Quick & Easy (The Quick Billionaires Book 2) Read online

  She licked her lips and closed her eyes. How much longer did she have to stay? How much longer was he going to stay?

  When she opened her eyes, her heart stopped. There he was, standing in front of her. All six foot two of him. A dark, neatly trimmed scruff hugged his chiseled cheeks, only adding to his ruggedness, while his blue eyes twinkled, fathomless and dark. There was an energy between them, a low hum beneath her skin, that had always been there. From day one, he’d made her body quiver, and with his body this close to hers, once again it was back. Like a subtle charge of electricity, it prickled and sizzled, making the hair on her arms stand up straight.

  “Hettie.”

  Her whole body stiffened from the use of her nickname. Nobody called her that anymore. She was Heather Alvarez. Well, actually, Heather Luisa Maria Caterina Alvarez. Her father had wanted Louisa Maria and her mother had wanted Heather, so they compromised and then tacked on one more name for good measure. But “Hettie” had been her nickname growing up. He’d called her that as soon as they started dating. She’d loved her nickname since it was a family one. But when she no longer heard it from him, no longer heard his voice, dark, deep and demanding, saying her name as if it were a magic spell, her heart had shattered.

  “Hettie.” He said it again.

  She’d wondered if he was going to show his face. A part of her had expected it. Hell, a part of her had hoped he would. She’d been curious. Though that’s not to say she didn’t check him out on social media from time to time. But he kept a low profile, so she didn’t know much. He had a sexy, expensive-looking motorcycle and what looked to be a Ferrari, but then those could have belonged to a friend, too. Didn’t mean he didn’t look sexy as hell straddling the bike or sitting behind the wheel of the candy-apple-red 458 Spider. But as far as she knew, he hadn’t been back to Seattle in ten years. Not once. And now, on the day of her father’s celebration of life, he had the balls to walk into the restaurant and use her nickname.

  She was determined not to let him see the hurt. He only deserved anger. Even though the anger had long dissolved, leaving nothing more than a hollow ache where her heart had once been.

  “It’s Heather,” she said dryly.

  His lips, those plump, soft, sensuous lips that she still had fleeting dreams about, curled up on one side into a lazy half-smile. “You’ll always be Hettie to me.”

  Swallowing, she narrowed her eyes. “Only he is allowed to call me Hettie.”

  Like an idiot he spun around and looked behind him. “Who?”

  Fixing him with her best you’re-dead-to-me-stare, she replied, “The old Gavin.” And with that, she showed him her back and headed off to go speak with somebody, anybody, as long as it wasn’t Gavin McAllister.

  She hadn’t made it very far before a warm hand and long fingers curled around her bicep, bringing her to a stop. Betraying her brain, her body sang in the heat of his palm. Once again she was back where she thought she’d be forever, in his arms. Ha. Oh, how wrong and naïve she’d been.

  “Hettie,” he said again, spinning her around to face him. “I want to talk.”

  “It’s Heather,” she gritted.

  Disappointment clouded his face. “Heather. Can we talk … please?”

  She shook her head and made to jerk out of his grasp. “I don’t see what there is to talk about. It’s been ten years, Gavin. I’ve moved on. So should you.”

  He reared back as if he’d been smacked, and hurt colored his eyes. “Y-you’re seeing someone?”

  Why was that such a big deal or surprise? She wasn’t seeing anybody; she was single, but he didn’t need to know that. What, did he think she’d wait around ten years, celibate and holed up in her apartment with twelve cats, waiting for him to one day come knock on her door and ask for forgiveness? Fuck him. She’d dated plenty over the last ten years. Even had a few boyfriends. The last one, Aaron Steele, had lasted nearly two years. But he was a Navy SEAL and always off on a mission, so in the end they’d called it quits. She couldn’t do long distance, not again.

  Heather lifted one shoulder. “So what if I am? It’s none of your business who I see or what I do.”

  With his free hand he reached up and scratched the back of his neck. He always did that when he was nervous or unsure of what to say next. But the fingers of his other hand remained tight around her bicep.

  “Where is he, then?” he finally asked, newfound confidence flashing in his eyes.

  She let out a weighted sigh. “What do you want from me, Gavin?”

  “I want to talk. Please? Give me five minutes of your time. Then you can tell me to fuck off.”

  Saved by the music. Over in the corner, Aunt Florence was busy fiddling with the stereo while Heather’s mother wandered into the middle of the room. The music jerked and glitched, but then finally Florence figured it out, and a new tune, a sexy, sultry tune, burst loudly from the speakers.

  “It was Eddie’s request,” Heather’s mother started, “that his life be celebrated and not mourned. That we dance and party, we drink and be merry, rather than cry and wallow. He wanted dancing, lots and lots of dancing. And he was specific enough to say he wanted Hettie to dance.”

  All eyes zoomed to Heather standing in the corner next to Gavin, his fingers still wrapped tightly around her arm. Heat flooded her chest and crept up her neck into her cheeks.

  “Remember how you and Gavin used to dance on Saturday nights here?” Rosemary asked, loud enough for everyone to hear.

  How could Heather forget? It’d been one of the most incredible moments of her life. Her father’s family had moved from Puerto Rico to Seattle when her dad was twelve. They’d started out in California but eventually settled in Seattle. After a stint in the police force, but forced into early retirement after a gunshot to the hip, her dad had opened up the restaurant when Heather was eight. He’d embraced all things Puerto Rican, pulling from his family’s recipes, having decorations and paraphernalia sent up from his hometown. He wanted Hola, Amigos to be as truly Puerto Rican as he could make it. And that passion had carried over into Heather’s house growing up as well. He spoke Spanish with her when he could, taught her to read it and write it, and eventually, when the dance bug bit her after a family vacation back to Puerto Rico when she was thirteen, she enrolled in salsa lessons. Through the years, she’d gotten quite good, won a few competitions, danced in the odd show, but she’d never found a partner who challenged her. Who made her better. She was always being given new partners and forced to train them because she was that good. But that wasn’t what she wanted, what she needed.

  Until Gavin, that is. From the moment he’d walked through those saloon doors, he’d been after her. But she’d resisted. She’d liked him all right. Knew him from school, knew him as a bad boy, one who skipped classes and smoked cigarettes behind the library. And she’d had a crush on him since the day he’d bumped into her in the hallway and mumbled a half-assed “sorry,” but she couldn’t let him know that. He was a bad boy, and as much as she wanted him, she knew he wasn’t right for her. So, she turned down his advances for weeks, months, until that one fateful night when he must have heard her whining to her mother about losing another dance partner. He’d stepped up, offering to dance with her. She’d laughed at him, laughed in his face. But he’d been dead serious.

  “I’m a fast learner,” he said, mopping up a root beer spill on an empty table. “When’s your competition?”

  “A month,” she said snidely.

  “I can do it. We can do it. We’ll train every day. I’ll practice at home.”

  She gave him a curious look. “Why?”

  “Because I like you. Your dad gave me a chance and helped turn my life around. I’m doing well in school, not skipping class or smoking anymore. I owe him. And if owing him means helping you, I’ll do it.” A wry smile tugged on his plump lips. “Plus, it’s an excuse to touch you and hold you. And isn’t salsa like a super sexy dance?”

  She’d rolled her eyes and plopped a tray
full of dirty dishes on the table he was wiping. “Twelve-fifty-six, Tremway Avenue, 4:15 tomorrow. If you’re late, you’re out.” Then she walked away, smiling ear-to-ear as soon as she was through the saloon doors and knew he couldn’t see her.

  He’d been right. He was a fast learner. An incredibly fast learner. In less than three weeks he knew all the moves and was even helping her with her form. They’d practiced every day, watched videos and went to watch the experts at a salsa club downtown. On weekends they practiced twice a day, before work and after, until the day of the competition came around and they’d wowed the crowd and taken home third place. It was then, after all that hard work and training, time spent together swaying and gyrating, shifting and twirling that she finally saw the real Gavin.

  Heather’s mother’s voice snapped her back to the present. Everyone in the restaurant was staring at Heather and Gavin off in the corner, her arm in his hand, their faces flushed. “Hmm, sweetheart?” Rosemary prodded. “Remember how good you two were together?”

  Not subtle at all there, Mom.

  Heather snorted.

  “Your father asked that if Gavin were present that the two of you dance.”

  He did fucking not.

  Claps whirled and built around the room and the music volume increased, until before Heather knew it, Gavin was removing his suit jacket, tossing it onto a nearby chair, and pulling her out to the makeshift dance floor, his hands in hers, strong, powerful and demanding.

  “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he said as his arm wrapped around her waist and he tugged her close. They were groin to groin, and the dash of a smile across his outrageously handsome face said he was well aware of it, too.

  “You know as well as I do I don’t have a fucking choice,” she said through clenched teeth.

  The music stopped and restarted. He raised her hand in the air with his, and his other hand at her back held her firmly against him. “You always have a choice, Hettie. I just hope after this you’ll choose to talk to me.”

  “I have nothing to say to you, Gavin.”

  As the music picked up, he assumed his role in the dance and slowly, sensuously trailed his fingers down her arm. Plinks and plucks of the guitar, followed by a heavy hand on the bongos, stirred memories in Heather she had pushed down deep in an attempt to forget. And when the beat picked up and Gavin spun her out, only to pull her back into his chest, it all came flooding back. The feeling of being in his arms, dancing with him, kissing him, making love to him, it hit her like a dam breaking, and it was all she could do not to crumble to the ground in a heap of tears.

  He must have noticed the look of terror on her face; dipping his mouth next to her ear, he murmured, “Forget you hate me just for now and finish the dance for your mother. Then we’ll talk and you can release the venom.”

  Fury quickly replaced the pain in her heart, and she shot him a look that she hoped might just pop his head off. “I’ve already forgotten who I’m dancing with. I don’t even know who he is.”

  Chapter 4

  Gavin

  Ouch! He’d deserved that.

  Man, his Hettie could pack a wallop of a punch, even with her words. Always could.

  But as he spun her around and around on the floor, ground his pelvis against hers, made her ride his leg, he couldn’t deny their chemistry. They’d always had it. Since the moment she’d rolled her eyes at him when he asked her whether staff had to pay for fountain soda or if it was free, he’d been smitten. And from there it only got better. Their banter and conversations were what made him get up every morning excited to go to work after school. Seeing Hettie, talking with Hettie, impressing Hettie consumed his every waking thought.

  And yet he’d still ended up breaking her heart.

  He pulled her into him again against his knee. The skirt of her dress rose up, and he could feel the heat of her against his leg. His cock jerked inside his pants, and just to show her what she did to him, he pulled her tight against him.

  Her eyes went wide, those big, beautiful, brown doll eyes he loved. He especially loved it when she was on her knees in front of him, his cock in her mouth, his hands in her hair as she took him to the back of her throat, watching him all doe-eyed and innocent, even though she was anything but. No, he’d taken her innocence, or rather she’d given it to him willingly one cold night in January after they’d gone out to a movie and then back to his place. His mother had been at work on a night shift, and they had the house to themselves. It’d hurt her, she hadn’t gotten off, and she’d cried a bit from the pain, but then he’d ducked his head between her legs and made her forget all about the discomfort. They’d tried again the next day, and things had been better. By Valentine’s Day, she was an orgasming machine, and he liked to consider himself a savant in the ways of female pleasure.

  He snorted at the memory of his cocky teenage bravado. Thank God Heather had thought he was a beast in the sack, because as it turned out, he’d still had a lot to learn.

  “What the fuck was that for?” she asked him, twirling out again.

  “What?”

  “The snort. You think this is funny? Getting shanghaied into dancing together in front of my friends and family, all to appease my dead father?”

  His face sobered. “No. Well … maybe a little.” But he didn’t miss the rosy glow to her cheeks or the smile on her face as he spun her out. She dropped the smile when forced to face him again. But deny it all she wanted, she’d missed this. He’d missed this. “It’s more of a turn-on than anything, don’t you think? Stirring up memories. Your body, in that dress, those curves, that hair flipping around. Your cheeks are pink, your eyes are bright, you look just like you used to after we’d—”

  “Don’t!” she snapped. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

  A big grin stretched across his face. “I’m just saying…”

  “You’re just saying nothing.” Her breathing was labored. She definitely sounded like she was having sex now. Gavin’s cock surged to life in his pants.

  The song was coming to an end, and Gavin’s heart rate picked up. He needed to get her alone, needed to talk to her, needed to apologize the way he should have years ago. Spinning her into his chest one more time, he looped his arm around her back and dipped her low. Like a pro, she arched deep over his arm, letting her head fall back, exposing that sexy-as-fuck neck. Ten years ago, he wouldn’t have thought twice about kissing it. Hell, he’d have probably licked and nipped it too, crowd be damned. But instead all he could do was stare. Watch as it bobbed with her swallow and the vein along the side beat in time to his own heart.

  Once again, clapping filled the restaurant when the song finally ended. Followed by hoots and hollers, whoops and catcalls. Even a few whistles.

  Rosemary rushed forward and hugged them both, tears in her eyes and slipping down her cheeks. “Thank you, both. That was beautiful. Your father would be so proud.” She glanced up at the ceiling, then quickly crossed herself. “He is so proud.” She hiccupped, and fresh tears sprung from her eyes. Heather lunged forward to envelop her mother in another hug. Soon the music picked up again, and the dance floor filled with people. Heather and Rosemary moved over to the side of the room, still hugging, their bodies trembling as they both silently cried over the incredible man they’d lost.

  Gavin knew he needed to give Hettie time. Time to celebrate her father properly, grieve with her mother. Then they’d talk. They needed to talk.

  Always keeping her in sight, he wandered back over to the buffet table. There was one lonely beef empanada left on the plate and he swooped in, devouring it in four bites, groaning as he chewed.

  “You always did love his empanadas,” came a familiar female voice.

  Gavin spun around, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “I haven’t been able to find anyone who does them better, let alone come close.”

  Rosemary smiled, her eyes red and puffy from crying. “I know why you’re here.”

  Gavin’s eyes went wide. “Why
am I here?”

  She gave him a smug but sad smile. “I’m grieving, not stupid. Just know, if you break her heart again, I’ll come after you and kill you myself, that is if Eddie’s ghost doesn’t get to you first.”

  Gavin wanted to throw his head back and laugh, but he knew better. Rosemary had always been feisty. That’s where Hettie got her spunk. Not afraid to call a spade a spade or simply pick up a spade to bonk you over the head if needed.

  Instead, he simply nodded. “I know. And I promise, I won’t this time. If any hearts are going to be broken, it’ll be mine.”

  That answer seemed to satisfy her, and she wiped beneath her eyes with a crumpled tissue from her pocket. “Good.” She reached up, and he bent down for a hug. She was fragile and tiny in his arms, but she smelled like the home he remembered, even if it’d only been his home for a short time. Cumin and garlic with just the faintest hint of Rosemary’s favorite lavender shampoo. He’d only lived with the Alvarezes for a few months, after his mother had died in a car accident shortly after Christmas before he graduated high school. Hettie’s family had taken him in when he had nowhere to go. But they’d quickly become his family. Eddie had been like a father to him pretty much from day one, giving him a job and a chance to be a better person, while Rosemary clucked around him like a mother hen the moment he mentioned his mother worked nights. He’d never eaten dinner alone again. Thank God, Hettie had never been like a sister, though.

  “I’ve missed you,” Rosemary said into his shoulder.

  Well if that didn’t hit him in the solar plexus. Yeah, he’d missed them all, too. He’d been an asshole not coming back for all these years. And he hated himself that it took him ten years and the funeral of a man who’d been like a father to him to get his ass back.

  But now that he was back, he was going to make the most of it. He was going to make things right.

  Rosemary dried her eyes again when they separated, then with a final squeeze to his arm, she wandered off to go and speak with some of the staff.