The Billionaire's Illicit Twins - Holly Rayner Page 0,5

woman in my life, and now, for some reason, I couldn’t tear my eyes off of her. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that it was insane. What was I even doing, following some stranger I’d met in a bar home to her apartment? This was completely unlike me. Or rather… Well, no, it wasn’t like me at all. I’d never been what the city liked to call a playboy, though I was sure I was on more than one ‘eligible bachelor’ list, given my status and the company I owned.

But I’d never played the field. Hell, I didn’t even have time to think about it. Women—and the time they took, the complications they brought with them, the expectations, especially when they thought about my bank account—was something I’d just never considered. It didn’t mesh with my life. Didn’t work into my schedule. Didn’t work into the way I liked to live my life.

So what was I doing climbing into a cab with this girl who had represented the guy suing my company, and then pulling her into my lap before the cabbie had even pulled out into the street?

I didn’t have a damn clue. But I wasn’t going to think about it. I was just going to enjoy it, enjoy her, and for once in my life—for one night—I was going to shut my brain off and just enjoy myself.

When we got to her apartment, my brain finally overruled my body for just a moment. Because the place was completely charming—and incredibly tiny. Like, tinier than the place I’d lived when I was in college.

And my parents had made me pay for that place on my own, just to teach me the value of money. So it hadn’t exactly been extravagant.

“You live here?” I asked, looking around at the living room with its shoved-in couch and kitchen table, both of them covered in flower print material that didn’t so much match as it sort of… complemented the other pieces.

The apartment was awash with color. There were roses in a vase on the kitchen counter and paintings on every square inch of wall, as well as several pairs of shoes lining what I could see of the hallway and a completely full coatrack by the door.

It wasn’t so much that Bella had intentionally decorated the space, either. It looked more like she had all this stuff and just didn’t have any other place to put it. And judging by the way she was dressed—I took another quick glance at the stern black color of her business suit, with a splash of purple in her shirt—this wasn’t her style at all.

This was a need for a place to put things. Because her apartment wasn’t even close to being big enough for an adult person.

“No,” she answered seriously. “I broke into this apartment just now, with the key that I stole from the person who actually lives here, just so I could seduce you with all the sexy decorations.”

I turned to her, wondering for a split second if she was insane, and then saw her face break into the biggest grin I’d ever seen.

And then I was moving toward her, laughing as I bent down to kiss her, my entire body lighting up with flames at her touch and the heat I could feel coming off of her. Because there was something about this woman that electrified me. Something that touched me in a place I didn’t think I’d ever been touched—and I’d only known her for a couple of hours.

In that couple of hours, though, she’d told me so much of her life story that I felt I knew her, and she had managed to get more out of me about my life than most of the people I worked with. And those people were paid to do that sort of research on a man of my stature.

But this girl… There was something about her that made me want to open up to her. Made me want to discuss the world with her. See what she thought of what I’d heard about this or that, see whether she’d seen this story or that report.

There was something that made me want to say ridiculous things just to see that smile, and the light come into her eyes. The flush on her cheeks when she laughed. The way she threw her head back when she found something particularly funny.

I was drunk. That was the only answer, really. Because who thinks