His Wild Seduction: A Billionaire Romance Novel (Wild Billionaire Romance Book 3)

Preface Josef

When Meredith reached out to Volkov Industries with a request to meet to discuss terms regarding the default on the loan her father had taken out with his business as collateral, I was the one who received the message.

After all, I was the one who approved the loan. Backing it with my own personal money as collateral.

It wasn’t because I believed Gray Corps was a good investment, or that they could afford to repay the loan. And it wasn’t because I thought the company could improve any of my own, or the Volkov brothers’ holdings.

I had one reason to set up such a guaranteed disaster.

Meredith Gray.

She was the reason. She was the only woman who’d ever brought me to my knees, and it wasn’t a past I liked to remember.

But this time, our positions were reversed.

This time, I held all the cards.

I knew the second I walked into the boardroom I’d do anything to keep Little Red from getting the upper hand again.

Fuck.

I didn’t mean to call her by the nickname I gave her all those years ago, but I couldn’t actually help myself.

That gorgeous mane of red was fastened at her nape, making me fight a losing battle with a smirk. The style should have looked severe. She’d always hated her hair, but it was the thing I first noticed about her.

She’d been years too young for me. A senior in high school, but one with an old soul. Meredith wasn’t like other girls. I could see it in her eyes.

And that hair. That fucking glorious mane of red was something she could never tame. It was as wild and stunning then as it was now.

I swallowed hard, tamping down on my cursed reaction to this woman. This siren. This breaker of men.

Her emerald eyes sparked surprise as I entered the space. Surprise turned to anger as I took my seat across from her.

“Josef,” she said my name, and I had to close my eyes at the emotions roiling through me.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I represent Volkov Industries and I am calling in your loan in full, Miss Gray.”

“What? You can’t!”

“I can. And I am,” I replied, fury feeding my desire to see her squirm.

My gaze roamed her face, absorbing the shock, taking in the changes time had made. It had been fifteen years since I’d seen her. She was little more than a child then. But Goddamnit, how I’d loved her.

The curve of her lips was the same. But there were fine lines around her mouth.

Not smile lines.

These were different.

Sadder.

The dead organ inside my chest squeezed, and I nearly grunted at the pain of it.

Why was she sad? Did someone hurt her?

Fuck. I shouldn’t be having thoughts like that. Besides, I was the one hurting her. That was the whole fucking plan, wasn’t it?

Squeeze her father by tearing apart the thing he loved most, his company, and squeeze her in the process.

So yeah, Meredith was supposed to be upset. But I wasn’t supposed to care.

“Where is your father? I should be discussing this with him.”

“He’s in the hospital. Heart attack.”

I paused.

Heart attack? Why the fuck wasn’t I notified?

“I am sorry, I hadn’t heard.”

“Why would you?” she spat the question.

My phone beeped, and I looked down to see a message from Adrik.

Oh shit. Marat’s daughter was just born.

A mixture of disbelief, happiness and envy filled me, but happiness won out, outweighing the others. I had no family of my own, and the Volkov brothers were the closest thing to it.

Adrik and Marat were the family I chose, who chose me. I was sorry I’d missed the part where Marat had gone rogue wolf and hunted the motherfuckers who’d sabotaged one of the Volkov mines.

But since I’d trained the man myself, I believed every single rumor of the Devil Wolf I’d heard since then.

Well done, brother.

It was a good thing Marat was younger than Adrik, or he’d have given his brother’s rep a run for his money.

I smirked.

It was about fucking time Marat realized what he was capable of. And how very interesting that a woman had shown him the way.

“Is that a smile for another life you ruined?”

I flicked my gaze to Meredith, schooling my face to show no emotions.

She looked hostile, angry.

And I was confused.

“You can’t mean you think I ruined your life, Little Red.”

What the fuck was she talking about? I was there all those years ago, rooted to the spot we’d promised to meet.

I’d waited hours only to have her father come with some shitty little note from her saying she didn’t mean any of it.

Not the declarations of love.

Not the giving of herself to me in the moonlit garden behind her bedroom.

Not the promise to leave with me.

Franklin Gray promised not to press charges against me if I left that night, so I did. I’d been young. Stupid. Not the powerful man I was today.

But none of that explained why she was staring daggers at me, pissed as all hell.

Goddamnit.

She was still so damn pretty when she was angry. Her emerald eyes spat green fire at me, and that red hair seemed to glow like flames.

My cock stirred and only through extraordinary self-control did I manage to sit there seemingly unaffected.

“Ha! You’re the one who walked out, and I was left to pick up the pieces,” she said, stunning the fucking shit out of me.

I frowned.

I had a feeling maybe neither of us had the full story. Something was not right in the way things had gone down all those years ago.

True, it had taken me some time to find a weakness in Gray Corp.

Years, actually.

But once I’d fooled her father into taking out a loan at a bank I happened to have a controlling interest in, the rest was easy.

It just took patience. Eight months to be precise. But that was nothing after I’d spent the past fifteen years in torment, waiting for the chance to pay back the woman who almost broke me.

Goddamn her for still looking so beautiful.

Once upon a time, I was mad for her. But she threw me away.

I’d been a fun distraction. Just something she’d used to scratch an itch. She’d wanted a bad boy between her legs to piss Daddy off, and I stupidly ran to fill the position.

Once upon a time, Meredith Gray used me.

Now it was my turn.