Billionaires and Bad Boys: The Complete 7-Book Box Set

by Nikki Chase

  "Emily!" I hear Rick shout behind me. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait for Cole to come back? He can drive you home.”

  A part of me wants to turn my head and at least apologize for being rude, for just walking away like this. But I can barely maintain my balance as it is.

  I can only do one thing at a time. And right now what I want to do is get out of this place and curl up under my blanket.

  Just like two years ago on the night of the accident, when Cole’s and Scott’s cars probably collided, killing Scott on the spot, sending Cole into a spiral of depression, and changing my life forever.

  Cole

  I dash into The Amber Room with the kind of urgency I’ve never felt before in my life. Blood is rushing through my veins as worry and anxiety swirl in my gut.

  Fuck. How did I let it get this bad?

  I need to get Emily out of here before they get to her. My father isn’t as violent as he used to be, but we haven’t faced a problem of this scale for a while. Who knows what he’s going to do to her?

  Inside, Rick is sitting at the bar by himself. Maybe Emily’s in the restroom?

  “Rick! Where’s Emily?” I grab him by the shoulder and pull him back until he’s looking right back at me.

  “She, uh, she said she wasn’t feeling well so she went home.”

  “What? Why didn’t she wait for me?”

  “She didn’t say. She looked like she was in a big rush,” he says nervously.

  “Why didn’t you stop her?”

  Rick is silent. I run my fingers through my hair, hoping it’ll help stimulate my creative juices. It’s not fair to blame Rick for this. But it’s strange that Emily just decided to up and leave.

  Where is she even going? Definitely not to my apartment because she doesn’t have a key. She just decided to go home to Alice’s place, when just hours ago she wouldn’t even talk to her sister?

  None of this makes any sense.

  “What happened, Rick?” I ask in the same menacing tone I often hear my father use when he’s interrogating someone. I guess my upbringing has taught me some important life skills after all.

  “I don’t know. One minute we were having a nice chat, and then she suddenly bolted.”

  Rick deflates when I continue glowering at him in silence.

  He hesitates before saying, “I may have told her about the accident. I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was—”

  “Fuck!”

  I storm out of The Amber Room without waiting for Rick to finish his explanation. He couldn’t have chosen a worse time to act like a blabbering moron.

  Emily must’ve gone out the front door because I didn’t see her while I was panicking like an idiot in the parking lot behind the building.

  I scan the busy sidewalk outside. Talk about the worst timing ever. This being downtown on a Saturday night, the sidewalk is packed with people.

  I check the area near the main entrance to The Amber Room. It takes me a while to realize that Emily is definitely not around here anymore. She must’ve taken a cab to God knows where.

  I rush back through The Amber Room and go straight to the parking lot. I vaguely notice Rick standing up and calling my name from the bar, but I ignore him. I don’t have any time for his idiocy right now. I have to find the only person that matters right now.

  Emily. Where the fuck are you, baby?

  I jump into my car and take the familiar route I’ve used so many times before to reach Alice’s apartment.

  As I speed through the streets, I remember how I used to drive by, hoping to catch a glimpse of Emily, even for just a fraction of a second. I’d even park right outside sometimes and wait for her to show up.

  She never did show up for the longest time. I guess she was too sad and depressed. But after a month or so, I started seeing her a lot more. Every single time, it was like a hit of cocaine straight in my veins. Seeing her made me feel like I was alive again. She still has that same effect on me now.

  Fuck. I’ve gone and ruined everything now.

  All of a sudden, I hear the wail of a police siren behind me, along with the blindingly bright flashing blue lights.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. I just can’t get a break tonight.

  I have a decent car, a BMW X5 M, which I’m sure is capable of going a whole lot faster than I usually do. But I’ve never seen cops lose a car chase in real life before. There’s no other choice. I have to pull over.

  I roll down the car window and wait for the cop to approach. I grab my license and registration. I know the drill, and I want to get this over and done with as soon as possible.

  “Good evening, Mr. Foster,” the cop says as soon as he stops by my car door.

  I groan. Which cop doesn’t need to see my license to know my name? A cop that my father keeps in his pocket, of course.

  “Your father has been looking for you,” he says.

  “Oh, is that what the police do now? Is that how we’re spending tax dollars? On finding the ‘missing’ adult children of rich men?”

  “I’m going to need you to follow my car, Mr. Foster. Or, if you prefer, me and my partner can take you in our patrol car,” the cop says.

  “‘My partner and I.’” I correct his grammar.

  “Excuse me?” He obviously doesn’t get it. His face is an infuriating mixture of indifference and sanctimony.

  “I’m not getting in the back of your car like some fucking low-life criminal. Where are we going?”

  “We’re going to your father’s house, Sir.” His calm and polite tone only makes me angrier. Fucking hypocrite.

  “I can go there by myself.” I know he’s not going to let me go, but I have to at least try.

  “I’m sorry, Sir. But your father requested that we escort you and your lady friend.”

  “Escort, huh?” I burst out in laughter. This is just too absurd. “As you can see, Officer, I’m all by myself.”

  “That’s unfortunate, Sir. But we still have to insist that you follow us.” His voice may sound cordial, but this is definitely a threat. I know a threat when I hear one.

  The cop turns around and gets back into his patrol car. I roll the window back up and follow them. I take a few deep breaths to calm myself down.

  This isn’t so bad. At least they definitely don’t have Emily if these corrupt cops think she’s still with me. She’s safe — for now.

  As incompetent as these cops are, the car siren does a good job of clearing the roads and letting us speed through traffic lights. A million things rush through my overworked brain just as quickly. The drive to father’s mansion seems to end in just a blink.

  I’m flanked by the two cops as I walk into the house.

  By the time they leave me in my father’s home office, I still have no idea what to do. Everything tonight has happened so quickly I’ve had absolutely no time to process it.

  Alone in the home office, I sit in the guest chair by my father’s desk. I’ve been here so many times before, having grown up in this big, empty house. I remember coming here looking for him as a boy and never being allowed to come inside because I’d bother him.

  The office has the same dark wood flooring, the same big Persian rug, the same chunky desk, and the same hefty leather chair. It feels different, though. Just like everything does when you haven’t seen it in a long time.

  “I was expecting to meet her, too,” my father says as he enters the room and approaches me from behind, startling me. It’s surprising how little noise he makes when he’s walking. He can sneak up on you like a cat. “Too bad she’s not here.”

  “Funny, she said the exact same thing today,” I say without turning around to face him. “We should have dinner together, you, me, and Emily. We’d make a cute little family.”

  “I didn’t think you’d be this stupid, boy.” He lets out a big, disappointed sigh, which does absolutely nothing for me. I’ve disappointed him far too many times to care about his approval. He sidles around the desk and sits in his big chair
, which I’m sure has been carefully selected for its intimidating size.

  “Stupid is relative, Pop. I personally don’t think I’ve done anything stupid at all.”

  “That’s because you’re stupid. If I didn’t take care of things after the accident, you would’ve destroyed your reputation and dragged the rest of the family down with you,” he says.

  “For the millionth time, Pop, it was an accident. People probably wouldn’t have reacted as strongly as you think they would.”

  “They’d see it as an accident if you were someone else, someone like them. But you’re not. You’re my son, and they were going to judge you differently. Even if the cops had released you — which wasn’t guaranteed without my involvement — they still would’ve thought you’d gotten away with murder.”

  “So, really, the problem stems from me being your son, right? You can see how that means you’re the root of the problem, right?”

  “I’m not going to argue with you anymore. You’ve failed to consider how your actions were going to affect the family, so I obviously can’t trust you anymore. I’m going to put you under surveillance.”

  “You’re going to have your thugs babysit me?”

  “Think of it as your last chance. If I ever see her around you again, I’m going to seize control over Foster Hotels.”

  And there it is. I knew, when my father insisted on using his lawyers to draft the legal documents for the company, that he wasn’t doing it out of the goodness of his heart. For fuck’s sake, even the name of the company is Foster Hotels.

  All he wants is to maintain some sort of control over my life. And now he’s using that leverage to blackmail me into doing as he says. Again.

  Emily

  Ugh. What’s the deal with all the happy, smiling couples making out all over the place? I’m getting a strong urge to walk up to every single couple on the sidewalk and scream the truth in their faces: “It’s all going to end in tears!”

  But I’ve got enough on my platter. I’m miserable enough already as a free woman. I don’t want to add getting arrested or institutionalized to the list of my problems.

  I know I’m being petty, but after the shit show that is my love life, I think I’ve earned my right to be petty. Hell, if I ever feel like it, I’ve even gone through enough shit to earn the right to print out anti-love tracts and leave them instead of tips at restaurants. And this is coming from a former server.

  Haven’t they heard the news? It’s all a lie. Love doesn’t exist. Or even if it does, it’s only for a short while. Just when you think you’re standing on solid ground, a crater tears the soil beneath your feet and swallows you whole, burying you alive.

  And then you curse yourself for ever believing in the stories. You feel like you’ve just discovered the truth about Santa Claus all over again. Everyone has been lying to you the whole time. You’ve been played for a fool.

  We tell ourselves a lot of lies. Like forever. Forever is a lie we tell ourselves so we can function.

  There is no forever, not even in the best of relationships. Trust me. I would know. I had the perfect relationship, and then it was snatched away from me.

  I swallow the lump forming in my throat. In a twisted way, the discomfort makes me feel more human, or as human as I can be when I’m dead inside. Perhaps this is why some people cut themselves.

  Tears collect in my eyes, blurring my vision. Not wanting to draw attention to my zombie self, I blink them away, but still they grow into heavy drops and fall down my cheeks.

  I wish I had a pair of sunglasses stashed in my bag. But I was so out of it this morning I’m lucky to be even wearing a clean gray shirt and a pair of dark jeans.

  Hang on, I tell myself. You’re almost there.

  It gets harder and harder to breathe the closer I get to the cemetery. Some invisible force is drawing me closer, telling me there’s comfort at my destination. As much as I want to believe that, I know it’s just another lie I tell myself. There’s nothing there but more sorrow.

  But I keep on going. I need to see Scott. It’s been too long. I was starting to feel like I’d been abandoning him anyway when last night happened.

  Fuck. Jesus, Emily. Listen to yourself. What are you even talking about? It’s not like Scott can get lonely anymore, can he?

  With no warning, tears pour out of my eyes and stream down my face. Luckily I’m already walking past the big, black, cast iron gates of Blackwood Cemetery. There’s nobody here to gawk at me. Besides, what’s more normal than crying at a cemetery?

  I miss him so much.

  The day Scott died, it was like someone stabbed me in the heart and never bothered to pull out the knife. And so the invisible murder weapon stays stuck in my chest as I walk around with a dead soul.

  The wound never has any chance to heal as the knife becomes a permanent fixture. Some days I may feel strong enough to function, at least outwardly. But then the knife shifts and a fresh cut appears.

  Is it wrong to wish that somewhere out there, Scott feels the same way too?

  Of course it would be better for him if he were having a picnic with his dead friends and relatives in a sunny meadow in the afterlife. But I can’t actually bring myself to believe this particular lie.

  Although, as long as we’re talking about lies and believability, I guess him feeling anything is just as unlikely as him having a ghostly picnic.

  But it just feels so lonely to miss the love of your life so much and not have that feeling be returned.

  As my feet leave the paved footpaths and step onto the grass, I wonder who’s sadder: widows or unrequited lovers? It’s strange how the most random thoughts just appear out of nowhere.

  It doesn’t take long for me to spot the headstone, a heavy slab of polished black granite with a rounded top and his name on it. I weave around strangers’ graves, tracing the familiar route to Scott’s final resting place.

  I used to come here every day after the funeral, for about one month. Then I realized there was nothing here.

  He was not here. He was nowhere.

  And I was never even going to feel his presence anymore. Maybe I’m too logical to be a good widow, although we never got around to marrying each other so I probably can’t even call myself that.

  You know another reason you wouldn’t make a good widow? Because you fucked the guy who killed him.

  I feel like someone is pushing and twisting the knife deeper into my chest. With that gaping hole in my center, it hurts to breathe, like every little movement just rips my flesh open even further.

  I reach Scott’s lot and touch the headstone, warm from being in the sun all morning. I plant my butt on the grass and lean against the headstone.

  “Scott,” I say. “Honey, if you can hear me… You need to get a better body. Seriously. This one is too hard and it’s such an awkward shape too.” I giggle to myself, then clamp my lips together until they hurt, in a futile effort to fight the tears back.

  Scott would’ve laughed at that joke.

  “I would’ve gotten you something. But you were never into flowers, and those seem to be the most popular things to bring to cemeteries.”

  I look around at the bouquets people have left behind by their loved ones’ graves. Orange and blue and red. Having spent a lot of time here, I know the groundskeeper picks them up and throws them away when they dry out.

  “I’m sorry,” I blurt out, gazing at the patch of grass over Scott’s grave. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

  I still can’t believe he’s down there, just six feet away from me. And yet I saw the body in the coffin before they nailed it shut and lowered it into the ground two years ago.

  It still seems so surreal. I can’t believe that buried down there is the same body that shared my bed and slept beside me every night for five years. The same body that held me and comforted me when I was upset. The same hands that stroked my hair until I fell asleep. The same chest I fell asleep on, listening to the heart beating within.

  A
nd now it’s just…an empty husk. Unmoving, inanimate, lifeless, rotting six feet underground.

  I start to feel silly about speaking aloud to no one. But what the hell, I’m already here. I came here to talk to Scott, so here I am talking to Scott.

  “You know, it’s kind of your fault that I’m in this situation,” I say. “If you were still around, I wouldn’t have even known that Cole existed.”

  I try to imagine his answer. He’d probably laugh, and then say something about… About what?

  My heart clenches. I’ve felt my memories of Scott slipping away, but I’ve never wanted to admit it. I used to be able to finish his sentences, and even predict what he’d say before the words came out of his mouth. It’s undeniable; the details are getting fuzzy. I know this is inevitable, but it still kills me inside.

  I grab some Kleenex from my bag and blow my nose. Tears are streaming down my cheeks and flooding my nostrils, blocking my breathing.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” I say through ugly sobs. “God. I miss you so much. You’d know what to do if you were here. You were always so good in a crisis. Please tell me what to do.”

  Now that I’ve opened the floodgates, tears flow freely down my face. My shoulders shake with every sob, and I struggle to suck enough air to fill my lungs. I stop talking and start weeping.

  “I love you, Scott,” I say. “You know that, right? I always will.”

  I realize nobody can ever take Scott’s place. He was perfect. Kind and funny and generous and understanding. He always gave me the benefit of the doubt; he always trusted me.

  Although maybe he shouldn’t have, considering I have slept with the guy who’s responsible for his death.

  I still can’t believe it. How could Cole do this to me? I actually thought I’d finally found something that could make me happy again.

  It’s not about the accident. I know that wasn’t Cole’s fault. Well, not entirely. Yes, he was behind the wheel, but he didn’t want it to happen either.

  From what the police told me, the driver just lost his focus for a few seconds, and Scott was in a hurry as well. We all just happened to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time for those few seconds. It was a tragedy for everyone involved. Including Cole.