The Bad Boy Billionaire: What a Girl Wants by Maya Rodale Read Free Book Online

I accomplished a lot but what does that matter if you throw it all away and don’t enjoy it? All I want now is to just be with you.”
    A LITTLE WHILE later we took a break to heat up on the frozen food that was currently thawing in the uncooled freezer. We fried up Applegate Farms chicken nuggets on the stove and tried to heat frozen pizzas from Amy’s over the burners. It was not ideal. I missed the microwave. And the oven. And come to think of it . . . I missed electricity and hot running water, too.
    We sat down to lunch. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
    “How is the book going?” Duke asked.
    “Good. The hero and heroine are trapped at a small country inn during a torrential rainstorm.”
    “Have you ever considered drawing on your real life for inspiration?” Duke asked dryly. I gave a little laugh. My “inspired by real life” stories had gotten us into trouble before. But sometimes, you just can’t make this stuff up.
    “The heroine was . . . attacked,” I added softly. “That makes her not the typical, innocent romance heroine. But I had to write about what happened to me.”
    “Did Sam . . .?” Duke asked, his voice low.
    “No. But I think he would have. He unbuttoned my jeans,” I said my voice cracking as I remembered. I didn’t want to remember. “His hands . . .” I couldn’t even say it. “Then I kneed him in the balls, hit him in the nose and ran.”
    It was the vague and distant look in Sam’s eyes that struck me as I recalled that night. Sam hadn’t been Sam. That had been terrifying.
    “That’s my girl,” Duke said softly, smiling slightly. But there was tension in his jaw and sadness in his eyes. I could see that it was burning him up inside that he hadn’t been there to protect me. But he was stifling that because this wasn’t about him. It was about me. “I wish I had been there for you. I could have stopped it. Hell, it never would have happened.”
    “I know. Me too,” I said in a small voice. “I thought I could trust him.”
    It wasn’t just the violence of what Sam had done. It wasn’t just the pain and the fear. The betrayal of it all cut the deepest. Someone I had once loved and trusted with my safety and happiness had violated my body and violated my trust.
    “It makes it hard for her to be alone with the hero,” I said, my voice faltering slightly. I used my characters as a way to talk about me. Perhaps I should be in therapy for that. “She wants to. But she’s not quite ready.”
    “Are you OK now, here with me?” Duke asked. The concern in his eyes was reassuring.
    “Yeah,” I replied softly. “I feel safe with you.”
    “Good. You should feel safe,” he said firmly, holding my hand and gazing into my eyes. “I’ll never hurt you Jane. I couldn’t.”
    I knew he wouldn’t. What Sam had done to me wasn’t about insatiable, uncontrollable passion. I knew he stopped lusting after me a while ago—years before we broke up, even. What he had done to me was just about power. He must be feeling so helpless—alone, living with his parents, his career prospects dim, and all the rejection of Kate and the jobs he’d applied for. By overpowering me, he could feel like a man again. Or whatever.
    I understood it, rationally. That didn’t excuse him. Or justify it. Or make me ache any less. Why should I bear his burdens?
    But Duke . . . he’d been down, he’d been up and he’d been walking the razor’s edge of complete disaster or unfathomable success. And he did it all with a bone deep confidence and certainty in himself. He didn’t need to bring anyone down to raise himself up. That is what made him so damn sexy.
    I gave that confidence to Prudence’s hero. It wasn’t his wealth or title that attracted her. It was his certainty, his kindness and his consideration of her. That, and his sparkling blue eyes that were a lot like Duke’s.
    After lunch, Duke went back to reading and I went back to writing. We were never far from each