Bad Billionaire (Bad Billionaires 1)

We decided, in light of the news story, that Devon should take me home instead of my staying the night. There were no signs of reporters in Diablo yet, but Devon didn’t want to take the chance. “They can try talking to me if they want,” he said, shrugging. “But I don’t want anyone bothering you.”

He’d taken the appearance of the story in stride, but the line of his shoulders got more tense, and his eyes grew as hard as chips of ice. Something about this bothered him, and it wasn’t just the invasion of privacy. “It’ll blow over, right?” I said as I tossed my overnight bag into the back of his car. “We just ignore it, and they move on. Right?”

He said nothing for a minute as he watched me get into the passenger seat, and then he started the car. “If they dig, they’ll find things,” he said.

“Things?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. He just drove.

My chest felt tight. He was so freaking hard to unravel, this man. He was locked down so tight. Every time I peeled back a layer, I found there were more I hadn’t known existed. I looked out the window at the passing scenery and realized I didn’t want to let him off the hook. “Bad things?” I asked.

“It depends how you look at it.”

I blew out a frustrated breath and tried again. “Are you secretly married?”

“No.”

“You have an illegitimate kid somewhere?”

“Jesus. No.”

“You killed someone?”

Now he was the one who blew out a frustrated breath. “No.”

“Then tell me, Devon, or I’m going to keep guessing.”

“It’s public record. It’s just shit I don’t want dragged up and printed, that’s all.”

Which still wasn’t an answer. “Tell me.”

He was quiet. This time, watching him, I could tell it wasn’t because he was shutting me out. It was because he was trying to find the words.

I waited. The silence stretched so long that I knew that whatever it was was bad. Maybe the worst.

“I lied to you about something,” he said finally.

My stomach dropped for a sickening minute. “What?”

“I told you that my prison stretch was the worst thing that ever happened to me.” His knuckles were white on the wheel. “It wasn’t. Not by a long shot.”

“Okay,” I said.

He was quiet for another minute, finding the words again as the traffic flashed by. The lights of the city were on our left, beautiful under the night sky. “I told you that Cavan split after our mother died,” he finally said.

“Yes,” I said softly.

“What I didn’t tell you was that she was murdered. Our mother. She was killed by her boyfriend. He choked her unconscious, then stabbed her in the chest with scissors. He’s on death row. I was sixteen.”

The air was sucked out of the car; it was just gone. I felt unmoored, as if we were in a capsule gliding through space instead of on a California highway. “Devon,” I managed.

“Cavan was eighteen. Our dad left when we were little kids, and Mom was on her own. She had boyfriends. Some of them were good, some bad. We knew the last one was a bad one, but there was nothing we could do. She wouldn’t listen to us. She’d only been dating him two months when he killed her.” He kept his hands on the wheel, his gaze straight ahead. “Cavan was an adult, but I wasn’t. He left town. I went underground to avoid the foster system. I bunked with friends, mostly Max.”

He’d been homeless at sixteen? “Oh, my God,” I said.

But he held up a hand, briefly and sharply, cutting me off. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t get worked up. My parents hated each other, and after Dad left Mom barely took care of us as it was. I was already basically on my own, even before she died. I was used to it. And even as a kid, I was a tough little shit. I’m not a victim. I took care of myself. You understand?”

I shook my head. My life, growing up with my sister and my has-been mother in Hollywood, seemed ridiculously soft. “But what did you do?”