Going Down Easy (Billionaire Bad Boys) (5 page)

But Lexie seemed to roll with his demands despite the fact that he could be a pain in the ass. The truth was, there was also part of him that liked to see how far he could push people before they walked away … because they always did.

Except for Derek, Luke, and once upon a time, Julian. Brothers in fraternity and in reality. Julian had chosen drugs over his best friends. Demons and addiction had driven him. Kade didn’t worry about anything pulling Derek and Luke away. They were solid. They were his family.

Now there was this spitfire of a woman who’d barreled into his life twenty-four hours ago, and he couldn’t think of anything else. He’d be a damned liar if he didn’t admit that after she’d left, her scent lingering in his apartment, he’d wrapped his fingers around his cock and brought himself much-needed relief. He’d come all over his hand like a horny adolescent, Lexie’s face in his mind, imagining it was her body he was fucking instead of his hand.

He tried to remind himself that she worked for him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He still wanted her. Just as he knew she could and probably would let him down.

Without warning, his office door banged open, hitting the wall behind it, and his partners stormed in.

Derek took one look at him and asked, “What’s with that grin on your face?”

Feeling like an ass, Kade ignored the comment. “What’s wrong?” Because they hadn’t come barreling in for no reason.

“We have a fucking problem,” Luke said.

Derek slammed the door shut and hit the lock. That meant shit just got real. “What’s going on?”

The two men glanced at each other.

“Just spit it out,” Kade ordered them, not enjoying being in the dark.

“Somehow Julian
knows
,” Derek said. “And this company and everything we’ve worked for is in jeopardy.” He didn’t need to elaborate.

There was only one thing Julian could have uncovered that would threaten everything they’d built—were building.

Kade was the weak link and he knew it. “How?” he asked his friends.

“He hired a PI who went digging through your past.”

Kade didn’t have to ask why Julian had gone after him and not the others. When shit had gone down with Julian, it was Kade who’d stood by him the longest … until he hadn’t. Couldn’t. Not anymore. Once he’d sided with Derek and Luke, agreeing that Julian’s refusal to get treatment would only drag their business down, Julian had been thrown out of anything to do with Blink—and the money that came with it.

Julian made it clear he blamed Kade. Because he’d been closer to Kade than to the other two men. It was Kade on whom he’d seek revenge.

Although Kade’s father had tried to make certain the past stayed buried, nothing was foolproof.

“How did he uncover the information?” Kade asked.

Derek ran a hand through his dark hair. “He found Lila.”

“Fuck!” Kade slammed his hand into the wall, not caring about the consequences.

“Hey, man, calm down. We’ll counter anything he throws at us,” Luke said, coming up behind him and putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Really? We’re taking this company public. You think a date rape accusation against one of the CEOs won’t hurt? No matter how false it is?” His breath caught in his throat, panic surfacing along with the memories.

He’d been twenty-one and a cocky college junior, home from school for Thanksgiving break, and determined to break free from the geek stigma he’d been nailed with in high school, like he already had in college. He’d met Lila at a neighborhood bar. He’d been attracted to her the minute she walked through the door, with her short skirt and
I’m available
attitude.

They’d fucked that night and he’d felt like a king. Until her parents showed up at Kade’s house, accusing him of raping their daughter. When she’d come home the night before, her controlling father was waiting up, figured out she’d been with a guy, and turned furious. She’d claimed Kade had drugged and raped her.

Kade had wanted to fight the bullshit accusation, but his father preferred to pay in order to make problems go away. Without Kade’s knowledge, he’d gone to Lila’s parents and thrown money at them to prevent his son from being arrested and put in jail, the rest of his life ruined.

Except Kade knew he hadn’t drugged or raped the girl, and going to the cops would have at least proved she’d lied about being slipped a roofie. There was no evidence now beyond
he said, she said
. He’d begged his father not to pay them off. But Keith Barnes had spent his life trying to make it up to Kade for losing his mother and brother. He thought money fixed all things, and there’d been no deterring him. He’d paid off the family.

Kade’s father wasn’t an idiot. He’d had the parents sign a nondisclosure agreement. But they could have run through the money, or Julian, the bastard, could have offered them even more to snitch.

Fast forward to today—
he said, she said
was enough to scare off potential shareholders in his soon-to-be public company. So was the payoff. Everyone would assume Kade had something to hide. For all these reasons, he’d confided in Derek and Luke just last year. He felt they needed to know before they took this company to the next level. They’d immediately stood by him.

“Breathe, man,” Luke said. “We’re going to get enough on Julian to bury him. That’ll ensure this stays dead and buried too. I already called Evan Mann. He’s a PI with a solid rep. We’ll get this sorted,” he assured him.

Kade breathed out hard, trying not to panic. The notion of a rape charge wasn’t something he wanted to revisit … and there was a twenty-five-year statute of limitations on sex crimes. He wasn’t close to out of the woods if Lila and her parents decided to make things ugly and press charges. They’d be as money hungry as Julian, out to get a piece of Kade … and Blink.

Suddenly his hand began to throb, and he cursed out loud, looking down at his swollen, bruised knuckles.

“Shit. That could be broken,” Derek said, having joined them on Kade’s side of the desk.

“You should have it x-rayed,” Luke said in agreement.

Normally Kade would balk at going to the doctor, but the way this mother hurt… “Yeah, okay.”

“I’d join you but I have a meeting with a new developer,” Luke said. “Derek is sitting in.”

“Then it’s a good thing Kade has a personal assistant he likes so much. She can go along for the ride,” Derek said with a shit-eating grin on his face.

Luke shook his head and walked across the room, unlocking and opening the door. “Lexie get in here!” he called before Kade, with his excruciating pain, could process what he was doing.

Lexie rushed into the room. “Is everything okay?” she asked, her voice filled with concern. Her gaze immediately rested on Kade, who cradled his injured hand with the other. “Oh my God! What did you do?”

“He had an accident,” Derek said. “Can you get us some ice? And call for a car. You’re going to need to accompany him to the emergency room for X-rays.”

“Of course.” She spared a worried glance at Kade before rushing out.

“Thanks for that,” Kade muttered. Now Lexie had proof he wasn’t just a pain in the ass, he had a temper as well. Except he didn’t. Fear had driven him to this jacked move.

“We’ll handle things here. Get the hand looked at and go home. Let your new assistant take care of you,” Derek instructed, that same pleased grin on his face.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were playing matchmaker,” Kade muttered.

“Who said I’m not?” Derek asked, just as Lexie returned with a bag full of ice, her timing impeccable.

Her presence very needed. As much as the reminder of the past had Kade wanting to close out the world and shut down, he couldn’t deny he’d much rather turn to Lexie for comfort. And much more.

Chapter Four

L
exie rushed downstairs
and retrieved ice in a bag from a restaurant nearby, then headed back to Kade’s office in record time. Derek and Luke must have left, so she walked up to Kade, who stood staring out the window, as if he hadn’t heard her come in.

“Can I see your hand?” she asked softly.

He turned around, and the raw pain in his face stole her breath. Without speaking, he held out his hand. His knuckles were swollen and bruised, already a deep purple. She lightly rested the bottom of his palm in hers and gently put the ice over the top.

“I’ll call for a car, and we can head over to the hospital,” she said without pushing for answers as to why he’d gotten so angry the plaster on the wall behind him was cracked. She hoped he’d confide in her eventually because he seemed like he had a lot to get off his chest.

“You don’t have to go along. I’m capable of taking myself.”

“I’m sure you are.” She sensed this man was an island. He thought he liked it that way. He just didn’t know any other way.

“But I want to help.” She glanced down at his ice-covered hand, rotating the bag so as not to overdo any one spot. “Put your free hand here and I’ll arrange for a car.”

She’d found a helpful list of various things, left behind by one of the former assistants. Car service had been on it.

He placed his hand over the ice, brushing her skin as they switched positions. Electricity—inappropriate and so wrongly timed—rushed over her, causing the hair on her arms to stand on end.

They made the trip to the closest hospital in silence, Kade’s clenched jaw an indication of his pain. And because this was a typical emergency room and since a bruised hand wasn’t triaged as urgent, they waited for hours, surrounded by sick people who used the ER as a doctor’s office.

Hacking coughs, lots of noses being blown loudly, a knife-wound victim with blood trailing behind the injured man, and the topper, the child vomiting in the corner.

Squicked out, Lexie inched closer to Kade, afraid of catching anything. But she was determined to stick it out and get him that X-ray. She wasn’t a doctor, but those knuckles looked
bad
. She held her tongue and tempered her frustration at how long they had to wait.

Not Kade. He complained. Bitched. And finally tried to bully and ultimately bribe the triage nurse to let him pass before she threatened to call security and have him thrown out on his ass.

Lexie got in his face with a wagging finger. “Look, you might be used to preferential treatment most of the time, but here you’re less important than someone having a heart attack. Deal with it,” she ordered, feeling every inch the shrew as she lectured him. He deserved it.

“You’re bossy,” he muttered.

“But I get the job done.” She folded her arms across her chest and, with a glare, dared him to comment.

He didn’t. Instead he focused on the fresh ice the nurse had given him.

His compliance lasted another hour before he rose to leave. “That’s it. I’m done. The pain’s not that bad anymore.”

“Liar.” She scowled at him, then physically grabbed his arm on the uninjured side and pulled him back to his seat. “Quit making a scene, and I’ll go ask if they have any idea how much longer it might be.”

Before she could do as she promised, a male nurse stepped through the double doors. “Barnes? Kaden Barnes.”

“Thank God,” Lexie muttered, remaining seated when Kade stood.

“This way,” the nurse gestured.

Kade glanced at her. “Well? Let’s go.”

She shook her head. “They’re not going to let me go into X-ray with you. I’ll be here when you get out.”

“They’re just going to take me into a room and make me wait some more. You’re coming.”

She shrugged and rose to follow, surprised and secretly delighted that he wanted her with him. The nurse didn’t argue, so she soon found herself in a curtained cubicle as Kade had predicted. After the expected wait, a doctor finally came in to examine him.

Lexie winced along with Kade as the doctor lifted the hand and attempted to move fingers and thoroughly looked at the injury. “I’m pretty certain it’s a Boxer’s Fracture, a result of a break in the metacarpal when the bones hit a hard, immovable object.” He glanced at Kade as if waiting for an explanation as to how he’d gotten the injury.

When none came, the man shrugged and called a nurse to take him to X-ray. He allowed Lexie to wait in the cubicle.

While he was gone, Lexie called her sister to check in. The call went straight to voice mail, and she left a message, requesting Kendall call her back.

Kade finally returned, which led to another long wait for a doctor to come in with the results.

“Thank you,” Kade said into the prolonged silence.

“You’re welcome.” She almost told him she was just doing her job but stopped herself because that would have been a lie. True, Derek and Luke had asked her to go along, but she would have anyway and not because she was Kade’s personal assistant.

Because in a very short time, she was coming to care about him, and that was something she couldn’t let happen. She already had firsthand experience of what happened when she didn’t put a man first in her life. And a demanding man like Kade? He’d have no patience for her sister or her issues, no matter how kind he’d been when she’d told him the truth about her mother.

With a little luck, Kendall’s meds would kick in, and this would be the time things stuck. She’d turn herself around and get her life back on track. Then Lexie could focus on herself. Even if Kade was truly interested in her now, the sad truth was that said interest would fade long before that ever happened. The thought caused a pain in the pit of her stomach.