The Billionaire's Exception

The most dangerous man in Los Angeles will break the bones of anyone who comes near him when he's drunk.

Except me.

My card got declined at the bar. Rent week, don't ask. So I did the math and walked straight up to the gorgeous man brooding in the VIP booth.

Cover my tab, I said. I'll pay you back.

He tipped up one corner of his mouth. "Do we know each other?"

I plucked the glass right out of his hand. "No. But ask your bodyguard how many times I've hauled your drunk ass home."

The whole booth went quiet.

"One good deed deserves another, right? Call it a professional courtesy."

He stared at me like I'd lost my mind. But behind him, the bodyguard cleared his throat, sweating through his suit.

"Sir... she's telling the truth. When you're drunk, you won't let anyone near you. She's the only one who can get you home."

Chapter 1

Every head in the booth swiveled toward me.

"No way. Cass turns into a feral animal when he's wasted." One of his friends leaned in. "Nobody gets near him. How is she the exception?"

"Couple years back, he had too much and I tried to walk him to his room." A guy rolled up his sleeve and tapped his forearm. "He snapped this like a breadstick."

"Try two months in a cast." Another one, grim. "Everybody warned me. Drunk Cass is the grim reaper, get close and you die. I was young and stupid, figured I'd out-drink him and see for myself. Woke up in a hospital with fractures I didn't know a body could have."

"Doctors say it's a defense thing. Blacked out, he trusts nobody, so anyone who reaches for him gets hit." The first guy looked me up and down. "So what's so special about you? How'd you end up the one person he trusts when he's gone?"

"I don't buy it," someone said. "Not unless she proves it."

I raised an eyebrow and pulled up my Venmo.

"Sure. Five hundred, up front. Then I'll put on a show."

Somebody actually did it. Took out his phone and sent me five hundred dollars.

Ding.

The sweetest sound in the world.

I nodded toward the register. "I'm gonna go settle my tab. Get him good and drunk, then come find me."

The booth erupted.

Only one man wasn't laughing. The one they called Cassius Voss watched me through half-lidded eyes, and the look he gave me was quiet, and precise, and dangerous.

I wasn't scared. Please. I've seen this man in states that would end his whole reputation.

I've got photos of him passed out hugging a toilet. Several.

Look at him now, draped across that booth like old money, all clean lines and quiet menace, the picture of a gentleman.

In front of me, that picture died a long time ago.

I paid my tab. My coworkers called it a night and scattered home.

I turned around and walked back to the booth. Five hundred bucks meant I owed them a trick.

His friends were still hard at work, lining up shot after shot.

Cassius wasn't drinking.

His hand closed around my wrist, and he hauled me out of there before I could get a word out.

Straight into his Maybach.

The door slammed. Hard.

Like a soda can, shaken all night, finally cracked open.

I rubbed my nose. "Hey. I'm not the one who decided you'd only trust me when you're wasted. You think this isn't a hassle for me too?"

Chapter 2

This whole thing started six months ago.

I was leaving work late when I found a man sprawled flat on his back in the middle of the road, using a rental bike as a blanket.

Peak comedy. Obviously I had to film it.

Then I got closer. Okay. That's a stupidly beautiful face.

Wasted out of his mind, reeking of liquor, mumbling that he was thirsty. Wanted water.

I dug the water bottle out of my bag and poured him a cup. He drank it down like a good boy, three big gulps.

I tried to wake him up.

"Hey. You can't sleep in the street."

"Where's your phone? Let me call someone to come get you."

He ignored me completely and kept snoring away on the asphalt, blissed out of his skull.

So I had no choice but to root around in his pockets. Legs, by the way, that could've walked a runway.

Found his phone, unlocked it with his face, and called the first name in his messages.

Video call. I aimed the camera at his face so whoever it was could get a good look.

"Hi. The owner of this phone is passed out in the street. If you're his friend, you'd better come get him."

The guy didn't even ask where we were. He went white and barked at me.

"Get fifteen feet away from him. Right now. This second."

I figured he thought I was going to do something to his pretty friend. I scoffed.

"Relax. I'm not into drunks."

"I'll send you the location. Just hurry up."

He came back harder. "Do not brush off what I'm telling you. Unless you want to die."

Psycho. I hung up on him.

Then I sat down next to the guy to keep an eye on him.

And he promptly turned my thigh into a pillow and passed out under the moonlight, sleeping like a baby.

Ten minutes later the caller showed up, took one look at us, and went pale like he'd seen a ghost.

I swore up and down. "Look for yourself. I did not lay a finger on your friend."

The second the words left my mouth, the guy shifted.

Not only did he burrow deeper into my lap, he wrapped both arms around my waist and locked me against him like a body pillow.

I pried at his arms. They didn't budge.

I yanked on his ear. "Hey. Wake up. Your friend's here. Let go of me and go home with him."

He didn't hear a word. Slept on, dead to the world.

So I called out to the friend. "Come help me, would you? I can't get his arms off."

The guy just stood there. Five meters away. Wouldn't come one step closer.

I lost it. "What is wrong with you? Why are you just standing there?"

He said, "I don't want to die."

I stared at him.

...What?

Chapter 3

Turns out he wasn't the drunk's friend. He was his bodyguard.

He pulled the car up, parked it fifteen feet away, and said, "Figure out how to get him in the car."

"Are you out of your mind? He's your boss, not mine. I did you a favor calling you, and now you're pushing your luck?"

But the guy would not lift a finger. Just stood there at his fifteen-foot distance, hands in his pockets, watching.

I snapped.

I grabbed the drunk and started hauling him like a dead pig, taking every ounce of my irritation out on his body.

I guess the bodyguard got nervous I'd leave a mark on his precious boss, because he finally crept in to help.

Big mistake.

The man who'd been sleeping like the dead shot upright.

A Swiss Army knife came out of his waistband so fast I barely saw it.

One arm swept me behind him. The other drove the blade straight at the bodyguard.

The speed. The precision. The intent.

If the bodyguard hadn't been quick on his feet, I'd have watched a man die on that pavement.

I just stood there, eyes bugging out of my head, brain nothing but question marks.

The bodyguard was already back at fifteen feet, giving me a sheepish grin.

"Now do you see why I wasn't helping?"

"When he's drunk, nobody can get near him. He comes out swinging."

My hand drifted to my own throat. Yeah. I should probably run too.

Instead, the drunk slid the knife back into its sheath, dropped his big head onto my shoulder, and went right back to sleep.

I had no words.

The bodyguard looked baffled too. "You're the only person I've ever seen get that close to him when he's drunk."

Are you blind? He's the one leaning on me.

I could have cried. "So what do we do now?"

"I'm gonna need you to get him in the car and drive him home. You can drive, right?"

"More or less."

I still wasn't buying it. "You two aren't running some scam on me, are you? Why me? What's so special about me? His parents can't do it?"

"His parents passed a long time ago. He's only got his grandfather left." The bodyguard paused. "And even the old man can't get near him when he's drunk."

Now that gave me chills.

This man won't trust his own blood. But he'd handed his whole guard over to a stranger who films him for content.

So I dug up strength I didn't know I had, wrestled six feet of unconscious billionaire into the car, and drove him home myself.

Afterward the bodyguard added me on his phone. Said he might need me again.

"Not a chance in hell."

He sent me five thousand dollars.

I beamed. "Well, when you put it that way. Anytime, day or night, don't be shy. Same rate. Every time."

Chapter 4

Half a month later, out of nowhere, the bodyguard sent me five grand.

Bodyguard: [Ms. Shaw. Emergency. Need you here. Sending the location now.]

I followed the pin to the most exclusive club in Los Angeles.

I pushed open the door to the private room and found half a dozen men I'd only ever seen on TV sprawled across the floor like dropped marionettes.

An ambulance came and carted every last one of them off to the hospital.

And there in the corner was the only one left standing: Cassius Voss, knife in hand, back to the wall, drunk out of his mind and tracking every flicker of movement in the room. His eyes were bloodshot. He had the look of a man who'd cut down a god if one walked through the door.

Honestly? Even I didn't dare go near him.

My legs were shaking. I sent the money straight back.

"Nope. This one's above my pay grade."

The bodyguard wired me fifty grand on the spot. "Understood. That's the other rate. Hazard pay. Right?"

That is... not what I meant.

But fifty grand.

I'm one small, underpaid corporate drone. What was I supposed to do, turn down fifty thousand dollars?

So I floated right over to him, sweet as you please, and patted his shoulder.

"Don't kill me. Put the knife down."

I did not expect him to actually listen.

He looked at me through the haze for a long moment. Then he put the knife away.

His body swayed once and folded straight into my arms.

Oh, hell.

He was heavy. I lost my footing and we both went down.

But a split second before we hit the floor, he twisted and put himself underneath me.

I landed square on his chest. Soft landing.

Outside the car, the bodyguard was talking a mile a minute, holding up his phone, playing Cassius something. Looked like footage of every time I'd come to the rescue.

I cracked the window and caught pieces of it.

"Sir, this is just how it is. I wasn't trying to keep it from you."

"It's only that I haven't figured out your history with Ms. Shaw."

"Why you'd trust her that much, at the exact moment you're least lucid and most on guard."

"I wanted to have answers before I told you."

Then Cassius pulled open the door and climbed in.

I dropped my head and pretended to be very busy on my phone.

Truth is, I'd spent months turning it over eight hundred different ways.

I couldn't come up with a single thing. No history with this man at all.

He's the golden prince of Los Angeles. Old-money bloodline, worth more than I'll see in ten lifetimes.

Me? I tested my way out of a small town into a big-city cubicle. That's the whole rsum.

If the two of us shared some life-or-death past, I'd eat my shoe.

He sat there stewing, dark and moody, and I decided it was a great time to leave.

"Well! Mr. Voss, if that's everything, I'll get going. Bye now. No need to walk me out."

Chapter 5

I reached for the door. Cassius was faster. His hand closed around my arm.

"Until this is sorted out, you stay where I can see you."

"Why? Your girlfriend won't have a problem with that?"

"I don't" He caught himself. "She's abroad."

"Ah. The one that got away, off overseas. Groundbreaking."

Then it clicked. "Wait. Do I look like her? Is that it? I look like your girl, so when you're wasted you mix me up with her, and that's the only reason you let me close. See, that actually makes sense. I knew we couldn't have any real history. What a relief."

His face went dark. "Shut up. You don't look like her."

Then, flat: "And she can't get near me either."

I blinked. "Hold on. You're telling me your one true love can't come near you when you're drunk?"

"Some great love. Maybe her heart's just not in it."

His expression curdled. He looked at me like I was gum on his shoe. "Do you ever stop talking?"

I shrugged. "Can't help it. My mom drank way too much espresso when she was pregnant with me."

The bodyguard, sliding into the driver's seat, cracked up.

Cassius didn't give me so much as a twitch of a smile. He turned to the bodyguard. "Pay her. Make her stop talking."

Ding.

Ten grand.

I mimed zipping my lips shut on the spot.

Keep the client happy. Basic wage-slave professionalism.

But moving into his house? Absolutely not.

The car rolled to a stop in the courtyard of his estate, and I crossed my arms.

"I don't do the sleepover thing. I don't care how much you offer. Us Gen-Z girls have principles about how we earn."

Cassius got out and gave me the single most disgusted look I have ever received in my life.

"You wish."

"Guest room. You're staff."

"From now on your one job is taking care of drunk me."

And that is how I moved, fresh-faced and full of hope, into the billionaire's mansion. The guest room of it.

Not by choice. There was no negotiating.

This bossy drunk had drafted me as his live-in hangover nanny.

If it weren't for ten grand a day landing in my account, I would not be doing this. Not for anything on this earth.

So every night I lit a candle and prayed to every god I could name: please, please let his one true love fly home soon.

Then I'd be free. Right?

Because what woman alive lets a maid this pretty live under her man's roof?

The whole city was already whispering that Cassius Voss had locked a girl away in a gilded cage. That for the first time in his life, the man was keeping someone. That every time he'd had a few too many, he'd call her to come collect him.

Like I was someone who mattered to him.

Please. Corporate drone by day, billionaire's nanny by night, I was running on fumes.

And then, just as my resentment hit pressure-cooker levels, his one true love finally came home.

She rushed straight to the mansion. And when she saw me lounging on the living room couch, working through a bowl of his stupidly expensive imported fruit, she froze like she'd seen a ghost.

I stayed right where I was, ankle crossed over my knee, waiting for her to take one look at me and throw me out.

Instead, she...

Chapter 6