Quarterback: Bad Boy Sport Star Romance. (7 page)

Billionaire Bad Boy Biker Romance

Emma Jones

Copyright © 2015 by Emma Jones.

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. This book contains mature content, including graphic sex. Please do not continue reading if you are under the age of 18. All characters in the book are 18+ years of age, non-blood related, and all sexual acts are consensual.

London was filled with strange people. Long haired hippies, tight jeaned hipsters, banner holding protestors – and yet despite this, people were breaking necks when Daniel walked by. There was just something about his gait that was hard to miss. He was massive! Tall, muscular and covered in tattoos and piercings. From far he looked almost
menacing but upon closer inspection you suddenly realised just how good looking he really was. Dark skinned, from years of being out in the sun - he looked European, and not at all like the lily white boy he was a few years ago. Over the year he turned into a man, and he was sure people that he used to know well would walk past and not even recognise him. Sometimes, looking into the mirror, he didn’t even recognise himself.

His eyes shone bright blue, with specks of grey and gold throughout, and told a multitude of tales – as if each speck told a different story. His tattoos covered most of his tanned muscular body. Certainly not an uncommon sight, but still something that made people stop and look twice. He had a presence about him, a sort of bad boy persona that seemed real rather than put on. Some youngsters tried to look this way by the way that they dressed, the words they spoke or the things that they did to their body – but despite this it was obvious they were just playing pretend. There was no denying at the ease to which they lived their life. Daniel actually used to be like this, but not anymore. Not after everything that have happened. With Daniel you just knew that he have seen some hardships over the years.  This seemed obvious by simply looking at him.

Daniel Brian Hayes has been home for just a little over eight months now, and he still couldn’t get used to just how easy it was to walk the streets. He half expected a bomb or a gunshot to go off at any minute and he was constantly looking around for signs of danger. He still couldn’t control the fast beating of his heart. The first two months he did not left the house. It just didn’t feel right.
He
didn’t feel right. He was worried that he might not ever feel the same. He spent those first two months holed up in his room, watching old movies over and over again numbing his thoughts and feelings. The better he knew the movie the more he could lose himself into the plot and the characters pretending that he didn’t exist. But eventually, he had to face up to reality and start living in the real world again, even though he wasn’t quite sure how to or even if he actually wanted to. He’d been away from home for three years. Three long and incredibly lonely years. At first his mission seemed important and he was honoured to go out and fight for his country. Qiranian was a foreign place in his mind and while he knew that he was going to be deployed in the middle of a warzone he still couldn’t quite conjure it up clearly in his mind. Back then he was actually excited by it all, assuming he’d come back with amazing tales to boast about to his friends and family. The reality was far worse than he could’ve ever imagined and every single day felt as if it might be his last. He’d left home with a group of six marines – all men that he got to know well over the years, men he considered his brothers. But their group had dwindled to just three and two out of the six, actually died beside him in battle. There was something so severe about seeing the light go out in someone – especially when that someone was your friend and someone that was fighting with for years against a war that had no meaning anyway. Daniel was wondering on countless occasions if there was even a point to the war – or whether he was wasting his life away for no reason. He believed in the liberty of his country and the outcome of world peace, he was a true soldier, a soldier with purpose, but there were times when he had no idea what it was really going on. And the more he saw, the more he felt himself retreating from the real world and human values.

Those years were a living hell, a far cry from his rather easy childhood. Back then he had a sense of wonder at the world – an excitement for the future. He couldn’t wait to grow up and become a man, a man of his own. Protecting the weak and fighting for freedom struck with him since childhood, admiring soldiers for their heroism. He’d always been good looking, even as a child, and people flocked to him easily. He’d grown up in an incredibly wealthy family too, and he didn’t know what the real world was really all about. He remembered how confused he used to be when people were sad or upset over the struggles of money. “Life’s not that bad,” he would think, since he was swimming in abundance. Of course, just because life was so easy for him didn’t mean it was easy for everyone else. A fact he, kind of late discovered in the worst way possible during his deployment. 

It took him a long time as a child to discover that not everyone had parents as wealthy as his. He simply assumed that everyone was the same as him and he couldn’t understand why some of the kids in his class didn’t have the latest video games or the newest clothes and shoes. When he went to a sleepover once he was shocked at the size of the house and kept asking why they didn’t have a pool or a sauna like his family did. He came across as spoilt – which, looking back, he obviously was. But who could blame him? He knew no other way of living. His parents loved him though, and simply wanted the best for him. They didn’t realise that giving him so much would turn him into someone that simply expected the world to fall at his feet. His parents were devastated when they found out that he was going to fight in the war. They saw no point in doing so. As a marine he was going to be based both at sea and land, and they were frightened by the prospect of losing their only child. Little did they all realise at the time that it wouldn’t be Daniel that would be the one to die. Daniel and his parents kept in touch as often as possible while he was away. He knew how much they were worried about him and so he tried to call them at every opportunity that he got. Sometimes this was as often as twice per week, but sometimes it was only twice a month – it all depended on where he was and what he was doing at the time. He also wrote to them every few months and the letters became almost like a diary to him. But only two years after he left home his parents were involved in a car accident and died on impact. Unfortunately Daniel was out at sea at the time and only found out about it two weeks later. The phone call came from the accountant – trying to assort his parent’s wealth. He was devastated by the news and especially by the fact that he was stuck there in the middle of nowhere. Nevertheless he requested a turnaround for him. But it was only another year until he would finally find himself on his way home. A full year to fight for his country and to lose more friends along the way. He tried to grieve but he found himself lost in the war, unable to think about anything but what was happening at that present moment. It was only when he got back home that he realised he never took the time to really think about it all.

The moment he stepped into the mansion it was as if a wave of reality hit him in the face. The house had been closed up for a full year and smelled of dust and damp. But even through that musky smell he could still make out the scent of his parents and of his childhood. It lingered in every item, on every picture and in every piece of furniture. It was hard to ignore.

For the first two months he simply did nothing more than watch TV. Then in the third month he finally allowed himself to almost shed a tear, wiping it dry immediately as if the whole world was watching the soldier being ‘sensitive’, shutting his emotions down again. Then in the fifth month he cleaned out the house, keeping all the memories that were important to him while still creating a new space that was his own. And now, in the eighth month, he’s starting to feel a bit more normal again. A bit more like the man he used to be. Just a few weeks ago he found himself laughing at some comedy show that came across on TV. The sound of laughter coming out of his mouth surprised him and felt weird. Now, as he walked through the streets of London he felt a sense of strangeness wash over him – a sense that he did not need to take the world as seriously as he always had before – after all, as he got to find out the hard way, your life could simply end at any moment. There was a slight feeling of lightness about this, and the world suddenly didn’t seem as menacing and threatening as it used to.

Daniel, for a second, stepped back from his painful identity.
At this point, his despair was was peaked. For eight months he was locked in his mansion.
He reflected deeply and watched his life as if it was someone else’s. Post traumatic war stress and depression came into the surface, he acknowledged it and stepped beyond it. Took a deep breath hold it in and released it slowly with a slight sigh, he nodded to himself as if there was an internal agreement.

In an instant he took massive internal action up on himself, resulting in a powerful decision, backed up by great personal initiative to let go and start again, start following
his
joy and use it as a compass for the years ahead.

He was only twenty eight years old and he had no idea what to do with the money that was left to him by his parents. After a meeting with his parent’s lawyer, now his lawyer, he discovered that the entire mansion belonged to him, as well as three cars and all their money. The family business and investments have been sky rocketed over the last 4 years and accumulated enormous amounts of wealth. Their money alone meant that he was a multi-billionaire – an amount that was simply impossible to fathom. He sold two of the cars immediately, keeping just one for himself, and bought a large black motorbike instead.  He rode on the bike with a leather jacket the merely covered his tattoos that were reaching his neck and hands, he was aware of the image he was portraying to the world. But he didn’t care. He was determined to live fast and to live furiously – and to suck out every bit of life that he could. He didn’t want to be tied down to anything or to anyone. Well that was his aim anyway.

Daniel was definitely a ladies’ man without him trying to do so anyway. Well, he used to be anyway. Before the war he jumped from girl to girl, refusing to settle down into a relationship. Marriage, he thought, was for another time – when he was much older. Just before he left he made sure that he hooked up with every girl that came his way. Girls would just flock around him. He knew that for a few years he wouldn’t have such luxury of a harem, he was just having fun, especially because none of these girls were girls that wanted anything back in return. During the war, there were times when some of the men found hookers to be with, but for some reason Daniel had lost all interest in sex. He couldn’t get past the frivolity of it all when so many bigger things were happening around them. Now, he barely thought about women and had no intentions of meeting anyone for a while.

On this warm and blustering day, the last thing he expected when sitting down at a nearby café, was to be so effected the moment he laid eyes on a girl. But she wasn’t just any girl. She was striking. He had never seen anyone like her before – someone, that quite simply took his breath away, was it just her, or the fact that he was looking the world from a new perspective?

Layla Bethany was truly beautiful, even though she didn’t quite believe this herself – but of course that simply added to her beauty. She moved through the world with such effortless grace that it was hard to imagine anything in her life being difficult. That’s why it came as such a surprise when people discovered that her engagement with the Paul was over. What’s worse was that the wedding was only five months away. The venue was booked, a dress was in the process of being made and invitations have already been sent out. For once in her life Layla cursed herself for being so organised.

Layla and Paul looked postcard perfect – like the two of them had just stepped off the covers of a glossy magazine. They were almost shiny. When Layla first met Paul she wasn’t interested in him at all. He was simply too perfect – as crazy as that might sound to some. Muscular, but not overly built, his body resembled that of someone that put in a lot of effort to get it that way but in a way that seemed like he almost didn’t do anything at all.  His hair was dark brown - neither too light nor too dark, neither too curly nor too straight – and not a grey strand in sight. His teeth were white and straight and his eyes were a beautiful shade of milky chocolate goodness. He was a chartered accountant, drove a good car, owned his own house and was well versed in movies and books. Quite frankly, he was ‘a perfect specimen’ – a term Layla adopted from the early stages of their relationship. Yet despite all this perfection, she found herself bored by him. There was no uniqueness in him and extremely predictive. He fancied Layla the moment he met her and tried desperately to get her to feel the same. But it took months before she finally caved in and gave him a chance. It took about five dates for her to finally kiss him, fifteen dates for her to finally sleep with him, and two years for her to say yes to his proposal. By then even she had to admit that she admired his never ending mission to be with her.

She became swept away by the romantic notion that someone liked her this much and slowly she started to like him back. Throughout the relationship though she wasn’t quite sure if it was the idea of him that appealed more to her than Paul himself. And often she wondered if he even liked her all that much or whether he just wanted her just because she fit his idea of the perfect woman. But she told herself that she loved him and she truly believed that she did. Once, in a moment of panic, she told one of her friends that she wasn’t sure if she was doing the right thing by marrying Paul. “Are you crazy?” her friend replied in disbelief. “That man is perfect. You’re looking too much into this. You’re looking for fireworks and explosions – the type of things they describe in movies and in books. That’s not real life Layla. Trust me. And even if there were such a thing – well it wouldn’t last. Paul is amazing he has no flaws. He’s the type of guy that we’d all kill for. I say consider yourself lucky!” After that Layla tried to do just that.

For the most part she really was happy. Life with Paul was easy. The two of them got on well and they certainly looked good together. Sure, there were no fireworks, but they also never fought. When he asked her to marry him, Layla said yes and put all her effort into creating the perfect wedding. They decided to get married at Lake District, with its rolling hills, lakes and valleys it would have been the perfect backdrop for the big day. They were both born and bred in central London, and while they loved the busy nature of the city, the thought of getting away to somewhere so remote was appealing. Well at least it had been for Layla. Paul wanted to get married in a big chapel near his home – void of beauty it offered nothing more than convenience. Layla wanted some romance, a spark. She wanted grandeur and a sense of adventure. It was one special day that she would remember forever and she wanted it to be perfect, after all they were the perfect couple. It took a lot of convincing but eventually she got her way and everything was finalised and booked.

Everything flipped around as things changed and the wedding was off. Despite this, Layla couldn’t bear to cancel the plans. The wedding venue she booked included a glass chapel so that while the two of them were getting married they could still see the scenery around them. Layla simply wasn’t ready to give up that dream, she was in a desperate need of an excitement in her life.

Layla have always been incredibly strong and independent. She knew what she wanted and she was always willing to go out and get it no matter what the cost. So it was no surprise to find herself wanting to get Paul back, even though
he
was the one that called everything off. Perhaps if she had been the one that called it off it would’ve been different. But the feeling that she had given up so much, risked so much simply to be with Paul, only to see it all fall down the drain – well it was all just too much for her. “But why?” she asked, when Paul delivered the news, her voice an octave higher than normal. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, waking up from a fitful night’s rest when Paul suddenly decided to call the wedding off.

There had been no mention of it before and nothing to make her suspect that this might happen. At first she thought he was joking but after taking one look at his face she knew that he meant business. Paul sighed, taking a seat on the other side of room instead of next to her. That small gesture didn’t go unnoticed and Layla felt a pang of sadness take over her. “I just don’t think we’re in love Layla. Look, let’s be honest, you never loved me. Don’t try to deny it. I made you love me. I practically begged you to love me. You just went along with it because I never gave up. But that’s not true love and you know it. I always thought I could make things work between us and I was willing to do everything that it took, in order to do so. But then, a few weeks ago, I met a woman that made my heart race. Wait, sit down, and don’t leave Layla. I never did anything with her, okay. I promise. But it made me realise that the two of us never had that. I do love you, but I think what I want and what you want are two different things. I’m not running off to be with this woman. But I don’t know Layla, it made me see things in a totally different way. Just think about it. You’ll know I’m right.” And then he waked out, leaving Layla sitting there agape. Of course, she knew he
was
right. She knew that everything he said to her had been the truth. But because it came from him and not from her, she couldn’t quite accept it. The thought, too, that he’s met another woman made it even worse and she wanted nothing more to prove that he should rather be with her. All that would create a void, an empty vast void, and she knew it. What now? What to expect to make my perfect life up to the perfect standards again? What would I do now, without any exciting future? Back to zero? I was supposed to be the perfect wife. Said Layla to herself. She wanted it to end, but couldn’t accept it, the identity that was made by her social circle would crumble. Simply put, now what?

It’s been two weeks since that first exchange. Layla have moved out of his house and was now crashing at a friend’s place until she figured something else. She didn’t tell anyone that she hadn’t actually cancelled the venue yet – nor did she tell them that she was still holding out hope that Paul would change his mind. She knew how desperate that sounded and this was not how she wanted other people to see her. She barely wanted to admit this to herself. Her friend urged her to find another man to get her mind off everything – not the greatest advice from a friend to be honest. At first Layla refused, after all how could she be with another man after what had happened? Just the thought of being with another man repulsed her. She wasn’t even sure if she could be with Paul again, but she put that thought out of her mind. But lately she was starting to think that maybe her friend was right. That thought was seeded in her mind well. Maybe she should find another man. Not so that she could get her mind off it all, but rather so that Paul would think she moved on and suddenly want to be with her again. Surely this is how most men thought? They always wanted something that they couldn’t have. How she was going to meet this man, Layla had no idea. It wasn’t as if she went to clubs anymore. Most of her friends were either married or serious with someone, she felt left behind, everybody was moving ahead of her, family, career, and kids. And the thought of hanging out at a pub by herself wasn’t very appealing, she would feel that didn’t belong at all. The last thing she expected was to find a man today, at a little café near her house where she’d come to get away.

Café Cuisine was tiny – and offered without a doubt the best cappuccinos and chocolate croissants that Layla ever tasted. Over the last few weeks it became her go to place, when she simply needed time to think and get away, and of course, chocolate too! It’s been fine staying at her friend’s place but the two of them were so different and after a while Layla just wanted to be alone. So every day she came to this café, ordered herself the same thing and sat for about an hour just thinking and assessing her life.  She was staring into space when she noticed a man at the other side of the café watching her. At first she was surprised – this was generally not the type of man you see at cute little cafés. He looked like he belonged in a pub, and she was almost certain that the black motorbike propped against the wall nearby belonged to him. He was, in every single way, the opposite of Paul, and that appealed to Layla more than she thought possible. She gave him a tiny smile back out of reaction, she was caught out of guard. His look was deadly piercing, he could see through anyone, he held his gaze until he turned away. Then, with his head looking slightly down, she was able to examine him more intently. He was incredibly good looking, once you got past the rough exterior, and beyond the tattoos and the piercings, lay a handsome man – almost unbelievably handsome. He wore a plain white t-shirt, black jeans and simple black and white converse shoes. Behind his chair lay a leather jacket. It was all very much the look of a ‘bad-boy’ and matched everything that he was trying to portray. This type of look normally annoyed her. Layla hated it when people tried desperately to pretend they were something that they were not. But on this guy actually looked congruent – and Layla was assuming it was because he wasn’t pretending at all. This was a guy with stories. This was a guy that Layla could easily be with without him wanting anything back in return.

He looked back up and noticed that she was staring at him, and instantly Layla felt herself blush. She had been confident the first time but now she felt a sudden embarrassment wash over her. She smiled and looked down at her cappuccino, looking intently into the swirls that the coffee was making into the foam. When she looked up he was still looking at her with a smirk, he gestured for her to come join him with a commanding body language keeping eye contact, she couldn’t say no, it was as if she was ordered to do so, but she did it more than willingly.