Her Bad Boy Billionaire Lover (Billionaire Lovers)

by Barbara Bretton

  She'd been terrified and alone, wishing with all her heart that she hadn't walked out on him the first moment things got tough. Jenny was a good baby but Megan was little more than a baby herself in all the things that mattered. She needed a knight on a white charger to ride into her life and make everything right again, the way it used to be. The way it should be.

  She'd called everywhere and everyone she could think of as she tried to find him, but Jake had vanished without a trace. She could barely manage to scrape up enough money to pay the telephone bill, much less hire a detective to track him down.

  And when you came down to it, what difference would it have made? It didn't matter if he was in Paris or Cairo or Sydney. The last thing he wanted was a ready-made family and a mansion filled with bills.

  "Oh, you'd love this, wouldn't you," she said as she remembered the dangerous glitter in her ex-husband's eyes. Arrogant, spoiled Megan McLean brought to her knees. Forced to live like the common folk. She could just imagine what Jake would say if he knew she'd been living one step ahead of the bill collectors for so long that she could barely remember there was any other way.

  What a wonderful joke it would be. She was sure Jake would appreciate the irony of the situation. She'd run back to the security and luxury of her father's house, only to discover that everything she'd believed in, everything she relied upon, was built on a foundation of empty promises and deceit.

  Darrin McLean had kept her jewelry box filled and her wardrobe up to date, but when it came to keeping her safe from harm by securing her future--well, that was another story.

  A framed photo of Jenny smiled at her from the nightstand. "You deserve better than that," she whispered.

  Jenny deserved a father but Megan would be damned if it would be Jake Lockwood.

  #

  Megan awoke the next morning with new resolve. She was there on business and not even her ex-husband would deter her from the pursuit of her goal. The Sea Goddess was a big ship. There had to be room on it for both of them. She would stick to the kitchen while Jake could have the piano bar all to himself. With a little luck and some clever planning, they'd never have to see each other again.

  "Morning, Meggie." He was lounging in front of the dining room, looking tall, dark, and impossibly male. "Oversleep?"

  "Shut up," she said, a sweet smile on her face.

  "They stop serving in ten minutes."

  "How kind of you to give me an update."

  "Must be tough traveling without a maid and butler."

  "I manage," she said through clenched teeth.

  She swept past him into the dining room. To her dismay he fell into step beside her. "Still not a morning person."

  "How observant." She poured herself a cup of coffee from the silver urn on the sideboard. The aroma was rich and fragrant. Kona blend. Celia Briscoe was going to be tough to beat.

  "The cranberry muffins are even better than the coffee," Jake said with a grin. "Makes you wonder what she'll whip up for lunch."

  "Heartburn," said Megan. "With a double portion for you."

  Jake was still laughing as he left the dining room. He had no idea how close he'd come to death by butter knife. He'd always had the ability to punch holes in her defenses, making her conceits look foolish even to herself. At nineteen that had been nothing more than annoying. The notion that she was anything but perfect hadn't occurred to her yet. At twenty-five, however, it was a different story. She knew how it felt to fall behind in her bills, to be vulnerable to the needs of a child, to realize that no matter how hard or how well you worked, it might not be enough.

  She'd come here with one goal: to nail the catering contract with Tropicale. No matter what Ingrid said, they needed this contract to keep The Moveable Feast in the black. Pretending to be rich was harder than she'd imagined. Maintaining the illusion around Jake would be difficult, but she would do it. She had no other choice.

  After breakfast she changed into a bikini and joined Val and Sandy on deck. The sun was hot. The sea breeze was cool. The company was agreeable. She should have known it was too good to be true.

  "G'day, ladies."

  Val and Sandy snapped to attention. Megan sniffed and sank lower in her deck chair. Amazing how thick his Aussie accent got when attractive women were involved.

  He towered over her, his muscular body throwing her into shadow. "G'day, Meggie."

  She stretched languorously, as if she hadn't a care in the world, as if she spent every day basking in the sun. "Move, would you, Jake. You're blocking my sun."

  Val, God bless her, didn't miss a beat. "Here," she said, patting the end of her deck chair. "Sit with me."

  Jake favored the woman with one of his patented bad-boy grins. Megan could almost hear the hormone levels rising.

  "You'll make room for me, won't you, Meggie?"

  She ignored him.

  He nudged her with his knee. "Shove over."

  "The hell I will."

  Sandy and Val stared at the two of them in open-mouthed fascination as Jake unceremoniously sat down next to her.

  "Maybe we should find someplace else to sit," Sandy said with a glance toward her sister.

  "You've got to be kidding," said Val, looking from Megan to Jake then back again. "I'm not leaving until I find out what's going on."

  Jake's grin widened. "You want to tell them, Meggie, or should I?"

  She considered the wisdom of diving overboard and swimming back to Miami. "Jake and I were married a long time ago. It was a mercifully brief experience."

  "You two were married?" Val asked, turning toward Jake.

  "I threw her over my shoulder and dragged her off to Vegas to get married."

  The two travel agents practically swooned.

  "How romantic," Sandy said, turning toward Megan. "Sounds like something from a romance novel."

  "He was looking for a green card," Megan snapped. "He would have married anyone with a pulse." An outright lie, but she was beyond caring. Let him worry about it. Their eyes locked. She saw the challenge in his eyes and met that challenge with one of her own. After a moment he shrugged.

  "It was fun while it lasted," he said to the two women. He turned to Meggie. "Even you have to admit that."

  "No," she said. "It was many things but fun wasn't one of them." Exciting. Heartbreaking. All things in between. But not fun. The differences between them had seen to that.

  He engaged Val and Sandy in small talk while Megan lay back in her chair, closed her eyes, and feigned indifference to the whole thing. She'd never survive the next four days if she didn't get a grip on her emotions and regain her focus.

  Jake wasn't important.

  Their daughter was.

  It was as simple as that.

  She refused to be drawn into the conversation despite Jake's best attempts and didn't relax until he went off to do whatever it was he did on the Sea Goddess besides play the piano and flirt with female guests.

  "Excuse me for saying so," Val declared as soon as Jake was out of earshot, "but that is exactly what I've been looking for all my life."

  "Be my guest," Megan shot back. "As far as I know he's footloose and fancy-free."

  Val leaned forward. "You wouldn't mind?"

  She waved her hand in the air. "I haven't seen Jake since the day I walked out on him. If you want a shipboard wedding, it's fine with me. I'll be your maid of honor."

  "I don't know about the wedding," Val said, "but I sure wouldn't mind a wedding night."

  #

  One hour after they arrived in Las Vegas, Megan and Jake were married at Sweet Sue's Wedding Chapel. Two strangers stood up for them as part of the $150 matrimonial package that included a room for the happy couple.

  The Silver Dollar Hotel catered to people with big dreams and small budgets. Positioned between the Little House of Matrimony and Sweet Sue's, it offered king-size water beds, complimentary pink champagne, and a place to be alone.

  "Room 775." The bellman swung open the door and u
shered them into the room. "Champagne's on ice, the bathroom's through that door, and you got a great view of the Strip."

  Megan turned away as Jake reached into his pocket for some change. She tried not to notice the stained carpeting or the threadbare bedspread or the faint but unmistakable smell of cigar smoke in the air. All her life she'd dreamed about her wedding night. The room would be lit by fat pink candles that smelled of gardenias. Soft music, Dom Perignon, a wide bed with sheets of the finest percale with lace-trimmed hems.

  She'd never imagined anything like this...this wreck of a place. It doesn't matter, she told herself. All that mattered was Jake.

  She could have had the wedding of her dreams if she'd waited. Sooner or later her father would come around and see Jake as the diamond in the rough he clearly was.

  But Jake was a proud man and an impatient one and she'd known beyond a doubt that she had to grab hold of him before he disappeared on his way to some new adventure and her chance for happiness would disappear with him.

  The door closed behind the bellman. She held her breath as Jake crossed the room toward her. Desire, fierce and sweet, rose up inside her and she turned toward him and for a moment she forgot the carpet and the bedspread and the fact that they didn't have a chance in the world to make their marriage work and she went to him for the first time as his wife.

  "I can't give you the things you're used to," he said as he swept her into his arms.

  "I don't care," she said. "You're all that I want.."

  Afterward they lay together in the afterglow of lovemaking. Megan had never felt closer to anyone in her life. The act of joining their bodies had also joined their souls and she longed to know everything about the man who was now her husband.

  "You know everything there is to know about me," she said, propping herself up on her elbows and looking at him. "All I know is that you're twenty-five years old, from Australia, and never been married."

  He pulled her down until she lay across his chest. "That's all you need to know." His big rough hands caressed the small of her back, cupped her buttocks.

  "But I want to know all about your family, Jake." She giggled as she tried to squirm out of his grasp but he held her fast. "I'm a Lockwood now, too."

  His grip on her tightened. An older, more experienced woman might have recognized the signs but Megan was too young and too besotted to care.

  "I have an older sister in Queensland."

  She waited. "And--?"

  "My parents are dead," he snapped. "I never knew my mother. I might as well have never met my father." Two years dead that month and unlamented.

  "Oh, Jake." Her voice went soft and her eyes brimmed with tears. "You must miss him so much--"

  "I don't want to talk about them." He lifted her hips until she was poised over him. "I don't want to talk at all."

  It was hard to keep her mind on anything but his power and heat. "Wh-what's your sister's name?"

  "Shut up, Meggie."

  "But she's my family too."

  "Quiet."

  "But I--"

  He lowered her slowly, steadily, onto his erection and she melted around him. There would be plenty of time to learn all about his family...a lifetime.

  #

  Somehow she made it through lunch. Celia Briscoe served up a magnificent southwestern feast and Megan had to work hard to hang onto her self-confidence. To her surprise Jake was seated at the head table. His rumbling laugh, sensual and unmistakable, awakened another set of memories that she would rather leave buried. Once he met her eyes across the dining room and she felt as if he held her in his arms.

  She'd fallen for his charm years ago, but now the last thing she wanted was to be diverted from the task at hand: securing a permanent position for The Moveable Feast. She'd worked too hard for too many years to allow it to slip away in a haze of sexual passion.

  Desire--that was all that it was. She was certain of it. If she'd lived six years without chocolate, no doubt she'd be entertaining fantasies of a Hershey bar that were every bit as voluptuous and enticing as her fantasies about Jake had been.

  Logic, however, didn't render those fantasies any less potent. She found herself replaying their moonlight encounter again and again until she was weak with longing.

  She glanced again across the room. A petite blonde fluttered around him like a pheromone-crazed butterfly. Maybe she hadn't been that far off the mark when she'd wondered if he'd been hired as the resident Adonis. She had to admit he added a certain rough-hewn male sex appeal to the exquisitely appointed yacht. With his movie star good looks and renegade soul, he could probably have any woman he wanted just by crooking his little finger.

  But he wants you.

  Last night he'd made it crystal clear that she still had the power to make him want her. They both recognized that not even time had diminished the primal attraction between them. Try as she might to banish the memory of his kisses, she could still taste him on her lips. Sweet and dangerous and impossible to resist.

  She pushed back her chair and rose to her feet. Val, Sandy, and her other luncheon companions looked up at her. "I think I'll go back to my cabin and do some work on my menu plan."

  The moment she closed the cabin door behind her, she dialed Ingrid's number. She needed to connect with home, to be reminded of everything that was really important in her life.

  "Details!" Ingrid demanded the second Megan said hello. "Tell me about the suite, the weather, the men...."

  Megan laughed, feeling her real world move back into focus. "Gorgeous, perfect...interesting."

  "You can do better than that."

  "Is Jenny there?"

  "She's playing Barbies with Stace."

  "I'm dying to hear her voice."

  "Give me some juicy details then I'll let you speak to your daughter."

  Jenny's father works on the ship, Ingrid. I feel like I'm nineteen years old again and it scares the hell out of me. "You wouldn't believe this suite," she said instead. "Mahogany paneling, gilt faucets, a mirror over the bed--"

  "A what!?"

  "Just seeing if you were paying attention, Ingrid."

  "Too bad," Ingrid shot back. "If you remember, I told you to have fun."

  "And if you remember, I told you I'm here on business."

  "Only until tomorrow night. Monday and Tuesday are pure R & R. If you don't come home with a tan and a smile on your face, you're no partner of mine."

  "I'll be smiling if I come back with a contract."

  "There's more to life than business."

  "I know," said Megan, remembering the way Jake had looked in the moonlight. She launched into a lively description of her cabin, right down to the paneled wall near the bathroom that supposedly concealed a secret passageway that linked various suites.

  "How wonderfully decadent," Ingrid said. She named the billionaire who had first owned the yacht. "No wonder he always looked so tired. The man never slept."

  "This phone call is costing us a small fortune," Megan said. "Let me say hi to Jenny and I'll hang up."

  A moment later her daughter's sweet voice curled itself inside Megan's ear. "We're having pizza tonight. Can I have pepperoni on mine?"

  "That's up to Ingrid, sweetheart."

  "And ice cream for dessert?"

  "Ask Ingrid," Megan said with a laugh. "She's in charge while I'm away."

  Jenny chattered on about the class trip she'd taken today and Megan found her eyes filling with homesick tears as Jenny described the glass-bottom boat and all the wonders she'd seen beneath the sea. Megan could just imagine her little girl's round cheeks all pink from the sun, her big golden-brown eyes glittering with excitement. Jenny was a small, volatile bundle of energy and enthusiasm, so much her father's daughter that at times it almost hurt Megan to look at her.

  If only I could be sure I was doing the right thing for you, Jenny, she thought, but I'm as new at this as you are. There were times she felt as if she were running just one step ahead of her little girl, try
ing desperately to pave the way for her.

  "Do you have your four-leaf clover, mommy?" Jenny asked in her piping voice.

  "Absolutely," Megan said solemnly, touching the charm that hung from the chain around her neck. "I'll keep it with me every second."

  "It'll bring you good luck."

  "I have you," said Megan, wishing she could envelop her daughter in a bear hug. "How much luck does one mommy need?" Her marriage may have been a failure, but out of that painful interlude had come something truly precious, this little girl who meant everything to her.

  "Don't forget to send me postcards, Mommy."

  "I promise," Megan said. "A postcard from every port."

  "Send me a postcard, too," said Ingrid as she returned to the phone. "Tell me you enjoyed at least one moonlight kiss."

  "Not interested," she said lightly. She had found out last night what dangers lurked in moonlight kisses.

  "If I weren't eight months pregnant, I'd trade places with you."

  "You wouldn't trade places with anyone and you know it, Ingrid."

  The stab of envy, sharp and unexpected, lingered on after they'd said goodbye. For all of Ingrid's grumbling about her second pregnancy, one fact was very clear: Ingrid loved her children and her husband, and was lucky enough to be loved in return.

  Neither Megan's privileged childhood nor promising future could compare with that.

  She set up her laptop computer on the lacquered desk, and spent a few hours poring over the plans for floral arrangements and table designs. She would have loved the opportunity to acquaint herself with the galley below deck but it was off-limits until tomorrow morning when she began her "audition." Celia Briscoe had outdone herself today and Megan could feel the pressure building. She massaged her temples, wishing she'd remembered to bring Advil with her. It had been too easy, she thought, resting her head on the desk as the ship rocked gently. The anger between her and Jake had flared to life again with the quick intensity of a brushfire. So had the sexual attraction; it burned away the barriers between them with its ferocious heat. Like a force of nature, that chemistry between them had been there from the first. Divorce hadn't dampened the fire--and neither had time.