Billionaire For Ransom (Book Three): Billionaire For Ransom, #3

By Layla Valentine

"I'm the hottest young woman billionaire in the country
So naturally, everyone wants a piece of me
Especially the bad guys"

HER:

I'm a CEO, a single mom, and of course, I'm filthy rich
When I said I wanted a break from my day-to-day,
Being taken for ransom by a devilishly handsome bad boy wasn't exactly what I had in mind.
He says he's a kidnapper, a professional, and that I won't be harmed
And now that I'm here, in handcuffs, I'm starting to see the silver linings
If silver linings can be hard-muscled, strong-jawed, ruggedly sexy… and telling me that as long as I do exactly as he says, everything will be just fine…

HIM:

I'm a contractor, who just happens to deal in people
I find my target, and deliver them to the highest bidder
Sure, I'm a criminal, but I'm a single dad, with my own set of rules
And this girl? She's making me want to break Every. Single. One.
What if I decide not to ransom her at all?
What if I want to make her mine?

This is the third book in Layla Valentine's Billionaire For Ransom series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Layla Valentine
• Release date: Jun 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201612504

Book preview

BILLIONAIRE FOR RANSOM

Book Three

LAYLA VALENTINE

Copyright © 2022 by Layla Valentine

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

1. Alice

2. Alice

3. Alice

4. Jack

5. Alice

6. Alice

7. Jack

8. Alice

9. Jack

Epilogue

CHAPTER 1

ALICE

Iwoke up slowly, in that way that happens when you fell asleep because you were honestly just too tired to keep your eyes open any longer and then your body is so burnt out and desperate for rest that it fights coming back into the real world.

That was why I stayed there for a long time with my eyes still closed, sending my senses out around me as I tried to remember where I was, and how I’d come to be there.

And then it all came flooding back. The rose garden. The bar, and the conversation. The weird apartment that I thought could have—and maybe should have—belonged to a serial killer.

The fact that it had ended up belonging to a kidnapper instead.

The handcuffs. The cheeseburger. The long drive… and then Jack’s unexpected heroism. Last night in the broken-down house in the middle of the desert. The manic drive back to Reno. The chase through the streets.

I put a hand to my leg and felt the sweatpants there, and in that moment, I knew that it hadn’t been a dream. Which meant that I was—I took quick stock of my last memories—currently in a parking garage in Reno. Waiting for dark. Waiting for a time when Jack thought it would be safe enough to flee to the airport.

Jack.

The hand that I’d had on my thigh moved a bit further, very slowly, and found the warmth of another human body. A stilling of my own breath and I could hear the deep, even breathing coming from that body.

A deep inhale and I could smell the scent that was uniquely his. The one I’d been breathing in last night when we fell asleep together. Something between cedar and vanilla, which must have been some sort of cologne and hadn’t lost any of its beauty in all the time we’d been together.

My hand brushed down his shirt front without me telling it to, and he brought his own hand up, wrapping it around mine and holding my hand to his chest as if he was going to keep it forever.

Then he grew suddenly still as, I assumed, he came fully awake and realized exactly what he was doing.

Are you awake? he breathed a moment later, his voice husky with sleep and raw with something I wasn’t quite ready to investigate.

Did you think I was running my hand down your chest in my sleep? I asked, unable to stop myself.

A moment later, before I could even register that I’d said what I’d said, I found myself on my back, Jack looming over me in the semi-darkness, and any other answer died on my lips. Because in the twenty-four hours or so since I’d last felt his body, I’d forgotten how big he was. How muscular.

My body hadn’t, though, and my back arched of its own accord, pushing my breasts up into him as my mouth opened on a sigh.

It was mostly dark in that garage, I swear. But I could also swear that I saw his eyes darken with sudden lust. I watched them flick up to the entrance to the parking lot, take in the light still coming in, and then flick back to my face.

And within seconds, he’d dipped his head down, his mouth coming over mine and moving with an urgency that had me immediately responding, his stubble rubbing against the sensitive skin of my chin.

I groaned and pushed up against him, my hands tangling in his hair to try to pull him closer to me as my body arched further, telling him exactly what it thought of this idea. What it thought of waiting any longer to further what had been building between us since we’d first met in that rose garden.

Because I couldn’t lie—and I didn’t think he would, either. We might