Bought by the Billionaire Brothers 6 (4 page)

“You fucking
bastard, just come out and say it! This is about Isabel, not Penny. Why don’t you
grow a fucking pair and just admit it!” Vince shouted, jumping to his feet.
Dillon followed, lightening fast. Within seconds, they were toe-to-toe, the
rage in each other’s eyes burning like twin coals beneath a wicked flame.

“Guys!” Nolan
tried to intercede but Dillon and Vince both wanted this. Dillon had dreamed of
putting his brothers in their place since the day he’d discovered what they’d
done to Isabel after he left. The twins hadn’t given him a chance to redeem
himself before they’d swooped in and put their grubby hands all over his girl.

“You want to hit
me?” Vince taunted, giving Dillon a hard push. “Don’t be a pussy. Go ahead. Do
it. Because I’ve got something reserved for you that I’ve been holding onto for
the past eight years!”

“Is that so?”
Dillon mocked, advancing toward Vince, his rage percolating at a dangerous
level. “Do your worst, baby brother.”

“You don’t have to
ask me twice,” Vince muttered right before swinging a hard right hook straight
at Dillon’s face. Dillon managed to avoid the hit to his face but took a blow
to his shoulder, stumbling a bit but he rebounded quickly, adrenalin giving him
an extra boost of power as he lunged at his brother, taking them both to the floor
with a roar.

“You rotten
son-of-a-bitch,” Dillon shouted, landing a punch across Vince’s cheek as they
grappled like Greek Olympians in designer clothing. They’d all lettered in
football and wrestling and all that age-old training kicked in as they grunted
and shouted, landing punches as they rolled across the fine carpeting, leaving
smudges of each other’s blood in their wake. Nolan shouted for them to break it
up but Dillon and Vince were determined to beat the holy hell out of each other
or die trying.

“Selfish,
self-absorbed asshole!” Vince countered with a grunt just as Dillon locked his
legs around his torso and wrenched his head back. Vince struggled but Dillon
tightened his hold as Vince clutched desperately at the choke hold Dillon had
on his windpipe.

“Let him go,
Dillon,” Nolan yelled. “You’re going to kill him!”

Dillon, breathing
hard, let go of his brother and pushed him hard away from him. Vince gasped and
rose to his knees, rubbing at his neck with a surly expression as he recovered.
Dillon rose slowly to his feet and Vince followed. A long moment of heavy
silence passed between the three until Vince, his gaze bitter, said, “You
weren’t the only one who had loved Isabel,” he said. Dillon shot him a sharp,
warning look but Vince barreled forward anyway. “We made a mistake, Nolan and
I. If I’d known how to deal with the feelings I was having, I never would’ve
agreed to the arrangement…we were young and stupid but no one was dumber than
you for letting her go in the first place.”

Nolan looked away,
ashamed. Dillon had never seen his charming twin express something akin to
genuine emotion. “We were so arrogant. We didn’t realize the damage we were
doing. I thought it was all part of the game and I wanted to win. I don’t want
to make the same mistake with Penny.”

Vince shared a
look with his twin. “I don’t either. Isabel haunts us all. Isn’t it time we let
her rest in peace?”

“Don’t talk to me
about Isabel if you know what’s good for you,” Dillon warned, tears springing
to his eyes. “She was my girl. You had no right. What you did was inexcusable.”

“Yes, you’re
right,” Nolan said hotly, stepping forward. “But you’re not off the hook
either. You were stupid and brash and arrogant, too. If you’d realized what an
asset you had in Isabel, you never would’ve tossed her away during what accounts
for a royal temper tantrum.”

“A temper tantrum?
Is that what you call what happened between me and our father?”

“You spoiled
bastard,” Vince bit out. “You think you cornered the market on being bullied by
that man? He fucked with us all! We were just smarter than you and learned how
to play the game! Why couldn't you have just swallowed your pride? None of this
had to have happened. Did you ever stop to consider if you hadn't been so damn
selfish, maybe Isabel would still be alive?"

"Don't play
the what-if game with me" Dillon snarled. "Don't you think I've spent
the last eight years wondering how things might've been different if I hadn't
cut ties? But unlike you I couldn't live under the old man's thumb. Unlike some
people I'm not content to suck off of someone else's tit in exchange for
luxury. I made my own fortune and I did it on my own terms. Can you say the
same?

"Bravo,
brother,” Nolan mocked, adding to ask, “But at what cost?" Dillon’s stony
silence was answer enough. Nolan shook his head and said, "You have no
idea the true cost. Honestly, I thought I was doing you a favor in keeping
something from you but I know now you’ll never truly understand the burden we
carried for you unless we tell you now."

"Don't. He
doesn't deserve to know," Vince said, shooting Dillon a disgusted look.

"What are you
talking about?" Dillon asked, suspicious. "What do you mean you kept
a secret
 
from me?”

"When Isabel
died her family asked for an autopsy. They couldn't believe that she would've
jumped. But what none of us knew was that she was pregnant."

"I already
knew about the pregnancy." Dillon's jaw tensed. "For all I knew, she
was carrying your child."

“How did you
know?” Nolan asked, confused.

Now it was
Dillon’s turn to be ashamed. “She tried contacting me. She left me a message,
telling me she was pregnant. By that point, I’d known about your arrangement
and I was bitter. Besides, I figured the baby was probably yours or Vince’s,
which made it your problem, not mine.” Dillon ran a hand through his hair,
fighting a rise of nerves as his stomach threatened to rebel. “I never imagined
she might kill herself,” he admitted in a pained voice. “I never even
considered it. If I’d had an inkling that she might harm herself…I would’ve
done what I could to save her.” He looked to his brother. “How do you know the
baby was mine?”

"Because
there was the possibility that baby was ours, we had a DNA test done on the
fetal tissue." Nolan met Dillon's gaze and held it. "Without a doubt,
the baby was yours."

Dillon felt sucker
punched. All the air in his lungs evaporated and his vision zeroed to a
pinprick. This was how it felt to have the rug jerked out from beneath you; to
have your world come crashing down around your ears. He thought he'd known how
that felt but he’d been wrong. His hand went to his heart almost involuntarily
as he struggled to breathe. He stared at his brothers, uncomprehending.
"What are you saying to me? How could you keep this secret?" he
asked, incredulous.

"Now you know
the true cost of your actions, asshole," Vince said, not giving Dillon an
inch. "And the kicker is I loved her so much I would have raised that baby
as my own if she would've had me. But her heart was tangled up with you and
there was no room for me. And because you refused to listen to reason, you were
so fired up about leaving the family she didn't feel she had a choice. For once
in your life you needed to think about someone else aside from yourself but you
didn't and split. So yeah, we were guilty of a lot of things but you can't
place the blame completely on our shoulders."

For the first time
in his life Dillon felt as if he were sliding into a black hole. It shouldn't
have mattered about the paternity of the long-lost baby. But somehow it did
matter. It mattered more than he ever imagined it would. Why hadn't Isabel told
him? It might've made a difference in his decision. He might've swallowed his
pride, but then, he might not have. It was hard to say. The clarity of
hindsight was legendary.

"And now
there's Penny. I'll admit we didn't start this journey with the cleanest of
intentions. Old habits die hard. But she's the kind of woman who deserves love
and if she were to have me, I would give her the world. But just like Isabel,
all she truly wants is
you
. So you
have to ask yourself, what are your true intentions with Penny? If you have no
plans to offer anything but pain and heartache because you're pissed off at us then
get ready for the fight of your life because there’s no way in hell I’ll allow
you to hurt Penny the way you hurt Isabel. But if you love her…” Vince stopped
as if the words were cutting his throat to say them. When he resumed, his gaze
was filled with pain but also honesty and integrity, which were qualities
Dillon had never seen on his brother. “We’ll step out of the way. Not for you
— but for her. Are you feeling me?"

Dillon looked to
Nolan and saw that the other twin was in complete agreement. Of course they
were, they shared one brain. But honestly, he couldn't possibly give either one
of them an answer because his mind was so blown over the revelation they’d
dropped in his lap. "You said your piece, now get out." Dillon didn't
want to look at either of them. They'd withheld important information and of
all the things that he could hold against them, this was by far the worst.

Nolan looked at him
with disappointment. "You have a chance to be a better man. Don't screw
this one up. Come on, Vince lets go.”

Dillon sank into
the chair and stared with unseeing eyes across the bay. At some point, and he
wasn't sure when it happened, he had a scotch in his hand. One scotch turned
into two, two turned four and then he lost count. But it didn't matter how many
drinks he poured down his throat, the pain in his heart continued until he
thought he might die.

It was well past
sundown and into the late evening when Penny heard a loud crash in the foyer.
She startled and peeked around the corner and was shocked to see Dillon
standing unsteadily amidst the broken pieces of an expensive vase. "What
are you doing here? Are you drunk?” she asked as she caught a whiff of strong
alcohol to exclaim in horror, "Oh my God, did you drive here?"

A mocking smile
twisted his beautiful mouth. "Are you worried about my safety, pet?”

She glowered as
she went to help him before he broke something else of value. "No. I'm
worried about the other people on the road. You can go to hell."

"My, my… someone's
feeling feisty aren't they?"

"Oh shut up,
you drunken idiot.”
Why, of all the doors
in the city, had he somehow landed at mine?
Penny maneuvered Dillon with
some difficulty to her bedroom where he flopped on the bed with a grunt. She
sighed and bracketed her hands on her hips, wondering what to do with him.
Perhaps she should call the twins, they’d come get him for her. But even as
that idea had merit she knew she wouldn’t call them. "Do you need some
coffee?" she asked.

"So I can be
a wide-awake drunken idiot?" Dillon laughed. "Penny, what I need does
not come in a coffee pot."

"And what do
you need?"

"I need
redemption." Penny frowned as he laughed. He was losing his mind. "Do
you have that in your cupboards?" he asked with a
 
guffaw.

"You're not
making any sense. What are you talking about?"

At that Dillon
buried his face in her pillows and groaned. "I'm a rotten son of a
bitch."

"That I knew.
Is there something else? Something new?” Scary thought, that. “Did you break
someone else’s heart recently,” she muttered, mostly to herself and didn’t
expect him to hear in his inebriated state but he had.

He rolled to his
back. “I’ve done a lot of terrible things in my life, Penny. And I thought I
could make up for them with time but some things, are simply too big to account
for in your little ledger of good karma."

Penny frowned and
sat beside him.
 
She had a feeling
whatever was eating at Dillon had nothing to do with her. “What happened?"
she asked softly. She caught his gaze and she found a wealth of sadness and
pain, so much so that she wanted to hold them in her arms and tell him it was
going to be all right. But she did neither and simply waited.

"Kiss me, Penny,"
Dillon murmured, leaning toward her. As much as she wanted to sink into his
embrace she put her hand up to stop him. He seemed to understand and didn't
push the issue. He sighed. "Smart choice. You deserve better. Sorry for fucking
with your life."

"Being a
martyr doesn't suit you. I made my own choices. Now tell me, what's going
on?"

"Do you
really want to know? It might change your whole opinion of me forever."

At that she
actually chuckled. "Dillon, let's be real. I already know you're a jerk at
your worst but I also know that at your best you're pretty amazing. Whatever is
wrong I promise I won't judge you."

God, she hoped she
could live up to that promise. What if he admitted something heinous? Like he
liked to slaughter puppies in his spare time? No, she told her rapidly running
away imagination, whatever was eating at him had something to do with Isabel.
She’d be willing to bet her life on it. And if that was the case, she would
gladly provide the shoulder for him to cry on because God knows, Dillon has
needed to let this go for a long time.

"I used to
blame my brothers for Isabel's death but in reality, it was me. I'm the one who
caused her to jump off that building. If she hadn't met me, she wouldn't have
gotten pregnant with my baby." Dillon met Penny startled stare. "Yeah,
you heard me correctly. Penny was pregnant with
my
baby."

"How do you
know?"

"Ah, well, it
seems my brothers have always known. But they decided to keep that information
from me. Apparently there was a DNA test during autopsy," Dillon looked
sick to his stomach. "And the DNA match came back to me.” He looked to
her. "I could've been a daddy. Scary thought, huh?"

"I think when
you get your head on straight you’ll be an amazing father." Maybe she
shouldn't have admitted that but it was true. The fact that she would willingly
have his children was something that she would keep to herself however.
"Why didn't they tell you?" she asked.