The Big, Bad Billionaire

by Ashenden, Jackie

  She didn’t like him. She’d never liked him. Apparently when she’d been very young and her parents had visited with the de Santis’s, she’d followed him around everywhere. And then at a birthday party he’d gotten enraged about something, had shouted and punched a hole in the wall, scaring her and making her cry. She had no memory of it, though, no memory of following him around either, or of how he’d been subsequently sent away to stay with his grandfather.

  But after her parents had died and she’d come under Cesare de Santis’s guardianship, she’d run into Rafael again, and there had been something about him that had set her on edge, made her uncomfortable. Her parents had warned her to steer clear of him, and it had become apparent to her in that moment exactly why.

  It wasn’t that he was horrible to her, it was only that he frightened her. Everyone else seemed to find him charming, but she didn’t. At times it seemed to her as if those beautiful smiles of his were a mask that hid a cruel amusement and a sharp, curious kind of focus. It made her think that he was secretly laughing at people, toying with them, playing with them like a predator plays with its with prey. Right before it eats them.

  Even so, that wasn’t what frightened her the most about him. What really bothered her was the weird pull she felt toward him despite all of that. As if he were a cliff edge she really wanted to throw herself off of or a speeding car she wanted to step in front of.

  The feeling disturbed her, made her want to avoid him whenever she could. Mercifully, he seemed content to leave her alone for the most part. On the few occasions where they ran into each other at de Santis family occasions, she treated him with a stiff, formal politeness. She supposed it was rude, especially when he’d been nothing but friendly to her, but she couldn’t help herself. Every time she got near him, something whispered in her brain to run fast in the opposite direction.

  Of course, it didn’t help that he was so ridiculously handsome. Slightly overlong black hair, expertly styled, and those intense blue gray eyes. High cheekbones, a hard, perfect jawline, and a beautifully shaped mouth. A gorgeous face to hide the dangerous animal that lived beneath the surface of his skin.

  But she could sense it even if no one else could, and she did not want to get into his car. She did not want to be in any confined space with him.

  He won’t hurt you. But you might want him to . . .

  No, God, it wasn’t that. She didn’t want him to do anything to her. She simply felt uneasy in his presence and didn’t want to get near, and that was all there was to it.

  Except it looked like she wasn’t going to have any choice in the matter. Especially if what he said about being her guardian was true.

  Trying not to look as unsettled as she felt, she covered her shock by looking down at the slim and very expensive watch her father had given her just before he’d died. “Will this take long?” She hoped she sounded impatient and not “I told Gran I’d be home in half an hour” scared.

  “Oh no, not at all.” Rafael’s voice was deep and dark, smooth and warm, like liquid honey. “I’ll take you home afterward.”

  Yes, that voice was another thing about him that disturbed her, though again, she couldn’t put her finger on precisely why. Probably because, like any predator, he used it to lull people into a false sense of security. Before eating them, no doubt.

  Her heart began to beat a little faster.

  Predators like fear. They can smell it.

  Ella pushed the thought away, plastering an exasperated look on her face in what she hoped wasn’t a futile effort to mask her uneasiness. She was never going to get anywhere if she kept giving into her anxiety. “Okay, fine. But ten minutes, okay? Gran doesn’t like it when I’m late.” Which wasn’t precisely true—her grandmother didn’t much mind if she was late or not—but it provided a good excuse all the same.

  Rafael only smiled that wolfish smile and gestured to the interior of the limo.

  Ella took a deep, silent breath and, tucking her Red Riding Hood costume under her arm, climbed into the limo.

  It was warm inside, the butter-soft black leather of the seats cushioning her, inviting her to kick back and relax.

  Except she couldn’t, because Rafael had pulled the door shut after her, enclosing them together in the warm space, making her aware that he was very close and they were quite alone.

  Anxiety gathered inside her, making her fuss with and arrange her Red Riding Hood costume in her lap so she had something to do with her hands.

  She was very, very conscious of his tall, lean, muscled body sprawled on the seat opposite her, his long legs stretched out in front of him, taking up all the room. He wore a superbly tailored dark suit, with a crisp white shirt and a silver gray silk tie, looking every inch the powerful CEO of one of the biggest weapons and defense companies in the country and very satisfied with it.

  Shifting slightly in her seat so her own legs weren’t quite so near his, she smoothed the red velvet of her cloak. His charisma was quite overwhelming in close quarters, a potent combination of power, money, and intense physical charm that had her breath catching despite herself. It also, unfortunately, had the added effect of making her anxiety worse. Which was ridiculous since she knew Rafael de Santis was a predator pure and simple. There was no way she would end up as one of his prey.

  “Well,” he said, breaking the silence with that rich, dark-honey voice, “this is cozy. Much nicer than being outside, am I right?”

  Ella smoothed the velvet under her chilly fingers, not wanting to look at him but knowing she couldn’t allow herself to keep looking away. Making herself do it and then feeling the anxiousness twist hard when his gaze met hers. “Please explain, Rafael,” she forced out, keeping her voice as level as she could. “How is it that you’re my guardian now?”

  “It’s very simple really. My father passed on the responsibility to me when he stepped down as CEO of DS Corp.” Rafael sat there completely relaxed, his long fingers laced together in his lap, unnerving silver blue eyes watching her from underneath thick black lashes. As if none of this was a big deal. As if he had no idea of how he unsettled her.

  But she had a feeling he did know. And that he liked it. That unsettling her was the entire reason he’d invited her into his limo.

  She didn’t know why that would be, since apart from a few awkward conversations a few years ago, he’d never paid much attention to her. He was so much older than she was, and these days, since her parents had died and she’d immersed herself in dance, she didn’t even attend the same social occasions as he did. She didn’t attend many social occasions at all, in fact. And she was quite happy with that. Ballet was her first love and always would be. Everything else came second.

  “I didn’t think that was possible,” she said, though she really had no idea if it was possible or not. “You can’t just . . . pass on guardianship to someone else.”

  Rafael’s smile turned apologetic. “I’m afraid it’s entirely possible. Which means that unfortunately, you’re stuck with me.”

  “Unfortunately” . . . She didn’t like the way he said the word. Didn’t like it at all. Because up until this moment, having a guardian hadn’t been a problem for her. She lived in her parents’ Upper East Side apartment with her grandmother, all her bills and other needs handled by her father’s lawyers. For anything else, anything special, she simply emailed a request through to Cesare de Santis personally. He’d never denied her anything. In fact, since her father’s death, he’d barely figured in her life at all. Sometimes she even forgot she had a guardian. Until she’d heard about the Paris Conservatory of Dance summer intensive and had set her heart on attending—that was if she was accepted. And if she could pay the extortionate fees. Not a problem if she’d actually been in control of the Hart family fortune, but she wasn’t. She couldn’t access it at all without her guardian’s permission.

  She’d never had any reason to be annoyed with her father’s rather old-fashioned view that the fortune wouldn’t come to her until she w
as twenty-one. It had always made good sense to her, even. However, right now, staring into Rafael de Santis’s blue gaze, deep uneasiness sitting in her gut, she was starting to think her father might have had the wrong idea.

  Her mouth dried. No, it would be fine; of course it would be. Sure, Rafael unsettled her, yet that didn’t mean he was going to be difficult. He had no reason to be. Yes, they’d known each other vaguely for years, but she’d been a teenager for half that time, and he’d never shown even the slightest bit of interest in her. Surely he’d want to deal with her quickly and move on to more important things?

  “Why ‘unfortunately,’?” she asked, absently stroking the velvet in her lap.

  He was sitting very still, yet there was a tension to his stillness. As if trying very hard not to move. Which was odd, now that she thought about it.

  “‘Unfortunately,’ because I’m afraid I’m going to be more of a . . . hands on, shall we say, type of guardian than my father was.” He tilted his head, his eyes glittering in a way that made her mouth get even drier than it was already. There was a hunger in his gaze, making the warnings in her head scream even louder than usual. And, even more disturbingly, making a feeling horribly similar to excitement turn over inside her.

  She ignored the feeling. “‘Hands on’”? Her voice wasn’t quite as steady as she wanted it to be. “What do you mean?”

  There was a smile playing around his mouth, one that she supposed other people might find charming but that she didn’t trust one inch. “Tell me a little about the Paris Conservatory.”

  She blinked at the sudden subject change. “If you’ve seen the emails I sent your father, you already know about it.”

  “I want to hear it from you.”

  “Well, it’s one of the oldest and most prestigious ballet schools in the world and they run a special course over the summer for fee-paying students. I want to attend. I’ll need money for the course and for accommodations, and that’s it, really.” She swallowed, not liking the way he’d focused on her, sharp and intense. “It’s quite expensive, I know, but not a huge amount in the greater scheme of things. I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

  “It’s not a problem. I’m quite happy to okay the funds.”

  Relief made her breathless. “Oh, that’s great—”

  “But only if you agree to a few little . . . requests of my own.”

  Ella blinked again, the relief beginning to ebb away. “‘Requests’? What requests?”

  He shifted all of a sudden, a quick, fluid movement that had all her muscles tensing instinctively, as if expecting an attack. But he only leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped together. His gaze was very direct. “I know you don’t like me, Ella, and I know you don’t trust me. And if I can be honest with you for a moment, you’re probably right about both of those things.”

  Her mouth opened in shock, though she had no idea what she wanted to say. Thankfully he went on before she could. “Nevertheless, my request is this. I want you to have dinner with me.”

  Ella realized her mouth was still open. She closed it with a snap. “You want dinner?” she echoed, because she wasn’t sure if she’d understood him correctly. “With me?”

  “Yes. And let me be clear, although I’ve said it’s a request, it’s actually not.” His smile widened. “It’s an order.”

  The anxiety sitting in the pit of her stomach twisted yet again and she had to take a breath. “But . . . I don’t want to have dinner with you.”

  Rafael’s smile didn’t waver. He merely sat there, totally at ease, his hands loosely clasped together between his knees, pinning her with those uncanny light blue eyes. “Then I’m afraid, Red Riding Hood,” he said pleasantly, “that you won’t get your little ballet school trip after all.”

  Chapter 2

  She was staring at him like he’d lost his mind, and maybe he had. Certainly where she was concerned, he’d never been able to think straight. He could barely think straight now with her sitting just across from him, filling the car with a delicate, sweet scent that reminded him of a rose garden drenched by rain.

  Every time he’d met her, it had been at someone’s house or at a function of some kind, and there had always been lots of people around. They’d never been alone together and he’d certainly never gotten this close to her before.

  It was intoxicating.

  Her legs were so long in those skinny jeans, and she seemed so pale and fragile. A pretty little princess with her white skin, her golden hair, and those crystalline gray eyes. Yet he knew she wasn’t as fragile as she seemed. He’d seen her dance, every muscle working with iron discipline to deliver her particular brand of precise, passionate grace. It took a lot of strength to make it look like she floated across the stage, as if it was easy, effortless.

  He was intrigued by that. Intrigued by what those legs would feel like wrapped around his waist. Whether she’d be as precise and graceful when he was deep inside her or whether all of that control would fall by the wayside and she’d lose herself utterly to pleasure.

  Ah, but he was getting ahead of himself. Dinner was the first thing he wanted. It was the first step of his courtship, a chance to find out why exactly she didn’t like him, and he was going to take it. That was, if his assumptions about how badly she wanted to go to that ballet school were correct.

  Anger chased over her pretty little face, and it fascinated him how quickly she tried to mask it, as if afraid of giving herself away. He kept his gaze pinned to hers, the restless, antsy sensation that always lived just beneath his skin, that he’d worked so hard to conceal, beginning to fade the way it did whenever he watched her dance.

  “I don’t understand.” Her hands clutched tightly in the fabric of her red cloak. “Why do you want to have dinner with me? You barely know me.”

  He supposed that was true. He didn’t really know her. He knew that as a tiny kid she’d been bright and inquisitive and not at all shy. And since he’d watched her dance, he’d known that as a dancer she was brave, passionate, graceful, and poised. She inhabited every role she took on completely.

  But as a person? No, he didn’t know her. He’d never been allowed to. All he’d seen of her were glimpses across rooms and a few awkward conversations. Certainly she’d never stayed around long enough to talk to him, always eager to excuse herself the first moment she could.

  Yeah, he knew she didn’t like him. But that would change, he’d make sure of it.

  “Perhaps I want to get to know you better.” He studied her, watching the rise and fall of color in her pale cheeks. “Don’t you think we should? I know my father never paid much attention to what you did, but I’m a different sort of man.”

  She looked away and he could see her jaw hardening.

  He’d expected she wouldn’t like this, but that was too bad. His grandfather had told him that he’d deserved more than to be sent away like an unwanted pet. That his family owed him. That even though he would never be a good person, he could pretend to be one. He could learn how to hide his true nature so people wouldn’t be afraid of him.

  And he had learned. It had taken years of physical and mental torture, but he’d definitely succeeded. People weren’t afraid of him anymore—no, they loved him. Shit, he’d even fooled his own father into thinking he’d changed, the old bastard never seeing the machinations that Rafe had worked in the background, all to take Cesare down in a spot of beautifully executed revenge. To prove to his father he wasn’t the broken boy Cesare had sent away and to claim what he was owed.

  His father’s company and Ella. It wasn’t much in his opinion.

  “You don’t need to threaten me.” Her voice was light and quiet, but he heard the faintest thread of anger in it. “You could have just asked.”

  “Ah, but would you have agreed if I’d just asked?”

  She didn’t respond, looking down instead at the swathe of red velvet lying across her knees, her fingers stroking the fabric like she was petting a
cat. Not that she needed to answer him. There was no point. They both knew she wouldn’t have.

  “Like I said, I don’t want to have dinner with you,” she murmured. “I just want the money to get to Paris. That’s all. It’s not even your money. It’s mine.”

  “But it won’t be yours until you turn twenty-one,” he pointed out. Unnecessarily, in his opinion, since she knew as well as he did the rules surrounding the Hart fortune. “And until then, I have guardianship over your finances.”

  She still wouldn’t look at him. “I’m going to need proof of that.”

  “Of course. Your lawyers will be sending you the details tomorrow.”

  Ella’s attention remained on the cloak in her lap, her delicate jawline tight.

  She was angry with him, that was obvious. And sure, she had every right to be. He liked that, though. It was better than that stiff formality she always treated him to.

  “Dinner,” she said finally. “That’s all?”

  No, that wasn’t all. He wanted more, a lot more. He wanted her in his bed, all the passion he saw on the stage focused on him. He wanted her to like him the way she once had, when she’d lifted up her arms to him, completely unafraid. He wanted her falling for him the way everyone else did. The way he’d fallen for her when he’d seen her in Romeo and Juliet.

  He wanted that peace he felt inside whenever she was around.

  But all of that would come. Eventually. He had time to wait for it. He’d learned patience, after all.

  “Yes, that’s all. . . . For now.”

  She lifted her gaze from her knees, her expression an odd mix of reluctance and defiance, as if she hadn’t wanted to look at him and yet forced herself to. “I’m not sleeping with you.”

  She definitely wasn’t polite and reserved now, and he found he liked the flickering sparks in her eyes. Christ, he’d rather have her anger than her distance any day of the week.

  It made him want to play with her a little.

  He raised a brow, making a show of looking offended. “Did I ask you to sleep with me?”