No Ordinary Billionaire (The Sinclairs) (R)
Read No Ordinary Billionaire (The Sinclairs) (R) Online
Authors: J.S. Scott
Tags: #Romance, #Contemporary, #Suspense
ALSO BY J.S. SCOTT
The Sinclairs
The Billionaire’s Christmas
(A Sinclair Novella)
The Billionaire’s Obsession
Mine for Tonight
Mine for Now
Mine Forever
Mine Completely
Heart of the Billionaire—Sam
Billionaire Undone—Travis
The Billionaire’s Salvation—Max
The Billionaire’s Game—Kade
Billionaire Unmasked—Jason
The Sentinel Demons
A Dangerous Bargain
A Dangerous Hunger
Big Girls and Bad Boys
The Curve Ball
The Beast Loves Curves
Curves by Design
The Pleasure of His Punishment: Stories
The Changeling Encounters
Mate of the Werewolf
The Danger of Adopting a Werewolf
All I Want for Christmas Is a Werewolf
The Vampire Coalition
Ethan’s Mate
Rory’s Mate
Nathan’s Mate
Liam’s Mate
Daric’s Mate
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2015 J.S. Scott
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
ISBN-13: 9781477849736
ISBN-10: 1477849734
Cover design by Laura Klynstra
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014916986
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
It was completely annoying that it had been sunny and bright on the day of Patrick’s funeral. Not one single cloud in the sky as a sea of men in uniform, their badges all covered with a black horizontal stripe to mark the loss of one of their own, milled around a cemetery. Their expressions were solemn, and many of them were visibly sweating from wearing heavy uniforms in the Southern California heat.
Detective Dante Sinclair’s eyes were riveted to the screen as he watched the video on his laptop computer, a huge lump in his throat as he listened to the customary last radio call go out for Detective Patrick Brogan, unanswered. Patrick was officially proclaimed to be 10-7, out of service, and the dispatcher declared how much he would be missed.
Dante gulped for air as he slammed the laptop closed, wishing like hell that it had been a shitty, rainy day during the funeral. Somehow it didn’t seem fair that the services had been held on just the kind of day Patrick had loved, and he hadn’t been there to enjoy it. It was the sort of weather that would have had Patrick itching to be out fishing. Instead, he’d been dead, entombed in a casket covered by a US flag, unable to enjoy one single thing he loved ever again.
Casting the laptop off the bed, not caring whether it shattered into pieces, he sat up, unconcerned with the pain it caused him to do so.
Christ!
He hadn’t even been able to attend his own partner’s funeral because he’d still been in the hospital. But he’d been compelled to watch it. Patrick had been his partner and a member of Dante’s homicide team for years. He’d also been the closest friend Dante had ever had.
It should have been me who died. Patrick had a wife, a teenage son who was left behind without a father.
Hell, Karen and Ben, Patrick’s wife and son, had practically adopted him, having him over for dinner almost every night when he and Patrick could actually manage to catch dinner—which wasn’t often. Their jobs kept them out at all hours, especially in the evenings. Murder rarely happened during the daytime hours in his district.
Karen and Ben will never have to worry about money. It won’t make up for the loss of Patrick, but it will help.
Dante had resolved any financial problems for Karen and Ben by donating several million dollars to a fund for the Brogan family anonymously, but it wouldn’t bring back the man they loved, the husband, the father. It seemed like a pitifully small thing to do considering he had plenty of money and would never miss it.
Although he and Patrick had gotten promoted to detective at the same time, Dante’s partner had been well over a decade older, and a hell of a lot wiser than Dante had been back then. Patrick had taught a hotheaded new detective patience when Dante had none, and he’d helped Dante become a better man in more ways than he could count.
Christ! It should have been me! Why wasn’t I standing where Patrick was standing when the shooter opened up and fired?
He and Patrick had been so close—so damn close—to nailing a murderer who had raped and killed three women in their rough, gang-populated division. They had been tailing the suspect on the street, waiting for backup to arrive to arrest the subject. The murderer had gotten sloppy on his last victim, leaving behind enough DNA evidence to finally arrest the bastard.
Swinging his legs painfully over the side of the bed, Dante relived the last few moments of Patrick’s life, flashing back to the instant when he’d lost his best friend.
He and Patrick staying close enough to keep the suspect in their sight.
The piercing sirens nearby screeching through the air.
The suspect suddenly panicking and pulling out a semiautomatic pistol and starting to shoot.
Why the suspect had suddenly cracked at that moment was still a mystery. The sirens had probably spooked a murderer who already knew the law was on his tail and closing in. Ironically, the sirens had had nothing to do with them taking down a murderer. They’d been wailing for a completely separate incident. Like the police were really going to announce they were coming for the asshole? Still, it had been enough to send the suspect over the edge, shooting at anyone or anything behind him without warning.
Patrick had been the first to fall, with one bullet through the head. Dante had pulled out his Glock as he took several bullets from the shooter at close range, shielding Patrick with his larger body until he’d managed to get a kill shot in on the asshole shooter. At the time, Dante hadn’t realized it was already too late for Patrick. The bullet through the head had killed his partner instantly. Luckily, the few civilians who had been hanging around on the street during the early morning hours had scattered, leaving Dante the only one injured—Patrick and the suspect both dead.
He’d been wearing his vest, but the close-range shots had caused Dante some blunt-force trauma. However, it
had
saved his life, leaving him with only some cracked ribs instead of bullets through his chest. The shot to his face hadn’t entered his skull, but he did have a nasty wound to his right cheek that extended up to his temple. The bullet to his right leg had passed through the flesh of his thigh, putting him in surgery after the incident, but it hadn’t shattered the bone. The one to his left arm had just been a graze.
Lucky bastard!
Dante could almost hear his partner’s voice saying those exact words to him jokingly, but he was feeling far from fortunate at the moment. He’d been injured badly enough to spend a week in the hospital, unable to attend Patrick’s funeral, unable to say a final good-bye to his best friend. Karen and Ben had visited him after his surgery, Patrick’s wife tearfully telling him how glad Patrick would have been that Dante had survived, and actually thanking him for trying to protect her husband. Neither one of them blamed Dante for what had happened to their beloved husband and father, yet Dante couldn’t get past the fact that he wished it would have been him instead of his partner, that he had somehow let Patrick down by not being the one to die.
Survivor’s guilt.
That’s what the department psychologist was calling it, telling Dante it was common, considering the circumstances. That comment had made Dante want to send the little head-shrinking bastard across the room with his fist. What the hell was normal about wishing himself dead?
“You okay?” His brother Grady’s low, concerned voice came from the doorway of the small bedroom. “Need anything? We’re only about an hour out from landing. I thought I heard something crash in here.”
It was ironic that Dante and his siblings had always wanted to protect Grady—too often unsuccessfully—from being the primary target of their alcoholic, abusive father. And now
Grady
was the brother who was trying to take care of
him
. Every single one of his siblings had been at the hospital in Los Angeles, flying in as soon as they had heard that he was injured. But he was going home with Grady to his vacation home in Maine, a house Dante owned but had only seen briefly a few times since it had been constructed. Every one of the Sinclair siblings had a home on the Amesport Peninsula, but only Grady had actually made his house a permanent home. Dante hoped he could escape there, stop reliving the last moments of Patrick’s life in his nightmares. Right now the only thing he could see every time he closed his eyes was Patrick dying.