BetweenTwoBillionairesCompleteStripped Read Online Free PDF Page A

the
house, thankful to be free of it. I take long strides down to the
street, not caring about the strange glances people are giving me. In
my new wardrobe, I look completely out of place. I am out of place
though. I never should have come here.
    Oh crap, I hope he
doesn't want his clothes back. I never even thought to ask him. I was
so obsessed with getting away. I'll just mail them back to him.
Without a return address, of course.
    When I get to the
bottom of the driveway, I pull my phone out of my purse and type the
street number of the house into my notes program, then I sit on the
curb and wait for the taxi to arrive. Thankfully, I don't have to
wait long. It shows up in about five minutes. I climb inside and
watch as the house moves further out of view, grateful that this
horrible night is over.

CHAPTER THREE

    When I get home, I
text Ethel to let her know I left the party, then I take a shower and
promptly crawl into bed. I'm absolutely exhausted, but that doesn't
keep me from dreaming. The night is filled with thoughts of the
handsome stranger and all the scenarios that could have happened. My
subconscious mind gives over to desire freely. I picture what he
looks like naked, what our bodies would feel like entwined. It's
sinfully delicious and oh so wrong.
    When I wake the next
morning, I realize that he's not the monster I made him out to be.
Things could have gone so much worse. He could have taken what he
wanted, and there wouldn't have been anything I could do about it.
But he didn't. He overcame his basal nature to show me compassion.
    I lay on my back for
several moments, thinking about him, wishing we would have at least
traded names. It doesn't matter now. That's in the past, and it's
better left there. Today I return to my normal life—my boring
safe normal life.
    I put thoughts of
the stranger behind me and wonder instead about what happened with
Ethel. For a moment, I think about peeking inside her bedroom to see
if she's there, but if I did that, and she saw, we would fight. As
convoluted as it is, she's allowed to barge into my room whenever she
wants, but I'm not even allowed to look inside of hers. And heaven
help me if I wake her up. It's always just easier to let her come to
me instead.
    So I wait. And I
wait, and I wait. And eventually it's time to get ready for work.
About an hour before I'm supposed to leave, she finally comes
plodding into my room uninvited, as usual. There's a tired but happy
look on her face. The night must have gone well for her.
    “ Did you just
get home?” I ask.
    “ Nah. I got
home around 5AM. I've just been sleeping all day.” She drops
herself heavily onto the corner of my bed.
    “ I'm glad I
took a taxi home then,” I sigh, trying to hide my
disappointment in her.
    “ Why did you
leave?” She lays back, making herself comfortable.
    “ It's a long
story, and it all started with you stripping in the middle of that
room.” The smile that crosses my face is completely sarcastic.
Blaming her for anything is a recipe for disaster, but it's just so
hard not to. If it wasn't for her stupid plan . . . That guy flashes
through my mind. It seems like every time I think about him, he gets
more and more handsome. What's wrong with me?
    “ I knew you
were going to bail.” She waves her hand at me absentmindedly.
    “ I met
someone,” the words sound foreign coming from my lips—and
like a lie. I'm making it seem like I met some amazing Prince
Charming, not a shady guy who wanted me to strip in his bedroom for
him.
    “ Oh?”
She props herself up on her arms in interest. “Tell me about
him.”
    “ He was . . .
handsome. And intense.” I picture the man's stunning blue eyes
and the way he looked at me. At the time, I was too afraid to
appreciate it. No man has ever looked at me in that way before.
    “ Well I met a
whole lot of guys,” she ignores my need to talk about this,
insistent on one-upping me. She's always been like this though. I
don't know why I try to