The Billionaire Bachelor (Billionaire Bad Boys Book 1) Read online

  His eyes opened and his chest expanded as he took a steamy breath. So many reasons. “I used to sleep in there,” he answered, his tone final.

  She stayed quiet, which was suspiciously out of character. He turned his head. She watched him with amber eyes that held no judgment but a lot of questions. Questions he didn’t want to answer. Wasn’t ready to answer.

  She curled into him, hands on his shoulders, and kissed him. He kissed her back and waited for her to ask, but she didn’t. Not even when she pulled away and rested her damp cheek on his shoulder. They sat quietly, her half on his lap, the water lapping around them, warm and silky.

  It came naturally to wrap her up in his arms, so he did. Just held her, and closed his eyes, and enjoyed not talking.

  Chapter 14

  I don’t know why he’s doing this. We never go to his house,” Reese grumbled, hands tightly wrapped around the steering wheel. He mumbled under his breath that he’d rather stay home.

  When she’d met Reese for the first time, Merina would’ve concluded that this was him being a spoiled baby who didn’t want to drive outside the city to his father’s house and deal with a cookout on a random June weekend. But knowing the man she shared a home with now, she didn’t think it was so simple.

  Like the night in the hot tub when she’d pointed out the bedroom on the other side of the glass. He’d walled up and fallen silent. She used to believe he was a one-ply, super absorbed a-hole. Now she saw he was more complicated, had more depth. Even a sense of humor, and dare she think it? Feelings.

  Feelings she suspected were unresolved and maybe unexcavated in some circumstances.

  It’s not your job to fix him.

  It wasn’t. And it would do her good to remember that.

  She had practically felt him retreating from what would likely be a painful discussion.

  He’d never expounded on the “I used to sleep there,” but it wasn’t hard to guess that he probably slept in that room with someone he’d rather not talk about. Maybe several someones. Didn’t that thought make Merina’s stomach twist.

  She’d called and talked to Lorelei about it, too afraid to text her in case the conversation was pinched and printed at the Spread, the latest gossip blog to pick up every bit of non-news about the new Cranes. Lore listened between bites of a rushed lunch before her next meeting. The conclusion they’d arrived at was to “let it go” much in the same vein of that overplayed song from Frozen, and so that’s what Merina had done.

  Whatever lay behind his reasons for leaving the largest room with the best view in the house unoccupied were his and his alone. She’d had to remind herself that more often than she liked.

  Today, though…today was a different beast, but possibly the same species. Pain waited for Reese at the end of this trip. It tightened his eyes and pulled at his firm mouth. He hadn’t prepared for today emotionally, and had attempted to avoid it by going to work today even though he should have taken the day off.

  Men.

  “Great,” he added at the end of his grumbling tirade as he parked at the end of a long driveway. Rows and rows of expensive, shiny cars—several of them convertibles—lined the massive parking area to the left of a large, three-story house. “I see Frank’s car. Maybe he brought his girlfriend. You’d like her. She’s your age.”

  Well, this promised to be fun.

  Merina would have grabbed his tie to get his attention, but he wasn’t wearing one. Reese was dressed in a casual collared shirt and khakis, and with the exception of hair to his elbows, closely resembled his brother Tag. In lieu of the aforementioned tie, she put her hand to his face and ran her fingers down the barely-there scruff that lined his sharp jaw.

  He held his frown, his eyes scrunched in frustration.

  She leaned closer and his expression softened, those scrunched eyes opening enough to dip and take inventory of her ample cleavage. She had gone with a summery turquoise dress that wrapped in the middle, low-cut enough to give the girls a day in the sun.

  “Your tattoo.” He stroked the skin above her breast.

  Okay, so the cleavage wasn’t front and center. He continued to surprise her.

  “Shit.” She fussed with the material. That was the problem with this dress. “Maybe if I tighten my belt I can hide it.”

  “Let them see it.” Reese captured her hands. “Let everyone see it. It’s you.” His eyes were warm until his gaze snapped to the house and another flash of pain darted across his features. So quickly, if she hadn’t been this close to him, she may have missed it. “Let’s get this over with.”

  He came around to her side of the Lamborghini, a car she’d admit was damn sexy and aside of Reese’s sour mood, pretty damn fun to ride in. She accepted his hand and watched as he took in her tat again.

  “Who knew you had a thing for bad girls,” she joked, draping her hand over his arm so she didn’t wobble up the cobblestone.

  “There’s a first time for everything.” She wasn’t a bad girl per se, but knowing she’d taken Reese to his knees—both during a blow job and while tickling him—made her pull her shoulders back with pride.

  After Corbin, she’d stopped thinking of herself as confident—as a catch. But a man as powerful as Reese Crane succumbing to her specific brand of femininity was proof she still had it.

  They walked up the drive and cut across a flower and rock garden, over the lush lawn, and along a path leading to the front door. They passed cute round bushes and red feathery ones. Pink and purple and yellow flowers lined the dark mulch interspersed with spiky green-leaved plants.

  Where Reese’s mansion was decadent and regal, Alex Crane’s house was homey, despite being gargantuan. The siding was a rust-cinnamon color, the windows and roof slate gray. She spotted three balconies—two on the top floor leading out from opposite rooms and one on the middle floor. Downstairs was reserved for a massive patio, the outdoor furniture as clean as if it’d been bought today. Hell, maybe it had.

  “This is beautiful,” she said. “And a pool house?”

  “Heated.”

  “Like yours.”

  “Like father like son. I guess I got used to it and wanted one of my own.”

  She chewed on that thought. “So, you grew up here?”

  “Yep.” He reached for the door. “Only house I ever lived in until I bought the estate.”

  Interesting. Was it memories of his mother that made him dread coming here today?

  He swung open the door and they were greeted by an attractive red-haired woman wearing a white shirt and black vest and skirt.

  “Welcome to Big Crane’s home. May I take your handbag and lock it in the private coatroom?” she asked Merina.

  “Oh…sure.” Wow. Formal.

  “I’m Reese,” he said. “You must be new.”

  The woman did look a dash chagrined before her professionalism snapped back into place. “Mr. Crane’s oldest son. You must be Merina Crane.”

  Merina smiled. “I am.”

  “I was hired for the event. My apologies for not recognizing you, Mr. Crane.” She handed Merina’s purse off to an attendant. “Right this way. I’ll show you to the backyard.”

  “I can find it, thanks.” Reese took Merina’s hand. “He goes through house staff like underwear.”

  Merina sent the redhead an apologetic smile and shuffled alongside her husband out to the yard.

  * * *

  This house had been his home since Reese Harrington Crane had returned from the hospital swaddled in yellow because his parents didn’t find out if he was a boy or a girl until he popped out. His room had been on the third floor, the windows replaced by balconies and sliding doors only after Eli had stopped sleepwalking. Now Alex lived here, though his assistant and house staff occupied the house most of the time as well.

  A third of the square footage as Reese’s home, it was still huge but his father had never downsized after Lunette had died. If it were Reese who’d lost his wife in a car accident, he couldn’t have mo
ved fast enough. Hell, when Gwyneth cheated on him, he hadn’t been able to set foot into the mansion without remembering her sorting mail in the foyer, or drinking tea in the kitchen. Or opening his eyes in the morning and watching out the window as she dove into the deep end of the pool.

  Similarly, his father’s house was haunted by as many painful memories. Reese remembered his mother in the kitchen, rushing back and forth to throw lunches together for the three of them. They could afford to eat the private school lunches, seeing as money had never been a problem, but she’d insisted on packing homemade sandwiches on bread that Magda had baked from scratch.

  Outside, the covered back patio sprawled the length of the house, providing welcome shade from the hot sun. As if Alex had phoned up God himself and requested good weather, above were blue skies and only the occasional puffy cloud.

  “This is a beautiful house,” Merina commented, her hand squeezing his.

  “It was.” He lifted her hand and brushed his lips along her knuckles, pleased when she sent him a smile that calmed some of the torrential feelings inside him.

  When his mother was alive, life was as close to perfect as the family of five could’ve come. After she’d passed, the kitchen held memories of frozen casseroles and lasagna that neighbors and friends brought for them to eat. The pool house the room where Reese would sit for hours, feet in the water wondering if he fell in and drowned if it would relieve the pain his mother’s death left behind.

  It was emo-teenage kid stuff he thought he’d outgrown. Being back here or encountering his and Gwyneth’s former bedroom hadn’t made him want to drown himself, but a familiar, black cloud hung ominously above his head.

  A few years after his mother died, Reese started shadowing his father at work. It took a week for him to decide that his college major would be whatever gave him the proper education he needed to take over Crane Hotels someday.

  His legacy.

  The woman next to him was a crucial spoke in the wheel of his journey. Thanks to her, he was on his way to a future that burned so brightly, it shut out the hurt. Merina also shut out the hurt, because that black cloud didn’t hold the weight it had before she was here.

  He didn’t have the time or desire to take a long vision of that thought.

  Hand in hand with Merina, he walked through the grass to where his father stood, dressed in white pants and a navy shirt, his white hair lifting in the breeze.

  “Reese. There he is.” Alex was standing with Frank and Bob, and a quick glance around the party determined there were a handful of other board members in attendance.

  “Gang’s all here,” Reese muttered. Merina moved her hand to his elbow, possibly warning him to behave himself.

  An hour into mingling, she’d made the rounds with him to greet guests and friends of the family. They parted with a kiss he’d assumed was for the crowd, yet when her hands lingered on his neck, and his eyes sank closed, the kiss felt like it was only for them.

  That’d been happening often, and in this setting, surrounded by gawking onlookers, he itched with the urge to leave. Partly because he’d rather be alone with Merina, and partly because being here reminded him of the deal he’d made with her in the first place.

  They’d moved beyond a deal and a marriage for show. They had slipped from the precarious ledge of staged kisses and convenient sex. Their relationship was more than signatures on a contract.

  He hadn’t meant for it to happen, but now that it had, he had no idea what to do about it.

  His father approached, carrying two bottles of beer. He offered one to Reese, who stood next to a small algae-filled pond.

  “Frog,” Alex said as the tiny green thing leapt into the water with a bloop. “Can’t pour the algae killer in there or else the frog will die.”

  “Isn’t that natural selection?” Reese asked drily, accepting the brew and tipping the bottle back for a long, wet sip. He’d laid off the alcohol while wandering around the party, and now it tasted damn good going down.

  Alex chuckled. “So. Enjoying yourself?”

  Beer bottle to his lips, Reese grunted.

  “Penelope thought a cookout would be the nudge you need.” Alex lowered his voice, his eyes moving around the yard. “One more casual affair for the board to see you with your wife.”

  “You’re talking to my advisor?”

  “She’s on the Crane payroll.”

  “She’s on my payroll.”

  “I’m not retired yet.” Alex broke into a grin. “Eager to see me in checkered golf pants?”

  “You never did know how to relax.” Reese nodded at his father’s hearty build and flat stomach. “Time to let yourself go. Get paunchy.”

  “Shit.” Alex laughed the word.

  His old man deserved the break. After raising three boys alone—who’d grown into three hard-working, dedicated men—Alex deserved to kick back and not be responsible for anyone but himself.

  “I have to stay fit for the ladies.” Alex pulled a hand over his chest, his mustache stretching as he smiled.

  Reese nearly spit out his beer. “You? Date?”

  “Never know. I’m hot for a senior.”

  “And apparently senile.”

  His dad flipped him off and Reese laughed, which helped him relax. Alex had always, always been on Reese’s side. Even when he became surly or short-tempered at work, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for his boys.

  “I owe you,” Reese said, looking down at the grass.

  “For?”

  He met his father’s blue eyes. Dark blue like his own. “For always making sure I knew that Crane Hotels was my destiny.”

  Alex blinked in surprise, or maybe he was moved.

  “You didn’t let me hand you anything, son. You demanded an interview.”

  That was true. “I didn’t want to be handed anything.”

  “So proud of that. You wanted to prove you deserved your position at Crane Hotels, and soon enough you will be the head the company.” Alex put a hand on Reese’s shoulder and Reese felt the horrifying burn of tears at the back of his eyes. “Where you belong.”

  “Who are all these people, anyway?” Reese asked, changing the subject before this bizarre display of tenderness revoked his man card. He recognized half of the guests, but the other half were either people he’d never met or had met in passing and forgotten.

  “Filler,” Alex answered. “So the board doesn’t think this is a setup.”

  “Penelope’s idea?” Reese guessed.

  “She’s sharp. Single?”

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  Alex chuckled, then his eyes went past Reese. “Ah, and here are the rest of them.”

  Merina’s parents walked onto the patio. Merina, who was carrying a glass of white wine and standing next to Lilith, cast him a wide-eyed look from across the yard.

  The desperate gaze told him she needed him to stand with her when they said hello. To feel needed, to be needed by her was as welcome as her needing him in every other way.

  “Better greet your outlaws,” Alex joked, lifting a glass. “If you only win two people over today, it should be them.” His raised eyebrow told him Alex didn’t believe that the Van Heusens were convinced.

  But the real problem was that Reese wasn’t convinced he was faking any longer.

  * * *

  Things had been strained between her and her parents since the wedding. Mom had tried to accept Reese without judgment and her father rarely brought it up. She hadn’t prepared for seeing them today, but Merina was determined to make the best of it. After a few months of scrutiny during a marriage “for show,” the strain was wearing on her in a way she was afraid had begun to show.

  Thankfully, Reese was gliding her way, staggeringly powerful even dressed down for a faux casual cookout. As she’d learned since she set foot in the yard this afternoon, this get-together was anything but casual. Big Crane entertained his guests, his eyes lingering whenever they landed on Reese and Merina. He was w
atching the board and watching them in equal measure.

  “You didn’t tell me,” she said as Reese looped an arm around her waist and turned with her to face her incoming parents.

  “I didn’t know,” he replied. “Penelope.”

  In other words, this shebang was courtesy of their own personal public relations department. At least she had Reese. That thought struck her a little dumb. She’d come to rely on his presence. Lean on it, even.

  Before those warning bells could trigger an alarm, Jolie and Mark sent a few uncomfortable glances across the lawn. They were nervous in the obscenely wealthy crowd, and now Merina was one of the flock. She’d fulfilled the whole “leave and cleave” order with a billionaire husband and her parents came an inch away from filing for bankruptcy.

  Merina’s heart ached for them. She wanted to assure them that they would be working at the Van Heusen as they liked. That they wouldn’t have to change a single thing. Soon, she would.

  “Well, this is quite the party,” Jolie said as she approached. She was dressed in a floral dress, cut to flatter her plump-around-the-middle figure. Mark wore khakis and a golf shirt, trying but not quite hitting the fashionable mark.

  “Hi, dear.” Mark nodded at Reese next. “Reese.”

  Reese greeted them by name and pulled Merina flush to his hard, warm body. She rested her hand on his stomach, not realizing she’d done it until her father’s eyes dropped to her hand, then raked up her dress and locked on her tattoo. His mouth frowned.

  Right. The tattoo. Today was fun.

  “I didn’t know you were coming,” Merina said. “I would have thought you’d have mentioned it at work on Friday.”

  “Well we were only invited this morning,” Jolie said.

  “I insisted we attend. I have something to talk to Reese about,” Mark stated.

  “About what?” It had better not involve Reese’s intentions or she’d die.

  “Don’t worry,” Mark said with one of his calming Dad smiles. “It’s business not pleasure. Unless there are cigars?”