Billionaire Romance Boxed Set (9 Book Bundle) (2 page)
Read Billionaire Romance Boxed Set (9 Book Bundle) Online
Authors: Julia Kent
Table Of
Contents
Her First Billionaire by Julia Kent
The Woman Of The Billionaire’s Dreams by Krista Lakes
The Pretend Boyfriend by Artemis Hunt
Me, Cinderella? by Aubrey Rose
I Married A Billionaire by Melanie Marchande
HER FIRST BILLIONAIREBy Julia Kent
“Hot, luscious piece of ass who can suck a golf ball through
forty feet of garden hose seeks rippling-ab’d firefighter who has a tongue that
thrums like a hummingbird and enjoys painting my toenails and eating Ben &
Jerry’s out of the carton while watching Mad Men.”
Laura Michaels stared at the online dating site’s registration screen
and frowned. That’s what she really wanted to write. Here was the truth:
“Needy, insecure, overweight twenty-six year old Business Analyst with
three cats, a corporate job with pension and no debt seeks Mr. Impossible for
way more than friendship and lots of ice cream. I’m desperate for some physical
affection and oral sex with a guy who doesn’t view it as some sort of favor
he’s granting me, and then expects to be praised like he cleaned my toilet. One
night stands are better than nothing as long as you brush your teeth. Call me!”
Her best friend, Josie Mendham, punched her in the bicep. “You can’t
say either of those!” Josie was Laura’s opposite. Where Laura was 5’6”, Josie
was barely tall enough to ride roller coasters. Remove the 1 from Laura’s size
and you still had to subtract a few to get Josie’s size 2. Where Laura had
long, curly blonde hair and bright green eyes, Josie was chocolate all around.
“Mutt and Jeff” her mom had called them, and they’d been besties since college.
Which meant Josie knew Laura too well. “You are going to do this, damn
it,” she said, wagging a finger in front of Laura’s face. “No trying to be
perfect. Perfect is the enemy of good enough.”
“I haven’t even found Mr. Good Enough!”
“That’s because the hundreds of Mr. Good Enoughs have walked past you,
Laura, and you’re blind to them.” Josie nudged Laura aside and started typing,
her long nails burning up the keyboard. How did she do that? Typing on the pads
of her fingers seemed impossible, but Josie did it, keeping her manicure
intact, little replicas of the famous grey necktie from
Fifty Shades of Grey
on each nail.
The two had been out at a club the night before and Josie spent the
night, waking up chipper and springing this online dating thing on Laura before
she’d even had her first cup of coffee. As the machine gurgled and burbled,
Laura willed it to hurry. Weighing out her entire dating future in a
half-zombie state was not good.
Laura knew she had to lie, but how much was acceptable? Could she shave
off a few sizes, or would she need to hack off an imaginary arm and leg to make
herself seem “fit” and “athletic”? The drop-down box with its built in
descriptors seemed like judgmental torment. No choices were there for “zaftig”
or “juicy” or “full figure.”
Being a size 18 with size F breasts wasn’t a crime, she knew; in real
life she was fashionable and flowing, plump and pleasing, and could arm wrestle
most guys into submission, but reducing her accomplishments, personality and,
yes,
body
into a vocabulary designed by some Internet start-up team of
nineteen-year-old dropouts from Stanford and Carnegie Mellon made her
irrationally angry.
No –
rationally
angry.
Seeing little choice, she pointed to the boxes on the screen and told
Josie, “Pick the word ‘fit.’ I can deadlift 105 pounds. Which is,” she eyed
Josie, “more than you weigh.”
Josie pointedly ignored her, biting her lower lip and deep in
concentration. “Voila!” she shouted, her hands spread wide in a grandiose
gesture. “There’s your ad.”
She announced:
“Luscious, curvy Business Analyst seeks friendship and more.
Financially independent and self-assured, I’m a fit woman who wants a man (or,
more than one! YOLO!) for stimulating conversation…er, yeah. Conversation.
Message me (or massage me!).”
“I can’t write that!” Laura groaned. “It makes me look like I want an
orgy!” She squinted at the screen. “And what the hell is ‘YOLO’?”
“Who doesn’t want an orgy?” Josie wiggled her eyebrows lasciviously and
stuck out her tongue, waggling it in a very bad imitation of oral sex. “And
YOLO stands for ‘you only live once.’”
“Cut it out. You’re turning me on. It’s been
that
long since I
got some ass, and the last guy used his tongue like he was a Roto Rooter man.
Like that.” She pointed at Josie’s tongue and bent over, laughing.
And then Josie, with a flourish, pressed the “Submit” button. “Thank
you for joining – your profile is now live!” the screen read.
“Oh, shit, Josie, did you just do that?” Laura sputtered as she grabbed
the mouse. “Fuck!”
“What?” Josie batted her eyelashes. “Live a little. See who replies!”
She grabbed her heavy, overfull Vera Bradley purse that they had discovered at
a local thrift shop for $3.99 and fingered her car keys. “Gotta go, Laura. And
don’t you dare delete that.”
Laura laughed. “You know me too well.”
“No shit,” Josie muttered. Her face turned serious. “Really, Laura. You
need to get out there. Some guy is being deprived of your awesomeness. And
besides, your budget needs the break.”
“My budget?”
“Yeah. What are you spending in batteries for Bob?”
Confused, Laura shook her head. It was like Josie spoke a foreign
language sometimes. “Huh?”
“Your battery-operated boyfriend. You know – BOB.” And with that
she snickered, running for the door as Laura threw a section of a fashion
magazine at her. Josie’s evil laughter filled the apartment as she ran down the
hallway, the sound fading once she hit the stairwell. “Have a good day at
work!” she hollered from the street.
The coffee machine gave its death-rattle gasp that signaled the pot was
done, and Laura went to drink it greedily, needing sustenance to kick her brain
into gear. Enough caffeine and she could date anyone. Hmm, maybe she should do
a search for baristas on that site. Free lattes would be a nice perk.
***
Dylan Stanwyck couldn’t quite believe what he saw when he logged into
the online dating site. Four months of weeding through so many crappy profiles
had jaded him. Finding the right woman would be like coming across the
proverbial needle in a haystack, but in this case he didn’t want to face any
pricks.
And yes, women could be pricks. So far he had been inundated with requests
to chat, and he knew exactly why. Being a firefighter who competed in
weightlifting competitions for fun, along with the occasional mini triathlon,
made his pictures look quite nice. The problem with the women who were
responding to him was that they were also the type to be drawn to appearances
only. It seemed so shallow of him to think it, but sometimes being built the
way he was could be a curse.
Curse of the Jersey Shore chicks. Because that was the type who seemed
to seek him out, like moths to a flame. A trashy, Snookie-like flame of ho-dom.
When he would meet up with these women he found himself in some alternate
universe, where they licked their lips and offered themselves up in the alley
behind the nice tapas restaurant where he liked to take women. A few goat
cheese stuffed dates and pitchers of sangria later and he was being humped up
against a slimy brick wall next to the trash cans.
And when he turned them down…he still had scars from one woman’s
long, overdone nails raking his neck as she screeched, “You don’t know me!”
over and over, as passersby gawked, took pictures they probably uploaded to
Reddit, and mercifully called 911 when it became evident he required police
assistance.
So when this new profile for Laura appeared, he peered at the
description and leaned back in his chair, taking a deep breath. Cute. But not
too cute. A little sassy. He liked sassy. He ran a hand through his thick, wavy
hair.
Time to get a haircut, dude. You look like a survivalist. And smell
like one, too
, he thought as he studied her picture and caught a whiff of
himself. His morning run was done, 3.8 miles logged on his online fitness
program, and he reeked.
She looked like a 1940s pin up girl. A little plumper, with soft curves
to her shoulders, a fuzzy, lime-green sweater accentuating her breasts. Her jaw
line seemed firm and gentle all at once, and what appeared to be
naturally-blonde hair was swept up off her face in a pony tail. His mom would
call her a “corn-fed farm girl” and those lips – lush and grinning a half
smile that seemed to say “Kiss me, Dylan.”
Smart, too. A business analyst? Sounded suitably bland and yet signaled
she was smart enough to carry her own in a conversation about something other
than Kim Kardashian or
Fifty Shades of Grey
(really – why? Why had
every date for the past two months mentioned it?). A real woman. What a
refreshing change.
So he continued reading:
“Luscious, curvy Business Analyst seeks friendship and more.
Financially independent and self-assured, I’m a fit woman who wants a man (or,
more than one! YOLO!) for stimulating conversation…er, yeah. Conversation.
Message me (or massage me!).”
Something fierce and hot inside him came to life. From that description
it sounded like she…seriously? No way.
“Mike! Hey, Mike! Get in here!” If there were a chance – any
chance at all, here, then he had to act fast. Someone this amazing was about to
get inundated by messages from needy weirdos.
And he needed to be the first.
His roommate wandered in. Where Dylan was all muscle and brawn, Mike
Pine was tall and sleek, a marathoner’s body of long, lean tissue. Dylan’s
dark, thick, Italian, looks made him popular with women, but Mike was the
golden boy, with blonde hair and blue eyes, the long distance runner with a
soft heart, the guy women turned to and poured their hearts out, Mr. Sensitive
to Dylan’s Mr. Conquest.
Dylan tapped the screen. “Take a look at her.” He smiled smugly as
Mike’s eyes raced across the screen. They’d been waiting for a long time. Too
long. His roommate’s expression told him everything he needed to know. Score!
It might finally be time.
“Do you really think that’s some sort of code for being up for a
threesome?” Mike asked, eyebrows arched. “I don’t know, Dyl…I think it’s just
some sort of joke she’s making. You know how nervous and weird people can be
when they try to distill their entire life into a few sentences.”
Dylan chewed on the inside of his cheek. Bad habit. “Good point. Well,
even if she isn’t into a nice ménage arrangement, she is one fine woman.” A low
whistle escaped from his lips. “I have a project on my hands now, don’t I?”
Mike nodded, peering at the screen, eyes lingering. “You are going to
have a lot of competition.”
Dylan snorted. “Like I give a fuck. May the best man win.”
Mike went silent, then grinned, his fresh-faced boy-next-door look
morphing into a Wall Street trader’s predatory smile that made Dylan suddenly
uncomfortable for no reason he could pinpoint. “Yeah. I hope he does.”
***
Ding!
The little chat box on the online dating site lit up like
a Christmas tree. Laura sucked the last mouthful of her coffee and gaped at the
screen.
You have got to be kidding me
, Laura thought. Already? She
clicked and read a message from “9inluvr”:
Hey, babe. I live in the city and so do you, so let’s hook up for some
FWB action.
She snorted. Oh, sure. Just like that. Yer a catch, Bud. A real
romantic.
Ding!
This one was from some guy named Dylan. Before she read
the chat she looked at his profile.
Well hellooooo there, Mr. Firefighter. A thin line of drool formed at
the corner of her mouth, an instant response to the picture before her. It was
a professional picture, the guy wearing no shirt, a fireman’s hat perched at a
jaunty tilt. Like a stripper’s picture in a firefighter’s role.
Oh, God. I
can’t date a stripper
, she thought.
He’d have nicer g-strings than mine.
But no – he was a real firefighter. The picture, he explained in
his profile, came from a charity bachelor auction he was in. Bachelor auction?
How much had he gone for? As she studied the picture she figured it had to be a
solid four figures. Hell, she was ready to empty her life savings for a night
with this guy.
On a whim she Googled “Dylan charity bachelor auction firefighter” and
her drool increased so much she would soon need a bucket.
Oh, holy hell. The image search showed the same man, whose name was
Dylan Stanwyck, in firefighter’s pants, boots, a fireman’s hat and suspenders,
perched on the floor of a fire station right next to the pole. He was leaning
on one elbow and had smears of soot on him, with well-oiled muscles and a
smug-ass grin. Whoever set up that photograph needed to be recruited for her
company’s marketing department because damn – she was ready to use up
every available dollar on her credit cards to get a night with him.
Maybe she could save a bunch of money and just set herself on fire. Or
her car. It probably wasn’t worth much, but if she found out his schedule and
whether he’d be the one responding…
And
he
was pinging
her
on the dating site? She dropped
her coffee and scrambled to write back in the chat room.
“
Hi,”
she said, all inspiration and creativity vanishing as the
heat forming between her legs apparently melted her brain.
Hi. I’m Dylan. Nice to “meet” you. :)
Think, Laura. Think
. Man, where was Josie? Of all the times for
that girl to be on time to go to work. She needed help figuring out something
witty to say.
Hi. I’m Laura. Nice to “meet” you, too!
She wrote back. Then he answered:
You’re probably on your way to work analyzing businesses, or
businessing analysis, or whatever it is you do ;). I was hoping you might be
interested in going out? We can do coffee, maybe? Or go to a nice tapas bar?
Tapas! Her favorite! But wait – Josie always said any guy who
likes tapas must be gay. Laura checked the photo again. No way. And even if
Dylan was gay, she would still sleep with him. Cute, polite, and loves tapas?
