This is the final installment in the Billionaire’s Pet collection, which must be read in order.
**********
Copyright Š 2012 by Christa Wick
Cover art Š Sanja Naumov, licensed from dreamstime. All persons and entities are fictional. Not for sale to libraries. No lending outside distributor (e.g.
Kindle/Nook) terms of service. Otherwise, re-distributing, lending, or reading this e-book without first purchasing a license to do so is illegal and subject to heavy fines.
Get your wicked fix!
Follow new releases on twitter (wickedchrista) or on wickedchrista.com or gmail wickedchrista for notices sent straight in your mailbox!
Thank you!
Thank you so much for your purchase of Billionaire’s Pet 3. If you like a story, please put a rating on it, post links to it, and make some noise because you will influence what I write next and how fast I write it! Seriously, this is a scientifically proven fact and one of the twelve laws of physics holding the universe together!
**********
Billionaire’s Pet 3
Alone, Griffin Montgomery paced the wide length of his library. He had kept the room locked during Katelyn’s stay. More than any other place in the world, the house’s library was his sanctuary and had been from early childhood. Since his mother’s death, the room’s only other visitors were Philip and Claire and, once quarterly, a cleaning staff to dust and polish under his housekeeper’s watchful eye.
Now, standing in front of an easel with a table of paints and brushes at his side, Griffin contemplated the unthinkable — bringing Katelyn to the room. More unthinkable, he wanted to paint her.
His gaze scanned the room. His landscapes filled the spaces between floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Above the fireplace, a cleaner section of wall indicated the recent removal of another painting. His mouth twitched and his brows drew together in a scowl.
Leaving the painting out on display was not an option. With Katelyn’s quick mind, she would have recognized its place of importance and that the painting was by Griffin’s own hand. Of course, as observant as she was quick, she’d notice the blank spot, too.
He closed his eyes, picturing the object of the painting. Not a woman or a man but a dog. A sleeping bloodhound, to be exact, sitting on a thick fur rug with a quiet evening’s fire warming his backside. Maudlin, yes, but Jupiter and his handler had found a nearly unconscious Griffin lost in the woods on a winter night when he was thirteen. Undoubtedly experiencing guilt over why her son had run off into the estate’s woods, Griffin’s mother had convinced the dog’s owner to part with him for a very large fee.
Jupiter was seven at the time, old for a bloodhound. He somehow survived another four years before age and bloat finally took him. Griffin had felt more grief at Jupiter’s passing than he did in later years when his father and then his mother died. Hell, at the end of their lives, he felt no love for his parents, but the painting of Jupiter still had the power to squeeze at Griffin’s chest.
That was exactly why Katelyn couldn’t see it. Her beautiful hazel eyes would go all soft and knowing and she would ask him about the dog. Then her questions would venture into other areas of his past. As private and stoic as Katelyn was, the woman wanted to get personal with him. She wanted to know him beyond his cock and money.
Not acceptable.
His scowl deepening, Griffin wrapped his hands around the edges of the canvas he had finished priming a few hours before. He could not allow Katelyn into the library. Nor could he continue playing with her, not with her injured ankle and the blow to her head from when she fell on the jogging path. Teasing and loving her in bed through the night had been low risk — for Katelyn.
He, on the other hand, had been infected with an unfamiliar weakness. Every step away from her that morning had clawed at his stomach and tried to hook and drag him back into the bedroom. Fuck
Maggie Brendan
Barbara O'Connor
Jan Washburn
Terri Blackstock
Norah Simone
Barry Kemp
G.P. Taylor
Alan Cumyn
Linda Barnes
Lisa Jackson