The Billionaire’s Valiant Rescue by Nic Saint Read Free Book Online Page B

they’d managed to track her down and she’d slipped through their fingers once again, he hadn’t disputed his part in the fuck-up.
    Jeannine’s suggestion of hitting the young man over the head with a big stick and grabbing Valerie had met with strong resistance from his part.
    Though he looked like the villain in a Hollywood B movie, Rainer was in fact an accomplished painter, and his refined artist’s soul rebelled against the prospect of knocking out perfect strangers who had done him no harm.
    Jeannine, daughter of a butcher and wife of a feeble-minded thug, didn’t have such compunctions about using violence to further her needs. And if it hadn’t been for her, he wouldn’t even have slugged Jack Carter across the face in the first place.
    The deed still rankled. He didn’t like slugging people and now, in the space of forty-eight hours, he’d done so twice, the first time a woman no less.
    Granted, the wench probably deserved what she got, but still. It just wasn’t right. All they’d ever wanted was to get what was rightfully theirs, and taking Valerie had seemed like the best way to accomplish that simple goal.
    “How was I to know she’d get help?” he lamented.
    “She’s a young whore. They always get help.”
    To describe Valerie Lorgnasse as a whore didn’t seem right. While it was true she’d had her share of lovers in the past, she didn’t differ from most young women in that respect. And anyway, that was none of their business. To each his own.
    They were seated in Jeannine’s pea-green battered Peugeot just across the street from the Carlton, still reeling from the altercation with the young man who’d quickly turned into the bane of their existence.
    Jeannine, lighting her next cigarette with the last, chewed her lower lip.
    God, she was ugly, Rainer thought as he studied her from the corner of his eye. Now that she’d dropped all pretense to be anyone’s mother, she’d reverted back to her usual self, her greasy gray-streaked hair hanging limply around a pock-marked face, bushy eyebrows accentuating black eyes, and a mustache that would have done many a hipster proud.
    If she hadn’t been his cousin’s wife, he would have never agreed to the distasteful task, that much he knew.
    “So what’s next?”
    Her head jerked up and she threw him another one of her nasty looks. “What’s next is that if we don’t get a hold of the bitch, she’ll be squealing to daddy and then you and I will be spending the rest of our lives in abject poverty, lamenting the loss of what we could have had.” She closed her eyes and frowned, drawing together her twin bushes of fur. She tapped her head with her knuckles. “Think, Jeannie. Think!”
    While his accomplice thought, Rainer sat and stared forlornly out the windshield, thinking about his cozy little Paris studio and the painting he’d started but hadn’t had time to finish.
    It depicted a sailboat, and when ready would, he hoped, find a buyer amongst the many Parisians who lived for the arts.
    He just hoped his little stall near Faubourg Saint-Antoine would still be there when he got back.
    If only he hadn’t allowed Seth to drag him into this mess, he would be home now, finishing the boat and preparing to go out on his daily sales round amongst his friends, the pigeons.
    He looked up when movement attracted his attention. Two people, along with a dog, exited the hotel, approaching a waiting limo. His eyebrows shot up when he recognized them as Valerie and the man who’d declared himself her protector.
    “J-j-j-jeannine!” he stuttered excitedly.
    “Shut up, you moron. Can’t you see I’m thinking?”
    “B-b-but it’s them!”
    Her eyes snapped open and she eagerly followed his pointing finger. The girl and the Carter guy stepped into the limo, its driver, a bald, bulletheaded thin chap walking round to the driver’s side and getting in.
    “Start the car, you fool!” yelled Jeannine. “They’re getting away.”
    “Y-y-you