Millionaire Best Friend
Natasha L. Black
Copyright © 2020 by Natasha L. Black
All rights reserved.
The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Introduction
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
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
Millionaire Hero (Sample)
A Note from the Author
Books by Natasha L. Black
Connect with Natasha L. Black
Introduction
She was the one I couldn’t have,
The line I wouldn’t cross.
When I left that little town in the dust,
I never thought I’d see her again.
Maya needs me after her heart's been broken.
I can give her a place to stay, help her get back on her feet.
It’s great having her around, making her laugh, making new memories.
Temptation can change everything.
One day I’m giving an old friend a place to crash.
Next thing I know, I’m driving like hell wouldn’t have me.
To win a race for her. To see her smile when I take first place.
Sparks fly. If it means ruining our friendship, I’ll risk it.
It’s paradise until the last person I want to see shows up on my doorstep.
Now, she’s holding back.
Keeping secrets from me.
Maybe it’s about the ex that did her no good. Maybe it’s worse.
The stakes are too high to pretend nothing’s wrong.
I won’t lose her again.
Or my baby she’s carrying.
Book 5 in the Freeman Brothers series brings you Greg and Maya’s story. Millionaire Best Friend is a standalone, full-length romance with burning passion, secrets, and drama. And don't forget the HEA that makes it all worthwhile….
1
Maya
I reached into the bag of flour in front of me and grabbed another handful. Sprinkling it across the table, I plopped the mound of what I hoped would eventually become a pie crust down in the middle of it. A poof of flour rose up in the air, and I tilted back to prevent it from getting all over me.
I glanced over into the kitchen to look at the clock on the oven. Marshall would be home in about two hours. This gave me just enough time to finish up my battle with the pie crust, fill it, and get it in the oven.
With any luck, it would just be ready to slide out golden, brown, and impressive when he walked through the door. I already had a clean, fresh apron waiting to be put on so that my appearance might look effortless instead of appearing well-greased and ready for seasoning.
The whole effect was supposed to be cute. We had just moved in together a few weeks before, and I was trying to seem domestic. I wanted Marshall to come home, and see me holding a freshly baked pie. Surely, he wouldn’t be able to resist me. I had a whole scenario going on in my head, and if I could just get this crust to work out for me, it would be perfect.
I had certainly never been the sweet and demure housewife type. And that is exactly was what was supposed to make it so funny. Marshall and I moving in together with a huge step. I had never lived with another guy before. We had been together for three years, and people were always asking us when we were going to settle down and get married.
At twenty-three years old, I wasn’t exactly inching toward my expiration date. In fact, I had never even seriously thought about marriage. Marshall and I were just living our lives, seeing where it took us. Moving in together was a sign that things were actually serious, and we had a future together.
It was a little scary when he asked me. I was used to taking care of myself, and the idea of sharing everything with him all the time was a bit intimidating. I wasn’t sure how it was going to feel to depend on him as much as myself. Especially considering he pointed out his apartment was bigger, so I should move into his place instead of him into mine.
But the prospect of a new adventure was exciting, so I decided to jump straight in. Over the last few weeks, I had been doing my best to settle in and make it my home, too. I was looking forward to him coming home and sampling my pie. Maybe he would get the dirty little joke.
Finally, the crust started cooperating, and I was able to roll it out and transfer it into a pan. I grabbed a can of cherry pie filling.
I put the pie into the oven and went into the bedroom to try to clean myself up. I hadn’t even gotten a chance to put my fresh apron on when I heard the front door open. Looking over the clock, I saw it was a whole hour before Marshall was supposed to come home. I scurried out into the kitchen and found him staring at the dining room table still covered with a couple of inches of flour and wayward pieces of dough stuck to the wood.
“I’ll clean that up,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”
“What happened in here?” he asked.
“It was supposed to be a surprise, but since you decided to come home early, I’ll have to tell you. I baked you a cherry pie. Homemade crust and everything. Why are you home early?” I went up to him and looped my arms around his neck. “Not that I’m complaining.”
I rose up on the balls of my feet to give him a kiss, but Marshall took hold of my wrist and stepped back slightly from me.
“Maya, we need to talk.”
I laughed. “Don’t worry about the table. It looks like a much bigger mess than it actually is. Plus, the pie is going to be worth it.” I gave him a cheeky look. “The dessert will probably be delicious, too.”
He didn’t even crack a smile. “Maya, really. Come sit down.” He moved my arms away from his neck and rested them down by my sides.
The humor drained out of me, and my heart started pounding a little. “Is something wrong?”
He didn’t answer, but walked into the living room. I followed him and sat on the couch. He sat at the other end, purposely putting the entire middle cushion between us.
“Maya, there’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it. It’s over,” he said.
And that was it. No explanation. No lead-up. Not even a half-assed attempt to let me down easy by using a bunch of euphemisms and flowery language. He didn’t even tell me it was him and not me, or that he was setting me free to fly. Just that it was over.
And now I was really glad I used canned cherry pie filling.
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I stared at him in utter disbelief. “What do you mean, it’s over? I just moved in with you.”
He looked down at his hands, drumming his fingers together, then straightening and flexing them like he had never seen them before. I couldn’t understand what he was saying. We had been together for three years. I wasn’t just a one-night stand who was getting too clingy and he wanted to oust from his house. It wasn’t even a flash-in-the-pan relationship that got too serious, too quick.
This was three years of our lives. To a lot of people, we’d moved slowly. Several of our friends had met, dated, gotten engaged, and gotten married during the time of our relationship. One pair was even raising their first child. We were just getting to the moving-in stage, and I thought things were going really well between us. But suddenly, Marshall was pulling the plug without any explanation.
“I know,” he said.
Suddenly the man who loved to hear himself speak and could babble on for hours about whatever topic randomly sparked his interest was the quintessential man of few words.
“How could you do this to me?” I asked. “We’ve been together for three years. You asked me to move in with you. You insisted I move into your apartment with you. I gave up my place so I could come live here. I work for your father. What am I supposed to do?”
He kept staring at his fingers. “I’m going to go somewhere else tonight, and I’ll stay out of the apartment for the day tomorrow so you can get your stuff together.”
And then he was gone. Not another word. He just got right up and walked out of the apartment. I sat there on the couch for a while, half expecting him to come back in and tell me it was some sort of really bad joke. Only it didn’t make any damn sense, and he wasn’t exactly the joking kind.
He left me sitting there confused as hell, barely even knowing what I was supposed to do next. I didn’t know how long I had been sitting there, but the smell of burning pie crust was what finally snapped me out of my daze and got me up off the couch.
A couple minutes later, I stood in the kitchen holding the blackened pie, staring down at the crust I had worked so hard to make. If I was a more sentimental and poetic person, I would probably find some sort of parallel between the ruined pie and our relationship.
I tossed the pie into the trash and went into the bedroom. Something occurred to me the second I walked in and I headed for Marshall’s dresser. Opening it, I found each of the drawers partially empty, like articles of clothing had gradually migrated out and ended up somewhere else. I didn’t even notice before.
Slamming the drawer closed, I stripped down, changed into pajamas, and toppled into bed. The next morning, I was just as confused as I was when he walked out. Maybe even more. Part of me still thought he would come back. Maybe he would show up in the middle of the night and say he’d had a momentary freak-out, but came to his senses and everything was fine.
Yet when morning came, the apartment was still empty and quiet.
It was really over. At some point, I didn’t even notice. Marshall had jumped off the relationship train and just left me to careen into disaster all by myself. Forcing myself to swallow it all down and look at the situation with stoic logic, I took a shower and started packing. I stuffed my clothes, toiletries, books, and kitchen stuff into my luggage. I stuffed whatever I could find that I thought might be mine into any boxes and bags around and tossed it into the bed of the pickup truck my dad left me when he died.
I should have just gotten in the truck and driven away right then. I was still feeling pretty calm and might have managed to get out of the whole debacle without falling apart. But instead, I decided I needed to go back inside. Though it had only been my home for a few weeks, it was where Marshall and I had spent a considerable amount of our time together for the last three years.
Seeing it stripped of the reminders of me hit me hard. I stood there in the middle of the living room, reminiscing about where my pictures and trinkets used to be displayed fondly, remembering that I had cleared out a section of shelves to put my books when I moved in. I felt so alone. Tears stung the backs of my eyes. I wanted to just stand there and cry. But I wasn’t going to. Not right then, at least.
I deserved more than just a one-sentence breakup. After everything we had gone through together, Marshall needed to find the courage and tell me why he’d ended things with me. Even though I had a pretty good idea of it, considering the great exodus of his clothes. I needed and deserved that closure.
I left the apartment for the last time and got in the truck, heading right for the cabinet warehouse. It used to be wonderful that Marshall and I worked together at his father’s company. It meant we got to see each other during the day and eat lunch together. For most of our relationship, we worked the same shifts and could even ride in together.
When our shifts changed a month ago and we no longer lined up, I didn’t think anything of it. Now I couldn’t help but wonder about that as well. I knew that was where he would be. He wouldn’t be able to avoid me, so I could confront him there and get the answers I needed.
My stomach sank when I got to the warehouse and the receptionist told me Marshall was in his father’s office. He never went in his father’s office. In fact, most of the time he did whatever he could to not associate with his father during work. He always said he didn’t want to look like he only got anywhere because of his dad.
I walked into the office and quickly discovered Marshall’s sharp and to-the-point breakup technique was inherited. His father’s firing technique was pretty much the same.
2
Greg
It felt so good to be back at the compound. And I wasn’t just glad to be here to support Darren. I missed everything about the environment, too. I was going to go crazy if I had to stay away from the track any longer. I had spent the last several months recovering from a nasty broken leg, and focusing on recovery had pretty much had taken up the majority of my time.
This accident had been the most terrifying moment of my life. As a racer, I knew it was a possibility that inevitably occupied the back of my mind. Nobody goes out onto a track believing they are invincible. If you choose to climb onto the back of a motorcycle and go in ovals at top speeds, you never think you are completely safe.
There were always risks. There was always the chance something could go wrong. All we could do was make sure our bikes were in the best condition possible, and train as hard as we could. I had done all of that. I worked my ass off on the track, trying to get the best I could.
It was a huge deal when the Freeman family asked me to race for their team. This was a dream of any rider in Charlotte. The Freeman family was legendary. Even more so since the oldest son, Quentin, had taken over for his father. They were already well-known, but with Quentin’s dedication and the impressive skill of the youngest brother, Darren, the company’s success had skyrocketed.
And they wanted me to race with them. From the beginning, I, myself, am a man who has been satisfied with just to working on their bikes. Just having the opportunity to be around them and a small part of the success of the team was already a dream come true. Then came the fateful day when Darren asked if I rode.
It sounded so dramatic when I put it that way, but it was the truth. Darren and I were good friends by that point, and it was still an honor for him to ask me to show him what I could do. I never imagined he would be so impressed by me that he would suggest I start training to race. He went to bat for me with the family, and before I knew it, I was out on the practice track every day, polishing my skills.
The day I debuted in an actual race was one of the greatest of my life. Possibly the greatest. The rush was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, even better than I could have imagined. I didn’t win, but I didn’t care. I didn’t expect to. Ranking in the top five was a huge accomplishment. It gave me a taste of what it felt like to overcome all those other men and sail over the finish line with them behind me. It made me want more. So, I worked harder. I trained more. I
pushed farther. I got better, ranked higher.
But then I got cocky. Anger and arrogance were bad combinations when you’re clinging to a chunk of metal going more than one hundred miles an hour surrounded by other people doing the same. It was especially bad when you added in hunger for power and success.
I wasn’t the one who caused the wreck, but my own arrogance didn’t help it. Another rider clipped me, and I spiraled out of control. I skidded across the track my bike landed on me, dragging me. By all accounts, I shouldn’t have made it off the track alive. When I did, it was the Freeman family who was there for me.
I woke up, and Darren was there by my bedside. Quentin barely left my side until the day I was discharged, and my mother came to take care of me while I recovered. I felt horrible for not being able to race and apologized over and over. I promised to find someone else to ride in my place so they wouldn’t be in as much of a lurch.
There wasn’t a single moment when they made me feel guilty. Not a single moment they were anything but supportive. They refused my offer and told me to think of nothing but getting better. They sent food, called constantly, and came to pick me up to bring me to the compound for visits when my mother was busy. They even came up with ways I could work and attend the races even if I couldn’t ride.
Millionaire Best Friend: A Secret Baby Romance Page 1