Read The Bad Boy Billionaire: What a Girl Wants for Free Online Page B

polite.
    “Just a sip?”
    “My friend Olivia’s mother says it makes a Lady forget herself,” she said.
    “Is that such a bad thing?” Sometimes he wanted to forget himself. Wine helped. Whiskey reliably got the job done, too.
    “Yes, it is a bad thing. At least for ladies,” Miss Merryweather informed him. Then she pointedly took a sip of water.
    “And what does wine do to gentlemen?”
    “It makes them more foolish and at a higher volume,” she answered primly.
    He laughed. “Spot on.”
    “Sometimes, it makes them beasts,” she added. There was something in the darkness of her voice that brought an end to his smile and laughter. He pushed his wine glass to the side.
    “How was your day, darling?” John asked, changing the subject.
    Her lips quirked up in a faint smile. “Uneventful.”
    He thought about mentioning the encounter on the stairs this morning. Her panicked reaction raised questions in his mind. Not wanting to send her running again, he didn’t ask.
    “How was your day?” she asked.
    “Wet.” He explained about taking care of the animals in the stable, and his two horses, named Snow and White.
    “How imaginative of you,” Miss Merryweather said dryly. “Why did you name them that?”
    “I didn’t. I won them in a game of cards,” John explained. He’d managed an invitation to a bachelors- only house party at Lord Collin’s country seat where they drank excessively, dined exquisitely and when they weren’t winning and losing fortunes over cards, they were availing themselves to the prostitutes who’d been invited. Well, the others did. John kept his drinking to a minimum and his eyes on his cards. That’s why he left that party with two prize-winning stallions and three hundred pounds richer.
    “A gambler, are you?” Miss Merryweather asked with the disapproving look of a temperance-minded matron, which oddly made him grin.
    “You could say that,” he answered. The extent of his gambling was possibly unparalleled. His was also not something he was prepared to let known.
    “You’re one of those,” she said. “I should have known.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “There are the lords who tend to their estates,” she explained. “And then the ones who gamble them away.”
    And then there were the ones, like him who—John didn’t even finish that thought on the off chance that Miss Merryweather had mind reading capabilities. He didn’t fit into her either/or view of Lords, but wasn’t about to enlighten her.
    So just grinned and asked, “Can’t a rogue have it all?”
    I GLANCED OVER at Duke—his head, hair tousled, was bowed over his Kindle. He reclined on the couch in his fabulous penthouse apartment, a girl by his side. He was unimaginably successful on his own terms. That rogue certainly did have it all . . .
    He glanced up, caught me staring and gave me that smile of his that had a way of making me feel
    “Hey girl,” he drawled. I had to laugh. Just gazing at him made me happy. There was something wonderful about being alone with him during this storm. I felt connected to him. And yet, I couldn’t shake questions about that tell-all book . . .
    “What is it?” Duke asked.
    “Nothing,” I replied, shaking my head.
    “Aw, c’mon Jane,” he teased. “I can see when your imagination is at work. You’re thinking about something.”
    “I was just wondering how well I knew you.” It was as much about that new book about him, as it was about Prudence’s mysterious hero.
    “Is this research for your book?” He eyed the notebook open on my lap, full of probably illegible cursive.
    “Maybe.”
    “And does this have anything to do with Felicity’s book?” Gawd. Her name on his lips made me cringe. That somehow made her real and not just someone the tabloids invented.
    “Maybe,” I said. He moved over to sit next to me, gaze into my eyes and hold my hand.
    “Here’s what you need to know, Jane,” he said. “I was a fuck-up until I met you. Yeah,