Filthy Rich Read online

  Noah headed back to the table and a hand clapped me on the shoulder. It was Alex, coming to the bar to get his own drink.

  “I like her,” he said to me without preamble. “She’s cool.”

  “Good, because she’s going to know everything you know about Tower VC. Probably more.”

  “Fine with me.” Alex shrugged and pushed his empty glass toward the bartender, motioning for a refill. “You know I’m not the paperwork guy. I can already tell she has me beat on smarts. It doesn’t take much, to be honest.”

  That was a lie. Not the paperwork part—Alex was allergic to paperwork. But he had a brain. He just didn’t use it, preferring to hide behind the prison record and the tattoos. You’d think Alex would be out of place in Dallas, but he wasn’t. He would have been out of place in New York or L.A. Strangely enough, the cowboys and ranchers liked Alex quite a bit. Alex was tough, and Texans appreciated tough people.

  Most people only saw the ex-con, dark and possibly dangerous, but I’d known Alex a long time. I knew the damage that drove him, the scars he had that wouldn’t heal.

  “Do you ever hear from Kat?” I asked him.

  Alex pulled his fresh drink across the bar toward him. It was a whiskey, neat. He’d definitely spent too much time in Texas. “No,” he said, his tattoos flexing as he raised the drink and sipped it. “We’re divorced, remember?”

  Kat had been Alex’s high school sweetheart. Back in those days, he was a rough teenager with a shitty home life, and Kat was the best thing in his life. They adored each other. She’d even stuck by him through his eighteen months in prison, waiting for him when he got out. They got married at twenty-one.

  Then it all went to shit. None of us knew exactly what happened—Alex wasn’t talking. But Kat moved out and Alex got hard. Really hard. He got in more trouble. He lived alone in a big house in Texas, and he did oil and ranching deals with very hard men for Tower VC. He didn’t wear suits, he didn’t take orders from anyone, he didn’t date. And he didn’t talk about Kat. Ever.

  Alex took another sip of his whiskey and looked at me. “So what do you think Noah dragged us all across the country for? This deal he has in the works?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. I watched Noah sit down next to Samantha, say something to make her laugh. Had I ever made her laugh?

  If he kept doing that, I was going to kick his ass all the way back to L.A.

  Alex watched where my gaze was fixed. “He’s such an asshole,” he said.

  I didn’t have to ask who he was talking about.

  Alex finished his whiskey. “He’s an asshole, yet I wish I was more like him. Don’t you?”

  Fifteen

  Samantha

  * * *

  When I rolled over in bed the next morning, the first thing I felt was pain. I put a hand on my forehead. It wasn’t a hangover—I’d had exactly one glass of wine at the bar yesterday afternoon while talking to the Tower VC partners. Then I’d come back to my room and ordered room service—no alcohol—while I caught up on work before going to bed.

  Yet as I pushed myself up from the pillows, a second bolt of pain throbbed through my head, pulsing behind my eyeball. I groaned. I sometimes got migraines, but it had been months since my last one. I didn’t need to get one now.

  I rifled through my suitcase and took some ibuprofen. I shuffled to the bathroom and washed my face, hoping this wasn’t actually happening. In the mirror, my eyes looked exhausted and bloodshot, and my skin looked gray. I groaned out loud, miserable in my beautiful luxury hotel room.

  I checked the time. It was 8:30. I was due at the Tower VC Chicago office at nine, and I wasn’t even showered or dressed. How had I slept so late? I had a vague memory of waking up earlier, then falling asleep again. Or had I imagined it? The pain descending on my skull was so intense I had a hard time thinking.

  I walked back to the bedroom, looking through my suitcase for a full minute before I remembered I had hung my work clothes up in the closet. I was standing in front of the closet, thinking in panic about a shower, when there was a knock at my hotel room door.

  “Samantha? It’s me.”

  Aidan. Coming to pick me up and take me to the Tower VC office for the meeting—the very important meeting—with all the partners. The meeting I was supposed to be at so I could impress all of them with my capable professionalism, and I was standing in my sleep shirt, bewildered and in pain. A moan of excruciating panic left my throat.

  “Samantha?” He sounded alarmed now. He must have heard me. Was my moan that loud?

  “I’m coming,” I managed. The words were weak in my throat, but I got them out. I walked unsteadily to the door and opened it.

  Aidan stood there, beautiful in his usual black suit and tie. His eyes went wide as he took me in.

  That was when I realized two things: I was in a pair of panties and a tee and nothing else, and I was about to throw up.

  “Um,” I said.

  He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “You’re sick,” he said, putting a hand on my elbow to steady me. He put his other hand on my forehead, testing for fever. “Is it the flu?”

  “Um,” I said again. Nine years as New York’s best executive assistant, and I couldn’t even talk. The pain was lancing down the back of my skull to the back of my neck, and forward where it throbbed behind my eyes. I closed my eyes, feeling his competent hand on me, keeping my balance. “Migraine,” I managed.

  “Jesus,” he said softly. His arm came around my waist and he gently held me up as he led me to the bedroom. “It looks fucking awful.”

  “I’m okay,” I said, which was a pathetic joke. I was not okay. I was a mess, and it was happening in front of my favorite boss, the one I wanted to impress, the one I was attracted to. It was so humiliating. “I don’t want to throw up,” I said, the words unbearably loud inside my skull.

  “Lie down,” Aidan said, his voice low. I crawled gratefully between the cool sheets and he pulled the covers over me. He went into the bathroom, where I heard the water run. Then he came back and put a cool towel on my forehead. It was only a few degrees of relief, but I sighed.

  He moved around again, this time adjusting the dark curtains and the lights. The world stopped spinning so hard. I pulled the cool towel over my eyes, partly for relief and partly so I wouldn’t have to look at him. “The meeting,” I said.

  “You’re not going to the meeting.” His voice was deliberately soft. He came back to the bed and put his hand on the side of my neck. “How often do you get these?”

  “A few times a year.” I nearly whispered it. His hand felt so good. He smelled so good. I wanted him to crawl in bed with me, suit and tie and all, and lie here with me. I would feel better if he did that. I always dealt with my migraines alone. “I don’t know what brought it on.”

  “Could have been anything.” His hand—so warm and strong—moved to the back of my neck and his fingers pressed gently there, moving at the base of my skull. “Does this help?”

  For a moment the pain pulled back a little, like a wave at the beach, and I moaned.

  His fingers paused. “Samantha, I don’t know if that’s a good moan or a bad moan.”

  Even through the pain, I felt a pulse of heat between my legs when he said that. “It’s a good moan,” I managed weakly. Oh, God, we were talking about me moaning. He had most likely seen my panties and my nipples through my shirt when I opened the door. I’d never wanted him to see me weak like this. “I’m so embarrassed,” I whispered.

  “Don’t be.” His fingers moved again. It wasn’t complete relief, but made the pain recede just a little. “How long will it last?”

  “An hour our two.” I hoped.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “I need quiet. The maids…”

  “They won’t come. I’ll make sure of it. Are there any drugs you can take?”

  I’d been through this with my doctor. Nothing worked. “No. I just have to wait.”

&nbs
p; He kept the massage up, bless him. It was faint relief, but it was relief. “I don’t know what to say,” he said after a moment. “Think of something pleasant, maybe. Something that makes you happy.”

  My answer was immediate, even through the pain. “Paris.”

  “Paris is your happy place?”

  “Yes. I’ve wanted to go there for as long as I can remember. I feel like if I was there, I’d be…different.” I sighed. The pain was making me stumble to find the right words. “I feel like I could be someone better there. Someone who could live a great life. Which is crazy for a place I’ve never been to. It’s hard to explain.”

  “No, I get it,” Aidan said, his fingers still blessedly moving. “Sometimes you glimpse what life could be like. It isn’t that the life you have is bad. It’s just that certain places are like looking through a window into what could be.”

  That was exactly it. Exactly. I felt like crying for a moment—the pain was making my emotions go crazy. “Yes,” I managed. “That’s it.”

  “If you feel that strongly about Paris, then you’re probably right about it.” He didn’t seem to notice I was near tears.

  “Maybe.” I sighed. “What’s your happy place?”

  Aidan laughed softly. “Probably the Met. Not quite as exotic as Paris, I know. But I live near it, and I go as often as I can.”

  “You do?” I’d kept Aidan’s schedule for months, and there had never been mention of the big museum on the edge of Central Park. I’d only been there a few times myself.

  “Do you want to know a secret?” Aidan said. “Everyone wants to know what I do in my spare time. They think I should be snorting drugs or flying jet planes or fucking models. But usually, in my off hours, I’m looking at art. I don’t know why. I’m not artistic in the least. I have no talent myself. But looking at art makes me happy. Art, for me, is that thing that shows me what life could be.”

  I let his words wash over me as his fingers rubbed my neck. How was he so stupidly perfect? “That’s lovely,” I managed. Then the pain seized the top of my skull like a pincer, and I winced, my hands gripping the coverlet.

  Aidan’s voice was laced with concern. “Do you want me to stay?”

  “No.” I said it forcefully, because I did want him. I really, really did. But the CEO of Tower VC couldn’t miss a meeting with his partners because he was busy rubbing his assistant’s neck. The idea was ridiculous. “Go to the meeting, Aidan. I’ll be fine.”

  He sat for a moment, still rubbing my neck, thinking it over. Was he actually considering skipping his meeting? Eventually he said, “All right. But I’ll get a copy of your key from the front desk and take it with me. I’ll check on you in a few hours, and I don’t want to knock. If you want me to bring anything, text me.”

  On impulse I raised my hand and grasped his wrist, my grip weak. “Thank you,” I said.

  The massage stopped. For a second we sat there, Aidan sitting on the edge of my bed, his hand cupped behind my neck, my hand on his wrist. I still had the cloth over my eyes—there were circles of exploding pain in the darkness—but I could hear him breathe. I could feel his pulse under my fingertips.

  Then he gently pulled away and stood. I heard him walk to the door and leave without a word.

  I lay there in the dark, thinking about Aidan asking the front desk for my key. They’d give it to him. He was Aidan Winters.

  His scent was still in my nose, crisp and masculine. I didn’t need the cloth off of my eyes to know it. I’d know it anywhere. I wondered if his skin smelled like that.

  Except to shake my hand the day he met me, he’d never touched me until today.

  I lay there, thinking about Aidan, smelling Aidan, as I waited for the pain to subside.

  Sixteen

  Aidan

  * * *

  “You’re late,” Alex said.

  The four of us were standing on Michigan Avenue. All around us, the warming sun of spring glinted off the skyscrapers. It was a quarter past nine, and the heading-to-work crowds were moving fast, a little panicked. Behind us was the building that housed the Chicago office of Tower VC—we rented a few offices on the sixteenth floor, where our staff worked and where Dane worked when he could be persuaded to come to the office.

  “Samantha is ill,” I said.

  Alex’s eyebrows went up. “Was it something we said?”

  I shook my head. “Migraine. She says she’ll be fine in a few hours.”

  “Migraines are bastards,” Alex said. He was wearing a suit today—dark blue, with a white shirt and a light blue tie. Next to him, Dane sipped a coffee, wearing jeans and a black hoodie, his hair in its customary man bun. On the other side of Dane, Noah—impeccably dressed in a gray suit he’d likely imported from Italy—checked his watch, then looked at the street.

  “Here he comes,” he said.

  We were waiting for the car and driver Noah had hired. Instead of meeting in the office, I’d had a text telling me to meet the others outside on Michigan Avenue, and we’d be taken to this amazing, once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity of Noah’s.

  I hadn’t had time to think very much about what Noah wanted us here for. Noah did his part in L.A., but he rarely came up with new ideas for Tower VC. He knew how to navigate his own waters, but he was the least ambitious of us. And he almost never got excited about business projects—Noah worked to live, instead of living to work. I looked at him as the car pulled up and wondered what had him so excited now.

  Normally I would have extracted every detail from him by now, because I hated surprises. But I’d been too distracted by Samantha to pay attention. And this morning—Jesus. Distracted was an understatement. It was fairer to say I was thrown completely off my game.

  The Samantha I knew was competent, unshakeable, put together in every detail. The woman who opened her door this morning was a raw, exposed nerve, exhausted and—yes, I could fucking say it—helpless. She’d hated that helplessness, but there was nothing she could do about it. When I’d put my arm around her waist, she’d sunk into me, soft and pliant, leaning on me.

  I didn’t have a thing for helpless women. Some men have a white knight fantasy, but that wasn’t me. The women who attracted me were confident and pretty clear on what they wanted from me. No, helpless women didn’t turn me on. Except for this particular helpless woman.

  It was only a few days ago when we’d agreed there would be no crossing of professional lines. Yet this morning I’d put her into bed, watching every perfect curve slide under the sheets, carefully not staring at those high, soft breasts under her T-shirt. I’d wanted to take her pain away any way I could, even if it meant blowing off this meeting and getting into bed with her, holding her until she felt better again.

  Except I knew that if I did that, as soon as the headache was gone I’d pull down her scrap of panties, go down on her, and pleasure her until she came. And then I’d sink into her, feeling her every quiver and breath, and I’d fuck her deep and slow until the pain was forgotten and she came again, squeezing me.

  And that would ruin everything.

  I still wanted to fucking do it.

  Way to be an asshole, Winters, I thought as we filed into Noah’s hired car. She’s your assistant. You’re about to gleefully destroy the Egerton brothers for talking about her ass.

  I ran a hand through my hair. Because it’s mine, I thought, or it should be. It should be fucking mine.

  “All right,” Dane said, breaking into my fog of thought. “Where the hell are we going, Noah?”

  Noah looked him up and down as the car pulled into Michigan Avenue traffic. “I told you to dress for an important meeting.”

  Dane shrugged. “This is how I dress for important meetings.”

  Noah rolled his eyes. “Should I be glad you at least aren’t wearing the Duran Duran T-shirt you wore the entire year you were sixteen?”

  “It was vintage,” Dane said. “Besides, it doesn’t fit me anymore.”

  It wouldn’t. Dane hadn’
t gained weight, but he’d bulked up since he was a teenager, and a lot in the past few years. He said that working out relieved his boredom, but I had the feeling Dane finally got tired of being the scrawny, nerdy programmer. The current version of him could get women by the dozens if he tried, but with his fuck-off personality he still never got laid.

  “Okay, fine,” Noah said. “You can dress like a slob, but keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking.”

  “Done and done,” Dane said, looking almost pleased.

  “Hey,” Alex said, looking out the window. “This is the old neighborhood.”

  I looked. He was right. We were in the South Side, and we’d come to the neighborhood we’d lived in years ago. All four of us had been born within a mile of here; the house I grew up in was only six blocks away, though there was nothing there for me anymore. No memories, no family, nothing.

  Then it hit me. “We’re going to the old building,” I said. “Our place.”

  There was silence in the car. Noah didn’t deny it.

  I looked at him. His handsome, open face was quiet now, almost solemn.

  At fifteen, all four of us had left home. We all had different reasons. My mother was a single mother working two jobs, who wanted me out of the house. Alex’s father was hitting him. Dane’s parents had pretty much forgotten about him. And Noah had rich parents who hated him.

  Noah had talked the school janitor into telling the landlord that he was Noah’s father, that the rest of us were cousins, and that it was all on the up-and-up. He’d signed the papers, and Alex had promptly learned how to forge the janitor’s signature anywhere else we needed it.

  We lived in that apartment for seven years. It was in a shit neighborhood and it was nothing to write home about, but we loved it. And sure, we were four teenage guys who didn’t have much money and weren’t particularly clean. The place was still home until Dane’s software made us rich, we started Tower VC, and we moved out to spread across the country.