Page 39 of The Grumpy Billionaire

“Stella,” he breathes, back at my lips. He pulls me in, fitting our bodies together.

“Mmm,” I say.

It occurs to me here that he never did answer the question of whether he really thinks all those horrible things about me—instead he kissed me.

But a kiss is a form of communication that says “I like you!”

And Hugo doesn’t lie.

Screeeeeeech. My brain kicks in here. Thoughts start spinning. Hugo doesn’t lie! Which means he truly thinks those mean things that he said!

Did he kiss me to just distract me from the question?

“What am I doing?” I push him away. “You think you can mess up my career, insult me, and now I want to kiss you and whatever?”

For the record, he would be correct in thinking that I want to kiss him, and I very much want to whatever with him. But I’m officially out of my fugue state.

Hugo looks disorganized. Undone. Hugo undone is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I want to go to him and put him back together with more kisses and hand ministrations.

Hugo undone almost breaks me, but I resist.

I scramble out of there, clutching my last remaining shred of dignity.

ChapterNineteen

Hugo

I ascendthe polished stone steps to the historic and somewhat grandiose Gotham Club on East 64thStreet and head down the lushly carpeted hallway, still reeling from my failure of self-control today.

It was a colossal failure of self-control. Unforgivable. Shocking, even.

Try as I might, I can’t parse what happened. It was something about her scent, the tone of her voice, her high emotions, her anger, her chaotic attitude, her aliveness—all I know is that I was overcome with such a violent surge of lust, I barely knew myself. I watched myself go to her, helpless to stop.

And before I could think, I was pulling her to me, kissing her, unquenchable desire rushing through my veins. The deeper our kiss went, the more I needed. She tasted so bright and sweet and warm and good. And the sounds she made—pure Stella.

If I’d been a vampire, I would’ve sucked every last bit of blood from her—uncontrollably, mercilessly. Every last bit.

She was right to stop us. It’s a pretty sad thing when Stella is the one to put the brakes on an out-of-control situation.

And she was right to be angry. This situation with the letter—what the hell happened? Did it get passed around? Apparently so, and that is absolutely outrageous. I would send somebody to look into it—not in a nice way—but that could just result in them passing it around even more. I have to think of something. It’s not right, what happened. None of it.

I open an unmarked door and walk into a richly paneled room with a roaring fire at one end.

“Look who the wind’s blown in!” It’s Fergus, his Scottish brogue thick as ever. He comes and slaps me on the back. “Hugo Jones, thinking he’ll be taking our money. But it’s a new day, my friend.”

“We’ll see about that,” I warn.

I’ve been coming here every Tuesday night for years to play high-stakes poker with this group of men, or I suppose you could call them friends at this point. I missed last week working overtime, but I need to blow off some steam.

I hang up my coat, get my chips, and take my place at the heavy oak table.

I have to ante up ten times what the other guys do; it’s a handicap we established because of how much I win. They don’t let people like me into Vegas.

Maybe Fergus will make out tonight. Maybe all five of them will. I’m off my game already and we haven’t even started playing. I’ve always been excellent at compartmentalization, but my disgust with myself is clouding my mind.

Ronan takes the seat across from me. Even in this relaxed setting, the man has impeccable posture. Regal posture. Luther says Ronan’s some kind of minor royalty, and he looks it, from his tight, dark curls to his Roman nose to the precise, confident way he moves.

Cooper hands me a scotch. “How’s the top-secret data model going?”

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