Billionaire Romance: Darque Initiation (A Darque Billionaire Romance Book 1) Read Online Free

forward, slowing the car down.
    “What? Geez, you’re such a buzzkill.”
    “You are so drunk, girl. You’re not in any position to go home. Heaven forbid you fall in the tub or choke to death in your own puke.”
    “What? Whaaat? Since when are you my dad all of a sudden?”
    “I’m taking you back to my place.”
    “What? Why?”
    “Because,” he answered firmly. “Because you obviously can’t be trusted to take care of yourself at this point. I have a vested interest in you. Maybe when you sober up, you’ll understand why.”
    “Huh…that’s weird of you to say. So…you really just want to make sure I’m okay? Like…just to be nice?”
    “Just to be responsible,” he corrected. “You obviously have no boyfriend. Alicia went her separate way. So that makes me responsible.”
    “Wow. And you don’t want anything in return?”
    “No. There’s nothing you could give me anyway.”
    “Wow. That’s…amazing!” she said, thinking over the rapid memories of the night, and convinced she met the only gentleman who’d ever inhabited a seedy nightclub by pure chance.
    *****
    Bella fluttered her eyes awake, at least partly awake. She was stuck in between the dream state and the real world. She was in bed—a strange bed with a strange man putting his hands on her. What in the world did she do? She panicked for a moment.
    Then she figured the whole incident must have been a dream.  An unusually vivid one with plenty of bizarre cameos, but a dream nonetheless.
    “Oh God…where am I?” she mumbled. “Am I asleep? Who are you?”
    “It’s me.”
    “But…who are you?”
    “It’s me, Arabella. It’s Bastien.”
    “Bastien? That’s a strange coincidence,” she said, groggy and confused.
    “You’re half asleep, little girl. Go to sleep now. You’ll sleep it off and be ready for a full day of work Monday.”
    “Oh God, don’t remind me. I hate that job.”
    Bastien rolled his eyes. Sure, he was being altruistic, true to the young girl’s words, but he couldn’t help but sneak a peek at her alluring body. She was curvy in all the right places with those big hips and thighs, and a generous bosom that stirred his most primitive emotions. He could smell her hair from where he stood, lifting her up and setting her on the guest bed. Her chestnut hair was perfect and her skin wasn’t just tan like all the other girls, but a beautiful shade of pallid porcelain. Her eyes were so enamoring. She was also tall, her five foot eight frame the perfect complement to his. She was young, but physically she was intimidating to most men and she didn’t seem to realize why. His attraction burned, even as the warmth of her skin soothed his own.
    For a moment, he had to fight his instincts; to grab her, to let passion take over. She would probably let him. But it simply wasn’t Bastien Darque. He lived by a code. And to take advantage of a woman seemed not only cruel and inhumane, but downright illogical. He could have any woman he wanted. Why would he have to cheat?
    As he walked away, content to leave her in his guest bedroom with a house servant dropping in occasionally to ensure her welfare, he made sure to leave her with a parting thought.
    “You sleep well, Arabella. I’m going to let this slide. Just this once.”
    “Whaaat?” she answered in a stupor, confused and already making sweet love to the bed.
    “Just know this. If you were mine, and you came home like this, your life hanging in the balance of a Good Samaritan, I wouldn’t tolerate it. I would make sure that you were punished severely for it. I would make sure you wouldn’t even sit down for a week. Got it?”
    He ended his lecture with a half-smile, almost a tone of warmth towards the end. Not quite like a father or big brother, or even a boyfriend, but something else. Something else seemed odd about his statement. It left a bit of a splinter in her brain, focusing on those strange words.
    If I was yours? Punished severely? You would spank