The Billion Dollar Bad Boy Read online

  She looked at him. “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Smile like that. And use that … tone. Like you don’t care.”

  His jaw felt tight. “Perhaps I don’t.”

  “No, you do care. You just don’t want people to know that you do.”

  He found he’d tensed up, his muscles tight. “If I’d realized we were going to have a heart-to-heart chat, I would have finished my damn beer. Maybe even have had a second.”

  There was a silence, deafening.

  Victoria’s gray eyes didn’t budge from his. “What are you so afraid of?”

  He wanted to say he wasn’t afraid. That she was wrong, he didn’t care. But he couldn’t get the words out. Instead he found he was repeating himself, like a fool, “No one else has ever been here. Not even my brother.”

  She blinked. “So why me?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied, wanting the conversation to be over and done with right now. “Can I get you anything?”

  “You’re changing the subject. If you must know, this”—she waved a hand at the apartment—“isn’t what I was expecting.”

  Relax, you fucking idiot.

  He tried to force the tension out of his shoulders. Failed. “And what were you expecting?”

  “I don’t know. Something … more minimalist, I guess. Something a lot more sleek and shiny.” One corner of her mouth turned up. “A bit more like Mr. Morrow actually.”

  “Yeah, well. It’s not.”

  “I can see that.” Her voice was utterly neutral, no judgment there at all. “I like it. It’s comfortable. Restful. And it makes me curious.”

  “Curious?”

  “To know more about you.”

  “That’s not what this night is supposed to be about, Victoria.”

  She remained still, the light shimmering across the fabric of her gown in time with her breathing. “It can be about whatever we want, Van.” Her throat moved as she swallowed. “And I want it to be about more than just sex.”

  He could see fear in her eyes and it was familiar. Mainly because he felt it, too. The fear of rejection. Of being honest, of opening yourself up and having that flung back in your face.

  He kept his hands in his pockets, unsure of what to do with them, unsure of what to do period, the unsettled feeling turning and turning like a ship caught in a whirlpool.

  She looked down at her hands wrapped around her silver purse, held protectively in front of her like a shield. “I’m adopted,” she said… “After my brother was born, my mother became infertile. She’d always wanted a girl and eventually convinced my father to let her adopt one. Dad didn’t want another child. But he loved Mom and in the end let her have her way.” She let out a soft breath. “Mom died unexpectedly when I was eight, and after she died, my dad was left with me, the child he never wanted in the first place. Kind of like an unwanted gift he couldn’t return.” Her head lifted, , something painful in her eyes that made his heart constrict in a way he wasn’t used to. “I know he did his best for me, but he’s always made it clear that I wasn’t his choice, that he adopted me for Mom rather than because he wanted me.”

  Christ. He knew how that felt. He knew it intimately. “What do you want from me then?”

  Her eyes were direct, full of a bare honesty that made him want to look away. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

  “I want you to make me feel special, Van. Like I’m someone’s choice. Like I’m worth something to someone. I’ve never had that before, not even from James, my own damn fiancé.”

  The edge of pain in her voice was like a knife against his skin. Because he knew what it was like to want to mean something to someone and yet know you didn’t mean a fucking thing. How it hurt. How desperate it made you. And how, in the end, in order to protect yourself you had to pretend not to care. Pretend and hope that one day, it would actually be true.

  Donovan took his hands out of his pockets, walked across the room to her, gripped her hips, and tugged her close.

  “I meant what I said when I told you no one else has ever been here,” he murmured, looking down into her eyes. “You’re the first. Because you are special, Victoria. And I intend to spend all night showing you if that’s what you want.”

  *

  Victoria moved her thumb over the hard muscle of his chest in a caressing motion. She was achingly conscious of everywhere he was touching her and everywhere he wasn’t. And part of her just wanted to melt into him and let him take what he so obviously wanted.

  But that wasn’t the way it was going to happen tonight.

  She’d known that morning as she’d sat on his meeting room table that what was between them was more than passion and sexual chemistry. There was familiarity, recognition. As if deep down they were the same somehow.

  It made her want to know more about him. More about the man he kept so carefully hidden. The man in jeans and a T-shirt who lived in a warm, homely apartment surrounded by books and art, and not the stainless steel and sleek modernity she’d expected.

  He surprised her. He kept on surprising her and she wanted to know more.

  She also wanted more of that feeling her gave her. Like she was special. Different. Like she was worth knowing by him, too.

  Victoria looked up into his eyes, saw the heat in them. And something else. “What about you?” she asked quietly. “Do you have anything you want to share?”

  He smiled. “No. It’s all happy families where the Morrows are concerned.”

  But she knew that smile by now. And the reason for it. “So I’m honest with you, but you don’t have to reciprocate? You know that’s not how it works.”

  Donovan’s gaze flickered. Then he bent his head, brushed his mouth against her ear, sending a shiver straight through her. “What works is me showing you my bedroom. And then perhaps we can continue this conversation afterward.”

  Oh, she could do that. She could let him distract her with passion, with pleasure. Yet if she did, next thing she knew it would be morning and he’d never have told her a damn thing. Well, she hadn’t let him get away with pulling that crap before. She wasn’t going to now.

  Pulling her head away from his exploring mouth, she looked into his eyes. “I thought I was special?”

  A flash of frustration crossed his face. “So, what do you want from me then?”

  “Let me go and I’ll tell you.”

  There was reluctance in his eyes as he let her go and that gave her a small burst of satisfaction. “What is it then?”

  She turned, putting down her purse on the rough granite of the coffee table, then walking slowly to the windows. The night beyond the glass pressed in, the lights of the city sparkling like a scatter of diamonds.

  She had to think about this. About how to get him to drop that smiling, slick, playboy mask. He was protecting himself, she was sure of it. The same way she used the hard-edged businesswoman to protect herself. Because it was easier to be someone else than be yourself.

  And the face Donovan Morrow showed the world wasn’t who he was.

  Someone else lay beneath that. Someone far more intense and serious. Someone who filled his apartment with comfortable, vintage furniture. With bright, Eastern-style rugs on the floor and colorful abstracts on the walls. Someone who filled those low shelves with books and magazines, all stacked neatly, with small sculptures and knickknacks arranged at intervals.

  Someone whose home wasn’t a showpiece or a hotel room. There was no artifice about it and yet the place was full of beauty and heart. Full of passion and interest in more than parties and women and money.

  Victoria took a breath then glanced back to where he stood.

  His feet were bare, his inky black hair untidy. And she knew she was seeing him for the first time. Not the seductive man in the limo or the club, or the hard businessman across the meeting room table. But someone else. Someone she’d never met before.

  “You think I told you about Dad for nothing, Van?” she asked quiet
ly. “Well, I didn’t. I told you because I hoped you’d share with me, too.”

  His jaw tightened. “That was your decision, not mine.”

  “You don’t trust me? Is that it?”

  He was silent again. So long that she thought she wouldn’t get anything at all from him. Then, at last, he said, “It’s not that. I just … don’t talk about myself. To anyone.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because there’s nothing pretty in my background. Nothing inspiring. Just a lot of fucking mistakes.”

  “Everyone makes mistakes, Van. I shouldn’t have gotten engaged to James, yet I did. I shouldn’t have let my dad’s indifference matter, yet it did.” She swallowed. “I shouldn’t have walked away from you that night in the club, but I did. I walked away.”

  He looked down at the ground for a long moment. Then slowly he walked over to the windows, coming to stand across from her, one shoulder hitched against the glass, leaning against it. There were lines of tension around his mouth, blue eyes unreadable. “I was my father’s whore, Victoria. He used me to seduce corporate secrets out of people.” He said the words flatly, without any inflection whatsoever. “The men, I took out to bars and strip clubs, getting them drunk, pretending I was their best friend. And if that didn’t get them to talk, then I seduced their wives or girlfriends and got it from them that way. The women, of course, were easy. A couple of orgasms and they told me their life stories.”

  If his intention had been to shock her then, finally, he’d succeeded.

  Her throat felt tight, cold inching its way down her spine. “Why? Why did you do that?”

  This time there was something bleak in his eyes. “Because I wanted to be a Morrow.”

  Chapter 8

  It was like a Band-Aid being ripped off, exposing a raw, red, and ugly wound. He even saw her flinch. “But … You are a Morrow. Aren’t you?”

  Donovan looked away, out into the night. He wasn’t supposed to care about this anymore. So why was it so hard to say? “I had to work for the company, because we all had to. And we started at the bottom since Dad wanted us to prove ourselves. He’d never thought much of me and I was desperate to prove him wrong.” Desperate for attention. Desperate to get the same kind of respect Jax and Sean got.

  Damn, useless pretty boy. Always with the books. That’s no way to get respect, Donovan, you hear me? You have to get your hands dirty, not think about fuck knows what all day long.

  “One of his female executives took a shine to me and I … well, I was sixteen and horny. She seduced me, and after a couple of sessions on her desk, told me all about how her husband didn’t pay attention to her anymore. How he was always at work at this other company. She basically spilled all his secrets.” He stared out the window into the darkness. “I didn’t think anything of it until I heard Dad was staging some kind of takeover of this company. So I told him what I knew. And he was … impressed.” Donovan looked at her. “For the first time in my life, I’d done something to impress the old bastard.”

  “So, what? You kept doing it?”

  “Of course I did. Then Dad started giving me specific people to target.”

  “Oh, God …”

  He didn’t like that look in her eyes, the pity there. Yeah, what a sad, desperate kid he’d been back then. He’d pity himself, too, if he was her. “It was wrong, the whole thing was wrong. But you know the worst part? It was finding out he wasn’t even using the information I got him. He was keeping it for ‘insurance purposes.’” Bitterness coated the words but he couldn’t stop them. “Basically I’d whored myself out for nothing. So, that’s when I told him I was leaving. He didn’t even argue. Just shrugged his shoulders and let me go. After I’d prostituted myself for him.” He laughed, the sound harsh. “Like I didn’t even fucking matter.”

  A long, tense silence fell.

  Jesus. He was crazy. Why the hell had he said all that stuff? Now he felt broken open, all his secrets exposed. The dirty things he’d had to do and merely for his father’s approval. His father’s love. Love he hadn’t ever in the end received.

  Donovan kept his gaze out of the window, out into the night. Dirty and broken, that’s what he was, and if there was the slightest judgment or pity in her gaze this time he didn’t know what he’d do.

  “So, you went and founded your PR company?” Victoria’s voice was completely neutral, making his throat tighten for reasons he couldn’t have explained.

  He cleared it. “Yeah. I was always better with the people side of things.”

  “Why did you go back to Morrow?”

  “Because Jax was running the show and he made me a good offer. I was bored with where I was anyway and …” Shit, he’d already spilled his guts to her, what was another confession? “And I guess even after all the crap I went through with Dad, I still wanted to find my place there.”

  “Why? Why go back after all that?”

  He turned his head, met her level gray eyes. “Because Dad left me with nothing. I did all his dirty work for him and I got sweet fuck all. And I want something for what I did. I want something from this fucking family for what I had to do for him. Jax gets the company. I want that land.”

  She didn’t flinch, just stared at him. And what she was thinking he had no idea. Then she took a couple of steps toward him until she was standing inches away, the glass of the window on one side of her, the night just beyond. She lifted a hand, pressed it palm down on his chest, spreading her fingers out, and he felt the burn of heat seep through him.

  “It’s strange,” she murmured. “We want that land for the same reasons. To show someone we’re worth something.”

  He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, holding her, the ache of desire and a strange yearning gathering inside him. “It’s not just about the important promotion to you, is it?”

  “No. I thought … I thought if I could get this land for him—de Winter land—that he’d finally be glad he adopted me after all. That he’d love me like a father should, and not see me as this … person he never wanted. This constant reminder that the woman he loved wasn’t there anymore.”

  There was pain in her eyes and he felt it inside himself, too. The pain of a truth laid bare.

  And he wanted to make it stop, wanted to give them both something good to replace it. To cancel it out. Replace it with pleasure, because sometimes words weren’t enough. Luckily, that was the one thing he was very good at giving.

  Releasing her wrist he lifted his hands, cupping her face between his palms. “I want you, Victoria,” he said softly, fiercely. “Understand me? I want you.” Then he showed her, bending and covering her mouth with his.

  She didn’t make a sound, opening up to him immediately. Arching up, winding her arms around his neck, kissing him back, hot and hungry and as desperate as he was. He could smell the scent of her, vanilla and musk, and he felt suddenly dizzy with want. With need. Fuck, if he didn’t have her now, he was going to go insane.

  But … she’d asked him to share things with her first and shit, he wanted to.

  He pulled back, his breathing out of control and ragged. “What else?” he asked hoarsely. “What else did you want to know about me?”

  Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes like quicksilver. She looked at him a second, then abruptly stepped away.

  But not to leave. Instead she reached behind herself and he heard the sound of a zipper being drawn down, the shimmering fabric slipping from her shoulders and off, pooling at her feet.

  His breath caught. She wore silver lace underneath, a bra that hid nothing and a pair of panties he could see the red curls between her thighs through. She didn’t seem to care about the windows right next to her, where anyone could see in.

  But she didn’t stop there. She unclipped her bra, then pushed her panties down, stepping out of them, wearing only a pair of high-heeled silver sandals.

  He couldn’t stop looking at her because it was the first time he’d seen her naked, though he’d imagined it over the past
two days. Imagined it in every possible way. Yet the reality was so much more than his imaginings.

  Pale, creamy skin. Pink-tipped breasts. The most beautiful curves he’d ever seen.

  She came close, her breasts brushing his chest. “I want to know everything about you, Van. Every single thing. But what I’d really like first is for you to fuck me.”

  The breath went out of him, his body hardening. Christ, he should know by now that she never did what he expected.

  He put his hands on her hips, spinning her slowly around and up against the dark glass of the windows. She shivered as her back hit it but she didn’t pull away. Only stared up at him, a flash of silver underneath red-tinged lashes.

  Yearning surged inside him, crashing through him like a wave breaking against stone, coming from someplace inside him he hadn’t known was there.

  He’d never expected to tell anyone about himself. Lay out all his shitty past to a woman and have her look up at him like that, with desire in her eyes. And he wanted that so badly he couldn’t speak.

  So he didn’t. He bent down and kissed her again. A hungry, raw, unpracticed kiss. Because he didn’t want to seduce her or charm her. Or deflect. He wanted to show her who he was and who he was, was desperate. Who he was cared.

  Need filled him, sharp and vicious, and he embraced it. The kiss became deeper, hotter. He shoved her harder against the window, pinning her there with his body, wanting all of her pressed against all of him. Her bare skin brushed against his neck as she wound her arms around him, kissing him back as hungrily as he was kissing her.

  Not enough. He needed to be naked, to have her skin against his.

  He lifted his head, untangled her from him. “Stay there,” he said hoarsely as she opened her mouth to protest. Then he stepped back and pulled his T-shirt off over his head, undoing his jeans and shoving them down, along with his boxers.

  Her eyes glittered in the light, watching him, and he loved the hunger in them. It had been a long time since he’d gotten fully naked with someone. Since he’d had more than dirty fumbles in dark corners and in cars. Since he’d been skin on skin with someone. And he wanted it with every last breath in him.