Her Billionaire Landlord Read online

  Her Billionaire Landlord

  A Protective Possessive Instalove Romance

  Regina Wade

  Copyright © 2020 by Regina Wade

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  New Lease on Life Playlist

  1. Vaughn

  2. Vivi

  3. Vaughn

  4. Vivi

  5. Vaughn

  6. Vivienne

  7. Vaughn

  8. Vivi

  Epilogue - Two Years Later

  Epilogue - Five Years Later

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  About the Author

  New Lease on Life Playlist

  Uptown Funk, Mark Ronson Feat. Bruno Mars

  Starboy, The Weeknd

  Go Your Own Way, Fleetwood Mac

  Changes, David Bowie

  Can’t Hold Us, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

  Closer, The Chainsmokers

  Cheap Thrills, Sia

  Adore You, Harry Styles

  Chapter 1

  Vaughn

  This hit, that ice cold. Michelle Pfieffer, that white gold. — Mark Ronson, ‘Uptown Funk’

  The hallway smells musty.

  Mold, I suspect. The carpets will all have to go. Walls will have to be torn down, and at least half of the apartments will need to be redone from the ground up. Like so many of the other buildings in this part of town like it that I’ve already bought and remodeled, this entire apartment complex is in serious disrepair.

  It began as a casual side project and became an obsession. Like the self-made billionaire version of building a Lego city. Only instead of creating exact replicas of famous bridges like I did as a kid, I’ve now turned my model-building outward, to the entire city that surrounds me.

  I’ll leave most of the actual configuring to the architects and designers. There was a time when I was younger and the need for complete control nearly strangled me alive. I would have obsessively overseen every detail. Not only of this project, but of everything I have going on right now. Every ball I have in the air, every penny moving through my extensive portfolios. Every employee working under the Tremblay Enterprises name.

  With my thirty-ninth birthday fast approaching, I’ve learned the importance of delegation. Of surrounding myself with the most competent, efficient team possible.

  I frown to myself, taking in the signs of water damage and rusted pipes. When I picked up this apartment building on a run-down block downtown for a bargain, I expected the problems that came with it. It’s not the first project I’ve tackled in the neighborhood. Rehabbing this area became a side project for me a few years ago. A way for me to channel the fortune that seems to accumulate faster than I would even be able to give it away.

  As always when walking through one of my investment properties, I’m struck by the starkness of the contrast. My own building, complete with a doorman and private rooftop pool, is only a few miles up the highway. The bleak grey concrete slab walls of this fifty-unit complex look more like the outside of a prison than a place to call home.

  This project cost me millions, but the returns will be huge. In the meantime, it will provide local jobs and— just like the three apartments I’ve already rehabbed— raise the value and safety of the entire neighborhood.

  I’m prepared for the terrible plumbing. I know exactly how much it’s going to cost to bring the entire building up to fire code, down to the last half-cent. Even the mold isn’t good enough to outwit me. I already have a specialist scheduled to come by next week before any construction is set to begin.

  There’s something almost meditative about doing the first walk-through of these massive buildings. It gives me a chance to get my initial thoughts down, sketch ideas about the direction I see things going. I like to make orderly, itemized lists, taking note of where to begin. Alone with my thoughts, I often get some of my best work done. Going back and looking at these initial ideas after the renovations are done can be an incredibly satisfying feeling.

  What I’m not expecting, as I round a corner on the fourth floor just past an elevator marked ‘out of order’, is to find other people. As far as I know, the building is close to being condemned. There shouldn’t be anyone else here right now. But there is definitely a man standing at the wall by the window. In the terribly dim hall lighting, it takes a moment for the scene to come into focus.

  He’s a big man, nearly as tall as I am at six-four. Even with his back to me, I can see he’s thickest in the middle, with a round paunch hanging well over the band of his filthy jeans. He seems to be leaning forward, hulking over something,

  “Come on, I know you’ve got more cash on you—”

  It isn’t until I take two long strides closer to him that I see the greasy-haired man is leering over a woman. She’s half-cowering in the corner while he slices at the air in front of her wildly with a butcher knife.

  “I don’t—” The voice comes from the semi-darkness of the corner in front of the man. She sounds terrified, and it clouds my vision with a thin red haze. “I gave you everything!”

  “Get away from her,” I growl the words, his only warning before I’m directly behind the man.

  It’s not the first time I’ve encountered criminal activity on one of my properties. I knew, when I decided to give some of the more impoverished parts of my city a makeover, that I ran risks like this. Something about this feels different than kids tagging freshly painted walls or made guys fencing knockoff watches in an alley, though.

  There’s distinct terror in her voice, a trembling fear that I already know I’ll never be able to forget. It ignites a protective fire in me, fuels a red-hot anger for this man I’ve never seen before.

  I’ve got his upraised wrist in my own hand almost as soon as he tries to move it. I apply pressure to the nerves and tendons of his thumb until it’s the asshole robber that cries out, finally dropping his knife to the floor with a clatter. The smell of alcohol rolls off him in waves.

  “What the fuck,” he slurs as I use the hold on him to pin his arm behind his back.

  I hold him in place easily as I pull out my phone to call the cops.

  “Are you alright?” I look up towards the corner, getting my first look at the woman attached to the voice.

  She steps out of the shadows, and my thumb hovers over my phone, frozen in place even as my heart slams against my chest.

  This… This I have no plan for.

  Chapter 2

  Vivi

  I’m trying to put you in the worst mood. P1 cleaner than your church shoes. Mili point two just to hurt you. — The Weeknd, ‘Starboy’

  I’m not a fan of roller coasters.

  Other people really get off on that whole up-down-inside-out-upside-down-about-to-die feeling, but it’s really never done it for me. Today has felt like the worst loop de loop ever, and I am hanging on for dear life.

  The day started off with a pink slip. Not the kind in a Beach Boys song about swank convertibles, either. The kind that says, Dear Vivienne. Thanks for doing your best, but it simply isn’t good enough.

  Well not exactly, but that’s what it felt like when I walked into the office where I’ve been temping for the past seven months only to be let go out of the blue. Not because my work wasn't up to snuff, but because
the vice president is bringing in his new son in law.

  That’s the part that stings the most, damn it. They strung me along for weeks with promises of a raise and a permanent position.

  Then I get home to the dump of an apartment that I pay too much for, only to have a knife waiting for me at the top of the stairs.

  I’m not usually one for self-indulgent pity parties. But I figure getting fired and mugged within the span of six hours entitles me to this one exception. Especially since I just remembered that I am all out of rocky road ice cream.

  Crap. I’m doubly broke. I can’t afford groceries or a kitchen to keep them in.

  Someone really needs to stop this ride so I can get off.

  “Are you alright?” It’s the second time he’s asked me that, and I force myself to focus. “Here, come sit down.”

  The stranger is inclining his head over towards him, indicating the patch of grimy carpet nearest him. The concern in his tone makes me think he’s worried my legs might give out from under me. I’d be insulted if it weren’t for the fact that the same thought crossed my own mind not two seconds earlier.

  As much as I want to do nothing more than plop right down next to him, I shake my head and lock my knees under me.

  “I’m ok,” I take a shaky breath. “Thank you.”

  It sounds so pitifully underwhelming in light of the way he just put his life on the line for me— a literal stranger.

  That’s when I get my first real look at the man who appeared out of nowhere to save me from a mass of Coors Light breath brandishing a butcher knife.

  Now that I’ve eked myself out of the corner I was cowering in, I can see that he’s even bigger than the would-be mugger; in all the best ways. Sculpted and muscular instead of soft and flabby. And one look is all it takes to realize he isn’t from this part of town. His hair is a rich, golden blonde. Casually arranged in a two-hundred-dollar haircut, just a little longer on the top, shaved neat on the sides. His jaw is strong, the lines of his face almost as sharp as the icy flare of his piercing blue eyes.

  Beautiful.

  There are a million adjectives that come to mind when I look at him— confident, sexy, powerful. Masculine. But the very first thing I think is that this is the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.

  My knight in shining Armani is still kneeling, casually pinning the bloated mugger down with a sure, one-handed grip. There’s a quiet strength about the way he can hold a bully like that in place without so much as breathing hard.

  Something glints in the flickering overhead lights and I turn away from the blueness of his eyes for the briefest of moments. That’s all it takes to see the massive edge of the blade against the stained fibers of the mottled industrial carpet of the hallway. Oh god.

  “Oh, God.” I don’t realize I’ve said it out loud until the thought echoes around me, bouncing off the mildewed walls. The reality of what could have happened if the gorgeous stranger hadn’t appeared right when he did begins to penetrate, wrapping cold steel fingers around my chest.

  “Hey.” The blue-eyed stranger’s voice is crisp and smooth as vodka on ice. “I’m Vaughn.”

  He says it so casually. As if he were introducing himself over a latte instead of the squirming body of a robber. I remind myself to look back on this and laugh in a week or two when I’ve got some distance.

  “Vivienne— Vivi,” I nearly extend a hand for him to shake before I stop myself. “I live in the apartment behind you. 4C.”

  I figure exceptions to the ‘don’t give your address to strangers’ rule can be made for those with model good looks who save your life the moment they meet you for the first time.

  “Vivi,” he says my name with a smile. The faint lines that crease the very edges of Vaughn’s cerulean eyes are the only indication that he might be older than I am. “Do you have your house keys with you?”

  His tone is calm and even. I can tell he’s trying not to scare me. And while the ship has long sailed past scared-town, I appreciate the effort.

  “I do,” I nod before digging them out of my pocket.

  “Good,” Vaughn purrs in that rock steady tone. “I need you to go inside. I’m calling the police and a doctor. Can you go into your apartment and wait?”

  I’m moving towards my front door before he’s even finished talking. It isn’t even until I unlock the door with unsteady fingers that I look back at him.

  “Vaughn?”

  “Yes, Vivienne?” he meets my eyes, and there isn’t a trace of judgment in them, not even when my voice cracks over his name.

  “Will you— will you come back?” redness heats my face even as I ask, but after the day I’ve had, I’m not entirely sure I can face a parade of indifferent, cold police officers and detectives without him right now. “I understand if you have to be someplace else, thank you for calling the—”

  “I’ll be right here, Vivi, I promise.” Vaughn’s face is serious. “You won’t be alone.”

  Chapter 3

  Vaughn

  If I could, maybe I’d give you my world. How can I? When you won’t take it from me. — Fleetwood Mac, ‘Go Your Own Way’

  “Thank you for all your help, Miss Cannon. We’ll be in touch.”

  I watch Vivienne shut the door to her tiny apartment behind the last of the police officers. She waits until the two of us are alone before slumping against the door with a soft thunk.

  The lighting in the kitchen is terrible. An incessant buzzing noise is coming from somewhere along the wall near the light switch. The dingy yellow tile that lines the wall has seen better days. But even the griminess of her surroundings can’t do much to dull Vivi’s shine.

  The messy crop of her short red hair highlights the heart shape of her face and the deep green of her eyes. She’s still dressed from her workday, packed into a pair of dress pants and a dove grey button-down. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at business casual attire the same way again. Something about the way she wears the simple off-the-rack clothes makes them sensual— it makes me think of peeling them away from her generous curves one piece at a time until there’s nothing but me and her pale, silky skin in the moonlight coming in through the filmy window.

  “Thank you so much for staying,” Vivi looks up at me from under the sweep of her auburn bangs.

  As if there were any place I could ever be for the rest of my life than right by her side. Looking into her eyes feels like finally coming home. I’ve always known there was something more for me out there— a reason I was put on this Earth to accumulate wealth. All it took was one look into Vivienne’s beautiful face to know exactly what that purpose is.

  “Of course,” I smile at her. “I promised.”

  She smiles back at me, and it’s like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. Still, the day she’s had is starting to show on her face. The shadows under her eyes are deepening and there’s a slump in the shoulders she’s been holding high for hours now. It takes everything in me not to pull her close and kiss the top of her head right there. I want to get her home, where she can unwind and get a good night’s sleep. Hopefully, she can start to put all of this behind her soon.

  “Do you want me to wait while you pack a bag?” I offer Vivi a hand, helping her straighten up from against the wall. Confusion crawls across her beautiful face.

  “Why would I need to pack a bag?” she asks.

  “Because you can’t stay here tonight, Vivi.”

  I’ve learned a lot about Vivienne already tonight. I sat beside her while she told her story again and again. As officers and detectives asked the same questions a hundred different ways, she never so much as lost her composure. I learned she lost her job today. The fire that burned behind her jeweled eyes when she said it made me angry for her.

  She’s strong, too. Even while talking about the man that robbed her in the hallway, she kept her voice steady and her back steeled. I know men twice her age who wouldn’t be able to handle a stressful situation with as much grace and strength
as Vivi has shown today.

  In fact, the only thing that’s seemed to give her pause all evening was finding out who I am. Learning that I actually own her building put a cloud behind Vivienne’s sparkling green gaze for the first time all night.

  “I live here, Vaughn.” There’s a defeated sigh behind her voice. “I don’t have any place else to stay. I don’t even know anyplace else I can stay.”

  “Vivi,” I open the door to her apartment, deciding to forgo the packing altogether. I can always buy her whatever she needs. “You have a place to stay— with me. Come on, let’s go home.”

  Chapter 4

  Vivi

  So I turned myself to face me, But I’ve never caught a glimpse of how others must see the faker. — David Bowie, ‘Changes’

  “The whole building?” I turn from the gleaming mirrored elevator back up to Vaughn’s chiseled face. “You mean to tell me that this entire place is your personal home?”

  “Well, yes.” He smiles, trying his best to look bashful. “But don’t look at me like that. It’s not that much bigger than your own apartment complex.”

  “Yeah, but I have to share my building.” I point out the glaringly obvious difference as I step away from him and move towards the wall of floor to ceiling windows. From this high up, I can see most of the city laid out before me like a carpet of twinkling lights. Even my neighborhood looks beautiful from this far away. “How many other people live in this entire place with you again?”