The Billionaire's Passion Read Online Free Page A

he give me some?” I yawn. “Because I’ll love him if he does.”
    “You’re fickle, you know that?”
    “You know the way to my heart, and yet you deny me. If he’ll give me coffee… well…”
    “Either that, or he’ll call the cops and get us thrown in jail.”
    I look over at Grant sharply. Suddenly it’s not so funny anymore.
    “Kidding,” he says. Then adds, “…I think.”
    “I really wish you hadn’t told me that.”
    “It’s fine, it’s fine. Come on, we need to go before the neighbors get up.”
    He opens the front door and peeks out into the street. Then he glances down at the ground – and freezes.
    “What?” I whisper.
    He bends down and picks up a newspaper from the front porch. It’s new – no sign of weathering at all.
    Our faces – both Grant’s and mine – are visible on the curved surface of the rolled-up paper.
    What the HELL?!
    “Why are we on the front page of the news?” I ask, my voice unnaturally high and panicked.
    Grant shuts the door and unfolds the paper so we can see.
    In the dim glow coming through the closed Venetian blinds, we read the headline:
    BILLIONAIRE ART THIEF EXPOSED
    Underneath is a picture of Grant at some society gala, and a picture of me that’s probably out of my company’s personnel files. There’s a caption beneath them.
    Billionaire architect/construction magnate Grant Carlson and his alleged accomplice, Eve Saunders.
    “What the FUCK?!” I gasp, nearly hyperventilating.
    “…why don’t you go make some coffee,” Grant says, his eyes never straying from the page.
    Not that I need it anymore, since the adrenaline pumping through my blood is ten times more powerful than caffeine.

11
    Here’s the gist of the article, which we read huddled over the kitchen table – with a couple cups of coffee.
    A bizarre turn of events has revealed that billionaire architect Grant Carlson, one of the richest men in the US, has a secret art collection probably worth as much as his private fortune. Unfortunately, all the paintings are stolen.
    NYPD officers responded to a call on Tuesday afternoon by security staff at Carlson’s private residence. It appears there was a raid by a group of men posing as FBI agents, who presented a warrant to Carlson’s security staff. But the men were not who they said they were.
    “Everything looked official – it was like a real raid with the warrant and the body armor and the blue jackets with the yellow letters and everything,” said Jim Kucher, the head of Carlson’s private security detail. “But they weren’t the FBI.”
    The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Washington headquarters confirmed Tuesday night that they had not conducted any raid on Carlson’s property, and had not been investigating him.
    “Oh no…” Grant mutters.
    “Oh my God – oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” I whisper.
    The faux raiding party detained the security staff and then entered the top floor penthouse. Members of the staff claimed they heard multiple gunshots and automatic weapons fire, although there were no bulletholes at the scene when the NYPD arrived.
    “I don’t believe this,” Grant hisses.
    “That ASSHOLE…”
    Carlson apparently fled the mystery men by rappelling down the side of the 88-story skyscraper – a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that he didn’t do it alone. In his company was Ms. Eve Saunders, an internet security expert Carlson had hired days earlier – and perhaps became romantically involved with.
    “Oh God,” I cringe. It pretty much sucks when your ‘business’ gets aired in front of millions of people.
    Numerous eyewitnesses confirmed that the couple ended their 1300-foot descent on the sidewalk outside the building, then made their getaway in a taxi.
    “Our ‘getaway,’” Grant snarled. “How about the psychopath we were running from, you idiots?”
    The fake raiding party vacated the building immediately afterwards, leaving the security staff bewildered. When he