The Billionaire's Bargain. Naima Simone

version of the heroine from Beauty and the Beast. Later, the affectionate nickname had become a taunt, a criticism of her unsophisticated and naïve nature.

      She hated that name now.

      But every time this man called her sweetheart, she felt cherished, wanted. Even though it was also a stark reminder that he didn’t know her name. That she was lying to him by omission.

      “Can I ask you a question?” she blurted out.

      “Isn’t that kind of our MO?” he drawled. “Ask.”

      Now that she could satisfy the curiosity that had been gnawing at her since she’d first encountered him, she hesitated. She had no right—never mind it not being her business—to probe into his history and private pain. But as hypocritical as it made her, she sought a piece of him she sensed he wouldn’t willingly offer someone else.

      “Earlier, when I first bumped into you...you were having a panic attack,” she began. He stiffened, tension turning his body into a replica of the marble statue adorning the fountain outside the mansion. Sitting so close to him, she swore she could feel icy waves emanate from him. Unease trickled through her. Damn it. She should’ve left it alone. “I’m sorry...” she rasped, tugging on her hand, trying to withdraw it from his hold. “I shouldn’t have pried.”

      But he didn’t release her. Her heart stuttered as his grip on her strengthened.

      “Don’t,” he ordered.

      Don’t what? Ask him any more questions? Pull away? How pathetic did it make her that she hoped it was the latter?

      “You’re the only thing keeping me sane,” he admitted in a voice so low that, even in the blackness that magnified every sound, she barely caught the admission.

      A thread of pain throbbed through his confession, and she couldn’t resist the draw of it. Scooting closer until her thigh pressed against his, she lifted the hand not clasped in his to his hard chest. The drum of his heart vibrated against her palm, running up her arm and echoing in her own chest.

      She felt and heard his heavy inhale. And she parted her lips, ready to tell him to forget it. To apologize again for intruding, but his big hand covered hers, halting her words.

      “My parents died when I was sixteen.”

      “God,” she breathed. That hint of sadness she’d detected earlier when he’d talked about fishing with his father... She’d suspected, and now he’d confirmed it. “I’m so sorry.”

      “Plane crash on their way back from a business meeting in Paris. Ordinarily my mother wouldn’t have been with my father, but they decided to treat it as an anniversary trip. They were my foundation. And I...” He paused, and Isobel waited.

      She couldn’t imagine... Her father had been a nonfactor in her life for most of her childhood, but her mom... Her mother had been her support system, her rock, even through the years with Isobel and Aiden’s move to California and back. Losing her...she closed her eyes and leaned her head against his shoulder, offering whatever comfort he needed as he relayed the details of the tragedy that had scarred him.

      “My best friend and his family took me in. I don’t know what would’ve happened to me, where I would be now, without them. But at the time, I was lost. Adrift. In the months afterward, I’d skip school or leave my friend’s house in the middle of the night to go to the building where we’d lived. The penthouse had been sold, so I no longer had access to my home, but I would sneak into the basement through a window. It had a loosened bar that I would remove and squeeze through. I’d sit there for hours, just content to be in the building, if not in the place where I’d lived with them. My best friend—he followed me one night when I sneaked out, so he knew about it. But he never told.”

      Another pause, and again she didn’t disturb him. She wanted to hug that best friend for standing by the boy-now-man. She’d had girlfriends in the past, but none that would’ve—or could’ve, given their own family situations—taken her in as if she were family. This friend of his, he must’ve been special.

      “About four months after my parents’ death, I’d left school again and went to the basement. I’d had a rough night. Nightmares and no sleep. That’s the only reason I can think of for me falling asleep in the basement that day. I don’t know what woke me up. The noise? The heat?” His shoulder rose and fell in a shrug under her cheek. “Like I said, I don’t know. But when I did, the room was pitch-black. I couldn’t even see my hands in front of my face. I heard what sounded like twigs snapping. But underneath that, distant but growing louder, was this dull roar. Like engines revving in a closed garage. I’d never been in one before, but somehow I knew. The building was on fire, and I was trapped.”

      “No,” she whispered, fingers curling against his chest.

      “I couldn’t move. Thick black smoke filled the basement, and I choked on it, couldn’t breathe. I can’t tell you how long I laid there, paralyzed by fear or weak from inhaling smoke, but I thought I was going to die. That room—it became my tomb. A dark, burning tomb. But then I heard someone shouting my name and saw the high beam of a flashlight. It was my friend. I found out later that he’d heard about the fire on the news, and when I hadn’t shown up at his house after school, he’d guessed where I’d gone. The firemen had believed they’d cleared the entire building, but he’d forced them to go back in and search the basement. He should’ve stayed outside and let them come find me, but he’d barreled past them and entered with only his shirt over his face to battle the smoke, putting his life in danger. But if he hadn’t... He saved my life that day.”

      “Oh, thank God.” Sliding her hand from under his, she wrapped her arm around his waist, curving her body into his. She’d known him for mere hours, and yet the thought of him dying, of being consumed by flames? It bothered her in a way that made no sense. “He was a hero.”

      “Yes, he was,” he said softly. “He was a good man.”

      Was a good man. No. It couldn’t be... Horror and disbelief crowded up her throat. “He’s gone, too?”

      “A couple of years now, but sometimes it seems like yesterday.”

      “I’m so sorry.” Isobel shifted until she knelt beside him. She stroked her hand up his torso, searching out his face. Once she brushed over his hard, faintly stubbled jaw, she cupped it and lowered her head, until her forehead met his temple.

      His fingers drifted over her cheek, and after a moment’s hesitation, tunneled into her hair. Her lungs seized, shock infiltrating every vein, organ and limb. Only her heart seemed capable of movement, and it threw itself against her sternum, like an animal desperate for freedom from its cage.

      Blunt fingertips dragged over her scalp. A moan clawed its way up her throat at the scratch and tug of her hair, but she trapped the sound behind clenched teeth. She couldn’t prevent the shudder that worked its way through her. Not when it’d been so long since she’d been touched. Since pleasure had even been a factor. So. Long.

      “I need to hear that lovely voice, sweetheart,” he rumbled, turning and bowing his head so his lips grazed the column of her throat as he spoke. Sparks snapped under her skin as if her nerve endings had transformed into firecrackers, and his mouth was the lighter. “There are things I want to do to your mouth that require your permission.”

      “Like what?” Had she really just asked that question? And in that breathy tone? What was he doing to her?

      Giving you what you’re craving. Be brave and find out, her subconscious replied.

      “Find out if it’s as sweet as you are. Taste you. Savor you. Learn you,” he murmured, answering her question. He untangled their clasped fingers and with unerring accuracy, located her chin and pinched it. Cool but soft strands of hair tickled her jaw, and then her cheek, as he lifted his head. Then warm gusts of air bathed her lips. She could taste him, his breath. Something potent with faint hints of lemon, like the champagne from earlier. But also, underneath, lay a darker, enigmatic flavor.