Very Bad Billionaires (3 page)

“I didn’t break anything to come in here, Alston. And I’m sorry I snooped. It was wrong. But now I know. And I’m not running away. I’m not scared of you.”

“You should be.”

“Give me a chance. If you’re worried about the papers, we’ll keep it secret. No one has to know.”

Alston swallowed. “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

“I’ll learn.”

Alston snorted and shook his head. “You’re sweet, but I can’t dump my burdens on you, Bryce. I’m not this façade all the time. I’m…no good for someone so innocent.” He turned away, but she grabbed his arm, tugging him around to face her.

“I’m not that innocent.”

“Compared to me you are.”

“What if I don’t want to be anymore?”

“You’re lying.”

“Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know.” Alston turned around and ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe to keep all this—to stay here with this life.”

She dropped his arm and backed up, mouth hanging open like he’d punched her in the gut. Her arm wrapped around her middle and he knew he’d crossed a line.

“You think I’d lie about wanting you so I could stay here? In your house?”

Shit
. Alston stepped forward, an apology on his lips, but she stepped back.

“Is that all I am to you? A fucking whore who’d give you her body for a pool house and a chauffeur?”

“No! Bryce, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…”

“You’re damn right. But the cat’s out of the bag now. I can’t believe I ever fantasized about you. All those years wasted.”

“Years?” Alston shook his head in confusion. “You’ve wanted me for years?”

She snorted out a hollow laugh and rolled her eyes. “What does it matter now? I see what you think of me. Here—” Unclasping the necklace from around her neck, she pulled it off and held it in her outstretched hand. “Take it. I’d hate for you to think I’d tried to earn it.”

Alston closed his eyes. How did it all go so horribly wrong? He’d wanted her to leave, true, but that was for reasons all his own. Insulting her had never been his intention.

“Bryce, I’m sorry. Forget what I said. I didn’t mean it. I was pushing you away and I wasn’t thinking.” Stepping toward her, he wrapped his hands around hers and the necklace she still held. “This is yours. It’s a gift. No strings attached.”

She frowned. “Fine. I’ll make my own arrangements for leaving if you don’t mind. I’ll be out of your life by tomorrow evening.”

“Bryce—”

She waved him off with a brush of her hand. “I don’t need your pity, Mr. Hayes. That’s never what this was about.”

When she reached the door to his office, she spun and faced him. Even from across the room, he could see the pain in the tension of her face. “I appreciate your generosity all these years. You’ve given me everything money could buy. And for that I’m eternally grateful.”

She walked out without even waiting for his reply.

Chapter Three

Alston paced the office, wearing a pattern into the wool pile as he stared out the windows into the dark. He’d played out their argument in slow-motion in his mind. Repeating everything he’d said, all her responses. One admission stuck out like a hidden branch, tripping him up every time—she’d fantasized about him for years.

Every summer, she’d show up and spend a few weeks lounging around the house and using the gym. Always appearing on the periphery of his life. Was she…watching him? He shook his head, but it wouldn’t clear.

In one day, Bryce Meadows had upended the natural order of things and Alston didn’t know what to do. He’d made it a point never to let a woman cloud his judgment or fog his brain, but she had in an instant.

And now he stalked around like a damn caged animal. A lion who wouldn’t know the first thing to do if it escaped. Stopping, he ground his teeth together and faced reality. He needed to let her go. That’s what a legal guardian should do. She was twenty-one. The guardianship was over and she should move on.

Leave him and his…tastes…and date a normal young man. Someone her age. Not a man fifteen years her senior who wanted her tied down and begging for it. He closed his eyes and pictured her—arms bound above her head, ankles tethered to the bed, ready and waiting. She made him hungry and agitated. What if she’d submit, open herself up to the passion he craved?

God, he’d worship her for hours. Bring her to the brink again and again, give her orgasms she’d never even dreamed of. And then, when she’d surrendered completely, take her. Drive his cock deep until they both cried out. It’d be the best night of her life.

Could they keep it a secret? Could they go down that road together without the press finding out? Or would some asshat with a telephoto snap a picture and splash it all over the internet? He could see the headlines now.
Little Orphan Bryce Is All Grown Up and Look Who She’s Kissing
.
Alston Hayes: From Daddy Warbucks to Sugar Daddy
. It would go on and on. Tarnish his reputation and ruin hers before it even began.

Pressing his fingertips into his eyelids, he willed the images to fade away. She might say she wanted him, but she couldn’t mean it. And they couldn’t act on it. It was a schoolgirl fantasy gone on too long. Nothing more.

Alston took a deep breath and smoothed back his hair. He’d claw back his veneer, escort her out the door, and go back to his life. Back to the order, the precision, the system he’d constructed. To hell with the longing inside his chest. He’d just have to punish it into submission.

* * * * *

Bryce rolled over and blinked her eyes open. Sunlight streamed in through the window, and she dropped her head back onto the pillow, willing a fresh gush of tears to stay away. She’d never been treated so badly.

The nerve of him to call her a whore because she came onto him. It didn’t make sense. Usually, men loved that kind of thing, didn’t they? She groaned and pulled herself up to sit when a knock sounded on the door.

“Come in.”

“Brought you some coffee, miss Bryce.” Malcolm gave her a smile and stepped in, setting the tray of coffee and a croissant on her bedside table.

“Thank you, Malcolm. You know, I didn’t say it yesterday, but you’re the one person here I’m going to miss. And it’s not just the fabulous coffee you bring me. I mean it.”

Malcolm smiled and handed her a steaming cup. “You know, you could stay for the summer if you wanted to. You don’t need to rush off to the city just yet.”

“Then you obviously didn’t hear about last night.” She took a sip and glanced at Malcolm over the mug. His look said the opposite. “What? Did he say something?”

Malcolm shrugged. “Mr. Hayes is a complicated man, Bryce. If he said something that upset you, it was his way of keeping you safe.”

Bryce raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t hear what he said, Malcolm. He basically called me a prostitute. That I’d be willing to trade—you know—for staying here. It was awful.”

Malcolm patted her on the knee and nodded. “I know. Mr. Hayes can say horrible things when he’s afraid.”

“Afraid?” She snorted. “Alston Hayes? I don’t think so.”

“Do you know anything about his past, miss?”

Bryce frowned and looked down at her half-empty mug. “I know something terrible happened. I remember at my mom’s funeral he hugged me and said he knew what I was going through. That he was an orphan too.”

Malcolm nodded. “That’s true. Alston’s family disowned him when he was in high school. Kicked him out with nothing. He made his own wealth thanks to his uncanny ability to anticipate market demands.”

His family disowned him?
Wow
. “I had no idea.”

“It’s quite impressive. He scraped together some business loans—trading on his name—and launched his internet business. Now he’s the head of Hayes Industries and owns a little bit of everything.”

“Including Hayes Security?”

“Yes.”

Bryce nodded. She’d always assumed he’d inherited his money, not earned it. “What happened with the family? Why did they force him out?”

Malcolm paused and looked out the window. “It’s not public knowledge. Only a select few know about it at all.”

“Including you?”

“Yes, miss. Mr. Hayes trusts me.”

“Then tell me.”

“Bryce, I—”

“No, Malcolm, listen. If whatever happened in the past is what’s keeping him from me, I want to know. I need to know.”

He breathed out, softening the lines around his mouth as he looked down at her. “I’m sorry. I’ve said too much already. I can’t betray his trust. But please, don’t take what he said last night to heart. Alston didn’t mean it. He’s pushing you away because he’s protecting you. And hurting himself.”

Standing up, he smiled down at her. “Don’t give up on him. You could be the woman to slip past his armor. You just have to sniff out a weak spot to break through.”

Bryce swallowed and tried to smile. It’d been hopeless, but in a few minutes, Malcolm had turned it all around. Just like he always did. “Thank you, Malcolm. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Hopefully you never have to find out. Good luck, miss.”

Bryce watched the butler walk out of the room before setting the empty mug on the tray. She flopped on her bed, arms outstretched and mind soaring. She longed to know what Alston’s secret could be, why he pushed her away, and how on earth she could force him to see her. Not the awkward teenager he’d taken in all those years ago, but the real her. The woman who wanted him and all his broken pieces.

Sitting up, she made up her mind.
I’ll confront him. Prove I’m not some innocent little girl he can’t touch
.

A half an hour later and Bryce’d tugged on a dress from her luggage, pulled her hair back into a messy braid, and walked out the front door. Scanning the property for Alston, she thought about his routine. He always went riding Saturday mornings and not even a fight with his ward would change that.

After traipsing down the cobblestone drive, she turned off and veered into the grassy hills that surrounded the house. She’d loved the estate since she’d first set foot on it—acres of manicured lawns ringed by native forests. A place to run and climb trees and explore. Ever since she could remember, she’d been athletic. Thick and sturdy and made for getting dirty. As she’d grown up, her build changed. Instead of blocky and solid, she became curvy and soft. But she still loved the outdoors.

A smile spread across her face as she walked. The sun warmed her skin and she remembered running through the grass, hiding behind a bush, watching a deer graze in the dew. She’d miss all that if she left, but none of it held a candle to Alston. Not when a single glance her direction sent a bolt of pleasure through her veins.

No other man ever made her giddy with a smile or hot with a stare. Not like him. She needed his forehead pressed against hers, his hair falling into her eyes, his short beard scraping her jaw. She wanted him—any way he wanted to have her.

Bondage should scare her. A paddle and a flogger—thanks to the internet she’d figured that one out—should send her running for the nearest Bentley. But they didn’t. Instead, an ache consumed her. A need to be restrained and controlled—to be dominated by Alston and no one else—filled her body.

Cresting a hill, she heard the horse nicker before she saw it and she slowed down. Alston’s favorite black stallion grazed in the grass, riderless and saying hello. She smiled and walked towards him, holding out her hand before rubbing his nose. “Hello, Dante. Is your master around?”

The horse nuzzled her hand and flicked his ears toward the gazebo. Bryce glanced up and bit her lip. Even from fifty yards away she could see Alston standing inside, hands on his hips, surveying his property. She rubbed the horse in thanks and walked towards Alston, stopping at the gazebo’s entrance.

“Hello, Alston.”

“Hello, Bryce. I thought you were leaving today.”

“I’m not leaving until you talk to me. Until you see me—the real me and not the version you see in your head.”

The riding crop in his hand twitched, but he didn’t turn around. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Bryce swallowed but didn’t stop. “Don’t push me away because you’re afraid.”

“I don’t base my decisions on fear, Bryce.”

“Now who’s lying?”

He swiveled around, brown eyes boring into her hers, and she fought the urge to step back. “You’re just a girl with a crush. You don’t know what you want.”

“If I were still seventeen, I’d agree with you. But I’m not. I’m twenty-one. I’m a college graduate. About to start a Ph.D. program. I’m an adult and I know exactly what I want.” Bryce climbed the stairs. “I want you.”

“If you knew more about me, you’d change your mind.”

“I know enough. I know that you’re focused, determined, dominant.” She took a deep breath and stepped closer, looking up into his dark brown eyes, begging him to see the truth behind her lashes. “I know that you have certain…likes.”

He snorted, but she pressed on. “It doesn’t turn me off, Alston. If anything…it only makes me want you more. Watching you—the things you did to that woman—I’ve never come so hard in my life.”

“How many men have you been with, Bryce?”

She blushed. “Two.”

“I can’t ask you to step into that world with me.”

“What world? Bondage? Domination? I want it. I want you to do those things to me—tie me up, make me yours. I’ll submit. I won’t run. And what I said last night stands. No one has to know.”

“That’s what you say now, but in the moment—when you’re exposed and vulnerable—you’ll change your mind. And it’ll be too late.”

“Stop telling me what I’ll feel or think or do. I’m stronger than you give me credit for, Alston.”

“I never said you weren’t strong, Bryce.” He reached out, fingers a breath away from her cheek, and she closed her eyes. “But people change their minds all the time. They get too deep, too fast, and they panic. I won’t go down that road again.”

She popped her eyes open and looked up at him. “Whatever happened to you in the past—whatever it was that caused the rift in your family—I’m no part of it.”

He dropped his hand and stepped back. “What do you know about that?”

“Nothing, other than something bad had to happen. Something terrible that made you who you are.”

“I made me. Nothing and no one else.”

“You know what I mean.” She stepped forward and reached for him.

“I don’t think I know you at all, Bryce.”

“I want you to. I want you to know all of me.”

He grabbed her by the wrist and tugged until she crashed into him, chest pressing into his, belly rubbing up against the unmistakable erection inside his pants. Tightening his grip, he ground his hips into hers and she moaned out loud. He wanted her. His hard cock proved it.

“Are you sure?”

“Completely.”

Before she could say another word, something flicked against her leg.
What the—?
Bryce glanced down and choked back a gasp.
The riding crop
. Alston ran it up her inner thigh with his free hand, flicking it against her skin in little bursts, tickling instead of hitting.

A shiver coursed through her body and Bryce edged closer, rubbing against him as she forced herself to breathe.

“So tell me, are you frightened?” He inched the crop higher, flicking between her legs a little harder every time.

“A bit.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No. God, no.” She wanted him to bend her over, rip her panties off and take her right there.

“Good.” He let her wrist go and she stepped back, swallowing a lump of excitement as another wave of arousal washed over her. He stared at her—the deep brown of his eyes alive and dangerous. “Bend over, grab the column.”

Bryce glanced up at the painted wood and took a deep breath.
Here? In the bright daylight?
She swallowed.
I asked for this. I can’t back out now.
She nodded and reached out, wrapping her hands around the post as Alston stepped up behind her.