Billion Dollar Wolves: Boxset Bks 1-5

by Dee Bridgnorth

  Orion rolled his eyes, grabbed her hand, and spun her in a circle with such confidence and such grace that she felt like a fairy princess in her little black dress. “Oh, that’s me! You know it!”

  “I do know it!” Eleni fired back. She was wiggling her booty now as someone started singing on the speakers about a White Christmas. “You spend too much time at the office, Orion King!”

  Her words seemed to echo across the gym and belatedly Eleni realized that nobody had been absolutely certain about the identity of her guest. She heard them whispering his name in that group of coworkers and wondered if she was going to have way too much explaining to do to her friends when Christmas break ended.

  “Yes!” Eleni shouted suddenly. She stopped dancing and held Orion’s hand as she essentially put him on display for everyone. “My name is Eleni Ariosa. I teach second grade. And this is my long time friend, Orion King! We attended school together so if you guys could pretty please stop whispering about us, I would so appreciate it!”

  There was a smattering of laughter throughout the group and then finally the whispers sort of stopped. Eleni spotted her two fellow second grade teachers coming toward Eleni and Orion. Joyce and Cara both had smiles on their faces. Joyce was dragging her husband along behind her.

  “It is so good to see you!” Joyce gushed as she hugged Eleni. “And sorry we were whispering. You should hear the stuff that Mateo Canjillon is saying!”

  Orion pushed his way up beside Eleni and gazed at Joyce with an expectant look on his face. “What is he saying?”

  “Well.” Joyce looked uncomfortable for a moment. “He was actually trying to claim that the two of you had started casually dating over the holiday.”

  “Obviously he doesn’t know poor Eleni at all,” Orion told Joyce with a sigh of irritation. “Because this holiday season has been a bit too busy to start any budding romances.”

  “Yeah.” It was Cara who spoke this time. “We were talking about your mother. Is she all right? I was so sorry to hear about all that drama at Orville’s.”

  Joyce’s husband cleared his throat. “I’m Adam Thornton. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. King.”

  “Orion. Please.” Orion held out his hand to Adam.

  Eleni touched Cara’s arm. “I appreciate your thoughts about my mother, but honestly it’s been Orion who has helped me so much with her. She’s totally out of control, but he’s known her since we were kids. That helps a lot. My mother is difficult, but so is his. The two of them have known each other almost all of our lives. It’s not a great thing. Trust me.” Eleni cleared her throat. “Not important though. How is everyone’s holiday going? The break from school is great, right?”

  The chatter finally moved toward more neutral territory. As in, away from Eleni’s private life. She could still feel Mateo Canjillon’s gaze on her though. She pressed herself back toward Orion. It was almost automatic and unintentional. She could not help but feel that Orion was the safest place to be under the circumstances. He was warm and solid behind her. She listened to Cara and Joyce chatter about their holidays and their families and their plans and she smiled and she nodded.

  Beside her, Orion was a steady and even solicitous presence. It was sort of odd. She had not expected him to be so warm and friendly to her friends. Maybe that was uncharitable toward him, but for the most part he wasn’t really all that friendly with others. But he was chatting with Adam about some kind of sports thing and every once in a while the two men would smile at each other as though they were actually becoming friends.

  Eleni wasn’t sure how long she had been standing there before she realized that Mateo Canjillon had approached her from behind. Perhaps it was when she felt Orion stiffen beside her. His arm had been casually draped around her waist. All of a sudden his touch became just a little more proprietary.

  “Mateo Canjillon, gym teacher and former football quarterback at Texas A&M University.” Mateo actually stuck his hand right in Orion’s face.

  Orion took the hand and shook it. Eleni watched and held her breath as the muscles of Mateo’s forearm began to swell. The idiot was actually trying to out squeeze Orion as though the two of them were a couple of roosters crowing at each other right before a fight.

  Of course, Orion wasn’t exactly human so the squeeze did absolutely nothing. It did not follow that the rest of the little group that had been minding their own business and didn’t realize what was happening. They did. The surreptitious looks exchanged were enough to suggest that. Even worse, Mateo was grinding his teeth and actually looking like he were in pain while trying to hurt Orion’s hand.

  “Are you done?” Orion asked suddenly. The muscles in his forearm bunched and suddenly Mateo’s face was pale and sweat was beading at his hairline. “Because I really dislike all of this ridiculous posturing. If you want to go outside and have a pissing contest, let’s go. But there’s really no call for behaving like this at a party.” Orion paused. And then it was almost like he’d had just one more thought. “And I don’t give a rat’s ass where you played football in college. You’re not in college anymore. Neither am I. If you need to identify yourself with your college team maybe you should think about getting some therapy or something. Grow up!”

  Cara and Joyce both gasped and covered their mouths with their hands. Nobody ever talked to Mateo Canjillon like that! Of course, someone needed to, but nobody wanted to deal with his insanely aggressive behavior.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mateo blustered suddenly. He yanked his hand out of Orion’s grip. “I just, uh—I thought I recognized you from the team at A&M.”

  “I didn’t play football in college.” Orion let his gaze travel up and down Mateo as though he were weighing him and finding him lacking. “I feel like I outgrew that in high school. I didn’t need the scholarship and I sort of felt like school was more important than football.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve made physical education my thing.” Mateo was clearing his throat and puffing out his chest. But it was plain that he wasn’t doing very well with his efforts to regain any macho credit with the group.

  Orion gazed at Mateo with a perfectly smooth and somewhat condescending expression on his face. “And how is that working out for you?”

  “Great!” Mateo rolled his neck from side to side. The resulting crackle caused Eleni to cringe. “I love my job. The kids here at Addison Elementary are enjoying my program and I’ve been coaching intramural football and baseball on the side. I love kids. How about you?”

  “I think I’d rather eat them.” Orion even managed to make the statement without laughing. “I have five brothers. I think I’ve had my fill of young people. But then, I run a company and not a school.”

  “Right.” Mateo scratched the back of his neck. Then he held out his hand to Eleni. “How about a quick dance?”

  Eleni’s heart began to flutter and her gut clenched uncomfortably. This was getting uncomfortable. What was it? A pissing match? “Nobody else is dancing.”

  “You were,” Mateo reminded her.

  Eleni clung to Orion. She knew she was acting ridiculous, but she couldn’t stop herself. She did not want to be anywhere near Mateo. “We were just messing around,” Eleni said lamely. “But I’m talking with my friends, and Orion and I will be leaving in just a few minutes anyway.”

  “You are?” Mateo’s frown intensified. “You can’t leave before the white elephant gift exchange. You brought a gift in before break for that, right?”

  “Right.” Eleni felt her heart sinking. He friends were now looking at her with silent desperation in their eyes. “I forgot about that. I guess we’ll have to stay for a few minutes. But after that we’ve got some, um, family stuff to take care of.”

  “Family stuff?” Mateo did not look as though he were willing to believe her.

  Why did she have to convince him anyway? What business was it of his? The two of them were not a couple. They had never been a couple. Just because they were two of the only single
people working at the school did not make them an automatic couple.

  “Yes.” There was steel underneath Orion’s voice. “Family stuff. Our families have been close for decades. We have some mutual family holiday engagements to prepare for since it’s so close to the holiday.”

  Mateo help up his hands. “Fine. Whatever.” Then the big man turned on his heel and whistled so loud that the noise echoed around the gym and drowned out all conversation and even the music. “All right, people! We’re doing the white elephant gift exchange! All staff members who brought in a gift before the holidays gather in the center of the gym. Please bring a chair to the circle and sit!”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It occurred to Orion that they were in the school’s gymnasium, which put them right on gym teacher man Mateo’s home turf. The man obviously took that seriously. He was organizing the gift exchange game as though it were a championship football game. Barking orders at staff members seemed to come naturally to Mateo Canjillon.

  Beside Orion, he sensed the presence of the man named Adam Thornton. Adam seemed like a typical good guy. He loved his wife, Joyce. He enjoyed his work as an architectural drafter. He was a pretty low-key kind of man and Orion could respect that.

  “This man always makes me want to pick up something and throw it at him.” Adam folded his arms over his chest and glowered at the scene building before them.

  The staff members were hurrying to comply with the gym teacher’s gleeful orders hurled over their heads in a rapid fire fashion. Orion was glad to see that Eleni was taking her time with her typically quiet type of defiance. That was good. It meant she wasn’t intimidated. In fact, he could see the telltale signs of annoyance on her face. There were lines bracketing her mouth and eyes. Her lips were pinched into a thin line. And as she took her place right next to Joyce and Cara she took every opportunity to glare at Mateo Canjillon.

  “The guy thinks he’s going to marry Eleni,” Adam murmured to Orion. “He was just telling us a story before the two of you walked in that involved the two of them and how chummy they’ve been getting. Then boom,”—Adam used his hands to mimic an explosion—“all of a sudden you walk in with Eleni and it was pretty obvious that he was not only pissed off but confused.”

  “That’s what happens when a man refuses to listen to a woman,” Orion muttered to Adam. He folded his arms over his chest and scratched his chin. For a moment he thought about how strange it was to have all of his energies focused on this moment here and now. He was struggling with his brothers to make sense of their father’s murder, and right now the only thing he could think about was the possibility that this ridiculous peacock of a man might be making expectations of Eleni that she was not comfortable with.

  Forget that! These were expectations of Eleni that Orion wasn’t comfortable with. The idea of his Eleni anywhere near that ape with his overbearing, bossy personality and rude ways was absolutely unacceptable!

  Mateo now placed himself at the center of the circle. There was a small table piled with suspicious-looking wrapped gifts there with him. Mateo began turning slowly as though he were addressing a bunch of students instead of his coworkers. What an ass! Orion ground his teeth together in agitation as Mateo pointed at a young woman in a drab, dark red dress.

  “All right, Ms. Howe. You go first!”

  “What is this game?” Orion muttered to Adam Thornton.

  The teacher named Ms. Howe got up from her seat and tittered nervously as she picked a gift off the table. After returning to her seat, she proceeded to unwrap the present. Within minutes she was holding a denture cleansing kit in her hands.

  There was a round of raucous laughter. Orion only stared at the gift. “Okay. I’m stumped. What are the rules?”

  Adam sighed. “Rules always vary. But I believe how they’re playing is that the next player can either choose another gift or steal hers. Gifts can only be stolen three times. And the idea is just to try and stick someone else with the worst gift on the table.”

  Orion watched this strange ritual play out before him and found himself wondering if this game ever happened in his own building. Did his employees indulge in this kind of holiday silliness amongst themselves? It seemed like a fun thing to do. And Orion wasn’t certain when he began to have the sensation that in many ways he had never truly experienced the kind of workplace camaraderie that most people took for granted.

  “So you’re the Orion King, right?” Adam Thornton finally turned to look at Orion with his eyebrows raised. “As in, the guy who runs the King Security Solutions company and has a building named after him downtown?”

  “That would be me.” Orion cleared his throat and felt compelled to add a few things. “The company is run by myself and my brothers though. It’s not just me. That’s not how it works in our family.”

  “I was sorry to hear about your father.” Adam cleared his throat. “I work for Dallas Architectural. We’ve done business with King Security Solutions for years now. I met your father once or twice, and I have to say that he was probably one of the most down-to-earth CEOs that I’ve ever had the pleasure of dealing with.”

  “Thank you.” Orion was rather surprised to feel a sense of gratitude toward the near-stranger. “It was tough to lose my dad. He was the backbone of our company. Sure.” Orion shrugged and shook his head with a rueful chuckle. “We all did work. You know? I’ve been handling the security contracts since I was right out of college. But everything we did got run past Dad first, and not having that sort of security is really hard to get used to.”

  “I can’t even imagine,” Adam murmured. His face was drawn in lines of sympathy and for just a moment Orion was tempted to spill the rest of it.

  But that would have been entirely inappropriate. You didn’t just belt out the whole oh by the way I think my mother had my father murdered by his best friend who was also her lover. And yet this was the first genuine interaction that Orion had experienced with anyone other than Eleni or his brothers and their wives. What happened to a man when he looked around and realized that he had kept himself so tightly wound that he had never actually developed friendships like a normal human?

  How had Orion managed to go his whole life without a real friend? That was—well, it was just sad. Maybe the old adage that money could not buy everything was more right than anyone knew. Orion had money. But he didn’t have friends or anyone in his life that he could trust. Not even his mother.

  “Oh, please don’t do that!” Adam whispered the words and the urgency of them caught at Orion.

  Orion looked up just in time to see Mateo Canjillon holding a small package and making a huge show of kneeling in front of Eleni. The big man swept a half bow and stayed on one knee. It was as though the entire room was going into shock.

  The expressions were varied. Some of the teachers looked starry eyed as though they thought that this was not only romantic but somehow the perfect place for this to happen. Others looked shocked. They kept sending surreptitious glances in Orion’s direction as though they were wondering if he was going to step in and either defend his territory or something equally dramatic. And then there were Eleni’s friends who obviously knew that she wasn’t interested in the gym teacher and were struggling not to gasp in open horror.

  “You must be joking,” Orion muttered hoarsely. He turned to Adam. “Did people know that this was going to happen?”

  Adam looked nervous. “I don’t think so. Joyce has mentioned more than a few times that this guy won’t take no for an answer. He seems to believe that every time Eleni says she’s not interested it’s just her way of trying to build suspense or play hard to get or something.”

  “I’m not trying to suggest that you should somehow know what’s happening or that you’re responsible.” Orion realized that his tone was probably making the other man nervous. “I appreciate your help. I just—I don’t know what to do.”

  And before Orion could decide, Mateo Canjillon cleared his throat and looked around as though he we
re trying to draw in the population of the whole room. “This isn’t something that can be exchanged with someone else!” He made a big show of tilting the little ring box right and left to let the tiny diamond sparkle in the overhead lights.

  Mateo’s hearty laughter was joined by plenty of other people in the room as though they were just relieved to have someone telling them how they were supposed to behave. Eleni appeared frozen in her chair. She was gripping the sides of it with both hands as though she were holding on for dear life.

  “Eleni Ariosa!” Mateo boomed the words as though he were trying to make sure everyone heard each and every syllable he spoke. “I know that the two of us have been keeping things casual, but I’m ready to move to the next level and I know that you are too.”

  What?

  For a brief moment Orion felt a ripple of unease. What if Eleni had been seeing this guy and just hadn’t mentioned it to Orion? Then he saw her expression and knew that this was not the case.

  Angry did not cover it. Furious. Hurt. Frightened. Confused. And the word apprehensive applied nicely as well. No doubt Eleni was worried that no matter how she reacted, it would not be well received.

  “I want you to be my wife, Eleni Ariosa.” Mateo’s pomposity knew no bounds. Really. He was spending just as much time looking at the people around them as he was paying attention to Eleni’s reactions. “I will be the best husband you could ever wish for. A wonderful provider, a loving man to father your children, and the best companion to grow old with that you could ever wish for.”

  “Holy cow,” Adam Thornton whispered from behind his hand. “Is he actually telling her how awesome he is right in the middle of his proposal? Talk about poor taste!”

  Orion clenched his fists. He did not know what to do. He couldn’t just intervene. It wasn’t his place. He had come as Eleni’s escort because she had asked him to. Now he was glad that he was here to support her no matter what, but that did not really include running up and putting his fist into Mr. Canjillon’s face.