Untamed Billionaires: Marriage: For Business or Pleasure? / Getting Red-Hot with the Rogue / One Night with the Rebel Billionaire

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

His snarl caught her off guard despite his churlishness, yet it wasn’t his response that saddened her as much as the contempt in his truculent glare.

She’d been a fool to hope for anything other than what she got: more of the same from a boorish man who didn’t give a hoot about her.

‘I’m here on business.’

He showed no interest, seemed bored more than anything else. Faced with his silence she could not help asking him:

‘Don’t you want to know how I am? What I’ve been doing? What I’ve achieved?’

His withering stare clued her into his response before he spoke.

‘I don’t give a damn any more.’

Pain sliced her heart in two, the old familiar questions reverberating through her head: What did I do wrong? Why did you stop loving me? Could I have done anything differently?

But she wasn’t the same scared teenager any more.

She had her career skyrocketing all the way to the top and she’d be damned if she sat here and took any of his crap.

Resisting the urge to jab her finger at him to ram home her point, she sat back, folded her arms and looked him straight in the eye.

‘Maybe you should give a damn. That way, you’d know I’m a senior executive at a top London ad firm, that I’m good at what I do and I’ve done it all on my own, no thanks to you.’

She’d come here with some semblance of the idealistic girl she’d once been, but that girl vanished beneath his lack of caring and she wanted to rub his nose in her independence, in her success, in the proof she’d survived despite what he’d put her through.

If she’d thought her outburst would gain a reaction, gain recognition for her achievements, she should’ve known better.

He glowered, drew himself up, resembling the towering giant of a man she remembered as he rammed his cane against the floor.

‘You’re a fool if you think I care about any of that.’

Her heart ached as she stared at the man who was her father biologically but didn’t know the meaning of the word.

She could rant and rave and fling past hurts or present triumphs in his face but what would be the point? Darby listened to no one but himself, which was why he now found himself in this place. No amount of money on offer had induced anyone locally to play nursemaid and she couldn’t blame them.

Slinging her bag higher on her shoulder, she kept her face devoid of pity for the father she’d never had.

‘Sorry you feel that way. I thought…’

What? That the old despot might’ve changed, might’ve mellowed with time and illness? Not likely. If anything, his belligerence had worsened and she’d been crazy to come here, setting the past to rest while hoping for a miracle.

‘Thought what? I’d welcome you with open arms after all this time?’

He snorted, waved his good hand towards the door. ‘Just leave the way you came in.’

She’d cried rivers of wasted tears when she was a teenager for all this man had put her through and there was no way she’d stand here now and allow him to reduce her to tears again.

With a shake of her head, she turned away, ready to walk out and never look back.

‘That’s it, run away again. Though this time, you won’t have a penny of mine to cushion you when you fall.’

Icy foreboding trickled down her spine as she slowly swung back to face him.

‘What did you just say?’

His malevolent grin raised goose bumps on her skin. ‘You heard. That money from your mother? It was a crock. She never left you a cent. That was my money you squandered on your little trip, my money that made sure you didn’t end up in the gutter.’

She staggered, leaned against the doorway for support, her gut twisting with the painful truth.

‘So, daughter dearest, looks like you owe me after all.’

With his words ringing in her ears, she stumbled from the apartment, from the accommodation and made it to her car before she collapsed, slumping over the steering wheel.

She’d thought she’d escaped his stranglehold ten years earlier, had fought hard for her independence, had found safety and confidence in her career.

She’d been wrong.

Right then, she vowed to do whatever it took to pay off her debt.

You owe me…

With the hateful truth ringing in her ears, her head snapped up as she straightened, knowing what she had to do.

There was only one thing that would clear a debt of that magnitude and, right now, gaining her promotion was a necessity.

In choosing between owing her dad a huge amount of money and agreeing to Nick’s outlandish proposal, marrying Nick would be the lesser of two evils.

She’d come.

Nick squinted at Brittany between the spokes of his Harley, trying to read her expression and coming up empty.

She’d left a message for him at the hotel desk requesting a meeting and he had suggested to meet at the farm, hoping that the memories might throw her off balance—make her vulnerable, more easily manipulated. He hadn’t anticipated that those very same memories might unsettle him as well, but with Britt standing there, dressed in a short white skirt and pink vest-top, gnawing at her full bottom lip, an action he remembered all too well, attending to his bike was the last thing on his mind.

He waited for her to speak, continued polishing the chrome, an action he found soothing. He rarely got time to lavish on his bike these days and this was the first opportunity he’d had to work on his baby in months.

Even with her forget-me-not eyes clouded with worry, tendrils of hair escaping her ponytail and draping her face in golden copper and that worried action which drew attention to her lush mouth like it always had, she looked incredible, like his greatest fantasy come to life.

Which she was, not that he’d ever told her. He’d had his chance ten years earlier and she’d made it more than clear what she’d thought of his rebuff back then.

‘You blow this chance, Mancini, you’ll never get another one. This is it, you and me, together. So what will it be?’

His answer had been pretty clear. He’d given her one last kiss, a bruising, harsh kiss to say goodbye to the best thing that could’ve happened to him, pushed her away and said, ‘There is no us, Red. And there never will be.’

She hadn’t cried and he’d admired her for it. She hadn’t clung or tried to change his mind. She’d sent him a pitying look, shook her long red mane, held her head high and walked out on him, leaving him with an ache in the vicinity of his heart. An ache that had returned tenfold despite all his self talk what they’d shared back then was nothing more than a teenage fling.

Slamming a door on pointless memories, he stood, tucked the polishing cloth in his back pocket and leaned against the bike.