Billionaires and Bad Boys: The Complete 7-Book Box Set

by Nikki Chase

  “Oh, no, Ashley is the one who has chosen not to have a relationship with Penny.”

  That’s definitely not what I’ve heard. From my research, Ashley has been fighting to get custody over Penny. She’s been all over TV, talking about how a mother deserves to be with her daughter.

  Why would she go through all that, if she doesn’t want to have a relationship with Penny?

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Ethan says. “I know what Ashley has been telling people. But like I said, she’s a liar. She has visitation rights, but she has probably only seen Penny once or twice a year since the divorce.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I say.

  “It used to bother Penny so much.” Ethan tenses his jaw in anger, gritting his teeth. “She’d wait and wait for Ashley to show up, only to get disappointed again.

  “It took Penny a few years to learn not to expect anything from her mom,” Ethan says, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tight his knuckles are turning white.

  “That must’ve been hard,” I say, remembering the prompts I learned in journalism school, the questions and phrases to say to keep the interviewee talking. Ethan may be my enemy, but as an objective reporter of facts, I have to listen to his side of the story, too.

  “It was. And I was working even harder than I do today, building my business without knowing if it was ever going to pay off. I’d work my ass off at the office, and then I’d pick up Penny from daycare at the end of the day and watch her all night.”

  “Sounds exhausting.”

  “Yeah, I never got much sleep.” Ethan chuckles. Evidently, even those dark days have their happy moments, too.

  We’re sitting in the hottest restaurant in town, a swanky place called Fable.

  The walls are covered with a realistic wallpaper that visually transports us to the woods. The dim, warm lighting makes it feel like we’re camping outdoors, except everyone is dressed to impress. It’s like a secret party in an enchanted forest.

  Despite the whimsical décor, the restaurant takes food seriously. They only source fresh, local ingredients, and the menu changes depending on what’s in season.

  As far as I know, eating here costs as much as I used to make in a week. And even if I could afford it, they’re usually booked solid for months in advance.

  “How did you get a reservation at such short notice?” I ask.

  “I know the owner. We’ve been talking about him opening a branch at the new mall we’re building downtown.”

  Aside from a few tense minutes at the beginning of the night, we’ve been talking about light, unimportant things. I still can’t quite believe that Ashley could do the things that Ethan has accused her of doing, but Ethan doesn’t seem like he wants to talk about it either.

  Ethan seems distracted. Maybe he finds me boring. I don’t know, but he’s been staring off into the distance a lot. He doesn’t even realize that women are looking at him, stealing glances when they think their men aren’t looking.

  If nothing else, Ethan Hunter is an excellent date to have if you’re trying to impress your girlfriends. He always looks so put together.

  Tonight, he’s dapper in a tailored navy-blue suit with a thin, black satin lapel. He wears a crisp white shirt underneath and a black bow tie. The light of the candle on the table dances and flickers, makes his eyes look dark and shining at the same time.

  “I hope…” Ethan’s sentence hangs in the air. He’s taking a deep breath, like he’s weighing the pros and cons of finishing it.

  “Yeah?” I ask. When he remains pensive, I add, “You can’t start to say something and then not say it.”

  “It’s nothing. I just hope that you don’t take what Ashley said seriously. You can trust me. I want you to know that.”

  “Okay.”

  As if I’m just going to take your word for it, I think to myself. He may be my husband legally, but I’ve never trusted him from the beginning because I know what he’s done.

  And the worst part? Technically, Ethan has never done anything illegal, so nobody could get some kind of compensation from him. Also, nobody dares to challenge him in court because he can hire the dream team of legal professionals.

  When your enemy is someone like Ethan Hunter, you can’t have too many allies. He’s too powerful. I understand why Ashley has chosen to team up with someone else.

  “I know it’s a weird thing to say, but I’m not… I mean, I’m sorry she called you ‘the younger model.’ I just want you to know that it’s not like that at all,” Ethan says.

  “I know. I was there when the idea for whole thing was hatched in Penny’s mind. I know you didn’t even have anything to do with it.” I cut into my cake and give him a smile.

  It’s so sweet of him to worry about how I feel, I almost forget we’re not on an actual date.

  It’s remarkable that the other diners don’t realize that we’re not a real couple, that we’re only here so people can snap pictures of us sharing a meal together.

  I realize it’s illogical, but I feel like they should be able to tell. Apparently, a business suit and a dress are enough to camouflage ourselves as one of them.

  “Ashley was the one who left me,” Ethan says without my prompting. Ethan’s muscles tense from remembering painful memories. He takes a sip of his wine and says, “Ashley took Penny with her when she left. Penny never liked living with her, but I never had any reason to suspect Ashley of any wrongdoing.

  “Then I looked into it, and found Ashley had been basically fucking her way down the list of the country club members, trying to find herself a sugar daddy. She never managed to catch any big fish, though,” Ethan chuckles bitterly.

  “I didn’t really care who she slept with, but she frequently left Penny alone at home while she went out to party. And she often invited these men home, where my daughter was. That was unacceptable.”

  “Why did you let Ashley take Penny with her?” I have to admit that even though Ethan’s story is wildly different from Ashley’s version, it’s not any more far-fetched than anything she has said. I wonder who’s telling the truth.

  “Let’s just say I wasn’t in any condition to take care of a child.” Ethan’s lips form a small smile, while his eyes cloud over with regret. “So I cleaned up my act and started to work hard so I could get Penny back.

  “In the process, I got involved with some bad guys. I managed to keep them at bay, but now they’re using Ashley to get to me.

  “Bad guys?” I need some clarification on that. To be honest, this whole time, Ethan has been the bad guy in my mind. So who could be worse than him?

  “Yeah, well, I was young and I had no clue how to do this whole business thing yet, so I tried a lot of things and failed at a lot of things.” Ethan says vaguely.

  “My biggest mistake, though, was to work with a man called Lucas Murdoch. He was—is—a developer who took care of buying the land, clearing it, and building a mall on it. His company is called Primaland; it’s pretty big so you may have heard of it.”

  I shake my head. I’ve never heard of Primaland in my whole life, even though I’ve been researching Ethan’s past for months.

  “I was under a lot of pressure from my investors to keep costs down. And Lucas was known for his low prices in both acquisition and construction. So I decided to work with him. I didn’t realize until it was too late that he didn’t only use persuasion when he was trying to get people to sell their land.”

  “What did you do?” I’ve put my fork on the table. Sitting on the edge of my seat, I listen intently to Ethan’s story. I’m finally getting the information I need to make sense of it all. The gears in my brain turn rapidly, trying to piece together a new narrative based on his side of the story.

  “I fired him, of course. It wouldn’t have been right to keep him on board after he did something like that. What kind of a message would I be sending to my other employees?” Ethan asks rhetorically. “Sure, I needed money to get Penny back, but I knew I could do that ev
en without Lucas Murdoch, and without compromising my brand.”

  To my surprise, Ethan’s paints himself as a pretty decent person in his stories. It sounds like he handles his problems calmly and fairly, doing his best despite the challenges life throws at him.

  Is he just viewing his own actions through rose-tinted glasses? Or have I been wrong about Ethan this whole time?

  Have I spent eight years believing a lie?

  Ethan

  “I’m sorry. I got carried away. I must be boring you with these old stories.” I realize I’ve been babbling on my own, while Megan has just been listening to me. At least she looks like she’s listening to me, but maybe she’s just being polite.

  “No, not at all.” She smiles sweetly, making me want to grab her, lean her down on my arm, and claim those lips with my mouth. I still can’t get over how fucking beautiful she looks tonight.

  “I don’t know why I went on and on like that. I don’t usually talk that much.” It’s true; I surprise myself by how comfortable I feel around Megan. Without even realizing it, I put my guard down and start telling her stuff.

  There’s something about this girl, although I can’t quite put a finger on it. I can’t come up with the words to explain it. It’s just something I feel in my guts.

  “Tell me something about yourself, Megan.” I’m done talking now; it’s her turn.

  “Uh, what do you want to know?” Megan asks, obviously uncomfortable with the spotlight on her.

  How could she not be used to being the center of attention, though, when she’s been turning heads since we stepped out of the car? Everyone from the valet to the diner across the restaurant wants another glimpse of my girl—my wife. Well, sorry everyone, she’s all mine.

  This marriage may have started out as just a ploy to get the media off my back, but I don’t know how to feel anymore now.

  It makes me happy when I think about how, even if she’s not my real wife, she won’t date other men while we’re still legally married.

  That’s a part of the agreement, because obviously we can’t risk her getting caught having a rendezvous with some guy. That could lead to a scandal bigger than what we’re avoiding right now.

  But that’s not the only reason I’m glad that clause exists anymore.

  “Tell me about your family. Are you close with your parents?” I ask.

  “Me and my mom, we’re okay. My dad…” Megan’s voice trails off. She inhales deeply and says, “I haven’t seen my dad in eight years.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” I say. She looks so sad and fragile that I want to pull her into my arms and cover her in bubble wrap so she doesn’t get scratched or broken. I smile at her and say, “I know you signed a non-disclosure agreement, but did you tell your mom about the fake marriage?”

  “Oh, no, I wouldn’t tell her about this,” she says, a little too quickly.

  Realizing she might not want to tell me she’s leaking my secret, I add, “I promise it’s fine, as long as she doesn’t tell anyone else. I get that you may want to tell the people close to you. Penny knows all about it, so it’s only fair that your family knows, too.”

  “No, it’s not that,” she says, not meeting my gaze.

  “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about, really. I just didn’t tell her about it. That’s it,” she insists. She thinks she’s being sly, but it’s obvious she’s keeping a secret.

  She fidgets with her hair and bites her bottom lip—nervous tells that I haven’t seen much at the dinner table over the past week. Somehow, this topic is making her uneasy.

  It’s okay if she doesn’t want to talk. It only makes her seem more mysterious and more desirable to me.

  At least I know she’s not desperate to be with any man who flashes her some money. Just that fact alone already makes her a better potential partner than most women I’ve met.

  I’m a patient man. I can wait. But I also always get what I want.

  I wanted lots of money and I got it.

  I wanted my daughter back and I got her.

  Now I want Megan and I’ll get her, too, sooner or later.

  “I had a wonderful time,” I say when the elevator door opens to my apartment—or our apartment, I should say.

  “Yeah, I bet those photographers managed to take lots of pictures, huh?” Megan giggles as we step into the living room.

  “I don’t give a fuck about the photographers.”

  Megan widens her big blue eyes and stares at me.

  I don’t know if she’s surprised by my cursing or by my lack of concern about the photos, considering they’re the main reason we went out in the first place. But sometimes, things take on a life of their own and you can only improvise and see how they turn out.

  “All I care about is you right now,” I say. Trapping Megan’s gaze, I take one step closer. I’m invading her personal space now. I’ll leave her alone if she wants me to, but she’s not telling me to go away.

  It’s dark in the living room, with only one small table lamp turned on. Outside, the city still buzzes with activity, the bright lights overpowering the darkness of the night. It’s quiet here, though, thirty floors above the ground.

  With nobody else in the house, there’s no one to see us, or to hear us. We can do anything we want. Nobody’s going to stop us.

  Hell, Megan is my wife. The things that I want to do to her, all the dirty images in my mind—not even society or religion would object to me turning them into reality.

  So it’s all down to this beautiful, mysterious creature standing in front of me. What does she want?

  I put one hand on the side of her smooth, creamy neck. It looks so long and graceful with her hair put up. I’ve stared at it—and the rest of her—all night, and I can’t take it anymore.

  Megan just looks up at me, her lips parted, as if ready to take me. She doesn’t say anything, but her breathing gets quicker and shallower. The veins on her neck throb rapidly, along with the beating of her heart. I like knowing I have this kind of an effect on her.

  As I lean in, she tilts her head to the side and her eyelids flutter close. I don’t need any more encouragement. Running my own business has taught me that opportunities need to be seized when they arise, because they don’t always come twice.

  Her lips are soft, full, and delicate. I let out a sigh, releasing the pressure in my chest that has been building up all night.

  She tastes good—sweet and sensual and feminine. My cock stirs in my pants, reacting to the raw sexual energy swirling around us, taking us both for a wild ride.

  I run my hand down her back and press on the small of her back, pulling her to me. I trace her lips with my tongue and she opens up for me, eager and pliant. She’s asking for more.

  That’s it; I’m not going to hold back anymore.

  I cup the back of her head and tug her close, grabbing her hair with my hand, messing up her updo. I sweep inside, plundering her mouth, taking possession of her body.

  I nibble on her lips, and she lets out an adorable little gasp. She whimpers as she gives herself to me. Arching her back, she pushes her lips back against mine and presses her tits against my chest.

  Her chest is heaving from the heavy, irregular breathing. Her hands clamp onto my arms, holding on tight. She wants more. I do, too.

  I move my hand to the top of her back, where I find the zipper of her dress. I start to pull it down, eager to see the delicious figure she’s hiding underneath.

  Suddenly, Megan jerks away. Putting both her palms on my chest, she pushes away.

  “Sorry, I can’t. We shouldn’t.” Without further explanation, she slinks into her room, her high heels click-clacking sharply and rapidly on the floor.

  And here I thought I was about to get lucky tonight. I’m already stretching the fabric of my pants with my raging hard-on, which is starting to throb with excitement.

  I’ll have to take a cold shower. Or I’ll jerk myself off w
hile fantasizing about things going differently than it just did.

  It’s okay, though. I can tell she wants me, too. It’s just a matter of time now.

  She’s already my wife. Now it’s time to make her my girlfriend, as well.

  Megan

  “Do you want me to read you a story tonight?” Ethan asks as Penny gets up from the couch and makes her way to her bedroom.

  “I’m not five, Dad.” Penny rolls her eyes.

  “Okay, just thought I’d ask.” Ethan gives me a look. “Can you believe this? The attitude on her. She’s not even a teenager yet.”

  I can’t help but laugh. It’s adorable how Ethan and Penny interact. I’m seeing a very different side of Ethan. He’s not at all like how he is at the office.

  “She’s a good kid,” I say.

  I like Penny’s sass, and there’s another big reason why I’m glad she’s around.

  After the kiss last night, I don’t know how to act around Ethan. But she removes the awkwardness and breaks the tension.

  Even when she’s not around, like right now, I find it easier to talk to Ethan because we can focus on her, rather than whatever this is that’s going on between us.

  “To be honest, I don’t even know what she reads these days,” Ethan says.

  “If she’s anything like I was at that age, she’s probably more into pictures of boys in magazines than storybooks anyway.”

  Ethan grimaces, and I laugh at his expression. We’re still sitting in the living room with the TV on, but neither one of us is paying attention to the sitcom rerun anymore.

  I hear laugh tracks occasionally, but I can’t pay attention to the TV and Ethan at the same time. It takes everything in me to have something resembling a normal interaction with him.

  It feels like there’s a big distance between us, even though we’re only a few feet apart, sitting on couches arranged around the same coffee table. Maybe I just want him closer, like he was last night.