A Forbidden Love (Eligible Billionaires Book 9) Read online

  A FORBIDDEN LOVE

  Maggie Marr

  CONTENTS

  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

  About this Series

  Also by Maggie Marr

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Sign up for the Maggie Marr newsletter to be first to know about new releases and awesome giveaways: http://www.maggiemarr.net/about/newsletter.

  The Eligible Billionaires Series

  Can’t Buy Me Love

  One Night for Love

  A Christmas Billionaire

  Last Call for Love

  Running from Love

  Eligible Billionaires Books 1-3

  The Travati Brothers Series

  A Forever Love

  A Billionaire for Christmas

  A Convenient Arrangement

  A Forbidden Love

  This book is dedicated to Lori Bennett.

  Your talent, patience, and brilliance amaze me.

  It is an honor to work with you.

  Chapter 1

  How long did it take to rebuild a life? How many hours of service before Devon’s soul healed? Before he forgave himself for the damage he’d done? A year? That date loomed on the calendar and he still ached with regret. A decade? A lifetime? And why had the guilt hit him when it did? On the streets of Rio, just three months after the trial. He’d walked out of his hotel and seen a girl, too young, barely an adolescent, standing on the street corner in heels and garish makeup. Her skirt too tight, her shirt barely covering her breasts. She’d been waiting…waiting to earn money.

  That one moment, that one visual, had ended him.

  His hands slid through the cold Pacific and the surfboard pressed hard against his chest. After months of threats from the Russian mob against him and his family, and even attempts at violence, he’d left New York. He’d hoped leaving would pull the heat from his family. If they wanted him, let them come after him, far away from the rest of the Travati family.

  That day in Rio. He’d been headed out to find coffee and breakfast, but seeing that girl ended the path he’d been on. The path he’d thought to continue down for a lifetime once the events in New York “cooled off” post-trial. The look in that girl’s eyes… She should’ve been snapchatting with her girlfriends, not turning tricks. That instant had flipped him from the self-absorbed playboy he had been to…well, he wasn’t sure what exactly. Now life was unfamiliar, unanticipated, and new. Devon scanned the distance, then paddled his board around to face toward the shore. His wet suit the only thing keeping him from turning blue. He sat up and nodded a greeting toward his neighbor Jax, another frequent morning surfer, who sat astride his board a short distance away.

  Surfing as the sun rose was Devon’s meditation. The water, the waves, the board were now the constants in Devon’s life that kept him sane. He shook the memory of the girl in Rio from his head. His testimony had been about different women, in a different city, but the same type of commerce. Devon hadn’t known, not for certain, what Sergey had been doing in the nightclubs Devon and his brothers owned…but he should have.

  Devon stared out across the vast, infinite-seeming ocean looming large toward the far horizon. Endless. The dishwater-colored waves reflected the May gray that took hold of Venice. No blue sky this morning. Just gray and cold. The water rolled. Devon’s turn for a catch. He tensed and started to paddle. Even after months of practice, he still sucked on a board, but he was trying. Every damn day he tried. The water surged and he paddled, willing his body and his mind to relax, to simply ride. The water swept under him with a cataclysmic, surreal force. Suddenly, like magic, the ocean was alive, pulling him and his board. He positioned his feet on the board and stood. His thigh muscles braced, his arms out to steady himself, his toes digging hard into the board.

  Adrenaline surged through his body. The water rushed by and wind breezed over his face. No matter how stupid or awkward or bad his stance was, this moment of pure adrenaline-charged freedom was worth it. Thirty seconds of pure freedom. Maybe the only thirty seconds of freedom Devon experienced each day.

  Clarity. His mind here. Now. Silent. The wind. The smell of the sea. The power. The magic. The pounding of his own heart. Freedom surged through his veins. Powerful and strong, until he slipped.

  He always slipped.

  His balance lost, Devon slammed into the drink. The magical force he’d ridden, but never tamed, whipped him into a barrel roll. The waves surged past him. He was a rat in a washing machine. Bouncing and clawing and praying for daylight and air. The wave finally passed, and bubbles flowing toward the surface pointed Devon upward. He kicked and broke through to oxygen. He sucked air into his lungs. Devon’s board floated on the water beside him. He grabbed onto it and swam in until his feet touched bottom. He stood, lifted the board from the water, and walked onto shore. He turned back toward the sea. In the distance, in the west, a sliver of blue cut through the gray.

  There were problems in this world. Injustices. Pain. Unfairness. He’d been insulated from the pain in the world but Sergey’s trial had interrupted his luxurious lifestyle. Now he was no longer immune and shielded by a tower built of money and gold. He would never again not see. He had time, he had billions of dollars, and he had a burning desire to make changes in the world. To make changes within himself.

  He peeled his wet suit from the top half of his body and let it drop at his waist. Droplets of water flew through the air as he shook his head. Bikes streamed by on the cement ribbon that wound along the beach from Malibu south to Marina Del Rey. Every morning as Devon exited the drink, runners and bicyclists already littered the path, getting their blood pumping as they started their day.

  Wedge, a homeless guy missing one top tooth in front and a bottom tooth on the side, held down his usual corner of the sand. His bike leaned against a palm tree, and the basket on wheels that he used to haul his stuff during the day was emptied of his tent and blankets.

  “Morning, Wedge.” It’d taken three months of daily greetings before Wedge had spoken back to him. Then another three months for Devon to get Wedge’s name.

  A gap-toothed smile spread over Wedge’s face. “Saw you bite it. Came up from the drink sucking air.”

  “Madre was a little mean this morning.”

  Wedge tilted his head toward the sky, his eyes raking across the clouds. “Madre likes to shine blue. Suppose them clouds have her irritable just like they do the rest of us.”

  Devon nodded. Four days of clouds sounded normal to him, a New York transplant, but then again, so did rain. Los Angelenos didn’t do weather. They didn’t have to. So when Mother Nature failed to grace them with perfect blue-sky, seventy-degree days, they tended to get cranky. And according to Wedge, that crankiness extended to Mother Ocean.

  “You got lunch today?” Devon asked. He unzipped the tiny pocket in his wet suit and slid two fingers in to pinch the folded ten-dollar bill stashed there. But he wouldn’t offer it up until Wedge responded.

  “Yeah man, the shelter’s having a big do today for us veterans. I’m good.”

  “You sure?”

  Wedge nodded. “You starting yo
ur new gig today?”

  Devon cocked his head to the side. He wasn’t sure what Wedge heard or didn’t hear when they talked or what Wedge remembered from day to day. And he hadn’t really said that much about what he was doing. Devon had tried to steer every conversation back to Wedge, which hadn’t been all that successful. All he’d gleaned was that the homeless man had grown up in San Diego, served, and now lived on the beach. Details were scarce and oftentimes hard to piece together.

  “I am.”

  “Do good man,” Wedge said. He folded the blanket he had been sitting on and put it in a plastic bag.

  “Thanks.” Devon hefted his surfboard. “See you tomorrow.”

  Wedge nodded and continued packing his stuff. Devon waited for a break in the stream of bikes and runners to hustle across the path toward his place just on the other side. He let himself onto the patio and flipped on the outdoor shower to rid himself of sand. As he stripped off his wet suit, he turned back for a last look at the ocean. The sliver in the sky was now a swath of bright blue that slowly pushed aside the gray.

  *

  “How do you like the elephant?”

  Ilana looked up from the dirt she’d just swept into a pile on the floor toward the chalkboard wall, where Amelia, her braids tied back with a bright purple ribbon, stood on a step stool. She’d drawn a giraffe, a dolphin, a monkey, a sloth, and an elephant smiling out from behind a sign reading “The Children’s Enrichment Center.”

  “It’s amazing.” Ilana scrubbed her hands over her shorts. “And it’s a logo!”

  Amelia smiled and looked from Ilana back to the chalkboard wall. “You think?”

  “It’s perfect.” Ilana compressed her lips into a thin line. “Can we use it?” She glanced around the room, still barren of the art supplies that needed to arrive before the Center opened in two weeks.

  “Girl, of course we can use it!” Amelia tilted her head to the side. “We own this place together.”

  Ilana smiled. Without her friends and their mad set of skills, The Children’s Enrichment Center would still be a fantasy wrapped in a dream. Ilana put her hands on her hips and spun around the room. “I can’t believe this is happening!” She shook her head. Fear of failure clung to the edges of her excitement.

  “Oh, this is happening.” Amelia climbed down from the step stool. “You have a passel of kids starting in a couple weeks. I haven’t checked the email or the voicemails today, but it looks like your idea is already a hit.”

  Ilana took a deep breath. God, she hoped the Center was a hit. She and Amelia had signed their lives away to get the financing to open it. This art enrichment center was not only for the kids in Venice, but also what Ilana’s artist friends wanted. The Center could be a great way for everyone to make some money and make art together.

  “It’s going to be chaos.” Amelia put the chalk she’d been using back into its cardboard box.

  “But a good chaos, right?”

  “Fingers crossed.” Amelia put the chalk box into a cubby next to the chalkboard wall where the children could draw.

  “I’ve got to go by the management company. Last bit of paperwork on the building.” Ilana grabbed the broom again and finished sweeping the far corner of the room.

  “I’ll be here. Going to start setting up the easels in the art room.”

  Ilana swept the final bit of dust onto the dustpan, dumped it, and walked into the small kitchen. She hung the dustpan and the broom from a small hook beside the door. She grabbed her purse and took a final look around the lobby. Her heart warmed. This was their business. Her and Amelia’s new business. Her phone buzzed and she slipped it from her pocket. She didn’t recognize the number, but she touched the green button to answer the call anyway.

  “Hello?”

  “Ilana Rashnikov?”

  Ilana’s heart froze. Fear trickled through her blood. She couldn’t breathe.

  “Ilana?” The unknown caller asked, a hint of a Russian accent in the unfamiliar voice.

  “You have the wrong number.” Her fingertips tingled and her breath was caught in her chest. That name...how long since she’d heard that name.

  “Is this Ilana Rashnikov?”

  “I said you have the wrong number.” Ilana pressed the red button to hang up and tossed her phone onto the table as though it were a snake ready to strike.

  Don’t ever tell people your real name. Her mother’s warning words crept through Ilana’s head. Don’t ever tell them about your family, your father, where we once lived. Understand?

  Ilana crossed her arms over her chest. She closed her eyes. She swallowed.

  No.

  No.

  He couldn’t hurt her now. He couldn’t hurt Mama because Mama was dead. He…he wasn’t even free…

  Ilana swallowed. He was in jail. She didn’t know the details—didn’t want to. She avoided any knowledge of what he’d done, how he’d been caught. He had nothing to do with her life now.

  “Are you okay?”

  Ilana opened her eyes and turned to Amelia.

  “You look like—” Amelia raised an eyebrow. “Did something happen? Did—”

  “No. No, nothing.” Ilana tried her best to curl her lips up into a smile. “Just…Mama. Sometimes I think about Mama.” And she did. Often. Two years had gone by and still each day thoughts of Mama caught her. Ilana twisted the opal ring on her right hand that had been her mother’s.

  “Oh.” Amelia’s curious expression melted into a sympathetic frown. She reached out and pulled Ilana into a hug. “She’d be so proud of you.”

  Heat built behind Ilana’s eyes. She nodded and pulled away from Amelia. “She’d be so proud of us.” She and Amelia had spent their entire childhood going from Amelia’s house to Ilana’s apartment. Mama had been a second mother to Amelia, just as Amelia’s mother had been to Ilana. Ilana blinked rapidly to try to stop the tears from welling up, but they spilled over her lashes and down her cheeks.

  “Look at us, crying,” Amelia brushed tears from her own cheeks. “She would be proud,” Amelia said.

  But Mama would also be cautious. Always cautious. There was no guarantee that this life would remain safe and not crumble into a heap of debris. The horrible past could always destroy a beautiful future. Even now, it would seem.

  Who had called her by that name? Who even knew about that name?

  Amelia grabbed two paper towels and handed one to Ilana. They both wiped their eyes. “Want me to go with you today?”

  Ilana shook her head. “Work on the art room. I’ll just go take care of that paperwork and be right back. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Amelia radiated concern.

  Not even Amelia, who Ilana had known since she was six, knew all the details of Ilana’s life.

  “I’ll be here.”

  Ilana pushed open the front door and walked into the California sunshine. After four days of May gray, the sun blazed. She closed her eyes, inhaled the air, and let the sun warm her face and her arms. This. This was real. Not a childhood filled with terror and violence, but this moment, now.

  Forget the phone call.

  Forget the voice.

  Forget the last name that no one knew about…no one.

  Focus on now. This moment. This place. This life. This Center that she and Amelia were about to open. Focus on the present and forget the horrible past.

  She opened her eyes. She was back in Venice. She was a business owner. She was finally, after her mother’s death two years before and nine months of travel after, grounding herself in the community where she’d grown up. A reawakening to life, like a newly potted plant reaching its tendrils to the sun, Ilana was ready for now. This present and what the future would bring. She would not be afraid, she would be strong.

  Tomorrow they’d have enough of the interior finished that she and Amelia could take down the brown butcher paper that still covered the Enrichment Center windows. There wasn’t a sign or logo, but Amelia had just taken care of that. She could paint the elephant, s
loth, and friends just above the front door. The Center was real. Her life in Venice was real. She was whole and safe and here. Even if Mama was gone, even if the past had sucked, even if she might carry those fears inside, this was her life now and it was pretty damned good.

  After all, luck was on her side, wasn’t it? Mrs. Luskey closing her pet store and assigning her ten-year lease to Ilana had been pretty darn lucky. Otherwise, there’d be no way that Ilana and Amelia could afford the space on Main in Venice plus the start-up costs of The Children’s Enrichment Center. Ilana glanced back over her shoulder to look at the neatly papered windows of the Center. Yeah, this building, this storefront, this business would be her home, her focus, for the next decade.

  *

  “You have to vacate the building by the end of the year.”

  Ilana’s heart hammered. A cold sweat broke out on her upper lip.

  “No, that’s not right…I have a lease.” She pulled her purse off her shoulder and yanked her laptop from her bag. “Let me pull it up. Remember, Mrs. Luskey assigned her lease to me and—”

  “The owners refused the assignment.”

  “They can do that?”

  Felicia, the leasing agent, lifted an eyebrow and tapped talon-like fingernails on her desk. “Didn’t you read the lease?”

  Of course she’d read the lease…kind of. Ilana had read the lease as best she could, but she was no expert. Amelia had recommended an attorney to review the lease, but the hourly rate had been so high—

  Felicia shook her head. “Right.” A sad little smile came over her face, creasing fans of fine lines into the skin that was stretched tighter than saran wrap. “I get it. First-time business owner. So here’s the thing. The owners of the building want you out.”

  “Out?” Ilana whispered. The tiny droplets of perspiration springing up all over her body turned into flop sweat. “I just spent a lot of money turning the building into the right place for the children and—”