Billionaire on Fire (Firefighter Billionaire Stand-Alone Romance) Read Free Page A

stopped what he was doing and looked at Erica. Erica gulped. Was this too intimate a joke? She was only joking though. Either way, Duke’s face did not reveal his reaction. He simply said, “Probably,” and then went back to whisking a few eggs.
    There was a moment of silence. Then Duke prodded. “So,
Erica
, tell me about yourself.”
    “Oh, right. Well, I’m a freshman, and—”
    Duke stopped stirring. “Freshman?” he said. He turned completely around. “Freshman at university, or… high school?”
    Erica laughed. “University.” And she saw Duke’s shoulders relax.
    “What are you studying?”
    “Oh, a little bit of everything. I haven’t really decided what I want to do yet.” She looked up at the man in the kitchen, at his strong shoulders as he whisked the eggs. For a moment it looked like the same motion as if he were jacking off, and Erica found herself distracted. When she realized he had been quiet, she tried to regain the conversation by asking a question. “So can I ask you a personal question?”
    “Yeah, go ahead.”
    “You’re a fireman, right?”
    “Sure am.”
    “How can a fireman afford this great place?”
    Duke gave a tense grin. “I thought that might come up. It always does.” He let out a deep sigh. “Are you familiar with Grimaldi Enterprises?”
    Erica stared back at him with a blank expression. “Should I be?”
    “Grimaldi Holding Companies?” Duke prodded. “Grimaldi Financial?”
    Erica shook her head. “Do you, like, work for them or something?”
    Duke laughed. “Not a lot of firemen on their staff. Bankers, mostly. They pretty much run the European financial markets.” He looked at her, realized she still wasn’t getting it. With considerable effort, he explained, “How can I afford this place? And my place in the Hamptons, and my place in Italy and in London and San Francisco? I can afford it all because the guy that runs Grimaldi Enterprises, Vittorio Grimaldi, he’s my dad. I’m Duke Grimaldi, his only son.”
    Erica raised an eyebrow. “Are you serious?”
    He raised a hand. “On my honor.”
    “Prove it.”
    Duke looked at her for a moment. She wasn’t sure if he found her rude, or amusing. Then he grinned. “You’re feisty. I like that.” He walked over to her, reaching into his front pocket on the way and pulling out his phone. He put in the code to unlock it, then opened up the photos application.
    “There is yours truly,” he said, “with my father at our Corsica mansion.” He held up the phone for her to see. There Duke stood with a considerably less fit older man with swept back grey hair and an expensive-looking suit. “And here we are on our yacht off the Mediterrean. Here we are dining with the Prime Minister. With the President. This one was at the Oscars.” He turned the phone toward me and pressed the photo. It turned out to be a video. There Duke was sitting at a table eating with celebrities and movies stars. An action star had his arm around Duke, thanking him for contributing funds to his latest film.
    My mouth dropped open. “Whoa.” He put his phone away and started walking back to the kitchen. “So that’s what it’s like to be a millionaire.”
    “Billionaire,” he corrected, returned to stir the eggs.
    Erica nodded, taking this in. The townhouse was starting to make sense, although she couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of Duke’s windfall. But the guy was so nice, and so muscular, that Erica decided to forgive him. “So,” she said, eager to keep the conversation going, “what made you decide to be a fireman? You could have done anything.”
    Duke took out a cutting board, and started chopping onions. “I just always wanted to be one, as far back as I could remember. I was a fireman for every Halloween since I was a little kid. I guess I could have followed in my father’s footsteps, but money always seemed so boring. I guess growing up rich, it was never a real concept in a way. It could be