Psycho Billionaire: A Dark Romance Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by Kashmira Kamat

  All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in, or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known, hereinafter invented, without express written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Typewriter Pub, an imprint of Blvnp Incorporated

  A Nevada Corporation

  1887 Whitney Mesa DR #2002

  Henderson, NV 89014

  www.typewriterpub.com/[email protected]

  ISBN: 978-1-64434-079-0

  DISCLAIMER

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. While references might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  PSYCHO BILLIONAIRE

  KASHMIRA KAMAT

  Table of Contents

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  PART TWO

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  PART THREE

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Epilogue

  To my grandma, Madhuri, and my late grandpa, Chandrakant Satam,

  for encouraging me to keep writing.

  FREE DOWNLOAD

  Get these freebies when you sign up for the

  author’s mailing list!

  kashmira-kamat.awesomeauthors.org

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Kiara

  The first time I ever saw him was during a long rainy night. The clock ticked eleven p.m., which was cutting close to the restaurant closing time. Since it was a weekday, the restaurant barely had any customers. I worked at a small Chinese restaurant called Sea Dragon, where we served the best chicken dumplings and roast egg rolls in town; that’s what the restaurant was popular for, and people loved visiting here all the time.

  My co-worker, Kathy, had left early tonight because she had a date. She’d requested me to cover for her, begging me with her puppy eyes, and I eventually gave in. Kathy usually did favors for me too. Thus, I was left me alone with Diego who seemed to be mopping a puddle of Coke that a kid had spilled a few minutes back off the floor. He gave me a tired smile, a smile that indicated the impending doom of Friday, knowing full well that it was going to be hella crowded. We barely had time to breathe on a weekend.

  We were almost done cleaning all the tables when suddenly, Sam, the chef walked out of the kitchen frantically. Worry was written all over his face. He had never seemed so agitated before, so this was clearly something serious.

  “What’s wrong, Sam?” I inquired.

  “It’s my daughter,” he replied. “My wife was telling me on the phone that Lily is being rushed to the hospital because she’s running a high fever. I… I need to go.”

  “You can’t!” Diego interrupted. “It’s still an hour before closing. What if there’s another customer?” He threw me a look.

  “Can’t you guys just manage for one hour? Please.” Sam’s pleading eyes turned towards me. “I need to be with my daughter.”

  I nodded. “We will manage.” I placed my hand on his back, giving it a reassuring pat. “You can go.”

  “What? Are you nuts?” Diego shrieked. “If Manager Jeff finds out, we are going to get our asses handed back to us. And we could get fired!”

  “Jeff doesn’t need to know,” I said. “It’s just one hour. No one’s going to walk in at this time”

  Diego sighed and resumed his work. His face was going red. It looked like he was going to burst a vein or two. Sam packed his stuff and stormed out of the door, thanking me for the millionth time. I watched from the window as he settled into his old Honda civic and pulled out of the parking lot.

  Fifteen minutes after Sam left, the little restaurant bell dinged, indicating there was a customer. I knew that if it was just one person or perhaps a couple, I could manage, but in walked three men in suits and occupied a table near the window. One of them was Asian, the other was a lanky redhead, and the third, by the window, looked younger than the two. I approached their table with a smile, and they probably noticed I didn’t have a menu card in my hand.

  “Gentlemen, actually we closed early tonight because the chef had to leave due to an emergency. We wouldn’t be able to serve anything at the moment,” I said. “I apologize.”

  “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but the weather’s bad outside, and there aren’t many restaurants in this area, and most of them are closed,” the attractive Asian explained. “Isn’t there anything you can serve us?”

  “Chicken fried rice and Wonton soup,” I suggested. “That’s the best I can make.”

  The group of men agreed to the suggestion. Feeling motivated to become the evening’s chef for once; I rushed back into the kitchen, tied the apron around my waist, and began dicing the veggies.

  Diego was nowhere in sight, probably sulking in the staff room at the back, having wanted nothing to do with my little adventure of serving the customers in the restaurant without a chef. He clearly did not trust my cooking skills. I, for one, had always been observant of what Sam cooked and had tried his recipes at home a few times, and it had turned out good. Although I just knew a few things off the menu, it was enough to serve someone during desperate times like these.

  A few minutes later, I served them their dinner. “Enjoy your meal,” I said and resumed my work.

  I noticed another man seated alone a few booths down. Diego had served him coffee and turned the “open” sign to “closed.”

  I could feel a pair of eyes boring into my back as I wiped the counter with a rag. I turned to look, and the young man from the trio was staring at me. He smiled. So I smiled back at him and looked away. Something about his attitude gave me the creeps. I didn’t dress sexy because I appreciated predators staring at my ass. It was part of my job. They told me putting on makeup usually earned a lot of tips, and yes, my co-workers were right. I knew it was appealing to some men to see women serving around dressed in a Chinese kimono, and I received more compliments for it, but some men were downright pervy. That was what bothered me about this job.

  The three men seemed to be enjoying the meal, and when it was time to
pay, one of the men pushed his American Express card towards me, along with numerous hundred dollar bills.

  “You’re pretty good at cooking for someone who doesn’t work as a chef,” the dark-haired man said.

  “Thanks,” I said with a smile and then noticed the tip he’d given me.

  Four hundred dollars as tip? Either he hadn’t noticed how much he’d given me or he was totally insane. The two men stared at him incredulously, and my jaw was probably on the floor, too.

  “It’s for you. Don’t be so surprised,” he added.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  A few seconds later, I gained my composure, and I knew that my face had lit up by then. “Thank you so much, sir. I really appreciate it.”

  I was desperate, alright. I had bills to pay, my father’s debts to clear, and a whole bag filled with responsibilities. It didn’t help that my salary wasn’t much. The tips helped me a lot. I pushed the money in my pocket and went as far as to see the customers out of the door as a polite gesture for their generosity.

  After the coffee drinking customer had paid and walked out, Diego and I were left to close the restaurant. He stayed at the cash counter to settle the bills while I took the trash out of the back door. The storm had come to a halt. I placed some leftover fish and water for the stray cat that I’d been feeding for over the past few months and started to make my way back inside the restaurant when a strong hand reached for the doorknob first and slammed the door shut. I looked up to see who it was. The darkness made it quite difficult, but a flash of lightning allowed me to see that it was the same man as before. The man who’d generously tipped me.

  I fidgeted. “Do you need anything?”

  He straightened his blazer jacket and turned to look at his watch and smiled at me. “I can give you an extra two hundred.” He suggested, smiling coyly. “What do you say?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He sighed, took my hand in his and placed it on the crotch of his pants, rubbing on it slightly, and groaned. “I have my car parked just around the parking lot. We’ll make it quick.”

  I snatched my hand out of his grasp, feeling disgusted. “I’m not a whore.”

  “Oh c’mon. I saw how you were smiling at me,” he said as if that explained anything.

  “I smile at all my customers. It doesn’t mean anything.” My voice was shaky by now.

  “Just a quick fuck. You can do some exceptions for extra tips, right?”

  I reached for my pocket and thrust the dollar bills in his face. “Here. I don’t need your money. Now, move out of my way.”

  I should have known he was one of those creepy men who lured women by showing them the power of money. I shouldn’t even have accepted such a hefty tip.

  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

  He let go of the door handle, so I opened the door and started walking in when he grabbed me out of nowhere, slammed the door, and locked it behind him. Next, he grabbed me and pushed me against the wall, ripping the top button off the kimono. I struggled, screaming for someone to help me when he covered my mouth with his palm. I heard my own muffled cries over the sound of thunder. I tried to knee his groin, and I may have scratched his cheek because it was now bleeding.

  I smacked him, and he smacked me hard in return, and I heard him call me a stupid bitch. I was resisting so hard, but I felt like I was going to lose the fight. I had this gut feeling that something bad was going to happen. I realized this was the end; an ugly one where I would probably end up sexually assaulted and dead somewhere near the dumpster. They said you should never beg for mercy at the person causing an assault because begging usually fed their fantasy and made their experience even more fun, but I wasn’t even in the state to think of all that.

  I continued to repeat the words “please.” My kimono was tattered and dirty from struggling on the ground. He had my wrists pinned down. His knee was nudging between my thighs as his hand made its way towards my panties when suddenly, he stopped. I was brawling, trying to pull myself to a sitting position, covering myself and I dared to look towards him to see what had stopped the assault.

  A man was standing in the alley. I couldn’t see his face properly, but at that moment, I knew that he was my knight in shining armor.

  Chapter Two

  The thunder rumbled through the clouds as he charged forward and threw one hard punch towards the man who was straddling me. I remained crouched on the floor as the scene unfolded before me. The stranger continued to pummel the assaulter. The man tried to hit the stranger but missed every time. It seemed like he was no match for the person who was trying to save me. By the stranger’s smooth moves, I had the impression that he knew some kind of kung-fu or karate or some other self-defense techniques.

  I heard another bone-cracking punch, and the stranger literally pounded his head on the wall until the man’s eyes rolled back and his body slid down towards the ground unconsciously.

  I wondered if he was dead, and a part of me wished he was. I watched the stranger’s eyes land on me, his confident strides approaching as I crouched on the floor. He raised his hand towards me. “Can you stand up?”

  I tried to pull myself into a standing position but winced. The man didn’t wait; he put his right arm around my shoulders and the other under my knees as he carried me in his arms and walked through the kitchen backdoor into the restaurant. He placed me on the island counter and pulled out his cell phone.

  “I’m going to call the police and an ambulance.” He informed me. “Can you explain everything that happened?”

  I bit my bottom lip. “I can’t be admitted to a hospital. I’m fine.”

  I couldn’t afford being admitted there. I didn’t have the money.

  “Let me get this straight. You were almost raped a moment ago. You’re obviously hurt, but you don’t want to get a medical check-up? Do I want to know the reason why?”

  “It’s personal,” I explained.

  He sighed, muttered something under his breath and said. “I have a first-aid kit in my car. I’ll go get it. Do you think you can wait for me here until then?”

  I reached for the corner of his shirt. “Don’t leave me alone.”

  And for the first time, I noticed his stormy blue eyes, almost like gems looking at me with something like sympathy. “The man’s lying out there, cold. He’s unconscious; I made sure of it. I’ll be back in less than one minute. I promise.”

  I nodded reluctantly. As promised, the stranger was back beside me in a flash. He placed a small first-aid kit on the table and covered my shoulders with his jacket. I had been so caught up in the moment that I hadn’t even realized that my dress was almost torn in the front, and my bra was practically visible. I pulled the jacket close to me and zipped it up.

  He brought a clean bowl of water, soaked a rag in it, and cleaned the wound on my knees and the bruise around my neck. He cleaned the wounds with precision like he’d done this a lot of times before.

  “This is going to hurt a little.” He warned me before applying an ointment over the area. The bleeding had stopped so he covered it with a Band-Aid.

  While he was busy treating my wounds, I had a good look at him. He had dark raven hair with wavy texture and eyes the color of gunmetal blue. He was really tall and well-built with defined cheekbones and a chiseled jawline. His face was serious like he never smiled or joked very often. Then it struck me. He was the same customer who’d been served coffee by Diego. I wondered how he’d found us. If he hadn’t been there, I didn’t even want to think what would have been the situation. I had short glimpses of a yellow tape strung in the alley, with my body stashed somewhere, naked.

  I shuddered at the thought, and the man must have noticed it because he placed his hand on my shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay now. You’re safe with me.”

  Tears streamed down my face without me even realizing it. “Thank you so much for what you did back there. If you hadn’t found me, I don’t know what could have—
”

  He placed his finger on my lips. “Hush now. It’s over. I will make sure that bastard goes to jail for this. We can’t undo what’s already been done, but what you can do right now is forget about this incident and move forward.”

  I nodded in agreement. I’d always despised men; my father was one reason, along with some of my failed relationships. I knew that men wanted only one thing from any woman, and that love did not exist. I hadn’t met one man in my life who hadn’t tried to get his hand under my skirt. But right now, even when I’d been open, the stranger hadn’t even looked that way, so I guessed there were some exceptions.

  I turned alert when I heard a car pull up into the parking lot, and I sat up straighter. A man walked in. He was also attractive and tall, but maybe just a few inches shorter than the knight. He had chestnut brown hair, and eyes the color of dark chocolate. When he looked at me, he passed me a nervous smile. “I’m Dr. Vincent, and I’m…”

  “Well, you’re not technically a doctor yet,” the stranger interrupted. “A medical student would be a suitable term.”

  Vincent threw him a look. “Well, he says that and yet calls me even when he’s got something as mild as a headache.”

  I glanced towards the stranger. He had promised no doctors.

  “Relax. Think of Vincent as a family doctor. He won’t betray any information that you may not want to disclose, so rest assured.”

  Dr. Vincent was a nice man; he smiled a few times, unlike the stranger who didn’t seem to take jokes that well. The doctor made me feel comfortable, and that was what made me open up and tell him everything that had happened.

  “What’s your name?” Dr. Vincent asked me after a thorough checkup.

  “Kiara,” I responded.

  “Kiara, it seems like your wounds aren’t deep, so you should be fine in a few days. I suggest you take some medicines that I’m going to prescribe you. Do you live around here?”

  “Yes, just a few blocks away.”