Beauty and the Billionaire: A Dirty Fairy Tale Romance Page 9

  “Shhh,” she said, stroking my hair. “It’s all right. You’re here in the Bahamas with me. You’re not there, Drake. You never have to be there again.”

  I swallowed and set my forehead against hers. “You shouldn’t have to see me like that.”

  “I don’t mind. I understand… I think more than a lot of people who know you that the service took a lot out of you.”

  “That’s an understatement, but that’s why,” I said, reluctantly slipping out of her grip and sitting back up in my chair. “It’s why I’m a Dom. I need to have control over something because my mind keeps dragging me back there whether I want it to or not. It’s why I hide all my medals in a footlocker, why I try not to talk about it. It’s why I don’t…” I trailed off, not wanting to talk about what lay under the clothes I wore.

  “Were you badly injured?” she asked, nodding toward my eyebrow. “I know you have that scar, but I wasn’t sure if you were sent home for injuries, at least it wasn’t in your dossier. I realized when I saw the Purple Heart that it had to be more than a flesh wound to earn that.”

  “I didn’t earn it,” I replied, an automatic reaction. I was no hero and the medal wasn’t something I deserved, not in a million years. “But, yeah, an IED explosion and it wasn’t pretty. It took me about six months to be able to walk normally again. It was a complete sonofabitch. I was lucky though,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “I got to come home at all. Christ, I was twenty-three and had a cath bag attached to me for the better part of a year in a V.A. hospital. But I was the lucky one.”

  “Your whole team?” she asked, the concern coloring her words.

  “Yeah, every damn one of them, and not a one deserved to die like that,” I said, rubbing at the top of my right knee. “I keep everything covered, and I should have explained more to you about it. It’s not awful but it’s not exactly pretty either, and I just need the privacy. I think about what happened in Iraq too much…”

  “And you’re right back there,” she said, leaning forward to kiss me.

  I was surprised at the tenderness of her kiss. It wasn’t some hungry make out, no full-out porno tongue, but it was sweet and intimate, something I needed right then with the flashback still so fresh in my mind. It wasn’t even a kiss, not really, I realized. It was a promise; Belle was swearing, at least for now, to stick with my fucked-up self.

  God help us both.

  She pulled back and stroked my hair. “I’m sorry I pressed. I should have figured it out, put the pieces together better.”

  “And it doesn’t give me some special license to be a dick to you. I shouldn’t have either, but it’s… it’s too much sometimes.”

  She nodded and then stood, crooking her arm out for me. “Then maybe we don’t have to talk about it. After all, I heard that the moonlit beach and the crashing waves are something I just have to see to believe. Will you take me, Drake?”

  “Princess,” I said, regaining my usual swagger, even if most of it was bravado. “I’ll take you anywhere.”

  ***

  Belle

  His hand was firm and strong covering mine. Drake was a massive, hulking guy. I never thought about it much. Even after a few days, it was easy to get used to someone else. Even with his tall 6’4 or so frame and his broad shoulders, I easily forgot how big he was. After all, I tended to give back as good as I got when we argued. He wasn’t going to get one over on me based on looming, but this was different. As I walked down the shore with my bare toes digging into the sludgy sand, I marveled at how large his hand was compared to mine. It covered it so completely. He was strong and yet wounded, someone who clearly sought to protect others. No matter how he tried to bluster through things, he needed someone to be there for him as well.

  Drake wasn’t saying anything, and I hadn’t expected him to talk at first. He’d clearly been uncomfortable admitting so much to me, and I could understand how he’d accidentally shown me too much of himself. I understood, at least a little. He couldn’t help when the flashbacks came, but he had no reason to be ashamed. He was a hero, serving his country and paying such a high price. If this was part of the whole Drake McManus package, then it wasn’t going to make me run for the hills. I wasn’t sure where any of this was going, but I wasn’t going to bail on anyone because of something they couldn’t help about themselves.

  “It’s really gorgeous,” I said, perking up my ears as the water crashed onto the shore. “You weren’t wrong about that.” I smirked and squeezed his hand playfully. “I suppose the great Drake McManus is rarely wrong.”

  He frowned for a second and then chuckled. I hoped he accepted the olive branch I was offering. We’d had too much darkness for the night. It was time to heal, to laugh. “My bank balance and client record tends to say no to that,” he agreed. “There’s so much beauty on this island. I know some prefer other, more remote, places in the Pacific Ocean but I always wanted to be here.”

  “Can I ask why?”

  “When I was a kid, we didn’t have much money, and that was an understatement. Mom was the type who clipped hundreds of coupons to make ends meet and she entered every contest or sweepstakes you could think of. When I was thirteen, she won a cruise—the only really good thing she ever had happen to her or to our family—and we got to go to the Bahamas. It was too expensive to do much once we got here, even eat more than bottled water and sandwiches. The food import costs are pretty insane. But we had this amazing time, splashing all week in the ocean and lying on the beach. Hell, I think it was the only time I ever saw my family relax. I guess… I just wanted to come back here once I’d made my bones and have that again.”

  “Are you and your parents close?” I asked, surprised he’d mentioned them at all. He hadn’t before.

  Drake squeezed my hand back. “I take care of them now that I can, and I think they appreciate it. Mom said thanks when I bought the farm out of debt. So that’s something.”

  I frowned and wanted to ask about his dad, but he hadn’t brought the man up first so I decided it was probably a no-go zone. I was learning there was a veritable walk-in closet of skeletons for Drake and that pressing on them too fast caused him to withdraw. I didn’t want that so I bit my tongue on it for now.

  “What about your parents?” he asked. “I know Maurice Fontaine had some high roller days. You had to have been to more than your fair share of beaches.”

  “All the way into high school, the finances were good. I didn’t have it hit me till I took out loans for college and we had to sell off our mansion. I know that sounds so ‘poor little rich girl,’ but it’s true. So… Monaco, Fiji, the Mediterranean, yeah, I’ve seen all of it, but the best time I ever had was a couple years ago. We went up the coast a bit to some small town in Cali, not even a tourist trap place. We just spent the day there with Mom, enjoying everything. We weren’t worried about making appearances. Mom enforced this ‘no cells’ rule and we just, I dunno, were with each other.”

  “You really care about your mom, don’t you?”

  I frowned. “Did Leonard say something?”

  “No, but you talk about her a lot, even more than your sister or Maurice. It sounds like you two have a special connection.”

  “She’s, uh, struggled,” I offered. “Ever since we hit the hard times, she’s just suffered the most from it.”

  That was all I could offer. Maybe I was a hypocrite for insisting on truths from him while I couldn’t or wouldn’t dare talk about my own family’s pain. I just didn’t want him to know about Mom’s cancer. I don’t know what it said about our budding relationship, but I didn’t trust revealing that information because it just gave him too much leverage over me.

  I wasn’t ready for that.

  “Then we’ll work on actual business talk tomorrow, I promise. Let me see what you and Carol have come up with, and, I promise you, we will figure out how to help your father’s company and to make sure that mine gets what it needs as well. Okay?”

  I nodded and stood on my
tiptoes to kiss him, my tongue tangling with his in a frantic dance for dominance. Tonight, we needed to come together and heal, but I wasn’t ready for sex again. I needed to just make sure we could just be together, could take comfort in each other. He seemed to understand that need, and while his arms twined around my back and he pulled me closely to him, he didn’t do more. There was no insistent thrust of hips against mine, no roaming hands. Instead, there was just us, our kisses, and the roar of the ocean behind us.

  Chapter Eleven

  Belle

  The beeping of Skype buzzed to life as the screen flickered before me. I’d been so busy with all the negotiations with Drake that I hadn’t been able to talk to my family. We’d spent the morning going over figures. He wasn’t happy yet and could maybe meet us as far as sixty cents on the dollar, but we’d have to go back to the drawing board if we wanted the full eighty that Carol and I were hoping for. I hadn’t broached what roles Dad, Carol, or I would play after the merger. I didn’t want any of us to be just figureheads, remnants of the old company shoved in an office, but never given any projects to work on. That would come later. I still had to figure out a way to slash and hack or butter up the budget—whatever I could—in order to increase what Drake was willing to pay us.

  “Hey,” I said, offering a neutral smile and hoping I didn’t look as glowing and sexy as I felt. A lot of sisters had a radar for that sort of thing, for when you just got laid or did something wrong or both. I didn’t want Carol to realize that I had gone that far and twice now with Drake. “How is everything?”

  Carol sighed and offered me a tight grin back. “Actually, better than I’d have thought. Yesterday, well, I don’t know what kind of arrangement you worked out but Drake did give us an advance on merger funds. I think he must be leaning that way and seeing the rest as details.”

  Really? Why hadn’t he said anything to me? Had all his “overseas business” been just a smokescreen?

  “That’s good. I still can’t get him to come up yet for more than sixty cents on the dollar, but I’m going to see what I can do. I figure if I keep working at it then there’s nothing I can’t get him to do.”

  Carol’s posture went rigid. “I bet.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Belle, you know what it means, even if I don’t want to put a fine point on it. You’ve only been there about forty-eight hours, and he’s sending advance payments for a deal he couldn’t really stand when he was in the States. I… you didn’t have to go that far.”

  I blushed, wishing my thoughts weren’t so easy to read. My sister had always been able to read me like an open book and there was a reason why. “I didn’t sleep with him.”

  “I can tell, Belle. You’ve been grinning since we started like a kid who got a pony for Christmas. I can’t believe you. Do you have that little self-respect?”

  I swallowed and steadied myself. Whatever was happening between me and Drake was complicated, and even I couldn’t explain it most of the time, even to myself, but Carol didn’t have a right to judge it.

  “I know you’re still frustrated that Drake didn’t ask for you to be here, Carol, that you couldn’t be the one to be in talks,” I started, trying to keep my voice level and hoping it was working. I couldn’t be sure because it felt like I was seeing red. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “I’m the better strategist for the company,” she countered.

  The more ruthless one, you mean.

  “I know that, sis.”

  “You’re better than this, Belle, than to negotiate using your—”

  “Don’t finish that sentence because it’s not like that.” Okay, it’s a little like that. “We’ve been discussing figures all morning and going over spreadsheets. This is not 9 ½ Weeks today.”

  Technically true. We hadn’t had time to play yet, although he promised he had something planned for tonight in the playroom and I couldn’t wait.

  “I’m just so disappointed.”

  “I’m not sleeping with him,” I countered, but even I could tell how tinny my voice was, how thin the lie sounded.

  “Dad’s going to be so disappointed, too.”

  I shook my head and held my chin up. “Carol, I know you’re my big sister and you’re trying to look out for me, but what I’m doing here is very complicated. It’s not about sex or about manipulating it to save Mom and Dad, but whatever happens for this month is frankly between me and Drake. That was the way the setup was arranged, and that’s the way it should be.”

  “You’re better than this.”

  “I’m not doing anything wrong,” I said, my voice loud and clear.

  That much I knew was true. Dad might need Drake’s money, and I might love the orgasms he gave me, but it was far deeper than that. He’d saved me, protected me from the worst night of my life, and he needed me, too, needed someone to reach him in this exile he’d created for himself, from the way his days in Iraq haunted him.

  No, there was no way that Carol could possibly understand that.

  “Fine, but it won’t do. You know that sixty on the dollar is not what we want. Even with his upfront generosity,” she said, lengthening the words as she spoke. “Even with that, we need to meet that eighty cents compromise.”

  “But of course, Mein Fuhrer,” I said. “Now can you please put Mom on the line?”

  “Sure, but don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, Belle. Drake’s a shark, and he preys on women. Everyone knows that.”

  I kept the smile plastered on my face, trying to work out my best Stepford/Barbie look so that when Mom did get on the line, I could sell the “all is normal and fine” image. However, it took everything I had not to bite back with a snarky remark. After all, the Carol I knew would do anything to keep the business going and to follow the bottom line. She was just being hypocritical and overprotective. I knew how to take care of myself through all of this; I did.

  Mom sat down before the computer, and I changed my demeanor from frustration to genuine happiness. Maybe it was my imagination, but she seemed healthier today, as if she had more energy. Her skin didn’t seem quite as pale.

  “Hi, honey, how are you?”

  “Mom, seriously, how are you? Because you look really good,” I said, working to make sure that I controlled the conversation. I didn’t want her to ask questions about me and Drake that I couldn’t answer yet. A good defense was the best offense, after all. “Did you start a new medicine?”

  Mom nodded. “With the advance Mr. Drake provided, I was able to get into the trial yesterday. I took the first dose this morning. I don’t know exactly if it’s early enough to see results, but I feel hopeful for the first time in a while so that probably helps, too.”

  “Maybe a little bit of self-fulfilling prophecy?” I asked, my good cheer spreading through my voice. I was so glad that Dad hadn’t wasted any time in contacting the trial docs and getting her the help she needed. “Anyway, you look amazing and I’m so glad you’re happy.”

  Mom nodded and then paused. “You look well. The sun favors you, honey, because you are definitely getting quite the tan.”

  “We went out snorkeling two days ago and I maybe got a bit too much sun. I have a bit of a red spot on my shoulders actually, but it’s gorgeous here. I think you’d really like it. Maybe if the therapy does well enough, you’d want to travel here someday. Not gonna lie, I completely recommend it.”

  Mom laughed. “Well, have you swam with dolphins yet?”

  “I haven’t done everything,” I said, hoping I didn’t blush thinking about the double entendre involved. “We’ve been locked in negotiations today, trying to figure out how to make the merger best for both parties. We did make progress, but not enough on our side. It’ll be a long month.”

  Mom smiled a beatific look I hadn’t seen on her face in far, far too long. “Well, you make sure to pace yourself and not to let Mr. McManus boss you around. You need time to rest, too. It’s been very stressful on you, hard, too. You deserve to see
the island and enjoy the sun as well, honey.”

  “Trust me, Mom,” I replied, winking at her. “I’m having the trip of a lifetime. Now, tell me more about your doctors.”

  ***

  This time, the playroom was set up differently when I entered it with Drake after dinner. The four-poster bed was still in the corner, a monster like that couldn’t be moved once it was set up, I was sure. However, there was also a makeshift bed, like the tables masseuses would set up for clients, set out in the center of the room. I frowned back at Drake as he locked the door behind us.

  “You seem confused, princess. What’s going on?”

  I shook my head but then slipped off my light shift and kicked off my flip flops. Maybe living with Drake was getting to me. I hadn’t worn underwear at dinner, knowing that we’d be going to the playroom afterward and that they’d be both redundant and ultimately slow us down.

  Drake whistled appreciatively and then stroked one of the globes of my rear. “You’re a woman after my own heart. Christ, if I’d known, I don’t think we’d have eaten at all.”

  “Maybe, but I was very hungry and those conch fritters shouldn’t go to waste,” I replied, winking back at him.

  Drake nodded and then handed me a hair tie. “You’ll need this.”

  “For?” I asked, as I swept my long, chestnut hair up in a high ponytail.

  “I love that you’re exploring your kinks with me, princess, and tonight I wanted to show you something else, let you know that BDSM and kink can be truly beautiful,” he continued as he gestured toward the makeshift bed. “Would you?”

  Shrugging, I got up on the masseuse table as he asked and lay back. “All right, but I’m not sure what this is for. I have to admit that I’m such a newbie when it comes to all this.”