At the Billionaire’s Wedding (33 page)

Piers swiveled his martini. “Was he drunk?”

“Passed out. There was a lit cigar, but drugs too. He went to jail.”

Duke whistled low.

“Cali was studying when the fire started,” Jane said. “She was taking night classes from community college so she could finish her degree and get promoted from library page to associate. She dragged her father from the house. Her sister was asleep upstairs. The firemen rescued Zoe, but she was really badly burned.”

Piers hadn’t known. He could have found out. He’d never wanted to. He eavesdropped on her every Friday morning, but she knew that; she lowered her voice when she didn’t want him to hear. Anything else he learned about her, he’d wanted to hear from her directly.

“The house wasn’t insured for fire. So Cali finished her degree in record time and has been working her tail off at the library ever since. It’s been hard for her and Zoe in the past few years,” Jane said. “She doesn’t need you messing around with her head, Piers. And she definitely doesn’t need more lying jerks like her father.”

“That’s harsh, Jane,” Duke said, but he took her hand.

“I’m sorry,” Jane said. “I didn’t mean it that way. Just don’t play around with her, Piers. Okay?”

He didn’t want to play. He wanted to know her. To actually know her. But he’d already made that undoable. Yeah. Great idea, trying to take away her hurt. Great plan to make her wishes come true.

The Park at Brampton

The morning began with a spectacular thunderstorm that broke directly over the house and woke Cali from dreams of Piers Prescott touching her.

The night before at the casual barbeque dinner, he’d been more gorgeous than a greedy corporate ogre should be allowed. He’d only come near her once, when she’d stood at the bar alone. He asked if she’d gotten hold of the Austen novel yet. She told him Mark, the hotel manager, had let her see it and she’d been in heaven. Piers smiled at her and looked right into her eyes the way he had in the library. Then several of the other women guests swarmed all over him. He hadn’t approached her again. But a few times she’d found him watching her.

It was unnerving. And incredibly arousing.

She’d never before dreamed of making out with a man. It took her a few minutes of staring up at the canopy above her five-star mattress to shrug the sensations from her body and switch on her rational brain. But her blood still felt zingy. She needed to get outside. The estate covered acres and acres. She would take a run. And on her run she would reconsider Zoe’s and Roxanna’s advice.

He was gorgeous. He was only thirty-ish and already a millionaire. He was so completely out of her league he would never be interested in her if she weren’t here. Guys like Piers Prescott only cared about money, power, and good looks.

But her imagination was now a train hurtling out of control. She thought about touching his chest. She thought about the way he’d touched her in the dream. Then she thought about him on top of her, between her thighs, pressing her into that five-star mattress.

A run. She needed a long run. Immediately.

And probably a fling. Zoe was right: she was wound up so tightly from stress that she was fantasizing about a guy she’d barely met. A golden opportunity to release tension, to kick loose for the first time in years, was in this house now. And he could probably use some rebound sex after the split with his longtime girlfriend.

No.
Bad idea. She wanted nothing to do with the Prescott family, not even a casual fling. Best to steer clear of him. She would find one of Duke’s other friends who seemed nice and interesting
and moral
. Then she could release tension without sacrificing any self-respect.

She dressed in running shorts and a Lycra tank, and stretched for her run. Then she went looking for a man. A specific man.

She found Lord Melbury’s son, Harry Compton, in his residence, knocking dirt from work boots in a long hallway inside the side door to the house. It seemed a very plebeian activity for the heir to a lord of the realm. But she supposed nobles put their boots on one foot at a time too—and took them off, muddy.

Sick in her stomach, she apologized for the accident in the library. Pleasantly reserved in the way only Englishmen could be, he was a complete gentleman. He assured her that few of the books were damaged and all were easily replaceable. The bookcase hadn’t suffered any harm either. He seemed more worried that she’d been injured. She assured him she’d only gotten what she deserved for being so careless. Then she offered to pay for the damaged books, which he politely refused.

With a much lighter heart, she set off across the estate.

And promptly got lost.

She hadn’t run in the countryside in ages, and Brampton wasn’t exactly laid out on a grid. Thunderclouds rumbled ominously. A droplet of rain splashed on her face. She’d no idea how far she was from the house.

In the distance, a white temple structure rose amidst gorgeous trees and glorious shrubs on the top of a hill. She remembered having seen it from the house. Thunder boomed. As she ran toward the gazebo, the sky split open. Buckets. Cats and dogs. Noah’s Ark-worthy. Lungs burning, she sprinted.

Splashing up the steps of the gazebo and ducking inside, she came face-to-face with the man of her dream.

Of course.
Sweaty and flushed, dripping rain from the tip of her nose, her hair plastered to her head, and gulping breaths, she had to bump into Mr.
GQ
in the middle of nowhere. He sat on a marble bench against the inside wall, his slacks dry and his pristine white linen shirt undone to the third button. He had an iPad mini propped on one knee, and he wore a pair of leather Ferragamos worth more than her monthly rent.

He looked up. And did a double take.

“Hey.”

She swiped water from her dripping chin. “Hi.” The pouring rain almost drowned her out.

He set down the tablet, stood, and came forward, his gaze dipping to her legs. “Thunderstorm running? Is this a new Olympic sport?”

“Yup. I’m a favorite to medal next year.” She told herself it didn’t matter that she was a mess. She didn’t need to impress him. The bookmobile had funding for at least a year. She didn’t need to go begging to any Prescott now.

Not for money.

She couldn’t help thinking about her dream and where he’d touched her. If the storm hadn’t woken her, she might have started begging in that scenario.

“It should be over soon.” He sounded smooth. Assured. Relaxed. While her insides were like a carnival. She kind of hated him for it. But she already hated the Prescotts anyway.

“So, I think it would be best if I set something straight right away,” she said.

“Good idea.”

She blinked. “It is?”

“Yeah.”

“But you don’t know what I’m going to say.”

“If you think it’s important, I’d like to hear it.” He sounded completely earnest.

This wasn’t how she’d thought things would go with him. She hadn’t planned on saying this at all. But she had him trapped, penned in by sheets of rain. He had to listen. It would entirely ruin her golden opportunity, but the words bubbling up in her now were much more important than a fling.

She shifted from one foot to the other and her shoes squelched. “I helped prepare a proposal that the library submitted to your family’s foundation for a mobile library unit that drives through underprivileged neighborhoods, lending books. The foundation rejected our proposal.”

“It receives many proposals,” he said guardedly. It was the first she’d seen him less than entirely confident. It gave her a moment’s pause.

“I know it can’t fund everything,” she admitted, but she had to say this. “It wasn’t the rejection itself that I objected to, but the tone of it.”

“The tone?”

“It was scathing and insulting. It suggested that the project was naively conceived and a waste of money, and that if the people it intended to serve really wanted to improve themselves, they would finish high school and get jobs instead of lazing around expecting taxpayers to entertain them with free books. It intimated that the people who live in those neighborhoods are all drug addicts and illiterate, so what good would it to do to offer them books except give them something to sell in exchange for their next hit? I’ve never read anything so ignorant and condescending in my life.”

“I can understand that.”

“Powerful, rich people just don’t get it that people struggling to make ends meet want to read good books too. But they can’t afford them. Or they can’t afford bus fare to get to the closest branch library. And they can’t afford overdue fines when they have to work overtime to pay the heating bill or send their kids to school with lunch, so they can’t make it back to the library to return a book on time. Or they’re too old to get around and they can’t get books easily. Or they’re teachers and they don’t have the money to buy new books or to take their students on field trips to the library, but they still want to give the kids the world. The bookmobile is for those people.”

“It’s clearly a valid program, California.”

“It
is
. But people like your family, who sit in their elite ivory towers and dictate how the world turns, don’t think of anybody’s happiness except their own. You’re all about gala balls to celebrate your latest billion-dollar deals and dismantling companies to ship them overseas. You have no idea how the so-called little people struggle to get by every day. You can’t see beyond your upturned noses. And to call the Prescott Foundation a charitable institution is ludicrous when it only gives money to high cultural events like art gallery shows and symphony performances intended for people with three-BMW garages and vacation houses in France. It’s awful and wrong and you should be ashamed of yourselves.”

“I know.”

The air rushed out of her lungs. She pushed a sodden lock of hair back from her forehead. “You do?”

“Yeah. I agree with you.”

She couldn’t wrap her head around it. “Are you saying this just so I’ll shut up?”

“No. I actually agree with you. My grandfather is a prize bastard with a sense of entitlement longer than his yacht, and he wants to control everyone and everything around him. I don’t like the way the company or the foundation do business any more than you do.”

“But…” She shook her head. “I didn’t expect you to say this.”

“Clearly.” He smiled slightly. The rain had let up but a gust of misty wind swept through the gazebo and brushed his collar wide open, exposing a portion of perfectly toned chest. Goosebumps skittered all over Cali’s skin. She clamped her arms across her breasts.

“You must be cold,” he said, putting a hand to his shirt buttons. “I didn’t bring a jacket out here, but—”

“No.”
She stepped back. “No, I’m fine.” If he took off his shirt and gave it to her she would die. Or attack him. “I’m cooling down pretty fast. I should finish my run now.” She glanced at the iPad. “What are you doing out here? Don’t tell me… You’re secretly plotting to overthrow your grandfather, but he found out and bugged the house, so you had to come here to communicate with your guerilla army of spies?”

His warm eyes glimmered. “There’s no Wi-Fi or cell service at the house. Someone discovered a signal here and I came to give it a try.” He glanced around. “I’m surprised there aren’t twenty other people here now.”

“I thought you said you were all about playing this week.”

“I said that because you looked beautiful and I was flirting with you. Which you resisted valiantly. Now I understand at least one reason for that.”

His directness was as sexy as the rest of him. He stepped forward, the wind pressing the linen against his arms and chest.

“Listen, Califor—”

“Why did you come looking for me in the library? Jane said you did.”

“I wanted to get you alone.”

Nerves zipped right up the center of her body. “We’re alone now.”

“We are.” His voice sounded low. “And I’m suddenly thinking I’m not prepared for this.”

“But I think I am.” Taking two quick steps forward and balancing on her squishy toes, she pressed a kiss on the sexiest lips she’d ever seen. Sexiest she’d ever
felt
. Soft and angling instantly to meet hers. The scent of him. The flavor. So good.
Too good.

She started to pull back.

He wrapped his hand around the base of her skull and took over.

He kissed her like he’d had this in mind from the start and knew she would be okay with it.

She was.
She so was.

Urging her lips apart, tilting her face up, he fit their mouths together perfectly. Slow, deep, and bone-meltingly good, he kissed her like he planned to kiss her all day. And he tasted like a god. And smelled like heaven. His hand on her neck and the expensive scent of his skin—so
incredibly good
. Her whole body woke up, hot and trembling and delicious. He slipped the tip of his tongue along the inside seam of her upper lip, then came inside her, stroking her tongue and making her ache where she hadn’t in ages—except in her dream last night.

But this was no dream. This was his fingers sinking into her wet hair and his tongue in her mouth and his lips making her want to taste even more of him. Her shirt felt far too tight and the impulse to press her breasts against his chest felt totally natural. The impulse to press her entire body to him felt even stronger.

She broke away and gulped in air.

His gorgeous blue eyes seemed unfocused. Like he was floored too.

Wrong.
This wasn’t how wedding party hookups were supposed to happen. When she was all done up in a sexy dress, she was supposed to get tipsy and have irresponsible sex in a coat closet. Not perfect kisses in the middle of the day, wearing soaked running gear.

But he was looking at her like she was sexy
now
. And like he wouldn’t need a coat closet.

No.

Not this man.

Not
her
.

What did she know about wedding party flings anyway? She preferred to get to know a man before she slept with him. That this man didn’t feel like a stranger was an illusion caused by his unexpected reaction to her harangue and by his good looks. And his scent. And his flavor. And the way he kissed her as if he knew just how she wanted to be kissed.