Free Working Stiff: Casimir (Runaway Billionaires #1) by Blair Babylon Page A

person, Rox, but no one else is.”

AGAIN

    Casimir took the curve in the highway with a solid twist of the steering wheel. The car’s stereo was blasting “Alwaysland,” a demo copy of a new song from one of his music clients, Alexandre Grimaldi.   Alexandre was the lead singer for the “emerging” band Killer Valentine, a polite word that meant no one had ever heard of them. Alexandre’s cousin Maxence was one of Casimir’s closest friends, and thus Casimir provided pro bono legal advice on contracts for Alexandre. It also meant that Casimir got demo copies of new music, an excellent perk.
    The themes of lost love and lost chances were killing him, but Casimir didn’t forward to the next song.
    He scratched a spot just below his cheekbone, the rough bristles of his beard poking under his blunt fingernails. The spot that itched was adjacent to one of the numb areas on his cheek, and his skin vibrated where he couldn’t feel himself scratching.
    The red sedan beside him edged closer. Rust was bubbling under the paint on the hood.
    Casimir had had a night with Rox in his house, and he’d dithered all night between the fact that she was married and the fact that her husband hadn’t been there when she had needed someone to take care of her and never told her that she was beautiful.
    But he was sure that she was loyal to her husband, and Casimir respected that.
    He shouldn’t have taken her hand, and he shouldn’t have rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. Her whole arm had started shaking.
    She must hate him for doing that.
    She should.
    That idealistic part of his brain had been talking again, the stupid part that wouldn’t shut up about Rox, how he believed her, how she was different.
    Lust had buzzed in his blood the whole evening, and then after she had gone to bed, taking those mashed-up cats with her, he had stolen down the hall to his gym to burn off the adrenaline for a few hours so that he could finally sleep.
    As he drove that morning, he was tired. He needed coffee.
    Before they had driven separately to work, he and Rox had met in the living room, fully dressed, ready to go, and walked out to the garage. He had joked and so had she, but her eyes had darted away as soon as he managed any eye contact.
    Her black sports car drove in the lane to his left and two cars back. He watched it the whole time he drove his commute, wanting to call her to talk. He often called her while he drove in to talk about work or any old excuse.
    Traffic surged around his car, and he leaned on the accelerator to stay with it. The car thrummed around him as the finely tuned engine sang under the hood.
    He wanted to touch her again, even her hand, even just her forehead against his suit jacket.
    The last few days, they had begun to push at their boundaries. Every flirt was taking on a new dimension in his mind, moving from the pathos of futility and reaching for something shimmering.
    She. Was. Married.
    The asphalt swung right in front of his car, and the other cars and trucks took the turn in formation.
    Casimir drove around the curve, staying in his lane. Even through the car’s high-end suspension, the asphalt jittered the tires. The other cars flew with him.
    Slam.
    Cars spun outside the windshield, flying through the air, and the asphalt and the Earth flipped overhead.
    Metal and glass and cutting, breaking pain sliced his chest and head.
    Not again.
    Dear God, not again .
    Burning. The scent of fire and smoking gasoline.
    Darkness closed around him.

CRASH

    Rox was watching Cash’s dark silver Mercedes Maybach, one lane over and two cars ahead of her, when the red beat-up sedan swerved into him, sending his car spinning and then flying.
    She pulled her steering wheel hard, jumping onto the shoulder of the road and jamming her foot into the brakes.
    The semi-truck in the next lane barely moved when Cash’s Maybach slammed into it, but his car tumbled sideways, and then it flipped end over end above the packed