Read The TROUBLE With BILLIONAIRES: Book 1 for Free Online

relax, not party, given everything that was happening at the time.
    By the time we were in the air, the sun had set, leaving nothing but darkness to gaze across through my window—darkness and the heavenly glitter of the stars. In the distance was the constellation Andromeda, also known as the Chained Lady. It made me think of my sister. She hadn’t been chained, not like Andromeda to the rocks, a sacrifice before the sea, but she had been held captive, a prisoner within her own body…
    “You are a hundred miles away,” Mr. Jackman said, speaking much gentler than he had before, the authority in his voice replaced by a tenderness that sounded alien coming from him. I wouldn’t have believed such tenderness real had I not witnessed a glimpse of it before, when he’d carried me through the woods.
    “More like millions.”
    “Such sadness. It’s heartbreaking. Like Picasso’s Blue Period—monochrome and starved, yet still beautiful.”
    I looked down at my curvy hips. “I’m hardly starved.”
    “You know what I mean.”
    I did, but cracking a joke was easier than confronting the sadness Mr. Jackman spoke of. “It’s in the past,” I said, hoping he would drop it.
    He didn’t. “What is?”
    I sighed, continuing to stare out into the night sky. “My sister.” It was all I was willing to say.
    “Nothing is immortal,” he told me, sitting very still, like a statue of a god.
    I would prefer the conversation to be dropped altogether, but at least he wasn’t pressing me about what happened to my sister. “That doesn’t comfort me.”
    “It should. Even those stars out there, the ones you study, they eventually die out, wilting into the universe like a flower does in the winter. Nothing lasts forever, especially not those we love.”
                  He had my full attention. “Have you lost someone you love?”
                  “No, thankfully,” he said, locking his eyes with mine as if we were locking minds. “I haven’t.”
                  “Then, how did you become so…predatory?”
                  His expression flickered with what looked like hurt, if I thought it possible. Leaning forward, absorbed, he said, “You pursued me, remember? At the park. There was nothing predatory about accepting your invite. You were so beautiful, so…daring. I couldn’t resist you then, just as I can’t resist you now.”
                  He seemed sincere, his proclamation missing his usual conceit, but I didn’t see how this was anything other than a game to him. He had left me alone in the woods. Men like that were dangerous. Hot. Irresistible. But dangerous. “I’m not sleeping with you again. Not after you abandoned me.”
                  Relaxing back into his seat, he folded his hands, distant once more. “I thought it would save us both the awkwardness.”
                  I refused to let him know how hurt I’d been, especially seeing him sit there so blasé. I’d wanted a night of passion under the stars. That had been the fantasy. Only one night, but one that was full of enamored whisperings and limitless lovemaking from a man with experience. Not a quick fuck.
                  “You got to leave without the awkwardness,” I refuted. “I barely left with my life.” It was an exaggeration, but I felt it suitable.
                  He seemed confused. And concerned.
                  A little too late for that , I thought.
    “What do you mean?” he asked.
    “You blindfolded me. I didn’t know my way back. I was lost.”
    A look of horror crossed his face. “I thought you knew the woods well.”
    “Not in the dark!”
                  “Madison…” He went silent, looking out the window, his face unreadable. “I’m sorry.”
                  “And so am I. This wasn’t how I was supposed to start my new life as a professional woman. The only