Page 9 of Forbidden (Wicked Billionaires #1)

LORENZO

Instead of feeling obliged to shower a woman with expensive shallow outings in The Hamptons, or with shiny treats, it’s refreshing to just relax.

To be light, and actually how I was before… Before I built the empire. Before I had to protect the empire, and before I had to do avoid gold diggers.

Storm and I have done none of the things I’ve been encouraged to do for the last decade. Things that are not me.

Over the top lunches at famous restaurants, where there is little to no privacy. Being seen at the right places, drinking champagne, dressing up, and not being me.

The real me.

It is refreshing and it feels natural. It is also uncomplicated, like how life is supposed to be.

Storm makes me feel younger, and more human .

I guess it’s her uncomplicated, and playful energy. Also, her refreshingly young sense of curiosity.

Ever since I started my first company, and later, after my first billion, I’d started to feel old. Like an old man, and that I had to be serious.

At least serious enough to outsmart my ruthless competition, and defend the wealth I was accumulating.

Looking back, it feels like I’ve gone from being fifteen, to fifty, overnight.

Growing up alone, was one thing. Growing up poor, naturally pushed me to seek wealth. To gather or gain it for survival.

Likely way younger than most men, I became serious. After, I became cold, controlling, and remote, unlike the old, original, or true me.

Storm was somehow making me human, or my old self, again.

I have become good at analyzing what will entertain the world. Also, what it should cost. In addition, I can ascertain what risk there is, and what the upside should be.

That is how I turned ten thousand into a million. Then that into five hundred million. And later, that into billions.

Understanding situations, and predicting outcomes, is what I do.

As Storm and I walk along the beach, the crazy young thing turns, and she kicks water towards me.

“Oh, another thing. I’m calling you Loren. Lorenzo is way too long.”

“My name is Lorenzo, button pusher!”

“It’s actually Grumpy,” she says. “But I’m calling you Loren.”

I actually don’t mind, and it reminds me of my early teens. The time before I had to become cold and guarded.

A foster brother called me Loren, and it takes me back. Back before he died.

“Oh, and you never told me,” she says playfully. “How many brothers and sisters you have.” I look across the ocean, and say nothing. “Loren?”

We have never discussed this, and I’ve always shied away from the subject.

How can I not?

I look at Storm, and I remind myself to stay calm. “I was adopted, Storm. I have no idea if I have, or had, any real brothers or sisters from my… them.”

“Oh,” she says sweetly. “Not even your foster family?”

I don’t reply. What is there to say?

That foster care can be hell? That many of us were treated like cattle? That some white trash families would take us on, just to get paid?

That we’d have to fight for food, for a bed, and we’d be stacked in garages on bunk beds?

It’s just me, and the world, and it always has been. Always will be.

“Did you ever try and find your birth parents?”

I shake my head. If they didn’t want me, screw them. “No,” I say, wanting to change the subject.

Storm walks closer, and she wraps an arm awkwardly over my bare shoulder. Unless it is sexual, I’m unused to the touch of another.

It feels good, and I miss it.

I had to grow up fast to survive, and I built up layers to protect myself. I’ve become cold, hard and what she calls, grumpy.

I guess, Storm is the complete opposite. She never forced herself to grow up. She never formed a hard outer shell. She is pure, she is innocent, and she lives in the now.

She is loving, young, and flowing. Perhaps like a graceful fire flickering. I am cold, and hard. Like ice. We are not compatible.

We never will be.

“Come on,” I say, “let’s head home.”

As I read the movie script in the sun, shirtless, Storm walks from the kitchen with fresh juices. “Here. Your favorite and mine.”

I close the script and rise, “thanks.”

Standing, we look over the beach from under the palms with our different juices. The sunset will be perfect again.

“Loren?”

“Yeah,” I say turning.

“What happened to your back?”

I say nothing, and I turn back to face the light surf. I tell myself to open up and be human. The large intricate dragon and its green and yellow designs cover the wound. The rough skin is still visible, but it’s the best they could do. The skin was melted and rough.

“You mean the tattoo?”

“Yes. What happened to your skin.”

I say nothing and look across the remote and lone beach. The beach is like me. Happily remote. Happily alone.

Fingers close around my balled fist, and they try to prize open my powerful fingers. “It’s okay.”

I step a foot away from Storm, and I stare into the horizon.

Screw it. Why not? If one person in the world knows, what is the harm?

“Was it a house fire?” Storm asks, “Or-”

“Foster homes are not always homes, Storm. Or places of love. Many are human farms.” I lean on the low sandstone wall between my property and the sand. My eyes sweep the sea.

“My third foster home had bunks in a garage. There were a dozen of us. The couple were milking the system to get money. To buy themselves drugs. They were pure white trash.” Inhale. “I ran away the first week, but I was caught and beaten.”

“The damaged finger?” Storm asks low.

She is now closer to me.

I nod. “The finger I had rebuilt. And my knee. The third time I ran, I took three other kids. Young girls. I was fourteen. They around nine, ten and twelve. I knew they’d soon be abused, and that could not happen. No fucking way.”

Breathe…

“It was hard, but I finally got them to the night train. I threw the last up, and onto the freight car, but as the train kept going, I was caught on the tracks. Exhausted. Alone.”

The lone tear finds its way down my cheek. The itch. Always the itch.

“I then got what the tattoo artists said were around three hundred cigarette burns.”

“Oh Lorenzo,” Storm says stepping closer.

Another salty tear runs down my cheek. Fuck it. Who cares? And what’s the point in hiding the tears? She won’t tell anyone.

Storm holds my side, and I sniff loud. “Look, we don’t need to.”

“It’s okay,” I say. My mind elsewhere. Finally, Storm prizes my balled fist open again, and her fingers claim mine.

“I decided to run again. Days… And nights… I ran from the rural location… This time I made it. I was free. Anyway, an agency shut the place down, and justice was served.”

“They won’t do it again?”

I wipe my cheek with the back of my hand. “No. Not where they are.” I inhale long and low. “Anyway, the past is the past. All that matters is the now.”

Storm slides around me and she hugs me tight. I place my juice on the wall, and I hold her close. The stroke of her hand on my back calms me, and somehow, I relax.

I start to breathe deeper.

I’m supposed to be unbreakable. Un fucking untouchable. Only I’m not.

“You should be proud,” Storm says pulling back, and looking up at me. Her eyes are wet. I look down through my own moist eyes, and our eyes hold.

I don’t know what to say… I’ve never told anyone.

I bring Storm in, and I wrap my arms around her. I feel her tears on my chest, and I kiss the top of her head. As I feel her hair on my cheek, I hold her closer and tighter.

It feels right.

Too right…

After returning to NYC and my penthouse, the next week goes smoothly. Partly, because I stay home, and away from the entertainment circus I’ve created and now have to run.

Half my time is spent consuming entertainment pitches and discussing projects with the handlers. Those being movie, or entertainment producers, companies, and dealing with my internal attorneys and bankers.

Its calming being at home so much, and it’s nice to have company with Storm, in the big place.

Sure, I cannot walk around naked, like I often did.

I can’t also, sort myself out, several times a day, like I’m used to. It is however, calming and it gives me flow.

I’ve come to like young Storm, and I like having dinner together. It’s relaxing.

After the disgusting foster care experience, and never finding stability or love in a family, I stopped living with others. I’ve also never had roommates.

My family life is non-existent, but this, this feels good, whatever it is.

Sitting down to a daily, fun talk at dinner is likely healthy for me. Also, the playful banter at breakfast, when Storm pokes fun at me.

Storm has planted herbs on the roof, and she often puts them in our meals. She has also shown me photos of her and her mom, and it’s sweet. Everything about Storm seems genuine and uncomplicated, and it’s far from the complex side of show business I have to deal with.

Whatever’s going on, feels human, and that’s new to me.

We have fun, and maybe Martha my old secretary was right. Maybe I do need to be around more people.

My closest friends are reclusive bachelors and billionaires like me, and that’s probably unhealthy. Like me, they find it easy to find women, easy to have sex, but they find it hard to find someone who is real.

Someone who is not after their money, their wealth, their status, or their name.

It’s probably unhealthy being a complete island, but it is what it is. All I need to do now, and to make it all work, is…

Avoid claiming her as mine.

Avoid those sinful lips.

Avoid those perfect breasts, and…

Avoid that tight wet pussy, I’d seen a glimpse of, that night. The night she heard me take that model, and the night I think she saw me naked.

God help me.

It’s hard because she’s started to leave her underwear in the bathroom after showering in the morning.

It is actually disturbing, even if they’re not sexy, like normal thongs. Her panties are white conservative cotton knicker types. I mean what the actual fuck.

She’s either playing with me or the universe is.

After bedding around fifty top models, socialites, and several princesses, in the day, plus being one of the most eligible bachelors in the world, it is unsettling.

I promised Martha, the closest person I have in the world to family, I’d look after her. I’d also promised to protect her.

Storm is forbidden .

“Vietata,” I whisper to myself. Forbidden.

The next day, I have to drive to my office, downtown. Storm and I leave the penthouse at the same time, and I’m in one of my navy suits.

Storm wears a short plaid skirt, long white socks, that come just over her knees, and one of her white blouses, that is a little too tight. She is beyond cute, and it is complex not looking her up and down.

We step quickly into the elevator, and we are both running late.

As I finish the whole grain toast, that Storm is now forcing me to eat, I wipe my mouth and hold my sleek aluminum briefcase.

Storm has just run from the bathroom, near the kitchen, and her skirt flipped up, showing me her innocent plain white panties.

As she pushes her bicycle into the elevator, she tries to spin it. She is not doing well, because it is almost too long.

I hand Storm my Bentley keys, and I spin her bike with ease. As she checks her lipstick in the reflective wall, she spins back to me. “Thanks, oh wait, how are my lips?”

Storm stands close on tip toes, before she closes her eyes. Her hot butt sticks out, and I watch it in the mirror’s reflection. Having full swollen lips forced on me, and with the lace of her bra pushing through the blouse, I start to get hard.

I look at her lips, as her big brown eyes open close to me. As our eyes meet, I gulp.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I say. “They look good.”

“Thanks,” she says staring at me. “Wait.”

Storm straightens my tie, and she does it just like a wife does for a husband. My mind churns fast, and I feel confused at the idea. I try to avoid her eyes, lips and breasts, but she is inches away.

The mirror shows her cute innocent body, and her butt distracts me. I think of my cock sliding into it before she taps the end of my nose.

“There. Perfect.”

She flips a long leg, and tight butt over the bike seat, and her plaid skirt swishes over my knuckles, still holding the seat.

Her tight butt is now inches from my fingers, and she smiles playfully. She really has no idea what she is doing to me, or does she?

As the elevator door chimes, she huffs. “Knock em dead!”

Before I can move, she tosses the Bentley keys high, and she, and her tight butt race off. As she streaks straight out into the marble lobby, I shake my head at the madness.

I find Emily my PA standing at the door, waiting for me. She is close to raising a brow.

“What?” I growl intercepting her.

“All okay, Sir?” she asks, clearing her throat.

I’m unused to being disturbed so early, and certainly by two cute young women. My personal space, and my time, is mine.

I shake my head, and walk out fast, as if the interaction is behind me, and it never happened. I am in control of my life. Only, I am slipping, because of her.

There is another issue. Storm was due to move out soon, but I told her it’s good to have company, and someone here, when I’m not. Even if it was a lie, it sounded good.

I basically told her to stay as a non-paying roommate, for as long as she wants.

That decision will likely come back to bite me.

Or maybe, suck, and swallow hard.