Free Because He Owns Me (Because He Owns Me, Book One) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) by Hannah Ford Page A

about the New York dating scene.
    Everyone here was so busy and rushed.   Drinks or coffee seemed like a reasonable
suggestion.
    I sighed and took another look around the
restaurant/bar, wondering if perhaps Nathan was here and I’d somehow missed
him.   I searched for any guys who were
sitting alone or seemed like they might be looking for someone.
    No one looked even remotely like the pictures
of Nathan I’d seen online.
    Although the man in the corner booth was staring
at me.   I blushed, feeling the color rising on my
cheeks.   God he was gorgeous.   Everything about him was just so dark -- dark hair, dark eyes, dark stubble on his chin, dark suit with a matching
black button-down underneath.   The
only thing light about him was his eyes – a
piercing blue that stood out even all the way over here.
    The man was sipping something clear, and he was all alone , which made no sense.   Why was he sitting alone? He was the
most gorgeous man in here, all smoldering eyes and broad shoulders and messy
hair.   It wasn’t even a matter of
taste or debate.   Women should have
been throwing themselves at him.   My
pulse pounded and I my blushed deepened as he caught me staring.
    A smirk played on his beautiful full lips.
    Those lips.
    I turned away, embarrassed.
    I was sure he was making fun of me.
    Suddenly, the lights in the restaurant dimmed,
and the music – a heavy rotation of 90s songs that had been remixed to
give them a pounding bass line – got louder as the time on my phone
screen switched over to 11 o’clock on the dot.
    Something about the bar getting darker and
louder flipped a switch inside of me, and the social anxiety I’d struggled with
since I was teenager roared to life, threatening to take over.   I reached into my bag and pulled out an
Ativan, then changed my mind and put it back in its case.
    Why waste a perfectly good Ativan on some
asshole from a dating app?
    I stood up and grabbed my phone off the bar,
threw a twenty down to pay my tab (I’d had two diet cokes and a cranberry juice
while I’d been waiting) and headed for the exit.
    I was almost to the door when I felt a pair of
strong hands slide around my waist.
    “Where are you going?” a deep male voice breathed
into my ear, and I felt myself getting pulled back into a hard, broad chest.
    I turned around and fell into
a pair deep blue eyes .
    It was him .  
    The man from the corner booth.
    He moved so he was standing in front of me,
loosening his grip on me but keeping his hands on my hips, like he was afraid
if he let me go I was going to slip through his grasp and out into the New York
City night.
    “Um, I’m leaving,” I said.  
    He was even more commanding up close – at
least six-foot-two, his suit impeccably cut, his hair fading perfectly into a
pair of short sideburns.   He smelled
like a yummy aftershave, something so male it made me dizzy.
    “Sorry,” I said, shaking my head.   “Are you… are you Nathan?”    He looked nothing like Nathan’s
picture, but perhaps Nathan was one of those catfishes I’d heard about who used
fake pictures stolen from someone else’s facebook profile.   But if you looked like the man standing
in front of me, I had no idea why you would bother to use a fake picture.   Nathan’s picture had been nice enough,
but it had nothing on the man standing in front of me.
    “Never apologize,” the man admonished.   “It’s a sign of weakness.”
    “What?” I asked, confused.   “I didn’t –”
    He was still holding my hips, and his hands
snaked around to my lower back.   A delicious warmth radiated through my muscles, instantly
relaxing me.
    “Give me the drugs,” he demanded.
    “What?”
    “The drugs in your purse.”    He let go of me and held his hand
out.   There was no threat in his
voice, just the tone of a man who was used to ordering people around.
    “I don’t have any drugs in my purse.”  
    “I saw you with drugs.”
    “You saw me with drugs?”   I