Read A Billionaire for Breakfast Online

Authors: Mila McClung

Tags: #Mystery, #sexy, #Contemporary Romance

A Billionaire for Breakfast (5 page)

“I didn’t try to drown myself on
purpose. It was the booze! And, anyway, I hate my job! I hate
Astoria
! I can’t ever go back there. I
didn’t plan to, and I won’t! I’ll sell off my stuff, and stay here. There must
be jobs here for a woman like me.”

“Of course there are. How’d you like
to be a secretary?”

“Whose?”

“Mine, maybe? You know how to be
rich. I don’t. You can help me. Will you?”

Kylie sat up, flicked her wet hair
off her face, laughing ruefully.

“Sure, why not! Better help me pack,
though. A working girl needs to save her money. I hope I can get a refund for
the fortune I shelled out on this place!”

They rode back to Patrick’s mansion.
Once Tess described the situation to him, he offered Kylie a warm room and a
position as Tess’ personal secretary. She took it graciously and went to bed.

The party was still raging onward by
midnight
; the things took on a life of their
own and were hard to dispel, according to Patrick. He didn’t care, he and his
Meg were quietly ensconced in her new, luxurious boudoir, and they were quite
content to get to know each other again without any more interference.

Tess had a lot to digest – her name
was now Tess Mercer, though she still liked Jenkins better. Her mom was now Meg
instead of Carol, soon to be Mercer as well. There were plans afoot to sell the
house in
Astoria
. Meg would not be returning. Then
there was Kylie, ready to start a whole new life in the Caymans. Tess would
quit her job as well. But she wasn’t worried about any of that, really – all
she wanted was to see Angel - in her bed.

 

CHAPTER THREE

 

Tess haunted the
island
of
Cayman Brac
when she wasn’t required for maid of
honor dress fittings or luncheons or whatever. She was pretending to learn how
to fish, and go rock climbing, and cave exploring with Patrick’s chauffer,
Diamond Scott. But in truth, of course, she was searching for the elusive
Angel. No one at the party had heard of him. Stranger still, no one at the
motorbike shop knew where he lived or what he did for a living. Tess began to
wonder if he was some underworld criminal or a drug smuggler. Cayman Brac was
known for a past rife with pirates and intrigue.

Diamond took Tess to Rebecca’s Cave,
a landmark on the island where a child had been buried after dying in the 1932
hurricane. It was a sad but beautiful place, with the child’s stone coffin
resting within. Tess found her eyes stinging with tears as Diamond related the
oft told story of the Boddens and their baby as they tried to escape the terror
of The Great Hurricane.

“Wow, I can’t imagine how horrible
that must have been. We’re all so lucky, Diamond, to live in this modern
world.”

“Sure we are. Not too many tourists
around today. I guess the rain warned them off. Wait here a minute.”

She puzzled after him, wondered what
he was up to. He was a good looking, affable guy, always ready with a smile or
a joke. Anyone with a free heart would find him irresistible but of course hers
was sworn to Angel, whether she saw him again in this lifetime or not.

The cave walls were closing in on
her; the rain pummeling the ground outside. Tess shivered.

“Take this,” a familiar voice said.

“Angel?” She looked up into the
blue-green eyes, her breathing hung fast. He looked so unreal there in the
shadows of the cave, his black hair dripping wet, his jeans tight, his T shirt
as clinging as a second skin, outlining his perfect chest and arms. He handed
her a jacket, she enveloped her shoulders in it. “What’s going on? Do you know
Diamond Scott?”

“Sure, he’s a fishing bud of mine.
I’ve had him watching you for me.”

“Why can’t you watch me yourself?”

“Complicated reasons. He’s waiting to
take us somewhere, if you’ll go.”

“Of course.”

He helped her out of the cave and
into their rental car. Once safe and dry within, he motioned to Diamond, who
winked and started the engine.

Sitting next to him finally after
dreaming of it so long, she couldn’t quite grasp the reality of him. He was
being pleasant, pointing out a pirate rendezvous on one side of the road and an
artists’ retreat on the other. She found she liked being with him that way,
though it was hard to keep her wits about her when his every glance made her
twitch inside. He was purely sexual. But underneath it all there was a need of
another kind. Something she couldn’t quite put a name to yet.

Diamond eased the car into a tunnel
behind a flowing waterfall, came out on the other side where a tiny cottage
peeked out of a mangrove forest.

“This is where you live?”

“Yeah, sometimes.”

They stepped out into the rain, Angel
shielded her.

“Here you go, man!” Diamond smiled.

“Thanks, bro! I guess you can go
fishing for awhile.”

“I got it! See you later, Tess!”

“Thanks, Diamond.”

“No need. He was wanting to see you
as much as you was wanting to see him. I figured it was best to get you two
together.
Namaste
!”

He waved as he drove the car into the
tunnel.

Angel stared at her for a moment then
opened the door.

“It isn’t what you’re used to, but
it’s all mine!”

“I know I’ll love it!”

They entered. The walls and ceiling
were wood planks, whitewashed and pocked with wormholes. The one big room was
bare except for a table and two chairs, and a ragged cot with a sheet clumsily
strewn across it. There was no kitchen, just a hutch with a few dishes, and a
large steel bowl which apparently was a makeshift sink.

“I don’t understand. At the party you
were wearing an expensive tuxedo and driving a convertible. Or did I imagine
you there?”

“It was me. I have to be two
different people sometimes.”

“What do you mean?”

“Islands have too many eyes, prying
into your secrets. A man has to be careful.”

“What kind of secrets do you have?”

“See, now you’re prying.”

“You can’t blame me for being
confused.”

Angel moved his head to look at her.

“No, I guess I can’t.”

She stroked his stubbly cheek, leaned
up to kiss the full lips. He kissed back, eagerly but then he stopped.

“You’re so beautiful. I could take
you here, in this place, but you wouldn’t want me to, I know.”

She proved him wrong by slowly
stripping out of her Bermuda shorts and pink tank top, revealing a white
strapless bra and matching panties.

He sighed, hungry for her, slid her
over to let her lie down next to him on the torn mattress. His lips swathed her
in hot, clinging kisses, as his hands unhooked the bra and discarded the
panties. Once his tattered fisherman’s clothes were on the rough wood floor he
raised up and over her, caressing every inch of her goose-bumped flesh. The air
about them was cool and thick. Tess breathed it in, wanting to capture every
sound and smell, so she would never forget them.

Angel worked her over gently with his
mouth. She flung her head back, reared up her chest to offer him her breasts –
he took them, gnawed at them, winding her up so fast she feared she couldn’t
hold off.

“Slowly, please?” she whispered.

“No,” he grunted. “Next time it’ll be
slow.”

He waited just long enough to make
sure she was bursting then he lunged into her and pounded at her so hard she
wondered if the cot would break under the strain. But she clung at him, urged
him to keep going, not willing to see it end.

Spent, they rested on the mattress,
their breathing flowing in quick, hard waves.

“If it could be like this, forever,
I’d be the happiest man on Earth!”

“It could be, Angel; if you trust me
to love you enough.”

“I can’t bring you into my troubles,
Tess. You don’t know what could happen!”

“What kind of troubles?”

“I can’t say.”

“But you’re a beach bum, aren’t you?
You fish, you ride bikes. Or are you a drug smuggler?”

He laughed. “No, not by a long shot,
though that kind of life might have been preferable to what I am.”

“So what exactly are you?”

“I’m an investigator. I was hired to
watch Patrick Mercer.”

“Why?”

“He’s been implicated in a nasty
murder, Tess.”

She sat up abruptly.

“No, I don’t believe it! He’s like a
dream father, taking me in unconditionally. And he adores my mom. You must be
mistaken.”

He stood, began to dress. “I knew I
shouldn’t have told you. But I guess it’s for the best. Things might start
getting dangerous. Make up some excuse and fly back to wherever you came from.”

“Don’t you want to see me again? You
said there’d be a next time.”

He pulled her up, kissed her hard.
“Oh there’ll be a next time all right. It’s taking every bit of willpower I
have to keep from throwing you back down on that cot right now! I love you,
Tess! I have since that first day on the beach. I never thought it’d happen
that fast for a guy like me. I’ve been around, had lots of women, I won’t lie
to you about it. But you did something to me. All I can think of is how I can
make it work with us. But you’re his kid, and I’m sworn to bring him down. That
makes it complicated.”

“I can be strong for you, Angel.”

“With no regrets, ever?”

“Not one.”

“What about your family?”

“I love my mom. If Patrick is
dangerous like you say I don’t want her marrying him. I’ll have to talk her out
of it somehow. Are you certain he killed somebody? Do you have proof?”

“I have implications, and
circumstances and a whole lot of intuition.”

“That isn’t telling me anything
solid.”

“I know. Tess, when I fell in love
with you, that first day, on the beach, I was afraid then, and always, that you
couldn’t accept me the way I am. I threw mixed signals at you, and I’m sorry
for that. I only wanted you to love me. All that talk about hating the rich …
well, I do. When I was small my parents went on a photographic safari in
Africa
with a bunch of shallow, so-called
friends. They stepped into a poachers’ camp and were murdered. Their friends
ran off, didn’t even think about trying to save them! I hated my rich parents,
for dying young and leaving me. I hated their rich friends, because they couldn’t
be trusted to help them. I was filled with anger and frustration and misery. My
only pleasures were fishing and riding my bike. But I found I needed something
to do, something with a purpose, so I became an investigator. I left the
running of my parents’ company to my uncles but they’re all a bunch of sly
dogs. I have to watch their every move, or they’d steal the company out from
under me.”

“Would that be so bad? You don’t need
it. Why don’t you sell it?”

“It was my dad’s.”

“Is that the only reason you keep
it?”

“Yeah, it is. I guess I will sell it.
We could live off the profits for fifty years!”

“But what about my dad? Angel, I want
to prove you wrong about Patrick. How do I go about it?”

“Find out who killed his assistant.”

“Tell me everything you do know.”

“Well, her name was Gayle Stewart.
She’d been his personal assistant for ten years, privy to all his secrets. He
was alone with her in the pool room of the Shell House during one of those wild
parties of his in December. Somehow Gayle managed to fall off the edge of the
empty pool and cracked her sweet neck. He says he wasn’t there when she fell,
that he came in and found her dead. But she had bruises on her body from a
beating. There were rumors that they were lovers, had been for a long time but
he was openly seeking a sixth wife and it wasn’t her. She got angry, there was
a struggle and he threw her over the edge.”

“No witnesses?”

“Not a one.”

“And Patrick doesn’t know you? Why
were you at my party then?”

“I thought if I dressed the part I
could slip in. Mercer thinks he’s above suspicion, and doesn’t need security.”

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