Wicked Dirty Games (Dirty Billionaire Series Book 1)

by Gemma Berlanti

  Who was this strange woman? And why was she warning her with a cryptic message? She should be careful? Killean had secrets? What secrets did he have? She already knew about his dark desires, but who didn’t have those? Were these secrets so bad that they couldn’t be uttered? No secret was unspeakable. All sorts of evil, manipulating things ran through her head. Was Killean a part of some underground illegal group? That would explain why he was so filthy rich at such a young age. She didn’t know much about his success story other than what she’d read on his Google bio. Lila never knew how to broach a topic when it would lead to money or financial assets. She feared her questions would put Killean on edge or have him assume she was really after his hefty bank balance, regardless of the fact that her father was a self-made man too.

  But what did the mystery blonde mean by he should watch his back? And the hyenas were out? It didn’t seem she was a part of Killean’s Fan Club. Lila hadn’t met all the women from that little “organization.” She would need to do some digging on that.

  Lila remembered that day in the café when Katherine had bombarded her. She was right. If anyone knew Killean, it was her, his confidant, his favorite despite efforts to tell her otherwise.

  ***

  Lila had pushed all thoughts of the mysterious woman to the back of her mind as she stepped off the elevator on the floor of her father’s firm. The Indian receptionist, Pyal, greeted her.

  “My dad in?” Lila asked.

  “Speak of the devil,” she said, smiling.

  “Thanks.”

  Lila turned and saw her father ambling forward with a man he shook hands with. She recognized him instantly. Russell Wesley. He remembered her too, and his face lit up.

  “Miss Montgomery,” he said as both men neared.

  “Do you two know each other?” her father Ian asked.

  “Lila helped me out once with a small favor that I’ve yet to repay.”

  He remembered her name. “I didn’t know you’d remember.”

  He smiled all too secretly as though he were enjoying some major joke. She didn’t trust that smile or the gleam that clouded his icy blue eyes. Since the day she had met him inside the library, a feeling of unease filled her.

  “Of course I do. I never forget a face.”

  “Russell, this is my daughter.”

  Wesley seemed surprised. “Well, the resemblance is there. It was good seeing you again, Lila. Ian.”

  Lila watched him leave and then turned to her father. “Is he a client?”

  “Potential. He’s looking up the Manhattan area. He’s interested to start a venture out here, not his usual sportswear but something major like technology and manufacturing. He had been involved in that sector years ago, but due to some turbulent personal problems with his partner, he didn’t succeed.”

  “Who was his partner?”

  “He didn’t say. Why?”

  Lila shrugged. “Maybe we could use him as a reference.”

  Her father laughed as they walked to his office.

  “So this venture of his, tell me more about it.”

  “It sounds like you’re taken by him since you met already.”

  Quite the contrary.

  “He’s coming in tomorrow at eleven. Maybe after I’ve finished talking with him, he can come have a one-on-one?”

  Lila smirked at her father. “Dad, prepping me for future CEO already?”

  He shrugged. “Well, your brother has no interest in the business. India travels all the time for her modeling. Who else would I have considered?”

  “I’ll Google him, Dad. You know that saying: nothing rotten stays buried on the big bad wide web.”

  Fishing out her phone, Lila consulted her friend Google. She doubted she would find anything, but it was worth a dig. She typed in Russell Wesley. Once the images loaded, she searched through frantically. Most of them were taken at business events, so she focused on that category until the picture stared her right in the face. Lila was officially numb. A picture was worth a thousand words after all.

  It seemed Killean and Russell might have known each other.

  ***

  “Thanks for the ride, A,” Lila said as she slipped out of the car.

  “Knight gave you a spare key?” Aiden joked.

  Lila bent so she could peer through the window at Aiden.

  “It’s a penthouse, Aiden. You don’t need a key. You need a security code,” Lila said innocently.

  Aiden howled with laughter. “Your rich, hotshot boyfriend is teaching you well.”

  “Night, Aiden.”

  As the car drove off and Lila turned, she froze on the sidewalk. A few feet away stood Russell with a dark-haired woman. It appeared as though they were in an altercation. The woman’s appearance was wild and tousled as she beat her fist against his chest. He captured her wrists, but she managed to tug free, glanced up at Knight Tower, and walked away. Russell dragged a frustrated hand through his hair and sprinted across the street. Lila stood there for a moment looking at the retreating backs of the woman and Russell. Things were starting to get strange.

  ***

  Her hand gripped his hair and tugged hard, pulling from the root. It hurt like hell, and she knew just the right angle to grip just so it did.

  “Have you been fucking around with my makeup again, you little nuisance?”

  Her green eyes, mirror images of his, were blazing with anger. Her face was a scary twist, and some white powder decorated beneath her nose. Her breath was revolting. She looked like the scary woman who stole Ariel’s voice and kept it in the shell around her neck.

  “No, Mommy, no!”

  Her grip tightened. “Little liar. You’ve been touching things that are off limits to you.”

  She pushed him away, and he landed on his butt. She reached for a leather belt off a hook and wrapped the end around her hand, leaving the part with the buckle dangling.

  “Mommy, please.”

  She lashed out with the buckled end. It caught his face mercilessly. The sting of the thick leather bit into his skin, the pain unbearable. Fire spread across his back, and she kept beating until he screamed out. Her sick sadistic laughter was thrilling as though she were enjoying it, watching every lash forming thick red lacerations over his skin. When he lay on the floor trembling, curled in a fetal position, she dropped the leather belt and walked away, her footsteps fading with her laughter.

  ***

  Lila woke up to a choked, tormented sound.

  “Fuck! Enough! That…hurts.”

  She sat upright to see his head thrashing on the pillow and a dark patch on the red silk pillowcase soaked with sweat. His chiseled chest was tight and heaving rapidly. His hands formed fists around a handful of the sheet.

  “Killean?”

  He was fighting himself.

  “Killean!”

  She slapped his shoulder, and he barely felt anything. She slapped him harder, and he jolted upright, his chest heaving and his eyes wild, searching frantically around the room.

  “Lila! What’s wrong?”

  “You were having a nightmare. What were you dreaming about?”

  She straddled his hips and held his face between her hands. He was sweating bullets. He fell back against the mattress with a shaky sigh, closing his eyes.

  “I’m sorry I woke you, love.”

  “What were you dreaming of?” she implored.

  “It’s fine, it’s nothing. Go back to sleep.” His tone was almost biting.

  “Killean?”

  He opened his eyes, and she saw annoyance clouding his features. Suddenly he caught both her wrists and shifted fast so that she was beneath him and his hard body pressed into hers. She heard him sigh again, but this time it was a sigh of comfort and satisfaction. He lowered his head to catch her lips in a frenzied kiss that had her arching into him to feel more, distracting her from her earlier investigation.

  “What are you doing to me?” he whispered.

  “Kissing you,” she murmured.r />
  She ran her hands down his tensed back. It was then that she felt them beneath the tips of her fingers. Long scarred tissues on his skin. “Killean, what are these? What hap—?”

  She couldn’t finish the question because he took her hand away.

  “They’re nothing.”

  “They don’t feel like nothing. Are they from your childhood? Please tell me. I want to know.”

  His body grew tense and defensive. Lila watched as his eyes clouded over with something new that wasn’t desire or lust. It was anger and frustration.

  “Drop it, Lila. I don’t wish to discuss this with anyone. Don’t forget that.”

  Lila was taken aback. She stared at the man above her hard and long. “Anyone?” She had never felt so insignificant in her life.

  His jaw clenched, and that tiny muscle ticked. “Yes, anyone, not even you, Lila. Now please drop this inquisition.”

  “Killean, get off me. I need some fresh air.”

  He rolled off her reluctantly.

  “Lila—”

  “What! Did you think I was just going to lay there anyway like a submissive little whore and let you do me to your satisfaction then go back to sleep? Don’t. Perhaps you’re right. I’m just the girl you invite home at night to release your stress and tension into with a good fuck. After you’ve been with Katherine, telling her all your deepest, darkest secrets. And I’m just the insignificant woman. Perhaps she thinks so too, because you give her that impression.”

  She didn’t care that she was stark naked, hair in disarray like a deranged woman as she cursed. She picked up her robe from the ground and began to stride out.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the guest room. Clearly I’ve overstepped my boundaries,” she snapped. “I don’t want to be next to you.”

  She couldn’t sleep. She kept replaying Killean’s choice of words in her head. Anyone? She wasn’t angry because he didn’t want to talk to her. She was upset because he thought that she wasn’t worthy for him to dish his heart out to. She was his girlfriend. But who needs a girlfriend nowadays when you could have pre-approved sluts lining up for your affection?

  She glanced at the alarm on the nightstand. It was twelve a.m. She groaned. Then suddenly she heard footsteps outside the door.

  “Lila?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “I know you’re awake.”

  She sat up in bed. “What do you want? Killean, it’s late, and I’m tired. We’ll talk in the morning. Please go back to bed.”

  “I don’t sleep well if you’re not next to me.”

  “Look how that turned out,” I muttered. “That’s your fault now, isn’t it?”

  “Lila, I know I fucked up. I was a bit too harsh. I say the wrong things when I’m scared.”

  Scared? What was he scared about?

  “I also chose the wrong words to use. I apologize for hurting your feelings. It’s not my intention to do so.”

  “Sooner or later, I know that I’m going to feel as though I’m sleeping next to a complete stranger. And I hate the feeling of always trying to be close to you. You made me feel as though I wasn’t important enough for you to confide in, and I was hurt tonight by what you said.”

  “I know, love. I’m sorry.”

  His voice was barely audible, but she could hear him speak with pain and desperation.

  “Baby, I don’t want you to feel isolated here…I just need more time.”

  “Granted. And I couldn’t care less about what any of your bitches say about me. I’m just worried about how you see me. Goodnight, Killean. I hope you have a night of colorful dreams.”

  ***

  Lila realized that the door was jammed by something, so she poked her head through the crack and frowned when she saw Killean laying on the carpeted ground, his head on a pillow and a blanket over his legs.

  “Killean?” she cried.

  His eyes opened slowly, and he looked at her.

  “Why are you lounging against the do—did you sleep here?”

  He got up, and she realized that his hair was damp and a towel was at his pillow.

  “Shit!” he hissed. “I slept here.”

  She opened her mouth to say something but instead found herself smiling.

  “Why is your hair wet?”

  “I had another dream and I was sweating, so I went to have a cold shower early this morning.”

  Lila knelt behind him and began drying his wet hair.

  “My mother always did that when I was small. Genevieve, I mean. She can’t wait to meet you.”

  Her hand froze.

  “You told your mother about me?”

  “Why wouldn’t I? She’s planning a big dinner, I hear.”

  “I’m glad to hear.”

  “She still fought me hard to do it when I was a teenager, dry my hair.”

  She chuckled. Lila could almost imagine her and Killean quarrelling about who got to dry his hair.

  “I always let her because I knew it made her feel good. It was always hard for her because I didn’t really want her affections. I was just happy to be adopted by her. I felt betrayed, and I didn’t want to be attached to anyone in case the adoption didn’t work out. I’m not close to my brothers because they thought it was sweet to always remind me that I wasn’t truly a Knight. And I, well, I don’t like to impose on anyone. I decided it was a good idea to go away to boarding school. Mom wasn’t happy about it, but it was my decision. I’d rather be gone than being reminded that I was the black sheep, the outcast.”

  “Killean…?”

  What could she say? That she understood? She didn’t. She grew up in a family where she was loved and cherished, and despite the many obstacles her parents faced, she and India never wanted for anything. What Killean felt was abandonment and the need to belong. And even years later while he struggled to admit the truth, she realized he was still stuck in his youth, unable to move on.

  “The scars on my back were there since I was seven. My birthmother thought it was fun to beat me whenever I went through her things. I ran away from home so I wouldn’t endure my mother’s abuse. I stayed on the street for days, hungry and dirty. I was found and brought to the police station. I told them that I had no home—I was convincing for seven. Eventually I was placed into state care at a foster home.” He said the word with so much contempt that Lila sensed a bad end to the story. “It was then that I wished I’d stayed home and taken her abuse. There was this man at the home, Jerry. He was oddly fond of me, and I believed that here was someone who loved me, gave me the affection I was deprived of all those years.

  “I was up late one night because I couldn’t sleep. He came into my room. The others were asleep, and I went quietly with him because he told me he had something magical to show me. You could only imagine how that sounded to a child. I went with him; I was curious. Maybe it was a toy or something nice. He…raped me that night, and it continued until I was eleven when Genevieve and Franco adopted me. I was happy they’d chosen me because I wouldn’t be in that wretched place anymore. When I went there, the only person who understood me was Imani. She was adopted too, with a dirty past. Her parents were drug offenders.”

  There was a long silence that followed. Lila remained quiet, processing the information Killean had just given. She could tell he was waiting for her reaction. She didn’t want him to feel as if she was disgusted by him. She urged him to look at her, but his gaze was elsewhere. Her throat was suddenly constricted. His face became so flushed with embarrassment that it hurt every bone in her body. What did he have to feel embarrassed about? He did nothing wrong.

  He stared straight ahead, and then he stood suddenly, tension coiling his mountainous shoulders. Shame and guilt echoed through his eyes.

  “I need to leave,” he said brusquely.

  He was running away. His fingers were shaking claws at his side, and although he was a large man, she’d never seen him looking more defeated and small. That was definitely a bullet to his
ego, and she knew how important ego or pride was to a man like him. She’d give him back that self-respect he assumed he lost by revealing that aspect of his life. The man had surrendered, laid himself bare to her; it was the least she could do. If die-hard feminists all over the world could see this, they’d shudder. She rose to her feet and cupped his face, imploring him to look at her.

  “Look at me,” she said softly. He didn’t. Lila tsked. “Look at me, Killean.” She enforced the steely command. He lost the battle and met her gaze.

  “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Killean. It was never your fault. I would never judge you. I want you to trust me and confide in me. I could never look at you any different. Do you understand me, you strong, sexy, frustrating man?”

  His throat jerked hard as he swallowed. He nodded quickly and covered her hand with his.

  “Say it,” she insisted.

  “I have nothing to be ashamed of,” he whispered.

  “You don’t believe those words now. You might never, but I understand. You have nothing to be ashamed of. The filthy man should be carrying that shame, not you. It’s fucking unfair, I know.”

  His eyes remained on hers, the green burning like flames, and she saw it before it faded. The flash of pride as he studied her.

  “Dose your mom know?”

  He scowled. “Of course not. No one knows except you and Helena.”

  “Helena?”

  He sighed. “My therapist. I see her Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

  “Oh. Can I come?”

  His eyes flared with shock. “You want to come to my sessions?”

  “If you want me to,” she said softly. “No force.”

  “I’ll see to it.”

  She tipped on her toes and kissed his jaw.

  “I’m glad you told me, Killean.”

  “I never told anyone,” he murmured.

  “Not even Katherine?”

  “I don’t tell Kate everything, Lila. You have nothing to worry about where she’s concerned. I already told you this. The only woman who intimidates me is you.”

  This was news to Lila’s ears. It was her time to be shocked. “I intimidate you?”