Queen of His Daydreams: Billionaire Breakfast Club #1.5 (Camp Firefly Falls Book 23)

by Lisa Hughey

  Breakfast had been torture.

  Sherry had been nowhere to be seen. But RJ knew she was still here because Heather Tully had taken pity on him. He’d asked his parents to stay on for a bit.

  His mami had given him a look that made him remember all those times he’d tried to get away with stuff and she’d known he’d done something wrong.

  He’d shifted this morning’s session to round tables to make up for what they’d missed yesterday. But he’d changed the topic: How to Keep Company Morale High.

  RJ firmly believed that if your employees were happy they were far more productive and innovative.

  “Hello, everyone! Thanks for getting up early. Each table has a pad of paper and a pen. Elect one person to take notes. Then another to present their notes to the entire group. We’ve got to be efficient this morning because the rest of Ramos CAR employees arrive at noon. And then the party starts.” Zin was way too cheerful.

  Everyone cheered and got to work. The noise level in the room rose as his employees started throwing out suggestions.

  RJ stood rather than sat at his table, which consisted of Zinnia, Diego, Penny, his mami and his papi.

  Papi shook his head. “I don’t understand why we’re here since we’re not part of the company.”

  “But you are part of my life. And this is important to me.” RJ looked around the table. These were the most important people in his life. But he wanted more.

  The door to the boathouse opened. And Heather and Sherry entered slowly.

  Diego eyed him with consideration. “So this is personal, not company related.”

  “Everyone’s happiness is important. And not just at work.”

  Zin sighed.

  RJ beckoned Sherry over. She looked as if she wanted to bolt. “Can I help you, sir?”

  That impersonal sir was back and damn but he hated it. He also didn’t know if this was going to work. He might have hurt her too much for her to forgive him.

  He took her hand. She tugged on it, and he let her go. Reluctantly. “Everyone, this is Sherry.”

  “What are you doing?” she hissed.

  “Making a statement.”

  Diego blinked. Looked at where their hands had been joined. “Uh.”

  “Catch up, Ramos.” Penny elbowed her husband.

  “Nice to meet you,” Papi said.

  Mami just smiled.

  “Sherry, I’d like you to meet my family.”

  “Hi.” Her smile was tight and uncomfortable. “Bye.”

  “Wait,” he begged, and she froze, her blue eyes blinking wide

  “I like her,” RJ said to the table.

  “What?” She took a step back. Away from him and he fought the urge to tug her close.

  “And I did her a great disservice,” RJ confessed. “Which I need to rectify, but before I do, I wanted to say, that if you have a problem with my choices, then we need to revisit my position.”

  “What?” Diego looked alarmed. “Hell, no. You’re doing a great job.”

  While that made him feel pretty good, there was more apologizing to be done.

  “Zin?”

  “I’m sorry for assuming things,” she looked away and then down at the floor. “And for all the problems from, you know, last year.”

  Sherry nodded then turned to RJ. “You are not quitting.” Sherry’s voice rose and miracle of miracles, she moved closer to him.

  “I will if they’re going to have a problem with you.”

  “But you’re a great CEO. You care about your employees. I’ve never seen a company that works so hard to make sure their employees are happy and successful. You can’t quit.”

  RJ’s heart expanded. Even now, she was all in about him. “I can always get another job.”

  “No, you can’t.” Diego folded his arms, his body language closed and not at all welcoming. “The company needs you.”

  The words were a balm to his soul, but he still knew that he’d walk away if they couldn’t accept that he wanted Sherry. He turned his back to his family and waited. One by one they smiled. His mami gave him a thumbs up.

  Sherry stood there, hair disheveled and eyes wide. “What did you just do?”

  “Figured a few things out.” He took her hands, holding both in his. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I should have talked to you about the money.”

  Her expression was hurt. “It felt like you paid me to….”

  His mother’s gasp was audible.

  “I set that in motion long before we re…connected.”

  “Re?” Diego’s eyebrows rose.

  “I was only trying to rectify the wrong. But I ignored my own rule, to listen to options and ideas before making a decision.”

  “I would never have asked for you to pay the bill for me.”

  “I know that. But I was trying to look out for you. And you should never have been liable for that money.”

  “What did you say?” Sherry’s heart thundered in her chest. The beat so loud she could barely hear.

  “You should never—”

  “Not that.” Her mouth was dry, and she had the uncomfortable urge to throw up. “Before.”

  “I was trying to look out for you.” He brushed a strand of her hair away from her face tenderly.

  No one ever did that for her. “That’s very sweet.”

  “I’d like to keep doing it.”

  She didn’t want to assume. Maybe she completely misunderstood. Maybe she was dreaming again. Because it sounded like….

  “I like you.” RJ smiled at her, his hazel gaze warm with affection.

  Sherry blinked. “I like you too. More than I should.” Because he had the power to eviscerate her.

  He leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “I’d like to date you.”

  “Date?”

  “To start.”

  Um, she certainly wasn’t going to turn that down. “Okay.”

  “Cool. And I’m going to do something completely unprofessional if you’re okay with it.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  “Then you don’t mind if I kiss you?” he whispered.

  Sherry’s heart melted. Her previous relationships were hidden in the shadows. “Go for it.”

  So he did. His kiss was sweet, tender, as he claimed her in front of all his employees and his family. He pulled away from her and smiled.

  Zinnia whispered, “You’re his camp prize.”

  Whatever that meant.

  “Madre de Dios!” Alma yelled. “It’s happening again.”

  And the entire room laughed.

  Including RJ’s family.

  Epilogue

  A few months later….

  RJ unlocked his apartment after a long day at Ramos Corp.

  He’d just gotten the word that he’d been chosen as a Thirty under Thirty CEO to watch. He’d had a chance to read the writeup the reporter had done on him. And if he were a blushing guy, he’d be beet red.

  He’d owed a huge debt of gratitude to Jeffrey London. Of all people.

  He dropped his keys in the ceramic bowl in the entry and walked into the living room.

  It looked like a Fall Festival bomb had gone off in it. Fake burnished pumpkins and dark green vines, yellow silk dogwood spikes, and…was that a haystack in the corner?

  “Hola?”

  Sherry rushed out of the bathroom, her face half-made-up with the same colors—but muted—that were strewn about their usually comfy living room. “Hey,” she said breathlessly and jumped into his arms.

  She kissed him so passionately, RJ dropped his briefcase and wrapped his arms around his girlfriend. No longer the queen of his daydreams, she was his reality. For a few minutes, he lost himself in the dramatic greeting.

  “What’s all this?”

  She laughed, her legs still tight around his waist. “I got bored waiting for you to get home.”

  Shit. He still wasn’t used to the fact that she was waiting for him on his long
days. “Sorry, I—”

  She pressed her fingers over his lips, stopping his apology. “Not a criticism. But since I had some time on my hands, I decided to work on ideas for that Thanksgiving wedding.”

  She’d come out of her time at camp with the idea to start her own wedding consulting business. She now freelanced doing makeup and hair for wedding parties. Her client build had been faster than expected because the bride reviews had been glowing. Thanks to word of mouth, she was in high demand.

  It wreaked a bit of havoc on their schedules, so they’d finally agreed to set Sunday night aside for just them…and dinner at his parent’s house.

  She was still wrapped around his waist like a vine. “What do you think?” She popped her fingers into jazz hands that framed her face. “Be honest.”

  He couldn’t help but tease her. “Not sure the half makeup, half bare thing really works.”

  She rolled her eyes at him and put her hands in front of the bare side. “Now?”

  “I think you’re beautiful,” he said softly.

  He pulled her hands away from her face and kissed her bare cheek. “With and without.”

  “Sometimes you’re such a guy.”

  “But I’m your guy.”

  “Yes, you are.” She squeezed him tight. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading RJ and Sherry’s story. I truly believe that everyone has the capability to be redeemed, and Sherry certainly fits the bill in this story. I hope that you enjoyed this return to Camp Firefly Falls. If so, below are a few ways you can help a writer out!!

  Good: Lend the book to a friend

  Better: Recommend the book to your friends

  Best: Leave a review at Amazon, BN, Kobo, Apple, Google, Goodreads...basically any place they sell or review eBooks. Every review helps my books get visibility and I cannot even express how much it means to me when you let people know you liked my work. Readers have so many choices nowadays and limited dollars to spend. It can be difficult to take a chance on a new author even if the premise sounds appealing. By reviewing books, you give other readers insight into the story world and help them make informed purchases.

  Thank you, thank you, thank you for your support!!

  p.s. Would you like to know when my next book is available? Or get free stories periodically? You can sign up for my new release email list/newsletter at Lisa’s Latest News

  p.p.s. Want to know how Diego and Penny get together? Read on for an excerpt of His Semi-Charmed Life….

  Excerpt from His Semi-Charmed Life

  Excerpt from His Semi-Charmed Life

  (Camp Firefly Falls #11 and the Billionaire Breakfast Club #0)

  June 1997

  Worst. Summer. Ever.

  Diego Ramos strode out to the parking lot, ignoring the rules to go check on his precious car. His ’69 Charger had gotten him here but he’d lost his muffler on the way up. He’d growled the final miles to Camp Firefly Falls on the faulty part.

  He’d been working on this car forever. He was finally old enough—sort of—to drive it, even though he’d been tooling around Dot illegally for the past few years.

  He was working all summer to pay for the muffler at cost. He’d been planning to buy the one Tío Raul had at his garage. But before Diego could scrape together the money, one of Raul’s full-paying customers needed one and his uncle couldn’t turn down the sale. Their family friend Hector said he might be able to get his hands on a replacement. Might. But if he got a full paying customer, Hector had to sell it to them, because he needed the money too.

  It was the worst to be stuck here. He totally understood that if they had buyers while he was here at camp, he was screwed. He had to stay at camp to make enough money to buy the part.

  He kicked at a stone, sent it scuttling into the brush that lined the path.

  A single spotlight on a post cast more shadows than illumination over the lot—which was really just a decent-sized opening between two stands of trees.

  Diego opened the hood. Not a squeak. He took damn good care of his baby.

  He stroked the sleek, clean engine like he was petting his little cousin’s cat. “Soon, baby. You’ll be all prettied up,” he crooned to the engine like she was a girl.

  He flushed, glanced around, but no one had seen him talking to his car like she was real.

  Diego climbed up on the trunk of his car and lay back to stare up at the stars. The Charger was the one constant in his life. His mother and father were in and out. He had bounced from relative to relative until his uncle got married a few years ago and then he’d gone to live with his tío and tía permanently.

  His uncle got him this camp job through one of his customers. Diego was supposed to be thankful for it. He was. Sort of. He’d never tell anyone but he missed his little cousins, Raul Jr. and Zinnia, even though they annoyed him ninety-nine percent of the time.

  One thing he’d give to these mountains, the sky was amazing. Light from the stars twinkled in deep blue mysterious space.

  “What’cha doing?”

  He jerked up so fast his head went dizzy.

  And there she was.

  He hated working here. Little Miss Princess Penelope embodied every single reason. She was only like nine years old and so damn smug. She’d been whining since her parents dropped her off at the beginning of the week. They were in Europe. Without her. Boo. Fricking. Hoo.

  “You’re not supposed to be out here,” he snarled. Dammit. Why was she here?

  Penelope Hastings stood there looking at him with those stupidly innocent, bright green eyes. “Neither are you.”

  “Get back to your cabin.” Except he was going to have to take her. He couldn’t let her wander around in the dark. Part of his job was making sure the campers were safe.

  “Why are you so upset?” She stepped closer to his car.

  Her pout caused everything to bubble up inside him. Couldn’t he get frustrated and angry in peace? Couldn’t he have one damn minute alone? Apparently not, if he wanted enough money to keep fixing up his baby.

  “Let me take you back to your cabin.” Diego sighed. He slid off the trunk, dropped to the dirt and gravel parking lot, then took a second to stroke his palm over the blue paint before he gently eased the hood closed.

  She danced back a step. “Is something wrong with your car?”

  “Yeah.”

  She frowned, her ginger eyebrows crinkled as if the concept of car problems was beyond her. “Why even bother working on that old piece of junk?”

  Junk? Maybe to her it was junk but to him this car was everything. It was freedom. It was life. It was his future.

  “Aren’t you only fifteen?”

  And she was nine. They’d done the whole introduce yourself in a circle on the first day. So he knew her name was Penelope Hastings, she was rich as fuck, and so super sad that her parents had left her at camp instead of taking her to Europe.

  “So?” So he’d driven here slightly illegally. So the fuck what? He had his permit.

  “Well, if you’re only fifteen—” She laughed, a delighted trill of sound, like the birds in the forest only softer, and weirdly sweeter. “When’s your birthday?”

  He trudged toward the line of cabins where the girls stayed. “September.”

  What that had to do with anything he had no fucking idea. Of course, he never claimed to understand rich kids. They lived in their own stupid bubble.

  She clapped her soft pale hands and laughed again. “Well then, silly. You only have to wait a couple more months and you’ll get your new car for your sixteenth birthday!”

  She dropped the words so eagerly, so happily, as if she’d magically solved his problem and everyone in the fucking world got a car when they turned sixteen.

  “That’s about as likely as the Red Sox winning the World Series.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Welcome to the real world where kids don’t get new cars on their birthdays,
you spoiled brat.” Shit, he was going to get in trouble for that. He was a counselor. And he needed this job so he could afford the parts for his beloved car.

  Yeah, the owners made it seem like they were all equal and happy and shit, but the reality was, Diego worked for Miss Richy-Rich Hastings.

  “Oh.” Her face fell, her brows scrunched together as if she were actually trying to imagine a world where kids didn’t get a new car when they turned sixteen. “So not everyone gets a car?”

  Could this kid be any dumber?

  “There’s a whole world of people who don’t have food to eat at night, don’t wear shoes without holes.” Ugh, she glanced down at his feet and his ratty old Converse. “And don’t get new cars. So, no.”

  “That’s…too bad.”

  “Yeah, it’s a real fucking nightmare.”

  Her shoulders slumped. Her dark ginger hair was almost Charger Red in the soft light of the parking lot.

  “Well,” she said brightly, her smile reappearing. “My dad always says, ‘How do we turn this failure into a success?’”

  “I’m a failure? Thanks for making your opinion loud and clear.”

  God, he hated her. She was everything he wasn’t. Clean and perfect. Her blindingly bright white tennis shoes and her naïve, always smiling face versus his threadbare high tops, soles so worn they were just about to crack, and his scowl.

  Her smile faltered. “Oh no, of course not. He just says, ‘When things don’t go the way you planned, you work with what you’ve got, and turn that negative into a positive.’”

  “I’ve got nothing.” Diego spit out the words. He wanted, with an agonizing pain in his heart, to throw some dirt on her. To ruin that sparkly perfection so she was as dirty and grumpy and mean as he felt inside. “So get the hell out of here, you stupid little rich girl.”

  Tears filled her bright green eyes. She lifted her trembling chin and shot him a vengeful glare. “I was just trying to be a good friend.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t need any friends. Go away.”

  She finally ran down the path toward the cabins. He should go after her, follow her and make sure she got back to her cabin without harm. But he flung himself on the hood of the car.