Page 11 of The Billionaire Dating Game

“No.” Candice shook her head. “You don’t get it. I’m not some escort, Anna!”

Anna threw her hands up. “You could make enough to repay Alexei. Other men are willing to—”

“She’s with me and no one else,” Alexei said, startling them.

CHAPTER SIX

Alexei

Fuck if she was going anywhere with anyone but him.

Both women jumped at the sound of his voice, but it was Candice’s wide-eyed gaze that held his attention. He’d given himself two weeks to forget the scent of rose perfume on her dark brown skin and the smoothness of it under his hand. Two weeks had not been enough, but another day would drive him crazy.

“This is Alexei?” her friend asked, gaping.

“What, upset that after you intruded into my privacy you couldn’t find a picture of me?”

He spared her one fleeting glance before turning back to the woman that invaded his thoughts. Alexei saw why he’d hired Anna and had she shown that night, she would have accomplished what he’d needed and sent Jasmine on a spiral. But she hadn’t, and someone far more intriguing had taken her place.

“Leave us,” he said, walking past the brunette to where Candice sat on the window seat. She was wearing socks, a tee shirt, and a pair of cutoff shorts that exposed her smooth legs. His hands itched to touch her. Kiss every inch of her thighs. Soon, he promised himself.

A few minutes ago, she’d let her guard drop, and he’d seen glimpses of her vulnerability as she argued with her friend. Her ready smile disappeared, replaced with hurt before she’d heard him in her doorway. For a second, her emotions lay bare.

Her vulnerability and the brief glimpse he had of her questioning her self-worth tugged at his heart. He hated her roommate for adding water to her seed of doubt.

“Are you good, Candice?” Anna asked.

With a finger under her chin, he tilted her head until Candice saw him and only him. “Are we good?” As he searched her bright eyes, Alexei was asking if she feared him. But he was also questioning if he’d imagined the attraction pulsing between them.

“I’m alright, Anna,” she said, rolling her lower lip between her teeth, and his gaze followed the movement. “Call me when you get to your new place.”

Always the caretaker. Alexei admired that, but it was also a weakness those like Anna took advantage of. When he heard the roommate’s retreating steps, he asked, “Are you sure you’re not afraid of me, malo svitla?”

She flushed at the endearment, and the heat from her face warmed his hand, sending a tingle of heat along his arm. His first instinct was to snatch his hand away and erect a wall between them. But the impulse to close the gap won, and he stepped between her thighs, bracing his free hand against the glass at her back.

“Ni,” she whispered. “You don’t scare me.”

Alexei sucked in a sharp breath at hearing his language on her tongue. There was nothing sexier, and his dick hardened for more. From Stephen’s account, Candice spoke several languages and was scheduled to graduate with a Master of Arts in Linguistics. Before then, he’d suspected she had understood Jasmine’s rude remarks at the charity event, yet instead of retorting, Candice had leaned into his kiss with the smoothness of a temptress to rile his ex’s temper.

He wanted to taste those lips now.

“You didn’t mention moving when we last met.” He nodded toward the boxes in the corner. He already knew she was looking for a new apartment because Stephen hadn’t stopped monitoring her credit. Thanks to him, each apartment manager she’d sent an application to had declined hers. Alexei wanted her at his side so she couldn’t renege on her promise. The last time he’d trusted a woman, it almost cost him his freedom.

When Stephen alerted him to her purchases at the moving store, he assumed Candice had found a new roommate, but as he’d driven up to the building and saw the truck, it crossed his mind she was trying to back out of their arrangement again.

“I don’t need your permission,” she said, bracing against the glass.

“Where are you going?”

“Home,” she said as if she’d just decided. “My parents live in Jasper Creek, Texas.”

He hadn’t thought of home, or his mother, in a long time without guilt punching him in the gut. The woman before him was at least ten years his junior. Of course, she’d turn to the people who’d given her an optimistic outlook on life.

“I need you in Louisiana.”

“Wait right here,” she said, “while I tell the landlord to lower my rent so I can afford to be closer to you. Now, why hadn’t I thought of that?”

He snorted, too intrigued by her pert nose and delicate cheekbones to be angered by her sarcasm.

---