The Billionaire's Jackpot: Betting on You Series: Book Four by Jeannette Winters Read Free Book Online

every intention of leaving in the middle of the night after Katherine had fallen asleep. Though he urged his body to get up, get dressed, he hadn’t. Even now the opportunity to slip away without any goodbyes was still there. Instead, he found himself walking her dog. Didn’t see this coming.
    It had been a long time since something or someone had thrown him off kilter. The last time left scars that still hadn’t healed. The harsh reality was that what you think you know about a person may only be a camouflage for the bitter truth of who they really are. Though he still loved his parents, they were two people who could never be in the same room with each other without sparks flying. The saying that money can change a person was proven accurate the day his parents won the single largest lottery payout ever of four hundred eighty million dollars. What he thought was a happy family—living with his mom and dad in a two-bedroom home in the suburbs—all changed instantly. They moved into a mansion, had servants do everything, and family dinners no longer existed. Every night his dad came home later and later, and his mom could be heard yelling and throwing things. Home became a place he tried to avoid. When his parents approached him about doing his senior year at a boarding school, he’d jumped at the opportunity to get out and didn’t go back except to visit. Every time they called, he expected to hear they were getting a divorce, but those words were never said. Instead, they’ve continued to live in the same house with totally separate lives. When he asked them about it, they said they didn’t want him to come from a broken home. Drew couldn’t make them understand that their home couldn’t get much more broken than it was already. Sadly he knew exactly why they stayed together. Neither was willing to part with the money, so instead they both spent their lives in misery. He wished he could say he was different from them, that money didn’t matter, but he knew by his lifestyle that it wasn’t true. Trying to cover it up wasn’t going to change the fact. The only thing he could do was not bring another person into his world, or he might find himself following in his father’s footsteps. And definitely not someone as amazing as Katherine.
    His mind was made up. He would walk the dog, go back to the house, and leave without seeing her. It was the only thing he could do. Anything other than that would only risk her being hurt, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.
    As they continued their walk through the neighborhood, he was glad for the distraction of local children who had been playing outside running over to hug and pet Blossom. He watched her soak up all the attention. You don’t miss a trick do you, girl? She turned up to him with what almost looked like a grin, as though she had read his mind and waited for him to hug and kiss her too. Never going to happen.
    Continuing on their way, they came across one boy in his mid-teens who stood in their pathway, arms crossed as though to intimidate him. His eyes squinting, he leaned back as though he was sizing Drew up. The young boy’s tone said he wanted to be taken seriously. “KJ know you have Blossom?”
    His eyebrows shot up in surprise as he held back his laughter. The kid probably was counting the days when he would finally be able to shave, yet he was trying to stare him down like a man twice his age and size. Kid’s got guts. “Yes. She does.”
    He didn’t move from his spot. “Are you a friend of hers or something?”
    He wasn’t sure if the boy was concerned or jealous. Either way, it was nice to know that not only did she have Blossom to protect her, but the neighbors seemed to as well. “We’re friends. I’m Drew. What’s your name?”
    “Clint. I’ve never seen anyone walk Blossom but KJ. Is she sick, or something?”
    Drew wasn’t fond of getting questioned by a kid or anyone else for that matter. Why he was walking the dog and