It's Always Complicated (Her Billionaires Book 4)

.

It’s Always Complicated

by Julia Kent

Copyright
©
2016 by Julia Kent
 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

* * *

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http://www.jkentauthor.com
 

When I first started writing
Her First Billionaire
in the summer of 2012, while staying at a campground in Maine (not the one I describe here, which is entirely fictional), I never thought that readers would want more. I wrote
Her First Billionaire
,
Her Second Billionaire
, and
Her Two Billionaires
as a trilogy.

Just a trilogy. No plans for more. But you know what they say about making plans? Plans are what you make while fate laughs at you. ;)

I published
Her First Billionaire
and
Her Second Billionaire
in November 2012 and was working on
Her Two Billionaires
—

And then.

And then,
reader emails began coming in to my email box, one a week, then two, then more, asking me about “the rest of the story.”

The what? The rest of the
what?
Other than
Her Two Billionaires
, there was no “rest of the story.”

But readers loved Mike, Dylan and Laura and wanted more, so I did what any self-respecting novelist does, and I made the heroine
oops!
—pregnant.

Hence
Her Two Billionaires and a Baby
.

That baby was Jillian, who is now three and a half (in this book you’re about to read). I went on to write
It’s Complicated
, which is Laura’s best friend’s story—and you met Dr. Alex Derjian, who is one of my favorite heroes (shhhhhh, don’t tell the others).

I started the
Obedient
series, with Lydia and her big, loving family back at the campground in Maine, and connected her to Madge, the waitress/owner at Jeddy’s Diner, by making Madge her grandmother.

By the way—I have had SO MANY EMAILS from readers asking if the food at Jeddy’s is real. Nope! Just from my drooling imagination.

With
It’s Complicated
, I introduced Josie’s cousin/niece, Darla—who is the headliner of my book,
Random Acts of Crazy
and the
Random
series.

Random Acts of Crazy
hit the
USA Today
bestseller list in June 2013, and when I took the four novellas for the
Her Billionaires Boxed Set
and bundled them together, that boxed set hit both the
New York Times
bestseller list and the
USA Today
bestseller list in October 2013, catapulting my fiction career, and making me forever grateful to readers like you.

I thank you, each and every day, for giving me a life where I get to write whatever comes into my head whenever it infiltrates, and giving me the chance to connect with so many of you.

And I finally come to the point of this Author’s Note:

There are four men named Mike in this book. Mostly because I am stupid.

But also because I never expected to write a book where their paths would cross!

Forgive me, Dear Reader, as I work to make certain you do not confuse Mike Pine (ex ski-instructor, looks like Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, billionaire in a threesome relationship) with Michael (Mike) Bournham (ex-CEO/playboy, looks a touch like Anderson Cooper, not-quite-a-billionaire-but-close, in a threesome relationship) with Darla’s Uncle Mike (big teddy bear of a truck-driving man) with a fourth Mike
(
who I can’t describe because that would be a spoiler
)
. ;)

I have said that
It’s Always Complicated
would be the end of my
Her Billionaires
series. That outrageous comment led to writer’s block on my part, an affliction I have managed to avoid for my entire writing career, until now. And with this book—only this book. I promised this book would be published in July 2015, and I failed you. Here it is April 2016, and I’m finally releasing this completed book.

But.

Put simply: I don’t want to end this series.

One day I realized,
Hey! Wait a minute! I’m the author! I control this world! I don’t have to end it.
 

So I’m not!

No promises about future books in either the
Obedient
or the
Her Billionaires
world. My
Shopping for a Billionaire
series has taken over, and Darla and the guys in the band Random Acts of Crazy have a few more books in them.

I’m working on some other projects (if you get my newsletter or follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ll know when those come to fruition). Mostly, though, I hope you enjoy
It’s Always Complicated
. This book comes at the end of 1,400 pages in the series, in
cluding
all the earlier novellas and novels, and like getting together with old friends you haven’t seen in a while, I hope you slip right in and surround yourself with the love and fun of Mike, Dylan, Laura, Josie, Lydia, Mike, Jeremy, Madge, and all the other wonderful characters.

I don’t make up the stories. The characters just tell them to me.

Thank you for enjoying my books. You, Dear
Rabidly Wonderful Romance
Reader, make this all possible.

With much gratitude,

Julia Kent

Josie

A small crowd of men wearing gun holsters ran past Josie and Alex, followed by three uniformed TSA agents.

“I wonder what that’s about?” Alex marveled, his eyes tracking the fracas. He and Josie had come to the Portland, Maine airport to pick up her mother, Marlene, and Aunt Cathy, Uncle Mike and her new Uncle Calvin. All the Ohio relatives were here for her and Alex’s wedding.

A cold wave of dread washed over her. They were running toward the baggage claim for the airline her entire family was on.

“I’ll bet it’s my mother,” she groaned, leaning against him for support. His strong arm wrapped around her shoulders and gave her the comfort she needed. Too bad he couldn’t give her a second backbone made of steel.

If he could, she knew, he would. The thought made her smile.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said, giving her a squeeze. She looked up at him.
Way
up, given the enormous height difference between the two of them. His warm, brown eyes met hers and for an instant, she wondered if he might be right. That eternally positive outlook he had was a bit infectious.

Maybe she needed to stop assuming the worst of every situation.

A rotund security guard huffed and puffed, running past them, holding what looked like a spare uniform. He was talking into a walkie-talkie.

“Naked?”
Huff huff
. “She’s naked? What size?”
Huff huff
.

Alex’s kind eyes filled with alarm. It was both charming and horrifying. Josie couldn’t quite decide which impression she enjoyed more. There was a kind of
s
chadenfreude in realizing she was right. His idealism was sweet, but sometimes she needed him to be more of a realist.

And Marlene served up an entire buffet of realism.

“Mile
H
igh
C
lub again?” the guard asked, pausing to catch his breath. Josie watched him with a morbid fascination.

“You don’t really think it’s your mom in there, Josie,” Alex said. He caressed her shoulder absent-mindedly, watching the guard. “I mean—”

“Two men in one bathroom with a naked woman?” the guard barked into his walkie-talkie, eyebrows hitting the brim of his hat.

Josie snorted, the sense of dread spreading.

“How could it be anyone else?”

“That sounds more like something Darla would do,” Alex said. “You sure she’s still in Boston and not on this flight?”

Just as Josie was about to reply, the commotion got louder.

“MARLENE!” Josie heard the sense of outrage in her Aunt Cathy’s voice. The airport was small, but not that small. Cathy’s voice could carry. “WHAT IN THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOUR CLOTHES?”

“It will be fine, he said,” Josie intoned, the “he” in question being Alex. “Have a wedding and invite your mother, he said.”

Alex just stared in the direction of Cathy’s bellowing voice and blinked like an owl.

“I suggested we just run off to Atlantic City and get married by a Trump impersonator with a drunk platypus as the witness,” she added. “But noooooooo.
Some
people had to have the whole traditional wedding thing.”

“That is looking better, I must admit,” he muttered.

“Which part? The Trump impersonator or the drunk platypus?”

Just then, the baggage claim carousel stopped turning. It made a pneumatic wheezing sound, then a series of mechanical groans, punctuated by a great metallic screeching noise.

The crowd of people waiting for their suitcases groaned, too.

Security guards and TSA agents flooded the baggage claim
area
, flocking to the door where the baggage came
in
on the conveyor belt, delivered from the cargo hatch of the plane.

The machine began again, then stopped. Started, then stopped.

And then the plastic curtain opened up and belched out Josie’s naked mother. The carousel continued moving, Marlene’s limp body sprawled out.

She wore a nipple clamp with a luggage tag attached.

“I am not claiming her. Nope. Nope nope nope,” Josie hissed as Alex stared, transfixed. Security rushed to cover her and it took four agents to carry her prostrate body.

“Is she conscious? She might need medical attention,” Alex said in his authoritative doctor’s voice.

“I am the Queen of the Double Mile High Club!” Marlene shouted.

“Oh, she’s conscious, all right,” Josie muttered.

“JOSIE!” Aunt Cathy’s shout pierced the air and distracted the crowd, who turned to watch her aunt bum-rush her.

“JOSEPHINE!” boomed Uncle Mike.

Josie nearly fell over from the shock of being hugged by both Cathy and Mike at the same time. They all pretended Marlene wasn’t being manhandled into a three-sizes-too-big blue uniform while screaming for someone to find her lost piece of peeled ginger root.

“Did she just say ‘ginger root’?” Alex murmured under his breath, as if puzzling that one out. Josie heard him, but didn’t have the heart to mention that she knew exactly what that meant, all thanks to Darla.

Who had recently read
Grey
, by E.L. James, and explained the precise significance to her.

“Alex!” Mike said, turning to her fianc
é
and shaking his hand with a hard and fierce grip. The two clasped and pumped arms for so long they might as well have just whipped out their penises right here to see whose was bigger.

Not that Josie ever wanted to think about that.

“Is anyone accompanying this lady?” one of the security guards shouted to the crowd.

Josie looked at Cathy and Mike. They all acted like they hadn’t heard a thing.

“Um, aren’t you going to say something?” Alex asked her.

“He said ‘lady.’ My mother hasn’t been a lady since—”

“She’s my sister-in-law,” said a calm, resigned voice.

Mike, Cathy, Josie and Alex all turned toward the person.

Uncle Calvin.

Who was frowning at Aunt Cathy.

“We have to claim her,” he said clearly, and without judgment. “She can’t help herself.”

“Oh, she helped herself all right, Calvin,” Mike thundered. “Helped herself to two of them college hockey players on the plane.”

A series of hockey duffle bags flooded the baggage claim carousel suddenly. Josie eyed the plastic curtain nervously, wondering if two naked hockey players would come tumbling out.

Then she just eyed it curiously. A little hopefully, even. Hmmm. Naked hockey players...

“Cathy!” Calvin said sharply. “We need to go and get her out of there. Once they understand about her, they’ll give her back to us.”

“Understand?” Alex asked.

Calvin smiled and shook Alex’s hand. “Alex! Congratulations, and good to see you.” He gave Josie a polite peck on the cheek, then turned to Cathy.

Who was arching her eyebrow so high, it might as well be the Gateway to the West.

“What do you mean, Calvin?” she asked. Uncle Mike tensed at her words, and Josie felt her senses sharpen, like that moment when you’re on a hike deep into the woods and realize you need to be a little more aware of your surroundings, but you can’t exactly explain
why
.

“We need to handle her with kid gloves,” he said.

“I’d recommend anyone put gloves on right now before they handle Marlene,” Cathy answered, wrinkling her nose.