Dirty Billions: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance: (A Chicago Suits Second Chance Romance) (2 page)

* * *

I
dumped
the remainder of the bottle of wine into my glass. It was never my plan to come home and get drunk alone. Especially on a Sunday night. It just kind of happened. After seeing that I didn’t get any messages on Chicagodates, and the conversation with my mother and her hints at wanting a grandchild before she dies, I needed another drink. And another, and another.

Thirty. Time to stop messing around and settle down. I poured a tequila shot, paused, stared at it wondering what the fuck I was doing pouring a tequila shot alone at home on a Sunday, and downed it.

My eyes phased out of focus at the computer screen as I scrolled through the hundredth male profile on Chicagodates. I couldn’t help but compare them to everyone I’d dated in the past.

Before long, I was reflecting on all the men I’d ever dated, trying to figure out if any of them would have been marriage material if I hadn’t dumped them. But my mind kept going back to one ex-boyfriend: Collin.

No boyfriend had ever lived up to his standard. Was that because he was my first real boyfriend and first boyfriends were always special? Or was it because our three year relationship never officially ended, only…fizzled out? What would’ve happened if he’d never moved to London? I’m sure we would still be together now. My mother might even have that grandchild she was so desperate for.

Instead we hadn’t seen each other in seven years. We’d kept in contact by phone at first, which quickly moved to email and then to nothing. He’s not even on my Facebook. The last contact I had with him was six years ago, a brief note from him saying he was leaving Paris to open a nightclub in Sydney.

In order to get over the hurt, I stopped Googling him long ago.

It was impossible to resist knowing what he was up to now. I typed Collin O’Keefe in the search bar, skimmed over what popped up, and choked on my wine.

* * *

W
hen I was just
about over my eye-watering coughing fit, I looked again at what had caused it.

‘Chicago’s own Collin O’Keefe is back in town to open Luscious, the latest project in his worldwide nightclub empire. We talked to him about how he built a multi-billion dollar empire and what he hopes to achieve in his native city.’

My breath had quickened to such a rate that I was on the verge of hyperventilating. I downed the last of the wine to steady myself and try to understand my feelings.

I couldn’t bring myself to read the rest of the article, instead I clicked on Google images to look at his face. His gorgeous face with his possessive eyes that could hold a woman captive jumped out at me. Even if he was just a memory to me.

* * *

“
L
et me in
!” I tried to push past the mountain of a man but I wasn’t getting anywhere. He put his hands on my upper arms.

“Lady, you’re drunk. You can’t come in.”

“I am not drunk.” I’d only had a bottle of wine and four tequila shots. I wasn’t
that
drunk.

“Listen to you, you can’t even speak clearly.”

“I need to see Collin!” I tried to shake him off me, with no luck. The man was simply too big.

“Collin? Who?”

“Collin O’Keefe! Tell him I’m here to see him.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Jenny. Tell him his Jenny is here for him.”

Another massive man came over and they spoke to each other, but in low voices and I couldn’t hear them.

“Let me see him!” My hand flew to my throat to soothe it after the scream had ripped it raw.

“I’ll tell Blake. You, wait here,” he said, holding me on the spot. Good, I was finally getting somewhere. ‘Wait’ is much better than ‘get lost’.

“Why do all bouncers have shaved heads?”

“Wait quietly.”

“No seriously. Is that like a uniform code? Is there an initiation ceremony when they all gather round and shave it for the first time?”

“I said be quiet.” The cold look in his eyes unnerved me into silence. I wished Sam was there. She would have gotten the answer.

The second bouncer appeared with another man. A man who dwarfed the other two bouncers altogether.

“Follow me,” he said, not touching me but pointing the way.

The first bouncer let go of me and I gave him my snarliest look. I stumbled after the behemoth of a man. At the entrance to
Luscious
, I tripped and had to grasp at him to stop from falling.

With an unexpected gentle touch, he took me by the arm and led me down a private hallway and up a private set of stairs. We stopped outside a doorway and he knocked.

“Come.”

The giant opened the door and stood aside to let me by, then closed the door behind me.

“Thanks, Blake,” Collin said to him, his rich voice singing in my ears.

“Collin.” My voice hitched in my throat as I tried to get the word out. Even after all these years, he was just as hot as I remembered. Better, even. A rugged man instead of the youthful twenty-three-year-old I’d known.

I’d had an entire speech planned out to give him, but all the words vanished the second his eyes met mine.

F
uck me
. After all these years, Jenny turns up out of the blue. I rushed over to her, put my arm around her to guide her drunken ass to my office’s sofa. She shivered when I touched her, something I felt too.

Even in her disheveled state she was just as beautiful as I remember. How did our relationship wither away? It was my own stupidity for leaving the country in the first place, but I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to co-own the London nightclub
Ravish
.

I threw myself into my work to forget about her and it turned out my dedication and work ethic made the club a ridiculous success. After that, things snowballed and I went from city to city, opening more clubs and making more money. Now I’m sitting on a billion dollar empire owned solely by me.

Chicago finally called me home, for a lot of reasons, including Jenny. I had only been here a month; I wanted to get my head in a better place before contacting her. But there she was, in the flesh.

“Kiss me,” she said, turning her face towards me and begging for my lips. Just seeing those juicy lips puckering for me, the lips I’ve thought about while fucking so many other women over the years, makes me want to throw her on the couch and fuck her senseless.

“Babe, you’re drunk. You need to sleep it off.”

She flung her arms around my neck and pulled herself into me. I was helpless to resist. I pulled her into me and gave her a hug, her tits pressing into my chest and making my dick twitch. Hard plastic dug into my chest. I guessed I had found where she carried her phone, but I wasn’t about to fish it out of her bra.

“I’ve missed you,” she said, her words slurred.

“Me too. Now let’s get you home. Where do you live?”

“Chicago.”

“Where in Chicago?”

“In an apartment.”

“Baby, you’re not making this easy.”

“I’m making this very easy. Now kiss me.”

She stared straight into my eyes as she begged me to kiss her. I’m used to women, drunk and sober, begging me to fuck them. But even glassy, her eyes suck mine in and threaten to leave me weak.

I’m instantly transported back to the last time I saw her face to face. Seven years ago, at O’Hara International. I was boarding a plane to London and she stuck with me right up to the security line. Her eyes were glassy then too, from crying at my departure.

Turning my back on her and walking deeper into the airport was the most gut wrenching decision I’ve ever made. Even if I did get filthy rich as a result. I wanted to pull her to me then and kiss her, just as I wanted to now.

But I couldn’t take advantage of her like this, even if she was begging me for it.

“Where’s your purse?” I would find the address on her driver’s license.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know, did you lose it?”

“Dunno.” Jenny ran her hands over my back to my shoulders and down my sides until she came to my waistband. She tried to shove her fingers between it and my skin.

“Easy.” I grabbed her hand but she fought me. I always loved how she stood up to me. Not like all the
yes mister rich guy, whatever you want mister rich guy
women I get in my life now.

“Collin.” My voice on her lips is about the most erotic thing I’ve heard in seven years and my dick grows from a semi straight into a full on raging hard-on.

“You’re telling me you have no wallet and no phone?”

“Yep.” She smirks at me, daring me for my next move.

“In that case I guess I have no option, you’re coming home with me.”

I
didn’t have
to open my eyes to realize I wasn’t in my own bed. Again. Hold on, I was naked. I fought the fog to figure out what happened last night. Wine. Tequila. Shit, arguing with a bouncer. Collin. My cheeks burned in anger at myself. I’d never done anything so pathetic in my life.

“Morning, babe.”

My eyes snapped open. Reflexively, I yanked the cover up to my chin. Collin had walked into the room wearing only a pair of jeans, his dark hair still wet from a shower.

His dark eyes burned into me, and I tried to drag my eyes away from the Celtic knot tattoo that covered part of his muscular chest for long enough to meet them. He hadn’t had that tattoo seven years ago.

When I did meet his eyes, a massive tingle rushed down my spine and for a moment I was speechless. The same way I’d been left speechless when he turned and walked into the airport, when he’d left me all those years ago.

“I, um, sorry, I was drunk.”

Collin laughed. “You were very drunk.”

“What time is it?” I glanced around the plush yet sterile bedroom, trying to get my bearings.

“Ten.”

“Ten!” I sat up, pulling the cover with me. I was supposed to be at work. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

“You’re welcome for bringing you home safely and letting your drunken ass sleep it off.”

* * *

H
is comment barely registered
. I was too busy yanking the cover from the bed to wrap it around me while I looked for my phone. My clothes were neatly piled on a silver armchair, my phone sitting on top of them.

I picked it up and opened my email, but the action caused the duvet to slip and expose my right breast. My elbow rammed against it, in a futile effort to keep it from slipping further.

Before I could hitch it up, Collin’s dark eyes pierced into mine and a jolt of electricity rocketed through me. From his recoil, I suspected he felt it too. Without letting go of my gaze, he took two steps towards me and his hand tentatively hovered a few inches from my exposed breast.

Keeping our eye contact, I did nothing to stop him and his hand brushed against me. It pushed up over my shoulder to my back. He drew me against him, my breast still exposed but my other hand still hitching up the cover.

The closeness of his embrace, his clean scent, his bare skin against my breast mingled together and turned my insides to bubbling lava.

“Why are my clothes here?”

“Because I picked them up off the floor after the striptease you insisted on doing last night.” My face burned with shame and anger at myself. I cringed at the thought of how I must’ve acted the night before.

“I have to email work that I’ll be late.”

“Do you have to rush off? It’s been so long, we should catch up.” His smooth voice threatened to seduce me, but I tried to fight it. I tried not to notice his bulge digging into me, even though it sent heat coursing through me.

“I’m serious, I have to go. I should never have gone to you last night.” My hand pushed against him, in a not very convincing attempt to extricate myself from his grasp, but he held on.

Collin pulled me tighter against him and I wanted to melt into his body. To fall into the embrace I’d missed for so much over the past seven years. I couldn’t let myself though, I knew from the internet that he’d forgotten me for other women long ago.

Besides, he wasn’t the type of guy I needed right now anyway, I needed someone I could settle down with. And someone who hadn’t hurt me the way he had.

“Did anything happen last night?” All I could remember was trying to undo his pants. I didn’t think anything had happened, but I needed confirmation.

“Babe, if I had fucked you, you’d remember it.” The way he’d emphasized the word
fuck
, almost growling it, gave me goosebumps.

“I have to go, I’m late for work.” His eyes caught mine again, holding them in his gaze.

“Call in sick. You can spend the day here with me, getting reacquainted.”

“Collin no, I can’t. I mean, we can’t. Get our bodies reacquainted.” With tingling and quickened breath, my body told me the exact opposite of the words that came out of my mouth.

“That’s not what you said last night, when you were begging me to fuck you.”

“I was drunk.” Why did I drink so much? Just because I’d turned thirty and my life wasn’t where I’d expected it would be at this point.

“Very drunk. That’s why I thought I’d wait and see how you felt when you were sober.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.” I shook my head against his chest.

“Why not?” Collin laced his fingers through my hair to cup my head, and pressed his lips against my forehead. Despite my body screaming to find his lips with my own, I couldn’t.

It may have been what I’d wanted when I was drunk, but the sober me knew I shouldn’t get involved with him again. The past needed to stay in the past. The open wound needed to heal once and for all.

“Because we were a long time ago. We’re ancient history. You mean nothing to me now.” That last bit sounded harsh, but I forced myself to be firm.

“I’m the one you ran to when you were drunk. That should tell you all you need to know about what I mean to you.”

“It was just the novelty of finding out you’re back in Chicago.”

“You were the thing I was most looking forward to with my return.”

“Then why have you been back a month and not contacted me?” I shifted my eyes down, embarrassed by the fact that he hadn't.

“I’ve been busy.” He released his hold on me and stepped back, the bulge in his jeans obvious.

“And that should tell you all you need to know about what I mean to you.”

“No baby, it isn’t like that.” Collin took a step towards me, but I sat on the bed before he could reach me. He kept moving towards me, until he stood close enough to me to rest his hands on my shoulders.

My pulse racing, I tilted my head down and focused on my phone. I started typing an email to my boss, apologizing for being late.

“Collin, stop.” My voice wavered and I swallowed to steady it, “We can’t. I mean it, I have to get to work.”

He caressed my collar bones with his thumbs, causing my pussy to drip and my resolve to weaken. Collin took the phone from my hand and started typing. I jumped up, unconcerned about leaving the duvet behind.

“Give me that!” I reached for my phone but Collin laughed and held it out of my reach. He held it above his head, typing, grinning. He tossed the phone onto the bed and looked down at my fully exposed body. I wanted to move to my phone, but his eyes, raking me, froze me in place.

“Now that’s what I like to see,” he said. A seductive smile spread across his face.

My eyes widened, signaling an urge of want. With the lightest touch, he grazed his fingertips down my shoulders and held the tops of my arms. He’d better have appreciated how well I’d held up for someone my age.

“I can’t do it. I can’t get in another relationship with you.”

His eyes flicked up to mine. “Who said anything about a relationship?”

The words were a punch to my gut. No relationship. Of course. Why would he want a relationship with me? We truly were over long ago.

As I was reeling from his words, his hands carried on their path over my body. They crossed over the bottom of my ribcage, coming to a rest under my breasts.

“Collin, I…”

“You’re every bit as beautiful as I remember.”

“But my work.” I didn’t give a fuck about my work at this point, why did I say that?

“No worries, you’ve emailed in sick.” He put his index finger on my chin and tilted my face up.

His deep brown eyes bore into mine and the memories of how his eyes used to capture me and leave me helpless against him came flooding back. I should have been able to stand against them now that I’m older. Thirty, for God’s sake. But here I was, just as weak at the knees under his heated gaze as ever.

* * *

C
ollin took
my hands and I let him pull my naked body against his bare chest. He bent over and rested his forehead against mine. My pulse raced as his eye contact seemed to become more intense.

What were the reasons I was resisting this? There was nothing wrong with hooking up with an old flame. Even if it was a Monday morning and I should be at work. The illicitness of the idea flashed through my head and an involuntary moan escaped my throat.

His lips locked on mine and I eagerly parted my lips for his tongue to make its way into my mouth. I relaxed my jaw and soon our tongues were dancing with fervor, making up for all those years apart.

Heat rushed through me. I teetered on the verge of no return when my phone rang, snapping me out of his spell. I pulled my head away and looked at it, ringing on the bed.

“Ignore it.” Collin kissed across my cheek, nuzzling, until he found my lips again. But the phone kept ringing and ringing. I squirmed in his arms.

“It’s probably my work.”

“They can leave a message.” He wasn’t letting go. I wish he’d held on to me this tight when he’d moved to London.

The text message chime sounded again and again and again. I couldn’t even count the number of times it went, my phone rang and rang.

“Fuck, answer the thing.” Collin let go of me and nudged me toward the bed.

* * *

I
grabbed the phone
. Sam’s name lit up on the screen. Why would Sam be trying to phone me during work? All the texts were from her. I scanned the last few.

Now!

Get to Abbie’s now

Abbie needs you

My heart pounded in my chest, I was the closest thing to family my best friend Abbie had. Ignoring Collin, I threw on my clothes.

“Where’re you going?”

“I have to go, Abbie’s having some kind of crisis.” Collin had followed me out of the bedroom. I realized I didn’t know where in the city I was, which way the front door was. Hell, I didn’t know if I was in a house or condo.

“Abbie?” Collin stepped back at Abbie’s name, he knew how important she was to me. Assuming he remembered.

“Yeah. Where am I?”

“The Four Seasons.”

“This is a hotel?” He’d brought me to a hotel?

“So what? I’ve only been back a month, I haven’t found a place to live yet.”

“You’re living in the Four Seasons?” That’s a far cry from the penniless Collin I used to know.

“I like the room service.”

“Whatever. It’s good anyway, it’s only a quick walk to Abbie’s condo from here.”