Billionaire Bad Boys: A Collection of Contemporary and Paranormal Bad Boys Page 26

  “This is amazing.”

  From our vantage point, the two moons loomed over the town spreading its luminescence over Midnight Cove and enveloping the city in the soft glow. You could see the Genome Building Matthias’ parents owned, the competing bakeries, the coffee shop that only made passable drinks, and the massive and sprawling building that encompassed the Deadicated Dating Agency, the service that had matched most of our town residents up. Most except for the elves. Most of the time we were at the mercy of our families when it came to our love lives.

  “It is. I think we all forget how beautiful Midnight Cove is. Standing up here, you can see how the buildings are cohesive. Everything looks magical.”

  It did. It always had. All of the buildings had an aged appearance like they had stepped right out of the 1950's and landed in our town perfectly preserved. But it wasn't a bad thing to be aged. It made everything look vintage and sweet like Tommy was going to step up to Ginger and ask her to the high school dance. I loved it here and when I forgot about how good it was, I'd come up to this spot, sit, and watch the town bustle on without me. Except, it was so late now, very few people were bustling.

  “It looks like a movie.” Matthias sat on the soft grass. He tilted his head up and studied me. “How often do you come up here?”

  I sat beside him, close, but not close enough to make me nervous. “I used to come up here all the time. Now? Maybe a few times a month.”

  “It’s peaceful.” He smiled. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” I hesitated. “Matthias?”

  He turned to study my profile. I knew if I looked at him I wouldn’t be able to say what I wanted.

  “You don’t have to marry Karina if you don’t want to. You know that, right?”

  His low chuckle sent shivers down my spine. “No one has to do anything, do they? But it’s not so easy. My loyalty is to my parents. They gave me everything. I am not the kind of man who breaks tradition.”

  I turned to look at him and was pierced by the intensity of his gaze.

  “No matter how much I may want to.”

  My mouth went dry. How in the space of 24 hours had I gone from extreme dislike to attraction? With the man I loved to hate.

  I broke eye contact and fished in my pocket for the ring. I held it out, the main stone glinting in the low light. “I think -” I began. “I hope Karina likes this. It was my favorite. I was holding on to it in hopes one day I might be able to buy it.” My voice cracked. “But I’m glad it’s going to you.”

  I dropped the ring in his outstretched hand. We both stared down at it for a moment.

  "Right," he said. "Well, I guess it's about time, don't you think?" He smiled but it didn't reach his eyes. "We can only delay real life for so long." From his jacket pocket, he withdrew a long packet. He pulled the two pieces apart, exposing a long cotton swab and a vial of liquid. "Open up."

  I obeyed instantly. With clinical precision, he swabbed the inside of my left cheek then my right. When he was finished, he inserted the swab into the vial of liquid and snapped it closed. "There," he pronounced. "The only thing left is to ask you one more time if you're ready to do this?" His gaze was intense. "Really ready?"

  I took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes. Let’s do this.”

  He inserted the test back into the paper and stuck it back into his pocket. “Should we go?”

  I didn’t want to. I didn’t have many friends so sitting out here with Matthias was the most contact I’ve had with people other than customers for weeks. But I nodded anyway. He had a fiancee and a life away from me. Plus he was about to step way out of line in order to help me.

  He stood in one fluid motion and held his hand out. I took it, and the warmth of it seeped through to my skin. Our eyes met and I looked away, not trusting myself to say anything else.

  He didn't release my fingers. Instead, he tugged me closer and brushed a curl away from my face. "If things were different, Ava." His gaze dropped to my mouth. "You have a beautiful mouth."

  Said mouth gaped open. “I didn’t even like you this morning,” I blurted.

  His face broke into a wide grin. “It seems like you’re saying you like me now.”

  I straightened. “I don’t,” I said, hating the strained note in my voice.

  “Oh, I think you do.” He dropped his hand and leaned forward. His chin rested on top of my head and my arms crept around him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for,” I said.

  I felt his head move above me. “There’s everything to be sorry for. All the what ifs and could’ve beens.”

  I stiffened in his arms. “I’m not sure you would have ever noticed me if you hadn’t been forced into a marriage.”

  Matthias stepped away, his eyes narrowed. “How little you know.” He led me back to the car, opened the door for me, and stepped around. When we were back in front of my shop, he unlocked the door for me. As I was stepping out, his voice stopped me.

  “I’m a multi-millionaire, Ava. Able to travel anywhere in this world and the next. Did you really think I needed to visit your shop on a weekly basis?”

  I swallowed hard and let the door shut behind me. He waited for me to get inside before he pulled away. I watched him from the window until I couldn’t see his tail lights anymore. When he was gone I finally allowed myself to collapse to my knees.

  What was happening?

  4

  Two Weeks Later

  The only contact I had with Matthias was an envelope slid under my door five days after he’d taken my DNA sample. Other than that, I hadn’t seen or heard from Matthias since that day. I resisted the urge to contact him. I trusted him enough to believe he’d reach out to me when he had the results, but I didn’t think it would take this long.

  The normal process for GenomesRUs was to submit your DNA sample and drop it into the box outside of their offices. Within 5 days you received a report back with possible DNA relatives and ancestry back at least five generations. Granted, it was a little easier to trace things since most of the people using the service had been born and raised here, as had their parents, their grandparents and so on. I imagined I was a tougher case considering this had to be done in secret. I usually was more concerned with honesty than sparing someone's feelings, but this time...I had a feeling what I would find out wasn't something my parents wanted to be known. I couldn't put my finger on it. I just sort of knew. This happened to me over the years - those overwhelming feelings that something would happen or I should act one way and not the other and I was always right. I couldn't explain it, nor could I rationalize it, but I knew better than to go against my intuition. I just hoped Matthias could be discreet. Since it was his tail on the line, too, I imagined I would be fine.

  This morning the shop was busy. Mrs. Tremble was in again for the second time this week scouring through the shelves for a gift for her brand new vampire granddaughter. I told her she’d be better off going to one of the big box stores to find the baby something safer, but she didn’t want to hear it. In fact, she grumbled about young ‘uns and told me to go away. So I did, trying not to cringe when I saw her pick up something metal and with sharp edges. I guess it didn’t matter. The baby was a vampire, not a human or another creature who could be damaged. From what I understood about vamps, they were basically bulletproof as soon as they were born. A little terrifying if I was being honest. I wanted a cute and soft snuggly baby one day, not one that could change into a bat anytime it wanted to.

  Right when I was ringing up Mrs. Tremble and her antique sterling silver baby rattle, the doors blew open and Matthias strode in, a stormy expression on his face. He practically glided in and I knew at once he was blowing through a crap ton of magic. He seemed...pissed.

  Very pissed.

  My hands shook as I shoved Mrs. Tremble's change at her. However, she appeared unruffled, only raising an eyebrow at me as she gathered her purchase up. She leaned forward and in a conspiratorial whisper aske
d, "Trouble in paradise, eh?" She winked at me and breezed out of the store as I let out a hysterical bark of laughter.

  As soon as she was out of sight, Matthias sent out a burst of power, blowing the doors shut. Several clicks later and they were locked up tight, leaving me, him, and his terrifying magic blowing around us.

  “Did you know?” he asked me in a terrifying low tone.

  I took a couple of steps back. “Know what?”

  “Did. You. Know?” He closed the distance between us, his hair blowing away from his handsome face. His gray eyes flashed with angry lightning.

  I held up my hands, fear making them quiver. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I whispered.

  He stopped in his tracks, his magic faltering. Confusion began - first in his eyes then on his face. He scrubbed a hand across his face. "You had no idea?"

  * * *

  I shook my head violently.

  “Gods,” he whispered. He slumped into the closest available seat and it was only then I saw the crumpled piece of paper he was holding.

  I stepped out from behind the counter. “Is that - ?” I asked tentatively.

  “Yes.” His voice was hoarse. “This is bad. So very bad, Ava.”

  I stopped in my tracks. “Matthias, stop being a drama queen. What is it? Am I not an elf? It can’t possibly be as bad as you’re making it out to be.”

  “It’s worse,” he croaked. He held out the paper with a shaking hand.

  I took it from him, concern knitting my brow. It was just DNA. I was completely prepared to be of mixed DNA. It wasn’t the end of the world. I’d suspected it for years.

  “You might want to sit,” he said.

  Our gazes met. There was a world of emotions behind his eyes. Confusion. Grief. Curiosity. Remorse.

  I blew out a deep breath, my heart beginning to pound at what I might find. I pulled a chair closer to Matthias and sat beside him.

  I smoothed out the paper and began to read.

  5

  Between us, Matthias and I had polished off two pizzas and several bottles of cheap wine. Both of us were hammered. Both of us were in stunned disbelief.

  “How could this happen?” I kept mumbling over and over.

  Matthias barked out a laugh. “Darling, we know exactly how it happened. The real question is, what are we going to do about it?”

  I snorted. “We? What do you mean? This is my tangled web to wiggle out of. Not yours.”

  He took a sloppy drink from a new bottle of wine I'd opened. "Not so," he insisted. "As soon as the named pinged, an alert was sent out to my parents. There's a lock on her DNA. Any time those records are accessed, even inadvertently, a silent alarm pings and an email gets sent to both my mother and father with the login information of the person who accessed it, along with the information the person accessed."

  “Holy shit,” I breathed.

  “Yes,” Matthias slurred. “Holy shit indeed.”

  I stared at him with wide eyes. “You’re going to be disowned.”

  He held up a finger, wine sloshing as he moved his hand. “Not so fast. I took some precautions. I created a fake log in using an untraceable IP address. My name is nowhere on the file or the alert sent to them.”

  Warm relief filled my stomach. “Oh thank the gods.”

  He shook his head. “It will only buy me some time. It isn’t foolproof and my parents employ the best hackers in the business. They will find “out it was me. Eventually. And when they do I have no idea what I’m going to tell them.”

  Something occurred to me. “Was my information listed?”

  A smirk appeared on his mouth. “You wound me.”

  “Matthias.”

  He sighed and set the wine bottle down. “No, but it’s only a matter of time before they figure it out.” Matthias slumped forward and dropped his head. “This is a disaster.”

  “Portia Kadish,” I said with wonder.

  “Yes. Portia.” If it were possible to sneer a name, Matthias had just done it.

  “Of all the people.”

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  I shrugged. "I'm pondering busting into the dating agency, falling at her knees and calling her Mama."

  He laughed a hoarse, broken laugh. “Of all the people in this godsforsaken town, you had to be related to the founder.”

  It was a disaster. Portia Kadish was a whispered legend around Midnight Cove. No one spoke her name for fear of conjuring her out of thin air, but that was more superstition than anything. She hadn't been seen in the town for over twenty years. There were rumors she lived at the Deadication Dating Agency headquarters, but those were unsubstantiated. The place was run with an iron-fisted sense of secrecy and security and no one could walk through the front doors. You didn't come to them. They came to you in a variety of odd and sometimes terrifying ways. If Portia Kadish found a match for you, you could run but you could never hide. However, for all of the services odd ways, their record was pristine. None of the couples matched ever broke up. In fact, the ones I'd seen looked stupidly, deliriously happy.

  It was disconcerting, to say the least. And now I'd just found out she was my mother. Which begged a different question. What had happened to her and my father? Were they matched? Why were they not together? Was it just lust? I thought about my handsome yet slightly geeky father.

  I had no idea what Portia looked like, but for her to sweep my father off his feet and make him betray his vows, she had to be a stunner.

  I skimmed the report again. “Part angel, part succubus.” I groaned. “What a mix.” A snort escaped me.

  “What?” Matthias asked, his curious gaze directed to me.

  “Well,” I said unable to contain my amusement, “the succubus part of me must be latent because I haven’t had a boyfriend in years.”

  His chuckle of amusement warmed me. “You’re as prickly as a porcupine, Ava. What do you expect?”

  “Hey!” I reached over to swat his arm. “Mean.”

  He snagged the report from me. "It actually says you're 40 percent elf, 40 percent angel, and 20 percent succubus. So if you take anything away from this, you should wonder why you aren't nicer." His eyes glittered. "Considering your angelic genetics and all."

  “Har,” I said, unamused. “You’re hilarious.”

  “It’s true,” he said, blowing on his fingertips and rubbing them against his shirt.

  I finally asked the question I’d been dying to ask him. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe a combination of both. “How did Karina like the ring?”

  He gave me the side-eye. “Why? Jealous?”

  I felt the blush creeping up my neck so I turned. “Hardly,” I scoffed lying through my teeth. “I want to know the ring is being taken care of.”

  “The ring is hardly your concern considering you cashed that absolutely massive check the day I sent it.”

  He was right. I'd never held that many zeros in my hand in my entire life. Terrified I would lose it, I headed right to the bank and deposited it. I hadn't spent a dime of it yet. I wasn't sure why. It just...didn't feel right, to be honest. I hoped I'd get over that feeling soon what with Matthias being off the market.

  “I’m sorry,” I admitted. “It’s none of my business.”

  “You’re right,” he grumbled. “It isn’t.”

  Silence fell between us. Matthias reached over and sloppily poured me more wine.

  “I haven’t given it to her,” he admitted.

  I stiffened in my seat. “Oh?”

  He handed me the cup. “I haven’t been able to.”

  “Strapped for time?” I asked lightly as I took another sip of the terrible wine.

  The side of his mouth quirked up. “Smart ass.” He swirled his wine around, but it was more of a slosh considering we were both way into our cups. “My parents are furious with me.”

  "Well, then it seems like you should just keep going. Once you dig deep enough, they can't possibly continue getting
mad at you."

  “Terrible logic, but I like it.” He tugged at his tie and yanked it off, exposing the smooth golden lines of his neck. My throat went dry. “Karina is furious. My mother led her to believe I’d be proposing weeks ago.” He frowned. “But getting married feels so final, you know?” His gaze was beseeching. I wasn’t sure what to say.

  “I think if maybe you aren’t with the right person, it could feel like an eternity.”

  “Do you wonder if any of the elves are truly happy?”

  I thought to my mother. My biological one. “Portia has some elves on her rosters. Those marriages are successful.”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice lowering as he became lost in thought. “How do you suppose that is?”

  “What? Her track record?”

  He nodded and swigged his wine. “How is it she’s managed to have an unblemished record. Do you think it’s magic?”

  I sighed. “Who knows? The couples she’s put together seem smitten.”

  “Love spells?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Maybe she just has a gift.”

  “How do you not think so?” His brow knit together. “Have you met her before?”

  I snorted a laugh. “Has anyone met Portia Kadish?”

  He shrugged. “No idea. If anyone in this town had, it’s probably my parents. You didn’t answer my other question.”

  One of my shoulders rose and fell. “Sometimes I just know things,” I admitted. “I’m not sure why, but I do. I get these overwhelming hunches.” My mouth turned down and I raised my glass. “That’s one more weird thing about me.”

  “There’s nothing weird about you. I find you unique. Fascinating. His finger snaked out to tug on one of my curls. “And now that I know you’re part succubus, I should also admit you’re alluring.”

  I waggled my fingers at him and crooked one eyebrow. “Oooh, I have you under my sexy succubus spell. Come to me, Matthias,” I intoned. “Be my love slave.”