Filthy Obsession: Kidnapped by my Billionaires

Samantha’s POV

I was clad in my most expensive dress and still stuck out like a sore thumb. The dimmed lights at the posh restaurant overlooking Lake Michigan pretended intimacy; the private booth was shielded from the classy main room by heavy curtains. The restaurant was several classes above my paycheck, but Tobias had asked me to be there — and so I was. It had been twelve years. Twelve fucking years since I had heard a single word from him.

Tobias Alexander Cavendish, heir to the internationally renowned Cavendish business empire. The youngest CEO in the company’s history, forced to step up after his father’s unexpected death four years back — and he had exceeded every expectation, if you believed the press. They called him a playboy, ruthless and cold, too. I had stopped reading anything about him a couple of months after he had taken over.

It had been the only time I had ever given in to my curiosity, because my heart had ached for him at the news of Mr Cavendish’s death. But I had spent a decade trying to forget I had ever known him for a reason. Toby. My best friend. My first crush. He had been all of that — before I had even understood we were different, because his family was filthy rich and mine was just a normal family.

I had cried my eyes out for two years straight because of him. He had sworn we’d stay in touch when they’d separated him from us plebs after his mom had fallen ill and dragged him off to some posh, mysterious private school. He had never answered any of my letters, and at sixteen, I had given up on writing.

Now I was twenty-six, worked two jobs to somehow be able to pay my tuition and majored in law and economics. I had my life together. I was fulfilled. I was happy. All it had taken was one phone call, and here I was. Sitting at a mahogany table I had no business sitting at, with my best shoes hidden as deep underneath the table as possible, and he apparently had stopped caring about normal people enough to be twenty-three minutes late by now.

And just when I had decided I had waited long enough, the curtain parted and in he came. My breath hitched at the sight, because — fuck — he’d grown out of the lanky teenager I’d been so familiar with it still hurt sometimes. He had to be taller than six feet, with broad shoulders and a jaw sharp enough to cut glass. I rose to my feet to greet him and realised I was shamelessly staring. He wore the fitted shirt and three-piece suit like a second skin, and the only thing familiar left was his intense, storm-grey eyes that settled on me like a weight, sizing me up in a single sweep from my tight bun down to my cheap shoes.

Even his voice was different. Much deeper, and that lazy, arrogant upper-class drawl reached places in my stomach that should have been forbidden. “Sorry it took me so long,” he said. No greeting. No preamble. No pleasantries. I knew he wasn’t talking about today. And the fact that he acknowledged twelve years of icy silence made them hurt more. He casually moved up to me, his hand touching between my shoulder blades, his cheek touching mine in that fancy mock-kiss people obviously did for real and not only in movies, but before I could reply, the curtain parted again and three tall shadows followed him.

They moved like sharks through open water, smooth and deadly, fanning out around us, none of them bothering to sit. Each of them shot me an assessing glance. The tallest of them blocked the entrance, flicking his wrist to reveal an expensive watch.

“Thirteen minutes, Cavendish,” he announced, and my eyebrows shot up above my hairline. I was very aware of their looming presence, but decided to ignore them altogether. My eyes focused on Tobias alone, trying to sear a hole in his face, my voice dripping sarcasm when I finally got to reply.

“Wow, you still got it, Tobias. Thirteen minutes of your expensive time just for me. I’m flattered beyond words,” I quipped. Something flickered across his face. His hand closed around mine in a grip tight enough to hurt, and he sat down, pulling me down with him.

I sat — because I’d never be able to pay for the damage if I crashed into any piece of furniture struggling against him.

“Sam,” he started, but I wasn’t done yet.

“And you brought bodyguards. That afraid of me?”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, and he had the decency to look embarrassed. Then something like anger lit up in his eyes. He’d never been able to hide anything in his eyes; they always gave him away.

“They are friends,” he snapped, and I lifted my eyebrow but didn’t say anything. “Close friends,” he added and exhaled, his hand combing through his hair in frustration. Then he reached out and grabbed my hand. He felt my muscles twitch because his fingers interlaced with mine soothingly, and without thinking, his thumb pressed into the back of my hand, tracing the same circles that had always soothed me back when my biggest worries had been dropped ice cream cones and spilled soft drinks.

It was my turn to exhale my frustration. “Would you care to explain why you felt the urge to catch up after a very long time, pick a fancy restaurant, and then show up with only a couple of minutes to spare and your friends? ’Cause maybe I’m being dumb, but I don’t get it.”

Tobias’ eyes dropped to the tablecloth, and tension knotted in my stomach. So I wouldn’t like what he had to say. They’d trained the boy out of the man, but the old habits were still there.

An amused voice cut in from the left. “You really couldn’t make this any more of an ordeal, could you, Tobe?”

The voice belonged to an attractive blond. At second glance, it was pretty obvious he wasn’t a bodyguard. Same tailored elegance, and the scent of an expensive cologne betrayed that he definitely belonged to Tobias’ circle and probably hadn’t carried anything heavier than a whisky tumbler in his life.

“And you’d be?” I inquired.

He flashed me a broad grin, pulled out the chair across from me with dramatic flair, spun it around and sat down backwards, crossing his arms on the backrest, his pale green eyes settling on my face with something like fascination. As if he hadn’t expected the scum to talk back.

“Kieran Rutherford, sweetheart,” he replied, then casually pointed his thumb at the other men. “My brother-in-law, Adrian Penrose, and the big guy at the front would be Damian Dalton.”

He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. “We call him Spoilsport, though,” he confided. Broad and broody cast a glance at us, his face entirely unimpressed. “I can hear you, Rutherford,” he shot back, and Kieran graced him with a sharp grin. “I counted on that. Where’d be the fun if you couldn’t?” he quipped, and I started to like him a little.

Tobias cleared his throat, but Kieran lifted his hand and cut him off. “Since you have — what? — six minutes or so left until Damian declares war on you, her and the restaurant for overstaying, let me.”

And to my shock, Tobias leaned back in his chair — and nodded.

Kieran rubbed his hands, then rubbed his chin, a low, dangerous chuckle rumbling from his mouth. “Fuck, this is far more entertaining than I expected. So the thing is, sweetheart, big boy here has kept box after box of memories from his childhood in the gutter. And guess who occupies every single one of those boxes?”

My eyes blew wide.

Rutherford nodded. “Smart girl! Yes. You. Unfortunately, he’s also drawn quite a lot of attention lately.”

I blinked. “You’re saying?” I tried, hoping I sounded more patient than I felt.

“Oh, I’m saying there are some very bad people willing to do very bad things to Tobias’ little secret.”

He must have caught my gaze because his voice sharpened.

“To you, sweetheart. So what loverboy is trying to tell you is that you’re staying where we can see you from now on.”