Start Again Series: A Billionaire Romance Box Set

by J. Saman

  “Wait up, Ivy, I told you I wanted to walk you home.”

  I groan, crossing my arms over my chest before turning to glare at him.

  He gives me an odd look I can’t decipher, and I realize my hang-ups are my own. I’m behaving like a scorned lover instead of a new acquaintance.

  “Sorry, it was just a long, very hard day, and I’m knackered.”

  “So, it’s not me then? You practically running out of the house without me? Because I don’t think my ego could take it if it is.” He smirks at me as we start to walk on the mostly deserted street.

  For a Saturday night in the middle of the city, this street is fairly quiet, which indicates this is likely a family neighborhood. Judging by the size of the houses and the attached lots, I’d say it is.

  “Something tells me your ego will be just fine. Might even be beneficial for it to be knocked down a peg or two.”

  “Ouch,” Luke grabs his chest like I shot him. “You wound me, Ivy. Deeply.”

  I smile over at him, and he moves closer to my side, taking my hand and looping it through the crook of his arm, like we’re lovers or the oldest and best of friends.

  We’re not either, but I don’t want to pull away from his warmth all the same.

  “Tell me why it was such a hard day for you.”

  “It just was. Some are worse than others; some are better. Today was one of the more challenging ones, but hopefully, tomorrow won’t be.”

  “Are you always this positive?”

  I laugh, shaking my head and looking up at him. “No. Hardly ever.” I think on that for a minute. “Let me amend that. Yes, when it comes to my patients and my work. Never when it comes to myself.”

  “Why is that?”

  I shrug, realizing I just revealed far too much of myself to a man that I’m sure after tonight, I won’t see again for a long time, if ever.

  I am leaving in a month after all.

  “What do you do for work?” I ask, changing the subject away from myself.

  Luke and I both went to Caltech, though I didn’t meet him until our junior year. It was at a pub close to campus, and I was there with a few mates of mine. Luke was alone, sitting at the bar with his head in his hands, and something about him drew me in instantly. I sat down next to him, bought him another round without even speaking to him and got up to leave once our drinks were placed in front of us.

  He stopped me, and we ended up talking for the rest of the evening before going home together.

  He never explained to me what had him drinking with the most somber expression I’d ever seen on anyone.

  I didn’t question him either.

  But after we had sex for hours—and I do mean hours—we spent the rest of the night talking. Not about our majors, or what we envisioned doing after graduation, or our families. It was the type of conversation you have with a partner or someone you know exceptionally well.

  It was about everything and nothing all at once.

  It was without a doubt the best night of my life and when I woke up after finally passing out in the wee hours of the morning, he was gone.

  He didn’t even leave me a note or his number. Nothing. Just gone like he was never there to begin with.

  My mate told me a few days later that he had been arrested by the FBI for hacking a bank and had been out on bail the night he and I met. That and his girlfriend had dumped him shortly after the arrest.

  So I understood why he ran out, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t bothered by it.

  A simple explanation or verbal rejection would have been better than waking up to an empty bed after the night we shared. I didn’t keep track of the case, though it had been gossiped about by almost everyone on campus.

  And I never tried to find him again.

  But I always remembered him.

  “I work in computers,” Luke says after a contemplative beat.

  We stand at the edge of the sidewalk, waiting for the light to change so we can cross. The yellow of the street lights creating an eerie halo of light against the fog.

  “Ryan and I run an IT security company,” he amends. I knew he worked with Ryan, though I figured it was for him. I didn’t realize he ran the company with him.

  I turn and smile, somehow relieved that he came out on the other side of the mess he was in.

  “That sounds like it keeps you busy.”

  “It does, but in a good way.” I nod, understanding just what that means.

  It’s how I feel about my work.

  He steps into me, his fingers brushing the fog-dampened strands of my hair from my face.

  “You have the most beautiful eyes. Has anyone ever told you that?”

  Yes, you, I want to say, but don’t.

  “The color of a glacier or an angry ocean. Not quite blue and not quite gray.” He’s also said that to me before.

  I yank my face from his grasp and cross the street without waiting on him to follow or for the light to change.

  How can he say these things, know my name, and not remember me?

  I hate how disappointed I am. Evidently, he made a much larger impact on me than I ever did on him.

  He catches up to me before I reach the other side.

  “What did I say? I think you’re beautiful. Usually women don’t run from me when I tell them that.”

  “I just want to get home, Luke. It’s late and I’m tired. I have to be up before the sun rises, if it even decides to do that tomorrow.”

  I quicken my pace, able to see my building just up ahead.

  “I see my building, so you can go. I’m fine.” My words come out as quickly as my footfalls. “Thank you for walking me. It was nice of you.”

  “Nice of me?” he asks with an incredulous laugh. “Ivy, I am many things, but nice really isn’t one of them.”

  “Point made.”

  And it is. I get it.

  “Have a good night, Luke.”

  “Ivy, hold up.” He reaches out, grasping my forearm and pulling me to a stop as he spins me around to face him. “Why the hell are you running from me?” He looks wounded and bewildered.

  And so am I. What am I expecting anyway?

  Say he does remember me? It’s not like anything can happen between us.

  I have one month left on this fellowship, and then I’m finishing up my training all the way across the country.

  I sigh out, feeling so utterly foolish. “I’m not running from you.”

  He raises an eyebrow.

  “Okay, maybe I was running from you. I’m sorry. I’m…” What am I? “Totally buggered.” Bollocks, I didn’t mean to say that out loud.

  He laughs. The sound is deep and resounding and has my face heating instantly.

  What is wrong with me tonight?

  “Ivy, darlin’, you’re many things, but you’re not totally buggered. At least not yet, and something tells me I won’t get my shot with that tonight.”

  Jesus, this guy.

  “You can’t be serious right now?”

  His hands snake around my waist, pulling me into his hard warm chest, clad in thick black leather.

  “What if I am serious? What if I say I want you right now? Would that change things?”

  I shake my head emphatically, but I’m really saying no to myself.

  “Nothing good can come of that. You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, and this is not happening.”

  Again.

  “But you want me, and I really want you.”

  “Right, so I can wake up tomorrow with you gone?” I can’t believe I just said that out loud.

  His expression falls, a frown marring his gorgeous face.

  “That’s not how it would go.”

  “Right. Yeah. Sure.”

  “Okay, Ivy. I’ll let it go for tonight, but only because I really want to walk you home. I don’t mean to come off like a total asshole. Believe it or not, I’m not usually like this.”

  I find myself smirking up at him. “A total asshole?
Not so sure I believe that, Luke, but what the hell, right?”

  “You took me by surprise. I was not expecting you, but something about you draws me in the way no one has in a very long time.”

  His gaze turns soft, and for a moment, I’m completely swept away with the promise in those eyes. There’s nothing dirty, heated, or sinister in them. They’re warm and enticing and so bloody sincere that I’m finding it hard to look away, let alone breathe.

  “If I ask you something, will you consider it?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Do you want to hang out with me tomorrow, since you’re not working like you said you were?”

  How on earth does he know I’m not working? Honestly?

  “Don’t play coy with me, darlin’, I can spot bullshit a mile out, and you’re a terrible liar at best. So how about it? Tomorrow?”

  I sigh, wondering about the wisdom of this. I’m also oddly tempted.

  I’m curious about who this man is and what ten years have done to him. It always felt like I had unfinished business with him. Maybe I can discern some form of closure from one afternoon with him.

  “I’m leaving in a month.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m moving to Boston for a year to finish my fellowship certification.”

  He grins at that. “That’s awesome. The fellowship part, not the moving part. Are you coming back after your year?”

  I shrug. “I have no idea. It depends on where the job is.”

  “Okay, Ivy. I get it.”

  Luke brings my body even closer to his until I’m completely flush against him, chest to chest. And I’m doing absolutely nothing to push him away.

  “How’s this then?” He smiles like he just had the most brilliant idea. “You hang out with me tomorrow even though you’re leaving. We can be friends, because I really want to spend more time with you. I want to get to know you despite our time constraints, and maybe, just maybe, I can even talk you into some hot casual sex with no strings attached. What do you say?”

  A stuttered laugh passes my lips.

  Why is that also so oddly enticing?

  Never in my life have I chosen sex with no strings.

  I’ve always been austere, focused, and career-minded, but the thought of some casual fun—knowing it couldn’t lead anywhere—might just be exactly what I need.

  And then I wake up, because that is the biggest load of rubbish I’ve ever heard.

  “You know there is no such thing as hot, casual, no-strings-attached sex, right?”

  “Who says? It’s absolutely possible.”

  “Oh yeah? Did the magical fairy who told you that also tell you that processed foods are healthy, smoking won’t kill you, and the pull out method is an approved form of birth control?”

  He just blinks at me with that cocky, charming smile of his. Damn that dimple.

  “You might as well tell me that chocolate has no calories. It’s tempting, and I’d love to believe it, but it’s just not true. Those things never end well. I really don’t even see the point in us spending time together.”

  His expression falters, but only for a beat before that confidence is back in full megawatt force.

  “You’re telling me you’re leaving in a month, so the option of something other than casual isn’t there.” Luke’s hands cup my cheeks as our gazes lock. “If you were staying, Ivy, something tells me I would be trying a completely different tactic right now. Something tells me I’d be taking you out on a real date and I wouldn’t be trying to get in your panties on that date either. But I don’t seem to have the luxury of time with you, so I’m going to take whatever I can get. So…,” he pauses, letting his words marinate in the small distance between us. “I’d like to hang out with you tomorrow. As friends. You in?”

  I want this too much to say no, even though I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this will not end well for me.

  “Yes.”

  Luke smiles so big his entire face lights up. His head dips, and for a moment, my breath catches in anticipation, but his lips press against my cheek and not my lips. Judging by the bereft tingles on my lips, I won’t last long as friends.

  “You’ll never be able to resist me,” he says. Clearly, he’s telepathic. “And there is no way I can resist you.”

  “We’ll see about that one. Maybe you’re right, and maybe you’re wrong, but I’m not as experienced at walking away without a wound as you are.”

  He shakes his head like I’ve got it all wrong, but I’m really not in the mood to challenge that at the moment.

  “You have no idea,” he says before releasing my face and taking my hand to lead me the rest of the way home. We pause at the foot of the stairs of my building. He leans down and whispers in my ear, “Or maybe you do. But what you think you know is all wrong, Ivy. That’s not how it happened. I never wanted to leave you that night.”

  I suck in a rush of air as he plants yet another kiss on my cheek. My mouth is partially agape as he rights himself with a huge, knowing grin, his dimple out in full force.

  “It was nice seeing you again, Ivy. I’ll be here early tomorrow, so get some sleep pretty girl.”

  And with that, he walks off into the night, swallowed up by the fog almost instantly.

  I’ll be damned; maybe he does remember me. This thing brewing between us is trouble. I can feel it.

  5

  Luke

  * * *

  10 years ago

  * * *

  Tossing back the last of my whiskey, I slide the empty glass away and drop my head into my hands. I can’t afford another and that was the cheapest shit they had. The last of my savings just went down my throat, and before that, to pay my bail because no way I was staying in prison another night. But now that means I’m stuck with whatever third-grader the courts decide to stick me with for an attorney.

  Not that I would have been able to afford a decent one anyway.

  I’m fucked.

  Good and fucked. I have absolutely no one to blame but myself.

  To add insult to injury, Ronnie was waiting for me when I got home so she could break up with me. Apparently, having a boyfriend who’s facing federal charges is too much for her. She didn’t seem bothered by my hacking before, but getting caught was her limit.

  It’s probably for the best anyway, since I’m facing real prison time with no money and no hope.

  The bartender slides a drink in front of my downcast face, and as I look up at him, about to tell him that I can’t pay for this, he holds up his hands in surrender as if to say it wasn’t his idea before jutting his thumb to my left with a smirk.

  What the hell? Did someone just buy me a drink?

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of light-brown hair and something silver and shiny fleeing.

  Instinctually, I reach out to grab her arm and stop her.

  Usually, if a girl buys you a drink, they don’t do it anonymously. They want you to know it was them. They expect attention and long for other things, but this girl is trying to run before I can even thank her, and that raises my curiosity.

  My fingers wrap around her slender forearm, and she’s so startled by my touch that she almost drops her drink.

  “My bad,” I offer by way of an apology as she licks some of the spilled cocktail from her fingers. She hasn’t acknowledged me yet, so I’m only getting a half a profile here, but what I can see, I like.

  She’s tall and slender and her luscious curves are perfectly showcased in the short, silver dress she’s wearing. Her hair is long and very straight but looks unbelievably soft and shiny.

  This is not the nicest or the trendiest bar in Pasadena, so the fact that she’s dressed for a night out in Vegas is amusing.

  Finally, almost reluctantly, she moves to face me, probably because I’m still holding her by the arm. But when her eyes meet mine, my goddamn breath catches in my chest. They’re the most incredible color. Not quite blue and not quite gray. Like a glacier or an angr
y ocean, and just as fathomless.

  They’re the kind of eyes you can’t help but stare at. Because of that, it takes me a second or two longer before I get to the rest of her. Her beauty is unmistakable. Impossible to ignore. She possesses a face and body that women envy and men long to claim. She’s unwittingly the most erotic combination of innocence and mischief I’ve ever seen. Her wine stained lips alone are enough to fill my mind with a myriad of salacious fantasies.

  “Did you buy this for me?” I ask, gesturing toward my full glass of amber liquid.

  She hesitates again, debating how forthcoming she wants to be with me.

  “I, uh . . .” She shrugs. “You looked like you could go for another.” Her slight Australian accent is enticing. Just like her. No way in hell am I letting this girl walk away without knowing her name.

  Which is unbelievably stupid because I’m going to prison.

  Right. I should just let her walk away.

  But if this really is one of my last nights of freedom then why not spend it with her?

  Selfish? You bet, but I can’t seem to muster enough altruism to care at the moment.

  “That’s really sweet of you.” I give her my most charming smile, knowing my dimple will seal the deal. Girls love the dimple. “But why are you running off?”

  Her head swivels back into the packed bar, and she points over to somewhere I have no intention of looking.

  “I’m here with some mates of mine. I didn’t want to interrupt. You looked like you were keen to be alone, but needed a fresh drink to keep you company.”

  I may, in fact, be in love.

  I mean, who the hell does that?

  Buys a drink for a stranger without expecting anything in return, just because I look like I could use one?

  “I wouldn’t mind some company as long as that company is you.”

  She laughs at my cliché line and shrugs, “Maybe just this one.”

  “Your friends won’t miss you?”

  “They’ll manage.” She leans into me, a smirk playing on her deep-crimson lips. “We’re celebrating my birthday.”

  I motion for her to sit down in the open seat next to mine and she does, crossing her long legs and rubbing her calves together once as if it’s a habit of hers.