My Roommate, the Billionaire (The Billionaire Kings Book 3) Read online

  My Roommate, the Billionaire

  The Billionaire Kings Book 3

  By

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  Copyright 2019 Serenity Woods

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is coincidental.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter One

  Albie

  I’m convinced Remy isn’t wearing any underwear beneath her slinky red dress.

  At the back, it dips almost to her tailbone, so she’s obviously not wearing a bra. She’s pinned her brown hair up, leaving an expanse of smooth creamy skin to feast my eyes upon. The satin flows over her breasts and clings to her hips with no sign of a VPL, and the floor-length skirt has a split in it up to her thigh. She’s also wearing red high-heeled sandals, and she’s painted her toenails cherry-red to match her dress.

  “Close your mouth,” someone says next to me. “Your jaw is practically dragging on the floor.”

  “I’m trying not to stare,” I tell my father, “but it’s impossible. I think she’s trying to kill me. You know how to do CPR, right? I’m sure I’m having a coronary.”

  Charlie King chuckles. “Who is she?”

  “Her name is Remy De La Vieuville.” Her name coats my tongue like honey. “She’s French, in New Zealand on a working holiday visa. She works with Jules in the grooming center at the Ark.”

  “Have you asked her out?”

  “Well, she’s also my tenant. It’s kinda tacky to ask her out when she lives in the same house.”

  “You mean you did and she said no?”

  I sigh. “Yeah.”

  “That sucks.” Dad sips his whisky. “It’s come to something when a billion dollars isn’t enough to convince a girl to go out with a guy.”

  “It’s probably enough for most guys. Just not for me.” I purse my lips. “That sounded more self-pitying than I meant.”

  He smiles. “You really like this girl?”

  I watch Remy, dancing with Izzy and Nix and a couple of the other girls from the Ark, laughing at something one of them has said. “Oh yeah. But I don’t think she gets me, you know?”

  “I know.” Dad’s had similar troubles with women in the past, so I believe him.

  I shrug. “Anyway, she’s not here for much longer, so it’s academic anyway.”

  “She’s going back to France?”

  “Yeah, her visa runs out in a few weeks.”

  “You’ll have to introduce me,” Dad says. “I’d like to meet her.”

  “Whatever the birthday boy wants.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Don’t you start.”

  Dad’s sixty today. It’s odd to see him in a tuxedo; normally he’s either in an All Blacks rugby top or his white doctor’s coat. He’s also lost the Einstein hairstyle he usually sports; I suspect Mom forced him to the hairdresser’s because there’s no way he’d think to go on his own, and his gray hair is now fashionably short, which looks good with his rectangular black-rimmed glasses.

  His birthday is the reason we’re all here, at the Marlborough Hotel in Auckland, for the huge charity ball that my sister, Summer, has organized in his honor.

  Privately, I think Dad would have been happier having a beer and a barbecue with his family at home where he could put his feet on the table and doze off around nine p.m., but Summer wanted to make a grand gesture for him, and I didn’t have the heart to talk her out of it.

  And I have to admit, he deserves the acclaim. He’s dedicated his life to helping people with respiratory illnesses, especially Cystic Fibrosis, because that’s what Summer has, and he’s advanced our knowledge of the disease tenfold, while inventing several revolutionary pieces of equipment that have helped children across the world.

  But he hasn’t found a cure for CF, and I know that’s why, as Summer approaches, there’s a touch of sadness in his eyes when he puts his arms around her and gives her a hug.

  “Are you enjoying yourself?” she asks him, reaching up to kiss his cheek. At thirty-seven, Summer’s a mom with two kids of her own, but she always seems younger to me. It’s partly because she’s on the small side, only reaching about five-four in her heels, and also because she carries with her a positive air and an attitude of living for today, encouraged, no doubt, by the seriousness of her condition.

  “I’m having a whale of a time,” he tells her. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

  “It’s only what you deserve.” She’s close to tears, full of emotion tonight. “I wanted to buy you an amazing present to say thank you for everything you’ve done for me, but Mom said you’d be much happier if we were raising money for the Three Wise Men.”

  “As always, your mother knows me best,” he says, and smiles.

  “I do have something for you, though.” She gives him the wrapped box she’s holding.

  “Aw. You shouldn’t have.” He begins to unwrap it.

  “It’s not an expensive gift,” Summer says. “It’s more sentimental, you know?”

  Dad takes off the paper and reveals a photo frame. His expression changes as he studies it, and he’s clearly overcome with emotion. I look over his shoulder. It’s a photo of him and Summer, when she was about seven. It must have been when he first met Mom. Summer’s wearing a white dress covered in red flowers.

  “Sixty-five roses,” Dad murmurs, which I know is the nickname kids often give to CF because it’s easier to say. “I bought your sister this dress,” he tells me.

  “It made me cry,” Summer says, her eyes glassing over.

  “I remember. I thought I’d made a huge mistake.”

  “It was the best present I’d ever had.” Summer slips her arms around his waist. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, Dad. I love you so much.”

  Charlie’s not her real father, and she doesn’t normally call him Dad, so that chokes me up, and I take Dad’s glass out of his hand so he can hug her properly, and have a mouthful of his whisky. “Jesus,” I mutter. “Are you two trying to make me cry?”

  Summer laughs and wipes her face, and Dad grins. “He’s trying to impress his roommate,” he tells her.

  “Remy?” Summer kisses his cheek, then gives me an amused look. “I didn’t know you had a thing for her.”

  “I haven’t. Well, I have, but… look, it doesn’t matter. She’s leaving in three weeks.”

  “Plenty of time for a fling,” Summer
says with a mischievous smile.

  “Absolutely, but she’s not interested.”

  Summer raises her eyebrows. “Are you sure about that?”

  “I asked her out and she said no.”

  “That’s it? Did she say why she wasn’t interested?”

  I hesitate and think back to that day in February. She’d moved in about two weeks before, and I hadn’t seen much of her. She’s out a lot with Jules—my cousin and the girl she works with at the grooming center; Jules has a group of friends and Remy seems to have taken to them, and they all go out most evenings, either to the cinema, to a bar or nightclub, or around each other’s houses. They’ve all come around my place once or twice. I have to go out when that happens. They tease me, which I rather like, but having seven or eight beautiful twenty-somethings flirting with you would be tough to handle for any single guy, and my engine runs hotter than most.

  But one evening, I came home to find Remy having a night in on her own. She’d bought herself a pizza and was eating it in the living room while she watched an episode of Un Village Français—a French historical drama I’d bought on DVD a while back, although I suspect she didn’t need the subtitles.

  Everyone I know would eat the pizza out of the box with their fingers, but Remy had put it on a plate and was eating it with a knife and fork. She’d taken off her shoes, revealing slender feet with toenails painted in the appropriately named French manicure style. That sent me over the edge.

  “Go out with me,” I said before I could think better of it.

  She stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth and stared at me. “Pardon?” With her strong French accent, it sounded like pah-donne. I love her accent. She doesn’t tend to use contractions, but she speaks fluent English, and I love listening to the way she pronounces words, the way she sounds her ‘r’s, at the back of her throat. It gives me the shivers.

  I realized I could probably have phrased the suggestion a little more romantically, but it was too late to back down now. “A date,” I clarified. “Go on a date with me. Let me take you to dinner.”

  “I have dinner.” She gestured at her pizza.

  “Tomorrow,” I said softly. “Go out with me tomorrow night.”

  She put down her fork and studied me with her large brown eyes. “I’m very flattered, Al-bee.” I love the way she says my name, drawing out the second syllable. “And thank you for asking me. But I’m not interested in having a relationship while I’m in New Zealand.”

  “I’d like to get to know you better,” I persisted. “We don’t get much time to talk. Go on, go out with me. You know you want to.” I gave her my best King smile, guaranteed to charm even the coldest heart.

  But Remy just shook her head. “I like you, you’re fun and charming, but you are an… homme à femmes.” I raised my eyebrows. “A ladies’ man,” she translated.

  “I haven’t dated anyone since you came here,” I stated. Okay, I acknowledge it had only been a couple of weeks at the time, but that was an ice age for me.

  “Girls talk, Albie. I know you have had a lot of girlfriends. I don’t want to be… how do you say it… a nitch on your bedpost.”

  That made me laugh. “You mean notch. I just want to take you to dinner,” I told her, adoring her more than ever.

  But she just said, “No, thank you,” in her polite way, and turned her attention back to her pizza.

  Summer gives me a querying look, and I realize I’ve zoned out. “She thinks I’m a womanizer,” I say.

  “She’s sort of right,” Summer tells me.

  “I like girls,” I protest. “What’s wrong with that? Doesn’t mean I’m a bad person.”

  “Of course not, sweetheart,” she soothes.

  I scowl. “You’re teasing me.”

  “A little bit.”

  “She’s allowed to,” Dad says, and he hugs her again. “After giving me such a wonderful birthday.”

  I pass Dad back his whisky. “She always was your favorite,” I say.

  “Damn straight.” Summer grins at me, and I smile back. My older sister, Poppy, and I have never had a cross word with our half-sister. Summer is far too lovely for us ever to be resentful that she sometimes got more of our parents’ attention because of her condition.

  “Uh-oh,” Dad says, “La belle femme Française approaching, four o’clock.”

  I turn to see Remy walking toward us, her hips swinging seductively in the silky red dress.

  “Easy, tiger,” Summer murmurs.

  I sigh. Women were put on the earth to make my life a misery.

  “Hey,” I say to Remy. “How are you doing?”

  “Good, thank you. I need a drink! Dancing is thirsty work.”

  “Vous êtes chaude?” I ask her, trying out my French for are you warm?

  My father, who speaks French, rolls his eyes, while Remy’s eyebrows rise.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Vous avez chaude,” she corrects.

  “Why, what did I say?”

  “You told me I am hot in bed, Albie.”

  Summer bursts out laughing. My father meets my eyes, amused, and I blow out a breath. “Ah. Sorry about that. Anyway, may I introduce my father, Charlie King? Dad, this is Remy De La Vieuville.”

  “Enchanté,” Dad says, taking her proffered hand, lifting it to his lips as he gives a little bow, and kissing the air a half-inch above her fingertips. Dad! You old smoothie.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. King,” she says, blushing.

  “Charlie, please. I understand you’re one of my son’s tenants.”

  “That is right. We are roommates, aren’t we, Al-bear?”

  The way she says my full name, Albert, in her delightful accent brings me out in goosebumps. Summer nudges me with her elbow, and I scowl at her.

  “I’ll get you a drink,” I tell Remy, desperate to escape before they make more fun of me. “What would you like?”

  “A glass of red wine, please,” Remy says. “Thank you.”

  “Summer?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Dad? Another whisky?”

  “Please.”

  I nod and walk away, crossing the dance floor and heading for the bar.

  Women. They’re definitely put on the earth to torture me.

  Chapter Two

  Remy

  I watch Albie King walk away, and try to ignore the sexual frisson that runs down my spine.

  Wow, the guy looks hot tonight. At work, he tends to wear a shirt and black trousers; at the weekends he wears sexy jeans and tees, or smoldering black leathers when he’s on his motorbike. But tonight takes the biscuit, as they say. He’s in a tailor-made tux—no ill-fitting off-the-peg suits for the King men—and with the white shirt and the black bow tie, he looks good enough to eat. His hair, though, as always, looks as if he’s just got out of bed. I haven’t yet discovered whether it’s au naturel or whether he styles it that way. I’m tempted to run my fingers through it to see if he’s used product, but I think he might take that gesture to mean I’m interested in him. Which I’m not. It’s possible to admire a tasty, well-presented dish without sampling the fare, no?

  I tear my gaze away from him as he disappears through the crowd and look back at his father and sister. They’re both smiling at me, and I wonder whether they’re going to comment, but Summer just says, “I like this song—I’m going to find Zach for a dance,” and she heads off to hunt down her husband, leaving me with her father.

  It’s the first time I’ve met Charlie, although I’ve heard a lot about him from the others at the Ark, Jules especially. She adores both her uncles, and the way she describes Charlie made me expect a distracted professor with the buttons of his cardigan done up wrong, prone to waving his arms around and quoting scientific equations when he’s not staring off into the distance. Instead, I find a well-dressed, erudite gentleman with neat silvery-gray hair and sharp but kind eyes behind his glasses. I rather like him.

  “Are you having a nice birthday?” I as
k politely.

  “Between you and me, I’d rather be at home with a good book,” he says, “but yeah, it’s nice to see people enjoying themselves.” He has the same smile as Albie, slightly mischievous, and the same way of looking at you, somewhat intense, as if he’s listening and giving you every ounce of his concentration, unlike most people, who are usually thinking about what they’re going to say next.

  “Your son is very like you,” I tell him.

  “You think so?”

  “In looks, I mean.” Not in behavior. Charlie appears much more sophisticated. Albie can be quite clueless sometimes. He has the emotional equivalent of a pair of size thirteens and tends to blunder through conversations knocking people sideways.

  “He has his mother’s eyes,” his father continues. “I’ll introduce you to Ophelia, if I ever find her again.” He casts a bemused look around the busy hall. I get the feeling he’s uncomfortable in such a big gathering.

  “You have been married a long time?” I ask. Jules told me that Summer is Ophelia’s daughter, and that Ophelia fell for Charlie when he began a research program into CF for her.

  “Thirty years,” he says.

  “Goodness! That is a long time. You should have a medal!”

  He smiles. “It’s Ophelia who deserves the medal. I don’t know how she puts up with me.”

  “Aw,” I tease, “I cannot imagine you are that hard to live with.”

  “You’d be surprised.” He studies me for a moment, as if debating what to say. Then he turns his gaze out across the dance floor. “When I was young, my parents had me assessed for Asperger’s Syndrome.”

  “Oh.” I’m surprised at his admission, and not sure what to say. In France, we would never admit such a personal detail to a complete stranger, and I feel a little uncomfortable. He doesn’t act like someone with Asperger’s, in my limited experience. He doesn’t appear to have any issues with talking to me.

  “If I do have it, it’s on the mild end of the spectrum,” he continues. “But it made it difficult for me growing up. I have trouble understanding signals and nuances in conversation. It made dating hard. Unfortunately, my son takes after me in that regard.”

  I stare at him. “Really?”

  He nods. “When I was younger, I’d often get confused when a girl got upset or frustrated over something I’d said. I learned to think very hard before I spoke. Albie’s still working on that skill, but I can see myself in him sometimes. I used to swing between saying the wrong thing and saying nothing because I was afraid of putting my foot in it.”