HIS: An Alpha Billionaire Romance (Part Three) by Glenna Sinclair Read Free Book Online

have hurt you.”
    “But you didn’t.”
    “Why are you here?” he asked softly. “I keep expecting to wake up in the morning and find you gone.”
    “Why would I do that?”
    “Because people think I killed my wife. Because I turned on you—quite viciously—when I thought you were conspiring to keep my children from me. Because I’m an asshole who forced you to come to LA against your will.”
    “First, you didn’t kill your wife. Second, you didn’t hurt me. If you think a couple of bruises—”
    “Come on, Ana. It was more than that.”
    I rolled toward him and pressed my hand to his chest, the feel of his heartbeat underneath reassuring something inside of me.
    “You have a temper, but you’re aware of it, and now you can do something about it.”
    He groaned. “Self-help programs don’t work for me. I thought they did, but they don’t.”
    “But things have changed now.”
    “Yeah. I have more to risk now.”
    Nicolas pulled away from me and climbed out of the bed. He snatched his pants up off of the floor and headed to the door.
    “Is that what you’re going to do every time something tough happens? Run away?”
    He paused with his hand on the doorknob.
    “Because, if it is, you’re going to miss a hell of a lot when it comes to those babies.”
    He stood there for a long minute. My heart was pounding as I wondered what he was going to do or say next. Then, he slowly turned and looked at me.
    “What do you want me to do, Ana?”
    “I want you to stay here, to tell me what this is, what we’re doing here. I want to know why you keep shutting me out, pretending that I don’t matter to you when it’s pretty clear that I must matter a little bit. I mean, come on, Nico, why am I still here if I don’t matter to you? You could hire some wet nurse or something.”
    “They don’t have wet nurses anymore.”
    There was amusement in his voice. I wasn’t sure how I should feel about that. I was laying my heart out on the table—or mattress—to him, and he was joking around.
    “You know what I mean.”
    He inclined his head slightly. “I do. But the thing is, it’s a little more complicated than all that.”
    “What’s complicated about it? Either you want me here, or you don’t.”
    His eyes darkened as he thought about that. And that made me feel suddenly vulnerable. Not just literally naked, as I was, but emotionally, too. I didn’t like it.
    I climbed off the bed and slipped my boy shorts back on, then lifted the tangled sheets and looked for my t-shirt. Nicolas came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist.
    “Where do you think you’re going?”
    His voice was deeper, rougher. And his hands, where they held my wrists, were shaking just a little.
    “I don’t want to have this conversation naked.”
    He turned me around and forced me to look at him.
    “I want you here,” he said, his gaze never wavering from mine. “I’ve wanted you here since the first time I set eyes on you. But I was afraid. I made a mistake with Aurora. I thought she was the one, my soulmate or some such nonsense. But all she wanted was my money and my name. She didn’t give a damn about me.” He tugged me closer against him, his face only a breath from mine. “Then I met you and she introduced you as our surrogate and I just…I wanted to be near you. I wanted to talk to you; I wanted to know everything about you. I had you investigated, and I poured over the file for hours, memorizing everything about you. I was obsessed and my sponsor—”
    “Sponsor?”
    “He told me I was exchanging one addiction for another. Alcohol and women. Those had always been my drugs of choice. And then I kissed you, and you stood up to me, and that just made it so much worse.”
    “Nico, I don’t understand.”
    He kissed my neck almost roughly, his teeth scraping against my skin. “And then you ran away, just disappeared. I didn’t understand why you would give me back all that money and just disappear like