by J. S. Scott
I leaned against the counter as I tried to figure him out. “So you bought it as an investment?”
His eyes met mine, and his intent stare made heat sizzle down my spine. “No. I bought it so I could be close to you for ten days. It’s too small of a purchase for me to buy only as an investment. If I didn’t have a purpose for it, I wouldn’t have bothered,” he answered earnestly.
Jesus! I really hate it when he says things like he just wants to be close to me.
Eli Stone was an enigma. One moment he was the quintessential aloof billionaire, and the next he was bluntly honest.
I still didn’t know what to make of him and his ten-day challenge. But I swore I’d have him figured out by the time we parted ways.
I let out a nervous sigh. “I guess sometimes having money overwhelms me,” I admitted. “My sister, Brooke, says I have some kind of Sudden Wealth Syndrome.”
He nodded and finished off his coffee. “She’s right,” he answered. “I’ve seen it many times. Not all of my friends were born wealthy like I was, and I’ve seen people struggle to deal with getting rich too fast.”
“Really?” I asked hopefully. “Does it go away?”
“Not always,” he mused. “But you’ll be fine.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because you have me to help you get used to it, and you have a good head on your shoulders. I know it’s hard when friends abandon you, and you’re stuck in a whole new world. But I’ll help you, Jade.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why do you care?”
He shrugged. “Because I want to.”
“Because you still want to sleep with me?”
He grinned. “You know I have ulterior motives, but I really do want to help.”
He looked a little bit like a mischievous boy, and my heart did an enormous flip-flop.
Eli Stone was the hottest man I’d ever seen, hands down. And it was almost surreal that he was actually at my house having coffee like we’d known each other forever.
I emptied my mug as Eli stood and said, “I think our ride is here.”
I put my cup in the sink and joined him at the door.
There was a helicopter overhead, and an enormous yacht that was getting close to shore, but I didn’t see a car.
“Grab your clothes,” he instructed as he walked outside with Charlie at his heels.
I hastily grabbed my things and locked the door, speechless as I turned around to watch the helicopter landing on the beach.
Eli held out his hand, but I hesitated.
I got the fact that we were leaving in his helicopter, now that I could see the Stone logo on the side of the aircraft. I tried to push down the panic that started to rise, the overwhelming feeling that all of this was some kind of dream, and I’d wake up very shortly.
I didn’t fly in helicopters.
I didn’t do impulsive things.
And I certainly didn’t fly away to places yet unknown with a billionaire.
This wasn’t me.
I wasn’t me.
After I took a deep breath, I looked at Eli.
I shuddered as I got the sense that he was trying to tell me that my whole reality had changed, and it was time to get on with it.
“Trust me, Jade,” he yelled over the sound of the helicopter.
My heart squeezed in my chest. I’d been lost for the last few months, unsure of where I was going or what the hell I was doing.
I’d been isolated and uncertain, emotions that I’d never experienced before because I never took a risk or stepped outside of my academic comfort zone.
But I was so damn tired of feeling misplaced and disoriented.
I needed to be me again without the fear and the panic. I needed to adjust or risk feeling this way for the rest of my life, and I refused to go down that road.
It’s time for me to trust someone again. It’s time for me to find myself, money and all.
The excitement of becoming fearless made me reach for Eli’s hand.
As he pulled me toward the beach, I let my negative feelings drift away.
It was hard not to be happy when I was going to be spending my time with a very rich, hot guy, even if it was just for a little while.
CHAPTER 9
ELI
I probably should have warned Jade that we were headed out to board a megayacht that was waiting for us in deeper waters. But I had to admit that the look of surprise on her face was priceless when we landed on the upper level of the vessel. So I wasn’t suffering all that much from remorse.
I reached for her hand, and when she gave it to me, I felt like somebody had slammed me in the gut.
Maybe I wanted to screw Jade more than I’d ever wanted any other woman, but I was also fascinated by her. And the fact that she was trusting me was sort of humbling.
She stumbled as she exited the helicopter, and I definitely had no problem with the fact that she fell into my arms, her body plastered against mine like we were lovers.
Hell, I wish.
“Are you kidding me?” she said as the helicopter flew away. “Is this monster yours?”
I smirked. “You don’t like it?”
My intention was to let Jade get used to the things and experiences that money could buy, but having her look at me like I had two heads was rather unsettling.
“It looks like a cruise ship,” she said in an awed tone.
“Not quite,” I answered as I took her backpack and led her downstairs. “There are people who have bigger yachts, but it suits my needs well.”
She didn’t speak as we started to get under way, and seated herself by the swimming pool on the back deck.
“This is crazy,” she said as she shook her head.
I flopped into the chaise next to hers as I answered, “It’s San Diego. Everybody likes to get out on a boat.”
One of my employees came to take our drink orders and then faded away.
Jade laughed as she continued to marvel over every single one of the yacht’s over-the-top features, and I let myself relax.
There was something appealing about experiencing my world through her eyes. My motive was not to impress her, but to let her realize she now lived in the same universe that I did, and that it wasn’t really all that bad.
For some reason, I felt compelled to lead her into the world of the super-rich gently. The adjustment could be good or bad, and Jade was so unspoiled that I didn’t want to see her change for the worse.
I just wanted her to realize the possibilities instead of experiencing the fear that she would never really know what people wanted from her anymore.
I could introduce her to the people who were genuine.
And steer her away from the people who could do her harm.
Eventually, I wanted to see her enjoy her money, and feel comfortable spending it. Fuck knew that she’d earned that right through poverty and deprivation.
I had to give Evan Sinclair a hell of a lot of credit for including siblings he didn’t know into the Sinclair legacy. The man obviously had a sense of fairness that I admired. Maybe he was protecting himself from a major lawsuit if the siblings had been discovered in the future, but from the way the billionaire had handled everything, he quite obviously gave a damn about what happened to the siblings that weren’t born into wealth. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t still be so closely involved with all of them. And he definitely wouldn’t have given the half-siblings a fair share. He would have paid them off for a lot less and been done with it.
I really wanted to see Jade do some kind of a fun buy to just get whatever she wanted for herself, something other than a beachfront house. The house was an investment, a roof over her head, and not really an indulgence.
To be truthful, I hadn’t planned on buying the house next to hers. If I really thought about it, I felt a little bit like a stalker. But I was pretty desperate to somehow talk Jade into my bed, and I wanted that bed close by when she finally caved in.
It had been an impulse bu
y, but I didn’t regret it.
I watched as she leaned back in her lounge chair, seemingly savoring the moment. My dick was rock-hard as I watched her face. No matter how much she protested, it was obvious that she enjoyed being on the water. Seeing her more relaxed reminded me of how much I wanted to see her after she’d had the most satisfying orgasm of her life.
“This is not a boat,” she finally concluded as she closed her eyes. “I’ve been on a boat with my brother Aiden. He was a commercial fisherman before we all got rich. Boats are useful. This is like a floating five-star hotel. How many people does it take to run this cruise ship?”
I smiled. She was back to her usual sarcasm. “It has a full crew.”
“Do you know how incredible all this seems to me?” she asked.
“Do you know how normal this is for me?” I countered. “This was actually my father’s yacht. I inherited it after he died a few years ago, so I’ve been traveling on this boat for years.”
“I’m sorry about your dad,” she said immediately as she opened her eyes. “Is your mom still alive?”
I nodded. “She hates being on the water. She gets seasick, so she wanted me to take the yacht.”
“Do you have siblings?”
I slowly shook my head. “It’s just me and my mom now.”
“Did you actually want this yacht?” she questioned curiously.
I shrugged. “I don’t use it all that much. I have a smaller boat that I take out by myself sometimes. I prefer to be alone when I can. It’s nice when I can forget who I am and just soak up the peacefulness of being on the water. But it was my dad’s, and it’s hard to give up something he loved.”
I was spared any further comment as my employee arrived with our drinks.
After she left, Jade said, “I’m sure it’s no hardship to have a yacht like this available when you want company.”
I took a slug of the beer I’d ordered before I answered, “I generally don’t want company. I spend most of my days and evenings surrounded by people.”
“Do you ever wonder why they want to be around you?” she asked.
“I know why they want to be around me,” I answered. “That’s why I like my privacy when I have some rare free time. I know who my few real friends are, and I spend time with them when I can. But they’re out of state, so we don’t get to see each other all that much.”
“So the public Eli Stone is different from the private one?”
“Very different,” I agreed.
Most of the crazy shit I did wasn’t really something I wanted to do. The extreme events were something I felt driven to do.
“So are you going to tell me that you’re actually a pretty normal guy?”
“Define normal?” I requested.
“Do you mow your own lawn?”
“No,” I answered flatly.
“Do you cook for yourself?”
“No.”
“Do you ever do laundry?”
“Nope.” Christ! In a couple of minutes, I was going to start to feel pretty useless if she didn’t stop asking questions.
“Do you ever go out to the movies?”
“I have a home theater.”
“Then I guess you aren’t all that normal,” she observed.
I hated the disappointment I heard in her tone.
“I don’t do all those things because I don’t have the time,” I grumbled. “It wouldn’t make financial sense for me to mow my lawn. I have a pretty big yard. Everything is all about managing my time.”
She sat up and put her beautiful lips around the straw of her drink before she sucked up a large portion of her beverage.
I hated myself for the thoughts that entered my mind as I conjured up images of what I’d love to have those gorgeous lips of hers wrapped around right at the moment.
“I get that,” she said when she finally let go of her straw. “It’s not like any of my own family does their own laundry, either. Not anymore. But it’s just hard to get used to. I still do everything myself.”
“That’s because you still aren’t managing your own wealth,” I told her. “Once you take over your own decisions, things get complicated, and there won’t be enough hours in the day once your career as a scientist kicks in, too. There’s a limit to what we can do ourselves.”
“I suppose if I had been able to get a position I wanted right away, and if I managed my own wealth, I wouldn’t have time for much of anything,” she considered.
I frowned. “Why can’t you get a position you want?”
“Not available,” she said sadly. “There aren’t exactly a lot of opportunities, because my focus is pretty narrow. And there’s less and less money available for nonprofit positions. It’s not like I didn’t put in résumés just about everywhere, but there aren’t many places that do genetic conservation.”
“What about the San Diego Zoo?” I asked.
“I wish,” she said longingly. “Getting into their genetic conservation studies would be my dream job. There’s so much happening with cryogenics and genetic research. It’s the future of conservation. Having the capability to do in vitro to broaden gene pools, and to bring back a decimated population, is pretty exciting.”
The animation and excitement on her face as she talked about her dreams were genuine. I could see the science geek coming out, and I’d never seen anything more beautiful than watching her as her mind went to places most people’s didn’t.
“You could do a grant for your own research,” I suggested.
“I can’t do that,” she answered. “I want my work to mean something, and I want somebody to think it’s important enough to study and research. If I offer grants, I can’t pick what they choose to do with it. Not specifically. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about giving grant money for research, and it’s something I plan to do. But I don’t want to insist that somebody chooses my work to research because it’s my money.”
My admiration for Jade shot up a couple of notches. I got what she was saying, but it took a lot of morals and ethics not to write her own ticket to success with an established research facility now that she had the money to do it.
“You’ve only been out of your fellowship for a few months. It will take time, but it will happen.”
She smiled at me. “Don’t think I’ve stopped trying. Since I have the time, I don’t let a single possibility pass me by without applying. It will happen. It wasn’t like I didn’t know I’d have to work my way up, since it’s a tough field.”
I nodded as I stared at her determined expression. I’d always known that Jade Sinclair was an extraordinary woman. But seeing her like this, with her guard down, I was getting an even deeper insight into the person she was.
Problem was, I was beginning to like her way too much.
Control, Stone. I need to keep my emotions in check and remember that my objective is to get this woman into my bed and fuck her until my obsession with her wears off.
I did not need to get involved.
I did not need to like her.
I did not need to empathize with her.
And I sure as hell didn’t need to wonder how I could make every dream Jade ever had come true.
I shrugged, a nonchalant gesture I wasn’t really feeling. “You’ll get there, Jade. Keep applying, and maybe try to get your wealth management under control until your opportunity comes up. Then you won’t have so much to deal with all at once.”
“I want to take everything over myself,” she said longingly. “I’m just too afraid I’ll make a mistake. I’m a scientist, Eli, not a business or money person.”
“You won’t screw up. And if you do, you learn from the things you do wrong. You’re a smart woman, Jade. You need to give yourself credit and not be intimidated by the money. Once you settle in with it, there’s so much you can do as a philanthropist. Everything changes when you realize you can help make the world a better place in some way or another. I think that’s what really gets me up every single morning.”
>
“I guess I never thought about that.”
“Being privileged comes with responsibility if you’re a decent person. I want to make a difference. Lots of wealthy people can and do.”
She looked at me with a hopeful expression in her gorgeous eyes. “I think I’d feel better if I was doing something to help change the world. Can you help me?”
Her pleading tone almost tore the heart out of my chest, even though I’d just reminded myself of where I should be in my relationship with Jade. I was pretty sure she could ask me to jump off a cliff and fall to my death using that entreating voice, and I’d do it if I could see her happy.
I’m not exactly achieving my damn objective here.
But removing myself from Jade’s emotions suddenly felt nearly impossible.
“Anything you want, Butterfly,” I answered.
“I want to learn about investments. And the stock market. I want to understand how to fund-raise so I can make a difference, too. And I want to find the best conservation programs to use to donate grants for research. There are so many great projects out there, Eli. I never thought about it, but I can help other postdoc conservationists find a place to do their work.”
“It will take some time,” I warned her. “You’re not going to learn everything in a week.”
Hell, I knew I’d teach her every single thing she wanted to know. It would keep her hanging around in my life a little bit longer.
I’m not into anything long term.
Fuck! Why was I having such a difficult time remembering that?
She lifted a brow. “It’s not like I’m incredibly busy, especially since you bought out my classes, even after our ten days are over.”
“We’ll start by going over some things every morning. And then you can come to San Diego and unofficially be my intern in my offices if you want. It’s probably the fastest way to learn the most.”
Damn! I hadn’t planned on keeping a door open after I’d had my fill of Jade’s body. But I’d just committed to much more than I’d planned.
“That would be amazing,” she agreed immediately. “I’ll have some survival classes, and I might get a few interviews if I’m lucky, but I’ll be there every day that I’m not busy. I’d love the chance to learn from you.”