The Billionaire's Flame

Tell Me I'm Wrong

"Hello, Emerson. Connor.”

Connor whirls in surprise. He looks like a deer in the headlights, afraid he might be pummeled at any moment. Kieran’s date, I note, is waiting a few feet back. Did he ask her to wait there?

I turn to face Kieran, too, though I have no idea what I’m going to say. Luckily—or unluckily, depending how you look at it—I don’t have to. His gaze trails immediately to my lip, and then to the torn fabric of my dress. His expression darkens substantially, and he growls at me in an entirely different tone, “A word?”

I glance at Connor, who gives me a wide-eyed, confused nod, then follow Kieran out of earshot of both Connor and the gorgeous date.

Only… we don’t just step out of earshot. We step way out of earshot.

“Where the hell are we going?” I ask him, glancing nervously around. He’s led me inside the building rather than outside—straight past the ticketing attendants, who don’t seem bothered by the slightest.

“Someplace private.”

Does my lip really look that bad? It can’t have bruised this quickly, and I thought I wiped all the blood off. At most, there’s a little cut. Right?

Then again, there’s also the torn dress.

He comes to a stop next to some sort of fancy VIP room. It’s been stanchioned off, but he doesn’t seem to care. He steps over it and into the room like he owns the place. For all I know, he does.

“Your mouth,” he says once he’s closed the door behind us. His chest is rising and falling very rapidly. “He do that?”

I look away from him too quickly. “I’m fine, Kieran.”

“Bullshit, you’re fine!” His voice is darker than I’ve ever heard it. “He did that to you, tore your dress, and you still came to this stupid ass show with him?”

There it is again—the judgment. It feels so shitty, I manage to summon enough anger to glare back at him. “You don’t know the first thing about it, Kieran. You don’t know me. So don’t go acting like—”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

There it is again—the second admittance and apology I’ve gotten out of him. It’s genuine, too—that, or he’s a very good actor. Where there was just bubbling rage in his eyes, there’s now regret.

“What does he give you?” he asks me. “Money? He pays your mom’s medical bills? Let me pay them.”

I take a step back from him, shocked. “Are you serious?”

“You can’t be with him for any other reason. Tell me I’m wrong.”

I can’t do that, and we both know it. And yet, that doesn’t make his offer any less inappropriate. "I can’t take money from you, Kieran. I don’t even know you.”

“You can’t stay with him. Not if he’s treating you like this.”

“I…” I bite my lip, then cringe when I remember that it’s wounded. “Look, it happened in the car ride here. I was already planning on getting my own ride home tonight. I’ll sort something out. I don’t need your help.”

My hinting at breaking up with Connor without actually saying it is strategic, of course. It actually is more complicated than just him paying my mom’s medical bills, and I haven’t made up my mind yet about what I’m going to do. I just know that accepting money from this random billionaire can’t be the solution.

Right?

“Your girlfriend’s pretty,” I say. It’s a stupid thing to say, but I can’t help it. “Model?”

He looks surprised by my question—probably because I should know who she is. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Well, that’s probably for the best, since you took another woman to a back room.”

He’s staring at my lips again. Is it just me, or is he staring at more than just the scar on them?

He brings his gaze slowly back to mine, then says, “I can’t stop thinking about you, Emerson.”

There it is again. Lightheaded and faint. And feeling like I might fall over. “About rescuing me, you mean?”

I know I’m being a bit harsh, but it’s a genuine concern of mine. Someone with a date as gorgeous as his can’t be after me for my looks, and he barely knows my personality yet. So his fixation with me must be about my semi-abusive semi-boyfriend. Right?

“No.” His eyes rake up and down the length of me again, then settle back onto my lips. “About kissing you.”

And then he does.

Well, if I wasn’t f****d before, I am now.

Kieran kisses like no one I have ever kissed before. Men like Connor like to mark their territory and all that, but Kieran’s lips straight-up claim mine from the moment they crash against them. His giant hands grip the small of my back with enough force to press my body flat against his, and before I know it, they’re slipping down lower, all the way to my ass, and his tongue is pressing fiercely against my lips, which part for him with way too much desperation, and he lets out a groan of pleasure right into my mouth as he scoops me up so that my legs are wrapped around him, and he carries me over to the wall and presses me against it, and f**k, he has a hard-on like I’ve never felt pressed against me before, and—

“Kieran,” I whimper, pulling away from him. My chest is heaving. I don’t want this to end, but this has to end right this goddamn second.

What am I doing? Connor is two hundred feet away and probably wondering where the hell I am. Kieran’s date is about as far. Kieran… Kieran…

He’s stopped kissing me, but he hasn’t set me down. I feel limp. I feel dizzy.

“Are you okay?” he asks me.

Am I okay? I really can’t think straight—not with him looking at me like that. Not with how good of a kisser he is. f**k, that was hot.

“I’m not…” I’m really struggling with words. I squirm a bit, which he takes as an indication to put me down. He does, but he doesn’t let go of me. I think he can tell how wobbly I’m feeling. “I’m not this kind of girl, Kieran.”

He looks confused, which is probably fair. “What kind of girl? If you’re worried about Connor, you don’t owe him—”

“It’s not Connor.” He thinks I’m worried about being a cheater or a slut, I think. I’m not. Connor cheats on me all the time; I wouldn’t harbor much guilt about it. And the word “slut” is stupid and antiquated. “It’s you. I don’t belong in your world.”

Now he looks more hurt than confused. “And what, exactly, is ‘my world?’”

I lift my arms, gesturing around us at the fancy sitting room we’ve slipped into. “This. The world of supermodels and red carpets and… and…”

“This isn’t my world, Emerson. I hate this kind of thing. The play’s supposed to be terrible. I’m only here because Amber insisted.”

I don’t think he gets what I’m saying. And I really don’t like hearing her name. “It’s not just the venue or the play. It’s… you. It’s your Lamborghini. It’s your private jet. You’re not even in the same universe as me, Kieran. This is… a nice dream. Not real.”

“I come from the same place as you,” he reminds me. He takes a step toward me. He’s so close. He’s still hard. I can feel it pressing against me. It’s intentional—I know it is. “It is real, Emerson. I want you.”

That much, I can’t possibly deny. And obviously I want him, too—like I’ve never wanted anyone.

But what would be the point? A cheap thrill in the back room of a fancy theater, and then what? He’d stay in SF, I’d go back to Oakland, and I’d probably never hear from him again. Right?

My priority right now is figuring out how to get out of my current relationship, not how to get into a new one. Especially not with someone who would never in a million years actually start up a relationship with someone like me.

“I should go,” I say, pulling away from him.

He doesn’t stop me. It would be pretty hypocritical if he did.

I manage to slip out of the venue without Connor seeing me. I see him looking for me—even feel my phone abuzz with frantic calls and texts from him—but I ignore it all.

Instead, I call a damn Uber and get the f**k out of there.