BILLIONAIRE (Part 7)

  BILLIONAIRE

  Part 7

  $

  by Juliette Jones

  Copyright © 2013 Juliette Jones

  All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, distributed or scanned in any electronic or printed form without permission.

  BILLIONAIRE is a work of fiction. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.

  Cover art photo used under license from Shutterstock.com

  First Edition: November 2013

  $

  BILLIONAIRE (Part 7)

  Lila

  He looked so much like Alexander.

  His hair was a glossy dark brown instead of midnight black and his expression was less controlled, more youthful in the emotion it revealed. But no less intense. Alexander’s intensity was disciplined, masked by cool, skillful awareness. Jake’s was wilder, much closer to the surface.

  And I could read the thoughts running through Jake Wolfe’s mind as his rapt gaze locked onto me. A few of his friends laughed and called to him, throwing out a lewd comment or two as he shut them out, focusing his undivided attention on me. He was shocked to see me here, intrigued and also wary, not of me but of everything around me. Like Alexander was, too: protective in an over-zealous way. I understood this. Maybe that’s what childhood traumas do to a person and the people who care about them, who know about the layer-upon-layer of damage inflicted. You get wary. You get suspicious and distrustful. You end up morphing into a hyper-vigilant mess of untouchable yet deeply vulnerable paranoia.

  I had no idea what Alexander had told him about us, about the extent of our fiery, immediate bond. Whatever Jake knew or didn’t know, he was already dedicated to the job at hand. Clearly, caring for his brother’s “assistant,” found as she was – alone, drenched and half-clad – was now his most pressing priority. He approached me, spearing me with a stern, searching expression.

  At first I thought I was imagining him. Like my wishes had taken form. But then, if wishes came true it wouldn’t have been Jake Wolfe who was standing next to me in this almost-seedy bar on a rainy, red-tinted night. It would have been his brother. Reassuring me and making promises that might somehow heal my brokenness.

  Jake looked bigger than I remembered him. His black leather jacket was well-worn and added to the barely-there flicker of danger he exuded, the one I’d detected the first time I’d met him. The aura of his darkhorse demeanor was even more pronounced tonight. He was, like his brother, a stunning-looking man. His irises were so dark they looked black, like Alexander’s, and his eyes were shadowed with that bruised vulnerability I recognized. He looked like a badboy. A successful one. One with a turmoiled past and maybe even a record. I couldn’t help thinking that if Jake Wolfe didn’t have an older brother who guided him, employed him and bankrolled him, he’d probably either be in jail or holed up in a mansion as an heiress’s moody gigolo. His eyes sparked with a volatile unpredictability. In his world, this glimmer promised, rules didn’t apply.

  Jake pulled out a chair and sat down next to me, his eyes taking in every detail of my clearly-distressed state of mind and my borderline-inappropriate state of dress. It was the concern in him that made me want to climb onto his lap, to drink in the shelter of him. He could take me back to Alexander. He could buffer me from the cold winds of my fear and my loneliness. At the same time, I felt the conflicting urge to run away from him as though my life depended on it.

  My sense of equilibrium hadn’t exactly fled me, but instead was shadowed by a spiked recklessness, like my survivalist instinct couldn’t quite tell which way was up. Jake’s resemblance to his brother affected me as a visceral, physical longing. I wanted Alexander so much my heart actually ached. But I wasn’t about to be locked up like some animal at the zoo, to be admired and played with, exotic and useless. My anger and indignation, though, had been damaged by a murky, creeping despair. As my buzz took on a harsh, darkening edge, reality had started to close in. I had nowhere to go, save one gilded cage. Sure, I could sleep on Eva’s floor, pick up where I’d left off three or whatever weeks ago. But it wouldn’t be the same. I wasn’t the same. I’d had a long, lingering taste of perfection and now nothing could or would ever compare to that. The realization that I was not only changed by him but ruined for anything less made me feel a renewed, rising sense of anger for Alexander. Damn him for presenting me with the best of the best, for infiltrating me with all his goddamn glory so that anything in his wake would seem inferior in every imaginable way. A brief memory flickered, of other men who’d pursued me, way back when. In the hazy mist of my pre-Alexander wasteland of a lovelife. How pathetic they all were. How mousy and mediocre. How would I navigate those waters now, knowing he was out there, walking around with his black hair and his wide shoulders and his brutal, masculine beauty? Other women would chase him. They’d touch him, everywhere. No, he was mine, mine, mine. They’d make hot, sweet love to him. They’d honor him by taking that glorious, pleasure-gilded manhood into their bodies. Pushing deep. So deep. I felt the luscious effects of his echoing presence even now, where I remembered him. Damn him.

  “Lila, what are you doing here?” Jake repeated. “Does Alexan--”

  “Please don’t call him,” I interrupted hastily, and that edge of desperation that clung to my plea got Jake’s full attention. Not that I didn’t already have it, but this complicated things. His eyebrows furrowed with contemplative confusion, and something more. Only then did I realize I was grasping onto him. That my fingers had curled around his wrist as I begged him. I’m not ready, I wanted to say. I can’t go back. I want to, so much. But he crossed a line. The line. I will not be made powerless by his obsessive domination. I can’t be caged like that. I’ll go mad. Of course Jake wouldn’t understand. Of course his loyalties to his brother were much more entrenched than the requests of a lonely, wanton, still-drunk acquaintance. I removed my hand, coiling my fists in my lap, colder than I could ever remember being.

  Jake shrugged out of his black leather coat and draped it around my shoulders. The warmth of it was indescribable. It was a gentle gesture, and one I wasn’t expecting. I wasn’t afraid of him, but there was an energy to him that kicked up the distinct feeling that I needed to be careful. Jake rewrote rules and so did I. Tonight, I wasn’t myself. I was out of control. He seemed to read this in me and on some level tune into it, and soothe it. Like we were on some kind of fucked-up wildchild wavelength.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said. “Tell me what you’re doing here.”

  I felt grateful, that he didn’t immediately pick up his phone and call Alexander, that would respect my wishes like that, even though he probably knew as well as I did that his brother was half-insane with worry and even rage right about now. But Jake didn’t move, or do anything at all, except wait for me to answer his question with a kind of tender, dark-edged, unequivocal patience that was somehow exactly what I needed at that moment.

  When I didn’t immediately reply, Jake continued, his voice calm, like he’d talked people off ledges before and had a knack for it. “I just saw him, a couple hours ago. We had a meeting in his office. He said you were sleeping.”

  “I was sleeping.”

  “He said you look like an angel when you’re asleep.”

  My throat felt tight and achy when Jake said that. I wished I could go back to Alexander’s bed, and pick up where we’d left off. I’d be more patient with him this time. I’d tell him not to lock the door.

  “And then you woke up,” Jake continued slowly. “And at some point between then and now, something happened. Something that pissed you off or freaked you out.”

  Maybe b
ecause I knew enough about Jake’s past to feel that he might almost be able to relate to my pathetic backstory, I answered him with an honesty that surprised me. “It was more about something that happened a long time ago. To me. A memory came back to me and I … I needed to leave.”

  He watched my face, and his comprehension of what I was admitting was palpable and connective.

  “Did my brother do something to hurt you, Lila? Because if he did, I can assure you that he didn’t mean to. He can be an overbearing asshole, that’s fucking true as hell. But I can tell you this much: I have never, ever seen Alexander so affected by a woman as he is with you. I mean it. He’s head over heels. Completely bonkers. And I can guarantee that he would never do anything to deliberately push you away. His protectiveness gets the better of him sometimes. It does. But he’s basically a good guy. You should tell him what he did wrong. Explain to him. Make him understand whatever it was he did to piss you off. I’m sure he’d do anything – and I mean anything – to get you back. You should give him another chance.”

  I’m not sure why but I was amazed that Jake was using the small offerings of information I was giving him to try to make amends for his brother’s behavior. I found this immensely endearing. Jake might have been a badboy and a rule-breaker but he was loyal. And something in the depths of his dark, glinting eyes made me want to trust him, and to follow his advice. Because I could see that he got this part of me that no one else did. This broken, damaged corner of my soul was easy for him to detect because he’d suffered too. The only thing that had saved him was the staunch, manic protection of the very person I’d spent the past few hours desperately trying to avoid.

  This realization softened something in me. It made me remember why Alexander was so obsessively protective. He’d had to be. It was the only way he could keep his little brother safe from the monsters under the bed and the predators outside the door. Alexander hadn’t been locking me in; he’d been locking the threats out.

  If I hadn’t drunk at least a bottle of champagne over the course of the past few hours, followed by several long swigs of the sweet, warm, whiskey-heavy brew the bartender had set in front of me, I might not have spoken my epiphany out loud. As it was, Jake didn’t seem all that surprised. “He saved you,” I whispered.

  Jake paused, looking into my eyes intensely, not especially perturbed by whatever it was I might have been insinuating. “He’s saved me more times than I can fucking count. And he can save you too. Why don’t you let him.” His tone was almost dull, matter-of fact. And it wasn’t a question. “Let me call him, Lila.”

  “No,” I said, the lingering panic resurfacing. “Not yet,” I heard myself add. I needed more time. The refreshed memories were still gripping into me. But they were fading by degrees. Jake’s presence was helping. I could feel my logic and my love returning, seeping into me like warmth.

  I would go to Alexander. I would tell him what scared me, and what drove me, until he understood. I would try to teach him how I needed to be handled. I knew Jake was telling the truth. Alexander had told me he loved. Many, many times. He had scared me, but it hadn’t been intentional. He was only acting on his own deep memories, repeating behaviors that were as entrenched as my reaction. And I loved him. So much. The past few hours away from him had been the loneliest I could remember. He was worth every effort I could make, even if he’d fucked everything up.

  But I wasn’t ready. The bitter taste of my fear lingered. The mess of my past clung to me as tightly and wetly as my cold, skimpy dress. I wanted to sleep. Maybe in the morning I could forgive, but darkness had a way of illuminating all the particularly-gruesome half-hidden corners of my nightmares, detailing the dredged-up horrors with sharp, insistent clarity.

  “My apartment’s right across the street,” Jake said. “We’ll go over there, we’ll get you warm, and we’ll call Alexander. Okay?”

  I wasn’t sure that would be such a good idea. Some tiny voice in the back alley of my brain warned against being alone with Jake Wolfe. My mind was too muddled to analyze any of it; the only thing I could truly comprehend at that moment was how tired I was. Still hazy and swilled from all the alcohol I’d drunk. Whatever the grandfatherly bartender had given me only spun out the thin grip on consciousness I was just managing to cling to. “I’m not ready to see Alexander. And if you call him, I’ll have to confront him now, and I’m not up to it tonight. I need to sleep.” I stood up unsteadily, holding onto the edge of the table for support. I slid Jake’s jacket off and handed it back to him. “I know this is lame of me to even ask, but would you mind if I borrowed some money? For a hotel? I don’t need much. I left my handbag at Alexander’s. I’ll pay you back, Jake. As soon as I can. I’m good for it, I promise.”

  But I was silenced then by Jake’s unexpected expression.

  I’d forgotten how inappropriate my dress was until Jake’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped in a unchecked reaction. The punished, rained-on, very-thin knit fabric of my dress had stretched slightly in some places and tightened in others, and was practically see-through. My breasts were half-revealed and the hem had ridden up to the tops of my thighs. My long hair hung in half-curled drying skeins and did little more to cover my budded nipples than the dress.

  After several stunned seconds, Jake stood and hastily wrapped his jacket back around me. “Jesus Christ, Lila. You can’t walk around like that. You are far too beautiful and far too … on display … to do anything but let me take you back to my apartment. Alexander would torture me slowly before throttling me with both hands – and he has a fucking strong grip – if I did anything but take you home and call him immediately.”

  He had slung his arm around me and was leading me through the crowd, which seemed closer now, more attentive. My vision felt swirly and unhinged but I could see vaguely that the bar was full of men. Some were yelling at a football game taking place on a large-screen TV. Others were looking at me. Saying things. Rude things. Suggestive. Aggressive.

  “Jake, you lucky bastard. Let me.”

  “She’s too young for you, Jake. Is she even legal?”

  “Where you goin’, Jakey? It’s still early. Let her stay for a while.”

  There were others. They were drunk and their laughter was tipped with the late-night looseness that was less about humor than it was about messy, intemperate self-gratification.

  “Think of my well-being, Lila,” Jake was murmuring in a steady, soothing monotone as he led me towards the door, as though to anchor me. “A lot of these guys know me. Some of them know Alexander. He’ll hear about this and if he does, and realizes that you were with me and I didn’t tell him about it … well, there’ll be hellfire to pay. He’ll probably fucking fire me. He’ll definitely beat me to a bloody pulp and he can be a mean son of a bitch when he puts his mind to it. I don’t really want to be on the receiving end of all that so if you don’t mind obliging me on this one little detail, I’ll be more than happy to give you as much goddamn money as you want.”

  Jake swerved to shield me as his shoulder pushed against a man that was blocking our escape. A big man, with a tight t-shirt that showcased a b-grade tattoo and the hours he’d spent at some sweaty gym.

  “Fuck off and back off, asshole,” Jake said. “We’re coming through so get the fuck out of my way.”

  Oh, God. The man was angry, shooting daggers out of his eyes as we passed by him. This was dangerous. Would he come after us? Would he challenge Jake? Would he hurt him? Would he hurt me?

  I was suddenly and immensely thankful for Jake’s well-built, roughed-up renegade shtick. The beefy thug thought twice about acting out his bravado and laughed it off with a couple other beer-swilling louts before turning his attention back to the football.

  And Jake and I were out on the street, his arm still slung around me.

  We walked in silence for a while, letting the adrenaline settle. The rain had stopped but the streets were still oily-wet. The smell of New York City hung in the murky air: of gasoline and expensiv
e perfume, of sparky ambition and nightlit desperation.

  “I can see how Alexander gets off on this white knight gig,” he commented blithely, looking down at me. “You all right?”

  I wasn’t sure if he was referring to the way I was clinging onto him to stop myself from falling over or the scene we’d just made our dramatic escape from.

  I was about reassure him. I thought I was all right, but I couldn’t exactly tell. I’d find that out when he let go of me. At this point I wasn’t even sure I could walk by myself. The only thing I was sure of was that I’d never, ever felt so tired in my entire life. I wanted to thank him and ask him again for that loan. I knew there was a hotel on the next block.

  “My apartment is right here, in the building on the corner,” I heard him say.

  But before I could tell Jake that I wouldn’t be coming up, that I needed to go it alone, to sleep and figure out what and when and where and all the other details, the night took on a strange, glittery brilliance.

  Darkness closed in and it was beautiful and complete.

  Alexander

  The meeting went well enough. I made a few calls that would keep Jake from being too closely investigated by the authorities. Insider trading wasn’t taken lightly, but everyone had their price. I hated placating people with hush money. It wasn’t my style and I’d never had to do it to get myself out of trouble. For the most part I avoided trouble. Trouble was a pain in the ass.

  I wished Jake would fucking wise up. His recklessless was getting expensive. I told him as much and he left in a mood. Said he was meeting some friends in a bar nearby.

  Not that I cared what my brother planned on doing for the rest of the weekend. I’d see him on Monday to finalize a few more details and write a few more checks. Until then, I had my own plans. Plans that involved a naked, nubile nymphet who, by this time, ought to be very well rested. Just thinking about all that lush, pink beauty softly writhing around in my bed got me instantly, painfully hard.