BLISS: A Wedding Enemies to Lovers Alpha Bad-Boy Billionaire Romance

by Marr, Maggie

  “You’ve just made me the happiest man in the world. I love you, Tara.”

  “I love you too.” Her hand reaches up around my neck and her lips are on mine.

  “This is going to be amazing,” I say. And I know it, I know that our life, this new life we’ll build together, will be beyond anything I could have ever imagined.

  “Still, I . . . there’s something I have to tell you.” Uncertainty flickers in her eyes.

  My phone beeps and I flip it over and take a look. “You have a new story?” I smile at Tara, the woman I love. “It’s a good day.” I click the link. “And it’s the landing page.”

  “Right . . . before you read it, I need to—”

  Her words are gone. I hear nothing as my eyes skim the title, the words . . . the story.

  My heart, the heart I’ve given her, is squeezed tight. I can barely breathe. My gaze flies up to Tara’s.

  “I . . . that’s what I need to talk to you about.”

  I look past her to the balcony. Toward the past. Toward the first time my heart was ripped from my chest. Then I look back to my phone. I stare at my phone and the words she wrote that got her a move to San Francisco, a new job, a promotion, and . . .

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbles.

  I read the title again, uncertain that I got it right the first time. I hope maybe I’ve made a mistake. But there it is—the words, the title, the story that could destroy my life and my family’s: “Wonderf*cking His Way Through L.A.”

  Part II

  Chapter 36

  Love is a vicious bitch. Twice I’ve fallen for her charms and twice she’s shredded my heart. I won’t be fooled a third time.

  “Jake, this is a surprise.”

  Warren stands from behind his desk and rushes across his swank office with the million-dollar view that I paid for, with his hand outstretched to shake mine. He’s surprised and yet deferential. He should be, because I own a huge piece of his ass in the form of a majority interest in the online news source known as the LA Post.

  I stare into Warren’s eyes. It’s not bravado. My look is me letting Warren know that I’m here, and although he may run this place – a company that is successful and well into the black – I’m Warren’s boss. I’m the money guy.

  I’ve never thrown my weight around as the 800-pound gorilla before today, but I’m doing it now because I’m pissed, and heartbroken, and furious at a woman, that (no matter how hard I try not to be), I’m balls-to-the-wall in love with.

  My gaze is a warning to Warren that he’d best prepare to take like a man what I’m about to dish out.

  We sit perpendicular to each other. I’m on the couch and he’s on a chair that every exec has in their office: the appearance of propriety and civility even though that is rarely the reality of what happens in a boss’s office.

  Surprise hovers around his mouth. His assistant comes in and sets a carafe of coffee and two cups on the small table in front of us. I don’t bother with the niceties because I don’t have the patience to be nice.

  “I hear you’re opening a San Francisco division.”

  “It was in the last quarterly report.”

  “Tara is being transferred.”

  Warren lifts an eyebrow. Surprise that I’m on a first name basis with a woman on his staff, and that I know about his employment decisions.

  “She’ll be a great addition to the group as they ramp up in San Fran.”

  He reaches for the carafe and pours a cup of coffee. “She broke that great story about that Wonderfuck guy. What a life right? He—”

  “She’s not going.”

  Warren stops mid-sentence, his cup hovers mid-air. He blinks.

  I’ve never made any demand at the LA Post, but I am now, and I can because I’m the fucking 800-pound gorilla.

  “But—”

  I tilt my head. “But what?”

  There is no response Warren can give me but ‘Yes.’ Warren has no options. This isn’t a negotiation, this is an order. I own the LA Post and I own him. I own it all and in a way I own Tara. She diced what was left of my heart into tiny cubes and now...now I can’t even find solace in the one thing that brings me pleasure, the one thing that saved me from the soul-sucking abyss after Susie died, the one things that keeps me from following Susie over the edge.

  I can’t even Wonderfuck.

  “But I think she’d be a good addition in San Francisco and I’m eyeing her for managing editor position, so I think that—”

  “Tara stays in Los Angeles.”

  This isn’t a discussion or a democracy. This is a dictatorship and I’m a despot with revenge on my mind.

  “Can I ask why?”

  “You could.” I stand. I walk toward Warren’s office door and pull it open. I turn toward him. “But it doesn’t matter because I own this place. The equation is simple. She stays in LA or you find another job. I’ve made my decision.”

  Warren swallows. Anger builds on his face.

  Fuck his anger. I’ve lived on rage for years. Let him have a little discomfort with his coffee. Rage is an excellent sweetener. Let him be pissed, let him be enraged, let him say or do something stupid. I’m feeling angry enough to disembowel him with words. I’d prefer to beat the shit out of him, but that would be too much, wouldn’t it?

  “I own the Post. She stays.”

  Tara wanted to go to San Francisco, had her heart set on moving and taking her new job.

  Too fucking bad.

  I had my heart set on her loving me and me loving her and us being honest with each other, and that didn’t work out. Guess we all learn to live with disappointment, and Tara is going to get a big lesson, because she absolutely fucked over the wrong man. Guess we both get to deal with heartache now.

  * * *

  * * *

  Love is a bitch, but Betrayal is a whore; a well maintained whore who teases you with her smile. You don’t even know she’s slit your throat and stolen your wallet until you’re two pints down. I don’t have good judgment when it comes to women, because that whore, Betrayal, has nearly killed me two times.

  “This is the guy I’m talking about.”

  Rachel holds up her phone and twists the screen toward me. “This guy...this.” She lowers her voice for the next word. “Wonderfuck.” She flips the screen back toward her. “Have you read this?”

  I nod. Every person in Los Angeles has read Tara’s article.

  “I mean, listen to what these women say: ‘He made me multi-orgasmic.’”

  Rachel lifts an eyebrow. “Isn’t every woman multi-orgasmic? Her husband must’ve really sucked… Or not. Then this one. ‘My husband told me for years that he thought I was attractive above the neck and below the ankles.’”

  Rachel shakes her head and rolls her eyes toward the ceiling. “My god. How many women have been emotionally eviscerated by the men in their lives?”

  She lays her phone on the kitchen counter and grabs a spatula. “I wouldn’t believe all these quotes except every one of my married friends have told me something similar.”

  Her gaze comes up from the griddle. “Men are assholes.”

  I won’t argue with Big Sis. Nope. I’m admittedly an asshole. I’ll cop to that. We all are, the penis people. We are complete and utter assholes. What we get in muscle mass, gets taken away in empathy and emotional understanding. It’s only the women in our lives that make us halfway bearable.

  “I’ve never claimed to be perfect.”

  “Nope.” Rachel flips the pancake. “You’re one of the good ones. I’ve actually heard you cop to inherent male-assholeness.” She leans against the kitchen counter and continues to read the Wonderfuck article, but this time out loud:

  “I expected a near sexual deviant, maybe a man in gold chains, almost past middle age, with a lascivious look and a sickening grin. Even while I’d been assured by the woman who referred me to Wonderfuck that what I was getting was a man on a mission. The James Bond of fucking. A man with a personal vocation to
make every woman feel beautiful.”

  Rachel’s eyes light up. “My god, I want to meet this man.”

  She leans onto the kitchen island as though I have the inside track on meeting Mick Jagger.

  “Did you know about Tara and this....this Wonderfuck?” She says the name with reverence, almost as though she’s discussing Batman.

  “I knew some of it,” I say, because that’s the truth. I know all about what the anonymous sources have to say. I could probably even figure out who the anonymous sources are. What I didn’t know about was the article.

  “So are you two…?”

  I lock my gaze with Rachel’s. “No.”

  And we’re not. Not right now, and quite possibly not ever again. Not after this betrayal for her career.

  “I wonder if there’s more than one?” She flips two pancakes onto a plate. “Wonderfuck, that is.”

  I lift a shoulder and give a non-committal shrug. I know the answer. There is. I’ve seen more than one phone number scribbled on walls.

  “This is beyond sexual.” Rachel pours syrup onto the Minnie Mouse shaped pancake. “What he does is save women’s souls.” She puts the plate onto the kitchen table. “Do you think she actually had sex with him? For the article?” She licks a glop of maple syrup from her finger. “I guess I could call her. Ask her about Wonderfuck. Is that weird?”

  I give Big Sis my evil eye. “I don’t know. Is it?”

  Rachel calling my former neighbor and secret-ex-lover to discuss whether she had sex for an article is weird. Even if Rachel and Tara seem to have a bit of a friendship on their own.

  I must be successful in conveying my irritation over the idea of Rachel hanging out with Tara and discussing Wonderfuck, because she drops the Tara thing altogether. She turns to the refrigerator and pulls out the orange juice. My niece rounds the corner, still in her princess jammies, with some serious bed head. She totally has an internal radar for sugar. She must’ve smelled the syrup from the living room.

  Lily smiles at me and climbs onto her chair and proceeds to destroy not one, but three pancakes. I decline a sugar-infused breakfast, and make another pot of coffee.

  This kid owns me. I’m her slave, her servant, her uncle with a credit card, and no kids. Anything Lily wants from Uncle Jake she gets.

  “Uncle Jake, you know it’s almost my birthday.”

  I do the math in my head and this time the kid is kind of right. It’s close-ish, although it seems as though we have this discussion every time I’m at her house. Okay. I’ll play. I always do. She is, after all, my boss in nearly every way.

  “And what is it you want for your birthday?”

  She sighs and glances toward her mother. Rachel leans against the counter and watches Lily. My niece leans forward, her sticky syrup lips actually coating my ear with sugar.

  “I want what I always want. I want a puppy.”

  “Lily, we are absolutely not getting a dog,” Rachel says from across the kitchen.

  Lily’s Bambi-like eyes lock on mine. Her lips turn down as though her mother has just threatened to kill every puppy born between now and Lily’s birthday.

  “She doesn’t want me to get one,” Lily says softly and shakes her head with a solemnity that is more than grave in its demeanor. It’s downright fucking heartbreaking.

  If I still had a fucking heart.

  “I’m sorry boo,” I say.

  I shoot big sis the side-eye. She’s turned away from us toward the sink. I wink at Lily. I lean forward. “Let me see what I can do.”

  Her lips press tight and she looks as though she’s fighting the urge to smile, to shout hurray, to do anything to alert her mom that Uncle Jakey is on her side and totally working all the angles to get Lily the dog she so desperately needs.

  “I love you Uncle Jake.”

  “Don’t think I’m not aware of what you two are up to,” Rachel says. She now stands right beside us. “Dogs take time and energy and I have neither, okay?”

  We both look at Rachel and nod our false agreement. Yeah, because Uncle Jakey is on the case.

  Minnie Mouse pancakes finished, Lily slides from her spot at the table and grabs me with both arms and hugs me tight. This. These hugs. My god. They saved me before, made me whole, kept me sane, and they can save me again, because right now I have zero fucks left to give, and that includes even the ones involving the word Wonder. Yeah, the women in my life make me a better man. At least three of them do.

  Lily skips from the kitchen and back toward the cartoons booming from the TV in the living room.

  “They’ll have a spot for Mom soon,” Rachel says once Lily has exited the kitchen. “The place we looked at last month.” Her voice contains far less excitement than when she discussed Wonderfuck.

  “How can they know that?”

  Rachel lifts a brow. “People don’t generally move out of those places.”

  My throat tightens.

  “One of their residents is ill and they really don’t see a recovery happening.”

  My heart squeezes. I don’t want a place for Mom other than our childhood home, but I do know that this is exactly what Mom needs.

  “I thought we could start going through the things in the house.”

  “Or you could shove a sharp stick in my eye.”

  “Either one. Going through the house will mean less blood.”

  “Says you.”

  I’m uncertain that going through the familial detritus of our entire lives will cause less bloodletting than actually poking out my eye. Sifting through remnants of our childhood might be more painful. “Could we hire someone to do it?”

  “Sure. Can you make an accurate list of all the pictures, trophies, yearbooks et. al that you’d like to keep?”

  “Did you just use et. al. in a sentence?”

  “I most certainly did. I’m a judge. Answer the question.”

  “Taking the fifth.”

  “You can’t hire someone to do everything for you.” She glances at her phone. “But according to Tara’s article you can’t even hire someone to give you the best sex of your life,” Rachel says. “For that, you’ve got to find this guy, but hey, then it’s free.”

  I put my coffee cup in the dishwasher. I can’t discuss Tara, and I most certainly will not discuss Wonderfuck with my sister.

  “Guess that’ll make it hard for Vice to get any charges against this guy.”

  I can’t quite swallow. I turn back toward Rachel. “Vice?”

  Rachel nodes. “It’s what I hear. This article is waaaay too much for our illustrious state’s attorney. Seems like they’re already coordinating a sting operation. Wouldn’t want to be this guy.”

  “But his services are free,” I say. “No money exchanges hands.”

  “Right. And I hope it’s true, but they’re concerned it’s not. Just telling you the rumors I hear. They’re looking for this guy.” Rachel sighs. “Which means I won’t get to.” She smiles. “Unless he ends up in my courtroom.”

  My gut churns. God, no. Please don’t let that happen. I round the corner to say goodbye to Lily, who is sucked into My Little Pony.

  “I love you Uncle Jake.”

  “I love you too, bug.”

  She slides from my arms and plops back onto the couch with her soft mermaid blanket.

  “Wednesday,” Rachel says, and lifts an eyebrow. “You, me, and Mom at the house.”

  I nod, not nearly convinced that a stick wouldn’t be better.

  Chapter 37

  The elevator doors slide open on my floor and my phone beeps.

  ‘We need to talk.’

  The text isn’t a surprise, but the fact that the words show up on my personal phone instead of my Wonderfuck phone is. The text is from a number that isn’t connected to a name, but I’ve seen this number hundreds of times. I know exactly who wants to chat with me.

  ‘Anytime.’ I type back.

  She sends me a time and a place. After all our time together we’ve never gone out to
dinner. We may cause a scene. Her with the billion dollar business, and me, Mr. Wonderful-eligible bachelor-with-loads-of-cash, even if I do sport a tragic backstory. Hell, I’m more attractive to some women because of the tragic backstory.

  I walk down the hall to my condo. I was determined to sell my place, but now? Now I’m unsure. I glance across the hallway. Tara’s place appears abandoned. Now that she isn’t moving, will she keep her condo?

  I open my front door.

  Woof. Woof.

  Two paws land on my thighs and a slurpy wet smile greets me with a lick on my hand. I glance toward the balcony.

  I always glance toward the balcony.

  Tara paces in the living room. “You’re an asshole.”

  I pat Jango, knowing that Tara’s pup does not share her mistress’s opinion of me. I curb my tongue because after Tara’s betrayal I have some choice adjectives I’d like to hurl her way, but I don’t do that. I don’t hurl anything, adjectives or otherwise, at women.

  My heart races. My hands clench and unclench. Tara’s betrayed me and now she’s in my home calling me an asshole.

  I walk into the kitchen and set my keys on the counter. I open the refrigerator and grab a beer. I pop the top and turn toward the woman that I love and prepare to hear what she has to say, which apparently, from her demeanor, won’t include the words ‘I’m sorry.’

  “You are an asshole,” she says again.

  “Yeah, I heard that part when I walked in.”

  I got nothing to add if that’s all Tara has to say. I tilt my beer to my lips and head toward the back of my condo. I’ve got work and a computer and a ton of stuff to do that doesn’t include Tara repeating the same four words all evening. She’s behind me all the way down the hallway to my bedroom.

  “Did you hear me?”

  I glance at her. I nod.

  “Well don’t you care?”

  I shake my head no. It’s a lie. The calm, cool, nonchalance is the biggest fucking lie I’m telling myself because I do care. I love her. I hate her. I’m nearly destroyed by her.

  My insides burn.

  Heat pulses through me. The desire to throw this beer bottle against the wall tears through me. To get in Tara’s face and tell her just exactly how she broke my fucking heart, how she used me, and betrayed me, and fucked me over. How my grip on sanity is tenuous at best, and she didn’t have the right to throw me over the edge into this fucking shit show. Because not only did she betray me and cheapen what we have, she took away the thing that’s been keeping me sane.