The Billionaire's Masquerade (The Friendship Series) (20 page)

She’d watched him carefully during the press conference earlier today, trying to understand his personality, to give herself a better advantage at discovering his true nature. He was taller than the average man, but not scary tall like so many other people asserted. Of course, she was in the back of the conference room and hadn’t been able to compare the man to another person since he stood on the make-shift stage but he hadn’t seemed abnormally tall. As for the “buffness” everyone drooled on and on about? Who knew? He was wearing an expensive suit that looked nice enough, but she had no clue if the man underneath the clothes was muscular or just thin and well built.

He looked impressive. He had charm and humor, he answered all the reporters’ questions with intelligence and was able to control the room with ease. No one left offended and everyone seemed to think they “knew” Rocco Antoniv.

But she’d seen something in his eyes, something hard and unyielding. Even from a distance. As he answered questions about his latest project, she’d watched him carefully. He was hiding something. She just knew it!

There was more to this man than he was revealing and she was going to be the one to break it to the world.

She’d seen it in his eyes while he was talking to the others. There was something more to the reason he was here in Washington, D.C. Something he wasn’t telling the other reporters that they weren’t seeing because he had them all convinced he was just in town for a tedious museum opening.

Okay, so it was his museum! And it was possibly the most impressive museum she’d ever seen besides the Smithsonian. The extraordinary pieces he’d donated were astonishing. How a man only in his mid-thirties could have acquired so much wealth and so many significant historical pieces was not really much a mystery since the man was a financial genius. She’d researched his path to billionaire status and it was quite breathtaking. The man was ruthless in business, merciless about buying up one company after another and incorporating their products or intellectual knowledge into his empire. Everything served a purpose, everything was another piece of the puzzle that was quickly growing to an enormous picture.

But she just knew that there was more, that something big was happening. She could tell by the look in his strange, golden eyes, he was up to something. The museum opening was just a front.

She suspected that he was out to buy yet another company. And if that were the case, she was going to warn all the workers as quickly as possible about his eventual takeover. The man had come from nothing, being an orphan from Voronezh, Russia. He’d started buying up companies there, multiplying his wealth exponentially every year. No one could stop him. He came in, bought up a company that was hurting, fired half the staff and pulled all the others into his massive corporation.

If she could warn just a few of those people, then they wouldn’t be floundering to pay their mortgage next month. She had a duty as a reporter to not just report the news, but to help others with the information on which she was reporting. She’d seen firsthand what horrors could be wrought when someone didn’t have anything to live for. Her father hadn’t been able to handle life after her mother died of cancer and he’d lost his job. She’d only been five years old when he’d decided to take his own life versus….she stopped her mind from going down that path. She couldn’t think about her father tonight.

To that end, she found herself here, in this crazy nightclub where the women were showing more skin than they were covering, men and women were writhing to the obnoxious music and drinking alcohol at a rate that would put her in the hospital if she were ever to try it.

As she looked around, her entire body was tense, feeling abnormally insecure and self-conscious. She desperately wanted her friends here. Just someone to talk to or, at a minimum, help her feel less conspicuous. She looked around and felt like she was wearing too much clothing even while she was painfully aware of how short her dress was and how much it revealed. She never would be caught wearing something like this if she thought she would run into anyone she might know.

“Can I buy you a drink?” a man said, leaning close and blocking out some of the irritating neon lights.

Brianna jumped slightly and moved away from the leering man, irritated that he would even dare to approach her. Men simply didn’t do that to her so she wasn’t sure how to react when it happened now. Men hit on Nikki and Rachel all the time. Nikki was the pretty one while Rachel was the sexy one. Nikki was the one men approached, asked out. Rachel was the one men ogled as she walked by with her red shoes and a smile that challenged men. Brianna, on the other hand, was the quiet, mousy girl who preferred reading a good book to glamming it up and hitting the town. Not that Nikki ever noticed any of the men trying to get her attention. And Rachel simply ignored most of the men who panted after her. Nikki was too busy barreling through life to notice silly things like men and Rachel couldn’t be bothered, too intent on her job and her clients. Well, and her wonderful husband now.

Brianna shook her head, trying to keep herself in the present, remind herself that she was just as strong and capable and she had a story to hunt down. “I’m fine,” she told the stranger, trying to step around the still-leering man.

“Where are you off to?” he said, trying to block her path. “Let me get you a drink, we can dance and get to know each other.”

Brianna looked into his dark eyes and cringed. He was already plastered from alcohol and probably something more potent, she suspected. “I’m looking for someone,” she told him with what she hoped was a polite smile, yelling over the music that went from one vibrating, irritating song to the next, never stopping.

“You’ve found me!” he joked.

Brianna considered just smiling so she could get rid of him, but she was too irritated with him now. “I’ve really got to find my friend,” she told him and, with a firm hand, pushed his arm out of her way. When he grabbed her arm, she was already anticipating his move and her fingers twisted quickly. She might be naïve and scared about this new adventure, but she definitely wasn’t a wimp! Nor was she about to allow a stranger to take liberties with her!

The man’s hand, which had been about to grab her butt, was now twisted painfully in her hand and she looked down at him with that same, polite smile. “I really don’t want to be touched right now. But if there’s ever a time when I want to be mauled by a chauvinistic pig who has nothing better to do with his time and money than to sniff it up his nose, I’ll give you a call, okay?”

The man nodded, his eyes revealing the pain caused by her grip.

“Good,” she said sweetly and moved off into the crowd, forgetting about the irritating man completely as she searched out her prey.

Rocco watched from his vantage point as the man shook his fingers while the beautiful woman walked away. He chuckled at how easily she’d subdued what might have become a very awkward situation. He was also impressed that the stunning brunette hadn’t been even slightly impressed with the young man who was reputedly worth more than one hundred million dollars, although Rocco doubted there was that much left in the young man’s trust fund.

Most of the women here tonight were either celebrities or trust fund recipients themselves, or lovely little mercenaries trying to get their moment of glory by selling their voluptuous bodies to someone from the first group. There wasn’t really anything different about this nightclub and many other social gathering spots, although the two groups of people here tonight might be more avaricious in their tactics.

He’d spotted the brunette the moment she’d walked into the nightclub, his eyes captured by her slender figure that was round and lush in all the right places. She looked soft and full while the other women around him and on the dance floor obviously starved themselves throughout the week so they could fit into their tiny outfits on the weekend. While the other women in the club probably lived off of diet pills and coffee, this lush beauty was supple and curved, although definitely not fat. And the other way in which she appeared to be different from the other women in the room, she didn’t appear to have achieved her curves from a surgeon. In a word, she was exquisite!

When an emaciated blond with enormous, barely covered breasts draped herself over his arm while his thigh felt her hip bone through the thin material of her dress, he pulled away, signaling to the waitress for another round but stepping away from the group. He wasn’t here for pleasure, but even if he were, the blond with the fake breasts and the anorexic figure wouldn’t have interested him anyway.

His eyes went right back to the brunette, captured for a long moment, entranced by the way she carefully, almost delicately, walked around the nightclub. She looked like a fairy, he thought. She just needed a pair of wings and maybe some star dust and she would be perfect.

He shook his head and pulled his eyes away from his delicate, fairy woman. He wasn’t here to find a woman. And she was unquestionably out of her league. The men in this nightclub might be attracted to her because of her beauty, but they would eat her up because of that almost glowing aura of innocence surrounding her.

Besides, he was here to get something done. He had to find his friend, get the next piece of their plan in motion.

He scanned the club, keeping his eyes away from the beautiful brunette. She was lovely, but also a distraction. Perhaps if he could get his work done…

He left the idea mulling in his head as he caught sight of the person he needed to meet with. When their eyes caught, he nodded slightly, receiving the same indicator back. Shifting in the opposite direction, he moved over towards the bar, ordering
a vodka then leaning back against the rail while sipping his drink.

“Everything in place?” he asked when the other man approached.

There was a slight nod in the darkness. “All set on my end. Do you need any help with your part?”

Rocco rolled his eyes. “Be serious,” he laughed.

The other man chuckled. “Simply trying to help out an inferior partner,” he came right back.

Rocco, laughed softly, not taking offense. In his mind, it was the same friendly banter he and this man had shared since their college days. They carefully went over the issues they didn’t want to be written down or seen by others on their staffs, setting in motion a plan that could be dangerous if everything didn’t run smoothly. When they were finished, Rocco knew this would finally work, but it would be dangerous. “Just don’t forget the time table,” Rocco replied, becoming serious once again. “The pieces of the plan only work out if the time table is followed perfectly.”

With a nod, the man agreed. “Everything will be fine. Talk to Phillip Jordan. He’ll get the rest done.”

Rocco tried to keep his eyes on the dance floor but they kept straying to his fairy-woman that had stepped up to the end of the bar. “You trust him?” Rocco asked, his eyes darting around the room to ensure that no one was catching this conversation. The entire plan would fall apart if word got out that the two of them were together tonight.

There was a flash of white teeth, noticeable only because of the neon flash at that particular moment. “Not at all. But he knows what to do. And I have backups in place in case Jordan backstabs us.”

Rocco looked at the man’s black eyes, working through the whole process in his mind. “Fair enough. I’ll be on standby.” He took the paper that was handed to him and slipped it inconspicuously into his jacket pocket.

With that, the two men separated. To a casual observer, the two were merely greeting each other as strangers. But Brianna snapped picture after picture of the two men, even digitally catching the paper that was exchanged. She had no idea what was on that paper, but the way it had been surreptitiously transferred between the two men told her that it was very important.

She had to get a glimpse of that paper, she told herself with determination. Her heart was racing so hard she had trouble breathing but she couldn’t let her nervousness stop her. Brianna suddenly knew that this was the story of a lifetime, she told herself.

She moved over to the bar, trying to figure out how to get close enough to hear what the two men were saying and was instantly handed a drink by the bar tender. “What’s this?” she shouted to the man above the painfully loud music.

“From the man,” the handsome bar tender shouted right back.

Brianna’s eyes lifted, moving towards where the bartender was pointing and her heart leapt into her throat. It was the man! It was Rocco Antoniv!

When his eyes captured hers, she thought she might actually have stopped breathing. He was only a few people away from her now. Seeing him from a distance earlier this afternoon, she’d thought he was an extremely handsome man but with him this close, she just about passed out.

Oh, no, that’s from lack of oxygen, she told herself and took a deep, gasping breath.

She wasn’t a big drinker, but in this case, she needed both the prop to help her look the part she was trying to play tonight as well as the liquid courage from the alcohol.

And then he started moving towards her. The breath she’d taken a moment ago was lodged in her throat and she felt her knees start to tremble. Hopefully this sophisticated, gorgeous and very…oh my! As he came closer, she tilted her head backwards, trying to keep eye contact, but the man was just too tall!

Um…and terrifying.

Brianna suddenly realized where her mind was going and she put the brakes on those thoughts. No! She wasn’t intimidated by this man! She was a tough, hard hitting reporter. She’d been comfortable in her role for so long, she’d forgotten what a real challenge was like! She had to do this.