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

 
    “It’s Paul. Sorry for-”
    “What in the hell happened?” Jason growls.  
    “We followed her to Riverside, where a caucasian male stepped up behind her and held his hands over her eyes. My guys reacted quickly, just like I trained them to,” he explains, almost defensively. “They took the guy down, and got Kaia out of harm’s way.”  
    That sounded way less climactic than he’d been anticipating. “Okay, so…what’s the situation?”  
    Jason is antsy. He needs more details, and he needs them immediately.  
    “The guy was a friend of hers. She was meeting him for coffee.”  
    Jason’s stomach plummets. Of all the scenarios he’d conjured up in his head about why Paul and his team would need to spring into action, he’d never considered this one.  
    “Is he all right?”  
    “Just a little banged up,” Paul says. “My guys weren’t too hard on him, but I think it might be a good idea to get a lawyer down here, just in case. We’ve gotten him calmed down, but I think it would be a good precaution just in case he decides he wants to involve the legal system here.”
    Jason takes a deep breath, trying to steady his racing heart. “Okay, I’ll send one down there. Is Kaia around?”
    There’s a long pause before Paul says, “Yes.”  
    “She didn’t answer when I called her earlier. Pass the phone over so I can talk to her.”  
    Paul clears his throat, and what follows is an uncomfortable silence that seems like it lasts an eternity.  
    “Just do it,” Jason commands.  
    “I had to explain to her who we were, and who hired us,” Paul explains reluctantly. “I had to give her the bare minimum in order to keep her from making a scene.”
    Reaching up and pinching the bridge of his nose, Jason lets out an unsteady breath. After a turn of events that he never could have anticipated, he’s really kicking himself for not being up front with her before all of this happened. He hired men to keep her safe, men she had no clue even existed. And in his unrelenting desire to protect her, he wound up scaring the hell out of her.  
    He can’t imagine how she’s feeling. He wants to know. He wants to talk to her.  
    “Let me talk to her,” Jason commands. There’s another stretch of silence, and Jason is very quickly losing his patience. “Get her on the goddamn phone, Paul.”  
    “She doesn’t want to talk to you. She was…she’s pretty adamant about that.”  
    Fuck . Even though he doesn’t blame Kaia for being angry and upset, he can’t let this fester. He has to explain things to her before it’s too late.  
    He just hopes it’s not already too late.  
    Jason slides the phone back into his pocket, and makes his way back into the conference room, where the meeting has continued on in his absence. When he walks in, the chatter stops, and everyone looks in his direction.  
    “We’re going to have to cut this short,” Jason says, with barely suppressed irritation in his voice. “There’s an emergency I have to attend to.” He doesn’t wait for anyone to respond, he just turns and leaves.  
    He had always been concerned about a relationship getting in the way of business, but now that it’s happened, he doesn’t care. All he can think about is getting to Kaia. Maybe that should scare him, given that most of his life is about is work, but it doesn’t.  
    Instead, a strange new feeling hits him square in his chest. It’s not the end of the world. The meeting he just canceled can and will be rescheduled. He can trust the people in his employ to deal with anything pressing in his absence. Everything else can wait until tomorrow.  
    The world won’t stop spinning if he takes a little breather to make things right with his girlfriend.  
    This kind of thing won’t happen every day, but it’s okay for him to take half a day for himself every once in a while.  
    He’s just hoping Kaia will hear him out.  

CHAPTER TWO

    “Wait, wait,” Janine says, as she