Romancing the Billionaire (7 page)

The way he said her name made her nipples harden. Her mouth parted under his and she fell into his spell. The flavor of him was sweet against her mouth, tasting faintly of mint. His lips were firm against hers, as insistent as his grip on her. When his tongue thrust into her mouth and then curled along her own, she moaned. Oh, God, he'd always been such a good kisser. He knew just how to push her buttons—

Violet gasped, realizing what she was doing. She was kissing the man she hated above all other men. The man who had betrayed her and left her, without a care in the world.

She jerked away from him, hauling backward. “No, Jonathan!”

“Violet,” he murmured, and the look in his eyes was sleepy with lust.

She slapped him across the face.

That got his attention. He pulled away, clearly surprised at her violent response. He released her and his hand went to his jaw. “My apologies. I didn't realize you were so unwilling.”

“I will
always
be unwilling with you,” she hissed. “You think you can just waltz back into my life and throw me into your bed like nothing has happened?”

The look in his eyes grew intense again. “If I could throw you into my bed this moment and know you would stay there? I would in a heartbeat, Violet.”

“No,” she cried furiously. “You don't get to touch me! Ever again!”

He raked a hand through his hair, clearly frustrated. “I realize we parted badly, Violet, but fuck. We were two stupid kids. Can't we be adults about this?”

“‘Be adults about this'?” She laughed, the sound hysterical. “You're the one pawing me every chance you get.”

“I love you, Violet,” he said quietly, his tone deathly earnest. No loud crowing of affection for Jonathan; just quiet, solemn intensity. “I never stopped loving you. Ever. I want you back.”

She trembled, her entire body shaking violently with the force of emotions swirling through her. “You lost my love when you abandoned me.”

He shook his head. “I was nineteen, Violet. What nineteen-year-old wants to settle down and raise a family?”

“You should have thought about that before you got me pregnant!”

He stilled.

She sucked in a breath. The look on his face was terrible in its bleakness.

“What . . . did you say?” He could have been carved from granite, for all the emotion he showed.

“I was pregnant and you still abandoned me,” Violet said softly, because screaming at him in the face of such stillness seemed . . . unnatural. “Don't pretend like you didn't know.”

“I didn't.” He sounded deflated.

“I told you I wanted to go home and start a family immediately. And when that wasn't clear enough, I left you a note.”

“I never got a note.”

She didn't know what to think of that response. “Well, you don't have to worry. I lost the baby a month later, so I'm not going to hit you up for child support.” All her anger was exhausting her. She'd carried it for so long, and spewing it now just felt . . . lackluster. She shook her head. “Look. I just want you out of my life, all right? Whatever we had between us died ten years ago. I want this done so I never have to see you again.”

He stared at her.

He kept staring at her for so long, utterly still, that she grew unnerved. “What?” she snapped.

“There was a baby?” The words were calm, flat.

“Don't start this game, Jonathan,” she said wearily. “Just don't. You can't reverse ten years of hatred with a bit of pretending, okay? So don't even try.”

As she watched him, he seemed to leach of color, the light, the intensity in his eyes that was so very Jonathan seeming to die in front of her. He sat back, looked at her for a moment more, and then turned to the driver—who, Violet was horrified to notice, had been listening to the entire conversation. “Hotel, please,” Jonathan said hoarsely.

Violet sat back in the seat, her arms crossed, her mouth still bruised from his kiss, and stared out the window as they pulled away from her childhood home.

Why did she feel like the bad guy here? She was the wronged party, not Jonathan.

N
ow he knew why she hated him.

Jonathan watched Violet march across the lobby of the hotel. He trailed behind her, just staring after her with longing as she checked in, flicked an angry glance his way, and then disappeared into the elevator.

Moving right back out of his life again, he thought bleakly.

He thought about heading up to his room and emptying the minibar. Just drinking away his misery. But the minibar didn't have enough to numb him. He headed to the hotel bar instead.

The bartender was young, pretty, and female, with a wealth of curly black hair. She gave him an appreciative look. “What can I get you, gorgeous?”

He sat down at the bar. “Scotch.”

“On the rocks?”

“In the bottle.” He tapped the front of the bar. “Just bring it.”

“Bad day?” She gave him a sympathetic look and turned to get the bottle.

“One of the worst,” he agreed. Second only to the day that Violet had left him. He took the glass she poured in front of him, slammed it, and waited for her to fill it again. He didn't normally drink to oblivion. He didn't like to have his senses dulled. But today? Today he just wanted to fucking forget.

There'd been a
baby
.

He rubbed his forehead. He should have known there was a baby. He should have fucking guessed. It made sense, now. Why his carefree, stubborn, independent Violet had gone from enjoying the summer to demanding that he abandon college with her and start a family right away. He'd been so goddamn dumb. So wrapped up in assisting Dr. DeWitt that he'd never even considered the reasons behind why Violet had been so upset and gung ho to leave Greece and return to the States.

She'd been pregnant. And she'd wanted it . . . and wanted him.

And he'd abandoned her. Hadn't even fucking chased her down to tell her that he wanted her. He'd thought she was married and out of his reach, but that had been a lie, a lie told to him by Violet's father.

Today, he'd lost everything.

He'd always thought of Dr. DeWitt as a mentor and a father figure. He knew the old man was a wily bastard, but he'd always admired his tenacity to get what he wanted. He'd trusted the man despite that, thinking that because Jonathan was one of his closest friends, there was a level of respect between them.

Turns out it was all bullshit. DeWitt had lied to him about Violet just to get him to stay and continue financing things, and he'd happily done so.

Meanwhile, he'd abandoned the woman he loved, who had been pregnant and afraid.

And she'd lost their baby and blamed him for it.

He threw back another glass of Scotch, then just grabbed the bottle from the bartender and started to drink.

Violet hated him. He'd been so fucking overjoyed to find out that she wasn't married, that she'd never been married, because it meant that somewhere, somehow, he could still make Violet his.

Now, that dream was gone. He couldn't fix this. He couldn't make her love him again, not with the shadow of a miscarriage—a miscarriage that was his fault—between them.

He'd lost her for good, and this time there was nothing he could do to fix it.

Jonathan chugged the Scotch. It tasted like shit, but what did it matter?

Nothing did. Nothing mattered anymore.

The Next Day

Violet flicked off the TV in her hotel room and glanced over at the phone. She debated for a minute, then called down to the front desk. “Hello. I'm looking for Mr. Lyons. Could you patch me through to his room?”

The operator connected her. The phone rang for several minutes, just as it had last night. No one picked up. He wasn't answering.

She was starting to get concerned. Not that Jonathan was pouting and ignoring her—she didn't care about that—but that he wasn't contacting her at all. She felt emotionally drained after her big confession, like a hollow shell of Violet DeWitt. She wasn't even angry anymore, just tired. So tired. More than anything, she just wanted to be done with him and go back to her nice, quiet life.

Weren't they supposed to be doing this stupid scavenger hunt together? Just sitting in a room in New Mexico felt like a huge waste of time, but what could she do? She was pretty sure that if she just up and went back home to Detroit, he'd withhold the money he'd dangled in front of the school and state that she'd reneged on her end of the deal. What would the school do if she cost them the money? They wouldn't be happy, that was for sure, especially the next time that budget cuts came around.

But seriously, exactly how long was she supposed to stay in her room and watch episodes of
House Hunters
while waiting on him?

She clicked off the remote a moment later and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Fine. If he wasn't going to answer her phone calls, maybe he'd answer when she showed up at his door and explain to her what the hell was going on. Violet slipped on a pair of shoes and tossed a sweater over her T-shirt, then headed down to the lobby.

She approached the front desk and gave the woman there a polite smile. “Could you please tell me which room is Mr. Lyons's? I'm working with him on a project and can't seem to connect with him at the moment.”

The girl at the front desk bit her lip.

“What?” Violet asked.

“I can tell you what room is his,” she said quietly, “but he's not in it.”

Alarm pounded in Violet's veins. “Where is he, then?”

“The bar.”

The bar? That didn't sound like Jonathan. He wasn't much of a drinker except in social situations. That was one of the reasons she'd fallen for him originally; he was a refreshing change from her alcoholic mother. Violet glanced at the clock on the wall. It was ten in the morning. What on earth? “You're sure?”

The girl nodded. “He's been there since I started my shift late last night.”

All day? Frowning, Violet thanked her and headed over to the hotel bar. The bar area was dark and atmospheric despite the early hour . . . and deserted. Chairs were flipped over on tables, and someone ran a vacuum over the carpets. Violet scanned the room and paused when she saw a booth in the far back still covered in half-drunk bottles. There was a pile of laundry on one corner of the table.

When the laundry moved, though, Violet realized that it was a person. Jonathan. Pursing her lips, Violet strode forward. She made a mental note of the empty bottles of vodka, the myriad glasses on the table with red stirring straws and residue on the rim, remnants of mixed drinks past. There were several near-empty bottles of Crown Royal, a few other liquors she didn't recognize, and in this sea of bottles, Jonathan appeared to be asleep, his head resting on the table. His jacket had been pulled over his face as if to hide it from sunlight. Her lip curled in disgust. There was nothing worse than a drunk.

She'd had a lot of experience with sloppy drunks. Her mother had been one, and Violet had spent her childhood making excuses for her mother's behavior. She hated seeing someone normally so vibrant and intelligent dulled by drink. It filled her with a helpless anger.

She reached over the bottles and snatched the jacket up. “Jonathan?”

He groaned and sat up with a jerk, peering at her. His eyes were red and bloodshot, his face was unshaven, and his hair was a mess. His suit was wrinkled, and it looked suspiciously like the one he was wearing when she'd last seen him. His gaze focused on her, and that stark expression returned to his face. “Ah, fuck. Violet.”

“What's wrong with you?” she hissed, throwing his jacket at him.

His mouth twisted to the side. “The better question might be to ask, what
isn't
wrong with me?”

She ignored that. “Have you been drinking all night?”

“Dunno.” He shrugged his shoulders and reached for one of the bottles with alcohol still in it. “Don't care.”

“Well, I care.”

He smiled thinly. “We both know that's a lie, Violet.”

She bit her nails, thinking. “Aren't we supposed to be going on to Egypt and looking for your stele so we can continue this pointless little scavenger hunt?”

“Like you just said,” he slurred. “It's pointless.” He raised his glass to her and then chugged it.

She drummed her fingers on her arm. This wasn't like Jonathan. Getting excited over minor discoveries? Chasing down adventures?
That
was Jonathan. This miserable drunk in front of her who didn't care? That wasn't Jonathan. If anyone could accuse Jonathan Lyons of something, it was that he cared too much and tended to get too wrapped up.

She frowned to herself. Actually, that wasn't always true either. He'd abandoned her . . . hadn't he? That wasn't the action of a man who cared too much. Unless everything she'd thought had been a lie . . .

Either way, she was his partner until they were done, for better or for worse. “Jonathan, please. We need to continue this. Not because I particularly care what little scheme my father has cooked up, but because I have students to get back to, and I can't until you release me. You're holding me here.”

“I wish I was holding you,” he said, and there was such bleakness in his tone that it made her suck in a breath.

“Very funny, Jonathan,” she said, hating that her voice shook. “You know what I meant. You have me here until we're finished with this, so let's get going.”

But he didn't move. Instead, he traced a finger around the rim of a dirty glass and then gave her a morose, red-eyed stare. “No, Violet, I don't think I ever had you.”

“If you're going to be like this, I'm going back up to my room,” she warned.

He shrugged, poured himself another drink in the dirty glass, and raised it in a toast. “Bottom's up.”

Violet stormed away, angry and confused. Why was he acting like this? What she'd told him had been no surprise . . . was it? Even if she asked him, could she trust that what he told her was the truth?

All of a sudden, she didn't know anymore.

—

That night, she called down to the front desk again. “Is he still in the bar?”

“He is,” the front desk clerk assured her. “We can't get him to leave. The bartender keeps slipping him glasses of water so he doesn't get alcohol poisoning, but we're starting to get concerned.”

“I'll be down in a minute,” Violet said. This had to stop. He was going to drink himself into kidney damage if he wasn't careful. She hung up the phone and headed down to the lobby, then made a beeline for the bar. Sure enough, Jonathan was still there in his regular spot. The liquor from earlier had been replaced by all new bottles. Now, it seemed, he was drinking tequila. He was upright—barely—a shot glass in one hand. The front of his Superman shirt was stained with alcohol.

He didn't even look up as she approached, just stared morosely at one of the bottles.

“Jonathan,” Violet said, moving to stand by his table and crossing her arms over her chest. It was her very best Angry Schoolteacher pose and never failed to make her students pay attention. “This has got to stop.” When he didn't respond, she reached over and grabbed his chin, forcing him to look at her. “Jonathan!”

Jonathan stared up at her, and his eyes were so wounded that she ached inside. “Violet.”

“You need to stop this. Seriously.”

His mouth drew slowly into a lazy smile. “Why?”

“Well, first of all, you're starting to smell like a bar. And second of all, this isn't healthy.”

“Does it matter?”

“Please,” she cajoled, changing her tone. Maybe if she tried a different tactic, she could get through to him. “You're scaring me, Jonathan.”

“What's it matter? You hate me, Violet.” The look in his eyes was stark. “You've made that clear.”

She felt a twinge of pity. “That doesn't mean I want to watch you drink yourself to death. Now, please. Come up to bed.”

For a moment, his eyes lit up and he stood up from the table, his tall body weaving. “Your bed?”

“No!”

He sat back down again.

Violet gave him an exasperated look. “Really, Jonathan?”

He ignored her and began to pour another drink.

She reached over and grabbed the bottle out of his hand, and he glared at her. “You need to stop. This isn't like you.”

Jonathan shook his head slowly, his messy hair sliding over his forehead. “How would you know, Violet? You haven't seen me in ten years. Maybe I decided to drink after you left me.”

She carefully pried the glass out of his fingers. “You said it dulls the senses, and you don't like yours dulled. I remember that.”

He shook his head, not looking at her. “I don't want to remember anything right now.”

Another twinge of pity. Damn it. “Jonathan, just come on. Let's get you back to
your
room and get you into
your
bed, all right?”