The Billionaire's Passion Read Online Free

engagement ring, no proposal on bended knee, no Happily Ever After. It’s a fairytale, and fairytales aren’t real. I stopped believing in them when I was five years old and found out that Disney movies were made out of drawings on computers.
    So am I staying because I’m doggedly loyal, or because I’m falling in love?
    Because the first option is stupid… and the second scares the hell out of me. Almost as much as serial killers.
    Okay, not quite as much as serial killers.
    …okay, not nearly as much.
    But if you’d asked me a week ago what my number one fear was, it would have been falling in love with someone who would leave me.
    And in this room, lying by his side in the dead of night, it’s just as scary as it was a week ago.

9
    “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.”
    I come to with Grant gently shaking my arm. He’s already dressed and sitting on the side of the bed.
    It’s still dark out. Technically I guess it could be morning, but not by much.
    “…what the hell?” I yawn.
    “We’ve got to get a move on. Come on, up and at ‘em.”
    “…what time is it?” I mumble.
    “Five AM.”
    “What?! Couldn’t we have slept a little longer?”
    “No, we need to get to where we’re going as soon as possible.”
    “Where’s that?”
    “I need to go see an old friend for some help.”
    I start to picture ridiculous caricatures of an underworld criminal: some guy dressed in a black turtleneck, with a pencil mustache and the nickname ‘Slim’ or ‘Fast Charlie.’
    “Is that a good idea?” I ask nervously.
    “It’s the only way I can think of to go on the offensive.”
    “Can you trust this guy?”
    “I don’t know. But I know he’s our best shot.”
    “Great,” I mumble as I stumble naked out of bed.
    “Of course, we could always fool around a little bit before we leave,” he says as he pinches my ass.
    I swat him away. “You get me up at 5AM, no fun time for you.”
    “Awww…”
    “What are we going to do about the sheets and everything?” I ask as I search for my panties in the gloom.
    “What do you mean?”
    “We just broke into a stranger’s house, ate their food – ”
    “Their Chef Boyardee?” Grant asks wryly.
    “ – drank their wine, and screwed on their bed.”
    “Mmmm. I like that last part,” he murmurs as he touches my thigh.
    “Cut that out. I’m serious – that would creep me the hell out.”
    “Already taken care of.” He holds up a piece of paper I can’t read in the darkness. “I wrote, ‘Sorry about using your apartment. Hope this takes care of it.’ Then I’m leaving this.”
    He fans out a bunch of hundreds.
    I stop, dumbfounded. “How much is that?!”
    “Two thousand bucks.”
    “Huh…”
    I calculate in my head just how much money it would take to make me feel better about two strangers breaking into my place and using it as their own personal crash pad/sex palace.
    I would probably want to get a new mattress. And these folks had a nice mattress.
    “Better make it three,” I suggest.

10
    The most brutal thing of all is that there’s no coffee.
    “Please,” I beg him as we stand in the foyer of the brownstone, ready to go.
    “No, we have to get moving.”
    “God, I hate you right now.”
    “No, you looooove me,” Grant grins, and kisses me hard on the mouth.
    My thoughts from the night before come racing back, and I push him away. “You wish.”
    The lady doth protest too much.
    Grant keeps grinning, but he seems to have sensed my discomfort. “Let’s just say you’re far from hating me.”
    I’m grateful he’s backed off that particular line of teasing, but I still need to put as much distance as possible between me and the ‘L’ word.
    “I hate anybody who gets me up at 5AM. With no coffee. Hint, hint.”
    “No coffee.”
    “Well, I guess I’m just going to have to keep on hating you, then.”
    “I guess I’m just going to have to learn to live with it, then.”
    “Will your friend have coffee?”
    “Yes.”
    “Will