The Curvy Voice Coach and the Billionaire Actor (He Wanted Me Pregnant!)

He Wanted Me Pregnant!

The Curvy Voice Coach

and the

Billionaire Actor

by Victoria Wessex

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© Copyright Victoria Wessex 2014

The right of Victoria Wessex to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988

This book is entirely a work of fiction. All characters, companies, organizations, products and events in this book, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any real persons, living or dead, events, companies, organizations or products is purely coincidental.

Cover characters are models. Images licensed from (and copyright remains with) the photographers/owners as follows: Couple: Killion Group Inc., Background - Luna Marina / Depositphotos

This book contains explicit material and is for adults only. All characters portrayed are intended to be over 18 years of age, even where not explicitly stated.

This story exists in a world of fantasy. Always practice safer sex and keep your play safe, sane and consensual.

Also by Victoria Wessex on Kindle

He Wanted Me Pregnant…

The British Nanny and her Billionaire Employer

The Lawyer and the Outlaw Biker

The Stewardess and the Billionaire CEO

The Intern and the Senator

The Maid and the Billionaire Prince

The Cocktail Waitress and the Card Shark

The Lady and the Pirate I and II

The Nurse and the Soldier

The Curvy Waitress and the Billionaire French Count

The Curvy Vet and the Billionaire Cowboy

The Reporter and the Billionaire Scottish Wolf Lord

Blurbs and free extract at the end of this book!

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Chapter 1

It started with tea.

I have a routine and it begins with tea and toast at 7.40am; a quiet twenty minutes to get my head together before I get ready for work. I am not a morning person. I
need
that twenty minutes, and the only thing I’m good for at that time in the morning is paging through Facebook looking at pictures of cats dressed as Darth Vader.

That morning, though, when I opened my laptop, there was an email in my inbox that I couldn’t ignore. The subject line said
Offer of Work
and that overruled everything, even the question of
jam or marmalade?
I clicked and tried to focus my bleary eyes.

Hi Charlotte,

I am Maurice Venk, agent for the actor Tanner Cole.

I dropped my toast.
Tanner Cole?

I was suddenly wide awake.

Thirteen years ago, Tanner had exploded onto the world’s cinema screens in the alien invasion movie
The End of the World.
A fresh-faced, dark-haired twenty year-old, he’d grabbed everyone’s attention as the Special Forces soldier who’d single-handedly saved the planet from aliens. Then he’d done it again in
The End of the World II.

Over the years, he’d made the transition from big-name actor to power player. He produced some of his own movies these days and, at thirty-three, he had the pick of the parts. Whether he was playing a secret agent or an archeologist, a father battling to save his children from a volcano or a loose cannon cop trying to bring down a drugs cartel, everyone loved him. Women loved his soft, dark hair that always seemed to be slightly tousled. They gushed on Twitter about his intense, gray eyes and the way he brooded and smoldered. And men wanted to be him because of the women...and because of the stories.

Oh, the stories. Tanner and the starlet in the pool at some party. Tanner seducing the woman sent to interview him for one of the gossip magazines. Tanner with the “new rat pack,” drinking Vegas dry. Tanner in a strip club, throwing wads of money into the air until it fluttered down like snow and leaving with six strippers. Tanner the skirt-chasing rogue.

Exactly the sort of guy women were crazy about, because he was a “bad boy
.
”
I’ve never understood that. Why would you want a man who was always breaking the rules and doing crazy things and probably looking over your shoulder towards his next conquest? Who thought he knew what you wanted...
needed
better than you did? Probably because women thought they could “change them.” I shook my head forlornly. Wouldn’t they be better off with someone...sensible? Like Tim, the IT guy I’d had a date with...oh, six months ago or so. He was sensible, and kind, and seemed eager, and I didn’t really care at all that he was an inch or two shorter than me. There was nothing wrong with him, and it was just bad luck that things had sort of fizzled out. Right?

I looked at the jam. It was already getting perilously close to its use-by date and I was barely halfway through it. That’s what happens when there’s only one of you in the apartment.

Maybe it was time to try that dating site again.

I pushed the thought out of my mind. Why was Tanner Cole’s agent sending
me
an email?

I dropped a fresh slice of bread into the toaster and leaned over the table to read on.

He’s asked me to contact you to discuss you coaching him in a British accent. You’re probably too busy but, if you are available, we need to do a Skype call at noon today PST.

Was this a joke? Some friend winding me up? It didn’t
sound
like a joke, though. It wasn’t trying to flatter me and sucker me into something. In fact, the email was sort of terse. And what was with the “Charlotte?” Why not “Miss Portingwood?”

I took a walk around the kitchen—given the size of my apartment, it wasn’t a long walk—while I thought.

The voice coaching part wasn’t weird. Voice coaching is what I do. I have a
thing
for voices—breaking them down and analyzing them, then helping their owners to build them back up again into the voice they want. I’ve helped businessmen from rural Britain flatten out their vowels so they could cozy up to politicians without sounding like a country bumpkin. I’ve helped a Korean property magnate soften his accent to give him an advantage in the West. I even once helped a nervous guy develop the strong, resonant voice he felt he needed to propose. She said yes, too.

Would the world be a better place if no one cared how we spoke, as long as we could all understand each other? Hell yeah. I’d sign up for that world in a heartbeat. But as long as people make judgments about whether to do business with you, or whether to give you a mortgage, or even whether to marry you, based on your voice, there’ll be a place for people like me.

A small place. A niche. I wasn’t exactly drowning in work and London’s an expensive place to live. I did some voiceovers for commercials and that helped, but things were still tight. Part of me wished I’d been born a hundred years ago, when every young lady was sent for elocution lessons. I would have been rolling in cash.

I’d split up with my last boyfriend almost a year ago. The last time I’d been on a date—a fairly disastrous night involving a banker, vodka and an eventual confession from him that he was married—had been four months ago. Not good. But not surprising, to me. I don’t have the sort of body men go for: too big, too solid...too much of me.

I think that’s why I veered off into voice work when everyone else from my theater school headed for the screen and the stage. My voice is the one part of me that’s right—there was a time when the Portingwoods were quite a wealthy family. I went to a good school and then a ladies’ college that prided itself in being about a thousand years old. That left me with what we call a cut-glass British accent. When people hear it on a commercial they think I’m some sort of minor royal, probably living in a mansion, and that’s much better than the truth. Because the truth is that my dad upped and left, taking the money with him, and my mother and I ended up struggling to make ends meet. So I’m proud of my voice. It’s one of the few things I have left. Also, it’s good to hide behind. I can sit in the privacy of a recording studio and, from my voice, men can picture me as some sort of blonde, slender vixen with a tiny waist and elegant, upturned little breasts. And that’s much better than the truth.

The toast popped up and I grabbed it, then slumped back down into my chair and stared at the screen again. The voice coaching part wasn’t weird. Even the part about teaching an American actor to do a British accent wasn’t so weird. I’d done that a few times, helping some minor US TV stars sound like medieval lords when they took parts in one of those dragons n’ swords shows. But this wasn’t some minor TV star. This was
Tanner Cole,
pretty much the most famous and certainly the richest actor on the planet. If he was coming to Britain to film some movie and needed to sound convincing, there must be about a million people more experienced than me who could coach him. Why would he want me? And why would he want a video call with me?

My stomach lurched at the thought. I was perfectly happy sheltering—okay, hiding—in the sound booth in a recording studio, or in my apartment with a client who was focused only on my voice. For some reason, Tanner or his agent wanted to
see
me. And they were going to be used to stick-thin actresses.
Eek!

Maybe I should just say I’m busy.

I checked my bank account online and winced.

Probably nothing would come of this anyway. Probably Tanner’s agent was just shopping around and had emailed lots of voice coaches. But I certainly couldn’t afford to turn it down.

I sent back an email saying noon would be just fine, thank you. And then I looked up PST and figured out that they were eight hours behind me, probably in Los Angeles, and that the call would be at eight in the evening, my time.

***

All that day, as I sat helping a middle manager to speak with authority, I thought of Tanner Cole. Tanner the hero, who always seemed to either have his shirt torn open or have stripped down to a vest. Tanner the ladies’ man, arm around some twig of a starlet, a martini in his other hand. Tanner the billionaire.

The idea of us working together wasn’t so much unbelievable as completely ridiculous.

That evening, I told myself again that
this is not actually going to happen.
It would be a quick Skype call and probably Tanner wouldn’t even be there, just his agent. He’d ask me about my experience, decide it wasn’t enough and find someone more suitable. I told myself all this...and then I spent two hours choosing clothes and getting ready.

I settled on a white blouse that did a good job of concealing my boobs. A pair of dark, baggy pants managed to hide most of my curves below the waist and I figured they’d only see my top half anyway. I tonged my long auburn hair into ringlets. I even dug out the good make-up, the stuff I only used when I had a date (I tried not to notice that it was almost untouched). Was it because it was
him,
not just an actor worth a cool billion dollars but
him,
with his shoulders that seemed twice as broad as my whole frame and his full pecs stretching out the front of his shirt? That elegantly-sculpted nose, that darkly-penetrating gaze….

Wait, was I trying to impress him?!

I mentally slapped myself.
Get a grip, Charlotte! He’s not going to be interested in you!
And, God, I wouldn’t want him to be! He was a jerk, an extremely good-looking, woman-chasing jerk. I didn’t go for jerks. I went for men who knew how to behave, men who were chivalrous and proper and….