Free One Night With the Billionaire: Book Three by Cassie Cross

CHAPTER ONE

    Jason’s phone buzzes on the inside breast pocket of his blazer, in the middle of a very important meeting. When he sees the name of the head of Kaia’s security detail pop up on his screen, his heart plummets all the way down to his stomach.  
    He stands and excuses himself immediately, claiming urgent business, and he practically runs to the hallway outside of the conference room he was seated in.  
    “Paul,” he says frantically when he accepts the call, not even waiting for any kind of a greeting. “What’s going on?”  
    Without wasting a second, Paul replies, “We have a situation here.” His voice is maddeningly calm; it’s such a stark contrast to the panic skittering across Jason’s nerve endings that it makes him want to claw his own skin off.  
    “What kind of situation?”  
    There’s a voice on the other end of the call—a voice that doesn’t belong to Paul—and no matter how hard he tries, Jason cannot make out what the voice is saying.  
    “Hold on.” Jason isn’t sure if Paul is talking to him or the person who was just speaking, but he hears bits and pieces of their muffled conversation. The fact that he isn’t getting the information he asked for right the hell now pisses him off.  
    “Paul? Paul!” he practically shouts, but…nothing.
    If Jason is honest with himself, he’s been expecting this call ever since he went to Kaia’s apartment and told her he wanted to find out if the two of them could have more than just a one-night stand.  
    Jason knew then that he wouldn’t be able to stay away from her, that the more he got of her the more he’d want. He knew that wanting more from her and taking it came with its own set of risks, and he’d planned for those risks.  
    Jason had the security team in place before he even went over to her apartment that night.  
    He’d briefed Paul and his guys on what he feared could happen to Kaia, what they might need to guard her against. He told them all the ways he’d dreamed up over the years that someone he loved could be taken from him.  
    All the ways that someone he loved could be used against him.  
    After all that planning and precaution, his worst fears still seemed to be coming to fruition.  
    He knew this would happen, but he wanted Kaia anyway.  
    Now…now he feels sick.  
    And he’s running out of patience.  
    “God damn it, Paul. Talk to me!”  
    Paul knew better to ignore the growling, urgent voice of his employer.  
    “It’s fine,” he replies, a little breathless. “She’s fine. We have her. We’re just trying to smooth something over here. I’ll call you right back.”  
    With that, Paul ends the call.  
    What the hell does he have to smooth over? Without having anything to go on to tell him what exactly happened, knowing that Kaia is safe and in the hands of her perfectly capable security detail makes the panic calm just a bit.  
    It comes right back when it hits him that Kaia is safe in the hands of her perfectly capable security detail…that he never told her he’d hired. He’d been putting it off until the right moment (or so he was telling himself), and now the situation was completely out of his hands.  
    Chase was right. This is blowing up in his face.  
    Not wanting to wait for Paul to get back to him, he hits Kaia’s speed dial on his phone, desperate to get control of things. To get out ahead of this before she’s so angry and scared that he can’t make things right.  
    He wants to make sure she’s okay, and he needs to explain himself more than anything.  
    The phone rings and rings, then goes straight to her voicemail. All of his thoughts and feelings just trip their way out of his mouth.  
    “Kaia, it’s me. Are you okay? I want to talk to you. I need to explain. I need to hear your voice. Please call me back.”  
    He ends the call, then hits her speed dial again. He gets her voicemail. Again.  
    He starts typing out a text when his phone rings.