Page 39 of My Fake Billionaire Damaged Boyfriend

“Nothing,” I say, a breezy lie that he doesn’t buy for a second. “Fine, okay? You’re killing me, Dimitri. It’s just that… well, he offered me money to make him a new device like mine, but different.”

“What do you meandifferent?”

My throat catches a knot. “He wants my work, but he can’t control it well. He wants to be able to tinker with the code that I created. I had specifically put a safeguard on it to prevent this kind of greed. I guess he’s not happy about that.”

“You’re not making that for him, Izzy. Not by a long shot.”

I swallow hard and attempt to cover my tracks, but I fail miserably. “No, no I w-would never d-do that.”

“Izzy, look at me.” His strong hand comes to the edge of my chin and he pulls me to look at him, our eyes locked in a tense stare off. “You’re not going to make anything for him, right?”

For a moment, I don’t say anything.

When I do decide to speak, it’s something stupid that I probably should keep to myself.

“He’s offering me a lot of money, Dimitri.”

“Money? You’re giving up on our work for somemoney?”

“Don’t act like this is trivial,” I snap. “Money may mean nothing to you, but it’s everything to me. I have none, Dimitri. I am in debt up to my eyes and I can’t fucking breathe anymore. I have to do something. I have no other options. If I lose my job with Alek, I’ll need something to fall back on. If we turn him in to the police, then it’s over for his company. No more money there.”

“I can help you, Izzy, but I’m not so sure if I want to with you talking about giving up the purpose of this mission to fund your selfishness.”

I sink backwards into my seat with those accusatory words. “Selfishness? Really now? Well, fine. Here is my selfishness.”

I yank the flash drive out of the system; the screen goes black in a fluttering malfunction before coming back into view in nothing but light green code on a black screen. Dimitri looks shell-shocked at first, but it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m not going to play the good guy just to be called the bad guy for having needs.

My life is nothing without my job, and not having one isn’t going to pay the bills for my new apartment.

I don’t make it out the door, though. Dimitri’s hands clasp onto my hips and spin me around suddenly, the sensation damning. I seal my lips, expecting a kiss, but instead, I get something much more intense than a simple peck on the mouth.

His hand strolls up my wrist, along the inside of my bicep, before finding the edge of my shoulder. It tickles me a little, and I snicker to myself, recoiling away in an untamable laugh. He doesn’t smile, his fingertips stroking across my throat before settling on the base of my neck, the webbing between his thumb and his index finger pushing against my neck softly.

“What are you doing?”

He doesn’t break his intensity, not even a little bit. “I’m looking at you, Kitten.”

“Why? What is there to look at? I’m nothing to you. I’m a poor orphan from Oregon, Dimitri. Everything in this office of yours is worth more money than I’ll ever make in my life, and you’re mad at me for noticing that?”

“I’m not mad because of your circumstance.”

“Then why are you holding my neck like this?”

“Because I don’t think you understand how much it turns me on when you want to argue and storm away from me. You’re so damn bold, and unbelievably reckless, that it drives me up a wall when you think you get to walk away from me angrily.”

I feel his hand tighten on my throat, not in a warning of a threat, but in a promise of pleasure.

“What do you want to do, then?” I ask, watching fires ignite in his eyes.

His gaze narrows as he replies, “I want to have you first, and then set you straight second.”

“Good luck on either of those.”

“I don’t need luck,” he says, leaning forward with his lips brushing mine. “I need you to be with me. I will pay off whatever is holding you back, and then some. But you’re going to know how I feel when we’re done here tonight.”

CHAPTER17

Izzy

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