BEG (A Standalone Billionaire Romance Novel) Read online

Maybe he doesn’t realize I’m still on the phone or something because he’s yelling at poor Brody and flinging around a few obscenities I didn’t know existed.

  “Tell Harry to go get my kid and take him home to Ashley. Then I want you to get Judge Masters on the phone.”

  Well, phew, if he has a judge in his pocket I feel much better about things. I know how bad it sounds, but now that I have money—Lucian’s billions—behind me, I won’t hesitate to use it in any way possible to get my way.

  “Luc?”

  “Love, ah, sorry.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll leave you to it and go wait at the door for Ben. See you later, babe.”

  “Ash, wait,” he says quietly, making me hold my breath.

  His tone is way too quiet and leashed for my liking, especially considering the ruckus he’s just made, so I wait, holding my breath.

  “Please don’t stress about this. I’ll handle it.”

  “I know. That’s why I love you,” I whisper before ending the call to run to the front door.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Luc

  Being the kind of man that I am—yes, a controlling, paranoid bastard—I decide to go to the school and get my kid. When I get there to see him waiting on the steps with the principal securely holding his hand, I feel a thousand times better and release the breath I’ve been holding since my woman phoned me.

  I know why this is happening, and the knowledge that my vendetta against Wesley Munro has caused this makes acid churn in my belly. I’d contacted his new wife, a very nice woman by the name of Priscilla, and told her the whole sordid truth about his abandonment and theft.

  Of course she’d been horrified, and by the end of the call I’d given her a cool quarter million to get her and her son started elsewhere and on the road to a divorce.

  Then I’d gone at the man like a shark scenting blood and ripped the rug out from under him. He no longer had a home or the fledgling landscaping business he’d sunk half of my woman’s money into.

  I left him with only the clothes on his back and whatever money he had in his wallet.

  Seemed only fair, since he’d royally screwed with what I consider mine.

  Now he’s out for revenge, and he’s trying to use my family to get it. Well, fuck him! I take care of what’s mine, and when it comes to my family he’d better believe he’s going to suffer for this move.

  “Hey, Luc, what’s up?”

  “Nothing, lad. I just thought we could play hooky and give Ashley another swimming lesson today. Maybe we can even convince her to let us have ice cream before lunch.”

  He babbles the whole way home, his little face excited at the prospect of cutting school and teasing his sister for the rest of the day.

  I watch him bound from the car and through the door with an enthusiasm that only the young can possess and follow him in, calling for my wife as I drop my briefcase and make my way to the kitchen, ready to soothe her fears and do what a husband should.

  Take care of business.

  The sight that greets me when I walk in stops me dead in my tracks, leaching the color from my skin and nearly sending me to my knees.

  Glass everywhere. The remains of the chocolate cake she’d promised me this morning littering the floor and smeared over the counter and refrigerator.

  Blood, streaking the bottom half of the kitchen island, looking suspiciously like the delicate handprint of my wife.

  I roar, long and loud, my rage unstoppable, knowing that searching the house will be useless.

  My wife is gone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Bright lights flicker over the pinkness covering my eyes, adding another excruciating layer of pain to my throbbing head and the sticky gash over my left eye.

  At first I can’t say why I feel this way or what the heck is going on. No, I lie perfectly still and keep my eyes screwed shut, waiting for Lucian to come and harass me out of bed.

  I’ll say ‘my head’s killing me’, and he’ll be his usual self and practically fall all over himself fixing me up or getting me to the doctor. For some reason, he hates it when I feel anything less than stellar.

  I can’t tell you why, either, since sometimes when I catch him looking at me his face is so inscrutable I could swear he feels nothing at all. Then at other times he looks at me in a way I can’t decipher, but…it makes my stomach feel all butterfly wings and nervous joy.

  Eventually I realize that this, all these rambling musings, are nothing more than my mind’s way of tricking me into a sense of calmness because I know exactly what’s going on around me, and none of it is even halfway as good as Lucian haranguing me to get up so I can cook him breakfast and kiss him goodbye.

  No, this is me trapped in a moving vehicle with the one man I’d hoped never to see again.

  When the hysteria that bubbles up lightens a bit—only through sheer force of will and the fear that he’ll know I’m awake—I crack a lid and squint forward, pressing my lips together as the enormity of my situation hits me.

  Wesley has me tied, hand and foot, in the backseat of a car expensive enough to have leather seats—ooh, soft and comfy—and is currently driving while listening to Chicago.

  Ironic.

  In this position, tied as I am—wrists to ankles—I’m pretty sure that he has nothing to worry about. Everything on me is numb and feels like concrete.

  Doesn’t stop my limbs and joints from hurting, though, I can tell you that much.

  The fear gets worse then, because I’m well and truly at his mercy, something that his actions thus far have pretty much proven he doesn’t feel for me.

  Let’s back it up.

  After Lucian had called I’d run to the front door and flung it open like an idiot, intent on waiting on the front steps for Ben. Silly me. As soon as that barrier had cleared the frame he’d been there, his face a mask of seething hatred and what I now recognize as his intention to harm me.

  “What are you doing here, Wesley?”

  He hadn’t answered, had lunged at me instead, and somehow my spazzed out brain had known that he was up to no good. I’d freaked and slammed the door, twisting to run and get back to the phone.

  Somehow I’d known what he was going to do—well, not known exactly, but I’d been terrified enough to bolt. He’d tackled me at the kitchen door, taking me down so hard we’d both flown into the counter.

  Things are a little sketchy for me after that, since his NFL tactics had landed my eye against the smooth marble and I’d been fighting to stay conscious.

  I remember fighting, though. And ruining the surprise birthday cake I’d baked. Sure, Lucian had known I’d made cake. What he hadn’t known was that I was making it to celebrate his birthday, something I shouldn’t have known, since he’d been so closed lipped about it.

  Luckily for him I have the memory of an elephant—a very svelte one, thank you very much—and…oh, who am I kidding, I’ve never forgotten his birthday, not once in seven years.

  Just happens to be this year I’m baking him a cake instead of drinking cheap wine and toasting ‘the rat bastard asshole butthead’.

  Now, though…now I’m probably halfway to death.

  “I know you’re awake, Ash, so you can stop pretending.”

  Sheeeit.

  I roll over onto my side with a groan and open my eyes fully, cursing beneath my breath when a family of rhinocer—is it rhinoceros, rhinoceroses or rhinoceri?

  Oh, whatever. The bastards take up residence inside my skull and proceed to mash the hell out of my gray matter.

  “I have something for your head if it’s hurting.”

  “Okay.”

  Shouldn’t I be screaming and yelling at this asshole? I know I should, but as he pulls off to the side of the road and turns to me all I see is the daddy I missed, the man who’d kissed all my booboos and held my hand the first day of kindergarten.

  I see the father I haven’t allowed myself to yearn for, and the thought brings immediate tears to my eyes. />
  “Here.”

  I accept the pain medication and water, gulping the clear, cold liquid with desperation and thanks when the coolness relieves some of the pressure behind my eyeballs.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  The ridiculousness of the situation, of our responses, hits me, and I chuckle despite myself, feeling that wave of hysteria washing over me. I should be yelling obscenities and trying to get out of the cable ties cutting into my skin.

  I should at least make a token effort to kick his face in before telling him what a jackass he is.

  I don’t, I just stare at him, willing him to see what a monumental mistake he’s made. Who the heck abandons his own kids for three freaking years and then comes back to kidnap one?

  I’m the freaking grown one! Shouldn’t he have gone for Ben?

  I know I sound so bad right now, but if he’d made a play for Ben I’d be at home with my family right now while the police worked Wesley over and threw the book at him.

  “Don’t look at me like that! You don’t understand any of this, you little bitch,” he grates, shoving me back into the seat before twisting and hitting the gas to get us moving again.

  “What? What don’t I understand! You left your family without a second thought, and now you’ve not only kidnapped me from mine but you’ve hurt me!”

  Lucian is so gonna kick your ass for hurting me!

  The thought comes out of left field, but it’s so right it makes me smile. He may not love me, may not like me most days, but I’m his, and Lucian always takes care of what’s his.

  When—not if but when he does find me…watch out, Wesley, because you’re in sooo much trouble.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you! I just wanted to talk to you…to get you to understand! But you ran before I could say anything,” he mutters, hitting the steering wheel with a huff. “You have to make him stop. Please, Ash, you have to make him leave me alone.”

  What? What the hell is he talking about?

  “I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about,” I hiss, scooting up and leaning into the seat.

  This upright position makes my blood rush back to my deadened limbs, and shit! It hurts a lot.

  “He told my wife.” He starts crying then, and I harden my heart against his quiet sobs. “He told her that I… She left me and took my boy. She took him away.”

  He… I gasp out a wheezing breath and shake my head forcefully against the bitter tears wetting my eyes.

  “You have a wife and kid?”

  Everything else ceases to exist for me in that moment, everything but the bitter taste of loathing and resentment. He’s crying about losing a son, about losing his precious boy, when he’s had one all along. One he threw away like garbage. One who has spent three years coming to terms with losing a man I now see isn’t worth a lick of spit.

  And then I see Lucian’s face. Lucian smiling at Ben as they romp in the pool. Lucian’s stern face when he corrects Ben’s grammar and chides him for being rude in my presence. Lucian’s pride when he introduces Ben as our kid.

  The bitterness recedes beneath a swell of love so fierce I realize I’ve been fooling myself all along. I love him, and not that generic love I felt before, or have fooled myself into thinking I’ve feel lately, but that all-consuming feeling of belonging that scares me half to death.

  Crap.

  “Yeah. And she left and took him. Then your…husband,” he spits the word like a curse and looks back at me with contempt. “Took all the money. He’s ruined me.”

  In this type of situation I would’ve asked a million questions to satisfy my curiosity. Not now, though. Now I’m just biding my time till my man comes to get me.

  Strangely, I don’t give a shit what Wesley did in the past or what he feels. I don’t care anymore. And as far as answers, well, I’ll get them from Lucian when he comes.

  My silence seems to have a less than calming effect on Wesley, though, and I cringe when he turns the car sharply and we start bouncing over an uneven dirt road leading into the woods.

  Oh, crapsickles.

  I hate the woods, have had nightmares about getting lost in them since the night I’d snuck downstairs and watched Friday the 13th by myself.

  I can’t even go camping, thanks to my illogical fear of meeting Jason, the machete-wielding maniac who just doesn’t die.

  “Uh, where are we going?”

  I so do not wanna go into the woods with him. It had worked out for Meryl Streep and her band of simpletons, but as far as I can tell I’m in a boatload of trouble when this car stops moving, and even if I manage to get loose and run, well, I am so far from survival-ready I may as well just stay with dear old Dad and see what he has in store for me.

  “You’ll see.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Luc

  I’m worried. Terrified, if I’m to be honest, because while I have a tracking chip in Ashley’s engagement ring—please, roll your eyes at a less stressful time—the blasted signal was lost an hour ago.

  We have a general direction to start searching, but I have this terrible fear that she’s in a lot of trouble right now. Time…I’ve never been this furious at something so simple before in my life.

  “Are ya gonna go fetch her now, Luc?” Ben asks for the hundredth time in the hour and forty-seven minutes since I’d almost lost all control of myself.

  After that initial roar of outrage…well, I have a son to think about, so calming down despite my feelings was hard, but here I am, calmly assuring my son while anger and terror blaze through me.

  I hadn’t lied when he’d run down and seen the kitchen and that handprint. Instead I’d wrapped him in my arms and promised him that I was going to go get our girl and bring her home.

  “We’re ready to move, sir,” Frank, my security man, says from my left.

  “Give me a minute.”

  When he nods and walks away I turn to Ben and get down on my haunches, meeting his stare head on. I find that he’s easier to deal with when you’re honest.

  “Yes. I need you to stay here with my secretary and do what she tells you to. Eat whatever she gives you and stay calm. Ash will need you to be calm when she comes home. Okay?”

  He nods, his lip trembling slightly before he firms it and stands up straighter.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The kiss I drop on his rumpled hair is all I allow myself before turning and marching out to the car, my mind already planning a hundred miles a minute as we pull away and leave the estate.

  “You’d better know where my woman is, Frank.”

  The hardened soldier turns black eyes on me and nods, keeping his own emotions under check as we race through the streets, trying to beat the sinking sun.

  “I have an idea, sir. We’ll find her. I’ll find him.”

  I smile despite myself and cast a sardonic look at Frank. The man is Ashley’s personal security and has taken her disappearance very personally indeed.

  It’s my fault that Wesley had gotten to her at all; I’d pulled Frank off house duty to get to Ben faster than I could, and thanks to that monumental fuck up he’s not only pissed at himself or Wesley Munro. He’s furious with me.

  Seems I’m not the only besotted fool panting around my wife.

  I could almost pity Wesley when Frank manages to catch up with him because, if I were a betting man, I’d lay odds that Wesley won’t walk away from that meeting fully intact. If he survives at all.

  It just depends on the condition Ash is in when we get to her. From the bloody hand print I’d say that arse is in for at least a kneecap and a few important bones.

  “Here we are, sir. We lost the signal here.”

  I look out of the window and squint at the landscape as evening settles, throwing everything into a shadowy darkness.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  Trees. Everywhere.

  Ash hates the wilderness due to some strange fear of a serial killer that doesn’t even exist. I know it�
��s crazy, but the thought of my woman wandering the woods alone, terrified out of her barmy mind, makes me even more crazed than the sight of that handprint did.

  “Find her fucking now,” I growl, feeling my muscles tense with every minute that ticks by. “She’s afraid of the woods, Frank. Our girl is terrified of these places. Especially at night.”

  I see his almost expressionless face harden, maybe enough to match my own violent emotions before Harry comes to a stop, pointing out an almost hidden dirt road.

  “You want me to keep going, boss?”

  I want to crack a smile at that Bostonian tough guy accent but refrain when Frank leaves the car and jogs to the road. He comes back a minute later, smiling so savagely I feel an icy draft creep down my spine.

  “Fresh tracks. Let’s go. We go in on foot.”

  My two thousand dollar shoes protest violently as I vault out of the car and follow him at a dead run while he hisses commands into his phone, his pace never slowing as we crash through the tree line, keeping adjacent to the road.

  “Sloan says there should be a cabin about two miles up ahead.”

  I grunt in answer and keep going, sweating buckets despite the chill in the air.

  Minutes, hours later, I crash into Frank’s back when he stops, his eyes scanning our surroundings. A derelict cabin stands up ahead, the place a dark hovel that makes no sound, no signs of life as we creep closer.

  “It looks abandoned.”

  Good. That motherfucker better hope he doesn’t have my woman stashed in that piece of shite lean-to. If he has…well, I can’t say for certain if I’ll be able to keep my civilized mien in the face of finding my baby in that filthy hole.

  Ten minutes later and after a team of ten—men I hadn’t even known were there, they are so silent—sweep the cabin and the surrounding area, I almost wish Wesley had had the balls to put my woman in there.

  “Empty. Fuck.”

  ***

  Ash

  “Please, Jesus, don’t let him get me.”

  Darkness. Everywhere. Surrounding me. Pushing down on me like a living blanket that suffocates me with every inhalation I can stutter through my constricted chest.