Taming the Bad Boy Billionaire Bundle

by Sierra Rose

  And who knows? Maybe once this is all over—I can keep up some of the commitments I started. It’s not like I want my entire life to be public relations. I can branch out and do other things as well. Consider this relationship as a great launching point for other ventures.

  It shouldn’t be too hard. As long as I keep a clear line between what’s real and what’s...

  I trailed off as I got to the top of the stairs, and peered down the hall at my door. It was open. Even though I was sure I’d locked it shut.

  Venturing cautiously closer, I knocked twice before sticking my head inside.

  “Hello?” I called warily. It wasn’t like a burglar to advertise his presence by leaving open the door, and Larry, my landlord, tended to do spot-checks without my permission. “Larry—is that you? Is anyone there?”

  No response.

  Feeling even more cautious than before, I headed inside—walking on tiptoe as I pushed open the threshold and crossed the door.

  That’s when I stopped cold.

  That’s when I blinked around in absolute shock.

  That’s when I realized I didn’t live there anymore...

  “NICK!”

  I started screaming even before I got off the elevator. Even before I realized that it was seven in the morning, and everyone else who lived in his building was almost undoubtedly asleep. At the moment, I couldn’t bring myself to care. At the moment, I was officially homeless.

  “NICK—GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE!”

  There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he’d done it. That he was the one responsible. I’d seen him do it before. Not while moving in girlfriends, but while moving out competitors. Nosy neighbors. Rivals. People with whom he swore he could never get along.

  It was one of his favorite things to do to pass the time. Play god.

  It was the reason that he had a New York moving company on speed dial. The reason that the city’s police chief was safely in his pocket. Coincidentally, it was also the same reason that I had tried to do the same thing with Ella just a few weeks before.

  I appreciated the irony. Nick did not.

  But whether this was payback for that or simply him messing around, I didn’t appreciate it now. In fact, I had never been more pissed off.

  “NICK!”

  “In here!” he called back.

  He sounded neither perturbed nor surprised that I had come calling, despite the early hour. But a part of him had to have been expecting it. Otherwise, why would he already be up?

  I rounded the corner with my hands clenched up into little fists—ready to give him a piece of my mind—only to stop cold for the second time that morning.

  Nick was there alright.

  Sitting in a hot tub. In the middle of the living room floor.

  My mouth fell wide open as all my pre-rehearsed responses flew right out the window.

  I had just been here the other day—no hot tub then. On top of that, I was fairly sure that a living room hot tub was the kind of thing it was impossible to get a permit for. On top of that, I had no idea how he’d possibly managed to fit the thing through the elevator door.

  “You...you have a...”

  He blinked patiently back at me, up to his neck in warm, bubbling jets.

  “Right in the middle of the...why is there...”

  He nodded encouragingly, waving me onward with his hand.

  “That’s it,” he coaxed, “use your feeling-words.”

  I snapped out of my shock in a hurry, planting my feet firmly on the floor.

  “Why the hell is there a hot tub in the middle of your apartment?”

  He glanced down at the water in surprise, as if he had only just realized it was there. “It’s winter,” he said simply. When I gazed back at him in astonishment, he elaborated. “I got cold.”

  I closed my eyes for a second, but decided to let it go. There were other things that needed my attention at the moment. There were bigger fish to fry.

  “So guess what?” I declared, “I’m homeless!”

  Nick’s mouth fell open in shock, his eyes growing wide with wonder.

  “You’re kidding me—that’s terrible!” Before I could say a thing to combat him, he continued on with sudden inspiration. “Hey, I have an idea—why don’t you stay with me?”

  It was a testament to how thrown I still was by the hot tub, that I didn’t go and try to drown him in it right then and there.

  “This is a big shock to you, is it?” I asked through gritted teeth. “Not like you could have had anything to do with it. Oh, now I get it. Now I know why you said to enjoy Brooklyn while it lasted. Because you knew you were moving me out. You touched all my stuff!”

  He waded toward me, cutting his arm through the foamy waves.

  “Abigail, I’m offended that you would even suggest it. Of course I had nothing to do with touching your stuff.” He paused, hedging his bets. “I simply called the moving company, and arranged to have all your things put into storage...”

  “NICK!” I exclaimed, throwing my hands up in the air. “What the hell would possess you to do such a thing? I literally walked inside this morning, and all my stuff was gone! I thought for a second that I’d been robbed!”

  “And that’s exactly why I did it,” he countered. There was no shame or remorse. Just the same astronomical level of confidence that carried him through, day by day. “You didn’t put on that necklace yesterday, because you were afraid of getting jumped on the curb. The curb right by your house,” he stressed, in case I was somehow missing his point. “Now tell me how, in good conscience, could I let you go back to a place like that?”

  It was a sweet premise, but the execution was all wrong.

  “How could you LET me go back?” I repeated incredulously, wondering in what state he would survive if I used my purse to bash him over the head. “It’s not up to you, Hunter! It’s my apartment! Understand?! Me! Mine! You have no business interfering like you did!”

  He studied my face for a moment, measuring my rage, before shaking his head with a sympathy so contrived, he didn’t even bother to try and sell it. “I think you mean: I had no business interfering like I did. It’s already done, Abby. No taking it back now.”

  My blood boiled under in my skin, and I threw my bag down on the floor.

  How could he sit there and be so calm?! How could he play puppet-master with people’s lives, and expect there to be no consequences?!

  “This is not over, and it’s certainly not okay,” I said quietly, folding my arms with a dangerous glare. “Now I have no idea why you did what you did, but let me assure you—”

  But before I could finish, he interrupted me—looking positively delighted all the while.

  “Oh Abby—of course you’re upset!” he exclaimed, beaming full force with a sudden smile. “You have no context for this, I haven’t even asked you the question yet!”

  “The question?”

  I kept my arms carefully folded over my chest, bracing myself for whatever mischief my insufferable client/fake boyfriend had up his sleeve. I had seen Nick in these whimsical moods before. The ones where he leapt into grandiose gestures without thought of consequence. I was not about to let myself get taken in by it now.

  “Yes—the question.”

  It was at this point that he stood up. The water streamed away, and my mouth fell open as I stared at all of his naked glory. It took me a second to realize he was still talking to me. That he was asking me a very serious question.

  “Will you move in with me?”

  Chapter 12

  I SHOOK MY HEAD, MOMENTARILY speechless. It was impossible to talk with him standing naked in front of me. It was impossible to even think.

  He dipped his head a little lower to catch my eye.

  “Abby?”

  I blinked and returned to the present.

  “I’m sorry—what did you say?”

  A little grin flashed across his face. One he made no effort to hide.

  “Move in with me
.”

  I made a conscious effort to close my mouth, then stalled—grasping for time.

  “...that’s not a question.”

  He lifted his chin.

  “That’s not an answer.”

  As usual, it was that insufferable arrogance that broke through the spell. My eyes flashed and I folded my arms slowly across my chest.

  “Why the fuck would I want to move in with the same man who evicted me from my old apartment in the first place? Why would I want to live with someone like that?”

  “Abby,” his face melted into a smile, “I’m so glad you asked. Please,” he patted the water beside him, “climb inside and we can talk about it.”

  “Climb in—” My voice cut off with a frustrated shriek. “I am not climbing inside, Nick! I am seriously debating whether or not to start throwing in electric appliances!”

  He nodded slowly, lifting his hands like a cautious shield.

  “Why don’t we shelf that idea for now—”

  “NICK!”

  “Look I’m sorry, okay?” he admitted, finally dropping the act. As if on cue, the jets of bubbles lessened, adding a more subdued note to his remorse. “I was just...worried about you. I was looking up the crime statistics for your neighborhood after our talk that day, and—”

  “Wait,” I cut him off, trying to keep it all straight, “you were looking up crime statistics for my neighborhood?” There was a beat. “By yourself?”

  For a second, his eyes cooled.

  “I know how to work a computer, you know. I don’t just use them as coasters.”

  I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. There was another migraine coming on. And for the first time in years, I didn’t have a place of my own to run back to.

  “Why were you looking up...” Then a more relevant question popped into my mind, and I changed course. “Wait—since what day?”

  Nick paused, caught off guard.

  “What?”

  I opened my eyes and stared him down, growing more curious by the second.

  “You said you looked them up after ‘our talk that day.’” I shook my head, more confused than ever. “We’ve never talked about my neighborhood. What day are you even talking about?”

  Much to my great astonishment, Nick actually blushed. To my even greater astonishment, he bowed his head—looking suddenly shy.

  “You know what day.”

  My eyebrows lifted in surprise, and I shook my head.

  “No—I actually don’t.”

  “Come on, Abby.”

  “Nick,” I emphasized each word, “I honestly have no idea what you’re—”

  “After that day in Dior,” he interrupted. Now that the truth was out, he was suddenly in a rush to get it over with as quickly as possible. “I looked it up after that day we went shopping.”

  I wished I could come up with something to say. I wished I could think of literally anything else to do besides just standing there. But again and again, I came up blank.

  “...why would you do that?”

  He stared at me for a moment, before raking his fingers back through his wet hair with a little sigh. “You said...you said you were proud of being able to take care of yourself, because in the neighborhood where you grew up—it wasn’t the easiest thing to claim.”

  He remembered the quote exactly. That brilliant mind of his working again.

  Not that it made any sense.

  My face softened, and I took a step forward. “Okay, well...Nick, that isn’t exactly a rare thing. There are lots of neighborhoods around New York like that—”

  “But you’re not living in them,” he interrupted fiercely.

  A sudden silence rang out between us, one that grew more and more awkward the longer it was allowed to go on. Twice, we tried to break it. Twice, we came up short.

  In the end, he merely bowed his head with another sigh.

  “I’m sorry I moved you without permission, Abby,” he said softly. “I really am. If you don’t want to stay here, then I’d be happy to find you other arrangements. Not in Brooklyn.”

  The surprises just kept coming.

  My lips parted, and despite having stormed in here with enough rage to power the entire island, I found myself profoundly touched. There was a method to the madness after all. He was trying to take care of me. In his own, bizarre, Nick way...

  This time, it was my turn to avert my eyes. No matter how far the two of us might have gone yesterday, I simply didn’t feel right about seeing him naked. This was still supposed to be an arrangement, after all. I was still supposed to be able to determine between what was real.

  For this next part, I chose my words carefully. Well aware that when you were talking with Nick, there was no practice round. You were playing with live ammunition.

  “I don’t want to be tricked into staying here.” I emphasized the word carefully, hoping like hell it would hit home. I wasn’t disappointed.

  Nick’s eyes lit up, but he kept a careful calm—coaxing me toward that final ledge.

  “Then let me convince you.”

  I took a step back, tilting my head doubtfully to the side as he stood in supplication before me. “Convince me? Well so far today, I’ve already been forcibly evicted. You’re off to a really great start.”

  Most other people would have blushed. Nick didn’t. He rose to the challenge.

  “Then let’s start over.” His eyes danced as his mind began spinning a million miles a minute. “Let me give you a day in my world. We can start with crepes at Le Lapin Blanc, then head over for a private viewing at Christie’s. After that, if you’re not opposed to a little light travel, there’s supposed to be this incredible nightclub opening in Saint-Tropez—”

  “Nick,” I held up a hand to stop him, “I don’t want a day in your world.”

  He pulled up suddenly short, looking as though he didn’t quite understand.

  “You don’t...that’s okay!” He was quick to recover himself. “We can stay Stateside, no reason to go jetting all over the world. I heard that Cartier is actually unveiling a new—”

  “Do you think we could just stay in?”

  Okay—now he definitely didn’t understand. All the words were familiar, and yet, when strung in that particular order, they didn’t compute.

  “Stay in?”

  He glanced down without thinking about it at my breasts, and I realized that in Nick’s world, ‘stay in,’ could mean only one thing. I was quick to dissuade that notion.

  “Normal people don’t go jetting around the globe at the drop of a hat,” I said with the hint of a smile. “When normal people want Chinese food, they order in. They don’t go to China.”

  His eyes tightened almost imperceptibly, and I could tell he was having similar problems with the word normal. Surely he’d heard it somewhere before. What exactly did it mean?

  A little smile crept up the side of my face, and I looked at him fondly.

  “I’ve spent the last two years living in your world. Two years doing anything and everything you wanted to do. How about, for one day only...we live in mine?”

  Nick spoke slowly, trying out the words for the first time.

  “Have a normal day.”

  I grinned.

  “That’s right.”

  He grinned tentatively back, then added on a modifier.

  “A normal Abby day.”

  I nodded, and watched the decision-making process take hold.

  At first, he didn’t know quite what to make of it. But after a moment’s consideration, the thought appealed to him greatly. His eyes lit up, and he took a giant step forward.

  “Where do we begin?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at his enthusiasm. It was catching. And adorable as hell. He was like a little kid with a new toy, aching to try it out. Dimples and all.

  “Well,” I began slowly, “a good friend of mine recently exiled all my things to an unknown storage locker, so I might start with a little online shopping to repleni
sh.” I took one look at his incredulous expression, and rolled my eyes. “It’s not an urban legend, Nick. People actually do buy things off the internet. Not everything has to be purchased in a private viewing.”

  He shook his head at the floor, eyes wide with wonder.

  “I have to text all my friends...”

  “Very funny,” I snorted. Then I gestured to the couch. “So is that okay? Is it alright if I set up down here, or—”

  This time, it was his turn to laugh.

  “Abby, you don’t need to ask permission. This is your house now too.” He spread his arms wide, gesturing all around. “What’s mine is yours. No exceptions.”

  Again—profoundly touched.

  I hid it well, watching with a touch of amusement as he started rambling on about all the ‘normal’ things the two of us could do. Most of them were clearly stolen from a domestic TV show, and throughout the entire process, he seemed to have completely forgotten he was naked.

  It wasn’t until he started seriously considering the prospect of getting a dog, that I cleared my throat softly to get his attention.

  “Nick...normal people don’t go skinny-dipping in the middle of the living room floor.”

  He paused mid-rant, then glanced down without a hint of shame.

  “Right that...that makes some degree of sense.” With a grin that could scarcely contain his excitement, he scooped up a towel, fastened it around his waist, and sprinted up the stairs, taking them four at a time. “Let me just get dressed, I’ll be down in a minute!”

  “You do that,” I answered, doing my very best to keep from laughing.

  A second later a door slammed shut, but his voice still echoed down the winding stairs.

  “Don’t start without me!”

  AFTER OVER TWO YEARS of gallivanting all over the globe with Nick, cleaning up his various messes, I had thought there was very little left that could surprise me. Very little ground we had left to cover, or things we had yet to try. I was wrong.

  Nick and I had yet to have a normal day.

  “This is blowing my fucking mind right now.” He leaned past me to get a better look at the screen, inadvertently covering my face with a fan of his hair. “You just type in anything you want, and they’ll find you a seller? Anything you can think of?”