The Billionaire’s Lighthouse Series: A Billionaire, Bad Boy, Romance

by Michelle Love

  I do and wonder just what has him so calm and caring. “Zane?”

  He holds up his hand to stop me. “You don’t have to ask. I talked to Tanya.”

  “What did she say?” I ask as my legs go shaky and I nearly fall back on the closed toilet seat.

  His strong arm steadies me and he helps me to sit on the small chair in front of the vanity instead. “She told me about Meagan and her threats. I’m so sorry she did that to you.”

  “Oh God!” I say and feel the air leaving my lungs. “Oh God! You’re not going to take her threat seriously, are you? I knew you wouldn’t! You have to, Zane!”

  “The only have to’s in this world are taxes and death. Everything else is voluntary. I am taking her threat seriously. Don’t you worry about that. I’m not about to confront her. I am about to pull the rug out from under her, though. It’s going to take me a little time to devise a plan because I have to make sure it will work.”

  “Zane, I don’t want you to lose what you’ve worked for!”

  “I am not worried about my money, baby. If I lost you is what would really hurt me. It took a toll on me when you left. I could lose everything I have and it wouldn’t hurt nearly as bad as that did.”

  “I’m sorry. I am,” I say as I start to cry again.

  The cool cloth runs over my eyes. “Shh. No more tears, Elizabeth. There is no reason to cry. I would never blame you for what you did. You did that to protect me. You hurt yourself to make sure I was safe. Now that is a hero in my eyes. And I will make it all up to you. It’s me who is sorry. I brought all this down on you by lying instead of standing up to the woman in the first place.”

  “But if you think you can do something to get her to change her mind, you’re wrong.”

  “No, I’m not going to try to do that. I’ve seen her true colors now. She swept in the night you left and acted like she was coming to apologize to us both for her behavior. When, in fact, she had threatened you and me and was the reason we were apart. She is the most devious person I know. But that’s okay. When threatened, I can have a devious side, myself.”

  “What are you going to do, Zane?” I ask as a chill moves through me.

  His eyes are dark with anger. An odd tension surrounds him and I can see his mind is going in a dark direction.

  “I’m not sure yet.” A light brightens his eyes as he takes both of my hands. “But you and I are going to be together. The night you left, I came home with an engagement ring in my pocket. I was going to ask you to marry me at dinner.”

  “Really?” I ask and feel my bottom lip start to quiver.

  He nods. “No more crying, baby.”

  I nod and whisper, “I’ll try.”

  “Please do. I think there’s been enough crying. That woman has to be stopped and emotions like guilt or sadness will only slow our plans.”

  “I’ve racked my brain to find a way around her but I’ve yet to come up with a single idea. Well, that’s not entirely true. I did think her death would work to end this.”

  “Hmm, her death, huh?” he asks as his eyes go glassy.

  He can’t turn into a murder over this!

  ZANE

  “I suppose we should leave murder as a measure of last resort,” I say then try to lighten up the mood. “So, the lobsters are here. Let’s go make lunch together and let this soak into my head for a bit.”

  Pulling her up from the chair, I wrap my arm around her shoulders and bring her in nice and tight. A kiss to the side of her head has me thinking about all the nights I went without her because of that fucking bitch.

  All the days that have gone by without being able to talk to her because Meagan Saunders is a blackmailing piece of crap.

  “When I saw you on television with her, I lost my mind,” Elizabeth tells me as we get into the kitchen.

  “I’m sure it was hard on you,” I say and feel terrible she had to go through that at all.

  “Meagan asked me the very night you left to help her with her endeavors,” I say as I take the large lobster pot off the top of the fridge.

  “She wants to be president,” Elizabeth says as she gets the sea salt out of the cabinet and joins me at the sink.

  “She’s got the makings of a very shitty president. She’d fit right in up in Washington, wouldn’t she?” I ask with a chuckle.

  Filling the pot with water, Elizabeth pours in some salt. “She had visions of you at her side through it all. Her first man, I suppose.”

  I pick the heavy pot up and take it to the stove. Turning on the large gas burner, I say, “I would never have married her. I really don’t know what she was thinking. She asked me to attend things with her, which I did. There were a few occasions and she acted so differently.”

  “Fake,” Elizabeth says.

  I nod. “Very. I thought it was odd that she wasn’t being so aggressive but I chalked it up to her finding a new thing to obsess over. The governorship.”

  “She told me she knew she’d have to cut back on her aggressive pursuit of you. She had planned to recalculate her moves,” she tells me. “I know you don’t want me to apologize but I really am sorry for hurting you.”

  Taking her in my arms, I kiss her sweet lips and know we may have a hard road ahead of us where Meagan Saunders is concerned but the road to happiness with each other isn’t hard at all.

  Easing the kiss, I say, “I don’t believe I’ve ever known a love so deep that would allow a person to hurt themselves to save the one they loved. You are an amazing woman, Elizabeth Cook. I’m damn proud to call you mine. And once we get this shit squared away, I will make you my partner in life forever.”

  “I can’t believe you still want me after all I’ve done to you,” she says, making me furious at Meagan for making her feel this way.

  I will get Meagan Saunders and she will rue the day she messed with my life. That’s a promise!

  The Billionaire’s Lighthouse Series

  A Billionaire, Bad Boy, Romance

  Book 7

  His Revenge

  By Michelle Love

  Description

  Passion. Romance. Revenge.

  With the knowledge of what Meagan threatened Elizabeth with, Zane is about to turn the tables on the high powered judge.

  With Elizabeth’s help, the two attempt to bring the judge and her blackmailing ways to light.

  The judge has more skeletons in her closet than Zane realized and finds even more evidence to stop the woman, dead in her tracks.

  Will they be able to stop Meagan before she ruins Zane’s reputation? Or will their actions take Meagan’s life, making one or both of them guilty of murder?

  Chapter 1

  ZANE

  “I begged and pleaded and she still turned me down, flat!” I tell Meagan as she looks at me with a sympathetic expression on her lying face.

  “Oh, Zane! How awful that must’ve been for you. You should’ve never gone. But I suppose you have that closure you were searching for now.” She comes around her cluttered desk and puts her hand on my shoulder, making me itch to smack it away but I don’t. I have to make her feel secure that her plan is still in place.

  “At least I know now,” I say with a whimper. “She doesn’t love me.”

  With a couple of taps to my shoulder, she says, “No, I’m afraid she doesn’t. Perhaps it’s time to move on.”

  My stomach tightens as I reach up and take her hand then pull her to sit on my lap. “Perhaps it is,” I say as I look into her light blue eyes. Eyes that show the lack of depth this woman has.

  She runs her arms around my neck and sighs, “Oh, Zane. Do you really mean it?”

  I nod as I run my hand to the nape of her neck and pull her in slowly. Her lips part as her eyes close then my cell phone rings, right on cue. “Shit!” I hiss. “I have to take this call. I’ve been waiting for it. Sorry, Meagan.”

  Quickly, I place her feet on the ground and stand up to take the cell phone out of my pocket. With one finger raised to tell her to han
g on, I walk out of her office, into the hallway of the courthouse. “Zane White here.”

  “Is she falling for it?” Elizabeth asks me. “It looked that way to me.”

  “Was it hard to watch?” I ask as I head into the men’s room for privacy.

  “Very,” she says. “And gross too.”

  “For me too. What’s she doing now?” I ask as Elizabeth is in the building across the street and looking into the window of Meagan’s office with binoculars.

  “She’s sitting back down and opening her laptop. Okay, here’s what we’ve been waiting for. She’s typing in her password to unlock it. But I can’t see what it is. You’re going to have to get that out of her, Zane. And you’re going to have to do it as quick as you can because I don’t know how much more I can take of your hands being on that woman.”

  I laugh. “Nor can I. Okay, what’s she looking at on the computer?”

  “Porn,” she says, making me laugh. “Just kidding. She has a document pulled up. Let me zoom in here with these powerful suckers you bought. Oh, wow. It’s got your name on it and she seems to be deleting it. I think that might have been one of the documents she made up to blackmail me with.”

  “We need a few of them to use against her,” I say as I hurry back to her office. “I’ll go in and interrupt her.”

  “Okay, but try to get her to go with you somewhere and you close the door and only pretend to lock it. Then I’ll get in there and you can feed me possible passwords.”

  “I’ll take her to lunch,” I say as I get to her office. “I’ll text you when I get anything out of her.”

  “No kissing, love you, bye,” she says then ends the call.

  Putting away my phone in my pocket, I open the door to Meagan’s office. She closes her laptop and gets up. “Important call over?”

  “It is. How about some lunch?” I ask as I make my way to her and take her hand, slipping it through my arm.

  “Lunch sounds great,” she says then her lips touch my cheek and I have to fight not to jerk away from her. “Thanks. Maybe after lunch, we can pick up where we were before the phone call.”

  With a chuckle, I take her out and pretend to lock the door behind us. Now we’ll see if Elizabeth can ge

  t to any of those documents.

  ELIZABETH

  The courthouse is nearly empty with it being noon. I make my way to Meagan’s office. I don’t pass a soul as I walk down the hallway and then find her name on one of the many doors. Putting on my gloves to make sure I don’t leave any remnants of myself around here, I twist the doorknob, finding it unlocked and go inside, locking the door behind me.

  Now to look all through her shit and find some incriminating evidence!

  In the top drawer, I find the first odd thing. A picture of Zane at some function. He’s not aware of the picture at all as he talks to some other man.

  I want to take the picture but that would tip her off so I leave it where it is. Then I pull the drawer out more and see a few pictures of me with Zane in various places. That means she followed us around like a crazy stalker.

  But we knew she was a little crazy!

  There’s nothing in here I can use so I close the top drawer and open the left bottom one and find it’s full of files. So I thumb through them and find one that’s labeled, security.

  The name is odd as the other files have people’s names on them so I pull it out and open it up. The first thing I see is a picture of Zane handing a large wad of cash to some man who looks pretty shady.

  The next picture has that same man handing Zane a brown paper bag. I suppose it’s drugs and I have no idea if the picture is real or photoshopped. It looks real, though.

  Behind that is some type of contract. It’s with some company called Global Access and the address is in Afghanistan. As I look the page over, I see words like, arms, and weapons of mass destruction and see she’s making up shit about Zane being involved in the war. His signature is at the very bottom of the last page.

  It looks like his signature. The whole thing looks legitimate. Laying the photos and the contract out on the floor, I take pictures of them all then put them back the same way I found them.

  If she’s going to go so far as to involve him in things that could put him in prison or worse, then she’s more unstable than I thought she was.

  How the hell are we going to stop her?

  Chapter 2

  ZANE

  “So, how’s the Beef Wellington today?” I ask Meagan as she takes the second bite of her lunch.

  “Over cooked but I’ll manage,” she says as the waiter looks on.

  “Madam, I can get you something else,” he tells her.

  The meat is red, not overcooked the least bit. She just likes to complain. And that alone is enough for me to dislike her.

  “No,” she says as she waves him away. “I’ll eat this.”

  He nods and walks away, leaving us alone and me trying to figure out how to come up with a conversation that involves passwords. “So, I got this new laptop the other day and I had to come up with a password for it. I found myself stumped. You know how they say not to use things people can easily guess. I’ve always used my birthday and initials but was told that was not secure at all.”

  “No, it’s not. I use a series of numbers and letters that make no sense,” she says as she pushes the plate away from her.

  Under the table I have my cell ready and waiting to tap in any information she gives me. “Like what?”

  “The key is to use nothing that has anything to do with you. I’m the youngest of three girls and I used to use the number three at the start of all my passwords. But when my oldest sister hacked into my email a few years ago, I got smart.” She picks up the water glass and sips it as she eyes my plate.

  “The salmon is pretty good,” I say. “Would you like a bite?”

  She nods and leans forward with her lips parted. So I place a bite in her waiting mouth and she moans like it’s the best thing she’s ever tasted in her life. My stomach lurches with the sound.

  “Delicious,” she says. “I should’ve ordered that.”

  “Let’s make a trade then,” I say and push my plate to her and take hers. “There you go, Meagan.”

  “Zane, you’re a wonderful man. Thank you.” She starts devouring my food and I’m suddenly no longer hungry but I take a bite anyway.

  “So, you were saying about your password system,” I bring up again then take a bite.

  “Oh, yes,” she sips her water. “Well, like I was saying, my sister taught me well. Now I use random numbers and letters.”

  “Could you give me a for instance, Meagan. I’m terrible with making things up that I can easily memorize.” I take a bite and ready my finger on the cell phone screen to type in the password she gives me.

  “Well, an example is J987K789.”

  I type that in and send it in a text to Elizabeth. “You don’t say. And why did your sister hack into your email?”

  “She’s a real bitch, that one. She thought I was talking to her boyfriend and she went to drastic measures to find that out.”

  “Were you?” I ask and grin at her.

  “Maybe,” she says with a little grin of her own.

  What a piece of work she is!

  I look at the phone in my lap as it lights up with a text back from Elizabeth. -Try again.-

  Crap!

  “So, do you always use a letter then three numbers or do you switch it up sometimes?” I ask as I tap my water glass.

  “The truth is I use the same one for everything. I know they say not to do that, but I do. With such a random thing like, 33kk77fftt564, who could figure that out?”

  I manage to get that all typed in and send it off to Elizabeth. “I suppose you’re right about that. It is very random. I should use that exact number.”

  She laughs then wipes her mouth as she’s finished the plate. “Then we’ll match!”

  And with her words, I get a text back with the thumbs
up sign and we’re in. And now I know how to get into her home computer too. But that means going to her home and that’s not exactly a place I want to be.

  A mere twenty minutes later and Elizabeth texts back. -Meet me in the hotel room. I have a ton of news for you.-

  “Are you ready to go?” I ask Meagan who looks a little disappointed.

  “Do you have anything else to do today?” she asks.

  “Yes, a few meetings,” I tell her as I get up and pull her chair out.

  “Oh,” she says as she looks down. “I was hoping we could go somewhere.”

  “Are you done at your office already?” I ask as we make our way out of the restaurant.

  “Yes. I’m going to go home, I guess.” Her face brightens. “You could come over when you’re done with the meetings.”

  “I’d love to,” I tell her then hail a cab for her. “I’ll come over when I get through.”

  “Okay, I can’t wait!” she says then kisses my cheek. “See you soon.”

  “Yes, soon.”

  I make my way to another cab and get in. “The Plaza.”

  I wonder what news Elizabeth has.

  Elizabeth

  A knock at the door to the hotel room I checked into using my cousin’s identification to make sure no one finds out I’m in town has me jumping off the bed and hurrying to answer it. “Zane?”

  “Yes,” he says and I let him in.

  “How was lunch, lover boy?” I tease him.

  “Hard to digest. What did you find out?” he asks as he pulls me into his arms.

  “I found out Meagan is more ruthless than I ever imagined.” Moving out of his arms, I pick up my cell and show him the pictures of everything I found. I took screen shots of her computer where she had four arms deals. In her files she has one more and some pictures of you making some type of exchange with a seedy looking man.