The Billionaire's Christmas (A Sinclair Novella) Read Online Free PDF Page B

out immediately, “There’s something seriously wrong with me. I met this woman today and now I don’t feel like myself anymore. I felt literally nauseous when she left. Shit! Maybe I’m getting the flu. What the hell do I do now?” Grady finished with a huff, his air completely gone.
    Simon was silent for a moment before Grady finally heard an evil laugh on the other end of the line. Grady plopped into his office chair and propped his feet on the desk, waiting for Simon to stop laughing uproariously.
    “Marry her,” Simon replied, his voice actually jovial. “Don’t turn yourself inside out like I did. Throw her over your shoulder and take her, kicking and screaming if you need to, and find the nearest justice of the peace. Put yourself out of your misery early, buddy.”
    “I just met the woman,” Grady answered irritably.
    “Doesn’t matter. If she’s already making you crazy, you’re screwed. Would you be willing to do anything just to see her again?” Simon questioned mildly.
    “A million bucks,” Grady admitted. “I offered to donate a million dollars to her charity to spend Christmas with her.”
    Simon whistled. “You got it bad. You hate Christmas.”
    “I know,” Grady answered wretchedly. “But she wouldn’t fuck me, so I was desperate.”
    “Trust me, the fucking just makes it even worse. Then you’ll want her all the time, every minute of the day.” Simon hesitated before asking, “Is she worth it?”
    Grady thought about that for a minute, remembering Emily’s vulnerable expression and how happy he had felt just looking at her and feeling her body pressed against him. “I think so. I mean, I just met her, so I guess it’s hard to tell. She seems to take away the loneliness and she made me smile. She’s”—he paused for a moment before finishing—“different. Not like any woman I’ve ever met. She wanted a donation for her organization, but she didn’t seem interested in anything for herself. She refused to fuck me for money. And I was actually happy about that. Why the hell would I be happy? I wanted her horizontal.”
    “Maybe because you want her to like you?” Simon mused.
    “Nobody likes me except you,” Grady answered harshly.
    “Who says I like you? You can be a real asshole sometimes,” Simon answered, amused.
    “And you aren’t?” Grady shot back automatically, used to sparring with Simon.
    “I say if she can put up with your ornery ass, just marry her. It took me thirty-three years to find a woman who could tolerate me,” Simon replied happily.
    “I’m only thirty-one. And I think your marriage is a little more than that,” Grady said, swinging his feet off the desk and swiveling around uncomfortably in his chair. He’d never talked to Simon about Kara much because he’d never understood his friend’s obsession with her.
    “Yep. She loves me, and I’m a lucky bastard,” Simon answered, his tone cocky.
    Grady hesitated for a moment before asking reluctantly, “Does it ever go away? You know, the possessive, crazy feeling you get when you first meet a woman who makes you feel that way.”
    “No,” Simon answered seriously. “It doesn’t. It gets worse the closer you get to her. But it’s worth it if she cares about you in the same way. You’ll never feel lonely again, buddy.”
    Grady contemplated Simon’s words for a while, wondering exactly what that would feel like. He was close to his sister and brothers, but they all had their own lives, and were rarely together. What would it be like to truly feel like he wasn’t alone, to really feel like he was connected to someone who made him feel complete? He’d actually never thought about it before, had never been exactly unhappy with his life, but he’d always known that there was something missing. There was a gaping hole somewhere inside him that not even his computers or his siblings could fill, and meeting Emily had somehow made that emptiness seem suddenly pretty damn painful.
    “Tell