All That He Loves (Volume 2 The Billionaires Seduction) (52 page)

“I want a
gentleman
.”

“Mm, well, I’m not a gentleman.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

“So why are you still talking to me?”

“That’s a good question. Oh, wait – I’m
not
.”

I looked for traffic, then jaywalked across the street.

He was pretty surprised by that, though it took him just a second to follow me. “Okay, okay, that was a good one.”

I ignored him as I got to the median and checked the other direction. The closest car was a good two hundred feet away, so I took off again.

He puttered along beside me. “Checkmate. Very nice. You can start talking to me again.”

I kind of liked hearing him babble on idiotically, so I kept up the cold shoulder.

“You were talking to me because you like me, too,” he said as we reached the sidewalk. “You’re just afraid to get hurt. You’re afraid I’ll hurt you, and that’s why you’re pushing me away.”

“I just don’t want to waste my time with a guy who only sees me as a notch on a bedpost,” I retorted.

“I don’t. Hey – stop – I need you to listen to this, okay?”

He took hold of my arm lightly, with just the lightest of pressures.

It didn’t help that the touch of his bare skin on mine sent tingles up and down my skin.

“Please?”

I exhaled loudly and wheeled around to look at him, like,
Well?

“I don’t,” he said with utter sincerity. “I
don’t
see you that way. If I only cared about sex, I wouldn’t be here. I don’t work this hard to get girls into bed.”

UGH.

“Oh, aren’t you Mr. – ”

“Stop it,” he said firmly. “Stop being sarcastic and pushing me away, because I’m serious. Yeah, girls jump into bed with me right away. If they don’t, I usually walk away and find another one who will. But you’re different. The second I saw you, I thought,
I WANT her.
And not just sex – the whole package. And yeah, while I really, REALLY want to sleep with you, I want you in my life even more. To the point where
fuck
sleeping with you if I’m going to lose you over it. I’d rather
be
with you than just
sleep
with you and then lose you. I want
you –
ALL of you. I do, I swear to God that’s the truth.”

That took my breath away.

My heart was thudding in my chest.

Nobody had
ever
said anything like that to me before.

Nobody had made me feel that
wanted,
that
desired
– and yet let me know that they respected me above all else.

“I don’t believe you,” I said, though most of the anger was gone from my voice.

“Then give me a chance to prove it.”

“…how?”

“Let me be around you. No more talk about sex, no more trying to get into your pants. Let me hang out with you. Let me prove to you that I’m really, really interested in
you.
Let me get to
know
you.”

He sounded totally sincere.

It sounded amazing, and lovely, and romantic.

Though I secretly still wanted him to try to get in my pants.

But it wasn’t going to work.

I
couldn’t
let it work.

“I have a boyfriend.”

“Who broke up with you,” he said evenly. “And you don’t seem so upset about that, so stop using it as an excuse.”

Dammit…

But other than Kevin, there was the slightly more pressing issue of
time.

I shook my head. “We’ve only got two weeks. And I’ve got finals to study for.”

“When’s your last final?”

“Thursday morning.”

“And what happens after that?”

“I go home for the summer.”

“Then I’m going to need as much of that two weeks as you can give me.”

I hugged my arms around my body like I was cold – but I wasn’t.

It was because I could feel temptation creeping in on me, using such logical words… and I
so
wanted to give in.

“…I need to think about it,” I whispered.

“Okay, you think about it tonight – but the flip side of the coin is I need
you
to get to know
me,
too. And you can’t know me without knowing about my music. So I want you to come meet my best friend and listen to us play.”

Oh God.

“What, at a club?” I asked dubiously.

“No. I want you to come to a practice, just me and him. We write songs together. You want to get to know the real me, then I need you to come hang out with us.”

I hesitated and chewed on my lip. “…when?”

“Tomorrow afternoon, about 3PM.”

I sighed and gave in – sort of. “Okay. Give me your number and I’ll let you know tomorrow what I decide.”

“Don’t have a cell phone,” he reminded me.

“Oh, yeah… where’s the practice?”

“Don’t worry about that. You got a car?”

“Yeah.” A clunker, but I did happen to have a car.

“Good, you can drive us.” And with that, he walked away – but backwards, so that he was still facing me as he left. “See you tomorrow around 2:30.”

“I thought
you
were going to take
me
out,” I taunted him.

“I am. You’re just driving, that’s all. I think it suits you, you being a control freak and all.”

I stuck my tongue out at him, but he just grinned and kept walking.

“I didn’t say I was going to go out with you yet,” I yelled.

“You will.”

Then he turned and walked around the corner, out of sight.

The last thing I saw was that playful, utterly confident smile.

For those of you who had to wait awhile since Part 4… aren’t you glad it’s a multi-part volume? I think some of you might have hunted me down with torches and pitchforks if I left you hanging for a month or two at the end of Part 5 or 6.

I say that with a smile on my face… although, as Sheldon Cooper says on
The Big Bang Theory,
“It’s funny because it’s true.”

I want to thank everyone who picked up this book, whether you read the first installment of
The Billionaire’s Seduction
when it came out back in December 2012, or whether you just found the series yesterday. I’ve dreamt my entire life of being a working writer, and it’s readers like you who have made that dream come true. Thank you!

If you enjoyed
All That He Loves Volume Two,
would you mind leaving a review? It would really help!

As far as a sequel to
The Billionaire’s Seduction:
I would
like
to do it, but I’m only going to do it if I can make it at
least
80% as good as the first series. Everyone - from actors to writers to directors - always says, “I’ll only do it if it's
better
than the first book / script / movie / whatever.” But it’s almost always worse. So I’m not going to start out with the curse of perfectionism. I will potentially do a sequel (tentatively titled
The Billionaire’s Wedding)
… but only if I think I can do it well. So far I have no plans, but if you
sign up for my email list
or check out my
Facebook page,
I will definitely keep you in the loop as things progress. Oh, and whatever it ends up being, it will probably be radically different from the series you’ve been reading. Maybe a standalone novel… maybe romantic suspense… I just don’t know yet. I haven’t even committed to doing it completely. I have some other things I want to write first.

One of those other things is
Rock Me Hard (The Rock Star’s Seduction Part 1)
, my first series after
Billionaire.
It’s available now, and I really think you’ll like it. I based some of the scenes on my first serious college romance, so this one hits pretty close to home for me emotionally. I’ve planned three more books after this, with Part 2 hopefully arriving in January 2014. If you want an email as soon as Part 2 is available, sign up at
OliviaThorneBooks.com
!

And if you need just
one more book
by me, I recently republished my first novel
Passion And Pride
under the name Olivia Thorne (formerly it was under the pen name Amelia Nolan). It’s a historical novel, but give it a chance even if historicals aren’t your thing. If you like the chemistry in
Billionaire
and
Rock Me Hard,
you should love the relationship in
Passion.
(Plus, it has some
very
naughty sex scenes.)

Finally, I want to thank Andy, Heather, Maria, Marge, Lily R., Krystal, Shanon, Alicia, Danelle, Anastasia, and Karen. Your help is invaluable!

And lastly, thank you again - yes,
you!
- for reading
All That He Loves!
I hope you enjoyed it!

Olivia Thorne

All That He Loves (The Billionaire’s Seduction Volume 2)

Copyright 2013 Olivia Thorne

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.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com (or another online retailer of ebooks) and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, used, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Olivia Thorne.

Edition: November 2013