The Scandalous Billionaires Collection (53 page)

She took a deep breath and then turned back
to her friends.

"If I told you all…" she let the words hang a
moment, "trust me, you would never believe me."

There were some complaints and moans from the
small group but the couple refused to be pressed on the subject.
Only Harrison seemed to have no interest whatsoever in the mystery
of his brother's relationship. Instead he continued staring fixedly
at Bella as she begged her friend for some crumb of information
about how she had finally relented and gotten together with the
gorgeous Zachary Demovic.

"It's not fair." She protested. "I tell you
everything I think, say or do and this is all you can give me in
return?"

Suzy shook her head.

"That's all I can say Bella, really."

"Well I'm not leaving here until I get some
details." Bella looked serious.

"That's fine by me." Harrison said.

Bella noticed his fixed stare on her for the
first time and it seemed to plunge her into confusion.

"I mean, I'm leaving of course, but I just
need some details."

"You can stay as long as you like." Harrison
sounded deadly serious. "Now you've made a promise, you can't back
down. Suzy, you don't need to tell this pretty friend of yours a
thing."

Bella looked to Suzy for some kind of help.
Suzy looked back at her and smiled.

"Bella," she said, "my lips are sealed."

End of Volume Two

Bella watched the fairytale unfolding before her.

It was a double wedding straight out of a
Hollywood movie and the sun was shining on the vast manicured lawn
of the Demovic estate as Bella's best friend Suzy Price said 'I do'
to her new husband Zachary Demovic. Moments earlier Suzy's older
sister Melissa had done the same with Zachary's older brother
Jason. The brothers were both tall, dark and smolderingly
good-looking on any day of the week, but they looked ten times more
so standing in their wedding attire, vowing endless love to their
new brides.

Bella had tears in her eyes as she watched
the four people she loved the most in the whole world enjoy the
happiest day of their lives and yet nothing could ease the tight
knot of anxiety that gripped her stomach like a clenched fist.

She glanced across the assembled crowd, there
were nearly five hundred guests in all, but one set of eyes stood
out clearly and locked brazenly onto hers.

Harrison Demovic; third in line of the three
Demovic brothers and still single, still incorrigible and most
annoyingly of all, still so damnably handsome. Of the three
siblings he was the one that had always unsettled Bella the most
and today his presence threatened to make her pass out on the
spot.

He was directly opposite her on the other
side of the platform, watching her where she stood at the head of
the line of bridesmaids. Acting as best man to both his brothers he
had been running around like crazy for the last couple of days
while she had busied herself as double head bridesmaid. They hadn't
crossed each others' paths since the episode at her apartment and
their inevitable re-encounter was profoundly uncomfortable.

She looked back to the happy couples,
embracing and kissing, and then back to Harrison again. His eyes
had never left her. He was way more interested in her than in the
marriage of his two brothers and he wasn't afraid to show it, the
selfish bastard. Couldn't he at least pretend he cared about their
happiness more than getting her into the sack, for at least one
day?

She felt herself moisten for him and hated
herself for it, but there was nothing she could do. His relentless
attention was the worst thing possible for either of them but her
body didn't care anything about that. As far as her hormones were
concerned he was just there for the taking and to be thoroughly
enjoyed.

She darted her eyes back to her friends
again. She had to stop thinking about that crazy-sexy man and focus
on what was important here; get through this wedding ceremony,
survive the reception and then get out of Dodge.

If the whole damn thing wasn't such a
nightmare it would have been a dream come true.

God, I can't believe I have to run away from
all this. I can’t believe I have to leave everything
behind…again…

At only twenty-seven years of age the young
billionaire who couldn't take his eyes off her, was just two years
older than Bella. He was rich and successful, impossibly good
looking with his Mediterranean looks
and
he was obsessed
with
her
. Bella Wilson wasn't a movie star or a CEO, she
wasn't a famous artist or a famous anything. Mostly she just did
temp work; typing documents for other people and going from one low
level assignment to the next, never getting to know her work
colleagues well and never getting a chance to make an impression
before the contract was over and she was sent off somewhere
else.

Bella Wilson was just a girl. She was a
nobody; a nobody with a problem and that problem refused to take
its eyes off her.

She looked down at her hands and checked
inside her glove again just to check that her ticket was still
there.

It hadn't moved. The tightly folded bus and
rail ticket she had concealed was valid for six months. She could
go anywhere in the country she wanted to and no-one would know
where she was. That was the beauty of an open ticket with no fixed
destination. It needed to be that way because Harrison was a man of
unlimited resources and if he wanted to find her then he would be
damn near impossible to run from.

She hadn’t told a soul about her plans. She
couldn’t risk it. Even her best friend Suzy, in tears of happiness
before her, had no clue about her intentions.

She choked back a tear of her own.

Suzy and Melissa were the closest thing to
family she had in this world.

She squeezed the ticket in the palm of her
hand again and tried to be strong.

Today is the day.
She thought.

Today was the day she would disappear from
all of their lives forever.

Six Months Earlier

When Harrison met Bella for the first time it wasn't
love at first sight. The young billionaire didn't know what the
word 'love' meant and he didn't care. What he did know was that
Bella was different from the women he usually met and he was into
it, big time, from the very first moment.

His big brother Zachary, the technical mind
behind the success of their multi-billion dollar corporation, had
called a family meeting and Harrison watched with some impatience
as he arrived with his new girlfriend in tow.

The young tycoon didn't have time for mystery
meetings, particularly not those called by his geeky older brother.
He watched Zachary like a human surveillance camera, willing him to
get to the point already so that he could get back to his life
again.

His likewise tall and incredibly handsome
older brother cleared his throat with annoying precision and then
tapped the side of a teacup with a spoon. To Harrison it seemed
like he was watching a human being operate in excruciating slow
motion.

"Thank you all for being here today." Zachary
began.

"This isn't a board meeting Zach." Harrison
interjected. "Stop being a corporate computer geek for a half hour
and tell us what this is all about so we can get back to our
lives."

"Direct as always Harrison. And for once,
absolutely right. Firstly, I’d like to say that earth has finally
been broken at the Demovic Technical Innovation University."

"If this is the reason you called us all over
here then, I'm sorry people, but unless there's something else, I'm
outta here." Harrison said.

"It's not the real reason. Not the only one
anyway, so you can stick around little man." Harrison was just as
tall and strong as his two older brothers but Zach loved to call
him little man. "What you all may not realize is that it was Suzy's
ingenuity and diplomacy that finally got the deal pushed through in
the end."

"Huh?" Harrison grunted incredulously.

"She did an excellent job Harrison. You could
learn a thing or two from her."

"Well I'll be damned." he said. "My big
brother found himself a girl with a brain as well as a hot--."

"Thanks Harrison," Suzy interrupted, "I'll
take whatever you were about to say as a compliment." Harrison
returned a smile that wiped away any offence he could ever possibly
have given. He had the Demovic boy charm in spades and Bella had
been watching him with her mouth hanging slightly open in awe since
he had entered the room. She had seen him on TV, but this was the
first time she set eyes on him in person. As far as she was
concerned he was by far the hottest of the very, very hot Demovic
brothers. Rough around the edges sure, but with a little polishing
from the right girl that would be no problem at all. She certainly
didn't see herself in that role though; he was way, way out of her
league.

"If I may." Zachary continued. "Well, I
suppose you all know by now that I finally managed to convince the
very lovely and very brilliant Suzy Price here to lower her
standards and be my girl."

"The whole of New York knows about it
already." Bella blurted out and then followed up with a tomato red
blush.

Shut up. Shut up . Shut up.
She
scolded herself.

"Thank you Bella." Zachary said with a
gracious smile in her direction that made her blush even harder.
"But there's something else that the whole of New York
doesn't
know about."

"Enlighten us." Harrison said.

"I'd like to make an announcement." Zachary
paused again for a moment while his family waited. He was savoring
the moment but it was too much for his younger brother.

"And are you waiting for us to guess what it
is?" The self-absorbed young billionaire really had no clue what it
could be about, even though it was almost common knowledge to
nearly everybody else in the room.

The ignorance was too much for Bella. How
could someone so attractive be so dumb? This sexy guy needed a
woman to take him in hand.

"They're getting engaged you idiot." She
fired at him before she even realized she had wanted to say
anything.

The magazine model, movie star face had a
moment of shock. It was as if Bella had appeared out of nowhere to
fire the jibe at him and then the room erupted into applause, much
to his annoyance.

He looked at the girl who had insulted him
and the shock hit him again like a slap in the face from a hot
young girl. He was agog as he tried to take it in. The girl was in
her early twenties and with stunning, what Harrison liked to call
'real world' good looks. There was no fakery, no pretense; just a
drop dead beautiful girl with intense, emerald green eyes and dark
red hair.

"Who are you?" He said. He needed know.

The girl flushed red and the effect on him
was instant. His cock, which had been the last thing on his mind,
went hard in his pants and boning this gorgeous girl shot right up
to the top of his high priority list. Even better, her ball-busting
blush told him that she was feeling it too. The women he spent time
with didn't blush like that; they were shameless. He had to know
this girl immediately and in every possible way, beginning,
preferably, with taking her prisoner in his bed and screwing her
until she screamed in ecstasy for him to stop.

The he would screw her some more.

This was a new toy unlike any he had had in a
very long time and he wanted to play with it.

Right. Fucking. Now.

He watched as Zachary drew the girl into his
arms and gave her a very warm and familiar bear hug. A spike of
unexpected jealousy went through him and he felt like yelling at
his brother for her to get his hands off her, but in view of the
nature of the gathering he held back.

Thank you Bella." Zachary said. ""Harrison
isn't used to being told it like it is by a woman who's obviously
way smarter than he'll ever be."

Champagne arrived and the group set to
discussing dates and arrangements and making bad jokes about
starting families but it was all just background noise to
Harrison.

You're mine, sexy little redhead.
He
was thinking.
You just don’t know it yet.

He watched her like a hawk but the girl had
retreated into her own thoughts.

When Catherine Walton, Demovic Corporation's
powerful Head of Human Resources, asked how Zachary and Suzy had
gotten together she was rapt.

"So tell us Suzy, we're all dying to hear.
What was it that Zachary finally did that convinced you he was the
one? We all thought you had turned into worst enemies after that
first little skirmish you both had as, uh 'co-workers'."