Billion Dollar Wolves: Boxset Bks 1-5

by Dee Bridgnorth

  So they were back to this, were they? Fine. Kami could play that way. “You won’t tell me where you were or what you were doing. What else could I think? It’s not like you could have been taking in a movie with friends or something at four in the morning.”

  “But you won’t take my word for it. Right?”

  Kami bit her lip. There were words on her lips. She wanted badly to say them. But she was so very aware of what they were going to do. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe it was for the best. So she went ahead and said exactly what was on her mind. “Why would I take your word when it’s become so obvious to me that you haven’t meant a single thing that you’ve ever told me?”

  He didn’t say anything else. Devon simply turned and left her alone in the bathroom to finish her work. It was better this way. At least that’s what she kept telling herself.

  Chapter Six

  Devon could not help but think that he had really screwed the pooch on this one. In so many ways. The pooch, of course, was a huge shifter wolf with nearly white fur that had apparently not only failed to convince one brother that the other one was acting inappropriately but had also managed to piss off the one person in his life he should be making the best effort to please.

  Or something like that.

  It was really difficult to tell what was going on. At least as far as Devon’s perception of events was concerned. He was angry with Kami. He was angry with Orion. He didn’t know what to think about Zane. How could you be angry with a guy who was following his heart and doing something that he was passionate about? Zane honestly believed that he should be a vigilante because he knew the devastation that those vandals left behind them. His fiancée had been attacked multiple times. Their home had been vandalized too. Zane had felt the sting of that kind of violence on a very personal level.

  Devon stood in front of his window and watched the gray sky outside spewing random bits of frozen moisture onto the city below. Had he ever felt that passionate about anything in his life? He was a lukewarm kind of person. He was a shifter. He didn’t particularly care for shifting or the life of a wolf. He didn’t want to run with the pack. He didn’t care about the pack.

  Business was something that spoke to Devon, but he wasn’t passionate about it. He liked the processes and the results, but not enough to try and run his own company. He just sort of existed in this black void of his family’s company slogging along from morning until night without really caring about getting anything out of his labors for himself.

  Devon rubbed both hands down his face. He felt tired. Not just physically tired from his run that morning with Zane. It was more than that. He still lived in the family home. At the moment only Orion and Devon were still doing that. Their mother considered the house hers. It wasn’t. It belonged to the company. That was something Tisha Olivares-King had yet to grasp. She wasn’t really her late husband’s heir. Not in the traditional sense. But she was certainly becoming more and more of a problem in the eyes of her sons. It was just very difficult to decide the best way to deal with this force of nature.

  “Knock, knock!” A shrill feminine voice gave him all of three seconds before the speaker came whirling into Devon’s office.

  He turned away from the window. “Wow,” Devon said drily. “I had no idea that it was possible to summon the devil simply by thinking about him.”

  “Excuse me?” Tisha Olivares-King lifted one perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Were you referring to me? Because I’m not the devil and I’m not appreciative of being referred to by the use of a masculine pronoun.”

  “Sometimes I’m surprised by you, Mother.” Devon eyed the woman he had always been a little afraid of with nothing less than an appropriate amount of apprehension. “I would think you would appreciate the thought that I consider you an omniscient supernatural presence.”

  “Oh! Well, then I suppose I can forgive that.”

  She was dressed in the sort of pantsuit that had probably cost a thousand dollars at some department store where she had demanded they custom order the garment from some far flung location just because she didn’t like the possibility of accidentally owning something identical to a wardrobe item belonging to one of her friends.

  The hideous blueberry color at least did not clash with her bleached blonde hair. In fact, it could be argued that the brilliant shade of blue matched her eyes and intensified the blonde shade of her hair. Against the overcast sky and dull weather she was almost a violent presence. And of course she was wearing heels that beggared his ability to describe them. Stiletto perhaps. As in, they could be easily used as a weapon. Devon recalled reading a news story about a woman who had done that. She had beaten a man to death with the heel of her shoe. It was a terrifying thought and worth remembering. His mother was always armed. Always.

  “Now!” Tisha said with a clap of her hands. “We need to discuss a few things.”

  Oh, this did not bode well at all. Devon was the next on the proverbial matrimonial list. At least if she was going in some kind of chronological order by age, which she seemed to be doing. Backwards of course, but then none of that mattered when Tisha Olivares-King got an idea in her head.

  “What things are you referring to?” Devon sat down at his desk. He needed to look busy. It was imperative at this point.

  “I’m having a party. A holiday party.”

  “It’s the first week of December. Surely you should have planned this and sent out invitations weeks ago?” Devon murmured the words while attempting to focus on his computer screen.

  “Poo!” She gave a dismissive wave of her hands. “I’m so in demand as a hostess that I could plan a party with less than twenty-four hours notice and everyone that mattered would show up.”

  “I see.” And Devon did see. He saw that people in Dallas were so afraid of offending Tisha Olivares-King that they allowed her to behave badly because she was such a bitch when crossed. Great. That was some serious societal enabling. “And have you planned your party for tomorrow night?”

  “Of course not! That would be preposterous! The details! Oh my goodness!” Tisha gave a dramatic shudder.

  Uh huh. So she didn’t honestly believe people would show up with no notice. There was apparently a fashionably late window of time when it could be safely assumed that guests would come to your holiday party. Devon could not imagine what sort of rules governed this bullshit.

  “It’s this coming Sunday!” Tisha seemed very excited. “You will be there, of course. And you will be escorting young Ms. Tansy Dunlop. So I’ll need you to go ahead and arrange a limo to pick up Tansy from her grandmother’s home. You know Olivia Dunlop. She is my dearest friend…”

  And off she went. Devon could hardly keep up with his mother’s prattle as she described the night she intended him to provide for Tansy Dunlop. Tansy apparently being the granddaughter of his mother’s latest best friend. This being the case mostly because Tisha’s previous best friend, Alaina Ariosa, had fallen from grace when it was discovered that she had designs on Tisha’s money because she could not afford to support her own lifestyle. Friendship in the world of Tisha Olivares-King was based upon the existence of mutual and somewhat equal financial largesse.

  “I’m not escorting anyone,” Devon quietly informed his mother. “That’s not going to work for me.”

  “Excuse me?” Tisha propped her hand on her hip and glared at him as though she were about to lose her temper at any moment. She probably was.

  Devon braced himself for the inevitable explosion. “I think I was quite clear, Mother. I’m not going to be escorting Tansy Dunlop. The woman is far too young for me. I don’t know her very well. I don’t like her at all. She is a gold digger in the worst sense of the phrase. And I’m not going to be wasting my money on trying to provide her with some kind of fun evening.”

  To Devon’s surprise, Tisha’s mouth fell open and stayed that way. She was sputtering. Actually no. She was gearing up for something awful. Her face was turning red. Soon enough she would look like
a Fourth of July firecracker about to explode and this wasn’t even summer. Not. Good.

  “What?” Her voice was so loud that Devon could have sworn it echoed off the walls and made his windows rattle in their panes. “How dare you? How dare you argue with me? Are you out of your mind? You live in my house and eat my food and you work for me. You are my son and you will do what you are told or I will cut you off without a penny!”

  The emphatic way that she addressed him was laughable. But only because her threats were absolutely empty and Devon could almost believe that Tisha didn’t actually realize this. The only thing that she could actually do was nag him to death and she was very, very good at that. Beyond the nagging there was really nothing that she could do.

  Unfortunately, her yelling was enough to bring Orion out of his own office right next door and into Devon’s. Big brother pushed his way into the room and smirked at Devon. Then he gestured to their mother. “I thought I heard your dulcet tones, Mother dearest. Who has displeased you now?”

  Tisha was already stabbing one manicured finger right at Devon as though she honestly believed she could stab him into submission. “Your brother is acting like a spoiled brat!”

  Orion’s dark eyes danced and he seemed to be pressing his mouth closed to avoid bursting into laughter. Finally Orion managed to clear his throat and avoid the explosive cries of “bullshit” that Devon felt like the situation deserved. “And what has Devon done to make himself seem like a spoiled brat?”

  “He’s refusing to escort Tansy Dunlop to my party this Sunday!”

  Orion’s humor turned upside down into a glowering frown. “What party?”

  “The holiday party that our mother has decided to throw this Sunday,” Devon helpfully supplied. Now it was his turn to laugh. Nobody hated parties quite as much as Orion.

  Orion exhaled a huge sigh. “And why does Devon need to escort Tansy Dunlop, Mother? Tansy is barely twenty-three”—he glanced at Devon as though Devon knew the answer to that—“or something like that, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Devon offered. “I just know she’s younger than I care to deal with. I don’t have that kind of energy anymore.”

  “Besides, Devon is busy making eyes at the cleaning crew. I’m not sure he’s interested in an heiress.” Orion tossed those words right out into the middle of the room like a live grenade.

  It took Devon a moment to realize that Orion had done it on purpose. The man was insufferable. He was still mad at Devon for what had happened earlier that day and this was payback. Nice.

  Tisha Olivares-King looked about like she had swallowed something sour. Her face puckered up and she began squawking as though she could not quite get her words out. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been directed at Devon.

  “Tell me he isn’t serious!” Tisha shrieked.

  No. Shriek was the wrong word. This was louder and shriller and sounded like some kind of horrible noise that made Devon wish that he could plug his ears. But that would only make her angrier. And that was bad.

  “Mother, calm down.” Devon tried to be reasonable, but she was getting beyond that.

  She whirled on him. “Is that honestly why you don’t want to escort Tansy? You’re dating the cleaning crew? Oh my God, you’re going to marry a janitor! You can’t do that. You’re a King. King’s don’t marry janitors! We hire them. Don’t you realize what you would do to this family?”

  “You mean, don’t I realize that we’re all a bunch of snobs?” Devon felt the slow burn beginning to build in his chest and knew that he needed to get out of here. No. This was his office. He needed them to leave. He needed privacy or something. He just wanted out of this conversation. “You think we’re so much better than everyone else and you’re forgetting the one thing that makes us different!”

  “Oh, no, you did not!” Tisha growled. She had been mad before. Now the hushed tone of her voice suggested she had gone beyond that to so pissed off she was just disgusted. “You did not bring up that, that... disease!”

  Disease? Really? Devon could see that Orion wasn’t amused with that description either. Devon felt his face start to flush. The blood was rushing in his ears and he thought he might actually lose his temper. It didn’t happen often, but when it did it wasn’t pretty.

  Orion cleared his throat. “Mother, it’s not necessary to be ugly.”

  “I’m not being ugly,” she insisted. “That problem that you boys inherited from your worthless father is a disease. It contaminates everything! If I had my way the five of you would just forget that you’ve ever heard of shifters and stop being ridiculous about it. There’s no need to give into that weakness. No need at all!”

  Devon wasn’t much of a shifter. He did not enjoy his time as a wolf more than he did his time in a human body. But there were other parts of that shifter heritage that Devon did enjoy. The strength, natural good health, not having a need to work out in order to stay in shape, the extra heightened senses—all of that were good pieces of that shifter heritage their father had bequeathed to his sons.

  Orion had one more point to make. He pointed his finger right in their mother’s face. “No benefit. No need. You call it a weakness!” Orion growled. “And yet you’re perfectly willing to reap the benefits of that weakness. The business benefits as it were. The fact that our father was a stellar businessman who worked tirelessly with a brain that never failed him and senses that could hone in on his opponents’ insecurities. Our father used his shifter abilities every single day to build this business and the only thing you ever did was plan new and inventive ways to spend his money!”

  The office was utterly silent. Their mother’s bosom was rising and falling as though she were struggling to breathe. Maybe she was about to explode. Devon could not tell. He felt his own anger receding. It was all too much. The problems with Kami. The problems with his family. The issues with this stupid company. The financial problems. And now the attempt by his mother to get involved with his personal life.

  Tisha seemed all at once to refocus the conversation on the one thing that was nearest and dearest to her heart. Her own agenda. She put her finger right in the center of Devon’s chest. “You order that limo. You escort Tansy. Or so help me God you will be sorry. I will fire the entire janitorial crew of this building and every single member of the support staff if I suspect any one of you of having inappropriate feelings toward them. Is that understood?”

  Devon did not answer. What was there to say? Any words that left his lips would likely incriminate him so quickly that he would never be able to recover. So instead of acknowledging her edict, Devon turned and sat down at his desk. He pulled up a new document on his screen and started typing. He didn’t have any clue what he was doing, but that wasn’t the point. He was busy. And soon enough both his mother and Orion got the message and left.

  Chapter Seven

  Kami marched up the stairs and away from the King building. She had never been so relieved to leave work before in her life. This was her only job. It was the only one she’d ever had. Well, other than her second job. And now she was beginning to be afraid that she would have to be looking for a new one before long. Maybe Shawn would hire her at the coffee shop full time. But there was no way he could give her the sixty hours a week that she would need to make it all up.

  The weather was dismal. The sky was so overcast that cars had their headlights on and were splashing through the puddles as they roared past on the street. Each car would throw up a rooster tail of wet water and slush mixed with the regular dirt and asphalt grime that generally coated the roads. The result created an obstacle course that required Kami to dodge and duck as she scurried like a rat down the sidewalk toward The Corner Shop.

  Finally reaching the coffee house, Kami ducked gratefully inside and went directly to the far end of the counter to bypass the long line stretching from the register to the front door. It was cold and disgusting outside. There was even a possibility of snow, which was an absolute anathema to the populat
ion of Dallas. That meant anyone who had a moment was trying to get their coffee before the whole city shut down completely.

  “Kami!” Shawn was the manager of The Corner Shop. He had been there as long as Kami could remember. One of his relatives owned the shop and he ran it. He was a sweet man without a mean bone in his body and an honest desire to make good coffee and make customers happy. Shawn was already lifting a heavy messenger bag over the countertop. “Here you go, girl. I wondered if you were going to be here at all today. I thought the weather might keep you away!”

  “Nah.” Kami felt her irritation slipping away as she absorbed the warm genuineness of Shawn’s smile. “If anything, I’ll just be here for a little bit longer until I can find a bus going my direction. Maybe I’ll sleep here that way I’m sure that I’m here to open up tomorrow morning.”

  Shawn craned his neck to look out the windows along the street front of the shop as Kami took the bag from his hands. “You’re not wrong there, kiddo. It’s starting to get pretty dicey out there. If the snow actually starts piling up, the whole city will shut down.”

  “But I bet they still show up at six in the morning to get their coffee,” Kami teased.

  Shawn sighed and bobbed his head. “That would be correct.” Then Shawn reached behind the counter once again and came up with a paper cup of steaming coffee and a bagged pastry. “Here you go, kid. You can come back here and put the bag away yourself whenever you’re ready. We all know you’re not some customer trying to sneak an extra shot right off the bar.”

  “Thanks, Shawn!”

  Kami took her coffee, her pastry, and her heavy messenger bag to the table in the very farthest corner of the shop. It did not take long at all to set up her workspace. She did the same every single day Monday through Friday. The messenger bag contained her laptop and anything relating to her online college courses.