Heart of the Billionaire (Taming The Bad Boy Billionaire 7)

“Hello?”

James glanced down at the phone for a second, making sure he’d called the right person, before continuing tentatively, “Hi. This is, uh...James Cross. I’m looking for my brother, Rob. Is he there?”

“Oh, Mr. Cross, of course!” Seth was so impossibly effusive that it was easy to hear him, even while I stood a foot away. “Your brother is... Actually, he’s in a meeting at the moment. Is there any way I can take a message?”

James paused, unsure how to continue. “A meeting, you say?” His eyes flickered quickly to mine before he gripped the phone tighter, his brow creasing with a little frown. “Listen... Who are you?”

“Seth McConnell, sir.”

“Yeah, well, Seth, something’s actually come up, a bit of a family emergency that can’t wait. Can you please pull Rob out of the meeting for me?”

“My apologies, sir,” Seth said.

“For what?”

“Well, I-I didn’t even think to offer you my condolences.” With that, Seth’s voice dropped an octave, to a more solemn, appropriate tone. “All of us over here at Cross were so very sorry to hear about your father.”

James blinked in surprise, but my mouth fell open in confusion. For a second, all was quiet, until I gave his waist a little squeeze, urging him to continue.

“You-You know about my father? Rob knows?”

There was a tense pause.

“Rob knows, yet he’s in a fucking meeting?”

The next pause was even more intense. I could practically hear Seth scrambling on the other end, hear his mind racing before his voice jumped several octaves again in panic.

“Like I said, I’d be happy to take a message if—”

James grinded his teeth together, trying very hard to rein in his temper. “What’s this meeting about, Seth? What could possibly be more important than...this?”

During the next pause, I could have sworn young Seth popped a valium, just to stay sane.

“Well, actually, sir, the meeting is about your father. Robert called it just after he heard, summoned the entire board. I-I think he’s being named CEO.”

James’s entire body froze, and a truly terrifying expression flashed through his eyes. “Is he now?”

Within the next second, the phone was in the river, the rooftop was abandoned, and James Cross was half-dragging, half-carrying me down the stairs.

“Wh-Where are we going?” I said between gasps as we poured onto the street.

James lifted his hand to hail a cab, with that same deadly inferno still blazing in his eyes. “To work,” he replied in a flat monotone, stepping into the middle of the street as a taxi screeched to a stop in front of him. “It seems my brother called a meeting, one I should have been invited to attend.”

Chapter 3

I HURRIED AFTER JAMES across the street, dodging cars and sliding this way and that in my towering heels. I had no idea how he moved so impossibly fast, but at the moment, there were bigger fish to fry than suggesting he join an Olympic speed-walking team.

“James, please slow down,” I said as I skittered around a trio of baffled pedestrians. I grabbed him by the sleeve and held on for dear life. “Maybe you should, uh...slow down for a second and think about this.”

A store clerk emptied water from a second-story vase, but it landed on the cement behind him. A pile of bottles slipped off a recycling truck, but they landed on the sidewalk in front of him. A furious, half-dressed woman lobbed a house key at a remorseful-looking man, but it sailed over James’s head, missing him by mere inches, and he didn’t even seem to notice. Not once did his pace falter as he stormed up and down those London streets, his dark eyes never leaving his target: Cross Enterprises.

The skyscraper loomed up ahead, getting closer with every step. Still, I had no idea what James was planning, and at that point, I didn’t think he even knew himself.

“Please, honey, just talk to me.” I circled in front of him, and for the first time since throwing his phone into the river, he came to a sudden pause. “Look, I know you’re incredibly upset, and I can’t believe that even someone as foul as your brother is trying to use this as a business opportunity, but the last thing you should do is run in there with your guns blazing.”

James stared at me for a moment, completely devoid of any decipherable emotion, then threw back his head and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Frank!”

“London is a city, James, not your personal playground. You can’t just shout for someone in the middle of the street and hope he’ll...”