by Noelle Adams
Stripping the Billionaire
Noelle Adams
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Noelle Adams. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.
Content Editing: Kristin Anders, The Romantic Editor.
Proofreading: Vanessa Bridges, PREMA Romance
For Ruth,
who pulled Seducing the Enemy out of the slush and got me writing again. I don’t think I would have started publishing at all if not for you!
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Epilogue
Excerpt from Seducing the Enemy
About the Author
One
Amanda Milton, known to all as Mandy for the entire twenty-four years of her life, knocked on Ben’s door, holding a six-pack of imported beer. She had a sofa-sized framed print propped up against her legs.
When no one responded, she knocked again. Then she tried the door knob.
It had been left opened, so she let herself in.
Ben was really sloppy about a lot of things—including locking his apartment when he went downstairs to work out in the building’s gym.
Mandy shook her head as she walked into his Spartan apartment.
There were dishes in the sink and at least two weeks’ worth of unopened mail on the kitchen counter. He had a tower of books against one wall—not in any sort of order, just one piled on top of the other as soon as he finished reading them—and there wasn’t a single picture on the walls.
The man was a mess.
She put the beer in the refrigerator, which boasted nothing but a pizza box and a couple of Chinese takeout containers. Even the cheap beer he normally stocked was almost gone.
Then she brought the print over to his old couch, a hideously ugly piece of furniture he must have bought secondhand.
This was a relatively expensive apartment building, so he must make a decent income at the architecture firm he worked for. She didn’t know why he didn’t make even the most basic attempt to improve his living conditions.
She’d taken off her shoes—they were new designer heels in a lovely dark red—and had stepped up on the couch to secure the picture hanger she’d brought over with her little hammer, when a voice behind her startled her.
“What the hell?”
She jerked and whirled around, almost losing her balance on the couch.
Ben stepped over quickly to help her down before she fell.
Ben Cain was big—tall and strong with lean hips, well-developed biceps, and impressive shoulders. She was just under average height, but she felt tiny as she grabbed at him to catch her balance.
Her eyes were drawn to the sight of his large hands, which had slid down to her hips. His fingers spanned the curve of them over the fabric of her skirt.
She was slightly breathless, for no good reason, as she looked up at him.
But it was just Ben. He was hardly a candidate for romantic interest—much less husband material.
He was her neighbor, and it wasn’t always easy to even be that.
His eyes were very dark, and his face was characteristically grumpy beneath the full, untrimmed beard.
“What’s the story, Cupcake?”
That was one of his many annoying habits. He insisted on calling her “Cupcake.”
“I was hanging this picture for you,” she explained with a smile. She’d learned that blithely ignoring his rudeness was the best way to relate to him—and also had the added bonus of getting on his nerves. “My client wanted to get rid of it, and I immediately thought of you.”
Ben’s frown deepened as he looked down at the picture she was turning around to show him. “Nice to know other people’s garbage makes you think of me.” He paused as he took in the black-and-white photograph that had been enlarged to sofa-size. “Where is that?”
“I don’t know. But you’re always pouring over those architectural magazines, so I figured you might like it.”
The photo was of the corner of a building with some interesting, historical moldings. The unusual angle of the shot made it look almost abstract. She could tell from the way Ben studied it that he liked it, and she felt a swell of satisfaction.
It was sometimes a challenge to be Ben’s friend, so even small victories felt like a reward.
“So I can hang it up?” she asked.
“I guess. Except I’ll hang it. That thing is as big as you are.”
He took her little hammer, muttering something about “cupcake tools,” and went over to nail in the hanger she’d brought with her.
“It needs to be a lower,” she told him, gauging the placement with a practiced eye. She was an interior decorator by training, although she was just starting to grow her business, so she didn’t have many jobs lined up. “Pictures should be at eye level.”
“Of course, they should.” He raised the hammer and was about to pound the nail in when she stopped him.
“Wait. Move to the right about a centimeter.”
He grumbled under his breath, making her laugh, as he secured the hanger and then lifted the photo to suspend it by the wire on the back.
Mandy grinned in pleasure, since the one picture made the whole room look a little less stark. “See how nice it looks?”
“It’s not bad.” That was high praise, coming from Ben. “As long as your attempts to beautify me are limited to my walls.”
She stepped over to take the hammer out of his hand, her fingers brushing against his as she did. Once more, she felt that same visceral pull toward him—like she was overly conscious of the presence of his body.
It was a ridiculous reaction, since she didn’t even find him attractive. The beard almost completely disguised his features, but even without it, he was too rough and intimidating for her, with his dramatic eyes, large frame, and the tattoos all down one arm.
She’d always liked clean-cut men who knew how to dress and were well-groomed. She liked men who had themselves together professionally and socially. Last year, she’d made a resolution not to waste her time dating men who weren’t ready for marriage, and Ben clearly was not. Her weird reaction to him now must just be a passing thing.
To distract herself, she grinned. “As a matter of fact, I bought a trimmer yesterday.”
His expression had softened slightly as he gazed down on her, but now the glower returned to his face. “Why did you buy a trimmer?”
“I needed a new hair straightener, and I just saw it in the aisle. It made me think of you.”
“If you even think of getting close to my face with that trimmer, every pair of shoes in your closet will pay the price.”
She giggled and patted him on the chest, realizing as she did that he was a little sweaty still from working out. “I’ll persevere. Seriously, if you’d just trim the beard some, you’d look so much better. No girl is going to want to get close to you when you look like a hulking Neanderthal.”
She wasn’t actually sure it was true. He didn’t seem to have much of a social life, but she had no doubt that he could get a girl if he made any sort of effort. A lot of women liked the rougher types, and he wasn’t really unattractive. He had good teeth and a good smile—the few times he bothered to show it. And his body was nothing to sneer at.
/> Nothing to sneer at, at all.
She forced the thought down since it was bringing back her strange reaction to his physicality. It must be some sort of freak hormonal thing based on the time of the month.
“How was your date last night?” he asked. There wasn’t any segue, but he’d always been kind of abrupt that way.
She gave a half-shrug and made a face. “Eh.”
“What was wrong with this one?”
“Nothing, really. I mean, he was good-looking and smart enough, and he has a good job. It’s just that, when he came up to my place afterwards, he turned on sports. And I seriously started to wonder if he was more interested in the game than in me.”
Ben gave a throaty burst of laughter. “Cupcake, I think you’ll find that to be the case with most men.”
“I’m not prepared to accept that.”
“Okay.” He was shaking his head and smiling dryly. “You’re the one who’ll keep getting crushed when the guy doesn’t live up to your unrealistic fantasies.”
“I don’t have unrealistic fantasies.” Her spine had stiffened as her annoyance with him increased. “I have some basic, reasonable criteria for the men I date, and one is that he has to be interested enough in me to turn off the damned game.”
He gave that same mocking chortle. “Good luck with that.”
She was genuinely annoyed with him now, feeling strangely defensive, so she stomped barefoot over to the kitchen counter and started to organize his mail for him—just for something to do.
“Hey,” he said, coming over to join her as she slapped down piece after piece of junk mail in a pile. “Don’t take out your pissiness on my innocent mail.”
“I’m not pissy. And this stack is outrageous. When was the last time you went through it? There might be something important in here.”
“I never get anything important in the mail. And you’re going to have to eventually accept that I’m a lost cause. None of your efforts in my direction are going to pay off.”
She looked at him sharply and saw something on his face then—something she’d only seen a few times. An expression that was lost, almost poignant.
So her stupid, soft heart went out to him again, just when she’d been stewing with righteous indignation. “I don’t make efforts toward you for a payoff.” She kept her voice light, intentionally almost prim. “I make efforts because the world would be better off if you weren’t such a hulking Neanderthal. It’s my civic duty.”
Her tone worked. He almost smiled. “That’s twice in five minutes you’ve called me that.”
“Shall I count up the number of times you’ve called me Cupcake in the same amount of time?”
“Take a look at those shoes.”
She glanced over to her shoes automatically. One was standing up, and one had fallen on its side. Both were that gorgeous dark red, shiny, high-heeled, very expensive.
When she turned back to Ben, he lifted a hand and ran it down the length of her hair, which was waist-length and champagne-colored and which she kept very straight. “And look at this hair.”
She was suddenly breathless, when his expression changed as he gazed down at her hair. His fingers got tangled in a strand so he gently extricated them.
Then his eyes returned to her face, returned to their previous expression. “You’re definitely a Cupcake.”
“What’s wrong with that?” She wasn’t offended. She’d known Ben since she moved into her apartment eight months ago, and his teasing and grumpiness were both just the way he was. It was just him. She still felt strangely affected by the look in his eye and his touch, and she wasn’t sure why it was coming out of the blue like this.
“Nothing is wrong with it. I like cupcakes.”
“You do not. You’re not a cupcake-guy. You’re a leftover-pizza-guy.”
“Guilty.”
She glanced down at the mail she’d been sorting and showed an envelope to him that caught her attention. “You have a letter from Damon Enterprises,” she said, exaggerating the sweet tone. “I’m sure they’re inviting you personally to a special high tea at one of their classy establishments.”
She thought it was funny—the idea of Ben in one of the Damon places. The company was notorious for its fancy pubs, restaurants, and tea rooms that appealed to an old-fashioned Anglophile sentiment.
Ben, however, didn’t think it was funny. He snatched the letter out of her hand and glared at her coldly. Much colder than his normal grumpiness. “I did not say you could go through my mail.”
“I know that.” She frowned at him in confusion, feeling strangely hurt by the rebuff. “But if I waited for an invitation, then I’d never see you at all.”
She took the offending letter out of his hands and dropped it in the pile with the rest of the junk mail. “I’m sure you just got on some mailing list about the opening of a new property.” She swallowed. “If you really don’t want me puttering around, you’ll tell me, right?”
“Damn it, Mandy,” he muttered, tilting her head up so she was looking at him. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I keep telling you I’m not worth the trouble.”
She brightened, realizing that he hadn’t meant the tone personally and that he didn’t actually want to get rid of her. He had a lot of rough edges, but that wasn’t enough to discourage her.
“Speaking of all the trouble I go to for your sake, you have to come over to my place for dinner tonight.”
“What?” The sincerity in his eyes was gone, and he looked cranky again. “Why do I have to do that?”
She smiled. “Three reasons. One, you were mean just now, and you have to make up for it. Two, otherwise, you’ll eat that pizza that’s been in your refrigerator for four days, and that’s just gross. And, three, The Wallet sent me this huge steak, and there’s no way I can eat the whole thing myself.”
Mandy’s mother had been a top-level executive at a very lucrative corporation, and her father had been a successful defense attorney. When she was seventeen, they’d both died in a boating accident. One of her father’s friends had been appointed guardian and managed the trust set up for her until she turned twenty-five—next year.
She had no problems with Michael Seymour, but he worked all the time and resisted all efforts of hers to spend time with him. He only interacted with her about money, so she’d affectionately coined him, “The Wallet.”
“Why did he send you a steak?”
“He sent me a whole case of them. I guess he just got back from a vacation on a ranch in Wyoming. He was trying to be nice, I think.”
“So he sent you steaks? Even I know better than that.”
She was touched that Ben looked so indignant, and she put her hand on his arm as she laughed softly. “It’s the thought that counts. It’s nice that he remembers me.”
“You shouldn’t be so grateful for such a trivial gesture. He could have done a lot more for you over the years.”
She gave a little shrug. “I’m not his family, and he’s fulfilled all of his commitments. It would have been silly of me to expect him to act like we’re family. He didn’t have to send me anything at all, you know.”
Ben was still frowning, as if he were irrationally resentful towards the other man.
“I’ll take any sort of connection with him I can get,” she said softly. “He’s the closest thing to family I have anymore.”
Ben released a long sigh. “I know. I don’t think it’s enough, though.”
She gave another little shrug, feeling unexpectedly close to him. They’d teased and mocked and hung out and helped each other for the last six months—after the two months it had taken for Ben to relent to her persistent attempts to get to know him—but they rarely talked about anything deep.
“I’m easy,” she said with another smile. “I’ll take what I can get.”
“You should have higher expectations for people.”
“I thought you were just telling me that I have unrealistic romantic expectations.”
&nbs
p; “Well, yeah, of course. For romance, you’re expecting too much. But you’re too easy on everyone else. People really aren’t that great, you know.”
There was a bitterness in his tone that she’d heard before and that she didn’t like. Something had obviously happened in his past that had turned Ben off from humanity completely. “People are people, and I happen to want people in my life. All I ask for is honesty and some small gesture of good will.”
His expression changed almost imperceptibly. “Even that’s too much to hope for. People are pretty much selfish, and they lie all the time.”
“I don’t believe that. Even you’ve managed to live up to my meager standards, after all.” She grinned at him. “I look for the good in people, and usually I find something.”
“And I guess that’s why you’re content with dinner with a hulking Neanderthal.”
“Exactly. You’re what I’ve got for an across-the-hall neighbor, so I make the best of it.”
“Most people don’t hang out much with their neighbors, you know.”
“I know. But I like to know the people around me. I don’t like to feel…alone.”
“You have more friends than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“Yeah, but I like to know my neighbors too. What’s wrong with that?”
Mandy knew some people thought she was strange for having tea every few days with the elderly woman who lived down the hall and watching a two-year-old occasionally on Saturday afternoons so his parents, who lived on the other side of the hall, could get a little peace and quiet.
She probably overdid the neighborly-ness. And she might have been turning dating into a competitive sport because she wanted so much to get married.
But it was important for her not to feel alone, and she did a lot of the time. Ever since she’d lost her parents, she’d also lost her sense of family.
Ben had been watching her face, and he must have seen something in her expression. “Nothing’s wrong with that,” he said, uncharacteristically quiet. “I just wonder if you’re searching for something that doesn’t really exist.”