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BETRAYED BY THE BILLIONAIRE - EXCERPT
CHAPTER ONE
EVEN THOUGH MADDIE HAD known what to expect, nothing could really have prepared her for the sight of Rocco Damned Santoro in the flesh. She’d known he’d be selfish, rude, self-obsessed, shallow—she’d googled the hell out of him the moment her grandfather had mentioned his offer to buy their home—but in person, he exuded all of those traits and more. There was such a confidence to him, an absolute arrogance, that set her teeth on edge and made her want to take him down a peg or two.
She watched from across the hotel bar, biding her time, as he flirted effortlessly with a stunning supermodel type, all long legs and flossy blonde hair pulled into an ‘I just got out of bed’ bun. As Maddie watched, Rocco reached over and wiped the corner of the blonde’s mouth, then lifted his thumb to his own lips and sucked on it. The blonde purred loudly enough for the bar to shake; Maddie rolled her eyes.
What a piece of work.
Just because he belonged to the Santoro family, he clearly thought he could swoop into their dull little part of the Hamptons and buy out the whole goddamned street. The plan? To demolish the row of old, slightly unkempt beach houses and replace them with a ubiquitous, lacking-in-character line of shops and luxury condominiums. The kind of thing that would suck the charm out of the area and make it indiscernible from any other seaside, monied part of the world.
Well, not if she had anything to say about it.
Maddie watched as the blonde leaned closer, whispered, then stood, sliding something across the tabletop—a room key—then sauntered off, all suggestive hip wobbles and pouty lips. As she strolled past Maddie, a cloud of floral perfume engulfed her, so Maddie coughed, and hoped her asthma wouldn’t choose that moment to kick it up a notch.
She stood quickly, taking one last fortifying sip of her wine before she began to walk. Rocco reached for the room key as Maddie approached the table. Apparently, he was impatient for ‘dessert’. Well, too bad. He’d just have to wait a while longer.
As Maddie approached, her stomach felt strange, like she’d swallowed a whole batch of popping candy and it was having a field day in her organs.
This was a bad idea.
A really bad idea.
But then again, what choice did she have? She couldn’t let her grandpa sell their home. It was their home. Oh, to Rocco Santoro it was just the last piece in the puzzle, the hold-out piece of real estate he needed to turn the sleepy street into a five-star shopping and dining precinct. What could someone like him understand about family and sentiment and the way walls could literally come to hold all of your childhood thoughts, feelings, fears, dreams, and aspirations? Maddie had known enough destruction and loss in her life to know when to fight for what mattered to you—and this was definitely one of those times.
“Can I help you?”
His accent was a strange mix of laid-back American and European, presumably Italian given his family’s origins. His eyes were pure velvet. Black velvet, lined with thick, curling lashes, emphasized by his straight, dark brows. His nose was straight too, in that hyper-patrician way, it seemed to convey arrogance almost as neatly as his curved lips did. In his chin, there was a dimple that did nothing to distract from the geometrically square shape of his jawline.
Because of course, someone like Rocco Santoro couldn’t just be filthy rich and famously successful in the business world. Of course, he also had to be drop-dead gorgeous. Why give someone just a handful of qualities when you could cram them full with all the tools to live a great life?
Maddie pulled on her handbag strap, momentarily cursing her own appearance in a way she hadn’t really thought to since senior year, when all her friends developed curves and a sense of being a woman and Maddie was still pitching balls in the backyard until sundown.
“Hello?” Rocco lifted a single, dark hand into the air, waving it in front of Maddie’s face, as if to wake her from a dream. “Are you okay?”
He wore a gold band on one finger, no other visible jewelry.
So? A voice in her head grumbled. What does that matter? You didn’t come here to dissect his fashion choices or speculate on his accessories. This was business. Well, she corrected, for him this was business. For her, it was personal. Entirely personal.
She lifted a hand to her curly auburn hair, shoving it out of her eyes as she tilted her head and tried to flood her eyes with all of the hatred she’d built up for him over the last eight months.
“Rocco Santoro?” She stumbled a little on his first name—but that was his fault, too. Who had a name like Rocco, for God’s sake? Rocco. Rocco. Strength. Vitality. Mystique.
She rolled her eyes, this time at herself.
“Guilty as charged,” he grinned, flashing her a mega-watt smile. He flirted like most people breathed, apparently, even with someone like Maddie, who was nothing like the blonde glamazon currently waiting for him upstairs.
Her eyes dropped to the table, where the room key was sitting in front of his drink.
