Releasing the Billionaire's Passion (2 page)

Fiona preferred to live her life with as much energy as possible. She wanted to grab onto everything, experience life and happiness on a deeper level than someone who lived life via a minute by minute schedule ever could. She loved laying in the park, looking at the clouds or riding a roller coaster. She loved talking with strangers, finding out what made other people tick, why they chose one thing over another. She could have a fifteen minute discussion with a stranger in the grocery store over how to pick oranges.

People were fascinating to her. Her grandfather had hated it when he’d find her conversing with a stranger after church or during parties. He would lecture her before and after every social event, telling her who she should talk with or be seen with, and give her a list of appropriate topics to discuss – all of which started and ended with the weather and a person’s job.

Her grandfather had hated her choice of careers. He’d demanded that she become a lawyer or a business person. He’d refused to pay for her college tuition unless she buckled down and did as he’d ordered. So she’d worked three jobs to pay for college, taking the classes she wanted instead of those he prescribed. And she’d graduated with honors! Not that he’d congratulated her in any way.

Charles seemed like her grandfather in so many ways. It boggled her mind that she was so intensely attracted to him. But there was just something about the man that pulled her eyes, tugged at her heart and…yes, created strange, unsettling sensations deep down inside of her.

Why was she so hung up on him? Why did Charles fascinate her as no other man ever had?

“Fiona?” Charles prompted.

Fiona jerked back out of her fantasies and focused on the man sitting in front of her, wishing she could walk around his desk, run her fingers through his immaculate hair and kiss him until he was groaning with need. Need for her!

What had he asked? Oh, yea! Her grandfather’s money. “I just prefer to live my life on my own terms,” she finally explained. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t understand but she couldn’t help that. Charles was almost as stodgy and rigid as her grandfather. So why was she so impossibly in love with him?

Charles had no response to that comment. It made no sense. Everyone lived within a confined set of rules. Living outside of rules caused chaos. Well, looking at Fiona’s curls, he accepted that the woman practically defined chaos. Not that he disliked her curls. He lov…Damn it!

He refused to think about how soft those curls would feel in his hands, about how delicate her skin probably would feel. He cleared his throat and pushed his glasses back on, looking down at the file instead of the painfully beautiful woman in front of him. “Anyway, about your checking account, you need to watch your balance more carefully and be sure to enter checks you write in your checkbook. It will save you a lot of heartache if any checks bounce.” Not that he would allow that to happen, he thought. He’d watch out for that but he wanted her to be aware, just in case she needed something and couldn’t afford it.

“I don’t balance my checkbook,” she stated as if that were the most obvious thing in the world. She knew he’d gone to great pains to explain how to balance her checkbook on more than one occasion but…she just couldn’t do it. It simply wasn’t in her genes.

Charles stared across the desk at her, not sure what to say. Or think. “I’m sorry?” he responded.

Fiona shivered, feeling his deep voice all the way down to her toes. It was always like this with Charles. She loved his voice, the way his eyes could turn hot or cold, depending on what he was feeling inside. Most people probably didn’t notice, but she did. She noticed everything about him. Like how he took a deep breath to calm himself down. He even leaned back in his chair again, probably counting to ten.

“Well, you’re going to learn.” He glanced at his watch. “I have a meeting in two minutes so meet me back here at noon. We’ll go through the basics again over lunch.” With that, he stood up, jerked his cuffs down and walked out of the office, leaving her staring after him with her mouth hanging open.

And her eyes silently damning the suit jacket that hid his butt!

Charles sat through the next meeting, impatient to get back to his office. He told himself that he wasn’t excited to see Fiona again. He was simply concerned about the state of her checking account. It was ridiculous that a woman of her age didn’t know how to balance a checkbook. She was…what was she…twenty-five?

She was damn well going to learn how to do it this time!

Charles focused on the current meeting, pushing Fiona out of his mind once again. What was this pompous blowhard talking about anyway? Charles looked up from his papers. It was one of his biggest clients, demanding a two point three percent loan on his project. He’d been going on and on about trading relationships and subjects that were completely irrelevant to the issue. After twenty five minutes, Charles stood up, impatient with the discussion. “Linden, your business is down fifteen percent over last quarter. You slashed your sales team by fifty percent last month instead of cutting your other indirect expenses. And worst of all, the three products your company launched last year failed miserably. All of this means you don’t have the ability to fix the sales loss. So no, I’m not revising your loan to two point three percent. In fact, if you can’t make this month’s payment, I’m enforcing paragraph twenty-three, section six which allows me to bump up the rate to four point one percent.” He nodded curtly to the others in the room, all of whom were sitting there, astonished with their mouths hanging open. Charles then left the room, more than ready to show Fiona how to balance her check book.

And take her to lunch. The woman obviously didn’t eat enough. She was too thin, he thought. He’d take her out to Antoine’s, that pretentious French restaurant that served food with thick sauces that Georgette loved. That would add a few calories. He felt momentarily guilty about taking Fiona to his ex-girlfriend’s favorite restaurant, but what was a man to do?

He was supremely glad that things hadn’t worked out with Georgette, and relieved that she was now married. She was more than lovely. She was intelligent and beautiful and they were alike in so many ways. But he just never felt anything for her. He wished he had. He wished Georgette had been the one that stirred his blood and fired his passions. A picture of the lovely Fiona slipped into his mind, but he banished that image once more. Georgette was exactly the kind of woman he should have married.

He walked back into his office and looked around. When he didn’t see Fiona, he stepped back out to his assistant. “Where did Ms. Chandler go?” he snapped, irritated that she wasn’t waiting for him. But when had she ever been on time?

Lizzy Benson, his fifty year old assistant who was efficiency personified, turned around with her normally pursed lips. “Ms. Chandler left right after you. She said she had to get to work.”

Charles mumbled a curse under his breath. Fiona didn’t have a job! He was about to stomp out of his office to track her down when he stopped short. Did she have a job? There had been no deposits into her account other than smaller cash deposits and a few transfers.

Charles rubbed his forehead, trying to figure this woman out. “Lizzy, find out where Fiona Chandler is working and give me the address,” he said and went back into his office, burying himself in paperwork just to get the lovely Fiona out of his mind.

“Yes, Fiona,” he snapped when his cell phone rang a few days later. He was still irritated that his investigators hadn’t discovered her job. She walked dogs occasionally. But other than that, she left the house only to meet her friends. And she did too much of that, he thought as he glanced at the report on his desk.

There was a slight pause before she started talking and Charles instantly regretted his harsh greeting. “I’m going to buy a house. Should I go through your bank to finance it or should I find someone else who doesn’t mind that I don’t balance my checkbook?”

Charles stared at the phone, thinking this must be some sort of joke. “A house? What kind of a house?”

She sighed. “One with four walls, a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen. A normal house. Sort of like the kind other people buy,” she teased and he could hear the laughter in her pretty voice.

Charles pinched the bridge of his nose at the mention of Fiona in a bedroom. He instantly pictured her on a bed. Naked. “Yes. Right.” He stood up and walked to the windows of his office that looked out onto the Mississippi River. The swirling brown water never ceased to fascinate him, so he’d kept the headquarters of his bank here despite the crazy humidity and heat. “Where is this house?”

Fiona bit her lip, not wanting to give him any information. “Look, why don’t I just call your mortgage department. I don’t want any special services just because I know you.”

Charles gritted his teeth, digging deep for patience. She’d damn well better get used to dealing with him about anything having to do with financial matters! There was no way he would allow her to deal with anyone but him! He didn’t want anyone taking advantage of her. She was too soft, too trusting and damn too naïve. “Fiona, give me the damn address.” There was no way in hell he’d let her go through the mortgage branch. They’d stamp rejected on her mortgage application before she even stepped out of the building. Besides, he’d put a flag on her accounts. Any time she called the bank, no matter what branch or department, she was instantly transferred to him. So there was no way she could even call the mortgage department and talk to a representative there.

Fiona spat out the address of the precious home she’d been so excited about. “Why? What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to drive to your place, pick you up and we’re going to look at this house together.” He didn’t wait for her to respond but simply ended the call and walked out of his office. “Cancel my appointments this afternoon,” he told Lizzy.

The older woman peered at him over the top of her glasses, stunned speechless. Cancel his appointments? The man never left the office before seven o’clock in the evening. What was going on?

Charles wasn’t sure what he was thinking. His only objective was to figure out what Fiona was doing. She was so beautiful and sweet, he could just picture some disreputable realtor trying to sell her a bad house. He’d find out exactly what was going on and make sure that the realtor never had the ability to hurt his Fiona again.

“His” Fiona? Where the hell had that thought come from?

He pressed his foot to the accelerator and sped up, determined to get to Fiona before she did something she might regret.

When he walked up to her apartment, he was ready to tear the realtor apart, already having made him out to be a lecherous swine with bad intentions and illegal financing terms. But her sweet smile when she answered the door calmed him down. She looked so young and yet, so…

“Where’s this house?” he demanded, his voice extra gruff because he couldn’t think of her in those terms. She was a client, damn it! And he was supposed to protect her. “Let me see it.”

Fiona pulled back, her eyes suddenly wary. “I don’t think I want you to see the house,” she said. “You’re in a cranky mood. You’ll mess up the spirit of the house.”

Charles stood outside her apartment, his hands fisted on his hips and waited. He was actually waiting for her to explain that statement. It was so utterly ridiculous to think that a house had any sort of spirit. It was a building. It didn’t have moods or auras or whatever she was talking about. But she simply stood there, staring back at him as if she was making perfect sense. She even nodded once for emphasis.

He shook his head and stepped back. “Right. Grab your purse and let’s go.”

Fiona bit her lower lip, trying to decide what was going on. Why was he always so cranky lately? “Charles, you’re not going to like it,” she said. “I think I should just go to another…”

He moved closer, looking down into her startled brown eyes. “Fiona, if you even utter the idea of going to another bank, I think I’ll have to turn you over my knee and spank your adorable bottom. Do you understand?” he practically growled.

Fiona’s mouth dropped open but, after a pregnant moment where she stood a few inches away from his incredibly tall body, she nodded her head even though her eyes were still wide with shock. She completely dismissed the possibility of him spanking her. Charles would never stoop to anything so uncivil. No, her whole mind was focused on the fact that he thought her butt was…what was the word he used? “Adorable”?

He thought her butt was adorable! Wow!

Charles watched in fascination as her entire face beamed. It started off slowly, but the transformation was…amazing. Startling.

He was confused by her reaction and not sure what to make of it. “What just happened here?” he asked, his voice husky and he was unable to tear his eyes away from her beautiful features. He told himself to move back, to give her space. But he couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move. She was just so damn beautiful!

“Nothing,” she replied happily, a bounce to her step as she practically vibrated with that crazy energy that always seemed to surround her. “Thank you.”

Charles blinked when she stepped back and grabbed her purse. A moment later, they were walking down the hallway together and Charles still didn’t understand what had changed her lovely features from worried to happy in the blink of an eye.

“It’s a two bedroom, one and a half bath cottage style house over on Clairmont Street. I liked that area because it is close to the waterfront. I also heard that someone is buying up the land on the other side to make a really nice development. So this sounded like a good investment.”

Charles knew exactly what was going on with the waterfront area, since his bank was financing the Alfieri Properties project that was going to tear down the abandoned warehouses and build up a whole new community. It was a massive project, but Charles had complete faith that Dylan Alfieri would get the job done profitably.

He held the door to his black sedan open for her but when she didn’t step into the passenger seat, he looked back at her. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Fiona stared at the magnificent car. Of course it was the top of the line luxury vehicle, but this baby had a bit of kick to it. The sleek, black lines of the Maserati impressed her. She would have thought he’d drive something traditional and sedate, more banker-ish, like a Mercedes or a Lexus.

Fiona shook her head, unaware of the way her curls danced around her delicate features or the instant impact those dancing curls had on Charles’ imagination. This car indicated the man had much more underneath that conservative exterior than she’d realized. “Nothing at all,” she smiled up at him and slipped into the supple leather seat.

Charles almost slammed the car door closed as he tried to get his body back under control after that smile. Damn! What the hell was going on with him? She was just a client. A client he needed to take an unexplainable, special interest in so that he knew she was okay, but still, just a client.

It was a short ride to the house Fiona had in mind, but Charles asked her questions about why she wanted this house over another house, the design, the neighborhood. Most of his questions, she couldn’t answer. She finally sighed and looked up at him, confused with his interrogation. “Charles, I don’t know what the school system is like,” she told him with exasperation. “Good grief, I just love the house. It feels good and with a bit of care, it could be a beautiful home.” She didn’t want to go into the issue of future children because the idea of any man touching her other than Charles made her skin crawl. Which effectively meant she’d never have children. And that was okay. Almost.

“It’s right there,” she told him, pointing to a small cottage style house about three houses down from the corner. “Isn’t it adorable?” she asked.

Charles parked in the gravel driveway and stared out through the windshield at the building. It was more mess than home, with weeds growing through the cracks in the cement, a broken window in the basement, no landscaping to speak of, and a decidedly sad look about the whole thing. Only Fiona could think of this house as a happy place because, in his mind, it looked like a candidate for being demolished.

“Fiona…” he started to say but she was already out of the car and hurrying up the sidewalk to greet some guy. When she wrapped her slender arms around the man and even kissed his cheek, Charles saw red. Whipping out of his car, he came around, unaware of his hands fisting, ready to punch this guy who had dared to touch Fiona.

She spun around, that bright smile stopping him. But just barely. “Charles, this is Reggie Duncan. He’s the realtor who showed the house to me yesterday.”

Charles looked at the man, who immediately understood that he was in trouble. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Henson,” Reggie said nervously, extending his hand to Charles.

In return, Charles looked at Fiona’s hands, still wrapped around Reggie’s arm, then back up into Reggie’s eyes. The silent warning was received because Reggie cleared his throat and stepped back, forcing Fiona to release his arm. “Um…yes, well…”

Fiona didn’t understand what was going on, but one moment Reggie was his usual effusive self and the next moment he was having trouble clearing his throat. Looking up at Charles, she suspected that it was his fault and she glared up at him. “Be nice,” she whispered to Charles as Reggie walked up the sidewalk to unlock the front door.

Charles didn’t respond in any way other than to put a hand to her back and lead her up the cement stairs. “Tell me again why you want this house,” he commanded.

Fiona looked up at him with worry in her brown eyes. “Why? Is it bad? Is something wrong with it?”

Charles looked down at her and something inside of him twisted with the decreased happiness in her brown eyes. “The driveway would need to be repaved, costing you about ten thousand dollars. The sidewalk needs to be jackhammered out and replaced because there’s no way you can fix those cracks. The roots of that tree,” he said, pointing to the large maple tree on the front lawn, “have grown up underneath and pushed the cement out of the earth. That’s going to cost another ten grand.” He proceeded into the house as Reggie nervously opened the door and stepped back. “Not to mention, there are probably a lot of electrical and plumbing issues that need to be addressed.” He looked over to the realtor. “Is the kitchen updated with new appliances?” When the man didn’t respond quickly enough, Charles snapped, “I’m taking that as a no. And what about the bathrooms? Has an inspector come in to check out the plumbing?”

Fiona walked over to Charles and took his hand, immediately stopping him from going into any other potential downsides to her little dream cottage. “Those are all valid issues, but come here. Look at this fireplace,” she encouraged, bringing his hand to her chest and almost bouncing with delight. “The tile work on this is amazing. You can’t buy tiles like that anywhere. They have to age through time and change color as the fire is used through the generations.” She tugged him closer and he felt a pang of regret when the back of his hand was no longer pressed against her soft breasts. “And the mantle is solid wood. Isn’t the intricate wood carving amazing? Not many people take the time to carve wood like that. If you see it in houses now, it is most likely clay that is painted to look like wood.”

Charles watched as her soft hand smoothed over the mantle, then she looked up at him with hopeful eyes. He couldn’t really speak, his mind was completely focused on both of her hands, one which was still in his and the other which was stroking the wood. In his mind, he was picturing her stroking his chest in the same way, her long fingers running over his skin and his body hardened. His mind was blank except for that image.

Fiona saw the strange look in his eyes and thought she was failing to convince him about the beauty of the house so she doubled her efforts. Grabbing his arm and inadvertently pressing her breasts against his bicep, she pulled him into the kitchen. “You mentioned updated appliances and, yes, that’s probably something I’ll have to figure out but look at these cabinets. They’re solid wood. The hinges are all iron, put in by some guy who wanted to surprise his wife about fifty years ago. And look,” she opened several of them and closed them again, “they all work perfectly. I checked.”

She grabbed his hand again, pulling him through to the dining room. “And just look at these original hardwood floors,” she said, standing in the doorway to the room. “Just think about all of the meals that have been eaten in this room.” She sighed as she stared down at the floor. “Generations of families have been fed in this room. The floors are scuffed in certain areas. Feel it and see where there are almost grooves because of the table and chairs that have slid back and forth on the wood over the years.”

Charles could honestly say that he had no idea if the flooring was wood or asphalt. The only thing that he understood in his mind was the fact that Fiona was pressing her perfect breasts against his arm. His mind was whirling with ideas on how he wanted to explore her soft, full breasts with more than just the side of his arm. He pretended to look around the room, noticing that the floor was indeed scuffed up but he really couldn’t give a damn about the floor when her breast was pressed against him like this.