by Lexi Aurora
I tried to distract myself by going through the paperwork from the other sales in the neighborhood, noting there were only three more buildings to sign contracts on, including the bakery. That deal was different, though, because of the complications that my lawyer had come across. A few more steps I’d have to take, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I had closed on most of the deals myself—though other men of my position in the company would gladly hand over those meetings to other employees, I had always been hands-on with my business and always would be. I liked the thrill of the negotiation, the feeling of taking over a place piece by piece until the land was mine to do with as I pleased. It was like playing a game, developing something new in a place that hadn’t been revitalized in too long. The phone rang and I picked it up off my desk.
“How’d it go, Reid?” It was Allan Dane, my lead investor. He was anxious to get the project started. “Did you get it done?”
“The Ruske property is complicated, Allan. I’m trying to find a way to do it simply—that takes time.”
“Bullshit. It’s not complicated, but you are insisting on making it complicated. A contract is a contract, and if people don’t keep up their end, there’s a price to pay. That’s business.”
“Business indeed, but these are people’s lives here. I just need two more days and it will all be taken care of.”
“Fine. I’ll give you one day, and then I’m taking it into my own hands. Me and the other investors are losing money every day you pussyfoot around the issue here.”
“I’ll get it done,” I said before I realized he had already hung up. Allan was an old friend of mine but a shrewd businessman. I knew he was serious and so I’d have to get my part done by tomorrow.
I went home early that day, deciding to spend the night alone instead of calling a friend or a girl to come over and keep me company. My head was spinning with the numbers, thinking about the project, Sloane, the bakery. I spent the night reading but couldn’t really focus on my book. I was too distracted, so I got dressed at around midnight and went for a run around my neighborhood, allowing the chilly air to clear my thoughts and prepare me for the next few days of getting through the contracts.
Keep reading Bought Out By The Billionaire – it is available online, check Lexi Aurora’s author page for its availability.
PREVIEW: Keeping Secrets from the Billionaire by Lexi Aurora
Chapter One- Julie
The red neon light for the motel was going bad. It buzzed and blinked all night long, turning my dingy two-bedroom room into a disco party. Tyler had danced himself into exhaustion, but then, that kid could sleep through anything. It was a blessing that he’d been a quiet baby, or I probably would have fallen apart. While I couldn’t even begin to imagine my life without him, the circumstances of his birth hadn’t exactly been the highlight of my life.
When morning came, I dragged my exhausted, sweaty self out of bed and into the shower. The water was as cold as the air was hot, but even the lack of hot water and air conditioning wasn’t enough for me to try to find somewhere else to live. With my budget, the fact that the place was relatively bug-free and came with a mini-kitchen was more than I could ask for.
“Baby, are you up?” I called out as I brushed my wet, strawberry-blonde hair into a ponytail. With a four-year-old son to chase after and very little money, I didn’t bother with make-up. It’d simply melt off anyway. I’d made my way to California thinking I could raise my son in warm and sunny climates, but Las Pameros was mostly desert, and the sun baked everything in its path.
“Momma, did you get some blueberry Pop-Tarts? I think I’d like some blueberry Pop-Tarts.” My ever-so polite son rubbed his eyes as he walked into the bathroom and stared at me. With his blue eyes and blond hair, he was almost the spitting image of his father.
Pretending to think it over, I narrowed my eyes and studied him. “If I remember correctly, I told you yesterday that I would only get some blueberry Pop-Tarts if you could recite the information that I gave you.”
“My name is Tyler Garner Dennings. My mother’s name is Juliette Christie Dennings. I am four years old.” He went on to correctly announce his address and the new phone number that I’d given him to memorize since I’d lost my phone three days ago and had to get a new one. My stomach twisted as he correctly recited the number for the local police and went over the stranger danger rules. In a year, he would be five, and I’d have a decision to make. It wasn’t fair to keep moving him around when he started school, but it was also dangerous to stay in one place as well.
My kid was smart, and I wasn’t just being a biased mother. He picked up things quickly, and he absorbed everything around him. It was almost a little terrifying.
Stumbling over a few of the numbers, he righted himself and looked at me with hopeful eyes. “Well,” I declared loudly. “I think that might get you two blueberry Pop-Tarts!”
“Two!” His eyes shined with excitement, and I nodded my head as he skipped from my bathroom into the kitchen. It was a good thing that he was already ready because I was running late.
Pulling on a pair of jean shorts and a button-up plaid top, I slipped my sunglasses on my face and grabbed my things. My only friend and pretty much savior, Crystal, lived two doors down. Crystal didn’t have any kids, but she worked out of her motel room and was more than happy to keep an eye on Tyler for me while I was at work. There was some sort of unspoken rule around here about not asking people why they’d ended up at the Sunny Side Up Motel, so I never asked Crystal her story, and she never asked me mine, but I’d felt obliged to give her some details. She did look after my son, and there was always the slightest chance that his father might turn up.
Crystal was about my age, twenty-seven, with the perfect body and a gorgeous face. I couldn’t help but sigh with a little jealousy when she opened the door and her perfect rack bounced ever so slightly when she bent to give Tyler a hug. While I had those childbearing hips and an ass that I still claimed carried some baby-weight, my tits were pretty small.
Not like there was a damn thing I could do about it.
“Are you giving me half of your blueberry tart?” Crystal gasped as she accepted the gift. “Well, that’s so sweet. You must know that I have something special planned for lunch.”
“What’s that?’ Tyler asked while I whipped out my phone and connected with Crystal’s Wi-Fi. The motel internet was a joke, and Crystal had her own separate connection that she let me use.
“If I tell you, it won’t be a surprise!” Crystal looked up expectantly. “Long day ahead of you?”
I knew that she thought my job was weird, and the truth was that I knew it was a little strange myself. I needed a cash-under-the-table kind of job, and I found it when I’d answered an ad for someone to run errands. By errands, my boss basically wanted to pay me a sliver of what she made to do her job. Darleen Mason was the personal assistant for the sinfully wealthy and handsome Graham Porter, but it was obvious that Darleen wasn’t as interested in the work as she was the man. So while Mr. Porter paid her to keep his personal life organized, I was the one actually doing the work.
The truth was that it was a helluva lot better than some of the other jobs I’d done in the past, and Darleen never missed a payment.
“It looks like Darleen’s boss has a birthday coming up.” I’d signed a non-disclosure agreement, so I wasn’t allowed to say who I was working for, but Crystal knew that it was some bigwig. “I have to pick up a present for him.”
Crystal pursed her lips in disapproval. “I keep telling you, Julie. Something doesn’t smell right about this job. How do you know you’re not working for some mobster or drug kingpin?”
“You should be a writer,” I laughed. “I’m fairly certain that isn’t the case because things like that don’t happen to me. Tyler, baby, I’ve got to run. Come give me some sugar.” As always, when I left him, my emotions ran a little high, and my old Texas twang showed its ugly head. I’d worked hard to keep that accent down, but i
t popped up far more often than I would have liked.
My perfect son ran into my arms and gave me a big kiss on my cheek. I held him tight and inhaled deeply into his hair. He was the reason that I still breathed, and the reason that I was even doing all of this.
“Crystal says she’s got something special for lunch,” he whispered in my ear. “Last time she did that, we got McDonalds!”
God help me when things like McDonalds thrilled my son. I let him go and paid Crystal for the day. The damn sign for the motel was still buzzing and blinking as I started my piece-of-crap car and drove to the boutique shops on Quarter and Main.
When I first started working for her, Darleen had given me a credit card to authorize expenses. I worried that someone would ask to see some identification, but it would seem that all the employers on the strip knew Darleen by heart and were told that I wielded her card. I hated using it. While Darleen had given me a job and paid me on a regular basis, that woman had a mean streak a mile wide. She threatened hell on earth if I ever used the card for personal reasons or if I ever told her boss what was really happening. When we did meet, the woman did nothing by criticize me up and down, but I tried not to mind. After all, I wasn’t doing this for me.
I was doing it for Tyler.
Stepping into Matheson and Sons, the curio shop, my eyes immediately landed on a gorgeous wooden model ship that was encased in glass. The raw beauty of the ship spoke of someone’s love and expert craftsmanship. It was unique, and it’d make a perfect ship for Mr. Porter. Generations ago, his family had made billions off the shipping industry, and while they had their hands in different pies now, I knew from my research that Graham Porter had a thing for ships.
“My nephew carved that,” a gravelly voice said with pride. “His father would rather him be a lawyer, but it’s rare to see that kind of talent these days. If you’re interested, we can personalize the ship with a name of your choice.”
“Your nephew has a gift,” I said with a small smile. There was a time when I loved to be out on the water in a sailboat or kayak, but those days were long gone. “I’m actually here to pick up something that you’re holding for Darleen Mason?”
The hope vanished from the man’s face, and I immediately felt bad. The ship was out of place in a shop like this, and I gathered the man was having a hard time selling it. Moving slowly, the owner rounded the desk and reached under to pull out a box. When I opened it an peered inside, I immediately grimaced.
Nestled inside was the most god-awful looking statue I had ever seen. It was two lovers wrapped around each other and dipped in gold paint. If she gave that to Graham Porter, she might lose her job, and then I’d lose mine.
At least, that’s what I tried to tell myself when I made the order to have Porter Shipping personalized on the carved model ship and returned the statue. The truth was that Darleen would never know until it was too late, and then she’d never admit that the ship wasn’t her idea when she saw how happy it made her boss.
Maybe she’d even give me a raise.
I finished the errands and rearranging Mr. Porter’s schedule, and the gift was ready just before the store closed. I paid for the gift-wrap and headed home. Maybe tonight, the damn sign would be out completely, and I’d be able to get some sleep.
Chapter Two- Graham
I stared in frustration at the computer in front of me and tried not to smash it to bits. There were a million things on my to-do list, and I couldn’t remember the first one of them because my personal assistant had called in sick and failed to email me my schedule like she normally did.
Miles, my cousin, lounged in the chair across from my desk and kicked up his feet. We looked similar enough with dark hair and green eyes that he could have been my brother, but as far as personality went, we were night and day. I was reminded of that as I eyed his polished sized-thirteen shoe on my clean desk. “Don’t you have something else to do other than bug me?” I snapped. “I thought you were leaving for New York today.”
He chuckled. “Who knew that the great Graham Porter would be defeated by a computer calendar? Why don’t you just call the damn woman and ask her to email it to you? Surely a cold wouldn’t keep her from that.”
“I tried,” I muttered darkly. “I’m fairly certain that she’s getting lipo or more Botox done. She was pretty much yelling at herself while she stared in the mirror yesterday.”
My cousin shuddered. “Is there anything natural about that woman?”
Everything about Darleen Mason, from her permed, bottle-blonde hair to her bejeweled toenails were fake. I still wasn’t sure why the hell she worked for me because I wasn’t paying her nearly enough for those Double-Ds or the calf implants that she’d gotten to make her legs look shapelier. “Her eyelashes fell off the other day,” I grunted. “Why the hell do women wear fake eyelashes?”
“She’s hoping a few more surgeries might finally make her pretty enough to land you as a husband,” Miles barked with laughter. “If only she knew how much you hated gold-diggers.”
It was part of the reason that I would never settle down. Women were fun, hell, women were a necessity, but they were only good for a night or two before they started dreaming about glittering diamonds and shiny new cars, and hell would freeze over before I trusted a woman enough to deck her out in jewels.
“I’ve got it,” I said with relief when I finally found the link to the calendar. I was about to click it when a notification for an email popped up on her computer.
Calendar Changes and Birthday Present.
“Fuck,” I hissed. “I think Darleen is getting me a birthday present.”
Miles’ feet hit the ground, and he sat up in the chair. “Is it naked pictures? I’m dying to see if those things look as fake as they feel.”
Lifting an eyebrow, I stared at my cousin. “And when exactly did you feel up my personal assistant?”
“When she accidentally fell into my lap the other day,” Miles said with a frown. “I almost let her fall to avoid touching her, but I guess I’m not as big of an asshole as I’d like to be.”
“Good. Maybe she’ll start planning on marrying you instead of me,” I said absently as I opened the email. It was addressed to Darleen from some woman named Julie, and it just confirmed that my present had been retrieved, and she’d made the changes to the calendar. Suddenly sick my ass. Darleen had clearly been making arrangements to have the next few days off.
When I closed the email, I realized that there was a long thread of messages between them.
Six-months long.
Scrolling through, I felt a wave of fury. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. That stupid, lazy bitch.”
“Whoa. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Darleen has been paying someone to do her fucking work for six months. For six months, someone named Julie has been given private information about my life.” My eyes widened. “My God, Darleen gave her the notes from the investors meeting to type up.”
“You thinking its someone working on the other side or someone from the press?” Miles asked tightly. A plane accident from five years ago left Miles and me as the only two remaining Porters left, and he had as much interest in our money as I did.
“I don’t know, but I’m about to find out.” Tension built in my shoulders as I composed an email from Darleen to Julie requesting that she meet me at the house so we could discuss some private details about what I wanted her to do next.
When she emailed me back and said that she wasn’t comfortable meeting me at the house, I knew that I had her. “She must be someone that we know. I’m going to kill Darleen. I’m going to sue her for breach of contract, and then I’m going to make sure that no one who makes over twenty-thousand a year will want to fuck her.”
I shot off another email insisting that I had private financial papers that needed drafting, and I couldn’t have her do it in public. She emailed me back almost immediately agreeing.
The trap was set, and I was eager to see wh
o I was about to catch.
“I guess I’m going to need another assistant,” I growled as I slammed the laptop closed. The fake rhinestones glued to the top sparkled in the sunlight, and I had an urge to throw it out the window.
“Maybe make sure this one isn’t going to pay someone else to do the job for them,” Miles laughed.
“You think this is funny?” I demanded. “We’ve got millions tied up in this online banking company. If this Julie person really is a corporate spy, we could lose all that money.”
“That would suck,” Miles agreed. “But it’s just a few million. I think we’ll still get by. Have you made a decision about tonight?”
“You mean am I going to go out with you so you can have a shot with the triplets?” I asked as I stood and stretched. I was about to turn him down; the truth was that it had been too long since I’d had someone in my bed, their lips locked around my cock. This whole situation with Darleen had me desperate to blow off some steam.
Still, there was work that needed to be done. Regretfully, I shook my head. I needed to make sure my head was clear when I met this Julie person tomorrow, and I didn’t need another woman in my bed aiming for holy matrimony.