A Double Dose of Billionaire: Part Two Read online

  Copyright ©2014 by Rachel Ellis

  Edited by Hot Tree Editing

  I finally managed to wiggle my way out of the twins' sticky grasps.

  It had been a week since I moved into their house. They abruptly forced me to move in with them, without giving me a chance to go home and pack my things.

  They brought me to a store to buy some clothes after my first day at work, but most of the clothes were picked by them. The majority of them had a plunging neckline that didn't fit my tastes. I ended up wearing the same three blouses for the whole of last week, even wearing one blouse two days in a row because the laundry couldn't finish on time.

  The twins always had some excuse to keep me staying in the house: they were lonely; the movie hadn't ended; they needed someone to cook breakfast. They were lame excuses, at best. We spent most of the time rutting—that was the main reason why I hadn’t gotten a chance.

  It was partially my fault. I tried to find excuses for myself, too. I couldn't get enough of the twins, and the paparazzi were particularly de-motivational.

  Somehow, I convinced them to let me go one hour ago—it probably had something to do with my constant complaining about not having my stuff. They wanted to get Tyrone to fetch my things instead, but I was having none of that.

  I understood that, as rich twin billionaire heirs, they were used to getting everything they wanted, but there had to be limits to how controlling they could be.

  I told them if they kept me in the house, there'd be no sex for a week. I knew they hardly believed me—I hardly believed myself. And then I told them there wouldn't be any breakfast. My bargaining chips were laughable, at best. I doubted they really cared much for breakfast, but they sarcastically acted like they did and let me go.

  We had been in the midst of watching a movie when I left. I wondered how that movie ended.

  The paparazzi had dispersed from my house, and it was easy for Tyrone to ward off the lone, scrawny cameraman camping in front of my apartment block. I supposed after not seeing me for a whole week, and sighting me close to the twins' house, most of them simply gave up looking for me at my apartment.

  I took out my keys from my pouch and opened my door while making a list of things I needed in my head. The twins provided for most of my necessities. All I wanted to take along were my clothes and my laptop. I had some trouble figuring out exactly which clothes I should bring, though, and I definitely needed more than one pair of shoes.

  They had bought me a new laptop for work purposes, but I was still too used to the one I had before. Frankly, I thought the laptop I bought myself had better specs than theirs; although, the one they got for me looked way cooler.

  I shut my front door and turned around. My jaw dropped when I saw who was sitting on my couch.

  "Damien? What the heck?" I said, leaving my bag on my table.

  My ex-boyfriend was lounging on my furniture, snacking on some of my potato chips, as if he owned the place. He shoved another handful of chips into his mouth and lazily turned his head. His eyes widened, as if he just saw a ghost. "Scarlet! Oh, my God, you're back. I've been trying to look for you."

  "What the hell are you doing in my apartment?" Crap. I had forgotten to get my keys back from him. The twins left me too distracted.

  "Waiting. I've been coming here after work for the last week looking for you. Why haven't you been home?"

  I took a whiff of the air and had to stop myself from gagging. Damien had turned this whole place into a junkyard, with unfinished food and tissue paper left all over the floor. Did I have to clean up the mess this asshole left behind?

  Furiously, I opened my door and gestured to the corridor. "Get out."

  He stood up, spilling the chips all over my carpet without even blinking an eye. "I've been waiting all week. You could at least tell me where you've been. Was it the twins' house?" He showed me another one of those magazine headlines: 'Crawford Brothers' Mystery Girl Having a Baby!'

  Where in the world did these people get their information?

  "I'm not having a baby, Damien. And even if I am, it's none of your business."

  "But you're hanging out with the twins?"

  "That's none of your concern, either."

  "My calls?"

  "I blocked you."

  He sneered, "You blocked me? Why would you do that?"

  "Because you were an asshole, that's why. I don't want to talk to you again after what you've done."

  "I said I was sorry."

  Was this guy for real? "Sorry doesn't cut it. You slept with someone else in my own bed. And on my birthday."

  He parted his lips in shock. "It was your birthday? Damn. I’m so sorry. I was drunk."

  I put my hands on my hips. "Oh, really? You seemed perfectly sober when you yelled at me for being a controlling bitch after that."

  "Scarlet, I'm sorry, okay?" He walked toward me, stepping on some of the spilled chips as he came closer. "I mean, we can give each other another chance. I love you."

  He reached out for my hands, but I took a step back. I pointed to the corridor again. "Get the fuck out of my house."

  "Please, we can just... talk. I'm not leaving until you say yes."

  I grabbed hold of his shoulder and shoved him outside. "Don't come looking for me ever again," I said, before slamming the door.

  "Scarlet! Don't shut me out like that. You look so beautiful today, babe. Think about all we've been through. C'mon, let's give each other another chance."

  I realized I forgot something and opened the door.

  He spread his arms opens and beamed a vomit-inducing smile. "I knew you'd come around."

  I was so close to slapping him. “Keys.”

  “What?”

  “Give me your keys. I don’t want you coming back here to mess up my place.”

  “Really, Scarlet? Come on, for old time’s sake.”

  “I’m taking the keys back from you because of old time’s sake. Hurry up and hand them over.”

  “I’m not going to.”

  My left eye twitched with annoyance. “Give them to me, or I’ll sue you for trespassing.”

  He squinted his eyes. “You don’t have a lawyer.”

  “I’m sure the twins have plenty.” I felt bad using their name as a threat, but if I didn’t, I’d have to wrestle Damien to the ground to get his keys. I really hated the thought of having him in my apartment again. The smell of the place was nearly comparable to a public restroom. I had to clean this all up before joining Tyrone downstairs, or it’d be growing fungi by the time I returned.

  “At least unblock me from your phone. How am I supposed to get in contact with you?”

  “That’s the point. I don’t want to see you anymore, Damien. We’re over. Get that in your head.”

  He flashed me sad, puppy-dog eyes as he took out his wallet. I would’ve fallen for it one month ago, but I was too sick of his shit to care about how bad he felt now. “Not even a second chance? I’ll be here for you, Scarlet, not like the Crawford brothers. They’ll leave you after they get bored.”

  “Keys!” I raised an open palm.

  The keys chinked against each other as they fell into my hands.

  “I’m just warning you,” Damien said.

  “Thanks for your concern, but I don’t need it.”

  “See you around.”

  “No, thank you.”

  I shut the door after Damien made a turn around the corridor, locking myself in with all the bacteria he left behind. I studied the situation in front of me: the bag of chips spilled earlier, half-empty cup noodles on my coffee table, a couple of dirty socks lying around... I made a mental groan and went to the storeroom to pi
ck up a trash bag.

  As I was halfway done cleaning up, I stumbled onto something that made me pause—a pair of panties.

  They weren’t mine, for sure. I hadn’t seen them before, and the pink frills and the see-through behind indicated they didn’t belong to me. They might’ve been left behind by that blonde chick he screwed before we broke up, but then I also stumbled on a couple of used condoms in my trash can.

  I distinctly remembered clearing out the trash after we broke up.

  That Damien was a son of a bitch.

  ***

  “You have an appointment with Riesling Financial today at one p.m.,” I said to Riley. “I’ve cleared your schedule. After that, you’ll have an hour free before another meeting with the sales executive of Crawford.”

  I reported his schedule to Riley about once a day. Initially, I thought he didn’t pay attention, since all he did was nod his head while reading some other document of his. However, he always walked out of his office on time, without ever needing me to remind him about his appointments.

  “Okay, that’s good,” he replied. He picked up a file from his desk and glanced through it briefly. “Summarize these documents for me. I need them for the meeting, but I don’t have time to read through all of them.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  We kept a professional relationship in the office, most of the time. Sometimes, he’d spring out of the normal routine—pun intended—and I’d find myself sucking his private parts. But other than the occasional instance, Riley was serious about his work.

  He looked so amazingly sexy when he got serious like that.

  “Is that all, sir?” I kept up the formalities, calling him ‘sir’ at the office, but when the doors were closed, and we were left alone—with Ryan, of course—I’d begin screaming out his name. Sometimes the twins decided to get naughty, coming up with their dominant-submissive play, and then 'sir' would return to my vocabulary once more.

  “Actually, no. Tyrone told me about yesterday. He said you spent quite long in your apartment.”

  “And is that a problem?” I crossed my arms. I didn’t like them butting into my affairs so much. Sure, I lived in their house and cooked breakfast for them, but we haven’t made anything official yet. We maintained a sex-buddy status quo… for now.

  He leaned forward and propped his elbows onto the desk, crossing his fingers together. “I’m your boss.”

  “And… what does that have to do with anything?”

  “As the boss of this company, it’s my job to know the whereabouts of my employees.”

  I sighed, not buying his half-assed argument, but answering anyway. “I was cleaning up the apartment.”

  He raised a brow, indicating he didn’t believe me. “For so long? I didn’t know you were such a messy person, to leave so much junk behind.”

  I scowled at him. I wasn’t exactly a neat freak, but I had standards and left things reasonably clean. “It wasn’t me. My ex-boyfriend came in and made a mess of the whole place. That slob. I had a week’s worth of his crap to clean up.”

  The teasing expression of his face immediately fell. His lips pressed into a hard line, and the look he had turned into one of deep annoyance. “You never told us you had an ex-boyfriend.”

  I gave out a laugh of disbelief. “I’ve had plenty, thank you.”

  Irritated, Riley let out a rough noise. “What was he doing in your apartment?”

  “Begging for us to get back together, like a sorry piece-of-shit.” The thought of me ever kissing that unsympathetic asshole again sent a shiver of disgust through my gut.

  “We can send him away, you know, through legal or illegal means.” He then brightened up a bit. “Speaking of which, we’ve gotten that issue with your ex-boss settled.”

  “What issue?”

  “He punched you in the face, remember?”

  “Oh, yes, that.” I’d nearly forgotten about that. Riley’s ice pack was surprisingly effective; the bruise lightened so much, I barely noticed its presence after the first day.

  “Kristie helped us take some photos when you were sleeping for some evidence,” Riley continued, “but we decided the court would go too easy on him and settled for easier, less-troublesome, non-legal means.”

  He spoke nonchalantly, which was probably the reason why he seemed even more dangerous. “You really don’t have to,” I said, waving my hand to dismiss his idea. “I’ve already settled that. I sent his wife a picture of him cheating on her. That’ll teach him his lesson.”

  Surprised, he said, “Oh? You never mentioned that. It’s a little too late now. He got fired from his job yesterday.”

  I felt bad for my ex-boss.

  For, like, two seconds.

  That asshole deserved every last bit of what happened to him. He fired me for not letting him get into my pants. The twins had simply given him what he’d been dishing out to his staff the last few years.

  I grinned, knowing I shouldn’t have been that sadistically happy, but not caring anyway. “How did you manage to do it?” Why bother asking? The Crawford brothers must have had strings attached all over the place.

  “Another one of our subsidiary companies has dealings with your old firm. We called them up, offered a nice deal, and they snatched it. I just added in a word about having a grudge with that scumbag.”

  “Nice.” I was doing somersaults in my head. “He totally deserved it. Thank you, by the way.”

  “No problem.” He went back to flipping through his files. “One more thing. I’m heading off to Paris this week for a four-day conference. Wednesday to Saturday. Schedule that in for me.”

  Paris? That was the first I heard of it. “Is Ryan going along with you?”

  “Yes.” He continued to read his files—how he managed to keep up with the conversation while talking boggled me. He was definitely more unsociable when busy, but being able to talk while not getting distracted needed a god-like level of multitasking skills.

  “And I’ll still be living in your house?”

  “If you want.”

  I mentally pumped my fist into the air, feeling like a teenager who had just gotten free reign of her house from her parents. I tried to think about all the things I could do in that mansion.

  Walking around in my underwear while baking brownies with their top-grade chocolate? That sounded nice.

  Not that the twins would have any qualms about my state of undress when they were around, but I liked having my reservations.

  He put the sheet of paper down and studied me. “Don’t go too crazy.”

  “Can I invite people over?” I asked, knowing I’d invite Kristie regardless of his answer.

  He squinted. “Who?”

  “I haven’t decided. My dad, my mom, my uncle, aunt, cousins, my cousins’ dogs.”

  He faced me with a blank expression.

  Why didn’t he have a sense of humor when at work? “Just Kristie.”

  “Kristie is fine. She can come over.”

  I ran to his side and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you!”

  He returned my gesture with another light kiss on my lips. “Like I said, don’t go too crazy.”

  ***

  “Helena,” I said, “can you send me the report on the finances of our HR division by today? The boss is asking for it.”

  She shook her head. “But we’re not done with it yet.”

  “And is that my problem? We have work piling up, and this document was requested last week.”

  “We need an extra hour or two.”

  “You have a lunch break, don’t you?”

  “Yes…”

  “Use it.”

  Within a week, I’ve unofficially been given the honorable title of ‘Bitch’ in the company. In the beginning, I could feel their condescension as they spoke to me. They asked me to do the menial chores, like refilling the paper trays and making coffee.

  And then I realized that those were their jobs, too. I had reports to finish, emails to answer,
meetings to attend. Something was definitely wrong; I abruptly found myself piled with way too much work while my colleagues had enough time to lounge around and chitchat.

  Sure, the twins employed me as their secretary, but that didn’t mean I was at the beck and call of everyone else. In fact, it was my job to tell the other staff what they had to do on the boss’s behalf.

  Last Wednesday, some of my colleagues talked about having too much work to do. They thought I wasn’t listening.

  “Give it to Scarlet. She’ll do everything you say,” Tracey said.

  I had overheard their conversation. Believing I needed to be a little more reserved at first to start getting along with them, I tried to play it nice for the first few days. But I wasn’t going to let myself become everyone's servant. Tracey's comment had taken it too far.

  So I walked up to the group and glared at them.

  “What?” Tracey asked, putting on a front of innocence.

  “As all of you know, I fucked your boss.”

  Her mouth hung wide open.

  “But that doesn’t mean the rest of you can treat me like your little bitch,” I continued. “Let me make this clear: I’m fucking your boss. One word from me, and Riley will send you home packing.” The twins’ names really did come in handy.

  Shocked into silence, they looked at me with widened eyes.

  “So, no, Tracey. I’m not going to do everything you ask me to. Handle those documents yourselves. You lot should be the people doing everything I ask you to.”

  I walked away feeling more pompous than ever, not forgetting to take the last packet of biscuits from the tin.

  “We’re out of biscuits. Fill that up.” I turned around to smile at them, my head raised higher than usual.

  The rest of the staff had left the office three hours ago.

  I stared at the computer screen, the words of this afternoon’s transcript flying by my mind, none of them managing to stick. I glanced at the time on my screen’s sidebar. Nine thirty-six. The brothers had somewhat flexible schedules, since they didn’t have too many people to answer to, but their sheer amount of workload made sure they stayed up late for half the week.

  A finger tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey, what’s up?”