Billionaire Unknown: The Billionaire's Obsession ~ Blake Read online

  “As soon as Marcus the Prick thinks I’m well enough to make the trip back home,” Dani said in a hostile tone. “He’s such a control freak.”

  “He rescued you,” I reminded her.

  “He cheated on you,” she retorted.

  “Dani, didn’t he tell you?” Marcus had been in Dani’s company way long enough to have told her about the mix-up.

  “Tell me what?”

  She sounded so confused that I quickly related what had happened, and the truth about Blake being the actual brother I’d slept with.

  “So nobody cheated on anybody,” I finished.

  Dani sighed into the phone. “Okay. So I guess he’s innocent of taking my sister’s virginity and then screwing another woman right after he did it. But he’s still an asshole. He orders me around like he’s my damn boss.”

  “I have to admit he’s a little…intense,” I admitted.

  “Intense? I’ve never even seen the guy crack a smile. And he acts like a damn dictator.”

  I smiled because Dani’s temper could be pretty fierce when she was pissed off. “Give him a break. He did risk his life to save you.”

  “Yeah. And he never lets me forget about that for even a second,” she answered drily.

  I leaned my hip against the counter, smiling broader as I imagined throwing Marcus and Dani together. Knowing my little sister as well as I did, and having now met Marcus, I decided they definitely wouldn’t play nice with each other. “I was planning on meeting you in DC when you came back.”

  “Don’t!” she answered in a rush. “I’ll only be there for one day. I’d rather come see you in Boston. Marcus said you’d be headed there soon.”

  “Why do I have a feeling you want to get away from Marcus?” I teased, assuming that Marcus had picked up the information about me heading to Boston at the family dinner, when I’d been talking about it with Aileen.

  “Probably because I do want to get away from him. Desperately.”

  “How is Tate?” I asked, trying to steer Dani away from talking about Marcus.

  “He’s cool,” she replied, her voice a little lighter. “Unfortunately, he agrees with Marcus on almost everything.”

  I let out an exasperated sigh. “Dani, you were kidnapped, confined, starved, and abused. There’s no way you can possibly be fine after an experience like that. Give them and yourself a little slack.”

  “I never said I was fine,” she replied in a quiet voice. “But I’m okay.”

  “How bad was it?”

  “I’ll talk to you about it sometime after I get back to the States. Not now, okay?”

  I sensed there were things she wasn’t quite ready to discuss. “I’m just glad you’re safe. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, sis,” she answered in a more emotional voice. “So tell me where you’ll be in Boston.”

  We chatted for a while longer, and I gave her the information for my temporary lodgings in Massachusetts.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come to DC?” I asked her.

  “Absolutely not. I’ll answer the questions the feds have, and then I’m out of there.” She hesitated before she queried, “How were things with the senator? I can’t believe we thought your first love was always Marcus.”

  “I wouldn’t say he was exactly my first love. It was one night.”

  “Come on, Harper. I was there, remember? I saw the broken-up look on your face when you saw Marcus with another woman. Okay. Yeah. It wasn’t the guy you had actually slept with, but I could see the pain in your eyes because you thought he was. He was more than just some guy you could tolerate sleeping with. And I know how much it hurt later. This is me, your sister who knows everything about you.”

  “It was a crush,” I insisted.

  “Yeah. Whatever. Call it what you want, but he meant something to you.”

  “He meant a lot,” I finally admitted. “But it’s been years. He’s a nice man, and I’m grateful that I know that now.”

  “Did you do him?” Dani asked bluntly.

  “I’d say that’s none of your business,” I chastised her.

  “Aha! So you did,” she answered perceptively. “I can tell by your uptight answer.”

  “I’m not having this conversation,” I warned her.

  “We don’t have to. I can tell by the sound of your voice that it happened again. But that’s not a bad thing, right? I mean, you’re older and wiser. You know he’s a good guy. It could work.”

  “I’m an architect who travels around the globe doing historic jobs. Blake is a US senator who travels between Colorado and DC. It would be impossible to have a relationship, even if we wanted it. But we don’t.”

  “You don’t or he doesn’t?”

  I sighed. “Neither one of us meant for anything to happen. I don’t regret it, but Blake wasn’t looking for something permanent, and I wasn’t, either. You know my situation. I can’t do anything long term.”

  “Sometimes you just have to figure things out,” Dani observed thoughtfully.

  “We have figured it out. I go to my job in Boston, and he goes back to Congress,” I said defensively. Blake had never talked about the future, and the last thing I wanted was to be brokenhearted over the same guy…again. But considering how I felt about him, it was going to be impossible to escape the pain when I left.

  “We’ll see,” Dani said with humor in her voice.

  “Take care of yourself, and don’t push yourself to feel normal right away. It sounds like you need to regain weight and your strength.”

  “Oh, God. Now you sound like Marcus.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I sound like your older sister who loves you.”

  “Sorry. I know. It’s just—I really need some space from all of this.”

  I was pretty sure she needed a lot of things, and I wanted to reach right through the phone and hug her. “I’ll see you in Boston Friday night.”

  “I’ll be there. I wish I could get the hell out of here earlier, but I swear, Marcus and Tate are everywhere.”

  “Then be patient,” I advised. “It’s only for a few more days.”

  Dani grumbled, never promising she wouldn’t at least try to escape, but I was pretty confident that Marcus and Tate weren’t going to let her go anywhere.

  Before she hung up, I had to ask, “Why exactly did you cross that border? Are the rumors about you helping those kids true?”

  Dani was silent for a moment before she confessed, “The reports are pretty accurate, but that doesn’t make me some kind of hero. What adult could let those kids end up dead?”

  I wanted to tell her probably plenty of them if it meant they might very well die for helping those teenagers. She’d known she was going to get caught, yet she’d surrendered herself to save a few kids. Dani had to have been terrified, yet she’d done it.

  “Come home safe,” I said in a pleading voice.

  “I will. I promise. We’ll hang out together in Boston for a while. I doubt my boss is going to let me go back on assignment anytime soon, especially since the incident went public.”

  We said our good-byes and hung up. I put my phone down on the counter and went to stir the pots that were still warming on the stove, dreading the moment when I’d actually have to tell Blake good-bye.

  Harper

  “You look pretty damn sexy when you’re concentrating,” Blake said mischievously from his seat behind the desk of his home office.

  I looked up and met his gaze, and then started to squirm on the couch across the room from him.

  Neither one of us had ever said another word about Blake’s plan to get to know each other again…or maybe it was for the first time since we didn’t talk much twelve years ago. It had just…happened. Since I’d gotten the chance to talk to Dani yesterday, my heart was considerably lighter.

  B
oth yesterday and today, Blake had taken me around his research ranch, showing me how he was developing healthier breeds of cattle. I’d met some of his employees, other researchers who continued development while Blake was away.

  We visited his pregnant heifers, and I got to get up close and personal with some pretty cranky bulls. Luckily, there had been a fence between me and the ornery males, and that was really as close as I wanted to get.

  It was an amazing place, and I could tell Blake loved what he was doing. Some of the information on DNA and genetics went a bit above my head, but Blake was always happy to explain.

  Finally, after we’d exchanged a couple of heart-pounding glances, I answered, “I look like a woman who barely got to shower this morning, all because a wildman decided he liked morning sex-capades, then didn’t give me time to put on any makeup before he dragged me away from the house. I’m far from beautiful,” I told him.

  If the truth be told, I was a mess. I hadn’t changed out of my jeans and long-sleeved shirt I’d worn to walk around the ranch with him, and I was sitting in the middle of his office couch with my hair half down and half up, trying to work on my design concept for the new office buildings in Boston. With a large sketchbook in my hand, I’d been drawing when he’d thrown out his compliment, one of many over the last few days that had me wondering if he was blind.

  “I think showering together is the best way I’ve ever discovered to get rid of my morning wood,” he answered with a grin.

  I rolled my eyes. “Do you ever stop thinking about sex?”

  Yeah, that was probably an unfair question since I never seemed to think about anything else when we were together. Even after a day of hiking around his ranch in a worn-out sweatshirt and a pair of jeans, Blake was the hottest guy I’d ever seen.

  “No,” he admitted. “I’m pretty much always thinking about sex when you’re sitting in the same room with me.”

  “Should I go?” I asked, already knowing he’d refuse. Blake had been the one who suggested we work together in his office.

  “Hell, no. And deprive me of the opportunity to torture myself? Not happening.”

  I laughed simply because he was being so ridiculous. Blake had a quirky sense of humor that I understood extremely well.

  Letting out a mock sigh, I replied, “That would be a shame. Opportunities to be a masochist don’t really come around that often.”

  “Damned if I do, and damned if I don’t,” he grumbled as he looked back at his computer.

  “What?”

  He shot me a befuddled glance. “I don’t want you anywhere else but with me, but it’s also torture when you are in the room and I’m not fucking you senseless.”

  I actually giggled before I turned my attention back to my drawings, secretly loving the way that Blake always wanted me near him. It wasn’t a suffocating thing. It just felt good to know he wanted my company, and to know he was more comfortable when we were close. I’d never experienced that kind of intimacy with another person before, so I savored the feeling of being wanted.

  “Even if you aren’t fucking me, there’s no place I’d rather be,” I answered honestly.

  “Same here,” he answered huskily. “If I can’t fuck you, I at least want to be close to you.”

  My heart squeezed from the emotions that his words suddenly awakened. Blake moved me, even when he was talking dirty.

  I’d never really experienced happiness just from being in the same room with another guy, but that was exactly what happened when I was near Blake.

  It felt natural, normal.

  I’d been alone for so long that I was content in my own company.

  But maybe I’d just never realized there was something missing, not until I’d spent time with Blake.

  It didn’t matter that we were both working. Just being in the same room with him made me aware of how connected we felt sometimes.

  However, it was also a distraction, and I couldn’t help stealing an occasional glance in his direction just to stare at his powerful, chiseled features, and his cropped but amazingly thick hair that had me itching to go tangle my fingers in the textured strands.

  He looked up quickly, catching me watching him, and then grinned as he leaned back in his chair. “You know I’m not getting a damn thing done.”

  “Sorry,” I answered in a quiet tone, and I was so not sorry at all. The way that he looked at me made me feel like the most desired woman on Earth. His gray eyes stared so hungrily, so intensely that I was squirming under his stare again.

  For just a moment, I allowed myself to pretend that Blake’s attention wasn’t all about sex and imagined that he cherished me. The look on his face was almost the same expression that I’d seen Gabe Walker shoot at Chloe several times during their family dinner—a glance just to make sure Chloe was still beside him and happy.

  He grinned even wider. “I’m not sorry. I’d sure as hell rather be distracted than not have you here at all.”

  I knew that I’d be headed for Boston soon, and Blake would be off to DC. But I couldn’t resist experiencing the full gamut of emotions that this man could wring out of me.

  I’d never had this thing between Blake and I happen to me before, and I was pretty sure it might never happen again. I’d finally decided to relax and enjoy it.

  I’d certainly felt a connection with him twelve years ago. I wouldn’t have given him my virginity if I hadn’t. But this was deeper, richer. Maybe I’d needed to grow up to know just how rare it was to feel this way about a guy.

  “I have to leave for Boston Friday,” I told him with a touch of sadness in my voice.

  “It’s Tuesday evening. I thought you were going to wait and fly to Washington with me first on Friday.”

  “Dani asked me not to come there. She’s says she’s only spending a few hours there, and then she’ll meet me in Boston.”

  “She probably can’t wait to get away from Marcus,” Blake observed in a surly tone.

  “Maybe.” Actually, I was certain he was right, but I didn’t want to break my sister’s confidence.

  Blake stood and strode over to the couch, unceremoniously lifting me from the sofa, only to sit back down with me across his lap.

  I squealed in surprise, and then clung to his shoulders as he shifted us into a comfortable position.

  “I don’t like it. That gives me much less time than I thought,” he grumbled.

  “Time for what?” I looked at him, pretty certain the question was in my eyes.

  “For you to understand that what happened between us twelve years ago was special, and that I could never have betrayed you back then,” he rasped. “You’ve spent over a decade hating me. I don’t want you to feel that way anymore.”

  “I don’t,” I assured him, toying with his hair gently. “And I didn’t hate you. I hated Marcus.” But I had really never hated Blake’s twin, either. I’d hated a miscommunication that had happened and a man who had never really existed.

  “But you thought I’d used you. Admit it,” he cajoled.

  “I did. But that’s over, Blake. I don’t hate you. I never really could, even when I thought you’d completely played me. That night had been too special for me.” Sure, I’d wanted to despise him, but before my emotions could get that negative, I’d see the face of the young man who’d been there to comfort me, protect me, sent me into a world of sensual pleasure that I never knew existed, and then had finally taken me home where I’d belonged.

  Blake wrapped his arms around my waist. “I always wanted to know how things had turned out, but I’d never wanted to mention that night we spent together to anybody. Did you square things with your parents?”

  I nodded. “I did. We talked most of the day and evening. I admitted that I’d been a complete and total self-absorbed bitch. And they wondered if they’d sheltered me way too much.”

  “What w
as decided?”

  “I decided I loved them both, and they’d always tried to give me everything I wanted. Maybe it was too much and too easy for a young woman to have that much freedom. But it didn’t matter. We were close after that. They supported all of my choices, even my decision to go to school in California.” I sighed. “In hindsight, I kind of wish I’d stayed local. It just never occurred to me that I’d lose them so young.”

  Blake stroked a hand over my hair. “Don’t, Harper. There was no way you could predict a random accident like that.”

  “In my rational mind, I realize that. But I can’t help occasionally having regrets. I saw them on every vacation I had from school, but I missed a lot by not being here in Colorado.” I took a shaky breath before I added, “I’d like to go visit their graves. I haven’t been there since the funeral. I haven’t been back here. We were all in so much shock that I’m not even sure exactly where it is.”

  “I know. I can take you,” Blake said gently.

  I frowned at him. “But you were away. You weren’t at the service.”

  He shrugged. “But I’ve visited there since. I’ve gone with Mom a few times, and I try to go by and leave some flowers when I’m here.”

  “Why?” I asked, astonished.

  He shrugged. “I knew you’d all moved away, and I’d want somebody to do the same for me if I couldn’t go myself very often. I go there to talk to my dad sometimes. I’m not sure if he hears me, but I always feel better afterward.”

  My heart tripped as I looked at his solemn expression. “You were so young when he passed away.”

  “I still miss him,” Blake answered grimly. “I don’t think the pain of losing a parent ever goes away. It just gets less acute.”

  He was right, and my heart ached for the boy Blake had been when his father had been killed in an accident even stranger than the car collision that had killed my parents. “Thank you for visiting the cemetery when we couldn’t.”

  “It’s no big deal,” he answered nonchalantly, but his arms tightened around my waist.

  I laid my hand on his shoulder and wrapped my arms around his neck. He smelled so good, felt so warm and real that I relished the sense of pleasure it gave me just to be close to him.