Billionaire Season 3: Summer Ablaze (Billionaire Season Trilogy) (6 page)

Chapter Six

Beth Hawkins gripped the steering wheel of her new Fiat so hard that her knuckles had turned white. She drove fast, in love with the way the car hugged each curve along the way to the Bayou Lafourche. The sand and gravel road was fairly new, she’d had to coerce a county official and give several blowjobs to pay for the shitty little path that cut through the thickly tangled woods. They didn’t bother to pave it with asphalt, simply poured a thin layer of cheap aggregate. She knew the way to and from the shack by heart and it didn’t make a good Goddamn that vines and limbs, swamp-muck and gravel whipped and tore and battered the Fiat’s shiny red paint. Fuck it, fuck William Warfield, but mostly—fuck Allie Darling.

All those years, wonderful, fulfilling years that she had devoted herself to William’s happiness were lost, wasted, gone with the wind, all because of a simpering little twat who had the misfortune of making William fall in love with her. Walden thought Liza’s bitch daughter was an angel and William had let his dick do the thinking instead of just fucking her and walking away like he did with all the other whorish one night stands he was so fond of. That fair-haired girl was no wide-eyed innocent, she was the devil incarnate and Beth’s plans for her were well deserved.

As much as Beth loved William— and she had loved him from the day he saved her from the mere existence of becoming a bitter, lonely widow— he had never taken her for granted the way he had since Allie showed up. Beth and William had spent quality time together, snippets of time here and there when William sat sipping a cup of coffee in the mornings before work or threw back a glass of bourbon before he ran off to the that nasty club of Walden’s. Time that meant the world to Beth Hawkins, small pieces of time and a few words exchanged that made her life worth living. She understood William and his need to fuck his way through New Orleans, she had gotten off many, many times watching from the shadows or slipping into the bed in the room next to his. Oh how the sight and sounds of him pounding some girl to pieces with that huge, beautiful cock sent her straight into a dreamland where it wasn’t her own hand between her legs. She imagined him spreading her open, his fingers probing, his luscious mouth performing miracles and his cock tearing into her tender tissues as he confessed his undying love for her.

The more she thought about his unfortunate behavior over the long, torturous summer, the more convinced she was to make him suffer terribly and then forgive him so things could go back to the way they should be. She was going to have to get rid of Allie, that’s all there was to it. William had survived that fucked up kidnapping that Beth’s mother had instigated and that had been one hell of a motherfucking blow.

She was eighteen when her mother went to work for the Warfield’s, only eleven years older than William, (although he thought of her as much older now and certainly not a prime candidate to become his lover). William was seven when she first met him, a cute boy who survived and over the years became a walking, talking sex god in Beth’s eyes. After the kidnapping failed she’d gone away to marry but she visited at Greenlea and watched as the brothers grew into their manly teenaged bodies.

Her mother had only been with the Warfield’s for a few months when the idea to extort millions upon millions of dollars from the high and mighty, rich-as-Croesus Warfield’s had occurred to her, and Beth had delighted in the bizarre plan and the thought of all that money. Beth was a wild teenager back then, always in trouble at school, smoking pot, popping Vicodin and OxyContin, and fucking good-for-nothing boys like it was the national pastime. She was up for anything that fucked with the status quo and she was sick and tired of wearing the cast-off clothes so sweetly given to her by the string of shallow rich ladies her mother spent her life slaving for. Stupid rich ladies was more like it. Lazy, dumb whores like Stella Warfield who couldn’t be bothered to check references before hiring Beth’s mother to feed and bathe and wipe her kid’s asses and snotty noses.

She and her mother had counted on the ransom money to set them up for life. Fifty million dollars, that was what they had demanded, and it was
so
easy to get Stella and her scum-sucking, inbred boyfriend to go along with the plan. Stella was nothing but an “Oh woe is me, my husband is a billionaire but he loves another woman and I can’t live like this!” drugged out, empty-headed fool. Honest to God, how she had managed to give birth to two fine as hell sons was beyond Beth’s comprehension. The fifty million wouldn’t have made a dent in the Warfield fortune but it had been a little iffy as to whether William the third would loosen the purse strings and cough it up. That old son-of-a-bitch was tighter than Dick’s hatband
and
more than a few bricks short of a load in the brains department.

But as it turned out, the money was never an issue, things had gone terribly wrong and young William had run away and the rest was history. No money, Stella and her dipshit boyfriend dead, and Beth’s mother had simply given up and stayed on at Greenlea Plantation since it was actually a better job than she could ever have hoped for. Beth had married the first man she slept with who wasn’t a criminal, and she had visited at Greenlea off and on until William left for college and Walden was so far gone mentally that he only spoke to his brother or that uppity maid Mae while he spent his days and nights wordlessly fucking the fine young daughters of New Orleans society.

The plan to kill Allie had begun to take shape in her mind as soon as William had taken the girl into his bed.
Fuck
, it made her insides churn with bitter hatred every time she had to witness the raw emotion on William’s face when he looked at Allie. Then after they’d broken up, he’d sulked around like his world had come to an end and she knew the only way to save him from turning into his lovelorn father was to get rid of his dream girl once and for all. 

So she had used her days off to scour the county tax records for some derelict, out of the way fishing shack to use as her “funhouse” to draw Allie’s suffering out as long as possible. And surprise, surprise! There it was—the very ramshackle “cabin” on the Bayou Lafourche where the Warfield boys had been taken when they were kidnapped. She thought it had probably been burned to the ground or bulldozed, but leave it to batty elder William to let it slip his mind. All that was required was for her to pay a piddling sum to catch up the back taxes and the little fishing shack was hers.

Beth got an inordinate amount of happiness as she cleaned the trash out of the place, leaving only the metal cot and filthy mattress. She had bought a sturdy rocking chair at the Cracker Barrel on the highway and she liked to rock and go over the fine points of revenge as she stared out to the haunting mist rising off the bayou. Sometimes she whistled a happy tune as she swept every stray speck of dirt and rat shit from the floors, and her mind raced with scenes of Allie struggling and begging (just as poor little Walden had probably done) when Beth had her firmly secured to that awful, stinking cot. Strangely, the shack had become her refuge and she enjoyed spending her free days there, now that William had so graciously informed her she could live alone in his townhouse although it would never belong to her since it was part of his family’s trust. To add insult to injury he’d gifted her seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars so she could “retire.” He must have thought she would jump for joy at such a gift, but it was nothing compared to the contentment she’d felt when she woke up and went to sleep secure in the knowledge that he always came home to
her
.

She’d gone so far as to visit Remy Lesairre after William called from Florida gleefully announcing that he’d won Allie’s heart back. William had the audacity to ask if she would meet with a personal shopper at Saks Fifth Avenue and fill the gargantuan closet he’d had fashioned just for Allie in that monstrous big house where he planned to carry her over the threshold.
Fuck almighty!
  She’d tricked Remy into letting her gather Allie’s belongings from her tiny guestroom so that she could take them to that Voodoo witch who chanted and conjured black magic spells behind
Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo
. The spooky old witch sold her all manner of charms and vials of unholy water to tuck in amidst the designer dresses and jeans and jackets in Miss Alaina Darling’s dream-come-true closet. They weren’t potent enough to put an end to Allie, but they would weaken her spirit and sense of judgment enough so that Beth could snatch her out of William’s grasp and put a painful end to her interloping ass.

Most folks didn’t believe in such things as magic and curses and wishes coming true or dying on the vine. But one good look at the likes of Remy Lesairre and the old stories began to make sense. That girl was way into some sort of otherworldly goings on, no doubt about it. Beth had shopped at the
You Wish
book store for years and Remy had always been the same mousy, scared-of-her-own-shadow wallflower. Well not anymore. Gone was the vacant, nothing-extraordinary-has-ever-happened-to-me look in her eyes, she was practically a different woman. Beth had to look twice to recognize her and it was a solid fact that her full head of lustrous shining hair, blue-blue eyes, and sexy pinup-girl figure were the
real
deal
. Beth inquired as to what on earth Remy had done to herself and she’d just smiled a sly, secret smile, touched her fingers to a stitched up sickle-shaped scar above her brow, and said she’d kind of lost herself in the Caribbean.

Beth swerved through the streets of New Orleans and screeched to halt across the street from William’s picture-perfect mansion. She fished her new handgun out of her purse and released the safety, it was ready to fire with a bullet already in the chamber. Allie Darling was in the front garden filling a basket with cut roses and talking to that empty-headed house-maid, Ginny, who had been promoted to the position of personal maid to the future Mrs. Warfield. Allie lifted her hand to brush a wisp a hair from her face and the Countess Warfield Diamond glinted on her finger. That made Beth’s blood boil worse than anything. William had entrusted the care of his grandmother’s wedding ring to her when she’d been his most trusted friend and she had cared for it lovingly, sliding it onto her ring finger every time she took it out of the safe to clean or just admire it.

That ring had never been on Stella’s finger, it was too good for the likes of her. After all, William the third had never cared for her, he’d only used her as a vessel to catch his sperm when he was hard up and needed to come. The priceless diamond ring that had first belonged to the infamous Countess Warfield and then the next Mrs. Warfield had bypassed William the third’s sad little nothing of a wife and was William the fourth’s property to bestow on his truest love, which he quite obviously had.

Beth lifted the gun and stared straight down the sight, it was trained on Allie Darling’s heart and Beth steadied herself to squeeze the trigger. Allie turned suddenly, smiling a smile so brilliant it was nearly blinding as William sprinted down the front steps and wrapped her in his arms.
Fuck, fuck, fuck it all!
Beth slammed the gun against the steering wheel and the horn blared but she hit the gas and sped away and only Ginny caught a glimpse of the mud-splattered red Fiat as it faded into the distance.

Chapter Seven

Allie woke up in the elegant bed and smiled as she lifted her hand to stare at the ‘anything but subtle’ engagement ring. How had this happened so fast and how did she get so lucky and would her heart ever stop tripping over itself with love for her fiancé? They had fallen asleep sweaty and sore and satisfied last night and every night before that since they had moved into their new home. They spooned together after making love, his front to her back and they stayed that way, exhausted and content, only waking when the yellow August sunlight slanted through the windows and touched their skin.

William slept soundly but his body was awake and the coarse length of his erection pressed against Allie’s thighs. The delicious feel of his bulky weight, hot, smooth skin and taut, chiseled muscles made her nipples harden and her sex hum with need, and beside her, William stirred instinctively. He rolled onto his back as his heavy eyelids opened and he lifted her up so that she straddled him and eased herself down slowly, slowly, as he stretched her quivering pussy, loving and savoring the delicious fullness. His hands covered her small breasts and his thumbs circled her nipples eliciting a sharp startled cry. She loved the feel of his hands on her breasts but this was different somehow, her nipples ached with a pleasure that was so close to pain it was startling in its intensity as it shot straight to her sex.

“Come for me, Allie. God, your pussy is on fire, come on, baby, let’s make a mess,” William whispered as he thrust into her harder and deeper and the moment his lips pulled a stiff pink nipple into his mouth it sent her spiraling into a shattering orgasm. 

“Are you alright, darling girl?” he asked as she lay on top of him, his chest wet from her tears. “Usually you’re glowing like a firefly after a monster orgasm, sure you’re okay, baby?”

“I’m good, I’m great, I just can’t get enough of you and I probably should eat something, my stomach’s a little queasy.”

“Room service then, I’ll get Ginny up here with a tray. You sure you’re not coming down with that pesky stomach flu? I hear it’s going around. Maybe you should skip the wedding, I can make an appearance and be back home before dark,” William said, kissing her lips, her eyelids, her forehead.

“No, no, I’m fine. I wanna go with you. Just need something in my stomach. I’m burning a lot of calories with all this extracurricular activity, wow, it’s a full time job being in love, isn’t it?” She said and smiled a weak smile. 

“Good, because I want you with me, I have an overwhelming need to show off my fiancé. And it will make my father supremely happy to learn that you love his son and have agreed to marry me. He’ll start right in urging us to make a baby, of course, can you handle that?”

“Can I handle your father’s enthusiasm or can I handle making a baby?” Allie asked and the realization dawned that she couldn’t remember buying tampons all summer. “We haven’t really talked about that, William, babies and… all.”

“Not much to talk about, I want a house full and I hope you do too, darling girl. Plus, we’re practicing night and day so I don’t see that it will be a problem when you’re ready.” He leaned down again and his tongue stroked out across the overly sensitive peak of her nipple, then he picked up his cell phone, called downstairs and asked Ginny to bring up toast and eggs and tea before he disappeared into the bathroom to take a shower.

Allie reached for her cell, called Ginny back and told her to skip the eggs and just bring the toast and tea.

“You don’t look so good this morning,” Ginny whispered as she sat the breakfast tray down on a table in the sitting room adjoining the master bedroom.

Allie pulled her silk robe around her and curled her legs under her as she sat at the table. She nibbled the toast, took a sip of tea and fought back the urge to vomit. She felt miserable and her face was a pale shade of green as she simply stared at Ginny.

“You in the family way, huh?” Ginny asked and Allie shushed her and motioned for her to sit down at the table.

“I don’t know, maybe… what should I do? I’m not an idiot but this is way outta my league. Pregnant… is it possible?” She whispered, looking around to make sure William couldn’t hear. “How could I be? I’m on birth control… I mean, I was. Fuck! Time has gotten away from me and my mind has been all over the place since I came to this ridiculously wicked city. Ohhhhhhh.”

“Why is this bad news, girl? You’re engaged, he’s lost-his-mind-crazy over you, why you ‘fraid to be pregnant? I’d step into your shoes in a hot minute; that man is richer than sin and every kind of sexy. You got his baby in you—you’re one lucky, lucky girl, the way I see it.”

“Ginny, do me a favor, please? Run down to the pharmacy and pick up one of those quickie pregnancy tests, would you mind?” Allie whispered, silently counting the weeks since her last period.

“Consider it done and I’ll be back in a flash. My lips are sealed, Miss Allie, I won’t let the cat outta the bag even if somebody was to torture me.”

Ginny winked and lifted the second tea cup and took a swallow just as William leaned over her shoulder, picked up a piece of toast and took a bite.

“No tea for me Ginny?” He grinned and shook his head at the horrified look on her face, “Just you and my almost-wife having breakfast, I see. Not a problem, glad you two are getting along. Alaina needs a friend in her new home town, a girlfriend, friend-girl, you know what I mean. Take care of her for me when I’m not available, does that work for you Alaina? Good, I’d appreciate it, Ginny.”

“Yes sir, I’ll get you a clean cup and then I gotta run down to the Rexall and pick up a few things,” Ginny said, as she backed out of the room, then she turned and ran down the stairs as fast as her feet would carry her.

“A tux, huh? I didn’t think you could look any hotter than usual but I was wrong,” Allie said, standing and fiddling with William’s bowtie before throwing her hands up in frustration.

He folded her into his arms and nuzzled her neck, wiped the crumbs from the corner of her mouth and kissed her as if they’d been apart for more than half an hour. “Did the toast and girl talk do the trick? You look better, rosy cheeks, a sparkle in those mesmerizing eyes. Ginny’s a sweet girl, did I ever tell you she’s Mae’s granddaughter? I’d trust her with my life, more than that I’d trust her with yours.”

“I like her, she’s got a knack for speaking her mind, and you’re right, I can use a friend-girl. I’ll probably start getting death threats from all the heartbroken debutantes in New Orleans as soon as word of our engagement spreads.”

“I doubt that, who would dare lay a hand on my darling girl? Okay, have you picked a dress to wear today? It’s a small ceremony so, hell I don’t know… whatever’s appropriate for an outdoor wedding— hats are big at this sort of event, I’ve noticed.”

“I’ve got this, don’t worry. I called that personal shopper from Saks yesterday and she walked me through the creation of an appropriate ensemble. And thank you for my closet that’s a big as a shopping mall but with more and better clothes,” she rolled her eyes and laughed, then she was up and standing next to him, she lifted up on the tips of her toes and pressed her lips to his.

He moved against her, hands reaching to cup her little ass, unquenchable hunger flaring, his cock rousing immediately. “Get dressed or undressed, Alaina, maybe we should make it a double wedding since it feels like we’re already on our honeymoon.”

“We don’t have a marriage license and I think you have to wait three days after you get one. I
am
ready to marry you William, right this minute. Wanna skip out on the party and fly to Las Vegas?” Allie said and she’d never been more serious, she loved him, she never wanted to be apart from him, and more than likely they were expecting a baby.

“Leave it to me, I’m a man who can make things happen. Now jump in the shower and make yourself beautiful, although I don’t believe you could ever look more beautiful or enchanting than you do at this moment. You surely must be a woman in love, you’re glowing like… like you’re filled with stardust. Have I told you lately that I love you? Because I do, so much so that it’s like an ache inside me. I have to hand it to Walden, he was absolutely right, a single glimpse of Alaina Darling is like looking into the face of love.”