Tessa Blake [Blake - Wanted By Him (The Billionaire Black Sheep Book 1)

2019 Tessa Blake

Happy Ever After, August 2019

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, institutions, news anchors, or bad boy billionaires is entirely coincidental.

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Last one, I tell the bartender. I drank my way down Fifth Avenue to the Baccarat, but slowly enough that Im barely buzzed. Ive got this gut feeling that I should keep my wits about me tonightand I listen to my gut. The fight I had earlier with my brother is still at the forefront of my mind, and I meant what I told him: Hes going to need me.

How I got to this point is well, its a long story. Lets see if I can sum it up.

For starters, Im Miles Garrett. Yes, those Garretts.

Im sitting here drinking alone in the extravagant bar of an expensive midtown Manhattan hotel because my younger brother, Rafe, summoned me back to New York from California, where Ive lived for the last several yearshappily out of touch with both my family and with the mega-successful business that bears our name.

Rafe runs Garrett Enterprises. Me? I just run.

I glance at my phone, which sits silent and dark on the mirrored surface of the bar, and hope Rafe calls before its too late.

Too late for what, Im not entirely sure.

Theres something going on in the companysome kind of skimming off the top, tax fraud, Im not sure about all of it. While I cant bring myself to care overmuch about the company, or even about the family name, what I do care about is this: someone is trying to frame my brother. For the fraud, for a murder, and who knows whats next.

Yesterday, I helped him get rid of a body someone left in his girlfriends bed. Today, he threw me out of his office and told me he didnt need me anymore. Standard Garrett brothers bullshit. But I thought we were past it. I thought moving out to California and disconnecting myself from my family would solve all my problems.

But how can it, if I come running back whenever Im called?

The Prestige Suite is waiting for me upstairs, but I dont want to go up just yet. I dont even really like staying here, but its whats expected of me. The black sheep, right? Wasting my familys money on shit that doesnt matter.

Well, they dont know me. They dont know what I spend my money on.

And if thats partly my fault because I let them think what they want, Ill take the blame. Better that then to let any of them in, where they can judge what Im doing, pronounce it good or bad according to their own weird prejudices and biases.

But what Im actually doing out there? Its nothing like what they think. They think I spend all my time on a surfboard, or chasing beach bunnies. The money my brother sends mebehind my fathers back, since Ive been disownedgoes right back out of my account again, and Rafe has never actually asked me what I do with it. He just assumes I spend it on bullshit, then sit around waiting for the next handout.

And I definitely do wait for that deposit every monthbut I dont spend a nickel of it on myself. And I dont think Rafe or my father could ever even begin to understand that. Its easier for them to imagine that Im a loser than to think that I might just have taken a path different than theirs, and that I could actually be happy on that path.

My mother would understand. My mother would be proud, I think. My brother would be baffled. My father would be I dont know what my father would be. He wanted me in the family business, even when it became obvious that I didnt have the aptitude for it. Thats all Rafethe ruthlessness, the single-minded drive to succeed, the love of the game. That was never me, and it never will be. And trying to live my life in Rafes long shadow was never a serious option, not for me.

So Ive let them think Im lazy, and a loserthat all I care about is sun and surf and bikini babesand I figured theyd never ask me to come back here, to get involved in Garrett Enterprises business. They would never expect me to be anything other than the black sheep. And that suits me just fine.

Thats how I like it. I dont need them.

I will admit, though: when I checked in, it didnt exactly hurt my feelings to tell the front desk to send the charges to Garrett Enterprises. If my family wants to pigeonhole me as the lazy, useless son, Ill play the gamebut they can foot the bill.

Im pulled out of my dour thoughts by the bartender setting my twenty-six-dollar gin and tonic in front of mein a heavy glass made of Baccarat crystal, of course. I dont have to tell him to charge it to the room. He already knows.

One more bill for Garrett Enterprises.

As I take my first sip, my phone lights up and rattles against the bar. The caller ID says Little Bro.

Well, that didnt take long.

For just a moment, I think about not answering it. I came running when he called, and what happened was a goatfuck of near-apocalyptic proportions. Why on earth should I get myself involved in whatever the hell hes got going on now? I should just send it to voicemail, go upstairs and pack my shit, and put myself on the next plane back to the West Coast.

But hes my brother.

I pick up the phone and swipe to answer.

That was fast. I cant quite keep the bitterness out of my voice. Always calling when he needs somethingand only when he needs something. Thats our relationship, in a nutshell. Thought you didnt need me anymore.

I dont have time to banter with you. Rafes voice is curt, but stress comes through the syllables anyway. Get over here now.

Oh, hell no. Well, hello to you, too. Im great, thanks.

Miles

I cut him off. Sure, just let me drop everything that Im doing and rush right over.

You said to call when I needed you. The stress in his voice is heading off the charts. Im fucking calling.

He sounds real thrilled about it, too. Am I supposed to feel fortunate that hes deigned to summon me again?

But I did tell Ainsley to have him call me when he needed me. No one made me say that. The only thing stopping me from getting on a plane back to LA is me. Because at the end of the day, as mad as I am at them, as little as they understandor want to understandanything about me, family is family.

Ainsley talk you into it? I ask.

Ainsleynow, she was a surprise to me. My brother has lets call them hangups. Things that have haunted him for years, and make him fiercely protective of himself. Add to that the long line of gold-diggers angling for whatever he can give them, and youve got a recipe for the worst kind of commitment-phobe. Rafe keeps his women at arms length, and cycles through them rapidly. And Ive never seen him look at a woman the way he looks at her.