by Lori Ryan
The Billionaire’s
Suite Dreams
Sutton Capital Series,
Book Five
Lori Ryan
Copyright 2014, Cara Shannon.
All rights reserved.
This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
This version was created for publication via Smashwords.
Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for continuing to read the Sutton Capital Series. This is the first series I wrote when I started this journey two years ago and it will always be special to me. I hope it’s special to you, too! If you do love it, please feel free to loan the book to someone you think would love it. You can also tell a friend or leave a review on any retailer. All of these things are so crucial to helping new writers find an audience, and believe me, I am grateful every time someone does something like this on my behalf.
I love to hear from readers. Please connect with me on Facebook or Twitter or get in touch through my website at www.LoriRyanRomance.com. I can’t wait to hear from you!
~~Lori
Contents
Chapter One 5
Chapter Two 8
Chapter Three 16
Chapter Four 18
Chapter Five 20
Chapter Six 26
Chapter Seven 34
Chapter Eight 40
Chapter Nine 45
Chapter Ten 49
Chapter Eleven 55
Chapter Twelve 57
Chapter Thirteen 65
Chapter Fourteen 72
Chapter Fifteen 78
Chapter Sixteen 83
Chapter Seventeen 86
Epilogue 91
Chapter One
PJ Cantrell laughed and waved her arm over her head one more time for the crowd before stepping off the stage. She would change in her dressing room and take a few minutes to catch her breath, then head out to the side stage door to sign a few autographs. She tried to meet with a few fans after each show, thanking them for coming out to see her—but it took only a minute for her to realize that wouldn’t be happening tonight.
Her tour manager, Lydia White, met her backstage and immediately shuffled her toward her dressing room with more urgency than usual. Lydia was always tightly wound, but this was different. They were flanked by Lydia’s assistant—who also happened to be her younger brother—Ellis and PJ’s security detail, Carl and Jeff.
“What’s going on, Lydia?” PJ asked, glancing over her shoulder and spotting Ellis’s concern. He wasn’t very good at masking his feelings and he looked especially distressed.
“Let’s get you to the dressing room first,” Lydia murmured as they rounded the corner.
Ellis stood behind her. “It’ll be all right, PJ. It’ll blow over quickly, I’m sure,” he said, earning a scowl from Lydia. Ellis had a one-sided crush on PJ, but he was endearing and completely devoted. PJ had already recognized his importance on her team in the six months he’d been with them, even though an outsider might not see it right away given his lapdog-like devotion.
“It’s Kirt Tolleson,” Lydia said as she pressed an iPad into PJ’s hands.
PJ groaned and rolled her eyes. “What happened? I thought the media never picked up on the fact that he was ‘technically’ still dating me when he started dating his groupie?” She had managed to forget about most of her horrifying breakup with the lead singer of Visceral Bond last year. She hadn’t been in love with Kirt, so his betrayal had been more embarrassing than hurtful, but at least it had stayed quiet at the time. No one had known he’d actually gone straight from her bed—quite literally—and into his groupie’s on a routine basis, completely fooling PJ the entire time.
“Debra is already working on getting this taken down. By the time you wake up tomorrow, we’ll have it spun––” Lydia said, but PJ wasn’t listening. She knew her manager, Debra Manning, would be in her Los Angeles office no matter how late it was, working to handle this for her. It’s what she did.
PJ stared at the screen and watched as Kirt Tolleson listened to a reporter read an entry from PJ’s journal. Her very private journal that no one should have been able to get their hands on. She heard her words, her embarrassing words about the first time they’d slept together, being read for all the world to hear. Then her words when she found out about the breakup. How humiliated she’d felt. How ticked off she’d been when the betrayal became apparent. All of the details about his cheating, how she’d discovered the other woman’s underpants in his pocket one night after a show, the way he’d laughed at her when she confronted him, calling her nothing more than a cheap piece of ass he could get anywhere—all of it.
She watched as Kirt flushed when they asked him about the ‘indiscretion.’ So far, the interview didn’t seem that bad. She came out looking better than him, at least. But, what really had her panicking was the fact that they had her journal—or, at the very least, parts of it. This cannot be happening. PJ swallowed hard and tried to focus on the interview on the screen.
“PJ is a really wonderful girl and is still a good friend,” he said to the camera, his arm slung around the same groupie he’d cheated with. He turned away from the camera and walked off, but the video kept going for several seconds. And then PJ heard it.
A mic somewhere on one of the cameras had picked up his next comment to his new girlfriend. It was fuzzy and poor quality, but the words were unmistakable. “A little needy and sort of like screwing a dead fish, but a nice girl.”
“I’m sorry, PJ,” Ellis was saying. Lydia snapped at Ellis to be quiet, and then continued on about spinning and publicity and twisting the story to show Kirt and his girlfriend as shallow and heartless, and PJ as the victim. PJ gave a weak smile and nod to Ellis, knowing Lydia’s biting ways often hurt him. Lydia was intense and could be difficult to deal with, but she was damn good at her job. She took care of everything for all of them on tour, and they couldn’t function without her. They all made concessions because of it. In reality, Ellis and Lydia were both equally as devoted to PJ and her career; they simply acted on that in very different ways, with very different personalities.
But, right now PJ couldn’t worry about Ellis’s feelings. Her mind whirled.
She could handle Kirt’s comments. She’d grown a thick skin in this industry, and a few embarrassing words couldn’t do very much to damage her.
But, that wasn’t what had her hands shaking and her chest feeling like someone had it in a vice, twisting the breath from her body. No, it was the knowledge that someone had gotten into her private journal that sent PJ’s heart pounding. She knew what else was in that journal. Did they have the whole thing? Did they know everything? PJ blinked as she fought back tears. That journal could not get out.
She didn’t listen to the rest of the interview as her mind raced back to the last time she’d written in her journal. Two nights ago, and she was absolutely positive she’d put it away when she was finished.
“I’m going back to the hotel,” she said as she handed the iPad to Ellis and grabbed her bag. She didn’t want to face anyone else. She glanced at her phone and saw several missed calls from her parents. They might be her parents and she knew they loved her, but they’d already dealt with a lot when she’d been younger. Now this? Hearing about their daughter’s sex life in excruciating detail?
No. She didn’t want to talk to them right now. And, she n
eeded to find out how bad this was. She needed to know if that journalist had the whole journal or just a piece of it. Her bodyguards, Carl and Jeff, helped her slip out of the building and bundled her into her car.
She sank into the welcoming softness of the leather seat and took a deep breath, bracing herself as Carl shut the door. He would follow in a large SUV while Jeff sat in the front seat with her driver. Both men were silent as they pulled out of the secured parking garage and onto the city street. Most likely, they knew she was in no mood to talk to anyone after the night’s events.
When PJ’s career as one of the youngest country singers in the United States—and then one of the biggest crossover pop singers in the world—took off at the age of fifteen, she’d had a short time when she struggled with alcohol addiction and a spiraling private life, but she’d since cleaned herself up. Now, most people said she handled the spotlight better than most stars. At twenty-nine, she was a lot better equipped to deal with the pressures than she had been at fifteen.
But, tonight had pushed those boundaries. Before the car had gone two blocks, PJ had seen her journal words on Facebook posts, in tweets, every site she pulled up on her iPhone. Private clips with personal details about their intimate relationship….
PJ’s hands shook as she pushed the button to engage the privacy panel between the driver’s seat and the passenger area before opening the small Coach bag she carried with her everywhere. She swiped aside her tears as she felt inside the lining of her bag, but she already knew she wouldn’t find it. The USB drive, designed to look like a tube of lipstick, was no longer tucked into the tear in the lining of her bag. It was gone.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the cool seat. She hadn’t been stupid. She’d never kept her journal on paper, never kept it on her computer or stored it in a cloud drive. She wasn’t an idiot. She had very little privacy in her world, and she knew the chances of someone finding her journal if she kept it online or on her laptop were too great. But, she never thought anyone would actually find the hidden drive.
Even if someone spotted it, they would have thought it was an old lipstick, and she’d never told anyone it was there.
She’d gotten used to keeping the journal in rehab and had never given up the habit. It was her respite, her outlet for things that couldn’t even go into her songs. Things she couldn’t tell anyone. And, now it was out there.
She tried not to panic as she thought about all that was in the journal, all of the private details that whoever had taken it would be able to sell. Lord knows, they’d probably made a ton selling the entries about Kirt to JMZ’s Celebrity News, the station that seemed to be the originating point for the Kirt Tolleson interview tonight. What would they be able to sell the rest of it for? And, did she have any hope of getting it back before they did?
PJ swiped at the rest of her tears, hoping her mascara wasn’t running down her cheeks. She gazed out the window at the traffic that kept the town car moving at a crawl as it made its way to her hotel. She’d have to call soon. She’d have to warn her Aunt Susie and Uncle Brian about what might be released. They’d need to prepare Matthew.
Chapter Two
Gabe Sawyer was in as foul a mood as he’d ever been. He stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined one wall of his hotel suite, providing a view of the New York City skyline that was just one of the things that had made his hotels famous. The opulence that surrounded him was nothing but the best—furnishings with rich fabrics and textures that screamed lavish and wrapped visitors in luxury and comfort. The off-white tones with deep garnet and orange accents added to the beauty of the room and matched the flowers that graced vases strategically placed throughout the suite.
His cell phone rang, drawing his attention away from the ice cubes melting in the glass of whiskey on the glass end table beside him.
Caller ID showed Jack Sutton was calling….
Gabe and Jack had been friends for years, and he was one of the few people Gabe talked to when he was in the kind of mood he was in tonight. They’d talked a lot lately, trying to figure out the next direction Gabe should take with Grand Hotels. He’d built his luxury line of hotels first fifteen years ago, with a large chunk of the start-up money coming from Sutton Capital, Jack’s company. Grand Towers was now established as one of the elite five-star hotels with locations across the country and around the globe. Each hotel had dual towers with luxury penthouse suites in the ten-thousand-dollar per night range. He stood in one now and watched the New York skyline through his window.
After he’d made his name with the Towers, he'd ventured into executive suites for long-term stays, creating Grand Garden Suites. This was followed shortly after with Family Grand Hotels—a chain targeting families with family-friendly pricing and destinations. And now, he was bored. Bored and—though he hated to admit it—done. He’d set out to do what he had planned with his hotel chains: bury himself in work to forget the falling apart of his family and to create the largest chain of hotels across the country. But what now?
Where did you go when you realized your entire life had been focused on work and business? What did he do now that it just wasn’t enough? He’d even asked his friend.
Jack hadn’t had any answers for him, other than to tell him he’d help find buyers if Gabe wanted out. Well, that and to encourage Gabe to find the right girl, settle down and have kids like Jack—but Gabe had a feeling that wasn’t exactly in the cards for him. Then again, a few years ago, who would have thought it would be for Jack?
“Hey, Jack,” he said into the phone.
“Wow, you sound like shit, Gabe.”
This brought a bark of laughter from Gabe. “Thanks, man. So nice of you not only to notice, but to point it out.”
“More of the same?” Jack asked.
“Yeah.” Gabe paused. “I think I’m done, Jack. I do want out.”
The line was quiet for a minute, and he could picture his friend leaning back in his chair, his expression inscrutable.
“Good. I think that’s good,” Jack said, surprising the hell out of Gabe.
“I thought you’d tell me to wait, not to sell. That my hotels were everything to me.”
“Are they?” Jack asked.
Now it was Gabe’s turn to be quiet.
“No. Not anymore,” he finally said. “I thought for a while there I might start a new chain or something, but….” He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to. He knew Jack understood.
“But you’re finished,” Jack said, reading Gabe’s mind.
“Yeah. I am.”
“All right. I’ve got a few groups that would be interested in buying you out. I don’t think there’s any single investor ready to take over your majority share, but I’ve got some ideas. Let me make some calls and I’ll get back to you in a few days.”
“Thanks, Jack. I appreciate it,” Gabe said, refusing to question whether he was doing the right thing. He still had no idea what he’d do once the deal was done. He didn’t actually need to work, but the idea of retiring and sitting on his ass at the age of thirty-nine didn’t appeal either.
“And I may have an idea for a new project for you,” Jack said, his tone cryptic.
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
Jack Sutton was known for having the Midas touch, and he was also always trying something new and interesting—which was exactly what Gabe needed. He couldn’t imagine he’d want to pass up anything Jack offered.
“I’ll tell you about it the next time I see you. You coming home for Maddie’s birthday party?” Jack asked.
“Of course,” he said and a grin found its way to his face before he realized it. No matter what was going on in his life, the mention of Jack and Kelly’s two-year-old daughter always brought a smile to his face. “I’ll arrive in town sometime tomorrow morning. I’ll see you guys Saturday.”
“Great. I think she’s expecting you to buy her a pony,” Jack joked. Gabe knew perfectly well Kelly would kill him if he spoiled Madd
ie that much. Besides, you didn’t buy two-year-olds ponies, did you?
Gabe laughed and holding his cell to his ear, stepped out onto the terrace that overlooked New York City. The night air was warm, having only dropped a few degrees when the sun slipped out of sight beneath the horizon that evening. He leaned against the edge of the railing about to press Jack for more details about his mysterious project, when noise from below drew his attention.
“Hey, Jack, I gotta go—I’ll see you Saturday,” he said and disconnected.
Gabe looked down on the front entrance of the hotel. The paparazzi were hawking the door. Gabe had expected that tonight, with PJ arriving, but he had to be honest, he hadn’t expected quite the number he saw jockeying for position on the sidewalk outside the hotel.
What the hell? Three more of the vulture-like paps had just walked up.
Gabe grabbed his iPhone and punched PJ’s name into a search engine then scanned the top headlines…. He bit back a curse when the news flashed on the small screen. He didn’t have to watch much of the video to know why the scumbags waited at the hotel entrance to get at her tonight. Kirt Tolleson was a dirtbag who had cheated on PJ like the idiot that he was. Gabe couldn’t imagine another man on the planet who’d be willing to walk away from PJ Cantrell. An asshat like Kirt Tolleson had never deserved PJ in the first place.
When Gabe had asked PJ about it shortly after the breakup appeared in the news, she’d been good and ticked off. But this? Having the public see her humiliation…. Gabe knew she had to be reeling from this.
Movement on the street below pulled Gabe’s attention back to the front entrance and he watched as PJ’s car pulled up to the curb. The driver stayed in the car while one bodyguard stepped from the front of the car and opened the back door. Where the hell was her other bodyguard? Gabe hoped to see him appear from the back, but no. Only PJ stepped out.