Billionaire Romance Boxed Set (9 Book Bundle) (29 page)
Read Billionaire Romance Boxed Set (9 Book Bundle) Online
Authors: Julia Kent
14
Sam finds herself thinking of Brian from time to time. She
plays their lovemaking over and over again in her mind.
She’s not in love with him, she sternly tells herself. He
is just a wonderful memory. A keepsake in her little box of secrets. She will
never see him again, but take him out from her drawer from time to time to
fantasize about – like a high school yearbook photo of a great-looking
boy who took her to the prom.
She doesn’t tell Cassie about her night with Brian. She
would like to keep it to herself, hug it warmly to her chest.
“So are you going to call Caleb?” she casually asks Cassie.
Her best friend stirs the froth on her cappuccino,
despoiling the carefully shaped chocolate powder heart. She makes a face.
“I’d rather he call me first.”
“And has he?”
“No.”
“Maybe he’s waiting for you to call.”
“Maybe he’s too indoctrinated in the Brian Morton school of
one night stands.”
Sam winces at the mention of Brian’s name.
‘Ah well,” Cassie says in a singsong voice, “back to the
old daily grind of waiting by the phone. Only we don’t have to technically wait
by the phone anymore, seeing as we are all equipped with text, Viber, What’s
App and a million other ways to get dumped.”
“He did not dump you.”
“He didn’t exactly jump all over on seeing me again either.
I mean, it’s understandable for Brian, but I thought Caleb and I had a
connection. At least … we talked. And talked and talked and talked while we
fucked.”
That’s more than I can say for Brian, Sam thinks in
chagrin.
Still, what is a girl to do but carry on with the precious
mementoes in her life?
*
Brian finds himself thinking of Sam when he’s supposed to
be concentrating on something else. Like this really boring ad presentation,
for example.
“And so, it’s PERFECT,” the enthusiastic young exec says,
tapping the mockup, “the perfect cream for the perfect woman.”
He beams as though he has just found a shortcut to the
fountain of youth.
Brian feels like burying his face in his hands. Or better
still, burying the young exec under a mountain of PERFECT cream. Who the hell
copyrights a name like PERFECT anyway?
“And that’s supposed to make me run out to Nordstrom, throw
down my credit card and shell three hundred dollars out for it?” he says
caustically.
“Uh, sir, with all due respect, you’re not the target
audience for this copy.”
“I’ll tell you who the target audience is for this
synthetic tub of goo that’s the chemical composition of something you don’t
really want to know. It’s the imperfect woman. Where the fuck did you get the
idea that women are perfect anyway?”
“Uh, sir … they do strive for an ideal – ”
“I take it that you’ve never lived with a woman before?”
Neither has Brian, but he’s not going to let that on to the gap-toothed kid who
obviously hasn’t started shaving yet.
“I live with my mother, sir. And I’m gay.”
Brian rolls his eyes. “Astounding. Take it from me, kid.
Women aren’t perfect.”
In fact, he has known that all along. It’s just something
which has never really occurred to him before, kind of like a thesis on the air
he is breathing that he suddenly has to write about.
He takes a deep breath and goes on, “They’re highly strung,
sometimes whiny and they do impractical, irrational things … such as asking
their ex-school bully to be their pretend boyfriend to their sister’s
engagement party over the weekend.”
The young ad exec blinks, clearly lost in this thread of
conversation.
“Or taking the dance floor by storm even when they can’t
distinguish somebody else’s toes from their own.”
He’s aware that Sam’s face has invaded his mind now, pretty
much in the manner of alien thought control.
“Or fussing over their hair and worrying about it being too
curly when it’s the most glorious thing on the planet. Or throwing a hissy fit
when you’ve masturbated in your shared bed the night before and exploded your
cum all over your sheets.”
The young exec’s jaw is on the table. “Oh wow, I never knew
women were like that, sir.”
“Yeah.” Brian shoves the pile of prints across the table.
“Go back to school, kid, and come back when you’ve fucked a woman. And if you
can’t get your dick up for one, try living with her for a weekend.”
Fuck. Now he’s getting all weird.
It’s all Sam’s fault. She has gotten under his skin
somehow. Wormed in when he least expected it.
Now if only he can get Samantha Fox and her imperfect life
out of his head.
15
THREE
MONTHS LATER
The club music’s thumpa-thumpa-thumpa drowns everything out
except the throbbing of Brian’s alcohol-soaked brain. Gawd. Don’t tell me I’m
getting too old for this, he thinks.
He lifts his beer bottle to Caleb. They are at the
blue-lighted bar.
“To new beginnings.”
“What? I can’t hear you.”
“I said ‘That cute guy is grinning at you.”
“What cute guy? Where?” Caleb appears outraged.
Brian throws his head back and laughs.
“That one.” He jabs at the middle of the dance floor, where
people are jumping, whirling, writhing in severe contortions (possibly of
pain?) and basically doing their primal premating ritual.
There’s a bobbing head that looks painfully familiar. Brown
untamed curls. Pert cute smiling face. Zumba-like dance moves.
No shit.
He’s aware that he’s looking at Sam. And her dancing has
been taken up yet another notch since they last were together. She’s wearing… not a bandeau top … but close. A hot red little number that shows off
her curves and with more confidence than he has ever seen on her. Her skirt is
definitely flirty – a tie-dyed parasol number that twirls prettily as she
spins.
She is dancing with Cassie, who is looking marvelous in a
shiny black number. Several guys are looking over longingly at the two of them.
Brian’s smile stretches wide.
“You seeing what I’m seeing?” Caleb yells above the din.
“Yeah. Kismet.”
“It’s almost like you described it back at the party. Only
Sam is not dancing with a dude with greasy hair and a T-shirt that says –
”
“‘FUCK ME GENTLY’,” they chorus.
And laugh.
Brian shrugs. “What can we do?”
His feet are still rooted to the spot.
“I don’t know about you,” Caleb says, “but I’m going down
there.”
Brian watches his best friend weave through the throng to
go to Cassie. Caleb taps a delighted Cassie on the shoulder. She swings and
registers genuine surprise. They hug and begin to dance together.
Sam is left floundering, but not for long. A dude with a
shock of hair – which is unfortunately not greasy – cuts in to
dance with her instead.
To hell if he’s going to let that happen.
Brian takes a long swig of his beer and slaps it down on
the bar. Then he elbows his way through the sweaty, shiny bodies until he
reaches Sam.
“Take a hike,” he says to the dude. “I wanna dance with my
former girlfriend.”
The smile that lights Sam’s face up brings a pang to his
heart.
She puts one hand on his shoulder and the other in his
hand, and together, they dance the night away.
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If you liked this
book, you might also like:
Perky
Samantha Fox and the gorgeous lothario with a secret heart of gold, Brian
Morton, are now lovers and best friends - except for the unspoken love and lack
of commitment between them. Brian considers it ‘hanging out’. Sam has to take
what she can get, because she’s about to tackle something bigger - if she
doesn’t do what her new boss demands, she will lose her precious job.
Enter
a mysterious woman. She is hell bent to destroy Brian for his past transgressions.
When
a series of strange circumstances leads Brian to invite a woman into his
apartment, he wakes up the next morning - dazed and confused, with no memory of
what occurred the previous night. The police barge in and arrest him. Brian is
accused … of rape.
Sam
and Brian are about to lose everything they hold dear unless they can find a
way to brave the coming storm together.
Me, Cinderella?By Aubrey Rose
Before
my mother died, she told me stories. I sat on her lap and listened to her spin
golden fairy tales through the air. We never had much, but I didn
’t
notice the cracks in our plaster walls when she talked about Cinderella putting
on her crystal slippers and waltzing all night with Prince Charming.
“Once upon a time”…the stories
always begin the same way, but from these beginnings my mother wove new tales
that danced in all directions of the compass. She told me stories of castles
and dragons, stories of men who flew above the clouds to reach the sun and gods
who rained jealous fury upon their rivals. Stories of lovers whose passion rose
above earthly desire and changed their fate to a different end than the world
had meant for them. Stories of hope and of death.
None of those stories were
true, but mine is.
CHAPTER ONE
“A mathematician is a device
for turning coffee into theorems.” -Paul Erdos
My grandmother told me once that
luck multiplies if you share it. So long deprived of good fortune, I had almost
forgotten what luck looked like before I met
him
. I was only eight years
old when I lost my lucky star, and thirteen black years stood between me and my
younger self. When a slip of happy fate landed at my feet that night, my Nagy’s
voice echoed in my ears:
Hand it along to the next person.
Let Fortuna’s
wheel spin past, and it will come back all the sooner. May my luck be yours.
May it multiply.
By a whim of the universe,
Southern California lay trembling that winter in the middle of a freak
snowstorm, the likes of which had not been seen for decades. I certainly had
never known anything like it. Only the old-timers of California, pioneer
grandchildren whose blood ran cool like the blood of lizards in the desert
night could remember the time when it had snowed so much. Later I thought that
the snow might have been meant for me. A sign, I guess. I did not believe in
signs.
A high wind blew the clouds in
over the mountains, washing snow over the unsuspecting city sprawl even as the
sun shone down through the white haze. News reporters stood amid snow-dusted
palm trees and talked for hours about low-pressure zones while intrepid
tourists milled around on the chilly beaches, goosepimpled under their
optimistically short beachwear.
Everyone at Pasadena University
marveled at how strange the weather had decided to become this winter. Students
from more northern states rolled their eyes at the in-state native kids who
shivered through their fleeces, unused to the chilly stuff. Everybody wore
boots and scarves and other fashionable cold-weather attire that they had been
itching to take out of the closet for god knows how long.
Shuffling across the sidewalk
toward the library cafe, I heaved my backpack up over one shoulder and tried
not to look as clumsy as I felt. The sky was still pale with snowy clouds even
as evening fell. My number theory study group had started ten minutes ago, but
I needed a coffee before I could even start thinking about cosets and
bijections.
A thin layer of snow covered the
lawn in front of the university library, each snowflake turning end over end in
perfect hexagonal symmetry until it hit the ground and was lost among the
others.
That’s how I felt nowadays. Lost
amid a blanket of snowflakes, each more perfect and pristine than me.
Completely, utterly, bafflingly lost.
School had been a walk in
the park for as long as I could remember. Some grades I deserved. Some, though,
my teachers gave to me for being a nice, quiet kid they never had to worry
about. Inside I seethed at my reputation as a good girl. I wanted adventure. I
wanted danger and challenge. I wanted to do terrible and honorable things and
prove myself to be brave, just like the mythic Greek heroines I admired in my
childhood - Athena, Eurydice, Artemis.
University certainly challenged
me, but rather than hunting golden-horned stags or transforming mortals into
boars, I labored to figure out proofs for combinatorial theorems while juggling
two jobs. Instead of being at the top of my class, I struggled to even pass.
Everyone said I was supposed to find myself in college, but I seemed to be
straying farther and farther away from who I was, running faster and faster
just to stay even with everyone else.
As I got closer to the library,
I saw a man sitting outside on a bench, looking just as lost as I felt. He was
bundled up in a black coat, his knitted hat pulled down over his ears, and he
stared down just in front of his feet, as though trying to count the snowflakes
that fell around him. I smiled as I walked by the bench, but he didn’t even
look up. I paused at the door and looked back at him, thinking that maybe I
ought to ask if he needed directions, but he didn’t move an inch, his gaze
unwavering, his shoulders slumped.
Must be the weather.
Pulling open the heavy glass
door of the library café, I reveled in the blast of warm air that greeted me.
My nose began to run and I pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket to wipe my
face, feeling the sweat already starting to form on my neck under my scarf.
God, I hated the cold. Everybody talked about how glorious the seasons were in
the northeast, but I would just as soon have moved to the equator and forgotten
what fall colors ever looked like. It was just my luck that I had moved to
Southern California and gotten a freak snowstorm.
“One coffee, please,” I said,
pushing over my student card. The café barista swiped my card through the
register.
“Sorry,” she said, handing back
the card. “There’s not enough on here.”
“Not enough?” Dammit, I didn’t
get my next paycheck until tomorrow. I dug through my pockets for change,
pulling out a handful of nickels and dimes and dumping them on the counter. The
barista looked at me disdainfully under lidded eyes.
“Um, let me see,” I said,
counting out the change. Shit. I didn’t even have enough for coffee. I didn’t
have a damn dollar to my name after tuition and books.
“One second,” I said, turning to
dig into my backpack. I dropped the nickels that were in my hand. “Shit, shit,
shit.”
I bent down to pick up the
nickels and got my first lucky break of the night. Right next to my shoe was a
five dollar bill, just sitting on the floor! I picked it up reverently and
looked around to see if there was anybody who might have dropped it, but the
café was empty apart from me and the barista. She coughed and shifted her
weight onto her back foot, evidently irritated at waiting for me to get my act
together.
Five dollars! Five whole
dollars! This was a windfall I couldn’t squander. I looked up at the café menu,
my mouth watering at the possibilities. I had gotten into the habit of skipping
dinner, but maybe today I could splurge and get a bagel. My stomach growled at
the possibility. But no, I should wait and buy bagels at the store. Everything
was overpriced here except the coffee.
I scanned the menu again and
resigned myself to just the caffeine injection. It was enough to know that I
could
buy something if I wanted to. My eye wandered to the café window. The man was
still sitting on the bench, as still as a statue. I could see his breath coming
out in small white puffs, and for some reason my heart wrenched in my chest.
“Two coffees,” I said
impulsively, handing the five dollar bill over to the barista. My hands
trembled slightly as I picked up the cups.
What was I doing?
I pushed open the door with my
shoulder bravely and exited the warm cafe, one coffee in each hand. For an
instant I wavered.
What if he didn’t want it? What if he thought I was a
weirdo?
I set my shoulders and walked over to him. He must be freezing,
sitting out in the cold.
“Here,” I said, offering him the
steaming cup and putting on my most well-meaning smile. He looked up at me and
my breath caught in my throat.
A scar ran down the right side
of his cheek, the white seam visible all the way from his hairline to his chin.
That wasn’t what made me gasp, though. Dark frowning eyebrows framed his
piercing blue eyes and a shock of almost-black hair threatened to escape from
under his wool cap. He was younger than I thought when I walked past him,
probably less than ten years older than me. And
handsome
. I gulped.
He must have thought my reaction
was to his scar, for he immediately angled his face away from mine, the white
seam disappearing from my view. A defensive expression rose up on his face, and
he looked at me suspiciously, one brow slanted up.
“Um, I thought you might want
something to drink…” My words trailed off lamely as I held out the coffee to
him. I never could talk around handsome men. His expression softened and he
reached out to take the proffered cup.
“Thank you,” he said. The
slightly accented words came out low, growling even, and as he took the cup,
his long fingers brushed against mine. Again my heart jumped in my chest and I
pushed down the strange feeling that was twisting up inside of my body.
You
don’t know who this man is, Brynn. He could be a serial killer, for all you
know.
“You’re welcome,” I said,
quickly pulling my hand back and wrapping it around my own coffee. The warmth
spread through my fingers, but it was nothing compared to the electric heat
that I had felt touching his hand. After a moment he tilted his head up toward
me, and I realized I had been standing there in silence, just watching him.
“Is there something I can do for
you?” he said.
“No, that is—” I stumbled
over my words, blushing furiously. “I mean—”
“Do you often buy strange men
coffee?” The accent in his words reminded me of my mother. Eastern European.
His voice lifted in a teasing lilt, but his face was deadly serious, his scar
giving him a menacing look. The incongruity made my already-flustered brain
even more confused. Maybe he thought I was hitting on him.
Should
I be
hitting on him?
Oh, god.
“Um, no,” I said. “I just
thought… I mean, you looked like you might need one.”
“You think I am a bum?” He
raised one eyebrow, his accent more pronounced. Definitely Eastern European.
“No! I mean, maybe. But that’s
not why I got you coffee. I was just getting myself a cup, and I thought you
might like one. You know, to keep you warm.” I couldn’t stop myself from
rambling. “It’s really cold out here. That’s all.”
He smiled for the first time,
and the rush of relief that swept through my body warmed me as much as the
coffee in my hands. His eyes crinkled at the corners, a genuine smile. A kind
smile. I felt my body heating up under the coat, and I wanted to tear the damn
thing off.
“Come, sit,” he said, and
despite my misgivings, I complied, the bench chilling my legs through my
jeans. A strange man sitting alone—what was I thinking? I comforted
myself with the thought that the library was just behind us. A strange thrill
of pleasure ran through me as I sat next to him, and danger too—he hadn’t
seemed so tall when I was standing, but now that I was beside him I had to tilt
my head up to meet his gaze. Despite this, I felt more safe than vulnerable, as
though he would protect me if anything were to happen at that moment. I did not
know why I felt as though I could trust him.
A line from one of the books my
mother used to read ran through my mind: “…
and the prince, tall, dark, and
brave, fought off the wolf and chased it into the snowy night.
” I shook my
head and the words flew away into the darkness.
“You’re a generous girl,” the
man said. “Even to an ugly old bum.” He winked, and I blurted out the first
thing that popped into my head.
“You’re not old!” I said. He was
in his thirties, if not his early twenties. “And you’re certainly not ugly!”
“Oh! Is that so?” A twinkle
shone in his eyes, and I flushed at my own admission. He
must
know that
his looks were to die for—strikingly dark features against his light blue
eyes, his strong jaw dotted with day-old stubble. Even with a scar running down
the side of his face, he was achingly beautiful.
Especially
with his
scar. It made his already fierce eyes look even more pronounced, and gave an
edge to his otherwise perfect beauty.
I felt a rush of desire for
something I would never possess, and shame that I had the bald temerity to
desire it. Of course my words had come out wrong. They always did.
“I… I mean…”
“You don’t have to say
anything,” the man said. “But thank you. It’s not so often I get complimented,
I just want to savor it.” He took a long sip of coffee, inhaling with pleasure
and set the cup aside on the bench. “So
do
you think I am a bum?”
His words were a question, but I
did not know what he was asking, or if he was still joking; his smile had
turned into more of a smirk. His coat looked expensive now that I could see it
up close, and his watch glinted gold underneath his sleeve. Definitely not a
bum.
“No, you’re not!” I said,
blurting out the words before I could temper them. I quieted myself before I
spoke again. “It’s just… everybody has a hard time sometime.” Something else my
grandmother taught me.
The joking expression fell off
of his face so quickly that I thought I might have imagined him smiling. I
shifted awkwardly, the cup of coffee heating my fingers against the numbing cold.
“You’re right. This is a hard
night for me.” He looked off at the dusky sky, his eyes reflecting the falling
snow. Snowflakes dotted his face, melting immediately on his cheeks and dusting
his dark lashes with white crystals. He did not seem to notice, his gaze
straining to see something too distant to be visible. Then the look was gone,
and his eyes came back to mine.
“But a hot drink and a beautiful
woman make all the world of difference.”
My breath caught in my throat
and I put my handkerchief up to my nose to hide my look of surprise.
Beautiful
was the one adjective I could definitively say didn’t apply to me. Especially
now, my face flushed with the cold and my nose dripping like a busted water
pipe. He must be joking. He
must
. But the way his gaze swept over my
face appreciatively made my stomach roil with hope.
