The Big Billionaire

by Lexi Aurora

  “I know it’s been awhile, baby, but at least rest assured that you’re not shooting blanks,” she says with a small smile. I snort, not immediately picking up on the implication. “Last time we went into town, I picked up a pregnancy test. I guess I was a bit more fertile than I expected, that last time we…ah,” she pauses, lips curling into a smile.

  “You mean… you can’t mean…,” I sputter, slapping a hand to his forehead.

  “What, you don’t want little puppies running around the house? Aw, come on. You love dogs, baby!” she cajoles, and I continue to panic a bit before she erupts into laughter again. I stare at her for a long moment before narrowing my eyes upon the playful woman.

  “You’re pulling one over on me, aint ya?” I drawl. She nods, wiping a joyful tear from her eye. “Well, joke’s on you. I think I’d be a right good doggy daddy. After all, I raised the best hound a guy could ask for,” I grin, gesturing towards Blue. The dog, picking up on the attention, darts towards his two people, eagerly nosing their hands. Ebony smiles a bit, rubbing her hands against the dog’s ears.

  “Well, as excited as you are for more puppies, I think we’ve got a long road ahead of us before then. After all, it wouldn’t do to take the attention away from our little savior, would it?” she coos, crouching down to kiss the dog on the nose. He sloppily licks her face, and another laugh spills past her lips.

  I watch the scene with a smile, a sense of satisfaction washing over me as I realize that I’ve finally found the family I’ve always wanted. There’s no absentee father with an ache for a son who lives a fruitless life. There’s only my love, and my best pal; and I know they want for nothing but my happiness and affection. I know I can’t provide the world for them, but at the very least, I can provide that.

  After all, maybe that’s enough.

  Bonus 4: History with the Billionaire

  Chapter One

  SCARLETT

  In one morning, I’d heard enough about the Oliver family to last a lifetime, and it wasn’t even ten o’clock. The “East Coast Emperors”, some people called them – the kind of business-savvy tycoons who came from generations of old money and gave just enough of their riches to charity to seem altruistic, at least to the short-sighted viewer. But on that unseasonably hot April morning, they were being talked about for a very different reason.

  At first, I figured the matriarch, Tamara, had announced a surprise engagement or wedding, or maybe her daughter Alison had released a surprise collection in one of her many lifestyle, jewelry, or fashion empires. I knew the fuss couldn’t be about Adrian. Adrian Oliver was the youngest member of the family at twenty-eight years old, and he was a sensationalist media darling as well as a prominent feature in every trashy tabloid. He was talked about so much already that there was no way anything he could have done would make CNN, MSNBC, and CBS News talk about the Oliver family at such length… that morning, there had been no escaping them.

  Starting from the time I turned on the news to check the weather at my apartment to scanning the radio on my drive into work to entering the university, all I heard were snippets of the name Oliver buzzing around my ears. I hoped no one I worked with was vapid enough to be invested in the family, but I soon found that I was sorely mistaken. Not only did the people at work appear to care about the Olivers, but that morning, they were enraptured by them.

  I said my good-mornings and made excuses to get to my office as quickly as possible, eager to remove myself from the frivolities of the modern world and get swept up in the Spanish Inquisition; my current field of expertise. Within thirty minutes of being granted my reprieve and sitting down comfortably, one of the library assistants hurried up to my desk, looking frazzled and overly-excited.

  “Line three for you, Dr. Quinnes,” she said, her stage whisper louder than normal. “Dr. Quinnes, the call… it’s not a, uh, normal call.”

  “Cassie, it’s not personal, is it? I’ve specifically said I don’t allow personal calls to my work number-”

  “No, no, nothing like that, it’s work related.” Cassie, a student of twenty-two, shook her head emphatically and looked around to make sure no one else could hear her. Of course, no one could – I worked in relative isolation, as I liked it.

  “Oh. Well, alright, thank you.”

  Cassie seemed rooted to her spot in front of my desk, and I tilted my head in concern when she made no move to walk away.

  “Something wrong?” I asked, hesitantly reaching for the phone on my desk.

  “Uhhh…”

  I was vaguely aware of a few other coworkers mulling about outside my door, but I failed to make a connection between them and Cassie’s odd behavior.

  “Good morning,” I greeted the person on the other line. “This is Dr. Scarlett Quinnes. How can I help you?”

  “Scarlett. Pretty name.”

  I frowned. The voice sounded oddly familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I knew it wasn’t any of the other university historians; they would never say something like that. They were all far too shy, with their noses in their books and minds stuck hundreds of years in the past.

  “And, um, may I ask who is calling?” I ignored the compliment and got to business.

  “Sure you can. This is Adrian Oliver. You might have heard of me,” the voice said, sounding cocky and languid.

  I looked up at Cassie, my eyebrows furrowed in annoyance. She must have been recruited by someone in another department to play a prank on me. I always hated the way the other departments – mostly the sciences – liked to harass the history “nerds”, as though they were somehow better.

  “Listen, I don’t have time for this. Goodbye.”

  “Wait.”

  Against my better instinct, I paused. There was something so authoritative about that voice, something so strong and confident. It was almost arousing.

  “Make this quick,” I said, trying to ignore the heat rising in my face.

  “I really am Adrian Oliver, and I take it you do know who I am,” he said, not sounding any more urgent than he had before.

  “I know a bit about your family, yes,” I told him.

  “Well, it’s actually my family that wants to hire you. I’m calling on their behalf. We’re in need of someone with your… unique expertise.”

  I didn’t like his tone; it almost sounded like he was poking fun at me and what I do. “And exactly what might the Oliver family want from me, a humble historian?”

  “Oh, I don’t know if I’d call you that.” Adrian gave a low chuckle, and just like his command earlier, it was undeniably sexy. “I did my research on you, Miss Scarlet.”

  “Doctor,” I corrected him, trying to remain professional.

  “Miss Doctor Scarlett,” he amended, teasing me. “You are not exactly a ‘humble historian’. Let’s see… you were a violin prodigy as a child, finished high school at fifteen, graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Oxford at nineteen – magna cum laude, I might add – completed your master’s at Cambridge, and returned to Oxford for your doctorate. You’ve published very well-received articles, and a book that won several prizes. Now you’re considered one of the top experts in the country – hell, maybe the world – on seventeenth-century Europe, specializing in Spanish relations. Does that sound right, Doctor?”

  I hated the way he dragged out my title. I hated that he knew so much about me, including my childhood history… I tried to keep the prodigy bit out of my life. For whatever reason, when people find out one was an especially precocious child, they seem to expect far too much from that person, and I’d spent most of my adult life dodging that.

  “Yes,” I said sharply. “Now exactly why are you calling me, Mr. Oliver?”

  “We’ve got a bit of a situation over here.” Adrian’s voice lowered, and he sounded a little more serious now. “There’s a guy who’s been running around claiming that one of my ancestors robbed one of his ancestors blind, way back a few hundred years ago. Problem is, this guy claims he’s got proof, and it all loo
ks kind of legit. He’s hired a lawyer, a damn good one, and he’s trying to take us to court. If what he’s saying is true, we’re gonna end up paying him a lot of money. I mean, a lot. I mean… listen, Doctor, I’m telling you this in confidence.” The way that Adrian’s voice dropped half an octave as he murmured conspiratorially sent a shiver down my spine.

  “Of course.”

  “We could lose most of our fortune. Even my sister, who runs her own multi-million-dollar business, would owe him a huge chunk of the profits, since she used her inheritance to start the company. It could ruin us, you know?”

  I found myself sympathizing with him, mostly because of his voice, which was now very sincere. “Mr. Oliver, I’m very sorry you find yourself in this position, truly. But I am not a lawyer-”

  “I know, we’ve already got some of those,” Adrian interrupted me, trying to sound flippant again. “But you’ve got the knowledge and background we need. You know how to get to the right resources and find out if this is real or not. You’re going to make or break our case, and we really need you.”

  “I wish I could help, I really do. But I can’t just abandon my work here-”

  “Listen, if you help us, we’ll pay you twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  I choked on my intake of breath.

  Chapter Two

  ADRIAN

  My mother had instructed me to wait at the airport for the good Doctor, which I figured was inspired by courtesy but executed by punishment. I was hungover and my upper body ached. The girl I’d been with the night before was – I cannot make this up – a Russian acrobat. She was one martini in, and I was… farther gone. So, I was willing to try anything she suggested. Not that I’d take any of it back… what I remember much of it, anyway.

  It was a birthday party for a friend; a guy I’d known for half my life. His twenty-ninth birthday. I almost felt bad that I was the one getting laid… almost. The other guys had been rooting for me – though maybe it was just because I’d paid for everything – so I couldn’t feel too bad. I’d taken care in my earlier years to surround myself with people who wouldn’t judge me for my hedonistic ways, like my family sometimes did. The press pretended to, but those trash magazines and TMZ-types thrived on my antics. And why shouldn’t they? It was all in the name of enjoying life. And hell, I’d experienced enough of life to know that you had to grab what you wanted when you could.

  All of that came to a screeching, sobering halt when I encountered William Sarajevo. He shouldn’t have been a threat. He was a short, scrawny, simpering man worth about seventy-five thousand dollars… we’d had our lawyers look into that, of course. The guy claimed that in the 1500s, my great-to-the-fortieth-power-grandfather stole an entire shipment of rare goods from him, and the profits that went with it. Obviously I wasn’t going to read them, but the lawyers checked every detail of his 70-page claim, and they said he might have a legitimate case. His whole selling point was that Old Grandpa Oliver – Olivier back then – was responsible for the merchant Sarajevo’s bankruptcy, and the stolen goods were used to build up a family fortune that’s now fallen on us.

  Fan-fucking-tastic, naturally. William Sarajevo says he’s got proof, so we had to get better proof. And that is how I ended up standing in the JFK Airport, holding a sign that read Quinnes in fancy script, wearing jeans, sneakers, a hoodie, and a surgeon-style face mask. Since most of the country only knew what I looked like in the sexiest of Armani suits or, as I wasn’t too ashamed to admit, mostly nude, I hoped this would grant me the anonymity I needed.

  Twenty minutes ticked by, and I was getting tense. Just as the security guards looked like they were coming to have a few words with me, I saw Scarlett Quinnes walking towards me, her face neutral and her walk poised and focused.

  “Good afternoon, I’m Dr. Scarlett Quinnes. I assume you are my driver?” She was looking at the mask with uncertainty, but didn’t seem too bothered by it, though she opted out of any kind of handshake.

  “Something like that,” I muttered. Her hazel eyes flashed in recognition when she heard my voice, and a smug smile began to worm its way over her mouth.

  “Let’s go, please, I’ll discuss it in the car.” Without saying anything else, I grasped the handle of her suitcase and marched towards the door. She still had her scholarly satchel over her body, and held onto it as she jogged in sturdy black heels to keep up with me.

  To her credit, she reached the car only seconds after I did, and refrained from saying anything to me until I’d shoved the suitcase into the trunk and took my spot in the driver’s side. She’d already made herself comfortable riding shotgun, messing with my seat adjustments to accommodate her smaller frame.

  “Make yourself at home,” I said, taking off the mask. She turned to me, and I saw her expression change rapidly, twice. The first was a face I was used to seeing; what can I say? I inherited some great genes from decades of trophy wives as well as the money from their wealthy husbands. But Scarlett took great care to wipe the look of an admiring woman off her face as soon as she gathered herself.

  “Well, we need proper introductions,” she said, fastening her seatbelt. She stuck out her hand, and I was surprised at how firm her grip was. “Doctor Scarlett Quinnes, historian.”

  “Mr. Adrian Oliver,” I replied, raising an eyebrow ever-so-slightly. “Most enticing playboy you’ll ever meet. Probably the richest, too.”

  She scoffed. “We’ll see about that last part in a month.”

  I had to admit I was a little surprised, by two things. First, this woman wasn’t pulling any punches with me, which wasn’t something I was too used to. Second, she was much prettier than I’d imagined she’d be. I knew the basics about her, but I hadn’t actually seen any pictures. And between the black blouse, gray checkered pencil skirt, black heels, tortoiseshell glasses, and long, brunette ponytail, she gave off a sexy-librarian vibe like no other.

  The immediate understanding of those two thoughts led me to another conclusion. She was coming off kind of frigid, but damn, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider having sex with her. It was one of those thoughts you just have, like, “I’m gonna run this red light” or “I’m going to Ibiza for the next two weeks and nobody better call me.” It just passed through my mind like a clear understanding: I want this woman.

  But I had a feeling that if it wasn’t in her job description, she wasn’t interested. But, of course, that could change. And when it comes to me, it usually does.

  Chapter Three

  SCARLETT

  I certainly hadn’t expected Adrian Oliver to drive himself to the airport, much less drive me back to his family’s estate. I figured the Olivers were the kind of people who owned property in every U.S. territory, so I wasn’t surprised to hear they had a grand, rustic cottage-type house in upstate New York. I asked a few questions during the drive, making sure to space them out a little so there wouldn’t be one long, awkward silence.

  Adrian answered them all in a tone that always sounded like he was teasing me, like he knew more than I did… which might have been true in some aspects, but damn it, I had a PhD, and I had to remind myself of that a few times. Especially when I caught him looking at me out of the corner of his eye, licking his lips when my gaze met his, and when I could tell he was subtly trying to impress me when he showed off all the Porsche’s features, as though it weren’t enough that the car itself was a Porsche.

  An hour into the drive, I started to relax a little. I was starting to really comprehend that I was in a luxury car with a gorgeous billionaire, but I also reconciled myself with the fact that he was just a person, at the end of it all. And without me, this golden boy could easily fall from grace along with his mother and sister.

  I kept these thoughts going on a loop through my brain as we arrived at the Oliver family’s piece of New York real estate. I had only just gotten used to Adrian’s presence when suddenly, butlers in nicer clothes than any of the professors at the university ever wore to work were taking my bags from th
e car, offering me drinks, and helping me up the front stairs.

  I felt too rushed and unprepared for my assignment, but just before we walked into the foyer, Adrian stood next to me, grinned, and offered me his arm. I didn’t hesitate in taking it; despite our brief acquaintanceship, there was at least something mildly familiar about him.

  “Relax your shoulders.” He leaned down –I was a good deal shorter than he was– and put his mouth far too close to my ear. His warm breath tickled the side of my neck while he murmured the words at me, keeping his eyes on the front entrance as it was opened for us by two doormen. It took all I had not to shiver visibly at the sensations, and I gave him a smile that I hoped didn’t look as uneasy as it felt.

  He led me into the foyer and further into the house, and just as we reached a gleaming wooden staircase, a dark-haired figure appeared at the top and hurried down to meet us.

  “Hi, I’m Alison Oliver.” She took my hand and shook it with enthusiasm. “I’m Adrian’s older sister.”

  “I’m Scarlett Quinnes,” I replied. She, like Adrian, was a nearly-flawless human being. They both shared the same jet-black hair with blue eyes, but hers were a light blue-gray while his were dark and almost indigo. She was sharply dressed in navy trousers and a blazer over a crisp, white blouse, with practical and stylish white heels on her feet. And when she took in the sight of her younger brother, she glared.

  “Adrian, is that-” Alison gestured loosely to Adrian’s entire outfit, “-really the impression you want to make on our guest?”

  “You sent the jester to represent the court, what did you expect?” Adrian was not even remotely intimidated by Alison, and walked right past her when their mother came into the room, bumping her with his shoulder.