BILLIONAIRE ANGEL (Point St. Claire, where true love finds a way) Read Online Free Page A

street in Point St. Claire. Inside was small, neat and, given her vocation as an actress, partly predictable. Overlapping movie posters littered the walls. Several stacks of DVDs towered beside an LCD. Then there was the tutu she was wearing and the dance pole stuck in one corner of the living room.
    Don’t ask .
    An old-fashioned desk crouched against the far wall. The timber was dark with an old-world smell about it. In another time, it might have taken pride of place in some big banker’s office. Reminded him a little of the one he’d left behind at his old job, not that he’d ever used it much.
    Now Belinda leaned back against the desk’s ledge, scrutinizing him, the pink tutu sticking out around the hips of her low-waist skinny jeans. Cute. Enticing. All the more reason to tell her again.
    He wasn’t going to ‘keep her around’.
    “This is a one-time only thing,” he explained. “Strictly short-term.”
    Her brows knitted. “Why?”
    “Because I have a full-time commitment at the club and—”
    “I mean why’d you give away your P.I. work?”
    That took him aback and he frowned like he meant it because he did. “I ask the questions, remember?”
    “Sorry. Except…I’ve known you five minutes, and it blazes out like a neon sign. You are so suited to this Sam Spade stuff.”
    He understood her need to know more, to burrow deeper. He’d known that same drive all his life. These past years, he’d wondered where he’d be now if he’d directed his curiosity toward science or inventing some must-have device, like an app to predict heart attacks or a stock market crash. Something that saved lives rather than―
    Jax don’t go there.
    In the kitchen, he accepted a full steaming cup and wandered over to straighten a listing photo frame hung on the wall. Decked out in a costume, the girl in the picture was accepting a bunch of flowers on stage. Brunette hair cascaded around slender shoulders all the way past her waist. She was at least a head shorter than the rest of the kids. The smile was bright and just as infectious as it was today.
    Lifting his cup, he took a sip. And another. Whoa . This coffee was good.
    “End of year drama performance,” she explained, pouring herself a cup. “Heard of Shakespeare?”
    “To be or not to be.”
    She grinned. “Needs work.” After adding in an inch of cream, she joined him. “We performed Twelfth Night. I played a female who dresses up as a male.”
    He studied the photo again. “So, the habit goes back a ways.”
    When she didn’t answer, he glanced across—looked harder. Was that remorse glistening in her eyes?
    “Last week, guess I lost my head a little. After that police sergeant brushed me off, I didn’t know where to turn next. Sorry I broke into your club.”
    His lips twitched. “Maybe you’re only sorry you got caught.”
    “Are you sorry you caught me?”
    Any answer stuck in his throat because suddenly she was standing too close. A few inches more and her chest would be brushing his shirt. Her floral scent was playing tricks with his oxygen levels, too. And her lips looked almost too plump, in a completely natural, annoyingly kissable way.
    Clenching his jaw, Jax moved to the counter.
    Business, Angel. Not pleasure.
    “Ten years ago, before or after the break-in here,” he said, “did anyone ask a lot of questions, hang around, act in a suspicious manner?”
    “That dialogue is so authentic ,” she murmured, like she was filing it away for future reference. Then, focusing, she followed him across to the counter. “Back then, the police asked that same question. There’s nothing I remember.”
    “Even something small that, looking back, didn’t quite fit.”
    “I wasn’t functioning too well at the time. It hadn’t been long since…”
    Her gaze drifted to the end of the counter and another photo, a family shot this time—a woman and two teenage girls. He remembered: Belinda’s mom had passed away not long before that theft .