by Nikki Bloom
Marrying My Best Friend’s Sister
A Billionaire Enemies to Lovers MC Romance
Nikki Bloom
© Copyright 2021 by Nikki Bloom. All rights reserved.
No portion of this document may be reproduced, duplicated, or transmitted in either electronic means or in printed format. This includes, but is not limited to photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher, except as permitted by copyright law. For permissions please contact [email protected]
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are fictitious products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.
Contents
Prologue
1. Domenic
2. Nicolette
3. Domenic
4. Nicolette
5. Domenic
6. Nicolette
7. Domenic
8. Nicolette
9. Domenic
10. Nicolette
11. Domenic
12. Nicolette
13. Domenic
14. Nicolette
15. Domenic
16. Nicolette
17. Domenic
18. Nicolette
19. Domenic
20. Nicolette
21. Domenic
22. Nicolette
23. Domenic
Epilogue
Mechanic’s Home Run SNEAK PEEK
Prologue
1. Thorin
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Prologue
Nicolette
You know that feeling you get when you can sense that something bad is coming? Something awful?
But you’re stuck and unable to move – frozen as ice. You can’t open your mouth and speak – can’t feel your face, or twitch your toes?
That’s me right now.
In my mind’s eye, a baseball bat swooped down toward me with unrelenting determination. My head was about to be bashed in, my brains spattered on the wall and the floor, my eyes wide open and staring eternally at nothing; and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Déjà vu washed through me even though I knew that what was happening wasn’t real – and if I could just wake up, everything would be fine.
Between one moment to the next, I went from struggling to breathe to sitting bolt upright in my bed. My body was covered in sweat, my chestnut bob hanging over my face in wet, stringy tendrils. I probably looked like the girl from The Ring. Flipping my hair back, I rubbed my goosebump-covered arms and told myself that everything was fine.
That I was safe.
In an effort to ground myself, I let my eyes travel over the contents of my room. My grey shiny laptop sat on the floor by my bed. I’d been watching The Originals before bed, mostly for the eye candy. In a bout of unprecedented stupidity, the last episode I saw before falling asleep was one about the Michaelsons’ abusive father.
I guess it triggered my nightmares.
Just knowing that, remembering that none of it was real, or at least not anymore, had calmed me down. I looked towards my bedside table where my teddy bear, Gunther, sat regarding me with his usual blank stare as if to say “Silly girl. What were you thinking?”
I picked him up, the last gift my mother ever gave me before she died, and put him in my lap.
“You can’t help your dreams, Gunther, so stop glaring at me.”
The words were out before I could stop them and my face flamed with embarrassment, looking around as if expecting people to jump out of the wallpaper and laugh at me.
Great, now I’m reduced to talking to my teddy bear. Morgan’s going to have me committed for sure.
My brother Morgan is great, but he worries about me. He thinks I’m maladjusted because of our childhood or some shit. Weirdly enough, he doesn’t think that he has any issues, despite the fact that he’s the one who had to run off when he was thirteen and leave me alone with the monster. The baseball bat in my dream was indeed a memory of something that had happened.
Not to me, but to my brother.
Not that I blame him one bit, don’t get me wrong. I’d have run too if I wasn’t a six-year-old at the time with no job prospects. At least Morgan was tall for his age. He could’ve probably passed for sixteen in the right clothes. At least I hope he did. I don’t like to think about what he might have been forced to do, to get by. He doesn’t tell me much even when I press him. All the fussing is reserved for me.
“You should go to therapy, Nico.” He liked to nag me. “Mama would want you to.”
His emotional blackmail game wasn’t very strong. I just rolled my eyes and ignored him.
I grabbed my warm fluffy robe as I got up from bed on my way to the kitchen, and I wrapped it around my lean frame. It was a pink confection that I had pilfered from the Hilton in LA a few months ago. As a quality controller for the FDA, I was invited to represent them at a scientific conference on organic farming. When not in attendance at panels, I was in my room, encased in the robe’s warm, loving embrace watching Netflix on my laptop. As the conference came to a close, I just couldn’t leave it behind.
“You have a sickness, my love,” my friend and work partner Jacinda Patel had said to me, shaking her head as she’d watched me stuff the robe in my luggage.
“Mind your business.” I had waved her away, as I’d debated over whether or not I should leave the little shampoo bottles. I’m not a kleptomaniac, but the habits of a lifetime are hard to break.
When you’re a neglected child, you learn to grab what you can from wherever you can because you just never know when you might need it.
Speaking of needing things, as I came back to the present, I realized my fridge was in grave need of some groceries. I stared into the abyss that was empty shelves and they stared right back. Thanks to my government job, I worked pretty regular hours, but I had been putting in a lot of overtime on a personal project. I hoped to use it to obtain a grant so that I could further my studies.
The particular grant I was aiming for was very competitive and exclusive, so the project had to be perfectly executed. That didn’t leave me a lot of time for grocery shopping.
Especially not when Danna Powell was breathing down my neck, rubbing her connections in my face and generally trying to psyche me out. I hated that spoiled, entitled bitch with a passion. If her father wasn’t the Head of Department, she wouldn’t even have a foot in the door. We went to the same college, so I happen to know that she’d received a C- in biochemistry.
I slammed the fridge closed, quite unnecessarily I’ll admit –sometimes I let my temper get the best of me– and straightened up, thinking what else I could eat instead. The bottle of red wine I used for cooking was peeking out of the half-open cabinet and I grabbed a glass from the rack and poured myself a drink.
My tiny apartment in Brooklyn was open-plan, so it was five steps from the kitchen to the living room. I plopped down on my comfortable bean bag chair and tucked my feet under my ass as I reached for the remote. Who needs company when you can have wine and Netflix?
1
Domenic
It was such chore keeping my eyes open. I love a good long d
iscussion about the ins and outs of tech companies about as much as the next person. Really, I do, but it had been three hours and Leyland was nowhere near done. He’s my lawyer and he loves to have every ‘i’ dotted and every ‘t’ crossed.
The bitter irony is that was the reason why I retained him. He didn’t miss a thing.
“Dude, I could use a coffee. Do you want some coffee?” I got to my feet, not waiting for him to answer me. I crossed over to my state-of-the-art coffee station. It goes against my religion to have less than the best quality coffee. So I hired my favorite barista to teach me her ways and then got the right equipment to make sure that alone or in company, the quality of coffee would never be compromised.
Case in point, even though he heaved an irritated sigh at me for interrupting his rundown of my faults and failings, Leyland didn’t protest. Once I had the pot percolating to my satisfaction, I collected some cups and spoons, got some cream and milk from the fridge as well as a number of sugar sachets, and brought them all back to the conference table on a tray.
“See? This is what I’m talking about, Dom.” Leyland pointed at me and then the tray. “You have people to do this shit for you. It looks low class when you do it for yourself.”
I held up a hand, examining my nails. “I’m sorry, my manicurist did her best, but she tells me there’s nothing that can be done about the calluses on my palm or my workman's hands.”
Leyland rolled his eyes. “If you’re not going to take this seriously then why am I here, huh?”
I inhaled deeply, savoring the aroma of coffee in the air. “You’re here to prepare me for my meeting with Tech Dyne. Or am I mistaken? Was there another purpose to it?” I turned back to the coffee station and poured us both a cup while Leyland glared.
Yeah, I know he means I should have people waiting on me hand and foot and not make my own coffee, but it’s Sunday and my usual courtiers are off today. He’s the one who insisted we couldn’t wait for regular office hours.
“This is urgent, Dom!” he said to me on the phone. Personally, I think he just wanted the overtime.
My friend Morgan and I had been sitting in my vast game room, our legs up on the table, playing video games when he called. I was all for blowing him off, but Morgan said he had to recheck some security protocols in the building anyway, so we both came in. I was hoping Morgan would have come to rescue me by now, which just goes to show how delusional I am. In the dictionary, the definition of workaholic features a picture of Morgan Innes.
Considering the life we both left behind, I’m glad Morgan is so conscientious about keeping us safe. But still, I’d rather not be subjected to Leyland counting the ways in which I was gonna lose this job to Roman Alexander.
“Tech Dyne is positioning itself to be the next Amazon, Dom, but only for the one-percenters. They want a high-profile CEO who projects the right image. Roman’s got you beat college-wise. He went Ivy League, you didn’t.”
I shrugged. “Hey, I had a scholarship. Couldn’t have afforded to go otherwise. What do you want from me?”
“And we can spin that into some pulling yourself up by the bootstraps shit. It could work. It will work. But you gotta show that you’re ready to be in the big leagues. Staggering out of strip clubs at 3 a.m. won’t do it. When one-percenters want to party, they rent a yacht in Ibiza or the French Riviera and hire out of work actresses for entertainment.”
“Hey!” I wasn’t even offended; those strippers have some strong athletic cores. “That was one time.”
“Yeah, one time the paps caught you.”
I lifted an eyebrow at him. “Again, I repeat, what do you want from me?”
Leyland sighed. “I need you to clean up your act. Any chance you might be hiding a regular girlfriend somewhere? A wife? Even a boyfriend will do as long as he’s extremely hot and wholesome.”
I had to laugh. “What? No, I’m not hiding a girlfriend or a wife, let alone a boyfriend. What’s wrong with you?”
“Can you possibly acquire one soon? The wholesome, respectable kind?”
I was grinning like a loon, waiting for the punch line. Then I looked in Leyland’s eyes and saw he was completely serious. I sobered at once. “This is not a joke, is it?”
Leyland slowly shook his head. My phone beeped and I picked it up to read the text. Morgan was done. He was ready to head out. “Hey, Leyland, maybe you can give me a night to think this through. Morgan’s done and we really should be getting home.”
Inexplicably, the lawyer brightened. “Hey, you know you could ask Morgan to be your pretend boyfriend. Ex-military, upright sort of guy, wholesome looking… these guys will eat it up. It’ll be believable. You guys are always together anyway.”
I blinked at Leyland a few times in honest disbelief. “Uh, Leyland? I’m straight. So is Morgan.”
He waved a dismissive hand. “Details. We just want to show these guys that you’re a stable sort of guy. If you ‘break up’ after you have the job, there’s not much they can do.”
I gave him a look. “And you don’t care about the dishonesty of it?”
He practically snorted. “Nobody cares about honesty in the big leagues, buddy. They care about image and money. You have the right image; show that you can make them money, and you’re in. You do want this job, don’t you?”
I swallowed, for a moment feeling out of my depth. He did ask a legitimate question though.
How badly do I want this job?
I lowered my eyes and did not answer him, picking up the proposed contract instead and looking it over, yet again.
“The terms of your contract would be out of this world. The power they propose to give you? World-changing.” The persistent bugger was not one to give up his point easily. I nodded my agreement. It was an incredible deal. A once-in-a-lifetime offer.
I took a deep breath. “Hey, uhhh, why don’t we put a pin in this tonight, let me brainstorm some options and I’ll get back to you tomorrow?”
The bastard smiled. “That sounds great. I’m glad to see you’re taking this seriously, Dom.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I waved dismissively at him and he collected his papers, his suitcase, and got the hell out. I got to my feet, going to the window to look down at the city spread out before me. I could clearly see the Brooklyn bridge from my vantage point, still busy even on a Sunday evening.
“Penny for them?”
I turned to see Morgan standing in the middle of the room. It came as no surprise to me that I hadn’t heard him come in. The man was a ninja. Even before he’d joined the special forces, he had been a stealthy bugger. Now he was practically invisible when he wanted to be.
I shrugged, shaking my head. “Business.”
“Mmhmm, I got that from the hunch of your shoulders and the whole looking-out-at-your-kingdom thing you tend to do.”
I smirked. “My kingdom?”
“Please, dude, don’t even act like you don’t think of yourself as the King of Brooklyn.”
“Brooklyn?” I exclaimed indignantly, grabbing my jacket from the back of my chair and following him to the lift. “Try the whole of New York.”
“Of course.” He sketched an elaborate mocking bow. “Apologies, Your Majesty.”
I snorted, feeling a little better about my life. I’ve known Morgan since he was fourteen and I was sixteen, just two lost kids looking to stay out of trouble and not succeeding. All I knew about him then was that he’d hitchhiked his way from Texas to New Orleans because he’d thought he had an aunt who lived there. Go figure, once he’d arrived he couldn’t find her.
We got to the basement and Morgan clicked the key to unlock the car. He always acted like we were being chased by an enemy, always ready to get out at a moment’s notice. I suppose I couldn’t blame him. Not when his life and then his training had taught him to always be hyper-vigilant.
We swung into the car and tore out of the garage at rapid speed, Morgan heading for our favorite coffee shop without consulting me.
“So what
was all that about?”
“What?”
“The brooding. Like you’re doing now.”
I laughed, suddenly remembering Leyland’s words. “Well, apparently, my lawyer wants us to be pretend married.”
Morgan almost swerved.
Almost.
He cast me an incredulous glance. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah, so he thinks I’d read better with these blue bloods if I had, you know, a significant other? And considering you’re like, the one constant in my life, he was like, ‘pretend you and Morgan are dating.’”
My bodyguard threw his head back and laughed. “What? Who’s ever gonna believe that? I am way out of your league.”
“Thanks.” My reply was dry as the desert, but Morgan just kept laughing.
“So uh…like Lady Sanders or someone?”
“Ugh, can you imagine having to hang out with Lady Sanders for more than five minutes?”
Morgan shrugged. “She smells nice at least.”
I gave him a massive side-eye. Lady Sanders was one of the first socialites I’d met on the New York circuit. Let’s just say her voice was shrill and she was tiresome to boot. Especially since she followed me around like a hopeful puppy. I didn’t know how else to tell her that it was not happening between us. I was pretty sure she had more STDs than Paris.
“So how bad is it then? If you don’t have some arm candy – is it over for you or what?”
I shrugged because at that point what could I do about that shit? Morgan sighed, shaking his head. “Hey, don’t give up just yet. We’ll find someone.”