To Crave A Billionaire (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (The Billionaire's Baby Series Book 3) Read online

  To Crave A Billionaire (The Billionaire’s Baby Series, #3)

  Ava Claire

  Copyright © 2016

  Cover by RBA Designs

  ~

  The Billionaire’s Baby Series

  To Want A Billionaire, #1

  To Need A Billionaire, #2

  To Crave A Billionaire, #3

  To Trust A Billionaire, #4

  To Love A Billionaire, #5

  ~

  E-book License Edition Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to an online retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Billionaire’s Baby Series

  About the Author

  Chapter Thirteen

  I couldn't feel the pain.

  That should have been the first tip off that something wasn't right. Even if I hadn't seen the miracle of childbirth in countless movies, complete with women screaming their heads off, faces scrunched in agony as they squeezed the life out of their husband's hand, common sense dictated that pushing a human being out of your vagina was an excruciating act.

  Still, there was only numbness; a white, glowing thing that should have been too painful to touch, to bask in, but it coated everything. It was in the white sheets that were bunched up to my round belly, my legs splayed open. It was the white coat that my OB/Gyn was wrapped in. It was the pristine scrubs the wide array of nurses wore. It was the white button down shirt that Jacob had on, sleeves rolled up, his eyes cloudy with worry—the same worry that was reflected in all the eyes in the room. Too many eyes, too many bodies for one baby.

  Unless...

  I reached for my husband, needing Jacob to tell me it would all be okay. Needing to feel something, because I....

  I...

  My eyes dropped to my belly, the covers shrinking. Fluttering like a gust of wind had just ripped through the room, taking all the joy and hope with it.

  I couldn't feel the baby.

  ~

  "NO!"

  I lurched forward.

  My hands flew to my belly, my pulse calming when my fingers wrapped around the familiar curve.

  Jacob stirred beside me, shaken from dreams of his own. He flicked on the bedside lamp, but the low setting still made me shield my eyes. The inky black darkness was now amber colored, and the dream became just that.

  A dream.

  A nightmare.

  He dusted my curls over my shoulder, massaging my anxious muscles softly. "Bad dream?"

  I shuddered, trying to push all signs of the fleeting panic from my body, but the ache seemed to have seeped into my bones. "The worst dream."

  I didn't even have to get specific and he knew.

  His hands dropped to my tummy, cupping mine. "About the baby?"

  I confirmed it with a nod, rubbing my eyes. I could still see that sterile, cold room. The dread I’d felt was so palpable that I could still taste it. I swallowed, my throat dry, still raw from my screech.

  I threw the covers from my body and wiggled from the bed. I had to get away from the set of blue eyes that were clearly waiting for a recap. I didn't want the dream to take root. I wanted to push it to the furthest, darkest corner of my mind.

  Now that Lars Eichmann was in the US, we had real life problems. The last thing I wanted to do was worry Jacob with my bad dreams.

  I slipped into my fur lined moccasins, my aching feet immediately sighing 'thank you'. "I'm gonna grab some water, you want anything?"

  He tossed back his own covers, practically beating me to the punch. "Let me-"

  "I am perfectly capable of getting my own water," I hissed, throwing him a glare that made him set his jaw, his eyes turning glacial. The heat in my words was transported to my cheeks and I hung my head guiltily. "I'm sorry for waking you. Go back to sleep." Realizing that I'd just snapped at him and given him a order, I covered it by reaching out and squeezing his hand. "I'm fine."

  Done with the silent evaluation and not waiting around for him to psychoanalyze me, I hustled from the bedroom, surprised I didn't roll down the staircase because I was moving like a bat out of hell. It wasn't until I got to the kitchen, barely able to grip the side of the sink because I couldn't stop shaking, that I realized how not fine I really was.

  I closed my eyes and the strangest thing came barreling through my mind: tapping. It was something my therapist had thrown out as a coping mechanism. I’d listened to her spiel incredulously. Tapping different points on my body was supposed to help me relax? She'd looked crazy, and when she started demonstrating on me, I'd felt a little crazy to be paying her astronomical hourly fee for some new agey, hocus pocus.

  I tried to smile, but I could barely lift the sides of my mouth. ‘New agey hocus pocus’? I sounded like Jacob. Jacob, who’d only slept last night because he took a pill, too hyped and focused on Operation Take Eichmann Down. Jacob, who'd been woken from his hard earned and much needed rest by yours truly...who was barely holding it together.

  My throat was on fire, and breathing just magnified the tremors. I didn’t trust myself to retrieve a glass without it crashing to the floor, so I just stood at the sink, vision swimming as I stared at the faucet. Liquid was no problem because tears were currently drenching my cheeks as my mind wreaked havoc on my already fragile nerves.

  Where to begin? With the fact that your best friend got the most unromantic marriage proposal from the love of her life, and you pushed it to the back burner when Angelique Entoine sashayed into the room? Or how about when you were left alone with more questions than reassurance after Jacob unloaded the really unsettling news, that Eichmann was in the country?

  I gripped the sink with one hand and dropped the other to my belly. It was clear why Eichmann was here.

  He was coming after us.

  What if my dream was some sort of premonition?

  "Enough," I said out loud, talking myself from the ledge. Swallowing the emotion and the snot. Trying to pick the frayed remnants of my sanity from the floor. I was so worried about broken dishes, but what about a broken me?

  I wanted to curl into the fetal position. I wanted to run upstairs and tell Jacob to just kill Eichmann so we could be done with it. I wanted to call an Uber and apologize to Megan. I wanted to reach inside myself and hold my baby and tell her (or him) that everything would be okay. I wanted someone to hug me and tell me everything would be okay.

  I wanted someone to lie to me.

  The lie would be more comforting than owning up to the fact that I’d been living a fool’s paradise. What about my life had led to me being so silly, thinking Jacob and I would ride off into the sunset, our baby cooing in the backseat?

  The last thing that should have tore back through my mind was my therapist, but there she was. Dr. Jessica Kent was a no-nonsense woman, which was why she'd been such a good fit. Her cropped, silver hair was always held back by a thick, black headband. She wore no makeup and her usual uniform was a neutral colored turtleneck and wide leg trousers, despite the temperature, but that c
ould be because her office was always a cool 65 degrees. She was easily six feet tall, extra inches added by her black pumps. She would always wait for me to sit on the couch before she folded her lean frame into her high back leather chair, crossing one leg over the other before she turned her olive colored eyes on me.

  She’d ask me how I was, and I quickly learned that my usual answer, 'fine', would only make her linger, asking me what that meant.

  Standing at the sink, rattled and sobbing, the tapping sequence came at me like the answers to a study guide that I'd been repeating for hours without anything sticking.

  "The first step is identifying the problem you want to tap on, whatever is making you anxious."

  Her rich, matter-of-fact voice made the tremors dim to mere vibrations. As soon as I took a hard look at all the stress—the baby, Megan, Ang, the mothers, Eichmann—I was almost right back where I started.

  I pulled air in through my nostrils, lowering my hands to my side as I slowly exhaled through my mouth. As incredulous as I'd been as she went through the sequence, I remembered every step.

  The first was reflecting on the situation and how it made me feel, rating the intensity of my anxiety on a scale from 1 to 10. I was pretty sure I was firmly in ‘fucked' territory. The second was to come up with a setup statement that affirmed that everything would be alright.

  I flexed my fingers and rolled my neck and shoulders, trying to figure out a setup statement that wasn't unhelpful like, ‘Even though my life is falling apart, the worst is yet to come’.

  I licked my lips, swallowing the boulder in my throat. “E-Even though this anxiety feels like it's going to crush me, I deeply and completely accept myself".

  My voice shook slightly, matching the residual trembles that rippled through me like a rock slicing across water, but I didn't focus on my skepticism. I didn't channel the doubt that this would help. I didn't think about anything except my pointer and middle finger as I remembered the meridian points, starting with my hand.

  I tapped the space on the outside line of my hand, halfway between my palm. The 'karate chop' as Dr. Kent called it. I drummed the spot and repeated the statement. The second time I said it, my voice was a little clearer. The third time, I almost believed it.

  I moved to my face, blushing, feeling a little absurd. I paused for a minute to bask in that, to embrace the fact that I was feeling something other than white hot anxiety and a complete loss of control. I tapped my eyebrow, then moved to the side of my eye.

  Still moving through the points, I gently tapped beneath my eyes, breathing in and out as I repeated the statement. When I finished moving through the sequence, ending with tapping the top of my head, I exhaled the final recitation. "Even though this anxiety feels like it's going to crush me, I deeply and completely accept myself."

  I lowered my hands back to the ledge. Before, it felt like I was going to break the granite off because I was so anxious, so sure that I was going to awaken some latent super power. I craved super human strength so I could end Eichmann, and anyone like him who harmed people because it was financially profitable to do so, but I was grateful that I wasn't shaking anymore.

  I was breathing.

  In and out.

  The tremble had become an internal shudder that I could weather. I wasn't alone. And no problem was so massive, so overwhelming that I couldn't face it head on with Jacob.

  I perked on my toes and pulled a glass from the cabinet, filling it with water. Trusting myself, I lifted it to my lips and after a few solid gulps, I made my way back up the stairs.

  The light was still on, but the bed was empty. The ambiance masked his figure, but when the floor creaked beneath my feet, Jacob pivoted toward me. He was at the window, gazing out at the sleeping city.

  When he came back to bed, lowering himself onto the mattress beside me, I saw the same worry that took my breath away. It was etched onto his rugged, handsome face. It had only been a day or two since he'd shaved, but the scruff brushed the palm of my hand when I cupped his cheek. With ebony waves spilling across his forehead and murder in his eyes, he looked more like a UFC fighter than a CEO, and it was sexy as hell.

  I offered him my water. "It looks like you could use something stronger."

  His eyes dropped to my glass briefly, then shot back up to mine. They were softer. "I have a different kind of thirst, Lay. "

  I frowned, confused...until his gaze swept over me, lingering at the swell of my breasts.

  I chugged the water, trying to battle the storm of heat that reclaimed my cheeks. I couldn't help it—not when he got that look in his eye. The look that told me to strap in, because he had hot, naughty plans for my body.

  My lips curled deviously. "Is that right?"

  I didn't even notice that he had taken out the Velcro cuffs until the ripping sound of him opening one gave me my answer.

  ~

  My body said yes.

  Screamed it.

  The cotton t-shirt I wore broadcasted it all. My body longed for freedom, the hardened impressions of my nipples piercing the pale fabric. They strained towards the fingers that brushed them, teased them. The sweat that plastered the shirt to my body was no longer the remnants of a bad dream, but the heat that his gaze inspired. It was all in the blue that devoured me slowly and thoroughly...and still wanted more. That locked on my eyes and softened to something so much deeper than flesh. He chose me, and that look told me that somehow, someway, he truly believed he was the lucky one.

  There was something about him that spoke to something deep in me. It wiped the slate clean and surrounded me in warmth, love, and lust, turning the fluttering in my stomach into a stampede. Transforming the ache between my thighs into a consuming throb that wouldn't be ignored.

  When he outlined my jaw with his knuckle, lifting my lips to meet his, I almost forgot everything else. The dream, Eichmann, Megan and Cade, Angelique, my crazy and complicated life...

  But when our lips brushed, I didn't melt into his arms like I usually did. I didn't give him the ‘Yes’ that he craved, that I craved. It was beneath all the stress that kept me tethered to the ground. Kept me from fading into his embrace.

  I pursed my lips together and whispered, "Wait."

  He did just that, going as still as a statue, his mouth hovering inches away from mine. Eyes unblinking.

  I almost waved a hand in front of his face to make sure he hadn’t been turned to stone before my very eyes.

  His name withered on my tongue as he blinked and his eyes raged with confusion and indignation.

  “What’s wrong, Leila? Talk to me.”

  Any semblance of caution or contrition on my part evaporated. “What’s wrong?” I repeated his question, the two syllables ringing in my head like cymbals crashing into each other. “What’s right, Jacob?” Usually that look, filled with a different kind of heat than what was brewing a few moments ago, would make me take a breath. Choose my words carefully. I ignored it, pushing from the bed. Forcing some space between us so I could say what I needed to say. “You dropped the Eichmann bomb on me this morning-”

  “I am aware-”

  “And I’m not done talking.” I snatched the mic away from him, clinging to it, determined to ignore the anger that was coming off him in waves. “You call me and tell me that sociopath is in the US, probably within spitting distance of doing something awful in retaliation of what happened in Paris. Before I can even digest that, you tell me you have to go.”

  I relived every ounce of the terror and frustration that had gripped me as I’d struggled to not crush my phone, realizing the call had been ended. I’d been in utter disbelief, not sure how my day had gone to hell so quickly. I’d gone from a fun morning with Megan, to an impromptu publicity thing with Ang, complete with a argument with my best friend that was currently lighting up the blogosphere, to hell on Earth. Left to weather Jacob’s, ‘Surprise! Remember the crime lord that we narrowly escaped? He’s in the country, probably plotting something atrocious. Bye!’r />
  I stomped over to the window, pacing back and forth. “You came home at 10PM. 10 PM! After going radio silent except for a couple of unreassuring texts that managed to make me even more worried. Telling me it would be all okay. Not to stress because you had it under control. You essentially sent me to the kiddie table while the adults took care of business.”

  Jacob was naked except for a pair of charcoal gray sweats. It almost wasn’t a fair fight with him rising from the bed like a fantasy brought to life. Golden abs flexing, biceps rippling as he crossed his arms.

  I wanted to stay angry; I had every right to be, but my body seemed to miss the memo. I was in the middle of arguing with him, and it wanted to skip right over the uncomfortable stuff and get right to the angry sex.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t ask about your day,” he spat acidly. “I’d love a play-by-play of your shopping adventure with your friend. Then I can tell you how I spent all day making arrangements to guarantee your safety.”

  I recoiled like he’d threw something across the room and smacked me upside the head. “Are you serious? You think I’m upset because you didn’t ask me how my day was?”

  I whirled to the window. I couldn’t look at him. I loved him to death, and I wanted to strangle him. I was so upset that I could taste the fury. I felt it consuming me. Choking me. I wasn’t sure whether to cry, yell, breathe fire, or some combination of all three.

  “And the shopping crap...” I trailed off, seeing red. Seeing the woman that the gossip blogs had pegged me as when Jacob and I began this journey. An opportunist, who scored the biggest meal ticket in town. “Is that who you think I am? That I’m upset because you didn’t ask me to give you some fashion show of all the shiny things I picked up at the store?”

  “Wait a minute,” he thundered, his voice, his own anger, as dark as the midnight hair he chopped a hand through. “I never said-”

  “That’s just the point,” I cut in, interrupting him a second time. I couldn’t let him finish. I couldn’t be derailed. Not after that dig. “You don’t talk to me, Jacob. Even when all hell breaks loose.” I balled my fists in frustration. “You’ve taken down the wall around your heart, but the rubble is still there. I feel it every time you check your phone and tell me it’s nothing.” If I heard one more cryptic non-answer from him about Eichmann, I was pretty sure I’d pull every curl from my head. One by one.