Dirty Rich Betrayal Read online

  I lay in the bed holding Mia, her back to my chest, my arm wrapped snugly around her, the electronic panels on the windows sealing out any ray of the new day surely upon us; the day Mia goes back to work with Ri. I tighten my grip on her and in this moment, I’m split between heaven and hell. Heaven is having her back here in my life, in our home, in our bed. Hell is letting her go back to work today. I don’t trust Ri. And I know Mia, she’s all heart and passion for those she cares about and I know damn well no matter what promise she makes me about protecting herself, she’s going to be tempted to put me first. It’s part of what makes her, her. It’s part of what made losing her so damn painful. She loves with all her heart and you feel it as deeply as she gives it.

  “You’re awake,” Mia says, and that voice, so sweet with the hint of a rasp, always undoes me, but then everything about this woman undoes me.

  “I’m awake,” I say softly, leaning in and kissing her neck. “You shouldn’t be. It’s still early.”

  She reaches for the remote and turns on the bedside light to a low glow before rolling around to face me, her hand settling on my cheek. “Please tell me you slept,” she says. “Because I did. I did because I’m home with you.”

  My hand goes to her hip and I pull her to me. “It was the best night I’ve had since the last time you were home in our bed.”

  “You didn’t sleep,” she accuses, not accepting my attempt at avoidance any more than she ever did. I mean how many times in the early days of our relationship did this woman look at me when I gave her a cookie cutter answer and call me on it?

  I have a brief flashback of sitting across from her sharing our first pizza and her asking me, “Why are you thirty-five and still single if your mom and dad were so happily married?”

  “I don’t believe in marriage.”

  She studies me a moment and then says, “I’m sorry.”

  I frown at the odd reply. “What?”

  “Everyone thinks your kind of money makes everything better, but it really does come with complications, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I find myself admitting. “It does.”

  “I don’t want your money or a ring. I don’t want to be bought. I just want to be here, right now, in the moment. It’s okay if you want to really be here with me, I don’t expect anything from you, Grayson. I won’t become a problem for you later.” She lifts the slice of pizza in her hand. “And this is a pretty good moment. Best pizza ever.”

  “Grayson.”

  I blink Mia back into view.

  “Where were you right now?” she asks.

  “Still with you, baby. I was just thinking about how good you are at calling me on my bullshit, even from the very beginning. That first night over pizza.”

  “Mr. I don’t believe in marriage because it means everyone wants my money,” she says, proving she knows exactly what I’m referencing. She laughs and sobers quickly. “And for the most part, they do want your money and your success. Ri is successful and wealthy but it’s not enough because it’s not what you have. Honestly, once I saw the magnitude of how much people want and want and want from you, I don’t know how you ever let me inside.”

  “You didn’t give me any other choice,” I say, stroking a strand of hair from her eyes. “You took me by storm, Mia, and you still do. Truthfully, it’s a relief to have someone I trust, someone who really knows me. You’re the only one who does.”

  “Eric knows you. You trust him.”

  “Not in the way I do you. Not with everything.”

  She sucks in air. “And then I left.”

  I pull her closer, driven by emotions only this woman drags from me. “You’re here now. That’s what matters, but Mia, I cannot lose you again. I was laying here thinking about how hard it’s going to be for you to step back and let me handle this.”

  “I promised you—”

  “I know, and I know you meant it, too, but I also know you, baby. You will want to protect me and you won’t walk away from the chance. I can’t be pissed at you for wanting to protect me.”

  “You were last night.”

  “No,” I say. “You read me right. I was pissed about you leaving. I was pissed that Ri is putting us through this.”

  “And that I let him.”

  “You’re human, Mia. I can forgive you if you can forgive me.”

  “That’s the first time I think you actually said you’d forgive me.”

  “I forgive you. Forgive me.”

  “For what?” she asks.

  “I did try to fuck you out of my system and I know you’re going to think about that but I wasn’t going to lie to you. I should have recoiled to lick my wounds. I should have fought harder.”

  “Okay, you can stop blaming yourself any minute now because I’m not blaming you.”

  “Let’s make a pact right now. It’s over. We’re together. We’re not going to place blame.”

  “And yet we’re flawed.”

  “We are flawed, Mia, beautifully, perfectly flawed in the way all humans are flawed. Perfect is an impossible façade to maintain. Love me for my imperfections, not my perfection, because perfection isn’t real, and real is what you wanted from me, right?”

  “Yes,” she says, her voice cracking, eyes watering. “That’s exactly what I’ve always wanted from you.”

  I lean in, my hand on her head, my lips near hers. “You got it, baby. All of me, completely me. Now,” I brush my lips over hers, “what are you going to do with me?”

  My cellphone rings at that moment and we both groan. I try to pull away and she catches my hand and presses her cheek to mine, her lips at my ear. “Lick you all over.”

  Now I groan and if I could just let her make good on that promise, I would, but I can’t. Not this morning. I pull back, kiss her thoroughly and roll away to grab my phone from the nightstand right as it stops ringing. I’m just checking caller ID to find Eric’s number when he calls again. “Eric,” I answer.

  “We’ll be there in half an hour. I just thought after you and Mia reunited you might need a wake-up call.”

  “I assure you that this is not a morning that makes me want to sleep. Stay in bed and fuck, yes, but Mia isn’t going to let that happen.”

  Mia leans over me and calls out, “Morning, Eric,” completely unfazed by the conversation—but then Eric is like a brother to her so why would she be?

  Eric chuckles. “Morning, Mia,” he calls out and she kisses my shoulder and rolls away, the bed shifting as she gets up and heads to the bathroom.

  “I need to go,” I say, realizing that I haven’t finished my talk with Mia over today and time is ticking. “Mia and I need to talk before you get here.”

  “Understood.” We disconnect and I walk into the bathroom to find the shower on and Mia inside.

  I strip out of my pajama bottoms and don’t even hesitate to join her. She turns to face me, naked, wet and beautiful but I’m not distracted. I pull her to me, turn her, and press her to the wall. “I will not let you go today if I don’t feel good about the plan in place. You will not fight me on this. Promise me, Mia.”

  “I never fight with you unless we’re alone and I’m not going to start now. I have no desire to end up dead. I’ll listen to what you think.”

  “Good, and if I let you go, try baby, try with all your might to remember your promise. Let me handle, Ri. Walk away so you don’t end up dead. Don’t think about me behind bars. I do have a shit ton of money and resources so that’s not going to happen. I promise you.”

  “You don’t know what he has on you.”

  “Mia—”

  “I promise,” she says. “I do. I don’t want to screw up and lose us again.”

  I cup her face. “Say it again.”

  “I promise. I don’t want to—”

  I kiss her and drag her with me under the water, wishing like hell I had time to fuck her this morning and she doesn’t make my willpower any stronger. Her han
d wraps the thick ridge of my now rock-hard cock. “I think I need to remind you just how right here with you I am, Grayson.”

  “Later, baby. We’re about to have a houseful of people.”

  “I don’t think this will take long.” She goes down on her knees just outside the spray, and holy fuck, her tongue licks the water off my cock and then she’s suckling and licking and pumping. I don’t even try to maintain my willpower. I haven’t had this woman’s mouth on me in far too long. My hands go to her hair and I hold on perhaps too tightly but Mia has always liked that part of me that can’t hold back with her, perhaps because she knows she’s the only one that does that to me.

  She sucks, and now I move with her, and she’s right, it doesn’t take long before I shudder with release, and she suckles me until it’s over. When it is, she’s made her point. She’s back. We’re back. And damn, it’s good. Too good to let that fucking little bitch Ri get in the way again. And he did get in the way of me and Mia, and for that, he will pay like I have not ever made anyone pay.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Grayson

  I finish shaving and pull on the navy-blue suit jacket with a light blue pinstripe which Mia insisted I wear because it’s her favorite. I stare at it in the mirror and only then do I admit just how much I missed the hell out of all the little things, like her choosing my suit, and I’m not sure I let myself admit just how much until now when she’s back. I couldn’t. I’d have lost my fucking mind and I was already hanging on a ledge and bloodied as it was.

  The doorbell rings and she rushes out of the closet in a pair of sweats and a T-shirt with no bra, her nipples puckering from underneath. “My hair isn’t dry,” she says. “Damn it, I’m behind.”

  “You also aren’t wearing a bra, so stay the hell here. Finish up. I want to talk to Blake anyway.”

  She looks down at her nipples and back up at me. “Do you really think I’d go out there like this?”

  I cross the room and pull her to me. “I’m feeling a little territorial this morning.”

  “Why? You do remember what I just did to you, right?”

  “With crystal clear clarity that will distract me frequently,” I assure her. “But right now, I’m deciding if you go back to Ri or not.”

  Her eyes go wide. “Back to Ri?” Anger flares in her eyes. “Grayson, damn it—”

  I kiss her soundly on the lips. “I’m sorry, baby. I told you. I’m feeling territorial this morning. I know you were never with him. I just need to get past today and get you back home with me.”

  Her hand flattens over my heart. “I’ll be back home with you and not soon enough for me.” She pushes to her toes and kisses me. “I’ll wait here until you’re ready for me and if you don’t feel good about today, we’ll figure out what to do.”

  I cover her wet hair with my hand and kiss her again, but this time, it’s a deep, drink-her-in kiss. “I love you, baby,” I say, knowing damn well she wants to fight me over today but she knows me enough to know that now isn’t the time to do that. Mia was right when she said she saves our fights for private moments, and as the doorbell rings again, we’re both reminded that this isn’t one of them.

  “I’ll come get you,” I say, releasing her and heading for the other room.

  By the time I’m at the front door, tension is radiating like a pulse down my spine. I open the door and Eric arches a brow at my slow response but like Mia, he and I have a history and not just with each other, with Ri, too. We all went to school together for a year before Eric changed schools and then went into the military. Now, years after leaving his family fortune behind, Eric is my best friend, confidant, and damn near a billionaire, by his own making.

  I back up and allow him to enter. Adam and a brunette female in a skirt and blouse follow with Blake on their heels. Blake stops to talk to me as I shut the door. The rest of the group follows Eric into the apartment. “Who’s the woman?” I ask.

  “My wife, Kara, who’s ex-FBI. We arranged to have her sent to Ri’s office as a temp today. She’s reporting to Mia’s floor and I promise you this, she’s lethal. I was undercover when she met me. She thought I was the enemy and she drugged me and left me flat on my ass. Not a moment I’m proud of but the point is, she knows how to get the job done.”

  “Or you don’t,” I counter.

  He laughs. “Fuck, man, you had to take the shot, right?”

  “Had to,” I assure him.

  His eyes meet mine. “As an added bonus, you know that the thing I cherish most in this world is with your woman.”

  “Keep talking,” I say.

  “We can’t know that Ri didn’t have Mia followed. He could know she was with you this weekend. I couldn’t send Mia in there without knowing I had someone who would kill for her within reach. And Kara would.”

  “How much risk do you think there is to Mia?”

  “I dug up enough on Ri to know that he’s capable of just about anything.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning he didn’t scrub his data as far back as he should have. Five years ago, he was communicating with a mob affiliate named Rosemond, a man whose people will kill, smear, wound, and repeat for the right price, and he was doing it to win a case. You don’t use someone like that guy and not have a really nasty side yourself and you don’t connect yourself to Rosemond and walk away. I don’t trust Ri. I don’t want Mia near him, and yes, I considered telling you to pull her out of this completely.”

  “But you aren’t. Why?”

  “Pulling her abruptly doesn’t just get Ri’s attention and get him accelerating his efforts to take you down. It places attention on her. I’m going to tell you a story I tell very few and while some might consider it a poorly timed story, I do not, and I’ll explain why after I tell it. Before Kara, I was engaged. I was undercover and so was Whitney, my fiancée. The man, the leader of a drug cartel, not only figured out I was ATF, he figured out that Whitney was everything to me. He killed her and she bled out in my arms.”

  His confession punches me in the chest and I turn away from him, pressing my hand on the door, a reaction I wouldn’t normally allow anyone to see, but, “Fuck, Blake,” I murmur, forcing myself back off that wall and to face him. “Tell me you killed him.”

  “That’s a long, complicated story, but do you get what I’m telling you?”

  “If he believes she’s back with me, he’ll see her as a weapon to use against me. I’m crystal clear on the point you’ve made. You better fucking protect her.”

  “I will,” he replies.

  I look up to find Kara standing a few feet away. “I’ll protect her,” she says. “I need to talk to her and help her with the wire. I need to come up with a plan of action for every possible scenario and Adam is working as a janitor in the building. He’ll be right there with us.”

  I have to let Mia go to Ri today and it’s killing me, but I’ll never be captive like this again. I turn to Blake. “Make this count. Let me repeat what I told Adam, just to be clear. End him. I don’t mean dead. That’s too good for him. I want him to self-destruct. I want him to lose everything.”

  “And he will,” Blake promises, “but you need to be removed from the process. It can’t be about you, and my reason is this: If he’s in bed with these gangsters I’ve connected him to and you take him down, you hurt their bank account. You don’t want to cut the head off a snake to watch it grow another. You get the two of them fighting and they forget about you.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “Where are you going with this?”

  “We make sure Ri pisses off Rosemond. While Ri is playing defense, we make sure law enforcement raids his office on a matter related to Rosemond and just happen to find proof he set you up.”

  “What proof?” I ask.

  “That’s the hole,” Blake says. “We need proof.”

  “Adam and Kara will place bugs in and around his office,” Blake says. “But the only one who may be able to ge
t close enough to Ri, to get real proof, is Mia. We need to know what role you want her to play.”

  “Mia’s going to do her job and keep Ri in his happy zone. You get the damn proof yourself. That’s what I’m paying you for.” I start walking, pissed off that he just suggested Mia put herself on the line at all after he just told me about Whitney being murdered. “You want to meet Mia, Kara, come now.”

  I don’t wait on her. I keep tracking forward and when I reach the bedroom she’s on my heels. “Whatever you think Blake just suggested,” Kara says. “He didn’t.”

  I turn to face her. “It sounded like he wants Mia to fuck her way to finding that proof for me.”

  “No,” Kara says. “He just asked your decision on her involvement. Everyone is not you. Everyone doesn’t put their woman before themselves. That you do only makes me want to help you and protect her all the more. Blake feels the same, I promise you.”

  “Protect Mia above all else. I don’t care if I rot in jail for crimes I didn’t commit. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” Kara says. “I do. I’ll protect Mia. You have my word.” Her eyes lift to my shoulder and I realize then that Mia has opened the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Mia

  Protect Mia at all costs.

  Grayson’s words linger in the air as I step to his side and face the woman who’s in front of him, who I assume works for Blake Walker. “And I’d ask you to protect him over me at all costs,” I say, my hand going to Grayson’s arm, and just being able to touch him again is like heaven on earth. “I guess,” I add, “that’s called love, right?” I turn to Grayson, push to my toes and kiss him.

  He pulls me to his hip and stares down at me. “Most definitely love,” he says, his voice low gravely, affected, and then without looking away he adds, “This is Kara, Blake’s wife, and an ex-FBI agent who will be undercover as a temp in Ri’s office today.”

  “Kara,” I say, reluctantly pulling away from Grayson to turn and face her before offering her my hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “A great pleasure to meet you, Mia. And right now, I need to get you wired.” She indicates a roller bag she’s grabbed on the heels of following me. “I have your clothes, as well. Hopefully, I chose well.” She looks at Grayson. “Can Mia and I have a few minutes?”