How to Lasso a Billionaire

by Katharine Sadler

  He moved his body to the music, his hands on her hips, his eyes on her face. This. This is what she'd been missing. His arms around her felt like everything she needed.

  He held her close and danced with her, no matter how fast or slow the music. She lost herself in the music and in the feel of him. They danced like that for what seemed like hours, until Jude laced his fingers through hers and led her off the dance floor.

  He led her to a table on the second floor, which had a view of the dance floor without all the noise. "Okay if we take a break?" he asked.

  She nodded and sank into a seat, realizing as she did so that her legs were sore and her throat dry.

  Jude flagged a waiter to their table and ordered a water for himself. When he looked at Bri, a question in his gaze, she smiled at the waiter. "A water would be great for me, too. Thank you." As the waiter walked away, she fought the urge to call him back and request a drink with alcohol. Or a glass of straight liquor, if she was being honest. Because now, seated at a table, Jude across from her, she felt nervous and at a complete loss for what to say or do.

  If she was smart, she'd get up and head back to the dance floor to find a new dance partner, but she didn't want to. No matter the list of valid reasons she had for keeping her distance from Jude, she wanted to be near him. She craved his presence.

  She raised her gaze to Jude's face and found him staring at her, his mouth twisted in a frown. Anger surged. She hadn't asked him to dance with her, certainly hadn't asked him to sit with her. Before she could say anything, though, Jude had turned his attention to the dance floor below.

  "Woman in a red dress and man in a suit," he said, his voice a low thrum. "What's their story?"

  Relief coursed through her. It was a game they'd played all the time when they'd been friends. One of them would find a person or a couple and the other would make up their story. "They were just married," she said. "By Elvis. They're here dancing to celebrate." She noticed a certain sadness in the woman's expression. "But they can't really be together. She's moving to Oregon for a job and he's going back to Georgia where his kids live. They're going to have the marriage annulled in the morning, but for now, they're going to enjoy every moment of being husband and wife."

  Jude turned and looked at her, brows high. He shook his head. "Your turn. Pick someone."

  She scanned the crowd, still feeling sad because of the story she'd made up. Or maybe about how closely it mirrored her reality. "That guy in the blue shirt and cowboy boots, standing alone."

  The guy had to be in his late sixties, standing on the edge of the dance floor, not moving to the music, but watching the crowd. Jude snorted. "You'd never know to look at him, but the guy's a high roller. He's got more money than he can spend in several lifetimes and his wife, a thirty-year-old fashion model, is dancing without him. He's keeping an eye on her."

  Bri rolled her eyes, but Jude was still watching the floor and didn't catch it. "Come on. If he's so rich he'd be able to afford jeans that don't have holes in them and if he's got a wife, she wouldn't let him leave the house with his hair sticking up in fifteen different directions."

  An older woman, in a sequin-covered dress, her own white hair in tight curls around her head, stepped off the dance floor and wrapped her arms around the man. "See," Bri said, validated. "Not a gold-digger at all. A happily married couple."

  Jude didn't turn back to her, didn't say a word. Just stared out at the dance floor. She assumed he was watching the older couple walk through the club toward the exit.

  "The woman in jeans and a t-shirt, with the piercings," he said.

  She stared at the back of his head for a long moment. She could keep playing his game, but she was suddenly exhausted. "What are we doing, Jude?"

  He turned to her, his expression sad. "I haven't got a fucking clue."

  She nodded, somehow comforted that rational, confident Jude was as lost as she was. "I don't know how to be with you. What you did to Max . . . I just can't let that slide."

  He nodded. "I'm your enemy. You don't approve of what I did. I get that. I won't forget it." He leaned forward, arms resting on the small table. "But I don't hate you, Brianne. I don't think I ever could. And I can't stand the idea of you being out in Vegas alone, of you dancing in clubs, drinking, taking chances in a city you don't know, don't understand."

  "I don't have to be alone. I could go out with Raymond, or your friend, Mark. I'm not an idiot, Jude, and I'm not a naive kid. I won't take stupid chances, I won't even drink when I'm out." She didn't feel the need to admit that she couldn't afford to drink in Vegas where a beer cost nine bucks and a hard liquor drink more than a meal at a mediocre restaurant.

  He ran a hand through his hair and looked at the dance floor wistfully. When he turned back to her, he still looked a bit wary, but more determined. "I don't want you going out with anyone else, Brianne." He shook his head. "Fuck. I hate this. I hate what you do to me. Philip let me know you'd be here and I came to watch out for you, to keep an eye on you, just to make sure you stayed safe, but I couldn't do it. I had to be near you, to touch you, to make you smile."

  She stared at him, his misery and anger about the situation plain on his face. She wished, more than she wished for the next thump of her heart, that she could be thrilled by his words, that she could be happy he couldn't maintain his careful distance around her, but that wasn't her reality. She had to hold back, had to keep her heart protected. "I could ask Philip not to tell you where he's taken me. I could make sure you don't know anything about what I'm doing in my free time."

  He nodded, but his expression didn't change. "That's the smart thing to do." He stared out at the dance floor for several long moments, before he turned to her, pain in every line of his face. "Why did you do it? You must have known that if you'd come to me, I would have given you whatever you asked for."

  She blinked at him, feeling like she'd just been shoved underwater. Had she heard him right? Why weren't his words making sense? "I'm sorry, Jude. I have no idea what you're talking about."

  Consternation twisted his face. He stood and offered her his hand. "Let's go somewhere we can talk."

  She stood, but she didn't take his hand. All that dancing had made her feel . . . things. She needed to keep their relationship securely in the friend, well, frenemy, zone.

  And she stuck to that plan, until Jude put his hand on the small of her back to guide her toward the back of the club and her body lit up like fireworks on her birthday. Dithering dandelions, the things he could do to her with just a touch had her thinking of all the things he could do to her with more than a touch.

  She could have sped up and broken the contact, but she leaned into his hand, letting him take the lead, and enjoyed the way he made her feel, the beat of the music, the anticipation of what would come next. Maybe she wouldn't have a love affair with a billionaire, but she could still have an adventure with one.

  Jude swiped a card near the handle of a door marked private and a green light flashed. He pulled the door open, his hand still on her back, and let her lead the way up the dimly lit staircase. "You aren't taking me to the roof to throw me off, are you?" she asked as the door clanged shut behind them, blocking the sounds of the club, enveloping them in silence.

  "If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't do it at my casino. Can you imagine the bad press that would bring? We might never recover."

  "Good to know where your priorities are," she said, teasing, but also not. The Jude she'd known wouldn't hurt an ant, but she didn't really know this Jude. That lack of knowledge was scary, dangerous, but also a little exciting.

  He snaked the hand on her back around her waist and pulled her to a stop on the stairs. He leaned in close, his words hot against her skin. "I'm not going to hurt you, Brianne. Not here and not anywhere else. I've never, not even when I was most angry, considered hurting you."

  She nodded, her breath tight in her throat and making it impossible to speak.

  He released her and she started back
up the stairs. They ascended one flight that ended at another door. He reached around her and pushed it open and she stepped out onto a rooftop. Except it wasn't a boring industrial rooftop with blacktop or gravel, it was more like a tropical paradise. Flowering cactuses and native plants she remembered Jude pointing out at the botanical garden grew along the edges of the rooftop area. Around and below them the lights of the Vegas strip lit the area in a neon glow, and she could just make out the shimmer of a pool in the center of the roof.

  Behind her, Jude must have flipped a switch because fairy lights chased away the darkness from every corner. A gentle blue glow lit the pool from within and Bri could make out a bar, lit with pink and purple lights, at the far end of the roof.

  Around the pool were comfy-looking chairs and small fire pits.

  Bri walked to the closest chair and sat, then she leaned back, luxuriating in how comfortable the chair felt beneath her weary bones. "Got marshmallows?"

  Jude sat in the chair next to her. "I can get some if you want them."

  Even with the fairy lights and the glow from the strip, she couldn't entirely make out his expression. "You'd just make a phone call, and someone would deliver them?"

  He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in the chair. "I pay employees to wait on casino guests, not on me. I would take a walk down to the stock room for the general store and get a bag of marshmallows."

  She shrugged. "Sounds like a lot of work. How hard would it be to light that fire?"

  He leaned to the side and flipped a switch. The firepit clicked and burst into a roaring flame.

  She watched the fire and let it warm her body, chilled by the night air. She relaxed and her eyes drooped.

  "This chair is very comfortable," he said.

  "You sound surprised."

  "I hadn't tried them out." His voice was a bit syrupy slow and relaxed. "We only use this area for private events. I can't remember the last time I took a moment to simply sit and do nothing."

  "That is a criminal shame." Though the truth was she couldn't remember a time she'd felt so thoroughly relaxed, either. She fought the urge to sink into the comfort, because she needed to understand what he'd said below. "Speaking of criminal, what did you mean before about giving me something?"

  He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, his body tensing. "I can't play this game anymore, Brianne. I need to know why you asked Max to steal from me. I understand that he may not have been forthcoming with you, but you must have known he didn't have such a large amount of money just lying around. No matter how hard I try to make excuses for you, I just can't believe you'd be dumb enough to think Max could come up with more than a million dollars legally. It was only a few months before that I'd seen you at Christmas and I'd told you we were just getting the business off the ground, that we were both putting every cent we earned back into the business." He sat up straighter and met her gaze head on. "I just need to understand what you needed so badly."

  She stared at him for a few slow thumps of her heart. It took her that long to understand what he was saying, to see that he wasn't playing some game with her, or making up a story to excuse his behavior. The pain and the confusion on his face couldn't be faked by an award-winning actor, and certainly not by Jude, who'd never been a good liar, who'd always worn his emotions on his face. People could change, but not that much. Once she accepted the truth of his words, the reality behind them hit her like a freight train. Max had stolen from Jude and he'd blamed her for it. There had been no unexplained falling out between her brother and his best friend. Jude hadn't suddenly turned on Max. No. Max had embezzled more than a million dollars from the company he and Jude owned, and he'd blamed it on Bri.

  Her breath got tight and her throat burned at the realization that her brother had made her a thief and walked away with enough money to have changed all of their lives. Where had that money been when Bri had forfeited her scholarship and left college? Where had that money been when she'd been scrimping and saving and working her ass off to keep his daughter healthy and fed and happy? Where the hell had that money been when Maureen had been too sick to see straight and had continued to drag herself in to work every day to pay the bills?

  Rage and hurt tore through her like a physical bullet and her body reacted like she'd actually been struck. She curled in on herself, her lungs so tight she wondered if maybe she really had been struck. Why weren't her lungs working? Why did her chest hurt so damn bad?

  "Brianne?" Jude's voice reached her at the same time she felt his hand on her back, rubbing circles. Jude. What the hell must he have thought of her all these years? And he still gave her a job. Still offered to help her out. How could she have been so thoroughly wrong about him?

  "I'm okay," she rasped out, sitting up. She pulled in a few deep breaths and centered herself, grateful for the mommy and me yoga class she'd taken with Addy at the community center in Towle. "I'm okay." Except she wasn't okay. Her cheeks were damp, and her throat ached.

  And then, Jude's arms were around her. She leaned into his strength and his warmth and she cried. She cried for the brother who'd betrayed and then abandoned her, cried for the years she'd lost with Jude. She cried for all the times over the years when she'd had to carry the stress and the struggle of being a parent, when she'd had to take care of Addy and Maureen and push her own wants and needs aside. She loved them and she wouldn't trade a moment of it, but it had been hard as hell sometimes and it hadn't been the path she'd chosen. She cried until she had no tears left and then she sniffed and straightened, facing him.

  He brushed away her tears with his thumbs and met her watery gaze. "You didn't know."

  She shook her head, afraid to speak, afraid she would cry again.

  "Did you ever even see any of that money?"

  "No," she said, finally finding her voice. "Max never gave me any money. He never even gave me an extravagant gift. Whatever he stole from you, I have no idea what he did with it."

  Jude swore under his breath and hugged her more tightly. "I'm so sorry, Brianne. I should have known, you'd--"

  And just like that all her ragey, mushy, angsty, uncomfortable feelings had a target. She pulled herself out of Jude's arms and glared at him. "Why didn't you know better, Jude? I thought you knew me. How could you ever think I'd ask Max to steal that kind of money from you?"

  He leaned back, his expression closing off. "Yet, it was perfectly logical to you that I would kick my best friend out of the business for no reason other than greed? Because that's exactly what you thought, isn't it, Brianne? That's what Max told you and that's what you believed. All you had to do was talk to me and we could have straightened this out years ago."

  "I tried, but you changed your phone number, Jude. I was angry at first and there . . ." She hesitated. She didn't know this Jude sitting across from her, wasn't ready to tell him about Addy and the end of her college career just a few months before she was set to graduate. "There was a lot that happened in a very short period of time, but after everything settled, I did question Max's story and I tried to call you. I wanted to hear your side, but you'd changed your number, your email address. I even tried to send you a letter through snail mail, but it came back because you'd moved. It was like you wanted to make sure I had no way to get in touch with you."

  He scoffed. "If you really wanted to reach me, all you had to do was ask Isla."

  He was right, she could have asked Isla. She could have found him if she'd really wanted to, but nothing was ever that simple. "Sure, I could have just called her up and asked her for her brother's contact information, and she would have asked me why I wanted it. I've never told her what happened between you and Max, Jude. We don't talk about it, so I didn't want to involve her in my attempt to contact you." She straightened and squared her shoulders in the face of his skeptical expression. "But the other reason I didn't ask her, Jude, was because it felt like you changing your phone number meant you were done with me. I tried every way I knew of to reach you, but as
king her for your personal information when you so clearly didn't want me to have it, felt like a violation. If you didn't want me in your life, I wasn't going to force my way in."

  His expression softened and his shoulders slumped. "Shit. I never . . ." He leaned toward her and reached for her hands. She let him take them, because she couldn't not touch him. "The truth is that I would have forgiven you anything, Brianne. If you'd been able to reach me, I would have answered your call, I would have . . ." He shook his head. "After Max stole from me, I was a mess. He'd been like a brother to me, and the fact that I'd lost you, too." He looked away, the pain clear in his eyes. "It wasn't a good time and I made some bad choices. Other people might have gone on a bender and blown a bunch of money gambling, but I immersed myself in work. I gave every bit of energy and attention I had to the job. If I'd been paying closer attention, I would have noticed how odd it was for any woman to show an interest in me. I was barely sleeping, eating just enough to fuel me for work, for making my dream a reality, and I definitely wasn't looking for romance, but Pauline showed up and fitted herself into my life, seeming to anticipate my needs and I let her. It took me much longer than it should have to realize she was mentally ill. In fact, I didn't figure it out until I told her I was no longer interested in dating her. She was a kind and beautiful woman, but she wasn't the one for me. There was no spark and we had very little in the way of conversation when I did make time for her, which wasn't as often as I should have. When I broke the news to her, she appeared to accept it, but she never did. She started following me, causing a scene during important meetings, creating disruptions in the casino. I changed my contact information and moved to make it more difficult for her to disrupt my life, not to hide from you."

  "That's awful," Bri said, feeling bad for both Jude and Pauline. "What happened?"

  "Eventually, I had to get a restraining order. When I had the means, I contacted her sister and paid for Pauline's therapy. She's doing much better now, and I don't believe that I was blameless. I led her on and I didn't pay enough attention to her or her feelings."