A Forbidden Love (Eligible Billionaires Book 9)

How long did it take to rebuild a life? How many hours of service before Devon’s soul healed? Before he forgave himself for the damage he’d done? A year? That date loomed on the calendar and he still ached with regret. A decade? A lifetime? And why had the guilt hit him when it did? On the streets of Rio, just three months after the trial. He’d walked out of his hotel and seen a girl, too young, barely an adolescent, standing on the street corner in heels and garish makeup. Her skirt too tight, her shirt barely covering her breasts. She’d been waiting…waiting to earn money.

That one moment, that one visual, had ended him.

His hands slid through the cold Pacific and the surfboard pressed hard against his chest. After months of threats from the Russian mob against him and his family, and even attempts at violence, he’d left New York. He’d hoped leaving would pull the heat from his family. If they wanted him, let them come after him, far away from the rest of the Travati family.

That day in Rio. He’d been headed out to find coffee and breakfast, but seeing that girl ended the path he’d been on. The path he’d thought to continue down for a lifetime once the events in New York “cooled off” post-trial. The look in that girl’s eyes… She should’ve been snapchatting with her girlfriends, not turning tricks. That instant had flipped him from the self-absorbed playboy he had been to…well, he wasn’t sure what exactly. Now life was unfamiliar, unanticipated, and new. Devon scanned the distance, then paddled his board around to face toward the shore. His wet suit the only thing keeping him from turning blue. He sat up and nodded a greeting toward his neighbor Jax, another frequent morning surfer, who sat astride his board a short distance away.

Surfing as the sun rose was Devon’s meditation. The water, the waves, the board were now the constants in Devon’s life that kept him sane. He shook the memory of the girl in Rio from his head. His testimony had been about different women, in a different city, but the same type of commerce. Devon hadn’t known, not for certain, what Sergey had been doing in the nightclubs Devon and his brothers owned…but he should have.

Devon stared out across the vast, infinite-seeming ocean looming large toward the far horizon. Endless. The dishwater-colored waves reflected the May gray that took hold of Venice. No blue sky this morning. Just gray and cold. The water rolled. Devon’s turn for a catch. He tensed and started to paddle. Even after months of practice, he still sucked on a board, but he was trying. Every damn day he tried. The water surged and he paddled, willing his body and his mind to relax, to simply ride. The water swept under him with a cataclysmic, surreal force. Suddenly, like magic, the ocean was alive, pulling him and his board. He positioned his feet on the board and stood. His thigh muscles braced, his arms out to steady himself, his toes digging hard into the board.

Adrenaline surged through his body. The water rushed by and wind breezed over his face. No matter how stupid or awkward or bad his stance was, this moment of pure adrenaline-charged freedom was worth it. Thirty seconds of pure freedom. Maybe the only thirty seconds of freedom Devon experienced each day.

Clarity. His mind here. Now. Silent. The wind. The smell of the sea. The power. The magic. The pounding of his own heart. Freedom surged through his veins. Powerful and strong, until he slipped.

He always slipped.

His balance lost, Devon slammed into the drink. The magical force he’d ridden, but never tamed, whipped him into a barrel roll. The waves surged past him. He was a rat in a washing machine. Bouncing and clawing and praying for daylight and air. The wave finally passed, and bubbles flowing toward the surface pointed Devon upward. He kicked and broke through to oxygen. He sucked air into his lungs. Devon’s board floated on the water beside him. He grabbed onto it and swam in until his feet touched bottom. He stood, lifted the board from the water, and walked onto shore. He turned back toward the sea. In the distance, in the west, a sliver of blue cut through the gray.

There were problems in this world. Injustices. Pain. Unfairness. He’d been insulated from the pain in the world but Sergey’s trial had interrupted his luxurious lifestyle. Now he was no longer immune and shielded by a tower built of money and gold. He would never again
not
see. He had time, he had billions of dollars, and he had a burning desire to make changes in the world. To make changes within himself.

He peeled his wet suit from the top half of his body and let it drop at his waist. Droplets of water flew through the air as he shook his head. Bikes streamed by on the cement ribbon that wound along the beach from Malibu south to Marina Del Rey. Every morning as Devon exited the drink, runners and bicyclists already littered the path, getting their blood pumping as they started their day.

Wedge, a homeless guy missing one top tooth in front and a bottom tooth on the side, held down his usual corner of the sand. His bike leaned against a palm tree, and the basket on wheels that he used to haul his stuff during the day was emptied of his tent and blankets.

“Morning, Wedge.” It’d taken three months of daily greetings before Wedge had spoken back to him. Then another three months for Devon to get Wedge’s name.

A gap-toothed smile spread over Wedge’s face. “Saw you bite it. Came up from the drink sucking air.”

“Madre was a little mean this morning.”

Wedge tilted his head toward the sky, his eyes raking across the clouds. “Madre likes to shine blue. Suppose them clouds have her irritable just like they do the rest of us.”

Devon nodded. Four days of clouds sounded normal to him, a New York transplant, but then again, so did rain. Los Angelenos didn’t do weather. They didn’t have to. So when Mother Nature failed to grace them with perfect blue-sky, seventy-degree days, they tended to get cranky. And according to Wedge, that crankiness extended to Mother Ocean.

“You got lunch today?” Devon asked. He unzipped the tiny pocket in his wet suit and slid two fingers in to pinch the folded ten-dollar bill stashed there. But he wouldn’t offer it up until Wedge responded.

“Yeah man, the shelter’s having a big do today for us veterans. I’m good.”

“You sure?”

Wedge nodded. “You starting your new gig today?”

Devon cocked his head to the side. He wasn’t sure what Wedge heard or didn’t hear when they talked or what Wedge remembered from day to day. And he hadn’t really said that much about what he was doing. Devon had tried to steer every conversation back to Wedge, which hadn’t been all that successful. All he’d gleaned was that the homeless man had grown up in San Diego, served, and now lived on the beach. Details were scarce and oftentimes hard to piece together.

“I am.”

“Do good man,” Wedge said. He folded the blanket he had been sitting on and put it in a plastic bag.

“Thanks.” Devon hefted his surfboard. “See you tomorrow.”

Wedge nodded and continued packing his stuff. Devon waited for a break in the stream of bikes and runners to hustle across the path toward his place just on the other side. He let himself onto the patio and flipped on the outdoor shower to rid himself of sand. As he stripped off his wet suit, he turned back for a last look at the ocean. The sliver in the sky was now a swath of bright blue that slowly pushed aside the gray.

“How do you like the elephant?”

Ilana looked up from the dirt she’d just swept into a pile on the floor toward the chalkboard wall, where Amelia, her braids tied back with a bright purple ribbon, stood on a step stool. She’d drawn a giraffe, a dolphin, a monkey, a sloth, and an elephant smiling out from behind a sign reading “The Children’s Enrichment Center.”

“It’s amazing.” Ilana scrubbed her hands over her shorts. “And it’s a logo!”

Amelia smiled and looked from Ilana back to the chalkboard wall. “You think?”

“It’s perfect.” Ilana compressed her lips into a thin line. “Can we use it?” She glanced around the room, still barren of the art supplies that needed to arrive before the Center opened in two weeks.

“Girl, of course we can use it!” Amelia tilted her head to the side. “We own this place together.”

Ilana smiled. Without her friends and their mad set of skills, The Children’s Enrichment Center would still be a fantasy wrapped in a dream. Ilana put her hands on her hips and spun around the room. “I can’t believe this is happening!” She shook her head. Fear of failure clung to the edges of her excitement.

“Oh, this is happening.” Amelia climbed down from the step stool. “You have a passel of kids starting in a couple weeks. I haven’t checked the email or the voicemails today, but it looks like your idea is already a hit.”

Ilana took a deep breath. God, she hoped the Center was a hit. She and Amelia had signed their lives away to get the financing to open it. This art enrichment center was not only for the kids in Venice, but also what Ilana’s artist friends wanted. The Center could be a great way for everyone to make some money and make art together.

“It’s going to be chaos.” Amelia put the chalk she’d been using back into its cardboard box.

“But a good chaos, right?”

“Fingers crossed.” Amelia put the chalk box into a cubby next to the chalkboard wall where the children could draw.

“I’ve got to go by the management company. Last bit of paperwork
on the building.” Ilana grabbed the broom again and finished sweeping the far corner of the room.

“I’ll be here. Going to start setting up the easels in the art room.”

Ilana swept the final bit of dust onto the dustpan, dumped it, and walked into the small kitchen. She hung the dustpan and the broom from a small hook beside the door. She grabbed her purse and took a final look around the lobby. Her heart warmed. This was their business. Her and Amelia’s new business. Her phone buzzed and she slipped it from her pocket. She didn’t recognize the number, but she touched the green button to answer the call anyway.

“Hello?”

“Ilana Rashnikov?”

Ilana’s heart froze. Fear trickled through her blood. She couldn’t breathe.

“Ilana?” The unknown caller asked, a hint of a Russian accent in the unfamiliar voice.

“You have the wrong number.” Her fingertips tingled and her breath was caught in her chest. That name...how long since she’d heard that name.

“Is this Ilana Rashnikov?”

“I said you have the wrong number.” Ilana pressed the red button to hang up and tossed her phone onto the table as though it were a snake ready to strike
.

Don’t ever tell people your real name.
Her mother’s warning words crept through Ilana’s head.
Don’t ever tell them about your family, your father, where we once lived. Understand?

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