Page 37 of Railing the Billionaire

The image seared into my irises. I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t breathe.

Clearly I’d been in the middle of saying something, because there was no other excuse for what I’d been doing with my lips in the shot.

I followed the wide shape of Gabriel’s shoulders, down his thick biceps to where he’d clutched the counter so tightly his knuckles went white.And his eyes.

My mouth dropped and my belly clenched.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’d wanted to kiss me. If I didn’t know that he’d actually been glaring, I’d say he’d wanted to do a whole lot more than kiss me.

In another photo, we were on the sofa, bathed in sparkling light from the wine bottles above the fireplace. This time the camera caught the whisper of a smile on my face, and that same look in Gabriel’s eyes.

A fresh wave of heat crossed my skin.

It was a dangerously salacious look, positively depraved. His eyes weren’t merely hungry; they were ravenous.

Except that wasn’t true. Really, he’d wanted to ring my neck, not screw my brains out. Unless…could it have been both?

I ignored the flutter in my chest, along with the totally baseless thoughts that ping ponged in my head.

The truth behind every photo remained. All I had done was stage him like a prop. All he’d done was hate every moment. It was tricks of angles and timing that made us look physically closer together than we were. None of the explosive attraction that appeared in these pics was real, even if my body hadn’t gotten that memo.

Morgan was a miracle worker. She’d created magic from nothing.

I opened Socialface. A billion notifications awaited me, all about some posts I’d written after way too much alcohol last night—threats about the testicular extraction of one “Maximum Disgust.”

I decided that I would have to figure out how to lock myself out of my phone next time I had a drink, or maybe just not drinklike that again any time soon. I deleted the regrettable posts and uploaded tonight’s best pic.

And then at work later in the night, I wrote like I’d never written before.

TWELVE

GABRIEL

As I lay on my back, head and shoulders wedged into the cabinet under my grandmother’s bathroom sink, Jasper kept me company by lounging atop the closed toilet lid. He rocked his foot back and forth like a pendulum at the edge of my vision, the thick tread on the sole of his boot catching my attention every time it almost hit me.

“You really should've come to the beach house on Friday,” he said.

I grimaced at the thought. The last thing I wanted to do was spend my time trapped in the elements, away from my lab.

Jasper bumped my shoulder with his shoe, but he didn’t seem to notice.

The pipe joint loosened under my grip. Between thoughts of the impending merger and Layana plaguing my mind, I'd forgotten about my invitation for Jasper to meet me here this morning. When I’d shown up ready to work around Oma’s old farm house, I was surprised to find Jasper on the porch drinking lemonade with Oma.

Jasper sighed. "I know, I know. You couldn’t leave your experiment. But I really could've used a wingman on the sandFriday night, or company at the bar last night. Ended up getting bored, calling it early, and driving home.”

Perhaps alone time had provided him needed introspection. It was unlikely, given Jasper’s reliance on constant stimulation. I grunted noncommittally, applying deliberate torque to the joint. There was a looseness to the movement that shouldn’t be present.

I’d made the mistake of choosing a too-large wrench. I reached my hand into my tool box and felt around for the smaller version of the same tool. Even though I knew better, I’d been making a lot of minor mistakes this morning.

Last night’s disaster had replayed over and over in my mind—Layana’s insults, her defiance, her touch. Every moment she was inside my house had been torture, bringing out the worst in me. I preferred cool detachment, but I couldn’t manage it when she was near.

And every insufferable moment we’d spent together had been a waste. Layana couldn’t help me change my image. It was a hopeless cause. I needed to find another way to ensure the merger happened.

Jasper placed a wrench in my palm, the correct one.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You want me to get in there?” he asked.

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