by Max Monroe
Scoring the Billionaire (Billionaire Bad Boys, #3)
Published by Max Monroe LLC © 2016, Max Monroe
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Editing by Silently Correcting Your Grammar and Indie Solutions by Murphy Rae
Formatting by Champagne Formats
Cover Design by Perfect Pear Creative
Photo Credit David Vance Photographer
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Intro
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Contact Information
Acknowledgements
To tears.
We cried a lot of you during the making of this book, both for personal and professional struggles and triumph.
If not for your salty hydration, we probably would have died a slow and painful death. And then we’d have to be real ghost writers.
So thank you.
In the future, though, we’d really appreciate if you made a bigger effort to taste like wine—or vodka.
I’m Wes Lancaster.
The third “Billionaire Bad Boy,” as it were.
I own the New York Mavericks, BAD Restaurant, am a silent investor in several start-up companies across the United States, and yeah, I’m worth three or four billion dollars.
Sounds like the same old story, right?
I’ll admit, even to me—who’d rather not lump himself into the Billionaire Bad Boy heap with the likes of Thatcher Kelly—the basics are startlingly similar. But the difference between Thatch, Kline, and me is that they keep avid track of each dollar—granted, their reasons vary greatly from one another—and I’ve never been one to focus on the numbers. I know a ballpark figure, and I know what that ballpark figure means.
It means freedom.
Freedom to live my life as I please, spend money tastefully but often, and enjoy all the things I appreciate with abandon. Women, cars, travel, and time—each and every one can be mine on my terms.
I like the control. I like the escapism. I like being in charge of my own life.
Money may not buy happiness, but it definitely buys opportunity. For me, that opportunity comes in many forms, the most notable being my ability to live the dream of owning a National Football League team. My staff knows by the level of my involvement—something they like to whisper creative epithets about—that the desire to do so has absolutely nothing to do with the money and position and everything to do with being a part of the experience. I’ve overheard the very technical description of “annoyingly present” more than once—and god-fucking-dammit, he’s here again; this is horseshit even more than that.
But now my interest has grown deeper, more complexly woven into the staff—specifically Winnie Winslow, the new team physician—and not only do I not stay away; I can’t.
She’s everything I don’t want.
Strong-willed. Demanding. A mother to a young child.
But as it turns out, maybe the joke is on me. My brain says she’ll ruin everything, but my heart says she’s everything I can’t live without.
Normally my brain rules the day, making the important decisions and keeping me from the certain agony a romantic entanglement would bring to my life. But apparently, now, there’s a new, beating, four-chambered fuck-of-a-guy in charge.
He says this is the last time this book is about me because now, thanks to Winnie and Lexi Winslow, I’m a very big we.
This is us.
The halls were busy, staffers running from the cafeteria to meetings and players making their way from the locker room to the weight room or the field, and each person I passed acknowledged me with a nod.
I appreciated the effort, but I actually hated the attention. It meant I had to watch myself, my expressions, my reactions—be whom they expected, which sometimes wasn’t who I was.
But just as I’d built the machine that was the current operations of this team, I’d constructed my reputation all on my own. Stoic. Unemotional. Unswayable, unflappable, hard-to-rile Wes Lancaster.
It scared me how often my insides were the exact opposite—rolling turmoil that kept the contents of my stomach only seconds away from making an appearance.
My relationship with God was tenuous and largely lacking in effort on my part, but I’d still lost count of how many times I’d thanked him for the power of perception and strong esophageal control.
Overhead, the lights flickered and hissed as one of the bulbs strained to avoid the end of its life. I made a mental note to notify maintenance as soon as I finished my rounds.
Much like every other team in the league, we operated on a schedule, with certain players, be it special teams, skill positions, defensive linemen, etcetera going different places at different times. When the cafeteria closed down the breakfast service in an hour, everyone on the team would be somewhere—a meeting, a final practice, at weight lifting, or getting medical advisement or attention. Wednesdays on travel weeks needed to run even more smoothly than any other day, as the whole team would need to be out and ready in a timely fashion so that they could prepare for travel tomorrow.
And this week, we were headed to Miami. Hot, sunny, skimpy-clothes-inducing Miami. Please, fuck, let there be some sort of bikini-wearing opportunity for Winnie Winslow, my dick chimed in with a wink and an overly enthusiastic nod before my brain could stop it.
Goddammit.
I’d hired her as the team physician, but she’d just as quickly become my obsession, my weakness, and my distraction. Witty, thrilling exchanges laced with an edge of anger I couldn’t stop picturing in the bedroom took up way too much space in my mind for the amount of interaction we’d had. Thrown together in mostly professional circumstances, we hadn’t so much as touched for the first few weeks of our erotic dance of torturous teasing. Even now, we were still in the infancy of intimacy, a fledgling friendship that hovered on the edge of acquaintances.
In fact, th
e most contact we’d had was the soft slip of her hand in mine during Thatch and Cassie’s shotgun nuptials a few weeks ago. But innocent or not, ever since, I’d become irrationally fixated on the drive to once again feel her skin on mine. It was unnatural at best, but troubling was more likely as I’d involuntarily begun to completely avoid the company of other women.
I’d actually tried to force it for the first week after our return, but as that time bled into this, and the days at work got longer and longer, my body stopped being cooperative.
That’s right. Without the incentive of Winnie’s touch, my dick has stopped responding. And yes, my little problem did make itself known in the most embarrassing way possible, at the very worst time. The only thing I have to be thankful for is that the particular woman had made my acquaintance before and knew it was an entirely new problem. Of course, I went home to my hand and a most explicitly detailed fantasy of Winnie Winslow, and the fucker reacted to that just fine.
“Trust me,” I heard Winnie say as I rounded the corner into the hall that led directly to our training room. Open call for players with injuries or medical needs opened up at six a.m., which was nearly an hour ago. An hour’s worth of restraint felt like it took Herculean effort, but the camel’s back had finally buckled—I’d run out of control…and metaphors.
I had to see her. That rough but sweet voice. The fervor in her every comment. I wanted the feeling it gave me when she directed all of it at me.
Luckily, touching base in any and all meetings and locations was normal for me, the “helicopter boss,” so the only one who would know what a fool I was would be me.
Despite the internal embarrassment of losing the battle with myself to stay away, my step got decidedly peppier. If Thatch had paid witness, comments would have been made, and I would have communicated both verbally and otherwise that he should fuck right off. But he wasn’t, and all that separated me from looking Winnie dead in her heated eyes was the rest of this stupid hallway.
“I know more about you than I’ve ever wanted to know, Martinez,” Winnie went on, her commanding voice carrying easily down the empty hall. “Google is altogether way too informative.”
“I think she’s saying she’s seen your dick, Teen. And by the sound of it, I’m thinking your nickname isn’t the only thing that’s teeny,” a jovial, young male voice said.
Commotion rang out, hoots and hollers and overall mayhem echoing out the door and down the hall to my ears.
“Whoa,” Winnie said loudly through a laugh. “Pick up your pants, Teen. I didn’t see your penis, I don’t want to see your penis, goddammit, put away your penis.”
The room sounded rowdy with all the answering chuckles, and I found myself quickening my already brisk steps in order to make it to the end of the hall a little faster.
“Penis, Doc?” I heard one of the other guys ask. “That’s very clinical.”
I paused just outside the door as she responded. “That’s right. Clinical. The only reason I’ll be looking at your penis is if you break it during a game. A penis is only a dick or a cock if I’m seeing it socially.”
“The way you say that makes my penis feel very sociable, Dr. Winslow,” Mitchell teased, and the other guys muttered and mumbled their agreement.
“Sorry, Cam,” Winnie clucked with a stern take on playful. “My calendar’s all booked up.”
Despite all reason, I smiled as I stepped into the room and discovered about half a dozen more players than I was expecting. Evidently, half of them knew better than to sexually goad their physician just because she was a woman. With some internal coaxing, I forced my expression to something gloomier.
With this many sets of eyes, a smile—on my normally hard face—would be way too noticeable.
Several of the guys straightened up in both stance and attitude.
I could joke and jest with the best of them in my private life, with my friends, and in the comfort of family, but they didn’t know that version of me. They all knew the persona I portrayed on this side of the glass—at work, to the media, to women—and as their boss, I wouldn’t necessarily think their recent conversation and behavior fell on the right side of the line between what was acceptable and what wasn’t.
Quinn Bailey, the best quarterback we’d had in years and an accent-wielding Southern boy to boot, however, didn’t budge, his mouth curving up into a smile as Winnie finished wrapping his wrist.
A job he, without a doubt, could have completed himself.
“Yo, Mr. L,” he called, and—I couldn’t help it—I smiled. The fucker was too goddamn likable. I wasn’t sure if it was his shaggy but still-clean-looking hair or the genuineness of the hook at the corner of his amused mouth, but he just wasn’t a guy you could stay mad at.
“Isn’t it your turn in the training room?” I asked him, but his smirk only deepened. We both knew it was, and he read right into all the inappropriate things that had prompted me to ask a little too fucking well.
Winnie Winslow and her unbelievable legs. And eyes and hair and face. Fuck.
Every single glorious part of her and all the things I thought about each one seemed to hang between us like very delicate bombs waiting to detonate. His scrutiny had a greater effect than making the moment awkward, though—it forced me to acknowledge something I otherwise refused.
I’d been spending a whole hell of a lot more time on this side of the Hudson River, conveniently located at one beautiful female physician’s place of employment, which also happened to be a workplace where I was the boss. Nearly every goddamn day for the last three weeks.
And, as I studied the line of Winnie’s throat and followed the skin as far as I could into the neck of her shirt, it was abundantly clear why the stadium suddenly held so much goddamn appeal.
And if Quinn and I had noticed, as one of the very few employees in the Manhattan office with me, Georgia probably had too.
Fuck. Where one half of the Brooks power couple went, the other shortly followed.
It was only a matter of time before Kline and Thatch were kidnapping me and torturing me with pillow fights and padded bras until I confessed all of my Winnie Winslow-themed sins.
What? Is that not how female sleepovers go?
“Is there something I can help you with, Wes?” Winnie called, pulling me from both my fantasies and my nightmares and bringing the training room into stark refrain.
Several sets of eyes were on me, and more than one was curious. I was hoping it was the fluorescent lights that made Winnie’s seem so challenging—unflattering lighting and all.
A smirk ghosted her pink lips, pulling them together in the softest of purses when she noticed how good a job she’d done at making me uncomfortable.
Jesus, my brain told my dick. Do you see this? We don’t need this.
I tightened my jaw against the litany of inappropriate, telling words I wanted to spew.
“Nope,” I said instead. “Just making my rounds. Heard word of you Googling pictures of players’ penises, and I had to see for myself.”
Okay, so maybe my jaw didn’t quite contain all of the inappropriate words.
A couple of guys burst out laughing, but the smart ones just watched, looking between us with big, bowling-ball-round eyes.
I’d one hundred percent, unmistakably broken character. Wes Lancaster of old—the one whose blood flowed freely throughout his body rather than congregating traitorously in his dick—never would have said that to an employee. Not in private and definitely not in public.
Martinez took it as liberty to continue their rhetoric, moving to push his pants down off of his hips.
Winnie caught sight of it out of the corner of her eye—her focus was pretty plainly, angrily on me—and let out a ladylike shriek. “Jesus, Teeny! No. I didn’t Google your penis. Do not show it to me.”
“What exactly did you Google?” I asked, unable to stop myself. And fuck, the damage was already at least partially done.
Winnie sighed heavily, leaned a hip into th
e exam table, and crossed her arms over her abundant chest.
Every goddamn set of eyes in the room went right to the exposed skin there.
As I used the clench of my fists as a tranquilizer, I looked around the room to see every man working to contain his ridiculously large reaction to a very simple movement. Discreet adjustments and subtle shifting of hips. If bells were attached to our arousal, we wouldn’t have been able to think for all the ringing.
God, we really were animals. You’d have thought she flashed a nipple, but she was actually wearing a very business-appropriate white blouse that covered everything.
It’s just that when we (men) try enough, our vision is X-ray adaptable. Shh. Don’t tell anyone.
“Stats. Past injuries. Athletic history,” she replied with a raise of her eyebrows and a challenge in her eyes. She wouldn’t back down. I knew it as well as I knew the back of my own hand, that every hit I delivered she’d volley right back. Every demand I had, she’d assuage, and every fucking fantasy I had for the next ten years, she would play a starring role in.
I hated that I wanted her so badly.
I never want this feeling to end.
I wanted to keep prodding, to find out the whole story. But any viable excuse for being here had just about dried up, and I’d already completely spent my allotment of unprofessional behavior for the day.
“Well, I’ll let you guys get back to it.” I got several nods and chin jerks without pause, everything seemingly back to normal, and Winnie seemed to take a deep breath for the first time since I’d arrived.
A sign that I affected her too.
I moved to the door and turned back just before crossing the threshold, asking the room the only thing the Wes of old would care about. “Ready for Miami?”
Cheers and curses and several derogatory statements about the people in Miami and the city in general filled the room raucously.
Thank God we had an away game this weekend.