The Wicked Billionaire--A Billionaire SEAL Romance

by Jackie Ashenden

  She didn’t want that for herself now she was an adult, not the poverty or the meanness, but she’d put up with having no money if it meant she could prove him wrong about her work. That she wasn’t a talentless waste of time.

  “Get another job then,” Lucas said dismissively. “It’s not like there’s a shortage of bars in Manhattan.”

  Grace stared at him, at the light running lovingly over his sweat-slick skin, highlighting all that perfect, sculpted muscle. The way his tank was sticking to him, she could see virtually every single one of his abs.

  God, how could such a cold-hearted bastard be so damn beautiful? It was just so wrong.

  He’s not totally coldhearted. He got your canvases for you.

  He had. Yet in one fell swoop, he’d just undone all the good feeling that had given her.

  “And exactly how am I supposed to get another job when I can’t leave this apartment?” she pointed out, struggling to keep her voice level. “Being here doesn’t stop all my bills from coming in and needing to be paid.”

  He paused at that, giving her another intense blue glance. “Like I said, I’ll handle it.”

  “How?”

  “Leave that to me.” He was already turning back to the bag, reaching out to steady its swing. “We’ll talk about it later.”

  Grace swallowed as the panic tightened its fingers around her throat. She wanted to walk right over there and put herself between him and the bag, demand he tell her exactly what he meant by “handle it.” But the shocks of the day were making her feel close to tears and all it would take was him being an asshole to her and she’d probably cry. Which would be a blow to her pride that she just couldn’t bear. Besides, she’d already had more than enough upheaval for one day and a massive argument was the last thing she needed.

  Instead she swallowed past the lump that had risen in her throat. “You’re damn right we will,” she said, making sure her voice sounded strong. “I’m sorry about your father, by the way.”

  The mention of his death had been so casual, she hadn’t taken it in until a couple of minutes after Lucas had told her. But then, as she was starting to discover, that was Lucas. He made the close death of a family member sound like absolutely nothing.

  Unless he wasn’t actually that close to his father.

  That could be true and she could relate. Then again, she wasn’t curious enough to ask about it. Not in the slightest. That would no doubt uncover her own daddy issues, and she did not want to revisit those anytime soon.

  Lucas only gave a short nod of acknowledgment before lowering his head and raising his fists, sending another jackhammer blow into the bag in front of him.

  Grace debated raising a middle finger in his honor and then decided it wasn’t worth it. Not when he wouldn’t see it anyway.

  Instead she lifted her chin, turned around, and walked out. Leaving him alone with his stupid damn punching bag.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Grace sat cross-legged on the floor in the middle of one of the empty upstairs rooms, staring at the canvas propped up against the wall in front of her. The room was probably meant to be a bedroom, but since there was no furniture in it, she’d turned into a makeshift studio instead.

  It was large and white and very bare, but it was saved from complete austerity by the top of the huge rose window that had its center in the living area on the floor below.

  Light came in through the stained glass, casting colors across the blank slate of the canvas. There were skylights above her too, letting in more light, though this wasn’t as warm as the reds and golds of the stained glass. This was the usual winter gray, a hard, dull light that normally meant snow was in the offing.

  She frowned at the canvas, fiddling with the brush she held in one hand. A brush she hadn’t used yet, mainly because she had no freaking idea what she was going to paint. Just like she’d had no idea for the past couple of months.

  It was a worry. The painting in front of her was supposed to tie the collection together, so she wanted it to be special. She wanted it to be powerful and strong and uplifting. A hopeful piece.

  Actually, now that she thought about it, that could be the problem. She just didn’t feel very hopeful. Or inspired. Or creative even.

  What she felt was anxious and angry and afraid.

  It was crazy, especially in this place that was so full of light and color, and deep silence and peace. Yet the feeling she’d had when she’d first stepped through the doors, the need to pick up her brush and create something beautiful, had gone and hadn’t come back.

  No great surprises there.

  Well, no, not really. It was a little hard to be creative when a bunch of scary men were after you, essentially keeping you a prisoner. Sure, her cell was beautiful, but it was still a cell. She still couldn’t go outside, see if she could find some inspiration in the city that pulsed with life beyond the walls of the apartment.

  Lucas had also forbidden contact with friends and family, so she was essentially isolated as well. The family part she didn’t care about, not now her grandparents had passed on and she hadn’t spoken to her mother since she’d told Grace about her father’s death two years ago. Not even when Griffin had died.

  Oh, she understood why she had to remain incommunicado, but it was infuriating, because she wouldn’t have minded contacting her friends. Lucas did allow her e-mails but only if they were sent to him first so he could forward them via some complicated means that would hide her IP address. Or something.

  Normally, when she was painting and getting into it, she wouldn’t have minded being cut off from everyone, since, much like her father, she hated to be disturbed when the creative juices were flowing.

  But they weren’t flowing now, and sitting here, in an echoing empty apartment, where no one but Lucas knew where she was, she felt her isolation acutely.

  Over the past couple of days, in an effort to shake herself up, she’d explored her little prison, poking around in all the rooms, including peering out on to the rooftop terrace just off the kitchen, where there seemed to be lots of plants, an arrangement of couches, and a Jacuzzi. It was amazing. In fact, the whole place was amazing. Lucas had told her it had once been an old church that had been converted into a couple of apartments and that he owned the whole building, using the front apartment as a secret bolt-hole, the rear apartment he kept empty because apparently he didn’t like having neighbors.

  It was a pretty big place all up, especially compared to her pokey little apartment, and she had to admit she was enjoying the luxury of the soft bed in the room she’d chosen for her bedroom, plus the walk-in shower in the en suite bathroom. The kitchen too—clean white tile and stainless steel—was spectacular, not that she was the greatest cook or anything, but it sure made boiling an egg a nice experience.

  Yet for all of that, after a couple of days she was starting to go a little stir-crazy.

  Lucas himself wasn’t around a lot. He came and went with seemingly no pattern and without telling her what he was doing. The first night she’d decided she didn’t want to talk to him after all, feeling exhausted and out of sorts, so she’d chosen herself a bedroom and had fallen asleep pretty quickly.

  The next day he was gone by the time she woke up, but food had miraculously appeared in the cupboards, so she’d made herself coffee and some breakfast and explored. She found he’d left instructions for how to work the TV in the TV room that led off the long gallery of the living area, plus how to operate the stereo and various other electronic items. There was a whole page on the complicated lock on the front door, which he’d then rendered utterly pointless by reminding her she couldn’t go out anyway.

  She hadn’t watched TV, though. She’d spent the day positioning her paintings in her new studio. He’d arrived back soon after that, briefly informing her that he had, indeed, handed her resignation to her boss at the bar where she worked. He’d also paid another month’s rent on her apartment, plus settled all her bills.

  She’d blink
ed at him, too shocked to say anything, and by the time she’d gotten herself together enough to speak he’d left again.

  She didn’t quite know what to do with the fact that he’d paid her bills. Or with the way he’d told her what he’d done. So flat and final. Allowing her no opportunity for argument or protest, which she resented.

  He wasn’t doing it for charity’s sake, she knew that. Or out of the goodness of his heart, she knew that too. He was doing it because the bills needed to be paid and she couldn’t pay them herself because of the danger she was in. He was there to protect her from that danger, and that clearly included ensuring she didn’t lose her apartment.

  If he’d been a different kind of man that would have made her feel really good. But he was stone-cold Lucas Tate and it didn’t make her feel good, it only made her feel weird.

  Grace glared at the canvas in front of her, but her brain refused to focus on it. For some reason her mind kept revolving back over the past couple of days and the brief meetings she’d had with Lucas. Particularly the one where she’d seen him in the gym with the punching bag.

  Yeah, that particular image she couldn’t seem to get out of her head.

  Him, sweat slicked and powerful. Launching blow after blow at the canvas bag, making it rock and swing on its chain. The fluid way he moved, the sheer physical power in each stroke. Full of hot violence and raw male strength.

  Restlessness filled her, making her get to her feet and pace up and down in front of the canvas. How annoying that when she wanted some inspiration for her most vital work the only thing that came into her head was him.

  She turned and went over to where she’d stacked all her art supplies, bending to pick up her drawing pad and a couple of pencils. Maybe if she sketched him that would get him out of her head, because God knew she didn’t need him in there.

  Moving back into the middle of the room, she sat down again and flicked the pad open to a blank page, then furiously began to draw. Which lasted all of five minutes before, frustrated, she ripped the page out, balled it up, and threw it over her shoulder. Then she started again.

  A quarter of an hour later, a small pile of balled-up pages at her back, the image of Lucas Tate boxing looming as large in her head as ever, Grace finally cursed and tossed her pad to the side.

  Getting to her feet, she prowled over to the stained-glass window and peered through it. Not that she could see anything much out of it. Muttering another curse, she turned and walked back to where her blank canvas was.

  The painting she’d done of Griffin stood beside it, his lopsided smile and familiar dark eyes reflected in the mirror, making it look like he was sharing a joke with the viewer. When she’d painted him, she hadn’t quite known what she was going to do with him. She’d simply followed her instinct. And it had turned out to be such a very Griffin moment. That smile. The amusement she’d managed to capture in his eyes.

  Grief caught at her, making the cracks that ran through her heart ache.

  She had loved him. Probably not in the way she should have, but it had been love nonetheless. She’d met him at a party a friend of hers had thrown and he’d been so nice to her. So kind. Warm and funny and chilled out. The interest he’d shown in her had been balm to her lonely soul, and the fact that he was the antithesis of her moody, temperamental father in every way only made him even more perfect.

  “What were you doing?” she murmured into the silence, staring at the picture she’d painted of him. “And why? Did you ever think that this would happen? Did you ever stop to think about what it might mean for me?”

  But she knew the answer to that. Of course he hadn’t thought about it. Griffin never did. He was always a shoot-first-ask-questions-later kind of guy.

  Then again, she’d never thought he’d have kept secrets from her either, but clearly he had.

  She took a couple of steps up to the painting, Griffin’s figure looming large above her. It had been nearly eighteen months since she’d seen him, the sound of his voice already becoming faint in her head. She tried to remember the last time he’d touched her that hadn’t been the hug he’d given her before he’d gone off on his last deployment. Tried to remember the last time he’d kissed her, the last time they’d made love.

  But she couldn’t.

  All she seemed to see in her head was Lucas Tate.

  You’re attracted to him.

  No. Just no. She wasn’t. He was beautiful, sure, and she admired that. But she was an artist; she was supposed to admire beauty. And it didn’t mean she wanted to do anything more than look at him.

  Besides, even if she was attracted to him she wasn’t exactly going to go out there and do something about it. He wasn’t her type for one thing, and for another, he was Griffin’s friend. Plus there was the fact that beautiful men like him did not go for plain girls like her. They just didn’t.

  “Grace.” Lucas’s cold, deep voice came from behind her, making her start.

  Fantastic. He would have to come and find her right when she was looking at the picture of her dead husband while trying to get him out of her stupid head.

  Hoping she wasn’t blushing like a teenage girl and yet knowing she was all the same, Grace didn’t turn around. “What?” she asked crossly, staring at the picture of Griffin instead.

  “You haven’t been eating the fish I bought. Is there something wrong with it?”

  He’d been studying her eating habits now? “No. I just don’t like fish.”

  “Fine. I’ll make sure I get something different in the way of meat then.”

  “You know, it might be an idea to actually ask me what I’d like before you go buying food.…” She paused, looking up at Griffin’s dark eyes reflected in the mirror. “Or paying my rent. Or settling all my bills.”

  There was a silence.

  “Your financial situation was a problem for you.” Lucas’s voice sounded closer. “So I solved it.”

  For some reason her heartbeat had gotten faster, which was intensely annoying. There was no reason for her to keep having this reaction around him and she still didn’t even know why.

  “You solved it without asking me if it was okay,” she said, feeling stubborn. “And I would have appreciated you asking me first.”

  “You would have told me no, purely because you don’t like being told what to do. Which wasn’t solving the problem. What’s this?”

  Grace turned around in time to see that he’d picked up one of her balled-up pieces of paper and was opening it out. The piece of paper with the drawing of him on it.

  Oh shit. Her failed drawings of him boxing were the very last things in the world that she wanted him to see.

  “Give me that.” Forgetting her annoyance, she lunged at him, trying to grab the offending piece of paper out of his hand. But he was too fast, holding it up out of her reach.

  “Lucas.” Her breath was coming faster and she could feel her skin starting to heat with embarrassment. She made another grab for the paper, but he only held it higher. “Give that to me.” She starting to sound breathless now. “It’s private.”

  Great. Now you’ve made a big deal out of it.

  Ignoring her, Lucas spread the drawing out and stared down at it.

  There was an intense, heavy silence.

  The pencil she’d been holding creaked in her grip and she had to fight to loosen her hold before she broke it. He wouldn’t have seen her drawings before. Even in the apartment she’d shared with Griffin, she hadn’t hung any on the walls, keeping all her paintings in the studio space she rented.

  She didn’t much like people looking at her work, even though she knew she was going to have to get over that if she wanted to exhibit it, and she certainly didn’t want this man to be the first to give her a critique.

  “This is me.” His voice sounded as blank as it normally did, yet when he looked up at her, all of a sudden there was something in his eyes she didn’t recognize. It wasn’t the thin layer of ice that made his stare so sharp and cold. It wa
s something else. “This is me, isn’t it?”

  There was a demanding note in his voice, as if it was vitally important to him that he know.

  Grace lifted her chin, determined not to let him see her embarrassment or her sudden trepidation. She didn’t care what he thought of it. It was just a stupid drawing that wasn’t even very good anyway. “Yes,” she said, meeting his gaze head on. “It is.”

  “Why?”

  The question was as sharp as the crack of a whip, almost making her jump.

  Irritated with herself and by the fact that she was letting this get to her, she held out her hand for the drawing. “Why did I draw you? Because I wanted to.”

  He didn’t give it to her. Only kept staring at her, that thing she didn’t understand flickering in his eyes. And despite herself, fascination started to stir inside her. She wanted to get closer, see what it was that lurked in the depths of his gaze. Because it was an emotion of some kind, that much she was sure of.

  Luckily, at that moment he looked back down at the drawing again, his brows drawing together in a faint frown. He seemed almost mesmerized by it, which for some reason made the ridiculous reaction she had to him even worse.

  Starting to get quite annoyed now, Grace made another swipe for her drawing and this time managed to snatch it out of his hands.

  His head came up sharply, that stare of his sliding right through her, pinning her.

  “It’s nothing,” she heard herself say, the words somehow spilling out like grain from a tear in a grain sack. “It’s just a stupid doodle. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “If it didn’t mean anything then why are there ten other pieces of paper all scattered around here?”

  He’d counted them? Oh, crap.

  “Because I couldn’t get it right, okay?”

  “Couldn’t get what right?”

  You and your beauty. Your heat. Your spark. Your power. The contrasts of you that I can’t stop thinking about.