Blue Collar Billionaire

Chapter 1

HOLLY

There are three things I need this morning. A hot shower, a warm bed, and twelve hours of solid sleep. But the universe, which takes frequent delight in thwarting me, isn’t playing ball.

It delivers on the hot shower, but I’m now freezing my ass off in my apartment because the heating refuses to bend to my will. That’s going to make the sleeping bit impossible. The blinding fuzz of white outside my window confirms there’s still a blizzard going on out there.

I’ll be a freaking popsicle after a few hours.

I bang the clunky old radiator with a wrench a few more times, hoping for some kind of miracle. That’s how tired I am.

‘I should have gotten a job in California,’ I tell the freezing metal.

‘There aren’t any blizzards in California.

There’s sun and sand. And drinks with little umbrellas.

But no… I chose the Rocky Mountains.’ I smash the wrench against the radiator again.

‘For the skiing. Which I never get time to do anyway.’

God. I’m so tired. I’ve been working all night and I just want to crawl into my bed, burrow under the covers, and not reappear until the blizzard blows itself out. Or I’m back on shift again in three days.

Whatever comes first.

But now I’m going to have to go downstairs and throw myself at the mercy of my building super.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t have a problem with taking my lack of heating to Bob.

He’s been manager of the apartment block for a decade.

I’ve only been here for two of those but he’s a nice old guy in his late sixties who can fix anything, and nothing’s ever too much trouble.

But Bob’s off on his annual trek to Reno for two months where he meets up with some old military buddies.

They play the tables in between visiting the all-you-can-eat buffet.

I don’t think he’s ever had much of a win because, let’s face it, while this building is serviceable, it ain’t exactly the Ritz.

And if he’d won big, surely he’d retire somewhere nice where he didn’t have to be on call to eighty apartments every minute of the day, especially during a blizzard.

That job currently, however, belongs to Bob’s only living relative. The son of a distant cousin long deceased who has just moved back to the area. Apart from their supernatural ability to fix things, there’s absolutely no family resemblance between Bob and Danny Colton.

Where Bob is paunchy and moon-faced, Danny is ripped, with a face that’s as chiselled as the rest of him. Even his name conjures up dusty cowboys and pistols at dawn. If cowboys had tattoos. Because he has plenty of them decorating his chest and arms and neck.

He’s also irritatingly cocky.

The guy only has to look at me and I feel like a stammering teenager again.

The kind with braces and no breasts. And he knows it.

He has that smug smile that tells me he’s used to women’s brains melting as he walks by.

Which is especially irritating for someone like me, who prides herself on her brains and her cool.

I’m an ER doctor, for crying out loud. I don’t like to brag, but I’m not exactly dumb. And you wouldn’t believe some of the shit that goes down at work that never ruffles a feather. But one slight uptilt of Danny the drummer’s mouth, and bang!

I drop a hundred IQ points.

Yeah. He’s a drummer. Of course. Plays in a rock band by night, hibernates during the day, in between callouts for leaky taps, broken appliances, and collecting the rent – or whatever an apartment super does.

Except for when he’s practising. Which always seems to be the days I’m trying to sleep after a night shift.

Always.

I’ve had to pound on his door to tell him to shut up several times this past couple of weeks. He always does, but not before he’s answered the door looking like God’s gift to vaginas in jeans and nothing else but that stupid, sexy smile. It keeps me awake for freaking hours afterwards.

I’ve lost a lot of sleep since Danny Colton came to stay. And lack of sleep makes me cranky. I’ve been cranky for the past few weeks.

I’m really freaking cranky now.

Throwing the wrench on the ground, I dash to my bedroom, resigned to my fate. But I have to bundle up first. We’ll no doubt end up in the basement, and it’ll be subzero down there. My long johns might be just right for bed, but I’m going to need more layers.

I climb into sweatpants and thick socks, shoving my feet in my Uggs as I pull a long-sleeved Henley over my head and follow it with a turtleneck sweater, then my puffy navy-blue jacket.

Reaching for my pink knit beanie with the pompom on top, I pull it down to my ears, haphazardly shoving strands of my hair underneath.

It’s not very fashionable but it’s warm and my grandmother knitted it for me the winter before she died in a car crash, which devastated the entire family. It makes me feel close to her and reminds me why I’m busting my ass working and studying all hours of the day and night.

Finally, I yank the duvet off the bed and throw it around my shoulders like some kind of kick-ass cape. It’s down so it’ll keep me warm in the basement. Plus it totally hides my body, which is a win-win as far as I’m concerned. I need some kind of shield against the way Danny looks at me.

Like he wants to play doctor. The kind of doctor that specialises in sexual healing.

Shutting my eyes against the temptation of that image, I stalk out of the bedroom. As I sweep past the coffee table, the bulk of the duvet brushes against the stack of study papers I have waiting for me, and they fall to the floor.

‘Fabulous,’ I mutter, but keep walking. If the room was warmer I’d probably give a shit. I will later tonight when I have to get them all back into order again. But they are so not my priority at the moment.

Getting this place warm is my priority. And for that, I need Danny Colton.

Damn it.

As it always does, the number sixty-nine confronts me as I shuffle to Danny’s door.

I guess it’s not his fault – this is Bob’s place, after all – and somebody has to be apartment sixty-nine.

But it figures the guy who looks like he knows all the sexual positions in the Kama Sutra, and probably a few that aren’t, would end up here.

Muffled music leaks around the door, and for some reason it pisses me off. I’m tired and freezing my ass off, and he’s having a… house party. The thought he might be entertaining someone in there makes me even more irritated.

I never get the chance to entertain. At twenty-seven, I have several years to go before I become an attending.

I work eighty-hour weeks and study whatever hours are left.

I barely have time to eat and sleep, and forget about anything recreational like shopping and reading and seeing my parents.

I barely maintain friendships past people I work with.

Relationships? Sex? Pfft. I can’t remember the last time I had sex.

Hell, I can’t even remember the last time I was in the mood for sex. I’m bankrupt on time and drowning in student loan debt – there’s nothing groovy-sexy-times about that.

My crankiness dials up another notch.

Slipping my hand out from under all my layers, I knock on the door.

The cool kiss of air on my fingers makes me grateful for the snugness of the duvet.

The tip of my nose is cold, and I don’t have to look at it to know it’s red.

The door remains stubbornly closed, and I grit my teeth and pound my fist against the wood.

A beat passes. Then another. The door opens on a waft of warm air and Bruce Springsteen, and I’m looking up into eyes as warm and blue as tropical waters.

Suddenly, my vagina – yeah, I call body parts by their proper names; it’s a doctor thing – remembers exactly how long it’s been since it’s seen any action.

Seven months, twenty-two days. And it wasn’t very good.

I came home after to finish the job. The guy – a travelling medical rep – really could have done with reading an anatomy textbook or two. Not that familiarity with anatomy had helped my long-ago ex who had been studying to be a surgeon.

Danny’s laugh interrupts my walk down crappy-sex lane. Deep dimples bracket either side of his mouth as his eyes take a tour of my Rudolph-nosed, Yeti-like appearance. I hunch into the duvet a little more, feeling about as attractive as the dirty slush that’s churned up by snow ploughs.

He, on the other hand, glows with warmth and vitality and sex appeal, stretching the shoulder seams of his T-shirt.

Green and black tattoos with splashes of colour cling to his biceps, and wings of some description flare either side of his neck.

Soft denim hugs low on his hips and cups every single thing south.

His dirty blond hair is a little on the shaggy side, as is his jaw stubble.

He’s a tropical mirage, and I want to reach out and touch him just to see if he really does exist.

His tour of my bulky form complete, he shoves his shoulder against the doorjamb and lazily raises an eyebrow. If the man was any more laid back, he’d be horizontal.

‘Dr Vincent.’

Danny says doctor the way most men say baby.

It’s hot enough to make every single thing I have on at the moment mentally fall off my body in anticipation.

I can only imagine how many groupies he must have.

I bet my medical degree the people who’ve been with this man never have to go home and finish the job.

My crankiness reaches boiling point. ‘My heat isn’t working.’

His gaze flicks up and down my body again, his mouth quirking sexily. ‘I figured.’

I blink. Is that it? He figured? Did he think I was standing here dressed like the Abominable Snowman just to inform him of my current heating situation? Or lack of, as the case may be. A nerve jumps under my left eye, and I quell the urge to still it with my finger.