Dance for the Billionaire by Jewel Moore Read Free Book Online

with seduction in mind.  She had deliberately chosen not to pre-warn him.
    Somehow, though he suspected he would have to take himself in hand later or suffer the worst case of blue balls in medical history, he found the situation amusing.  It had been a long time since a woman had given him the run-around.  All too often, they threw themselves at him in some boringly-predictable manner or another.
    “Shawn, put your game down and come and meet Dominic!”
    The young man who swaggered up nonchalantly to Dominic was almost as tall as he but boyishly slender and the male version of Cerise.  He clasped Dominic’s hand in an overly-tight grasp, attempting to crush his fingers.  Dominic had played power games with too many men to fall for the trick.  Usually he would have painfully tightened his grasp to let the other man know exactly whom he was messing with.  On this occasion he applied just enough pressure to let Shawn know that he was on to him before letting go.  The young man had the grace to smile sheepishly.
    “Dinner will be ready in five minutes,” Chantelle informed him as she handed him a bottle of beer moments later.  “We’re having Peas & Rice and Jerk Chicken.  Hope it won’t be too hot for you.”
    “I’m used to spicy food,” he responded, immediately thinking that he had to take her as soon as possible to his favorite Cajun restaurant for a spicy seafood gumbo, or whatever else she preferred.  The chef there was excellent.  He took delight in warming the palette with a liberal addition of peppers.
    “Charmine’s only six, so I haven’t made the Jerk too spicy.” Chantelle placed a drumstick on her youngest sister’s plate and then paused with the food tongs over the other pieces of chicken on the platter.  “Which piece do you prefer, Dominic—breast or thigh?”
    Both definitely, if you’re offering.
    Dominic forcibly pulled his wayward thoughts from where they were headed and back to matters at hand.  His butler would expire in a fit of vapors if he knew that he had been offered a piece of chicken that hadn’t been first de-boned. Heaven forbid if said chicken wasn’t also both free range and organic. “Breast please…,” he began and noticed the quick frown that crossed Shawn’s face before the young man schooled his features into indifference, “…or thigh.  Any piece will do really.”
    “Are you sure?”  Chantelle cast him a grateful look when he nodded.  She gripped a portion of thigh and placed it on his plate beside the small mound of rice he’d served himself from the serving bowl moments before.  “Sorry, I’m so used to cooking on a budget…I didn’t think to get portions rather than a whole chicken.”
    “It’s fine.”
    She placed a large piece of breast on each of her other siblings’ plates and took the other piece of thigh for herself.
    Dominic couldn’t help wondering if she too had preferred the breast piece, but had settled for the thigh instead.  She  was twenty-two—he knew that from her application form—but acted like she was their mother.  He wondered what other sacrifices she made for them.
    “So what college do you go to, Shawn?” he asked her brother after they had said grace and each had a few mouthfuls of food.
    “Leyton Sixth Form.”
    “He’s hoping to get into Oxford next year.”  Chantelle looked at her brother, pride shining in her eyes.
    “I’m impressed.”  The young man smiled and Dominic felt a slight thawing of the air between them.  “Four of my brothers and two sisters went there.  I went to Imperial.”
    “Didn’t get the marks for Oxford, then?” Shawn inquired with a smirk.
    “I didn’t even apply.  I wanted to stay in London close to my parents.”
    He had started helping his father restore and sell on properties from the age of sixteen.  By eighteen he had successfully sold on two properties and hadn’t seen the benefits of an Oxbridge education when he’d planned to be his own boss.