Billion Dollar Beast - Olivia Hayle Page 0,19

golden-brown eyes. No one else has her coloring—wheat and honey and chocolate, and not one inch of it fake.

“Have you spoken to him?” I ask.

“No. But our circles overlap.”

Oh yes, her circle. All the people who hung around her for notoriety or for fame. Because she’s often been the talk of the town—billionaire Cole Porter’s little sister, latest in a line of failed socialite entrepreneurs. Excellent friends indeed.

“If he’s so devastated, he shouldn’t have run his family’s legacy into the ground,” I say evenly. “He has only himself to blame. Well, and his father. And grandfather.”

Blair reaches up to run a hand over the back of her neck. Rising slightly from the water, the wet expanse of her chest and the curves of her breasts come into view. I force myself to look away and ignore the two black triangles that cover them from my view. “What will happen to all the employees you’re terminating?” she asks.

Good, I think. Keep taunting me about things like this and I’ll stop noticing your beauty in no time at all. “I don’t know. That’s not my problem.”

Her eyes narrow. There’s disapproval there. “They were your employees up until the day they were let go.”

“Yes, and they were let go with the same terms and conditions that they agreed to when they were hired by B.C. Adams. Severance and all.” My voice drops. “I’m not Thomas York. I don’t run a charity, Blair.”

“I know that.” Her cheeks flush further—I know she hates being spoken to like I just did, with the tone of voice that implies she doesn’t know any better.

“What you’re really saying is that you’re uncomfortable with the idea of working for someone like me,” I say.

“No. I get why you have to fire people. It’s just—”

“Immoral? Not the first time I’ve heard that.” I let my gaze wander from her to the giant pines that encircle us, my expression bored.

She drops the discussion, but I don’t feel the same rush of success as usual. Keep going, a voice whispers in my head. Challenge me.

“You claimed to be a good skier,” she says instead. The tone of her voice is as cold as the nip in the air—the comfortable friendliness she’d shown me when I first sat down in the hot tub is gone. I did that, ruined her mood as surely as I ruin most things.

“I am,” I say. Like most things in life, I’d started skiing late, far later than Cole and Blair—their jet-setting parents had sent them off with a ski instructor before they could walk.

Blair doesn’t know that. “So am I,” she says instead. “I’m looking forward to racing you tomorrow, then.”

Ah. For some foolish reason, I’d expected Cole and me to go skiing together like we used to. Taunting each other to more daring pistes. The rush of reaching the bottom before him.

With Blair… I don’t want her to push herself to go as fast as me. Scenarios play out in my head, of her flipping or careening and ending up with a broken limb. Her beautiful face marred in pain. Of me, explaining it all to Cole.

She mistakes my hesitation and shakes her head. “Fine. Be scared, then.” But there’s genuine confusion in her tone.

Fuck. Whatever I do or don’t do with her is wrong somehow, and I know it’s my fault.

It’s always my fault.

“I’m heading inside.” She rises from the steaming water. There’s no hiding from the sight—from her body so very nearly unclothed. The black bikini hides almost nothing.

An expanse of dewy, honey-colored skin. A curved waist and full breasts and as she turns to climb out, long legs and a firm ass. Her body is as glorious as her face. I’d suspected that, for years. Having it confirmed makes my whole body tighten.

As if in a daze, I drag my gaze up from her taut stomach to the incredulity in her eyes as she catches me watching her. For a long moment, we just stare at each other across the steam of the hot tub.

Then she flushes, and this time it’s not from the cold.

“Well,” she says faintly, wrapping her towel tight around herself. And then she disappears inside, leaving me to my miserable thoughts and aching body.

7

Blair

Nick had checked me out. Practically ogled, and there had been no mistaking the hunger I’d seen in his gaze. It’s the first time in the eight years I’ve known him that I’ve ever seen him look at me like a woman—like something other than Cole’s