The Undercover Billionaire
Page 30
Her heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vice, and it hurt. There was a flame in his eyes, hot and bright and fierce, and she was afraid to let herself hope that it was what she thought it was. “I thought I wasn’t enough,” she croaked. “I thought you didn’t want to listen to me. That me telling you I loved you wasn’t good enough. That I wasn’t good enough.”
He shook his head, a violent, sharp negation. “No, fuck, you know the truth? I’m the one who’s not good enough. I’m the one who doesn’t deserve what you were trying to give me. I kidnapped you, used you, lied to you. Then I shot your goddamn father right in front of you. I’m no better than them and I know it.”
“Wolf, you’re—”
“No, let me finish.” That look in his eyes was burning bright, no mistaking it now. Determination, all the power of his considerable will behind it. “I want to make a different decision, a different choice. I want to be worthy of you, Olivia de Santis. I want to deserve you. I want to be everything you think I am. And you can fucking bet I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to.”
Tears trickled slowly down her cheeks, all her anger draining away, and all the pain flowing out along with it.
She’d never ever thought, not in a million years, that she would ever get this from him. That she would ever hear those words.
“You don’t have to do anything to deserve me,” she said thickly. “You don’t have to do anything to be worthy. You already are.”
His expression became even more fierce. “If your father hadn’t been wearing body armor, I would have killed him. How can you forgive that?”
She shook her head. “It’s not me you need find forgiveness from for that. It’s yourself.” She reached up and touched his face. “I think deep down you know who you are and you don’t need a name on a birth certificate to prove it.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” He lifted his hands from her arms and cupped her face between his large, warm palms. “I know who I am. I’m the man who loves Olivia de Santis and that’s all I ever need to be.”
She wanted to say something, but then he kissed her and not gently. There was nothing but raw demand in the kiss, nothing but heat and passion. When he finally lifted his mouth, he said, “You can take the gun away now. Unless you still want to take a shot?”
A hiccupping laugh escaped her, that somehow turned into a sob, and she let him take the gun away. He put it into his pocket and then he put his arms around her and crushed her against him. And she didn’t protest, she simply opened her mouth and let him devour her completely, heedless of the people walking by.
“I want to take you to the Lady,” Wolf murmured against her mouth. “Lay you out on the bed, make you mine. Right the fuck now.”
She shivered. “I want that too, but I think I might need to stay here. I think I might be receiving a visit from the FBI at some point.”
Wolf raised his head and looked down at her, his eyes wide. “What did you do, baby?”
“I had those files decrypted and then I forwarded them on to my brother to take to the FBI. Oh and I also copied all the rest of my father’s files onto a hard drive. Which I’ve got in my pocket.”
“Holy fuck,” Wolf murmured approvingly. “You’re more of a genuine badass than I am.”
She grinned, his praise setting up a warm glow inside her. “I guess that means we genuinely can’t go back to the Lady, though.”
The expression on his face changed. “I think we can find the time. They’re not here yet, right?”
* * *
Wolf took her back to his boat and did as he promised. He laid her across his bed and stripped her naked, then he explored every inch of her beautiful body, worshipping her the way he needed to. The way she deserved. Loving her the way he’d promised her he would, because he wasn’t a weapon of destruction anymore. He was a man, and his mission wasn’t to kill, it was to make her feel good, make her feel loved.
So like he did with every one of his missions, he gave it a hundred and ten percent. Maximum effort.
Her phone went off before he was ready and of course it was the FBI wanting to have a word with her about her father—or at least that’s what they realized when they finally listened to the message—because they had other more important things to do than answer phone calls.
At some point she would have to go back to the de Santis mansion and confront the consequences of her father’s crimes. But he’d already decided she wasn’t going to do this alone. That he would be at her side, and he would muster all the power of the Tate name to help her.
For once a Tate was going to help a de Santis, not kill them.
But all that could wait at least another half hour.
Because although Wolf’s favorite things were fighting, fucking, and blowing shit up, loving Olivia de Santis was his most favorite of all.
EPILOGUE
The day Cesare de Santis went to jail for a very long time, the Tate brothers met at Leo’s Alehouse to celebrate. Because that’s where all of their family’s dramas had started.
Though this time, it wasn’t just the three of them.
Chloe, his adoptive sister and now his sister-in-law, was nestled against Van’s side, talking about the new stable complex or some such bullshit, while Grace, sitting in Lucas’s lap, was listening attentively. Lucas was not listening attentively. He was winding a lock of Grace’s fire red hair though his fingers and obviously thinking about something else.
Wolf glanced at the door, impatient for the latest addition to their family to show herself.
This was going to be a difficult day for Olivia. The trial had been long and exhausting for her, and watching her father be put away for years wasn’t going to be easy either, but she’d told him she’d wanted to come to Leo’s. She just had a few things to do first.
He really hoped those few things weren’t going to take too long, because he hated being apart from her, most especially when he knew she was going to need him.
Eventually though, the door to the bar opened and there she was, dressed in his favorite “hot secretary” outfit. Pencil skirt and demure blouse and pumps.
Fucking delicious.
Except as she came toward him—drawing not a few male gazes as she moved through the crowd of largely military men—there was a crease between her brows.
His gut tightened. Something was wrong.
He pushed his chair back and got up, not bothering with making excuses, simply heading straight toward her.
They met in the middle of the bar and he couldn’t resist the urge bend his head and kiss her in front of everyone in the whole place, staking his claim.
Her hands came to his chest and she leaned briefly against him, returning the kiss. Then she pulled away. “Wolf, there’s someone outside to see you.”
His gut tightened even further. “Who is it?”
Olivia’s blue gaze came to his. “Your father’s lawyer. He was coming in right when I was, and asked me if I knew you and whether you’d be inside or not. I thought it would be better if he didn’t come inside. He has something he wants to give to you.”
Oh, fuck, that wasn’t good. It never was.
Wolf glanced back at his brothers—they weren’t even looking at him—then back to her. “Good thinking. Come on. Show me where he is then.”
Threading her fingers through his, she led him outside, and sure enough, some asshole in a suit was standing there, looking very lawyer-like. As Wolf approached, he asked, “Wolf Tate?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
He took an envelope out of his pocket and held it out. “Your father wanted me to deliver this to you six months after his death.”
“Shit,” Wolf muttered, not wanting to take it, but doing so anyway.
The lawyer gave a brief nod then turned around and walked away, leaving Wolf standing there holding the envelope, foreboding winding threading through him; the last envelope his father had given him had torn his life apart.
Warm fingers tighten
ed around his.
It also led you to Olivia.
That was true. So, not all bad then.
He looked down into Olivia’s worried blue eyes. “Any ideas what this is all about?”
“No. Do you want me to open it?”
“Hell no. I can do it.” Then he gave her another light kiss. “But thanks for the offer, baby.”
She gave him a smile. “Open it, Wolf. Let’s handle this together.”
So he ripped open his father’s last message and looked down at the piece of paper he held in his hands. It was old and creased, and looked like a property title.
Realization hit him then, like a mortar shell.
“It’s the Tate ranch’s plans, isn’t it?” Olivia breathed. “The originals.”
It was, and with the original boundaries. Proving that the Tate oil strike had originated from Cesare de Santis’s land.
“That’s the proof your Dad wanted,” Wolf said, staring at the plans, not knowing how he felt about it. Because this could topple the Tate empire.
Six months ago, he would have used it to do just that. Destroyed Noah’s empire in return for all the lies he’d told him.
But he was a different man now and revenge no longer interested him.
Wolf folded the plans, put them back into the envelope and handed them to a surprised Olivia. “This is yours. This is your inheritance. And it’s your decision to make what you do with it.”
She stared at him, a suspicious glitter in her eyes. Then she blinked, looked down, and quite carefully tore the envelope into halves, then quarters, and kept on going until she had nothing but confetti in her palms.
And then, because she was Olivia, she went over to the nearest trash can and disposed of the paper.
“There,” she said, when she came back to his side. “It’s over.”
And just like that, the Tate/de Santis feud was done.
Who would have known that it would end up being that easy?
Wolf lifted his hands to her face, tilting her head back, looking down into her beautiful eyes. He should have thought of something to say for this moment, something meaningful and eloquent. Like the Hemingway quote he’d had tattooed on his chest. But he wasn’t Hemingway and he’d never been a particularly eloquent man, and besides, he didn’t give a shit about the feud.
There was only one thing in the whole damn world he gave a shit about and only one thing he wanted to say.
“I love you, Olivia de Santis,” he said, because the thing that mattered was her. And love.
All the tension left her face and all the worry too, her smile filling up the empty hole in his soul. She lifted a hand to his face. “I love you too, Wolf Tate.”
He’d wanted to belong to someone all his life and it was only now, staring down into her beautiful blue eyes, that he realized that all this time, he’d already belonged to someone.
He’d belonged to her.
Looking for more hot billionaires?
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ALSO BY JACKIE ASHENDEN
The Tate Brothers
The Dangerous Billionaire
The Wicked Billionaire
The Nine Circles series
Mine To Take
Make You Mine
You Are Mine
Kidnapped by the Billionaire
In Bed with the Billionaire
The Billionaire’s Club e-book series
The Billion Dollar Bachelor
The Billion Dollar Bad Boy
The Billionaire Biker
Available by St. Martin’s Press
Praise for Jackie Ashenden and her sizzling novels
“With a distinct voice and fresh, complex characters, Mine To Take is a sexy, emotional read that gripped me from page one. I can’t wait to see what Ashenden brings us next.”
—Laurelin Paige, New York Times bestselling author
“A scintillating, heart-pounding love story. A dark, sinfully sexy hero with a tortured past. I loved it!”
—Opal Carew, New York Times bestselling author
“The sex is dirty-sweet, with a dark lick of dominance and the tantalizing potential of redemption, and an explosive ending provides the perfect closure to Gabe and Honor’s story while setting up the next installment.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jackie Ashenden lives in Auckland, New Zealand, with her husband, the inimitable Dr. Jax, and their two kids and two cats. When she’s not torturing alpha males and their stroppy heroines, she can be found drinking chocolate martinis, reading anything she can lay her hands on, posting random crap on her blog, or being forced to go mountain biking with her husband.
Jackie writes dark, sexy contemporary romance for St Martin’s Press, including the New York Billionaires Club series of novellas. You can find Jackie at www.jackieashenden.com or follow her on Twitter @JackieAshenden, or sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
Also by Jackie Ashenden
Praise for Jackie Ashenden and her sizzling novels
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE UNDERCOVER BILLIONAIRE
Copyright © 2018 Jackie Ashenden.
Cover design by Crystal Ben
Jacket Photographs: ©Shutterstock
All rights reserved.
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St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition /March 2018
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