Trillion Read online

  Trillion

  Winter Renshaw

  WINTER RENSHAW

  © 2020

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Copyright

  Important!

  Also By Winter Renshaw

  Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Epilogue

  From the Author

  SAMPLE - The Best Man

  About the Author

  Copyright

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  COVER DESIGN: Louisa Maggio, LM Book Creations

  LINE EDITOR: Kelley Harvey

  COPY EDITOR/PROOFREADER: Wendy Chan, The Passionate Proofreader

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  PHOTOGRAPHER: Sandy Lang

  MODEL: Renato Freitas

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or, if an actual place, are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  E-Books are not transferrable. They cannot be sold, given away, or shared. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/).

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Important!

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  Also By Winter Renshaw

  THE NEVER SERIES

  Never Kiss a Stranger

  Never is a Promise

  Never Say Never

  Bitter Rivals – A Novella

  THE ARROGANT SERIES

  Arrogant Bastard

  Arrogant Master

  Arrogant Playboy

  THE RIXTON FALLS SERIES

  Royal

  Bachelor

  Filthy

  Priceless (Amato Brothers crossover)

  THE AMATO BROTHERS SERIES

  Heartless

  Reckless

  Priceless

  THE P.S. SERIES

  P.S. I Hate You

  P.S. I Miss You

  P.S. I Dare You

  THE MONTGOMERY BROTHERS DUET

  Dark Paradise

  Dark Promises

  STANDALONES

  Single Dad Next Door

  Cold Hearted

  The Perfect Illusion

  Country Nights

  Absinthe

  The Rebound

  The Objection – A Novella (FREE)

  Love and Other Lies (FREE!)

  The Executive

  Pricked

  For Lila, Forever

  The Marriage Pact

  Hate the Game

  The Cruelest Stranger

  The Best Man

  All Books Available Here!

  Free Content Available here!

  Description

  Trey Westcott—devastatingly gorgeous. Intimidatingly brilliant. Powerful beyond belief.

  A man with all the money in the world—literally.

  As the first trillionaire in existence, my boss lives a life most people can only dream of. Anything he wants—anything at all—is a snap-of-the-fingers away.

  But when the coldhearted magnate snaps his fingers and requests me for a stint on his arm playing the role of his devoted fiancée and then some, he makes an offer I can’t refuse.

  And so I don’t.

  But I make it clear that, he’ll have my time, my body, my attention, my discreet professionalism—everything except my heart.

  It’s not for sale.

  Because all the money in the world can’t change the secret I’ve kept the last eight years. A secret that complicates the very business deal I’m to help him secure. A secret that makes the undeniable tension between us all the more forbidden.

  Trey Westcott can have anything he wants ... but he can never have me.

  Even if he’s all I’ve ever wanted.

  For Jill Kirtley. Thank you for your unwavering support!

  I’m not confused. I just don’t want to want what I want.

  —Lauren Eden

  One

  Sophie

  Past

  “Before you leave, I need to make something crystal clear.” My mother uncaps a tube of half-dried red lipstick as our reflections connect in the tiny bathroom mirror. “There’s love … and then there are things like love. Most people spend their entire lives confusing the two.”

  “How do you know the difference?” My attention drifts to my cleavage, distracted by the way her vintage dress makes me look bustier than I actually am. The zipper almost didn’t zip, and the hemline is dangerously revealing when I sit, but this is all we have. I’m taller than her by four inches. Curvier than she was at this age—at least going off of the faded pictures in the photo album she keeps beneath her bed, the ones that paint a portrait of a woman with unrivaled vivacity, naivete in her idyllic soul, and an entire life ahead of her.

  Blissfully unaware that the core of her beautiful life was mere years from rotting.

  I wish I’d known her then, before she was a ghostlike shell of a woman.

  I recall a certain memory of her perc
hed on the end of my father’s heirloom sailboat on a late August afternoon. Wind whipping her sun-bleached hair. Skin as bronzed as it could get for a girl with her Swedish-Irish complexion. She grinned so wide it had made my cheeks ache in response.

  She stopped smiling like that after he left us.

  And I spent most of my teenage years bleaching my dishwater-blonde hair in hopes it would remind her of him a little less every time she looked at me. Though, of course, she thought I was going through some typical rebellious stage. I didn’t tell her the truth. I didn’t want to make her more sad than she already was.

  “There’s no way to know for sure. I can tell you real love is rare, and there are a lot of fakes.” Mom exhales after being lost in thought. Her weary blue-gray irises turn glassy. I imagine she’s thinking of my father. The bastard. “If there’s anything I can teach you before I go—”

  “Mom.” I cut her off and snatch the bullet of Revlon Ravish Me Red from her bone-thin fingers and ignore the fact that she’s wasting away by the second beneath her tattered terrycloth robe. I don’t like to talk about this. About the return of her cancer. About what could happen this time.

  She’s not going to die.

  I won’t allow it.

  Swiping the color across my mouth, I purse my lips until it blends. Then I touch up a couple of spots with the pad of my ring finger, the way she used to do a lifetime ago.

  “You don’t have to do this, Soph. You know that, right?” There’s a lack of confidence in her whisper-soft tone. “We can figure something out.”

  “It’s fine. I promise.” We trade lies. I force myself to smile and hope she doesn’t hear the nervous rattle in my words. My fingers twitch. My heart gallops. My soul quakes. “I’m sure it’ll be fun. It’s just dinner.”

  She and I both know this is the only way.

  We’re less than a week from being evicted. And between her meds, our groceries, and my youngest sister’s physical therapy, there’s a very real possibility we’ll find ourselves on the street at some point in the near future.

  “I’ll be home by ten,” I add, “and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Mom winces.

  I don’t think she wants to hear all about it.

  I don’t think she likes me pretending this is some date with a boy from school when in actuality some forty-something Rolls-Royce-driving businessman in a custom suit is whisking her seventeen-year-old virginal daughter off for a “dinner date.”

  He promised it would only be dinner.

  And he’s offering five hundred dollars for five hours of my time.

  A hundred dollars an hour.

  It takes me four weekend shifts at the café to make that kind of cash. Besides, if I wasn’t doing this tonight, I’d be lounging in my room blaring All-American Rejects and mindlessly scrolling Insta. This way, I can at least contribute to our bottom line and take a load off my mother’s chemo-drained mind.

  “He’s super nice,” I tell her in an attempt to lift her spirits and quiet my nerves at the same time. He’s dined at the restaurant where I wait tables more times than I can count over the past several months.

  He always dines alone.

  Always pays in cash.

  Always requests me.

  Always leaves staring at me for noticeable portions of time.

  My co-worker, Ciara, tells me I should report him, but he’s harmless. Plus, he’s my most generous tipper. And secretly, I’m flattered by his interest. That, and I might have the tiniest crush on him as well. The guys my age stare through me half the time. And the dates I’ve been on are never anything to write home about. Bargain matinees. Fast food dollar-menu dinners. Driving around aimlessly listening to horrible music in a car that smells like dirty football cleats and empty bottles of Mountain Dew.

  “He’s so handsome, too,” I say. “Reminds me of those photos of JFK Junior you used to show us. You’d love his hair.”

  I toss in a short chuckle under my breath and try to pretend what I’m about to do is no big deal.

  I ignore the molten guilt that bubbles up from my center and burns the back of my throat.

  I didn’t tell her he’s taking me into the city, or that we’re going to a private party near Lincoln Park—one that requires masks and a pass code.

  It sounded like fun when he told me about it, and I loved the idea of getting dolled up and spending a few hours on the arm of some rich, fancy, attractive capitalist who looks at me like I’m the most exquisite thing he’s ever encountered.

  Maybe it’s messed up, maybe it’s naïve to think anything could come of this, but there’s no denying the man gives me butterflies.

  “Mom, stop,” I say because her silence is a weighted blanket on my shoulders. “This is so not a big deal. I promise. It’s literally just dinner.”

  My phone buzzes on the bathroom counter. I exhale into the palm of my hand, checking that my breath is still fresh even though I’ve brushed my teeth twice in the past hour, flossed, and gargled thirty full seconds with a capful of purple Listerine.

  My mother’s gaze narrows. “You said you weren’t going to kiss him …”

  I roll my eyes and fight the heat blooming in my cheeks. The idea of my mom picturing me kissing someone makes me cringe. I might die of embarrassment before I set foot out the lobby of our apartment building.

  “We’re going to be in his car.” I shrug off her suggestion. “Close proximity … just want to smell good.”

  She stares for a second, as if she doesn’t believe me. I hold a lungful of stale air in case she protests. All she’d have to do is put her foot down, and I’d stay.

  I might throw a fit, but I’d stay.

  I’ve always been a good girl—a Golden Retriever of a daughter.

  Dependable. Obedient. Loyal. Protective.

  My mom is my whole world. My little sister, Emmeline, too.

  I’d do anything for them …

  … which is why I’m doing this.

  I check my texts and shove my phone into the black satin clutch I used last year for junior prom. “He’s here.”

  “Soph …” is all she says. Then her lips press flat. I can’t begin to imagine the sour brew of emotions running through her. She’s having second thoughts. She wants to talk me out of this. I can see it in her eyes.

  But it’s too late.

  I’m all dressed up—and he’s outside, waiting in his car, probably smelling like a million dollars, ready to drink me in the way he always does at work: like I’m pretty, like I’m someone who matters to him.

  My stomach somersaults in anticipation.

  There’s no turning back now … even if I wanted to.

  Wrapping my arms around her lithe shoulders, I inhale her vanilla-lavender scent, give her a delicate hug, and go.

  Two

  Trey

  Present

  “So my cousin was at this party with Westcott a couple of years ago, and she claims he snorted pure Peruvian cocaine off a stripper using a ten thousand-dollar bill, and then, get this—he lit the bill on fire,” a woman’s nasally voice trails from the eighth-floor break room.

  Never heard that one before …

  I stop outside the door and listen. I’m on my way to a conference call, but I can spare a few minutes for some cheap entertainment, especially on a monotonous Tuesday. Most people hate Mondays. I hate Tuesdays. Mondays are full of hope and ambition for the week. Wednesday’s halfway to Friday, Thursday closer still. But Tuesdays? They’re boring, tedious. Generally unexciting.

  “That’s nothing,” a second woman says. Her voice holds the desperate, youthful quality of a follower. A sheep who goes with the herd. I can sniff out those types a mile away. “I used to date this paralegal who worked for one of his attorneys. Said Westcott threw the most insane parties where everyone had to sign an NDA the second they walked in, and she was pretty sure everyone got roofied because the next day no one could remember what happened.”

  I stifle a snort.


  Fake news …

  “I’d legit give an entire paycheck to be a fly on the wall at one of his parties,” the first one says.

  “Right?” the second one—the spineless disciple—counters. “Did you know his house is, like, two-hundred-thousand square feet? I tried to look up pictures of the inside of it, but all I could find is this book that was written in the nineties when his parents were still alive. Not going to lie, I was kind of disappointed. Reminded me of a castle-version of my Nana’s house. Hope he’s updated the place. God knows he can afford it.”

  The first one laughs. “Maybe he wants it to look old on purpose? Wasn’t he screwing that woman twice his age a few years ago? Maybe he likes old things.”