Billionaire On Fire: The Complete Series (A Bad Boy Alpha Billionaire Romance)

BILLIONAIRE
ON FIRE

The
Complete Series

By
Claire Adams

This
book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are
products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not
to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual
events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright
© 2016 Claire Adams

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Billionaire On Fire Volume 1

CHAPTER
ONE

Cam

"
Engine
One, Truck One, Ambulance Forty-One,
residential fire at Monroe and Oakley," the voice said over the loud
speaker. I looked over at Danny Newsome and then ran as fast as I could to grab
my gear and hop on the truck.

"C'mon Connor, lets
move!" Newsome yelled at me. "Let's go, let's go!"

I shot Danny a grateful look
as he swung up into the seat next to me just before the engine pulled out of
the station. Driver Mike Kelly turned on the siren as he drove like a bat out
of hell down Van Buren toward the fire. I gritted my teeth and looked out the
window.
 
Cars pulled to the side as the
siren screamed its warning and the city blocks rushed by. The houses along the
way became a blur as Kelly pressed harder on the gas pedal and flew toward the
fire.

Danny and I were ready to
jump out before the engine came to a full stop. We grabbed the huge hoses and
hauled them to the hydrants while the rest of the squad began pulling out the
tools we'd need once we got inside. I unscrewed the cover on the hydrant and
twisted the metal end of the hose onto the threads before tightening it. Danny
grabbed the metal bar we used and cranked the lever that opened the water flow.

"Ready!" I yelled
as I ran toward the house aiming the nozzle at the flames leaping out of the
windows, but the more I sprayed the higher the flames leapt. I cursed under my
breath as I braced myself and held the stream on one spot knowing that if I
could put it out, all would not be lost. I could feel the sweat running down my
body inside my jacket and felt my uniform being drenched as I held my ground.

"Cam!" Danny
called. "Cam, ease up, the guys gotta go in! Let 'em in!"

I braced myself against the
porch railing and kept aiming the water at the flames that were quickly consuming
the house. Danny tried to pull me back, but I shook him off and continued my
one-man attempt at putting out the fire. Danny pulled at me again, but this
time I shoved him hard and moved forward with a singular goal in mind.

"Connor!" Chief
Riley shouted as I ran up the stairs and into the house spraying water into the
flames. "Connor, step down!"

"No, Chief, I
won't!" I shouted back. "I'm not gonna lose it!"

"CONNOR! That's an order
not a request!" Chief yelled as he grabbed my arm and yanked me off the
porch. "Get your ass off the porch and let the guys get in there and fight
the damn fire!"

"No, no, no!" I
yelled as I flailed against the Chief's grip. "Let me go! Let me go!

QUINN!"

Chief Riley pushed me to the
ground and stood over me daring me to get up. The next thing I knew I was
rubbing my elbow and cursing as a warm wet tongue bathed my face. I shook my
head and opened my eyes to find myself face to face with Tesla, my big yellow
Lab. She was frantically licking my face as her tail wagged a mile a minute.
Her breath was terrible and I threw up a hand to stop the onslaught.
 

"Get back, girl," I
grumbled as I gently pushed her away from my face. "I don't need a bath
right now."
 

Tesla sat down and began
softly whining and pawing at me as I leaned against the bed and held my head in
my hands. I felt like crying, but like many many times before this, the tears
wouldn't come.

I looked up at the clock and
realized I had to be at the station in two hours. That would give me just
enough time to take Tesla for a run, make coffee and grab a hot shower before I
had to face another day of fighting Chicago fires.

"C'mon, girl," I
said as I patted my dog on her head and smiled down at her. I was rewarded with
a furious tail thumping on the floor as I said, "Let's go for a run."

CHAPTER
TWO

Alex

"
Miss
Pierce, did you hear me?" the
formidable brunette woman said as she gripped a clip board and looked over the
top of her cat eye glasses. She was dressed in a stiff, navy suit under which
she wore a cream colored blouse buttoned up to her neck and on her feet were
sensible pumps, the kind that looked professional but could be worn all day
without pain. She was a sensible woman who didn't have time for nursing
students who didn't pay attention.

"Yes, Mrs. Rikka, I
heard you," I said as I stepped forward and received my security badge and
locker number. "Thank you, ma'am."

"Miss Pierce, I'm going
to recommend that while you're here at Chicago General, you pay closer
attention when people speak to you," she said, narrowing her eyes.
"If you are not going to listen, then there is absolutely no point in you
being here. Am I understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," I
nodded as my face turned red with shame. I'd been listening until my best
friend, Liz Baker, had elbowed me and asked if I'd brought my lunch. Now I was
worried that I'd incurred the wrath of our nursing supervisor, Mrs. Fran Rikka,
and that I'd pay a heavy price for it the rest of the year.

"Old bitch," Liz
muttered under her breath as she flipped her flaming red ponytail and wrinkled
her nose as if she'd smelled something bad. "She doesn't need to be
dressing us down on the first day."

"Well, I wasn't
listening to her," I admitted.

"Alex, you're going to
need to grow a backbone, babe," Liz said as she slipped her arm through
mine and pulled me down the hall toward the cafeteria. "Otherwise they're
going to eat you alive!"

"I just think it's
better to follow the rules and be polite," I said defensively. "I
don't see what's wrong with that!"

"There's nothing wrong
with that," Liz replied as she looked over the lunch offerings. "It's
just that you do it so often that I think you forget that sometimes it's good
to raise a little hell."

"I don't feel the need
to raise hell like you do, Liz," I said looking at her sideways. Liz had
been my best friend since we were ten, when she'd waltzed into my elementary
school, looked around and chosen me as her life long best friend. She was wild
where I was calm, mouthy whereas I was polite, and rebellious whereas I was a
definite rule follower. I calmed her and she, well, she got me into more
trouble than I could imagine.

"I'll take the burger,
fries and a bowl of chili...please," Liz said to the woman behind the
counter then looked at me and flashed a big cheesy grin. "Happy now?"

"Oh, Liz, you're a piece
of work," I said shaking my head. I turned to the lunch lady and said,
"Salad, a bowl of chicken soup and a wheat roll, please."
 

"Gross," Liz said
as she made another face. She had the most animated face I'd ever known, and
was always shaping and reshaping herself to fit some new idea of who she
thought she should be. It was entertaining, but sometimes I worried that Liz
really didn't have any idea who she was.

"Do you think Rikka will
hold today against me?" I asked once we were seated at a table near the
window so Liz could watch people pass by. I loved the fact that I'd be able to
observe the doctors and nurses as they worked on patients and then relaxed over
lunch. I wanted to soak up as much about the hospital as I could, and the
cafeteria was an excellent place to do it.

"Seriously doubt
it," she said as she crammed two catsup covered fries into her mouth and
chewed. "Hey, look at that guy. Do you think he's homeless or just a
hipster whose mom didn't do his laundry this week?"

"Liz! That's so
mean!" I laughed before turning and looking at the young guy crossing the
street and adding, "Definitely hipster. He's got a messenger bag slung
over his shoulder. Homeless guys always use grocery sacks to carry their
stuff."

"Hmmm, yeah, you're
right," Liz nodded as she watched the boy cross the street. "He's
cute, then."

"Elizabeth Marie Baker!
You are incorrigible!" I laughed as I speared some lettuce and stuffed my
mouth. I chewed for a few moments then said, "I wonder who we'll be
working with."

"I hope I get the
ER," Liz said with her mouth full of burger. "I want to meet a
handsome doctor who will sweep me off my feet and meet me in the broom closet
for a scandalous rendezvous."

"Liz, is there ever a
moment when men are not part of the equation for you?" I laughed already
knowing the answer.

"Alex, my darling, the
answer to that question, as you very well know, is no," Liz grinned.
"There's absolutely nothing wrong with being a red-blooded, American girl
who enjoys sex, so don't judge me."

"I wouldn't dare,"
I smiled before turning the conversation to a more serious matter. Sometimes
Liz's reckless behavior scared me. She took chances that I knew I'd never be
brave enough to take, and most of the time her gamble worked out just fine, but
the few times when it hadn't, well, it had spelled disaster. I looked over at
her stuffing fries in her mouth and said, "I'm just worried that I won't
be able to manage all the coursework on top of working at the hospital. I can't
afford to lose my scholarship, Liz."

"I know, kiddo,"
she said patting my hand. "You're going to be just fine. We're going to
kick ass and take names so that when we walk across that graduation stage,
we'll be super stars!"

"I hope you're
right," I sighed as I finished the rest of my salad. "I really hope
you're right."
 

#

Later
that
afternoon, Liz and I walked into our classroom and found our professor setting
up an anatomy lesson covering the skin. Liz muttered a few choice curse words
under her breath while I took note of what the professor had written on the
board.

"It's not going to be
that bad, Liz," I whispered as we took our seats in the middle of the
classroom. "It's just basic anatomy. Stuff we've been studying
forever."

"Well, that would be
helpful if I'd been studying it," Liz said mournfully.

"Liz! Why didn't you
tell me you needed help?" I whispered. "I would have shared my
flashcards with you or helped you study."

"I know, I know,"
she said. "Well, now's as good a time as ever to turn it all around!"

Twenty minutes later,
Professor Jackson began the lecture and I found myself lost in the intricacies
of human anatomy as it related to the skin. I loved learning about the way the
body was not only designed to be an efficient machine, but also how easily that
machine could be disrupted by even the smallest abnormality. It wasn't that I
wanted people to get sick, it was just that I loved learning how we, as medical
professionals, could learn how to identify the problems and contribute to the
process of fixing them.

"So, you can see how
important healthy skin is to the overall function of the body," Professor
Jackson said as she tied together the main points of the lecture. "Any
time the skin is compromised, you have to keep an eye out for infection. A
breach in skin layers can be as small as a paper cut or as large as a
third-degree burn, and cause major problems either way. This is why good
hygiene is so vitally important when you are dealing with the skin. Now, any
questions?"

"Is this going to be on
the exam?" Violet Metzler asked in a bored voice as she looked down at her
nails. "And if it's not, could you be so kind as to give us an idea of
what will be on the exam?"

"Ms. Metzler, it would
be safe to assume that everything I lecture about will be part of an
exam," Professor Jackson replied. "After all, this knowledge is what
you will need in order to function as a nurse."

"Yeah, but see, I'm
planning to be an administrator," Violet replied in the same bored tone as
she flipped her hair over her shoulder and said, "I don't intend to have
to actually deal with patients, so I don't want to waste my time memorizing
things that aren't going to be useful in my administrative capacity."

"Ms. Metzler,
administrators normally work their way up through the ranks, so you're going to
need to actually practice nursing before you are allowed to supervise other
nurses," Professor Jackson said raising her eyebrow.

"Yeah, no. My daddy is
going to put me in charge of the nurses at his hospital as soon as I graduate,
so I don't need to worry about all that stuff," Violet said waving her
hand impatiently.

"And I wish you, and
him, the best of luck with that," Professor Jackson said turning back
toward the board. "Are there any other questions?"

"How can you quickly
recognize skin infections, Professor Jackson?" I asked without raising my
hand. "I mean, how do you know the difference between an irritation and an
actual infection?"

"Good question, Ms.
Pierce," she said. "Let's talk about the differences!"

For the next half hour,
Professor Jackson laid out the various ways in which we could differentiate
between irritations and actual infections as I scribbled notes as fast as I
could. She covered bacterial, viral and fungal skin infections in detail
explaining that when in doubt, we should always ask for a second opinion from
someone who is outside of the case. She explained that sometimes the caretakers
working on a case were too close to see things clearly, so it was always good
to get a second set of eyes on the problem.

"In closing, I'd recommend
that you also remember that while it is tempting to go for the most complex
diagnosis," she said looking around the room, "often the right answer
is the simplest answer. Now, I want to remind you that we have exams coming up
at the end of the term and you'll need to score 90% or higher in order to move
on to the next level of your training. This means you need to hit the books,
ladies and gentlemen."

"Why is she looking at
me?" Liz grumbled as we packed up our things, pulled on our coats and
gloves, and got ready to head to our next class.

"Maybe she can sense
that you are a lost soul who needs saving?" I teased as we walked across
campus toward the hall where our psychology class was held. It was freezing
outside, but the sun was shining and it reflected off of the fresh snow, making
the campus look like a winter wonderland. Chicago could be brutally cold in the
winter, but days like this, the ones just before we turned the corner and
headed toward spring, were the ones I loved best.

"Maybe she needs to
focus on straightening out the attitude of little Miss Rich Girl," Liz
said flipping her ponytail. "I'm not the problem, she is."

"Maybe Professor Jackson
has given up trying to teach Violet anything because Violet doesn't see the
value in learning," I suggested, pulling my scarf more tightly around my
neck as the wind picked up. "She's right about the fact that she's not
going to have to work in the field like the rest of us will, so why expend
energy trying to make her see things differently?"

"Good point," Liz
muttered as she reached around and dug into her backpack with one hand, pulling
out a tube of lipstick and then proceeding to freshen the color as we walked.

"I can not for the life
of me understand how you do that," I said admiringly. "I'd have it
all over my face if I tried that."

"Eh, it's not so
difficult once you get the hang of it," Liz said as she started to
instruct me in the art of walking and applying lipstick.

"You really should
reconsider learning that skill," a voice behind us said. I turned and
found Violet Metzler walking five feet behind us with a knowing look on her
face. Little puffs of frozen air drifted from her mouth as she sneered,
"It's so tacky and common."

"Well, Vi, takes one to
know one," Liz said as she turned and stared at Violet while she continued
to walk backwards.

"Funny, Baker,"
Violet said in a voice that indicated she thought it was anything but funny.
"You really should spend more time focusing on your studies and less on
your appearance, since you really only have hope of improving the former."

"Why you--," Liz
growled as I quickly grabbed her arm and squeezed it hard.

"Ladies, ladies,
ladies," I said stepping between them without letting go of Liz.
"Let's not start a brawl in the middle of campus., shall we? Violet, I'm
sure you have much better things to do than to stand around trading insults
with Liz, so why don't you move along and get to them?"

"You should hang out
with better company, Alex," Violet said as she walked past us toward the
student center. "Someone like that will only drag you down and keep you
from achieving your highest potential."

"I'll take my
chances," I said dryly. "But thanks for your overwhelming
concern."

"I swear to God, I'm
going to lay her flat one of these days," Liz fumed as we picked up the
pace so we wouldn't be late to class. As nursing students in the same cohort,
we all took the same classes together. Fortunately, Violet had gone to some
fancy prep school where she'd received credit for many of the general education
classes we had to take, so she wasn't in our psych class.