The Billionaire Beast

by Jackie Ashenden

  But then the wine went to her head as wine often did, especially when she kept stealing sips out of his second glass, and she got sick of talking about herself.

  “What’s your favorite painting?” she asked, holding his wine glass and stealing yet another sip. “I mean out of the ones in your house. Mine is that photo on the top of Everest.”

  He didn’t answer immediately, and she didn’t notice the minute tightening of his muscled body. “There’s one of a view out over rooftops,” he replied after a moment. “You won’t have seen it.”

  “Oh? Why not?”

  “Because I took it down a couple of years ago.”

  His response was flat, penetrating her pleasantly muzzy haze, and she twisted around to look up at him. “Why?”

  His dark eyes glittered, but beneath her, his large, warm body remained relaxed. “My taste changed. I preferred jungles.”

  Dimly she sensed that this line of questioning probably wasn’t wise, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. It was a little piece of himself, and she wanted to know more.

  Shifting until the edge of the table pressed against her back and she could get a good look at his face, she raised the glass again and took another sip, the wine sweet and heady on her tongue. “What did you like about it?”

  He tilted his head slightly and lifted a hand, pushing a lock of hair that had escaped her bun back behind her ear. “There was a bird in the painting, flying up into the sky. Flying over the rooftops. I just liked to look at it.”

  Her throat felt tight, because there was something in his voice. Something that sounded almost like yearning. A bird flying. A bird flying free . . . Did he wish he was that bird? Why? What had happened in his childhood that made him wish he could fly away?

  “What did you like about the bird?” she asked, trying to be careful.

  His hand trailed down the side of her face, a gentle, light touch. “What did you like about the Everest picture?”

  “Freedom. Possibilities. The world at your feet.”

  He was silent another long moment as if considering that. Then he said, “I used to like drawing birds back when I was a kid. I liked how all they had to do was open their wings and they could fly away.” The look in his eyes grew distant, but he didn’t stop touching her, his fingertips gentle on her face. “I could see them from my window, and I liked watching them fly. The sky was so dangerous and they were so brave. I was glad to be inside and safe, but sometimes I wished I could be brave and fly like the birds.” His voice had gotten softer with memory, a strange wistful smile curving his mouth. “I used to try to get them to land on my windowsill, but my mother wouldn’t give me any bread. It was a waste she said. Bread was difficult to find.”

  Phoebe didn’t want to move, didn’t want to speak. She could barely even breathe. He was telling her something about his past, and she didn’t want to do anything to make him stop.

  “Christ, I tried so hard to get those fucking things to land on my sill, but they never did.” He gave a short laugh, focusing on her face all of a sudden. “I asked Mom if I could have a bird once, but she said no. My room wasn’t big enough, she said. And she was right. It was only five paces wide and six long.”

  The sky was dangerous . . . Bread was difficult to find . . . Five paces wide and six long . . .

  A deep-seated unease twisted inside her. Something terrible had happened to him in childhood, hadn’t it? She could feel it like a knife inside her.

  “That’s small,” she said. “I thought your father was rich. Didn’t you live in a big house or something?”

  Nero’s black brows twitched, his focus on her face getting sharper. “How many sips of wine have you had?”

  He wasn’t going to tell her anything more, she knew it instinctively. Yet was this the right moment to push him?

  That wistful smile turned wicked. “Are you drunk, Phoebe Taylor?”

  It might have been the moment, if she’d wanted it to be. But that look in his eyes was as wicked as his smile, and so she let it slip away. She wasn’t brave enough yet.

  She blinked owlishly. “No, of course not.”

  “Yes, you are.” Gently Nero took the glass from her fingers and put it on the table. “You sound very British when you’ve had more than a couple of glasses.”

  “I do not sound very British,” she said with great care, the moment for revelation slipping even further away. “I can say ‘ass’ as well as any American.”

  “Can you?” His hand moved, sliding under her skirt, brushing against the front of her panties, sending an electric shock right through her. “Tell me something dirty, British girl. Not ‘ass.’ Say ‘arse.’”

  She wanted to protest, because she wanted to keep talking to him even if it wasn’t about his past, but his hand kept moving and it felt too good. And she couldn’t remember why she was supposed to be pushing him away, so she giggled and said ‘arse,’ plus a number of other very dirty words. And even though it was broad daylight and the doors were wide open, the outside world encroaching, it was like he didn’t even notice, directing all his attention on her. And after she’d screamed her pleasure into the midday sky, she returned the favor, unreasonably thrilled with herself when she made him roar like the lion she’d imagined him to be.

  They had lunch in the dining room every day after that, and she counted it as a victory. And a couple of days after that, she found the picture of Mount Everest in her bedroom, on the wall opposite her bed. It was hers now, Nero told her when she’d asked him about it. She could wake up to freedom and new possibilities every day. The rush of warmth that had filled her, the glow, should have been a warning that perhaps she needed to be more careful with her emotions, but she ignored it. She’d flung herself into his arms, telling him he wasn’t to give her gifts yet unable to contain her delight. He’d told her, in his usual arrogant way, that he’d give her gifts if he fucking well wanted to and anyway, it was all out of total self-interest, because seeing her smile was worth any price.

  She loved that. Loved the way things were between them. But just because she didn’t want to change things by not asking him difficult questions, didn’t mean she didn’t think about it. Think about him. About the birds and the dangerous sky.

  In fact, thinking about him was all she did. What had happened to him? Why he was the way he was? Why did he seem to understand some things and not others? How could he not understand what Charles meant to her and yet talk about birds and how they could fly away, his voice full of yearning? As if he himself hadn’t been able to . . .

  It didn’t make any sense.

  Which was why Phoebe was in her sitting room a couple of days after her dining-room victory, her laptop on her knees, searching his name and trying to find any information she could about him. And it was proving frustrating because there was no information on him. The news sites had the odd article about him and DS Corp, but apart from a couple of gossipy articles about “the reclusive billionaire” there wasn’t anything else.

  It annoyed her.

  She sighed and tipped her head back against the arm of the couch, frowning up at the ceiling.

  Damn. She really was going to have to talk to him, wasn’t she? She didn’t have to, of course. Nothing was forcing her except her own curiosity. But if she didn’t, what then?

  An uncomfortable feeling crept through her, an awareness of something she’d been trying very hard not to think about for the past couple of days. No, scratch that. She’d been trying not to think about it ever since they’d started sleeping together.

  She hadn’t considered how long this . . . affair would last nor had she wanted to. But now, things were different. She’d talked to him about her parents, about her sister. Had revealed her secret fears to him, things she hadn’t told anyone. It made her feel close to him, and it made her want more of him. More of his own secrets, the things he didn’t talk about. About his childhood and where he grew up. About birds and why he kept trying to draw them. Anything about him, really
.

  She studied the ceiling intently, sorting through ideas on where to go to get more information There were his brothers, of course. Maybe she should email the oldest brother, Lorenzo. Because how else was she going to find out what she wanted to know?

  Something caught her eye, a flash of red light.

  She blinked, then narrowed her gaze at the fire alarm that had been fixed on the ceiling at the corner of the room. There was a small red light on it, so small she hadn’t noticed it before, and it was flickering. Did that mean it needed the battery changed?

  Phoebe frowned at it for a moment. Then she noticed something else weird about it. There was a dark round circle just above the red light. A circle that . . .

  Something cold slid down her back. No, that couldn’t be what it looked like, could it? That wasn’t . . . a camera? Because why would there be a camera here in her room? She was seeing things, obviously.

  Glancing back down at the screen, she pulled up her mail program in preparation for sending out an email to Lorenzo. Then, because it kept nagging at her, she glanced back up at the fire alarm and the little dark circle.

  It really looked like a camera.

  Dammit.

  Phoebe put aside the laptop on the couch, got up, then gripped the edge of the coffee table and dragged it over the carpet until she’d positioned it right underneath the fire alarm. Then she got up on top of it.

  The ceiling was high and she wasn’t quite tall enough to touch it, but on closer inspection, the dark circle did indeed, look very much like a camera.

  Shock pulsed through her and, hard on its heels, anger.

  What the hell was a camera doing in her room? And who had put it there and why?

  You know who.

  Her jaw hardened and she turned, jumping off the coffee table and striding into the bedroom. A quick search of the ceiling there revealed another fire alarm and another tell-tale black circle of a camera lens.

  So he was watching her here as well.

  Anger tightened inside her, red hot and intense.

  She whirled around and stormed into the bathroom, not knowing what she’d do if she found one in there but knowing she had to search for one anyway. Luckily, the fire alarm there seemed to be a normal one, but, really, how would she know? Perhaps he had a camera put there somewhere else?

  Phoebe strode out of her suite, heading toward the stairs that led to Nero’s office, anger burning hot inside her. First of all, there was the sheer invasion of her privacy factor, and second, that they’d shared some intimate moments together and yet he hadn’t seen fit to mention that he’d had cameras installed in her rooms made her furious.

  God, did he watch her through those cameras? How often? And why? Was he watching her right now?

  As she stormed down the stairs, she glanced up at the ceiling, spotting another suspicious-looking fire alarm. Then another as she went down the hallway toward his office. Bloody hell, did he have them everywhere? Through the entire house? Had he been watching her this entire time?

  Her entire face went hot at the thought, not that she’d done anything incriminating or extremely embarrassing, but at the indignity of not knowing she’d been watched by someone. By him.

  Her palm itched. She’d hit him once before, down in the gym, and right now, she’d love to take another swing.

  His office door was closed, but this time she didn’t bother to knock. She threw it open with enough force that it bounced off the wall, and strode through, only to find that the office was empty.

  Damn. Where was the bloody man?

  In no mood to go searching for him, she reached into her jacket pocket for her phone, intending to text him, and then frowned, her attention catching on the door behind the great monolith of a desk. She’d never paid much attention to that door. She’d seen him come out of it more than a few times and had always assumed it led to a private bathroom or something. Maybe it actually did. In which case, to hell with it. If he was in there, she was going to find him.

  She headed straight toward the desk, skirting around it, and reaching out to put her hand on the door handle. Only to have it turn beneath her palm and the door start to open right in front of her, Nero stepping out from behind it.

  Startled, she glanced up at him, meeting his dark eyes.

  And in that moment the doubt she’d had that perhaps the cameras hadn’t been his doing after all, died. He didn’t look at all surprised to see her. Which meant he was expecting her. He’d known she was coming, because he’d been watching her through those cameras.

  Anger flared inside her.

  “You put a camera in my room,” she said flatly, not making it a question.

  His big body filled the doorway, very obviously trying to block whatever was in that room from her, a strange expression in his eyes. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

  “Oh yes, you bloody do!” She angled her head, trying to see past his shoulders into the room behind him. It appeared to be bigger than the bathroom she’d assumed it was. “Why, Nero? You’ve got cameras all over the house! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  He shifted in front of her, scowling, that sharp-edged look glittering in his eyes. “Go back upstairs. I’ll talk to you about it then.”

  “No.” She craned to see over his shoulder. “We’ll talk about it now.”

  “Phoebe—”

  But she could see something, a flash on the wall, like a flicker from a TV screen. What was he doing in there?

  “Are you filming me?” she demanded.

  One massive shoulder blocked her view again. “It’s nothing,” he growled, glaring at her.

  But she ignored him. “It’s something.” She raised one hand and shoved so that he was pushed to one side. Then she slipped right past him and into the room.

  And froze.

  Right in front of her, above a huge black desk, was a wall of computer monitors. They were displaying different things, CNN, a news website, a camera feed from Times Square and one from Central Park. A stock ticker moved across the bottom of one screen, while some kind of space movie was playing on another. A third screen displayed the face of an oddly familiar woman.

  The middle three screens showed scenes from inside the house. Her sitting room. Her bedroom. And the last one was displaying his office, with Nero’s powerful back to the camera.

  Against one wall was a couch with a blanket thrown haphazardly over it, the cushions dented as if a massive body had lain on them many, many times.

  She blinked at the wall of screens, at the couch, her anger gradually being replaced by shock. And also, unexpectedly, a kind of pity. Because she got it. Despite the egregious invasion of privacy, she understood.

  This was his window onto the world.

  A world that for some reason, he chose not to be part of.

  She took a breath. This was something she couldn’t ignore and she couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened. The moment she’d been trying to avoid was here.

  She was going to have to talk to him.

  Slowly, Phoebe turned around.

  Nero was standing in the doorway watching her, fury in his dark eyes. His massive, muscled body braced as if he was expecting a blow.

  So she gave it to him. “Nero. Explain.”

  * * *

  Nero met that steady, golden-brown gaze, every muscle in his body drawn tight with rage. He felt like she’d kicked aside his ribs, baring his insides, and was now looking at them, studying them.

  He didn’t want to tell her. He didn’t want to tell her anything. And he was pissed that she was here, that she’d just elbowed past him and now she was in the one place no one else but him had ever been in.

  His safe room.

  A part of him—the small, frightened boy he’d once been—hated her for that. For the invasion of his privacy, because he couldn’t bear to examine the reasons why she might be pissed with him. Or the fact that he was being a fucking hypocrite.

  –He knew she had a ri
ght to be angry with him. He also knew that her feelings were important and that he couldn’t dismiss them. That they mattered, because she mattered.

  He didn’t want her to matter, but she did. And he found he couldn’t do what he normally did, which was to lash out in defensive rage, even though every instinct in him was desperate to protect himself in any way he could.

  She was always going to find out. She’s not stupid.

  That thought didn’t help, even though he knew it for truth. In fact, he’d watched her in her sitting room just now—watching her had become an addiction he couldn’t seem to break—and had seen her frown and zero in on the camera. He had sat there, staring at the screen, unable to move as she’d dragged the coffee table over just beneath the fire alarm he’d had the cameras installed into. As she, got onto the table, and stared up at the camera, frowning.

  He’d seen the moment she’d realized what it was, the bright flare of golden anger. Then, the realization of who had done it, too.

  He could have gotten up then, and rushed to meet her, tell her some kind of lie, deny it. But all he’d done was sit there watching her, flicking from camera to camera as she’d come down the hallway and down the stairs, racing toward him, fury in her eyes.

  You wanted her to find out.

  Fuck, maybe he did. Maybe that’s why he’d done nothing to stop her. And maybe she was even owed an explanation. After all, she’d given up all her secrets to him as if he was more than just a scared animal hiding in its den.

  Except he didn’t want to give her an explanation. He really didn’t want to.

  All the anger had drained out of her expression, and he didn’t know why, because surely seeing the screens should have made her even angrier. But she wasn’t looking at him with fury now; it was something else. Something that made him turn away from her, heading over to the desk and the bank of screens, hitting a button that made them all go dead. Hiding them.

  “Nero.” Her voice was soft, and there was a gentleness to it that felt sharper than anger. Sharper than a scalpel cut and a thousand times more painful. “What is all of this?”

  He put his palms flat to the desk in front of him and leaned on them, staring down at the black wood. There was a beast inside of him, a beast that wanted to snarl at her, to swipe at her with its paws. Not to harm her, but maybe take her down on the floor, distract her from cutting into him. Use pleasure to take away that terrible look on her face, the one that made him want to howl. The one that reminded him of pity.