The Billionaire's Redemption (The Billionaire's Kiss, Book Five): (A Billionaire Alpha Romance)

by Olivia Thorne

  Greeeaaat. So she’s incredibly flexible.

  In bed, too, I’ll bet.

  Which starts a whole slideshow of images I don’t want to see.

  I wish I had Clorox for my brain right about now.

  “I don’t care how flexible she is,” I gripe. “Why do we need a gymnast?”

  “Well, it’s not just that. She can do parkour – ”

  “You can do parkour. We’ve already got somebody who can do parkour, so why do we need her?”

  “We can always use another escape artist,” he says mildly.

  “You’re the escape artist! You’re a cat burglar, for God’s sake! We don’t need her.”

  “She has finesse. She’s probably the most graceful thief I’ve ever seen.”

  I boil a little at that comment. ‘Graceful’ is not an adjective you want to hear your man say about his ex.

  ‘Smelly’ and ‘bad in bed’ would have been much better.

  “Plus, she’s a martial artist,” Grant says. “Judo and kickboxing. Really good at it, too.”

  Little Miss Dominique, she’s fucking perfect at EVERYTHING.

  “I just don’t see why you’re duplicating skill sets,” I say, trying to sound logical.

  “Somehow, I don’t think that’s your primary objection.”

  FUCKER.

  I scowl. “My primary objection is that of all the thieves you could have contacted for help, you call the one ex-girlfriend you have.”

  “Well… actually… she’s not the only ex I have from that particular circle of friends.”

  Great. I imagine a legion of Dominiques, gorgeous nymphs and Amazons of all nationalities and races.

  “So, just the most attractive one, huh?” I fume.

  He sighs and wraps his arms around me. I struggle at first, but he holds on, overpowering me.

  “Hey – hey, look at me,” he commands.

  I don’t want to.

  “Eve… look at me,” he says, his voice soothing.

  I raise my eyes gradually to his.

  “You’re the only one I want, okay?”

  I want to believe him – I do –

  And then he leans over and kisses me. Soft… slow… deep.

  All my jealous rage drifts away as I melt into his lips.

  When he ends the kiss, he smiles. “I only want you. Not her.”

  Oh God. It feels so crappy being insecure… I want it to stop…

  But every time I think of her, I think of how she must look naked… and how he’s been naked with her… how he’s made love to her…

  It makes me sick. And terribly afraid of losing him.

  “I still think you should ditch her,” I grouse.

  “Well, you have to admit, compared with JP, she’s pretty enthusiastic about helping us.”

  “Helping you. And I think she wants your dick as payment.”

  Grant looks thoughtful. “Huh… if only I could finance all my business deals that way…”

  I glare at him. “Not funny.”

  He kisses me again, then whispers, “Don’t worry, you’re the only one getting paid that way. Direct deposit, baby.”

  “You’re so romantic.”

  He laughs.

  “Speaking of getting paid,” I say mischievously, “JP just got a raise.”

  “So you want…” He pauses, as though searching for a number. “…more dick?”

  I make a face at him.

  He keeps a straight face as he continues, “You know, I investigated insuring my penis with Lloyd’s of London once.”

  “…what?”

  It has to be a joke – right? I know it’s a joke, I just don’t know how it’s going to go down. (So to speak.)

  “Yeah,” he says. “They estimated that when I have sex, it’s so good that every time is worth a million dollars.”

  “Oh my God,” I groan. I can see where this is going.

  He’s trying not to smile. “So, by that standard, considering how much sex we’ve had the last few days, I’d say you’re actually in debt to me.”

  Yup. There it is.

  “Grant?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t be a dick.”

  He laughs. “Come on, let’s go back,” he says, and curls his arm around my waist and guides me towards the door.

  “Fine,” I grumble, steeling myself to face Little Miss French Movie Star again.

  “I’ll pay you as much as anybody else – you know that, right?” he asks.

  The fact that he said it hurts a little.

  I look up at him. “I was joking – you know that, right?”

  “Yeah, I know, but… I figured there might be a little kernel of truth in there.”

  “I don’t want your money, Grant,” I say, and stand up on my tiptoes to kiss him before he opens the door.

  I want you.

  Your heart.

  Your love.

  But I don’t dare say it.

  After we finish kissing, he grins. “So you don’t want the money – just the dick?”

  Ughh. Cocky bastard. (Yes, my use of ‘cocky’ is intentional.)

  “Yeah,” I say facetiously. “Just the dick.”

  He gets an impish gleam in his eye. “You know, as a businessman, it’s my duty to my shareholders to get the best deal on labor… and Dominique did say she’d help out just to be close to me again – ”

  I attack his ribs with a vicious case of tickling, and he laughs as I chase him all the way back into the next room.

  16

  Once we’re back in the main room, Grant claps his hands together. “Alright, back to business.”

  Dominique immediately plasters her body against his.

  “Business, Dom, business,” Grant says, and pries her off.

  She pouts at him, then throws me some shade with a sideways glance.

  I just give her a self-satisfied smirk in return, and she quickly looks away.

  “So, you’re both in, right?” Grant asks.

  “As we discussed before Dominique arrivé, oui,” Jean-Paul says.

  “Alright,” Grant says, “Dominique, after we get out of this, your cut will be ten million dollars, U.S.”

  Her eyebrows shoot up. “Vraiment?”

  “Aaaaaah!” Jean-Paul exclaims angrily, his arms held out wide to his side like What the hell are you doing?! “You make me beg, yet you give her money because, why, she slept with you?”

  “No, because you’re an asshole,” Grant snaps.

  Though the line is funny, I kind of find myself (uncomfortably) siding with JP on this one.

  As JP grumbles, Grant runs through the particulars. “We don’t know who Epicurus is. Finding out is the first goal. The second is we need to bring the fight to him – but we need to have the upper hand when we do.”

  “What will you do when you find him?” Dominique asks. “Kill him?”

  Grant hesitates. “I don’t know… I don’t think so.”

  “He is a murderer.”

  “I’m not,” Grant says firmly.

  “Giving him to the authorities will do nothing to help with the problem of all the stolen paintings,” JP points out.

  “Killing him won’t do that either.”

  JP shrugs. “True…”

  “So the third thing we need to figure out is how to clear my name, and Eve’s, too.”

  Dominique says something in a low voice in French.

  “Dom…” Grant warns her.

  I don’t even want to know.

  “La solution for Eve is simple,” JP says to Grant. “We say you have threatened her.”

  “Except we have a witness who knows that he hired me to help him,” I say, thinking of my boss Dan. “And that I voluntarily accepted.”

  “Uhhhh… how do you say it – le Syndrome de Stockholm? Like Patty Hearst?”

  “It’s the same in English: Stockholm Syndrome. But they still sent Patty Hearst to jail,” I point out.

  “Eh… then we tell the truth,”
JP says, and gives Grant a smile and a wink. “You seduced her with your magical cock, which no woman can resist. Eh, Dominique?”

  I blush, but Dominique turns red for a different reason. She gives JP a full-on eat merde and die look – which she then switches to me.

  I just smile and wiggle my eyebrows at her, which enrages her all the more.

  “JP,” Grant barks.

  “Whaaaat? I speak the truth, no?” he protests impishly.

  “I’d say it’s the truth,” I offer, just to piss Dominique off some more.

  Mission accomplished. A pulsing vein stands out on her otherwise perfect forehead.

  Grant looks at me in irritation. “I know he likes to stir the pot, but I expect more out of you.”

  I roll my eyes, but I do realize I’m not exactly helping the situation.

  JP frowns in mock puzzlement. “What pot is this you stir? And with what?” he asks, as he begins to gyrate his hips suggestively, like he’s using his penis.

  Dominique points at JP’s crotch. “You cannot stir any pot adéquatement with that – ” and here she says something in French.

  Grant bursts out laughing, JP looks angry, and Dominique smiles smugly.

  “What?” I ask. “What’d she say?”

  “She called it a swizzle stick,” Grant answers.

  JP says something angrily in French to Dominique, who answers just as loudly and just as angrily –

  “PEOPLE!” Grant yells. “I’m docking your pay a million dollars every time you pull this pointless bickering shit again, you hear me?”

  “Ehhh, this is fucking bullshit,” JP mutters, but he’s quiet for the rest of the planning session.

  17

  At the end of the meeting Grant asks JP if he, or one of his contacts, can get word to our families. JP says he can, and both Grant and I write out short messages about how we’re alive and not to worry. Grant includes instructions for his father to provide for a fleet of bodyguards for my parents’ safety, for which I am extremely grateful.

  We start the actual work soon thereafter, when JP turns over one of his computers to me. With his help translating, I quickly reformat and get English to show up onscreen instead of French, and then I’m off to the races.

  To be honest, I’m pretty impressed by JP’s setup. His security system for the building is top-notch. The software end of it has about ten tripwires designed to catch hackers. The traps do everything from dumping would-be spies into a pre-recorded loop of empty hallways, to infecting their computers with system-frying malware. I could have gotten through his landmines unscathed, but 99% of the hackers out there would have stepped on at least one – which would also immediately alert us that someone had breached the system.

  The respect goes both ways. JP watches over my shoulder as I break into the Bank of Seychelles and set up an account for Mike, then fill it with $5 million pulled from one of Grant’s offshore accounts that the FBI hasn’t found yet.

  “Formidable,” he mutters at one point. Every so often he says another French word I don’t recognize, but it sounds like he’s impressed.

  Dominique? Not so much.

  “She only knows how to type?” she sniffs at one point.

  “She does computers,” Grant says.

  “She only knows how to do computers?” she sniffs again.

  JP says something in French, which makes Dominique yell and throw an empty wine bottle at him.

  JP rages at her, swearing and gesturing at the computers. I hear ‘putain d’merde!’ repeatedly.

  “ONE MILLION!” Grant calls out, at which point Dominique leaves the room and slams the door shut behind her.

  “What did you say to her?” I ask JP.

  “Hm? Oh, I tell her to stop throwing shit, that we need the computers more than we need her.”

  I’m starting to like JP. “That’s why she threw the wine bottle at you?”

  “What? Oh – no, I tell her that you do the hacking better than she is in bed, which is all she has to offer at this point, so she should be quiet.”

  Uhhhh…

  Not so sure I’m liking JP as much anymore.

  18

  Grant is sitting around without anything to do, so he asks a lot of questions and make a lot of blanket statements, like, We’ve gotta be proactive and We’ve got to get out ahead of Epicurus on this. I imagine when he does that sort of stuff around his employees they all nod their heads and act like he’s said something profound, but to me it’s just annoying. I tune him out – hacking takes concentration – but he does ask me some pointed questions every once in a while, which I answer directly and then get back to business.

  “Can you find out how the local police knew we were on the plane?” he asks.

  “Maybe. But their system is probably all in French, so I’d need somebody to translate, and that could take forever – and potentially be dangerous.”

  JP shrugs. “I could make a call, if you want.”

  I stop what I’m doing, and both Grant and I stare at him.

  JP looks at us like we’re a couple of wolves eyeing a chicken. “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” he asks defensively.

  “Who are you going to call?” Grant demands.

  “I have a friend from childhood who is now a detective,” JP says. “Sometimes I need information, and… well… in exchange for some money…”

  “You have a mole?!” I exclaim.

  “And you didn’t fucking tell us?” Grant fumes.

  “Putain d’merde,” JP swears as he wards us off.

  After a little haranguing, he calls his friend. They talk briefly in French, then JP hangs up.

  “Well?” Grant asks.

  “He will call me back when he discovers something,” JP says with a frown. “Now get out of my ass.”

  19

  I’m absolutely starving, so we have an early lunch – several gourmet cheeses, olives, nuts, and cold cuts. And red wine. Really good red wine. I’m a little tipsy halfway through the meal, so I switch to sparkling water. Alcohol and hacking under high-stakes circumstances don’t mix.

  Grant and Jean-Paul reminisce about the old days. JP has warmed up enough now that he smiles when Grant mentions “that time in Nice” or “that job in Geneva.”

  Dominique chimes in occasionally, reminding Grant of “our trip to Florence” and “those two weeks in Prague.”

  Every time, Grant just smiles politely and changes the subject back to cat burglary.

  I know she’s trying to mark territory she has no shot at reclaiming, but it still makes me angry. Yet I can’t really say anything. She’s done nothing more than allude to ‘trips’ and ‘vacations.’

  Then she crosses the line.

  “Remember that time we made love on the beach in Sardinia?” she asks. “Mon Dieu, that was amazing.”

  Grant grimaces. “Yes, well, that was two years ago.”

  “It feels like yesterday to me,” she purrs.

  Bitch – you wanna bring that up in front of me?

  You brought a knife to a GUN fight, dumbass.

  “Hey Grant,” I say.

  “Yes?” he asks warily, expecting some jealous drama from me.

  “Remember this morning when you fucked my brains out in the shower?”

  He tries to stifle a grin. “I do, yes.”

  Dominique looks like she’s going to pick up a butter knife and stab me.

  Fuck you, Little Miss French Movie Star. YOU started this.

  “All while we were on the run from the police – I mean, it was almost like you had to have me, no matter how dangerous it was. You just had to… take me,” I say, putting an extra sultry purr on the ‘take me’ part.

  The grin breaks out in full force. “I did.”

  Dominique is now scraping her fingernails across the wooden table without realizing she’s doing it. I’m pretty sure she’d rather the tabletop be my face.

  “And the night before, when we had sex in that house we broke into – that was crazy.”
>
  “It was,” he admits.

  “It’s almost like doing illegal stuff makes you even hornier.”

  “It kind of does.”

  Any second now, Dominique is going to start foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog.

  “Huh,” I say thoughtfully. “Maybe that explains why we’ve done it sooo many times over the last four days – ”

  Dominique gets up and storms outside onto the balcony.

  Grant isn’t angry, but he does look at me like I’m a naughty little schoolgirl. “Was that really necessary?”

  I shrug. “Bitches gots to learn.”

  JP just chuckles. “Ah heu heu heu heu…”

  20

  Dominique comes back in a moment later, as though to prove she’s completely unaffected. But I notice she won’t look at me, and she doesn’t say anything to anyone else.

  Good.

  As we’re winding down the meal, Grant says, “By the way, we need some guns.”

  Guns? I think. Why the hell do we need guns?

  Before I can say anything, though, JP answers, “Yes, well, I need a beautiful naked woman and ten million dollars, but I do not see them yet.”

  “Guns first, ten million later,” Grant says. “You’re on your own with the naked woman.”

  JP turns to Dominique and asks something in French. Whatever it is he says (and it’s probably along the lines of Hey baby, want to be MY naked woman?), he uses a slimy, suggestive tone of voice – at which point she breaks her silence to chew him out.

  I hear a familiar couple of words in her insult, at which point Grant snorts with laughter.

  “Swizzle stick?” I ask, and Grant nods.

  JP flips Dominique the bird, at which point she says something that makes Grant laugh even harder.

  I look puzzled.

  “She said his middle finger is a big improvement over his swizzle stick,” Grant explains.

  “Hey, hey, no more swizzle stick,” JP snaps, looking unhappy.

  “You started it,” Grant says.

  “I end it,” Dominique says with a scowl at JP.