In His Grip: His #5 (A Billionaire Domination Serial) Read Online Free PDF Page B

boxes of confiscated documents and equipment into the black SUVs they had ferried over from Natal, I had come to only one decision. I wanted the Macallan scotch, not the Dalmore. After a shower, of course. I suffered an hour of cleaning up the villa first, only surprised the disarray of having a half dozen strangers rifling through my belongings was not much worse. Of course, I could have called over to the resort to have them send cleaning staff to do it, but I didn’t want anyone else there just then. It was my space, my haven, and my damage to repair.
    The first swallow of obscenely expensive and startlingly smoky scotch was only just burning its way down my throat, where I stood in nothing more than a towel at the wet bar in the living room, when someone knocked hard at the front door. I took my time and a second slow sip. That wouldn’t have been the investigators again, I wagered. They’d have given me a quick count of two after that knock and just barged in. And Chloe wouldn’t have knocked at all.
    With a third sip, I glanced at the dark wood clock on the far wall. It was late afternoon, about the time my Miss Bloom and I usually showered together and started getting ready to greet dinner guests at the resort’s upper balcony. With our tendency to get sidetracked into an impromptu session , we needed the two or three-hour head start.
    When the knock sounded again, I responded, “Come in.” I didn’t mean it, but it was too late and probably inadvisable to take it back.
    The door slid open with a light creak of wood, and Penn fucking Ellison walked into my villa. To my credit, I didn’t lunge at him or break the heavy crystal glass in my hand to gut him with a shard. That would’ve ruined the tailored white linen shirt and matching cargo pants. Instead, I gave him no reaction at all, continuing to sip at the fifty-thousand-dollar-a-bottle whiskey without greeting him or even fully turning to face him.
    “Alexander,” he breathed out with a smile. Never one to suffer inattention, the arrogant blond colonial held up his hand, a pair of strappy women’s heels dangling from his fingertips. “Chloe left these behind this morning. Thought I should return them.” He obviously meant for me to assume a great deal from that comment, but I’d only seen them together on the beach. With his arms around her. That was bad enough.
    Another sip of whiskey trailed fire down my throat, warmed my face, and blurred my thoughts. “What do you want, Ellison?”
    Penn dropped Chloe’s shoes onto the floor with an unsettling clatter and slid his hands into his pockets. He rocked on his heels in a show of affected relaxation and impromptu deliberation. “Oh, I don’t know. The island, maybe. That would be a good start.”
    “Too bad for you it’s not for sale.”
    “And too bad for you neither is Chloe.”
    When I had imagined this scene, the moment when I would look this man in the face after having seduced the woman who got away from him, it had always played out in Boston or New York, in an expensive restaurant. With Chloe on my arm, I’d happen to run into Ellison, and she would step closer and press herself to me while he looked on dejected. I had considered sending him candid photos of Chloe and me on the balcony dance floor, an anonymous tip to let Ellison know he’d been one-upped, just in a far classier way than the last time we’d competed over a woman. But when we’d actually faced him last night, my instinct had been to hide Chloe behind me, shelter her. Keeping her to myself had been worth more than humiliating Penn Ellison. That made the sting so much worse when she had disavowed the intimate nature of our relationship in front of him.
    “It would be best,” I muttered low, “if we didn’t talk about her.” It would be easier to control the urge to get into the kind of bare-fisted brawl Penn and I had made a habit of during our senior year at Siemer.
    “Still don’t have the killer business