The Billionaire Possession Series: The Complete Boxed Set

by Amelia Wilde

  “Stop hovering. I’m fine.”

  “You’ve been working like a madwoman.”

  “Angelique.” I give her a stern look. “I have been leaving by six o’clock every day. I spend an hour exercising every morning. I bought health food for my apartment. How much more do you want from me?”

  “I want to make sure you’re not cracking up. Isn’t this all a little much?”

  “Do you think it’s a little much?”

  “I think you’re a little much to begin with.” We both laugh. “I—you know, I worry about you. Plus, I’ve got Evie checking in every other day.”

  “She’s as much of a workaholic as you are.”

  Angelique shrugs, pretending to tear up. “We love you, Isa.”

  “I know. Now get out of my office.”

  My coffee arrives in the middle of the meeting with the web developer. The first sip almost derails the entire thing—it’s that good. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I say to him. “Angelique?”

  Angelique is at the door in an instant. “What’s up?”

  “Make a note that this—whatever this is—is my new favorite drink of all time.” It’s blended and involves caramel and whipped cream. I want one every day until things have settled down at Gabriel Luxe, which could be never.

  The thought of that makes me nervous. If all of my new plans keep rolling forward with this much momentum, I might never have time to fall for a man again.

  Isn’t that the point, though?

  I snap myself out of it. “Thanks, Angelique.” I look back at Brian who’s got a forgiving grin on his face. “Tell me more about ecommerce platforms. We’ve got a simple one right now, but the orders there aren’t nearly what I’d like them to be.”

  He leans forward, swiping across the screen of the tablet he brought in with a mockup already created. “There’s the platform, and then there’s the marketing. It looks like you haven’t done much aggressive online marketing, and it’s going to be a different animal from the print advertising you’ve relied on so far.”

  “I’m going to need a separate team for all this. Right?”

  He nods. “Probably more than one. If your site takes off, you might even need upgraded production facilities to handle the demand.” Then he smiles at me. “Of course, if you hire me to work with your existing web team, the site will take off.”

  Brian is attractive. He has a nice smile, and had he waltzed into my office six weeks ago, I might have had a little crush on him. But his blue eyes make me think of Jasper. My heart twists in my chest.

  I let the thought of Jasper come and go like it’s on a peaceful ocean wave, or whatever bullshit my meditation app has been telling me to do lately.

  Then I move on to the other meetings.

  It’s after lunch when Bernadette knocks at my door. I’m still stabbing at the salad Angelique insisted on bringing me. It’s good, but so gigantic I’m having trouble forcing myself through the lettuce. Bernadette is the perfect excuse to stop eating it.

  “Thank God you’re here. I was getting sick of this salad’s company.”

  She laughs, then takes her seat across the desk from me. “Have you—have you thought at all about what you’d like to do with the Hamilton Heights building?”

  “Leave it how it is.”

  Bernadette nods, looking off to the side. “I see.”

  I fold my hands on the surface of the desk. “Bernadette, what is it that you’re not telling me?”

  She looks back at me, pursing her lips like she can’t decide whether to reveal her life’s deepest secret or not. “Leaving the building as is—that’s one option. But we’re going to need to look into renovations if you’re going to continue keeping tenants there.” Her eyebrows draw together. “There’s a lot that goes into this, Isa, and I’m not sure we’re equipped to handle it through Gabriel Luxe.”

  “I’ll handle it through my personal budget, then. That’s not a problem.” I give her a pointed look. “Why is this on your mind? We’ve moved on to other things for the time being.”

  “Well...” She trails off, eyes searching my face for—for I don’t know what. Some kind of clue, I guess, but she doesn’t find what she’s looking for. Instead, she squares her shoulders and takes a deep breath.

  “Bernie, what the hell is wrong with you? Not to be too blunt.”

  “I’ve had a call from a...potential investor.”

  “An investor in the building?” That makes approximately zero sense. There’s not really anyone who knows I’ve purchased it, unless Pace, Inc. puts out a press release every time they sell a building to a desperate woman. All I know about the building is that I want my mom to be able to keep living there. I didn’t plan to make a killing off of it. I vaguely had a plan to put one of my storefronts on the ground floor, and maybe some kind of branded fitness studio. I had more of a plan at one point, but now I’m starting over.

  At any rate, there are only a few people who knew about the purchase and would have any interest in pursuing investment. The moment I figure that out, my heart sinks.

  Bernadette is still looking at me with the world’s most cautious expression. “Yes. An investor in the building.”

  “Who is it, Bernadette?”

  “That’s the thing.”

  I feel like I’m tumbling over the edge of a cliff. “What did you do?”

  She looks at me and bites her lip. “It’s not that I—”

  “Did you ask him to come here?”

  “No. He—” She shakes her head. “He’s waiting in the lobby.”

  46

  Jasper

  It’s a hard thing, to stare at an elevator, unable to tear your eyes away from the silver doors, while also pretending you don’t care at all about who steps out of them.

  Only I do care. I care so much that after ten minutes I give in, take a seat on one of the benches in the building’s lobby, and stare.

  It’s not the image I like to project of myself—some lovelorn, pathetic man staring at an elevator—but there’s nobody I recognize in the lobby. I’ll still be able to maintain my reputation as one of New York’s most powerful businessmen after this potentially mortifying trip to the Gabriel Luxe offices.

  I hope.

  At least I’m not sitting in the actual offices, which is perhaps the only saving grace of the entire situation.

  The woman I talked to on the phone, Bernadette, did not sound enthusiastic about taking my message to Isabella. I explained who I was in the interest of honesty. This isn’t a game anymore, and I didn’t want to start this off with some kind of deception to get the love of my life—because that’s what she is, the love of my life—down to the lobby to have a conversation with me. I wanted it to be on her terms.

  I regret that more and more with every minute that goes by.

  I called the Gabriel Luxe offices the moment they opened for business, looking for the person mostly likely to handle investors and other kinds of projects like the one I’m about to propose, and got Bernadette. Of course, that doesn’t mean Isabella was ready to take a meeting with her as soon as I hung up. I waited as long as I could before I came here, anyway. It’s well past lunch. That doesn’t really mean anything. She could still be busy. Isabella is usually busy, but Bernadette did say she would be in during the afternoon, so...

  The elevator doors slide open, and my heart crashes against my ribs.

  Two silver-haired men step out, talking heatedly about a baseball team.

  My shoulders sag at the sight of them.

  The doors close again, and the elevator goes back up.

  I have no idea if she’s going to come down or not. And if she does...

  The doors open again, the gentle ding taking over my entire life. I flick my eyes toward it, not daring to hope.

  Isabella steps out into the lobby.

  Her mouth is pressed into a thin, nervous line, and her eyebrows are drawn together. My entire chest aches at the sight of her, looking for me, scanning the spac
e with her arms crossed over her chest, like she might need to ward off an attack.

  I stand up, and the movement catches her eye.

  There’s a flicker of a smile on her face.

  It gives me enough hope to force myself into movement, to cross the lobby, and to stand next to her. The scent of her in the air, clean and familiar and lovely, is almost too much to bear.

  Isabella takes a breath in and opens her mouth, but no words come out. Not for a moment, at least. “I’m supposed to be meeting with a potential investor.”

  I laugh, and some of the tension in my chest breaks apart. Isabella looks like she might consider smiling if everything goes exactly right, but something in the way she holds herself relaxes. A little. “That would be me.”

  Another breath through her nose. “What are you hoping to invest in, Jasper?”

  My name on her tongue is the sliver of an invitation. She could have said you horrible man or you prick, but she went with my name. This is a good sign. Right? “Would you like to come somewhere with me?”

  She raises her eyebrows. “Right now?”

  I think of her marching into my office, not taking no for an answer. I think of her eyes flashing with anger and confidence. The Isabella who walked into my life that day would consider it, then tell me to screw off. She only ever goes anywhere if she’s decided on it herself.

  “Unless you’d rather...meet up another time. Or not at all.” It’s a risk, throwing that last option out there. She might take it.

  Instead, she waits, her gaze flicking down to the floor and then back up at my eyes. “I don’t have a lot of time. I’m very busy.”

  “It won’t take much of your time.”

  She nods her head toward the elevator. “You’re sure you wouldn’t rather come sit in my office? I’m sure I’ll be able to give you a yes or no fairly quickly.”

  It’s too businesslike, the tone of her voice, but there’s a tremble underneath that tells me this is no business dealing. Not for her. She hasn’t moved on yet. At least, that’s what I’m hoping. Desperately.

  “There’s something I’d like to show you.”

  Isabella squares her shoulders, drawing herself up to her full height. “I’m not sure that I should go anywhere with you.” Her voice is oddly formal, but I catch the quiver in her lip that she tries to hide, and there’s a strain in her tone that drives home how hard it is for her to even be standing with me.

  “No, you shouldn’t.” I lower my voice so that the words are for her, and her only. “You shouldn’t, because I hurt you. And I know that. The things I said to you were—” I look away from her, but I force my gaze back to her eyes. “You’re well within your rights to never forgive me. If you want to walk away right now, I won’t stop you.”

  “You came all this way willing to be humiliated in the lobby of my building?” She’s trying her best to lighten the unbearable heaviness of all this, and my heart breaks all over again.

  “I’m hoping it won’t come to that.” I give her a tentative smile. “But yes.”

  Isabella sighs, making a show of glancing down at her watch. “I’ll give you half an hour.”

  47

  Isabella

  Nothing feels more normal—and more terrifying—than climbing into the back of Jasper’s town car with him.

  He keeps his distance, not making a single move toward me. I can hardly stand it. I want to throw myself into his arms, but at the same time, I’m worried that if he touches me, it will be all over. I’m busy moving on. I’m busy with Gabriel Luxe. I don’t need to get sucked back into this vicious, selfish love for him.

  I might not be able to help it.

  This is probably a mistake, but the part of me that cares has been shouted down by the part of me that wants to be with him. Near him. In sight of him, even.

  “What is it that you wanted to show me?”

  “You’ll see.” A smile quirks at the corner of his mouth.

  My throat aches, a sob rising even though he’s said hardly anything since the town car pulled away from the curb. “Jasper—”

  “Yes?” He turns toward me, away from the window, his blue eyes searching mine.

  “I’m—I’m sorry for what I said, too.”

  He nods. “You had every right to be upset.”

  “It upset me because it was true, what you said.”

  Jasper lets out a short burst of laughter. “You are not a gold-digging bitch.”

  “But I did use you.”

  “Sometimes people do stupid things. I’m the one who challenged you to do it in the first place. I should never have bought that building.”

  “Because my mother lives there?”

  “Because people live there. I was...grossly misled by the seller, and someone on my team slipped up on those leases. Ultimately, that’s on me.”

  An iced-over section of my heart warms and cracks. Jasper Pace, telling me that he cares about the people who live in the buildings he buys? Who is this guy?

  He catches me staring. “What?”

  “Did something happen to you while we were—while we weren’t talking?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because the Jasper Pace I know would never—” A giggle bubbles up in my chest. “The Jasper Pace I thought I knew would never have given a shit whether one of his buildings still had tenants in it or not.”

  “You’re wrong about that. There are laws.” His eyes dance in the sunlight, but then his expression turns serious. “There are laws, but something did happen to me that made me realize that...it’s not always worth it. Brushing people aside isn’t, I mean.”

  “What happened?”

  He gives me a long, level look. “You.”

  It’s all I can do not to launch myself across the seat at him, to rip off his jacket, to tear open his shirt. Part of that has to do with the words coming out of his mouth, but most of it has to do with the close proximity of the back of the town car, the way my body has been aching for him so relentlessly that it wakes me up in the middle of the night, the way he infiltrates my dreams, even when I’m determined not to think of him.

  More than that, I want to be totally surrounded by his arms, all the heat in the world contained in our embrace. It sounds stupid. It probably is stupid. But it’s what I want.

  I’m beginning to think...

  No.

  I can’t even start to hope.

  Terrence pulls the car to a stop next to the curb, and Jasper opens the door and climbs out, offering his hand to me. We’re exactly where I thought we were going. I recognized the way almost immediately.

  “What are we doing here?”

  Jasper looks up at my mother’s building, all five floors of it, shading his eyes from the sun with his hand. He stares at it for a long moment, and then he looks back into my eyes. The silver in his eyes catches the light and reflects it back. It takes my breath away.

  He presses his mouth into a hard line, then seems to make a decision.

  He reaches out and takes my hand.

  The moment he touches me, my body sags with relief—so much so that my knees start to buckle. Jasper sweeps one arm around my waist, catching me before I tumble onto the sidewalk. Heat rushes to my cheeks. “God, this is—” I laugh, using him to stand upright and brush the invisible embarrassment off my skirt suit. “This is embarrassing.”

  “I’ll take the attention off of you.” He turns us both so that we’re facing the building. “This building was one of many that I was looking to buy and gut and profit from in New York City, but you changed that, Isabella.”

  It doesn’t look like much, but when I glance up at my mother’s window, tears come to my eyes. It doesn’t look like much but it means everything.

  “This building brought you into my office.” He takes my other hand in his, turning me back toward him. “This building is the reason you swept into my life like a storm and rearranged the whole thing. Only with you, I’m better than I was before. You made me see—” H
e swallows hard. “You made me see that a business can only take you so far. If you want to go beyond that, you need...you need humanity. You need love.” He takes one more deep breath. “I’m sorry I called you a gold-digging bitch. I’m sorry I accused you of screwing around with me. I think we both know that it only started out that way. And even if you don’t feel the same way about me, I had to bring you here, to show you that—”

  I cut him off.

  I can’t wait another moment.

  I throw my arms around his neck and leap up, wrapping my legs around his waist, kissing him hard.

  It’s like the first taste of water after a year in the desert. It’s like the first breath of warmth after a year in the snow. Kissing Jasper, hard and hot and without a shred of restraint, makes my heart burst open. The words spill from my lips between kisses. “I love you. I love you. Every day without you was like a thousand years.”

  He laughs, holding me tightly to him, lifting me as if I were weightless. For the moment, maybe I am.

  It’s a long time before he sets my feet back on the sidewalk.

  “I love you, Isabella.”

  I try three times to catch my breath, and finally I’m able to speak again. “I love you.” I look back into his gorgeous, soul-shattering blue eyes. “Now, tell me about this investment idea you had.”

  48

  Jasper

  I laugh out loud, a light, giddy feeling welling up in my chest. “I want to know something first.”

  “What?”

  “Are you going to be mine? And not in some insane deal where it lasts for less than a month and then we both screw it up.”

  “I don’t know. I want to know about this supposed investment.” Isabella’s green eyes are shining in the afternoon sun, and I want nothing more than to take her back to my penthouse and pick up where we left off. I grin at her. Not agreeing to anything before she hears all the details? That’s my girl.