Bedding the Billionaire

Sutton

You didn’t grow up the way I had around men and let some stranger put his hands on you. I was about to hand the fancy city slicker his ass when Mad Max flew across the room and held a fork to the handsome man’s neck.

Trust Max to attack with a kitchen utensil.

“Get your damn hand off of her,” Max snarled menacingly. “We don’t handle women that way.”

Because the man hadn’t let go of my arm, I was now bent at a rather strange angle. Nonetheless, I felt a surge of affection for Max. It meant a lot to me that he cared.

“I’ve got this, Max,” I said, but it was like I hadn’t even spoken.

Throughout this, the stranger didn’t even flinch despite the fact that the tines of the fork were pressed against his jugular.

“Charming,” the handsome stranger said in an even tone. “I assume this is a friend of yours?”

Max growled at him and shoved the fork harder against the stranger’s neck. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Alice and Reena staring on with wide eyes. The last thing I wanted was for this to escalate any further. I tried to nudge Max to the side with my foot, but he wasn’t about to move.

Couldn’t he see that I wasn’t in any danger? In what I hoped was a calm voice, I said, “This is Max. He’s going to put the fork down now.” That elicited a growl from Max, but I kept going. “He was a friend of my daddy’s back in the day.”

The stranger’s brow rose in surprise before a look of incredulity entered his eyes. “Somehow I doubt that to be true.”

A spark of anger lit inside of me.

“Look, I don’t know why this is any of your business. I don’t know you, and I certainly don’t owe you any explanations.” I yanked my wrist to free, and this time he let it go.

I could still feel the imprint of his fingers and rubbed my wrist absentmindedly. I wondered why it hadn’t bothered me more. Usually I wasn’t a fan of people touching me.

Besides Max, the last person to hug me was Ruth Ann when my mama passed away. She hugged me so tight and whispered that one day I would understand my mama better. I understand my mama just fine, I had thought to myself. Hell, I knew her a whole lot better than most. But I just smiled and nodded appreciatively at Ruth Ann. She meant well, and besides, Ruth Ann had known Mama before she got sick, before the men, and before the drugs.

Max growled at the stranger with such vicious intent that I started to wonder if he just might fork the man after all.

“Listen punk, just who the hell are you?”

Neither man was backing down.

“Is there a problem over here?” Gabriel rushed over to see what the fuss was all about. As soon as he saw me, a look of disgust crossed his face.

Bastard.

The stranger’s cool gray eyes stared into my own. My heart thudded wildly in my chest and I felt as if I had been running. It was the strangest response that I had ever had to a man. I took a hesitant step backward.

Sutton Enterprises, and my former boss. To my knowledge he never

was the intensity with which he spoke, but Max paled and moved away from the stranger, dropping

voice sounded

to say that the stranger was lying. He and my daddy went way back, and my father had died in a blaze of glory, just like Max had told me all those years ago. Max had said that was the only reason my father

the sorrow in his voice.

was one of the good guys, one of the few people in

Sutton, don’t look like that.” Max’s gruff voice

know my daddy?” I asked him point blank.

as if weighing his words before he uttered, “No, Pumpkin.”

I felt my stomach drop down past my

hurriedly, “But your mama and I had a special relationship. When I found out about you, well, I tried to marry her.

special friends that would slip into our trailer late at night. I didn’t realize that they were paying for sex until someone in the third grade happily filled me in. They told me my

sang funny songs on the radio. She took me down to the thrift

whispered, “I knew what she was like.”

the businessman who had

in a low voice, “I want to hear what he has

now to exert his nonexistent authority, “Not now, you aren’t. You have a shift to work, Sutton.

clipped tone,

“What?” Gabriel looked confused.

the girl. If she sits here at this table with me

before his eyes took on

out a money clip and peeled off three hundred-dollar bills and then handed them over

“I’d have done it for two hundred.”

beat. “I would have paid five. Now, if you will leave us? We will

for me to sit across

wanted to know whatever this man was so

a thin line. “You are wasting my valuable time. Unless you have the three hundred

I didn’t have three hundred dollars. Hell, I wasn’t sure I had thirty dollars. With a sassy smirk, I saluted

I liked that the

the CEO of your deceased father’s company, Sutton Enterprises. You may call

who goes around

as if I hadn’t laughed in his face. “Because of certain

are too kind,” I

way he was rattling off information like a census bureau official. To piss him

Williams,” he bit off gruffly.

tells someone that their daddy is dead and in the same breath insists that they call them Mr. Williams in the same statement? Why did you come anyway? If my father didn’t want me in

didn’t know you existed until the very end. He was a

This time he had really

said. “He was such a good man that he slept with a woman, impregnated her, and then left them both in poverty.