Billionaire Bad Boys of Romance Boxed Set (10 Book Bundle) (96 page)

Chapter Five

“Tell me it isn’t true!” Natasha Price, Keyonna’s close friend and confidant, cried on the other end of the phone line. Natasha also happened to be the editor of a popular society magazine which was nothing more than a glorified gossip sheet on the rich and mighty. She was around the same age as Keyonna, and both girls had looked out for each other over the years, while trying to inch their way up their respective career ladders.

Keyonna sighed dejectedly. “I wish I could.” She slumped back into her seat as she pushed a catalogue of designs to the far edge of her desk. “But I can’t. I really did jump Nick Vitale with a kiss at the tribute dinner of my military ex-boyfriend. I’m almost afraid to ask how you heard about it.”

“Phew.
I
was almost certain it was all just a hoax,” Natasha breathed with expressive relief that Keyonna found not in the least reassuring. Natasha was the kind of girl who had ears and eyes everywhere. She knew anyone who was anyone and rubbed shoulders with people from all walks of life thanks to her confident and winning personality.

Keyonna’s eyes rolled heavenwards. “Always the incurable gossip, aren’t you?”

“It’s all part of my job description, honey,” her friend cooed. “And yet when that nasty female showed up at my office with the scoop you could have knocked me over with a feather. To think that her fiancé of over a year, the dangerously hunky Nick Vitale, has been given the boot. Well. I couldn’t believe any woman would be demented enough to let him go – even if he was caught necking with another woman. And when I found out that woman was you…damn girl I almost died. I thought it was either the bitch was lying or it wasn’t the same Keyonna Hayes I knew.”

“Well, now you’ve confirmed it,” Keyonna said ruefully. “I didn’t even know that Conte girl recognized me.”

“You’re not as unknown as you think, my dear. Besides, she could easily have found out about you. Anyway you’ll be in the spotlight soon enough because the story’s coming out in the latest edition. Sorry, babe,” she went on when Keyonna groaned, “But I had to do it. It’s just too juicy to drop. Better look out for the headlines: “Rachel Conte Breaks Dream Match with Nick Vitale.” Here, why don’t I read out the first paragraph: “Things are not looking up for the rakish Vitale heir as his fiancée, young and beautiful Rachel Conte, breaks off the year-long engagement after catching him smooching at a party with Keyonna Hayes, well-known interior decorator.”

“Oh God, stop!” Keyonna groaned, a palm against her temple as her vision seemed to swim for a moment in embarrassment.

“For what it’s worth, I didn’t exactly handle the story,” Natasha explained in a gentler tone. “My editor-in-chief snatched it off me and refused to keep your name out. Something about not letting personal interest get in the way of my job of giving readers the truth – the whole truth and so on.”

“It’s okay, Natasha; it’s not your fault. Obviously, Rachel what’s-her-name was set on disgracing Nick for what he did and that’s why she sold your paper the story. No; I have only myself to blame for being so stupid as to go kissing a near stranger – handsome and irresistible though he is.
It was just one of those crazy impulses, you know? The ones that blink on and off in your head and before you know it, you've made the dumbest mistake of your life.”

Natasha chuckled. “Now now, don’t go feeling sorry for yourself. Feel sorry for poor Nick Vitale. Now that his bride-to-be has dumped him, he might lose everything he’s ever owned.”

Keyonna’s eyes widened in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s strictly confidential – you know, “hush-hush,” Natasha said in comically husky whisper that Keyonna had to strain to hear, “And only a handful are really aware of this detail, but when Nick’s father died six months ago, he left a clause in his Will that if Nick didn’t get married by the time he turned thirty, then the Vitale fortune – worth over a billion dollars – would be taken from him and given to charity. Every red cent.”

Keyonna sank back against her desk for support. “Oh.” No wonder he’d been furious with her for jeopardizing his engagement.

“I guess I blew it, right?” she said at last, grimacing.

“With a cannon ball,” Natasha agreed, chuckling softly but not unkindly. “Rachel’s father is a close friend of the family and it would have gone down so ‘pat’ if both families could have been linked by marriage, both having strong Italian American heritage. Well, now the Conte and Vitale fortunes will have to go their separate ways.”

Oh shit! What have I done
, Keyonna wondered in remorse as she chewed on her thumbnail. This didn’t sound good. Whoever said a kiss was just a kiss had no clue what they were saying.

“Looks like hunky Nick will probably now be scouting for a new candidate,” the gossipy Natasha went on and Keyonna listened raptly, despite herself very interested in hearing more. “And sure, there’s probably a sea of females out there who’d be willing to jump into the role of the Vitale bride, but who knows what Nick intends to do now? Not that I think for a moment he’ll willingly give up all that money. Losing his birthright all for some stupid reason….Hmmm, well, Nick’s father must have felt his son was too much of a roving rake and wanted to make sure the gorgeous Nick settled down when the time was right. Nick would be a fool not to find a replacement and quick, since his thirtieth birthday is in just one month. He’s in deep shit, I must say.”

And it’s all thanks to me, Keyonna thought, her sense of guilt steepening. Nick Vitale might be a prize bastard; he’d treated her worse than any man ever had and yet she wouldn’t have wished all this on him. It had simply been a case of the wrong place and time, for both of them.

Now there seemed to be nothing she could do to make it all better – or was there?

Chapter Six

The very next evening, Keyonna swung open her front door to its ring and stopped short at the sight of Nick standing on her doorstep looking as virile – and forbidding as ever.

He was dressed in a dark business suit which fit his broad, lithe frame to breath-stealing perfection. His brown eyes were narrowed with fathomless intent and as she stared into his handsome face, she felt that twinge in her deepest core that reminded her how long it was since she’d felt solid masculine heat surge between her thighs.

“Nick,” she let out on a croak, pressing her suddenly sweaty palms down on her faded cut-off shorts which barely skimmed past her bottom. The only thing else she had on was her cropped sleeveless white tee which suddenly felt like it could stifle her especially as Nick was giving her a thorough once-over. A flicker of appreciation crossed his face and she could swear it made her panties all the moister.

He finally lifted his gaze to hers, a predatory smile flashing white against his smoothly tanned face. “Why do you look so surprised? I should have thought you’d be expecting me.”

“If you’re here to play your games…,” she began tightly, and saw him lift his hands in surrender.

“I come in peace,” he cut in mildly. “And hopefully I’ll get invited for a cool, long beverage. I drove over straight from the office and I’m sort of hot and bothered.”

“Yeah, right,” Keyonna muttered, surprising herself by stepping to the side to allow him in even as she said, “Okay - but no hanky-panky.”

Nick laughed deeply, brushing past her and into her sizeable, elegantly furnished open-plan apartment. “Do people really still say stuff like that? No hanky-panky. Don’t worry, I had no such thing in mind.” He chuckled once more, shaking his head and turning to face her in the middle of the living room done in highly modern chic with red, cream and black accents. Well lit and filled with tasteful artifacts gracing the walls and corners, it wasn’t an overly large place but every item had been picked with care and thought.

Keyonna led him to one of the stylishly upholstered sofas, and watched him survey the contemporary surroundings with an appraising air. “Nice décor,” he commented. “Did it all yourself?”

“I handled the design, yes,” she murmured, inwardly brimming with pleasure at his light approval. “Would you like to sit down? I made some iced tea – would you like that?”

“Sounds nice,” he said with a slightly mocking tilt to his smile, and Keyonna resisted the urge to make a face at him as she headed for the kitchen. She returned some minutes later with a pitcher of cubes and two filled glasses to find him standing by an inlaid shelf, looking at the framed pictures set there.

He sent her a glance. “I take it these are your parents?”

Keyonna nodded. “They’re back home in Illinois. I’m an only child and they more or less groomed me to fend for myself. It’s a lesson I took along with me to this day, living far from my family and trying to make my way in the world.”

She handed him a glass which he took with a nod of thanks. “I’m sure they’re very proud seeing the success you’ve become,” he told her mildly, and she smiled with a shake of her head.

“Still a long way to go. But then, I’m grateful for what I’ve achieved.”

There was a pause as they both sipped from their drinks, Nick’s brows rising in enjoyment as he murmured, “This is good.”

Keyonna took a much too hasty gulp of her iced tea as their eyes met over the glasses. The fact that they were having small talk, here, seemed incongruous to what was actually sizzling beneath the surface. There was that twang of awareness between them that made perspiration slide down her bare back in tiny rivulets. She’d never known a man to look so potently male with all his clothes on – making her start to imagine just how much more tantalizing he’d be naked.

Damn…the thought of Nick Vitale, naked, was enough to turn her nipples into granite-hard knots now straining against her thin tank.

“Looks like we have more in common than I had realized. We’re both an only child – and we’re both go-getters determined to achieve our goals,” Nick said in a steadily deepening voice that seemed to tease the very hairs on her pores. “We’d make a perfect combination, don’t you think?”

Something that glinted darkly in his eyes right then made Keyonna’s throat constrict. His beautiful lips curved in a tyrannical smile and Keyonna just knew she’d been a fool to let him in. Not that she’d had the chance to even think or consider the right or wrong of giving Nick the chance to invade her personal space the way he was doing now.

“Perfect combination for what?” Keyonna heard the slight tremor in her voice and bit on her bottom lip. Crap. Looking into Nick’s deep brown gaze reminded her of the moment he’d kissed her in his car. Now that had been one hell of a hard, hot and passionate kiss. No games, just lust. But then he’d ruined it by talking like he wanted nothing to do with her. Called her a distraction he didn’t need or even want.

And yet now he was here. Heaven only knew his agenda but from the way the air crackled all around them, Keyonna had a feeling that nothing on earth could save her from Nick’s feral pursuit.

Like a panther on the prowl, he closed what space was left between them. Even though he didn’t touch her, she felt his nearness like a blanket of warmth closing in on her. There was no doubt that Nick could turn up the temperature
in a room without even trying.

He merely shook his head with a smile at her question and then murmured,
“We're very much the same, you and I. Because we don’t let anything hold us back be it personally or professionally. I can tell that like me, you’ve broken a few rules – rocked the system, just to make sure you reached the next level. You do what you need to do, Keyonna. And I respect that. You’re sassy, you’re bold – and you’ve got one hell of a way of making your point.”

Nick
flashed a sudden grin and Keyonna felt herself smiling back for like no apparent reason. Damn, but when a man like Nick switched on the charm, what was a simple woman to do?

Shivering slightly, Keyonna stamped down the urge to simply dissolve in a puddle beneath his scorching smile.

“While you, Nick Vitale, are a tyrant – and one hell of a contradiction,” Keyonna muttered, her eyes challenging him to deny it. Here he was, paying her high compliments when many nights ago, he’d painted a far less flattering picture.

Keyonna was still waiting for his apology for the way he’d spoken and treated her. Though all things considered, she’d more than given him a taste of his own medicine – in more ways than one.

He smiled, nodded once, and raised his glass in a toast. “I’ll drink to that. Cheers.”

Their glasses clinked, and Keyonna’s lips were twitching in a smile she had to fight back as their eyes met over the rim of their glasses. Who would have thought it? Both of them, drinking iced tea, smiling and toasting glasses like old friends – or lovers.

I really shouldn’t have thought up that last word, Keyonna realized, knowing Nick must have seen something on her face by the way his gaze narrowed suddenly. Both their smiles died off and an unspecified element of raw, intense awareness shot up between them. Slowly, he set down his glass, gently taking hers from her now nerveless fingers.

Keyonna didn’t think to react, not until his arms encircled her waist. Then she tried to pull back and yet found the effort futile because his hold was like bands of steel as he brought her chest-to-chest with him.

Keyonna’s head was reeling. Her body felt turned to jelly; she was
in heat
. This man. He was something else; he made her lose her self-control in ways she’d never dreamed possible. Just by holding her close, he rendered her speechless as she became achingly aware of every strong, masculine outline of his frame.

“This is what I
really
want,” he said huskily, his gaze sweltering, right before he swooped his head to the side and took her mouth in a demanding, eating kiss.

In a last bid at resisting, Keyonna fought to keep her lips clamped tight – only to have her resolve shattered almost instantly when his masterful tongue flickered out to run moistly over the seam of her lips, causing her to exhale sharply in submission. Unable to fight his manly skill, Keyonna opened up to him eagerly.

In seconds it became clear to Keyonna why she’d had innumerable sleepless nights since that first time they’d kissed. And like that second kiss inside his car, Nick called the shots, deepening and then easing off the kiss at will, driving her off the brink with his alternatively tender and rough probing of her moist, hidden secrets.

Keyonna heard a tiny whimper of pleasure escape her parted lips, her fingers curling into his jacket lapels. As she tumbled inside his exciting taste and aroma, his hands swept over her quivering form. His touch was possessive, heated, famished. He cupped the curves of her ass and brought her even tighter against his hard, overpowering masculinity. Time stood still for her as Nick made her maddeningly aware of the effect kissing her was having on him.

*
* * *

“Keyonna,” Nick said on a groan as he tore his lips from hers moments later, his breath ragged. “You’re doing it again…making me crazy. So crazy that I could rip off your clothes and ravish you where we stand.”

His lips were pressed to her neck now, tasting the thin film of perspiration and inhaling the intoxicating fragrance that was all Keyonna, always enough to inflame him so that anytime she was near, he wanted her. He may have been able in the past to successfully conceal his rampaging desire for her. But any close observer would have noticed that hidden beneath his pretense of dislike was a confounding desire for a woman who made his brain want to explode.

Nick had felt secure in his camouflage, believing all these months that his red-hot desire for this beautiful, vivacious woman would fade – and yet he suddenly realized he’d only been postponing the torture. Now, he couldn’t hide the way she made him feel because his own body was betraying him even then.

He hitched his hands beneath the hem of her top, and heard her catch her breath. But she did nothing to stop him when he trailed his seeking fingers upwards. And when the full, heavy mounds of her breasts spilled into his palms, Keyonna let out a shuddery moan.

He felt the peak of her breasts squeeze into tight nubs as he grazed them with his fingertips, and his gaze lifted and locked with hers to find her staring at him dazedly. Nick knew she could see the answering torment mirrored in his eyes which would tell her in no uncertain terms that they were in this phase of sensual abandon together…