Jessica Clare - Once Upon a Billionaire

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Griffin decided he rather liked spending time with Maylee. She was fascinated by everything, from the street vendors with wooden puppets in the shape of both the crown princess and Luke Houston, to the chocolate cakes sold on the corners. They passed plenty of stores, but Maylee was more interested in buying things to send to family than for trinkets of her own.

He got a far less embarrassing pair of sunglasses, and he let her lead the way after that. To his surprise, she was just as interested in the older buildings of Bellissime as she was with the touristy stops. Every plaque they passed by, she stopped to read and then would ask him questions. It was a pleasure walking the streets with her and telling her about his homeland, and she soaked up every word. He especially liked her intake of breath when they passed the Saine-Anne de la Vallée Cathedral, the tiny, ancient church that Alex and Luke would be married at a few days hence.

“It’s so beautiful,” she told him.

“It’s very old,” he agreed, and went into an accounting of the church’s history, dating all the way back to Charlemagne. She listened to every word with wide-eyed pleasure. Normally when he went on about his antiquities interests, people got bored or tuned out. Maylee just looked impressed and fascinated. He made a mental note that he’d have to arrange for her to travel with him on a future trip. Perhaps to Peru. Wouldn’t she be impressed with Macchu Picchu? He knew he’d found it a bracing sight, and he wouldn’t mind seeing it again, through her eyes.

Then he frowned at himself. Maylee wasn’t his assistant, but Hunter’s. She was simply on loan.

He wondered how much he could pay her to defect to him. Maylee was loyal as could be, and he wasn’t sure if Hunter would be willing to give her up, since Gretchen seemed fond of her. Of course, hiring Maylee would cause all kinds of new problems. Kip was rather possessive of his job, and the last thing that Griffin needed was two assistants. He’d have to figure out the details somehow.

“Boy, they sure like dessert here, don’t they?” Maylee asked, her drawl catching his attention. She’d paused in the street, staring at a sweets shop.

“Bellissime is very proud of its chocolate,” he agreed. “Do you want to try some?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” she said, grinning.

A few minutes later, they emerged from the shop, two gelato cones in hand. Griffin had gotten a traditional chocolate spumoni and Maylee had gotten a chocolate crème de menthe, which she joked was a fancy pants way of saying chocolate and peppermint.

As they left the shop, Maylee gave her cone a lick. “Mine is amazing. I think I love Bellissime.”

He laughed. “We take chocolate very seriously here.”

She eyed his cone. “Is yours better than mine?”

“You want to give it a taste?” They moved to a nearby park bench and sat down. A fountain burbled nearby, and people strolled past, taking pictures. It was all very touristy and pretty. “I’ll share if you want.”

“If I say yes, are you going to laugh at me for eating yours and mine?”

“Not at all. I’d love to watch you lick my cone.” And he wagged his eyebrows at her.

She snorted. “Perv.” But she reached for his hand and dragged his cone toward her mouth, and then gave it a tentative lick. Then, she moaned. “Oh, my God. That’s incredible. Why is everything so good here?”

He couldn’t take his eyes off her mouth, the small pink tongue darting out to lick at his cone again, and then retreating back between those pretty, perfect lips.

And now he had a rather uncomfortable erection forming. He closed his eyes and started counting back from a hundred, even as she made little pleased noises in her throat as she ate her gelato.

“You want to taste mine, Griff?”

God, she was really going to drive him to distraction today, wasn’t she? Forget the counting. He opened his eyes and looked over at her, just as she was giving the top of her cone an open-mouthed kiss, her tongue flicking out against it. Chocolate coated her pink lips.

He leaned forward and took her lower lip in his mouth, sucking on it. “Delicious,” he murmured, and then nibbled on her upper lip while she made soft mewing sounds that drove him wild. “I think I like yours better.”

She stared at him, dazed, as he pulled away. Her lips were slightly parted, her mouth wet from his kisses. “You . . . you want to taste it again?” Her voice was breathless.

“More than anything,” he admitted. “But if I do, they’ll cite me for public indecency.”

Her gaze flicked to his lap, where his arm was carefully maneuvered over his cock. And she laughed. “I’m sorry. I’ll behave.”

“Let’s discuss something that will rid me of my problem, shall we? And save the tastings for later.”

“All right,” she said cheerfully, and took a big crunching bite of her cone. After a moment, she said, “Tell me about your childhood.”

That’d do it. Talk of his family always made any sexual thoughts disappear. “Must I?”

“Well, no, I guess you don’t have to.”

Griffin regarded the fountain nearby. “I’m afraid it’s one of those revolting ‘poor little rich boy’ stories. Except when I was growing up, my branch of the family wasn’t all that wealthy. We had several estates but other than the crown’s money, we were essentially bankrupt. My mother, Her Royal Highness Sybilla-Louise, married my father because his branch of the family had an acceptable title and enough wealth to keep the family estates afloat. It was not a love match. Not even close. You’ll notice that with the exception of my cousin Alexandra, not many in the royal family marry for love.”

“It sounds kind of backward,” Maylee observed, giving her cone a furtive lick.

“It is. We like to pretend that the royal family is as enlightened as the current times, but they’re still stuck in old protocol more than any other group I have ever imagined. My family was not a warm one. I rarely saw my parents except for state functions, and my brother and I were shuffled off to live with various nannies at my parents’ country estates. When we were old enough, we went to boarding schools.” He shrugged. “I went to Eton in Great Britain.”

“That sounds awful.”

“Eton? It wasn’t so bad.”

“No, your family. Didn’t you love and care for one another?”

He gave her a wintry smile. “I care more for my cousin Alexandra than I do for anyone else in my family.”

“That’s so sad.” Her round face looked unhappy. “Weren’t you lonely?”

“I suppose. I had my books and my studies. I didn’t need much more than that.”

Her hand reached out and touched his.

Griffin grew uncomfortable with her sympathy. “At any rate, my father died when I was fifteen, and my brother, George, became the duke, which made him even more insufferable than he already was. When I was finished with my studies at Eton, I was called home for a time, but it was rather . . . miserable.” He paused, thinking of George’s angry rages about money, his new wife who cried because he never came home, his mother’s icy demeanor that cared more for the hem of his coat than if Griffin was happy. The constant royal functions and scrutiny. “I asked to go to college in the States. My mother was appalled at the thought, but I would not be budged. At the time, I wanted to get as far away from my family and Bellissime as possible, and I thought the States would be the perfect place to do it.”

“They must have finally let you go,” Maylee commented.

“Mmm. Eventually. I did, however, have to forfeit all claim to the throne in order to leave, though. My mother was convinced that Bellissime wouldn’t approve of a States-bred king, never mind that I was ninth in line and would never see the throne unless a plague descended upon the royal house.” His mouth twitched and he looked over at Maylee. “I’d say the joke is on her, considering that Luke Houston will be the next king of Bellissime.”

Maylee wasn’t laughing, though. Her face wore an expression of sympathy.

“So I forfeited any claim on the throne, abdicated all my titles. My mother had the queen dissolve my original title and my inheritance returned to George’s hands, which made him far more amenable to sending me off to the States once that happened. I was given the title of Viscount Montagne Verdi since it wouldn’t do for Mother to have a mere ‘mister’ for a son.” He smiled thinly. “And so I moved to the States and never went back.”

“And you made truckloads of money,” Maylee said. “And rubbed their noses in it.”

He laughed. “I made truckloads of money,” he agreed. “And then I paid off all of Mother and George’s debts.”

Her brows drew together. “Why?”

“Family loyalty, I suppose.” Though sometimes, he wondered why he did so. It certainly hadn’t improved things with Mother or George. If anything, they resented him more for carving his own path and ending up incredibly wealthy.

“Your family sounds like a bunch of jerks, Griff.”

“They’re titled. They can’t be jerks. Snobs and assholes, yes. Jerks, no.”

She laughed and tossed a piece of her cone to the ground. Immediately, birds flocked to it and she began to tear off another piece. “It sounds very sad and lonely, if you ask me. Do you have family in the States, then?”

He thought of the Brotherhood, his friends who had been at his side and helped him more than any family member possibly could have. “I have friends. It’s enough for me.”

His phone buzzed.

Griffin pulled it out of his pocket and grimaced at the photo that popped up. Jonathan and the foreman of his dig, squatting next to a dug trench and grinning like a pair of idiots. “Speaking of friends,” he said dryly. “Jonathan is determined to make me hate him, it seems.”

She peered over his shoulder at the picture. “Because he’s there and you’re not?”

“I couldn’t abandon Alex,” he said. “Though I do wish heartily that she had eloped.”

Maylee laughed.

They spent the day walking the streets of Bellissime, hand in hand. Maylee purchased a few souvenirs, but they spent most of the time simply strolling, visiting tourist spots, and tasting confections at every dessert shop they passed. By the time they headed back to the hotel, Griffin’s feet hurt and his stomach ached from too much chocolate, but he’d enjoyed every moment of the day.

Maylee tugged her hand from his when they got to their floor and headed to her door.

He was surprised. They’d kissed several times today, and flirted even more. They’d held hands for hours. Was she not going to sleep by him tonight? He’d be lying if he didn’t admit he’d been thinking about it all day. “Is something wrong?”

She shook her head and pushed open her door. “Just need to call my Mama and do a few things.” And she disappeared inside before he could protest.

Was she blowing him off? Tired of spending all her time with him? Frustrated, Griffin tore off the hideous baseball cap he was wearing and tossed it onto the bed. He picked up his book and began to read, but irritation kept him from being able to concentrate. Instead, he got up and began to pace.

The faint sound of Maylee’s voice made him pause, and he leaned against the door adjoining their rooms. She was definitely on the phone, though her voice was pitched too low for him to make out. He sighed and returned back to the bed and picked up his book again, reading the same paragraph over and over. Why was it so important that she call her mother just before bedtime? He’d thought they’d gotten along very well today. Actually, more than just well. He’d never felt so comfortable with a woman. Normally, his relationships were one awkward scenario after another, a brief round of fucking and then eventual mutual apathy.

He could honestly say there was not an ounce of apathy as far as Maylee was concerned. In fact, he rather hated that she was gone. Did he say he hated hovering? Was that why she’d disappeared? To give him space? Because he rather liked her hovering. She listened to all of his stories and seemed genuinely interested in them, as opposed to simply humoring him. He’d even talked about his current project for at least an hour, comparing their theoretical Atlantis to Tarshish and why they were pursuing the ruins in Spain versus the Mediterranean like most assumed where Atlantis was located, if it indeed existed.

She’d seemed interested. Unless he was just bad at reading her? Perhaps he’d said something that troubled her and she wanted someone to complain to? A guilty stab made him sit up in bed. Had he inadvertently hurt her feelings again with his careless words? Hell.