Page 5 of Bad Boy Billionaire Protector

Checking my watch, I could see that if I didn’t hurry I was going to be late for my next appointment, which was two towns away at Java the Hut coffee shop. I slipped the invitation into my folio and headed out of the Classics building to my car, a black Maserati Grecale SUV. It was cold outside so I turned on the heated seats and put the car into drive. Luckily, traffic was not too congested, so after driving for fourty minutes, I parked outside the coffee shop and headed inside.

Andrew Cirkis was waiting at a table in the far corner of the coffee shop. It looked like he had ordered some coffee and a huge roast beef and pickle sandwich for himself and was eating the sandwich and reading some notes as I entered. He was a keen bodybuilder and was built like a brick shithouse. He definitely never missed leg day at the gym, and he was a massive unit of a man, who all the ladies loved. They frequently mistook him as being Irish because of his dark auburn hair and green eyes, something that he capitalized on frequently. I don’t think he had any Irish people in his family though, never mind being Irish himself. He just turned thirty and was two years older than me.

He wiped his mouth with a napkin when he saw me and checked his watch. “I didn’t know how late you’d be so I went ahead and ordered.”

I smiled at him. “Never let it be said that I ever stood between Andrew Cirkis and his belly.” I sat down opposite him and pulled out the invitation. I placed it in front of him.

“Looks like we’re on the right track with the Professor. I have one foot in the door already. He was gushing all over me when he gave me this. Told me that I had the right connections and made a big thing about my family’s wealth.”

Andrew picked up the invitation and looked it over. He whistled. “Fancy paper stock and lettering. They don’t cut corners, that’s for sure.”

“No, they don’t.”

“So, the professor has bought into your identity, Christos Ianthos, billionaire heir to a massive fortune. That gets us off to a great start.” Andrew smiled with satisfaction.

“It wasn’t hard. He was practically drooling when he heard who I was at the beginning of term last week. It was hard not to break character.”

“It’s not exactly a deep cover character,” Andrew scoffed.

He was right. Christos Ianthos was the half Greek billionaire son of a pharma magnate. He didn’t actually exist. He was my cover. The confusing thing is that I’m also the half Greek billionaire son of a shipping magnate. My real name is Mason King and I’m an FBI agent, sent to work undercover as a grad student in the Classics Program at Stanford. I was there to infiltrate a secret underground society and investigate a spate of suspicious student deaths over the past few years.

The higher ups decided I would be best placed to go undercover there as a grad student as I had the right background, and going undercover wouldn’t be too difficult. I just had to remember my fake name, and that my cover ID was the heir to a pharma company and not a shipping company. Hardly difficult stuff.

The tech guys had created a deep cover for me though, with social media such as Instagram, going back a good few years.

Because I understood Greek, given that my Mom had been Greek, and I studied Ancient Classics at college, the cover ID was an easy one for me to slip into. Although, Christos Ianthos was definitely more of a daddy’s boy than I ever was. In fact, I had royally pissed off my father when I decided to ditch my law degree and join the FBI. But I loved my family, and although I wasn’t following the course my father wanted me to follow, I still wanted them to be proud of me. My younger sister, Hermione, was picking up the slack for me by studying law. I didn’t get to see my family very often because of my job.

Andrew Cirkis was a fellow FBI agent and my partner. He was helping me run this operation by gathering the background intel, while I got to pretend I was a student.

Andrew took a bite of his sandwich and went back to reading his folio. I ordered a coffee and a fluffy looking pastry that looked almost too good to eat. I had a sweet tooth and couldn’t help myself when it came to things like pastries and cakes. It was just as well I worked out as much as I did, running five miles every morning.

I sipped my coffee and waited for Andrew to finish reading his folio. He looked up at me, his brows furrowing at what he’d just read.

“So, we have four suspicious deaths over the last three years, and all of them are linked to the secret society. All of them were classified as suicides but we suspect foul play. We just don’t have the evidence to prove our suspicions.”

“That’s where I come in. Oh, by the way, I’ve made contact with Adam’s girlfriend, Amber Valentine.”

“Oh? And?”

“I engineered a bump, shall we say, in the library where she bumped into me when she had so many books that she couldn’t see where she was going. You were right about her. She is really sweet and wanted to take me for coffee to apologize. We talked for hours and exchanged phone numbers. I’m going to call her tomorrow or the next day and suggest we meet up.”

“Christos Ianthos is smooth…” Andrew crooned.

I rolled my eyes at him. “She was a pleasure to talk to.”

Andrew nodded. “Did she give anything away?”

“Not really. She mentioned she had lost someone close to her last year but didn’t mention Adam directly.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Give her time. We’ve only just connected. She’ll open up once I know her more.”

I didn’t tell Andrew about the mind-blowing kiss that I’d shared with Amber. That would worry him unnecessarily.

A vision of Amber came into my mind. She was stunning with her long, almost black, poker-straight hair and bangs that framed her beautiful hazel eyes. She was about five foot six with an hourglass figure and the longest legs. Absolutely beautiful rosy, pink lips that looked like they wanted to be kissed. And boy had she kissed me. I remembered the shock that had spread through me as we had kissed. There had been electricity in the air as we had spoken all evening and into the early hours of the morning. She intrigued me and beguiled me at the same time.

I wasn’t supposed to kiss her. That hadn’t been part of the plan. I was supposed to just befriend her in order to discover what she knew about The Order and if she was more involved than just being Adam’s girlfriend. But I couldn’t help myself. She had looked at me with those exquisite eyes, and in that moment, everything else in the world disappeared. It was just me and her, standing outside her dorm room, and I just had to kiss her to see what she tasted like.

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