Deep Dive: An enemies-to-lovers billionaire romance (Deep Love Series) Lauren Winter (red white and royal blue hardcover TXT) 📖

I know what these women want, and it has nothing to do with my personality. They are fun distractions, but it doesn’t mean I want to re-visit them again. This is why I left New York and came back to my hometown.

“How did you know I was here?” I inch closer to the bed. My shadow towers over the sultry figure.

“Does it matter?” she says coyly as she sits at the edge of the bed. Her naked toes playfully tug at the edge of my pant leg.

“If you don’t tell me.” My tone is jagged. “I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.” I have no idea who she is and I don’t care what happens to her as long as I can get rid of her.

Panic flashes in her eyes. She jumps off the bed and tightens the robe around her slim frame. “I didn’t know, okay? I was on your flight from New York and I followed you here.”

I sneer. I don’t even bait my hook, and she is fighting tooth and nail to climb onto my fishing rod. Women like her scheme and plot to make use of their measly brain cells to land a husband with a fat bank account.

“Great, now get out.” I point to the door. She mutters and curses as she scrambles. As soon as the front door is shut behind her, I rip the sheets off the bed and throw them into the washer. The room retains the cloyingly sweet scent of the woman’s expensive perfume, and it makes me want to gag. I force open all the windows right away.

The girl who was here for the furniture doesn’t smell like that. I caught a whiff of her natural feminine scent when I reached over to help her load the couch into the truck bed. She smells faintly of lilacs and sunshine. Short and small with green eyes like a cat’s, she moves with the litheness of one as well. She has a dainty nose covered with freckles and a round face framed by dark hair in loose spiral waves that tumble over her shoulders. Something about the way she just quietly watches when you talk, as if she can see right into you. I bet those clever eyes see and note everything. She wears a big gray hoodie and baggy jeans like a little brother wearing his bigger sibling’s clothes, but I wonder what she looks like under her frumpy clothes.

My phone buzzes again. You’ll be sorry. I sneer and don’t even bother with a response. I refuse to take any woman or their threats seriously.

Since Rachel left me at the altar three years ago, my life has been filled with these type of women. It was fun at first, having a new woman over every night. Then it grew old and stale. Women flood to you and they will do or say anything you want just to cling to you and your money. Mostly just your money. It did help me forget Rachel, but it didn’t make me feel any better about my life or myself. I finally had it with the gold-diggers and the paparazzi, so I skipped town and wound up here, across the country in my hometown where no one knows I am here.

Did the girl know who I was? Probably not. Most people who did either fall into a nervous chatter or stand slack-jawed. She just answered my questions a little shyly, but honestly. I sensed her embarrassment when I asked why she didn’t already have any furniture. I knew the answer before she could tell me.

I walk into the garage and flick on the lights. Two of the bulbs don’t work. There is still Dad’s old chevy sitting here, and some of his old scuba gear. Cold sea air blows right through the gaping hole in the door. I can taste the ocean on the tip of my tongue and excitement tingles under my skin. I long to jump into the salty water and feel the coldness splashing over my skin. I didn’t grow up rich either, but I never had to take strangers’ hand-me-downs. Dad ran a dive shop and scuba school and supported our family. We loved the sea. Dad led a simple life and loved what he did. When I was young, I thought I would live here forever as well.

Instead, I moved to New York right after school. Instantly, I was hooked. The sounds, the sights, and the people. I felt like I was at the center of the universe and the top of the world. So despite my father’s chagrin, I stayed. I dug my heels in and persevered. I worked, and I hustled. I built an empire from nothing with my bare hands. Now I am the king of my own domain. I have gotten everything I have ever wanted.

In an old plastic bin, I find an old tarp and a roll of tape and fix up the hole temporarily. The girl, Amelia, that’s her name, promised that she will pay me for the door. She left me with her phone number and address. As if she will ever be able to scrape together the cash to pay me. If she has the money, she should buy herself a new truck. As if I need her money or anything from anyone.

There is a long row of old wetsuits, and some scuba gears hanging by the wall. I haven’t gone diving in years. To run three successful tech companies, I barely have time for vacations and rarely have weekends where I don’t work. For my first Thanksgiving in New York, because I didn’t have time or money to come home, Dad flew out to visit me. Standing around Times Square in his old fleece and shabby work boots, he was completely out of place with my new life. So he never visited me again.

Yet when