by Simply BWWM
Table of Contents
Chapter1
chapter 8
THE BILLIONAIRE
FROM HAWAII
UNITED STATES OF BILLIONAIRES BOOK 8
CJ HOWARD
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Summary
Nicole Hamilton was young, free and single. She had just broken up with her boyfriend and after getting a job offer in Hawaii she did not hesitate in accepting it.
And upon arriving in Honolulu, a private fetish party sounded like just the thing. She was now single after all.
However, after enjoying the most thrilling sexual encounter of her life with a handsome stranger she soon discovered that he was no stranger at all. He was well known local billionaire Dane Priestly.
And after the billionaire got a small taste of Nicole, he knew he wanted more. And nothing would stop him getting it...
WARNING: This is an extra sexy and steamy billionaire romance. Only adults can read this.
Copyright Notice
The Billionaire From Hawaii © 2018, CJ Howard
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.
Contents
Chapter1
Chapter2
Chapter3
Chapter4
Chapter5
Chapter6
Chapter7
chapter 8
chapter 9
chapter 10
chapter 11
chapter 12
chapter 13
chapter 14
Chapter1
Cobalt blue water rolled in huge undulating waves through the Pacific Ocean, traveling from one distant shore to another in their own time, and far above them, thirty-six thousand feet above them, in a seemingly endless expanse of fluffy white clouds drifting between the earth and the heavens, a plane cut through the atmosphere like a whetted knife.
There were almost two hundred and fifty people on the flight, and most of them were sleeping. Some of them were up and walking the aisles in an attempt to stretch their legs on the long flight. A few of them were staring out of their windows at the world going by beneath them, but only one of those was staring with an unhappy face.
Hers was a face set with deep thought and considerable consternation. Her elbow was planted on the armrest, while her hand cupped her chin, her fingers covering her full lips. The woman’s dark eyes were taking in all that was passing her outside of the craft, but she wasn’t seeing any of it.
Nicole Hamilton appeared as well put together as any other woman on the plane, even more so. She was dressed in a pinstripe suit jacket and skirt set, with a thin silk blouse beneath the jacket. Her long dark legs were crossed, with a pair of black high heeled shoes at one end of them and well curved hips at the other end. Her waist was narrow and toned, a result of her regular workouts, and though her generous breasts were covered, there was no mistaking their shape beneath the material. Her skin, though the color of dark chocolate, had a pretty honeyed glow to it that was gifted to her from the California sunshine. She was leaving that California sun behind her for even more sun and a lot more sea in the beautiful state of Hawaii.
Her long black hair, which normally reached to the middle of her back when it was down, was pulled up into a twist at the back of her head, and in her ears were diamond earrings that matched the pretty diamond pendant she wore on a thin golden chain around her neck. The high cheekbones beneath her mahogany eyes were almost wide set, giving her beautiful face an almost exotic look. The elegant, mysterious air about her was nearly a constant, and it made people stop and look at her and even sometimes stare.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a statue,” came a quiet, deep tenor tone from the man in the seat beside her.
Nicole blinked and turned her head to look at him. He was dressed just as finely as she was, though his attire was slightly more flamboyant in color and cut. His meticulously trimmed dark brown hair was perfectly styled, his fingernails manicured, his face clean shaven. His custom-tailored suit looked more silver than charcoal, and was set with a fuchsia shirt of brushed silk which matched a silk fuchsia handkerchief, folded so that it looked almost like a flower blooming out of the pocket of his jacket. His tie was a light lime green, and at the center of it an emerald tie pin held it fast.
“What’s weighing your mind down, honey?” he gave her a sympathetic look, and it was easy to see that his heart was fully in the question.
She shrugged and gave her head a small, dismissive shake. “It’s nothing. Really. I’m just thinking about the interview.”
The man shook his head. Jeffrey King was her best friend, and he knew her much better than that. “Would you like to try that again?” he asked as the corner of his mouth curled up slightly in a small smile, and his blue green eyes shone with compassion.
Nicole sighed, and her shoulders fell just a little. “I never can get anything past you,” she murmured quietly.
“I don’t even know why you waste time trying,” he replied as his smile grew just a little more. “So, what’s going on in that beautiful head of yours? Because I know it’s not the job interview. You have the job. This interview is a formality. The job is yours, along with all the perks, which is why you’re moving to Hawaii. So, it isn’t the job. What’s really biting at you?”
With a sigh, she lifted her fingers to her forehead and massaged her temple gently. “It isn’t the job or the interview.” She resigned herself to the fact that she was going to have to talk with Jeffrey about it at some point in the near future. She had held the truth inside long enough. “It’s Paul.”
“Now, there’s a surprise.” Jeffrey didn’t look surprised at all. He looked completely unruffled by the fact. “What’s up with him? Is it the move?”
Nicole nodded. “Yeah, it is. We had a fight about it. A bad fight.” Her mind went back to the swift and sudden decisions that had changed her life so profoundly and immediately.
“Tell me,” Jeffrey prodded her a little more, his eyes steady on her as he waited expectantly.
“Well, this whole thing happened so fast. I mean, I got the call from DiaCorp last week, they offered me this amazing job on the contingency that I could start right away, and I had to make a decision. It was either stay in San Francisco and keep doing what I was doing, with no room for advancement in my career path, or take this job and move to Hawaii. It’s the best job I’ve ever gotten, in every aspect. There was no way I could pass it up.” She furrowed he
r brow somewhat and looked down at her hands as she examined her polished fingernails absent mindedly.
“So, I’m guessing that Paul wasn’t as supportive of this as you had hoped he would be?” Jeffrey asked in concern.
She shook her head and pressed her full lips together in a thin line. “No, he wasn’t. I asked him to move to Hawaii with me, and he drew a line in the sand. He said I stay in San Francisco with him or we break up. He gave me an ultimatum. It boiled down to him or the job. I’ve only been with him for six months. This is the job of a lifetime. I can’t pass it up. So, we broke up.”
Jeffrey’s mouth fell open slightly as his eyes widened. “You’re kidding! You two broke up? I can’t believe he let you go! I thought he was so serious about you that he wasn’t ever going to let you go. I’ll be honest, I thought there would be wedding bells with him. I thought I was going to be helping you pick out china patterns.” A long, low whistle sounded from his lips, and he gave his head a slow shake of disbelief.
Nicole shrugged slightly. “Yeah, well… it ended. He wanted to be the priority in my life, and I guess that we haven’t been together long enough, or we don’t mean enough to each other, that that happened. The job came first, and he didn’t like that, so it’s over.”
“I’m so sorry, honey.” Jeffrey reached for her hand and held it in his, rubbing his thumb over the back of it. “How are you feeling about it?”
She stared straight ahead for a long moment, searching her feelings. She hadn’t let herself stop to think about how she really felt about it. Her mind slowed, her heart opened up a little, and she searched inside of herself to examine what it was that she really was experiencing.
“I… I guess I’m feeling disenchanted. I mean, I thought like you did, that he might be the one. I thought that it might be long term. Really long term. When he handed that ultimatum to me, it was like a slap in the face with reality, and I just wasn’t prepared for it. I was so focused on the job and the move… there were so many other things going through my mind that I didn’t have time to really think about it, but now that you and I are on our way to Hawaii and it’s official, there isn’t much left for me to worry about. It’s all done. Now I can think; now I can process all that’s been happening in the last two weeks.” She searched deeper in herself and was astounded by the truth that she found there.
Jeffrey lowered a brow and tilted his head as he gazed at her. “You feel disenchanted? Not heartbroken? Not devastated?” he asked with a curious tone.
She shook her head as she looked back at him in quiet amazement. “No. I really don’t. Strangely enough, I feel so practical about it, so matter-of-fact.” She paused and gave Jeffrey a thoughtful look. “Is that wrong? Should I be heartbroken?”
Jeffrey gave her hand a squeeze. “Only if it’s natural to be.” He paused for a long moment as he thought. “Your first answer, the first word out of your mouth, was disenchanted. So, that would be like waking up from a dream or an enchantment, something that you thought was one way which wasn’t that way at all.”
Nicole nodded. “That’s exactly it, though. I guess I thought we should be in love, like… so much in love that there wasn’t any other option but to be together, and if we weren’t together, then it should feel like the end of the world, shouldn’t it? I mean, if we were really so important to each other? Shouldn’t it feel like I’m dying inside or something? Because it doesn’t feel like that.”
“What does it feel like?” Jeffrey asked with a gaze so intense that she felt that he might somehow be able to look into her and see for himself just how she felt.
“Like…” She thought carefully as she spoke, “Like the end of a business transaction, to be totally honest. Like… a closed chapter, and I’m off to the next one, and there’s no more connection to the one before. Shouldn’t I be devastated?” She searched his eyes, looking for an answer to the enigmatic puzzle in her mind and heart.
He gave his head a small shake. “No, I don’t think so. I thought that you two were closer than this as well, just like you did, but you just said that you guessed you thought you were probably going to get married, and personally I think that when two people decide they want to get married, it should feel like there is no other choice for them. Their love and devotion and commitment to each other should be so profound that they feel as though they can’t live their lives without one another, and they don’t want to.
You don’t feel like that about him. It sounds like you’re deciding whether you want a five-hundred-dollar cashmere sweater. You’re weighing your options, you know it’s a big commitment, you really like the look of it and the way it feels, but you aren’t so totally dedicated to committing to it that you refuse to give it up. You could take it or leave it, and you’re choosing to leave it.”
She blinked, stunned by the realization of what he was saying. “My god, you’re right. It was take it or leave it, and I left it.”
He nodded. “You left it without even a thought. You chose the job right away, didn’t you? How long did it take you to decide that you were going to accept the job and move from San Francisco to Hawaii?”
Nicole looked up at him. “One night,” she answered without missing a beat. “Actually, I decided right away, and Edward Stein, the partner of the company who hired me, talked with me about it and told me to sleep on it before I gave him my answer. I was ready to say yes when he offered it to me. There was no moment of hesitation.
As soon as he called me and offered me the job, everything in me, and I mean everything in me, was shouting yes. He was the one who said to wait and give it some thought, to sleep on it at least one night and then call him the next day and give him my answer. So, I did. I slept on it one night, and by the time I woke up the next morning, all I could think about was the company, the job, and living in Hawaii. I’ve never made a faster decision about anything big in my life.”
“And in that immediate choice, was Paul ever a factor in the decision-making process? I mean, right at the beginning when you knew right away what it was that you wanted and needed… was Paul part of any of that in your head?” Jeffrey gazed at her and waited for her reply, watching her closely.
She shook her head in silence before answering him. “No, he wasn’t. I didn’t even think about him, not even once, until after I had called Edward back and told him that I was still definitely taking the job. Then, he said I was hired and I’d just have to come in for this official formal interview, but the job was mine, and we hung up.
It wasn’t until that call ended and the reality of the decision hit me that I ever thought of Paul. It was like… it was final. It was done. I’d said yes, and then from out of nowhere… Paul. What am I going to do about Paul? He was a complete afterthought. My whole relationship with him was a complete afterthought. I mean… there I was ready and willing to change my whole life on a dime and then after I’ve done it… only then do I think of the man I’m considering marrying. What kind of a relationship is that?”
“It isn’t one.” Jeffrey shook his head. “It’s a façade. It seems real on the surface, but when you look down into it just a little deeper, it’s got all of the look and none of the reality. Like a knock-off DKNY or something. At a glance, it looks like the real thing, but when you look closely, you know it’s just a fake.”
He frowned sympathetically at her. “I’m sorry, darling. Look at it like this: you had a good time with him, and that’s done now. You have a new life ahead of you, a life that you’ve chosen, and you need to focus all of your energy and time and passion on that. You can’t think of Paul as a failure; just think of him as an experience that’s ended. It’s like you said… there’s a new chapter beginning in your life. You’re ready for it, and you know that because you are reaching out and grasping it with both arms wide open. You jumped at this chance, and that means you needed it.”
He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it lightly. “Besides, you aren’t going alone.” He gave her an encouraging smile then
, and the sight of it warmed her heart. She smiled back at him and nodded.
“No, I’m not going alone. At least not for a while. Thank you so much for dropping everything and coming with me to get me moved.” She gave him a wide smile. “I’m really grateful for what you’re doing and for your friendship.”
He beamed at her. “I’m happy to do it. Besides, when am I ever going to get a two-month vacation to Hawaii like this again?”
She laughed softly at him. “Anytime you want it. I’ll be living here. I love that you’re coming for the first two months, but if you ever want to stay longer or come out for a long visit, then the door is always open to you.”
“Thank you.” He gave her a wink. “You know I’ll take you up on that. Who knows if two months on Oahu will be enough time for me or not? I haven’t ever been there before. It’s nice to have the option to come back though, and I’d always come to see you more than for any other reason.”
Nicole nodded at him and gave his hand a squeeze. She was lucky to have Jeffrey as her best friend, and she knew it. When she had called him to tell him that she had accepted a job in Hawaii and that she was going to have to move there, he offered to come with her right away to help her get moved in and settled. When he asked her how long she wanted him to be there, she had known then that she was going alone. She had known that it was a selfish thing to ask, but she didn’t want to start a new life completely isolated from her old life. But she had been the one to ask him to come for two months.