best of James’s knowledge, Reynard was untouchable.

  Money had the ability to open doors and close mouths. And when it came to the rich and famous in this town, no one wanted even a sniff of a scandal attached to them. Better to quietly work out an arrangement with Reynard, than bring the media’s attention to their door. It was a situation James had a unique perspective of, given he ran the biggest media empire in the country. He’d used that situation to his advantage with more than one business rival.

  Holding the lackey’s gaze, he raised a bored eyebrow. “I’m assuming, as a professional business man, Reynard has a card with the appropriate details required for an expedited payment?”

  The man chuckled, lips curling away from his teeth. A flash of silver caught James’s eye, and then he turned his attention to the small card being offered to him. “He does.”

  James took the card, withdrew his phone from his hip pocket, and opened his banking app. “Two-hundred and sixty-four grand? Plus interest?”

  “James.” Sienna grabbed his wrist. “You can’t.”

  He gave her a warm smile before tapping a series of numbers and commands into his phone. “Done.” He returned his attention to Reynard’s grunt. “Paid. In full. With the rest of this week’s interest.”

  The man narrowed his eyes.

  James slipped his phone back into his pocket and smiled. A cold, threatening smile. The smile he used in the boardroom whenever destroying a career or rival. “Tell Reynard if he even thinks about approaching Sienna or Zachary again, he’ll discover just how far my reach is. Understand?”

  A sneer pulled at the man’s lips. “And you are?”

  “James Dyson.”

  Bushy black eyebrows shot up the man’s forehead.

  James let his smile turn colder. “Trust me, Reynard—and those working for him—don’t want to know what happens to anyone foolish enough to hurt the people I love. Understand?”

  Reynard’s lackey nodded, shot Sienna and Zach a quick glance, and then climbed into the van.

  James didn’t move until the engine kicked over and the vehicle pulled away from the gutter. Then, and only then, he released a long breath. “Christ, that was fun.”

  Sienna stepped directly in front of him, eyes wide. “Are you insane?”

  He chuckled, even as the need to pull her into his arms crashed through him. He didn’t. He couldn’t.

  She blinked. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

  “Thank you?” Awe and uncertainty wobbled through Zach’s suggestion.

  James smiled at him and at Thomas before turning back to Sienna. “You don’t need to say anything. And, no, I didn’t do what I just did to make you forgive me for being a prick. What I did was unforgivable.”

  “Hell, yeah,” Thomas agreed.

  James threw him a silencing look.

  Thomas shrugged, looking unperturbed. “Hey, just calling it like it is. By the way, I should tell you I didn’t get on to the cops. I kept dialing 911. I have no goddamn clue what number you guys dial here.”

  With a dry laugh, James turned back to Sienna. His heart thumped hard in his chest. His pulse did the same in his ears. He studied her eyes, aching to see anything that would give him hope they’d one day have a future.

  Instead, all he found was guarded confusion.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “For what I’d intended to do to you. For how much I’ve hurt you. Please believe me when I say that.”

  She nodded. Once. Silently. Her eyes shone with an emotion he had no hope of deciphering.

  Throat tight, he looked at Zach. “You’re right. I am a fuckwit. One day, I hope you and your sister will let me amend that.”

  Zachary regarded him, as silent as Sienna.

  He looked at Thomas. “See you around, yank.”

  Thomas answered with a sympathetic smile. He turned back to Sienna, the barest of glances, and hurried into her home to retrieve his shirt, shoes, car keys, and wallet. As much as he didn’t want to leave, Thomas was right. She needed time to think.

  He would give her time.

  After everything else he’d done, he owed her that.

  …

  Mouth dry, heart rapid, Sienna studied the closed door to her warehouse. He was in there. Getting ready to leave.

  All she needed to do to stop him was go to him.

  And yet she couldn’t. What he’d planned to do to her…what he already had done…

  An invisible knot twisted in her stomach, and she bit back a sigh. Damn it, the bastard…the bastard…

  What the hell should she do?

  Thomas cleared his throat. “Does it help if I say what Mason…what James did to you was wrong? Completely misinformed and misguided?”

  She tore her stare from the closed door and looked at him.

  He gave her a lopsided smile. “But I know him. Better than most people in his life. He keeps who he really is guarded, protected. Those that live in the public eye, under constant scrutiny tend to do that. James…he’s spent a lifetime cultivating the ruthless Dyson persona, but he’s not like that deep down. He isn’t. He thinks he has to be, though. His father did a pretty good job on him. But his true nature? Caring. Empathetic. Passionate. Relaxed. I’ve never seen him let it out in public before, but he did with you. At the gallery. And I’ve never seen him smile like he did when he was with you.”

  Sienna swallowed. Her stomach churned. Her eyes prickled, hot and stinging with tears.

  Thomas shrugged. “Just something to think about.”

  Standing at her side, Zach shuffled his feet.

  Thomas sighed. “I’ll send shipping details to you for the drawing later today.” He leaned forward, brushing his lips over her cheek. “It was wonderful to meet you, goddess. I hope I can again soon.”

  “Thank you,” she croaked. Was that scratchy whisper really her voice?

  “Zach.” Thomas smiled at Zach. “I’ll send you a copy of my complete works. Signed. Be nice to your sister, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She looked at Zach, heart pounding fast. She’d never seen him so shell-shocked. She wanted to hug him. So she did. She slipped her arm around him as Thomas walked to a black Audi parked at the curb, climbed into it, and drove away.

  Zach didn’t shrug her off. Instead, he wrapped his arm around her waist. “I have no freaking clue what to say right now.”

  She snorted. “That makes two of us.”

  He cast her a sideways look, his eyebrows dipped in a frown. And then wrapped his other arm around her and hugged her tighter than he ever had.

  James reappeared—dressed completely—as she rested her cheek on Zach’s shoulder.

  His gaze found hers, his expression unreadable, and then, with a smile that tore at something deep within her, he walked to his car.

  She closed her eyes, hugging Zach tighter. She couldn’t watch him drive away.

  She hated him. And yet she didn’t.

  Not at all.

  Talk about being messed up.

  “He’s gone now.”

  Lifting her head at Zach’s gentle statement, she couldn’t stop the stab of pain at the empty road.

  “I said before living with you was too weird.” Zach released her, his chuckle wry. “But I’ve got to say, I think I’m getting used to it.”

  A melancholy happiness swept through her at his compliment. “Thank you. I think.”

  “So?” He gave the road stretching past their home his own long gaze. “Who are you going to paint for that portrait thingy now?”

  She caught her bottom lip with her teeth. Who indeed?

  “I think…” she began, letting her mind skim and skip over the inner well of her creativity she couldn’t function without. Shadows of ideas came to her. Forms and shapes and colors… “I think I’ll paint Dad. In his cell. In all his convicted-criminal, scoundrel glory.”

  Zach chewed over the idea, his gaze distant as he no doubt tried to picture it. “Y’know what?” He nodded.
“I like that idea.”

  …

  Glaring at the canvas, Sienna threw the number five sable brush into the jar of linseed oil. Why the hell couldn’t she get her father’s nose right?

  “Zach?”

  He didn’t answer. Not surprising really. He’d been up the whole night reading. A week after promising to send Zach signed copies of his entire backlist, a box had arrived from Thomas. In it were not only his already available books, but a copy of his next release, not due to hit the stores for another month.

  Zach had damn near deafened her with his excited shout.

  She’d hardly seen him since, lost as he was to the American author’s words.

  Pulling a face at the silence, she made her way to the kitchen. If she couldn’t use Zach’s nose as a reference—shaped so like their father’s it was almost uncanny—she’d make a cup of tea and study the sketches she’d made when she’d last visited their dad in jail.

  The nose bugged her. It was the only thing left to tackle. Once the nose was right, the painting was complete. She’d give it a couple of days to dry, and then wrap it up and have it delivered to the art gallery where the Barton was being held. After that, she’d get back to work on some of her other paintings.

  Pouring water into the kettle, she stared out the window, cataloguing those other paintings in her mind.

  Since the newspaper article about her and James appeared in the tabloid six weeks ago, she’d been inundated with offers for her work.

  It seemed the exposure of the article had helped her career. Whether it was the hints she was the supposed girlfriend of James Dyson or not, she’d yet to lose a sale whenever she pointed out to every new buyer she wasn’t.

  It had taken her a few days, but she was beginning to think her work was the reason for the sales, not her connection to the man. That morning, she’d mentioned to a middle-aged woman interested in one of her larger paintings that she and James weren’t a thing, only to have her say, “Who’s James?”

  “No one of importance.” The lie had tainted her tongue and made her heart clench.

  No one of importance? If only.

  God, she missed him. It was stupid, of course, given what their relationship had been before the truth shattered it all. But she missed him.

  She missed the way he made her laugh. The way she felt when she was with him. Alive. Intelligent. Talented. Missed the way he made her burn with pleasure and need and carnal desire.

  Damn it, she needed her head read.

  She’d sent him a text, thanking him for clearing their father’s gambling debt. She’d also forwarded a note to his office from her father, written to James from Platinum Joe’s cell, doing the same.

  Both had been received with a simple text reply, “You’re welcome. J.D.”

  He’d appeared on television once in the last six weeks, interviewed on a rival network’s news program about his relationship with “a convicted felon’s daughter” and the rumors he’d been in a street brawl with a suspected criminal figure.

  He’d laughed off the latter, pointing out he’d never get into a fight given how much his suits cost, and then stated that Sienna Roberts was someone he held a lot of feelings for before turning the discussion to the signing of his own news program’s newest anchor.

  She couldn’t bring herself to watch the interview. Zach had, filling her in, quoting James and going on about how pathetic and lonely he looked when he was talking about her.

  She both wished he had and hadn’t. What the hell was she meant to think of “someone I hold a lot of feelings for”? What the hell did that even mean? And why did it make her heart beat faster and her stomach flutter when she thought about it?

  “Then stop thinking about it,” she muttered, placing the kettle on the stove.

  Huh. If only.

  She moved to the counter, scooped up the mail Zach had brought in from the letterbox the day before, and sorted through it.

  The latest bill from her father’s lawyer made her pause for a second. She’d open it later. She didn’t fear them like she used to. She had the money to pay for them now. She and Zach still lived a Spartan existence, but they weren’t close to losing it all anymore. For that alone, she wished she could thank James personally.

  Then go see him. Why am I waiting?

  She had no answer. Just like she’d had no answer when Zach had asked her the same thing a week ago.

  She just couldn’t. She wasn’t being stubborn. James had hurt her. He’d intended to hurt her much more. She couldn’t forget that.

  And still…

  Thomas St. Clair’s words came back to her, as they had time and again since James had driven away from her home. “He’s not like that deep down. I’ve never seen him smile like he did when he was with you.”

  “Goddamn it.” She sighed and threw the rest of the unopened mail on the counter. Tea. She’d have a cup of tea and get back to—

  A logo on one of the envelopes amongst the mail caught her eye.

  The State Art Gallery.

  Frowning, she picked the envelope up. It was addressed to her, handwritten in a neat black script.

  The State Art Gallery was famous for its exhibitions of artists no one else in Australia could land. An exhibition at the State Art Gallery was almost like a license to print money for a working artist.

  Pulse a trip hammer in her throat, she opened the envelope and withdrew the flyer inside it.

  Sinful Strokes: The James Dyson Private Collection of Works by Sienna Roberts.

  “Holy crap.” She stared, stunned, at the flyer. Beneath the exhibition’s title was an image of one of her paintings, the one she loved the most of all she’d painted for Mason Xavier: a couple entwined, the world meaningless to them as they gazed into each other’s eyes. She’d called it Hope.

  Hope.

  Her breath caught when she saw a handwritten note on the bottom of the back page.

  Please come. J.

  She swallowed. Her heart leaped into her throat, making it hard to breathe.

  “What’s that?”

  She squealed and then glowered at Zach, now standing beside her. “Don’t scare me like that.”

  He snorted, typical teenage sarcasm dialed to seven. “Edgy much?”

  Before she could respond, he plucked the flyer from her hand and studied it with melodramatic intensity. “So what are you going to wear?”

  “What?” She raised her eyebrows at him.

  He flapped the flyer at her. “To the opening. It’s tonight. In an hour and a half, in fact. You need to check your mail more often. What are you going to wear? Reckon I can wear jeans? My suit got repossessed.”

  “What?” she repeated. Her brain wasn’t working properly. Maybe because her pulse pounded in her ears like a maniacal drum?

  Zach took her wrist in a firm grip and pressed the gallery flyer back into her hand. “Si. The guy you’ve spent the last six weeks moping about has done something pretty freaking amazing, as far as I can see. Maybe it’s time to stop moping?”

  Mouth dry, she frowned. “I thought you said he was a fuckwit?”

  Zach grinned. “He is a fuckwit. But clearly, he’s a fuckwit who knows how to grovel. Groveling is good. Trust me, when a guy grovels, it means we know we’ve fucked up big time. And we only grovel to people we actually like.”

  Sienna caught her bottom lip with her teeth. What James had done to her, what he’d intended to do, had been beyond reprehensible. Beyond the actions of a fuckwit. She didn’t want anything to do with him. She didn’t.

  So why was she suddenly thrumming with an energy absent in her life for the last six weeks? “I really wish you wouldn’t swear,” she muttered.

  Zach laughed. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll swear less, if you go tonight.”

  She glared at him.

  “C’mon.” He nudged her shoulder with his. “What’s the worst that could happen? If he does something horrible to you, I’ll punch him in the jaw again. And you can throw a glas
s of champagne in his face in front of everyone. That’s got to be worth going, right?”

  A wry laugh fell from her as she stared at the flyer.

  “Please come. J.”

  The simple request reached into her tight chest and squeezed her heart.

  “And if he’s nice…” Zach left the rest of the sentence unspoken, his impish expression more than vocal enough.

  She chewed more on her lip.

  “If nothing else,” he went on, a warm smile in his voice, “you can get that whole closure thing I’m constantly hearing adults want. And I can pig out on some fancy finger-food. No offense, sis, but as far as cooks go, you’re an awesome artist.”

  “Hey.” She pouted.

  He grinned.

  She dropped her gaze back to the flyer and then back to Zach at the sound of him tapping something into his phone.

  He shoved it into his pocket, mischief dancing in his eyes. “Done.”

  “Done what?” The blood drained from her face. Her lips tingled. “What did you do?”

  “Booked an Uber. So you better go get ready.”

  “Zach,” she groaned, even as a million butterflies burst into life in her stomach.

  “Yeah, yeah.” He rolled his eyes. “I know. Thank me later.”

  He ran from the kitchen, leaving her to chew on her lip alone.

  Should I go?

  An hour later, and she was still asking herself the same question. Absurd really, given the fact she was sitting in the backseat of a Prius zipping toward the State Art Gallery dressed in black palazzo pants, an emerald-green halter top, and slightly less evil stilettos burrowed from Carrie as Zach chatted to the Uber driver about some television show involving dragons and snow zombies.

  She let out a shaky sigh. What am I doing?

  “We’re here,” Zach threw over his shoulder as the Prius came to a halt outside the glass-and-steel gallery.

  She stared at the building through the window. The burgundy gloss she’d slicked over her lips saved her chewing on her bottom one.

  Zach pulled the passenger door open. “Time to get out, chicken.”

  She frowned up at him. “Tell me again why I like you?”