by Avery Laval
A Tycoon’s Secret
The Sin City Tycoons Series
Avery Laval
A Tycoon’s Secret is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, or locales is coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Avery Laval Books
All rights reserved.
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.
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A Tycoon’s Secret : The Sin City Tycoons Series / Avery Laval.
p.____ cm.____
ISBN 978-1-947834-26-2 (Pbk) | 978-1-947834-27-9 (Ebook)
1. Nevada—Fiction. 2. Romance—Fiction. 3. Love—Fiction. I. Title
813’.6—dc23 | LOC PCN 2018935316
Published by Blue Crow Books
an imprint of Blue Crow Publishing, LLC
Chapel Hill, NC
www.bluecrowpublishing.com
Cover Design by Lauren Faulkenberry
Cover Image Credit: InnervisionArt via shutterstock
Contents
Also by Avery Laval
Acknowledgments
Prologue
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
Sneak Peek: A TYCOON’S JEWEL
1
2
3
About the Author
Praise for Avery Laval’s Sin City Tycoons Series
“What a sparkling gem of a story! I loved it—and can’t wait for the rest of this dazzling series!”
USA Today bestselling author Caitlin Crews
“Avery Laval's first book in her Sin City Tycoons series is a delicious take on the billionaire boss and secretary trope. I was hooked from the first page and loved every emotional, decadent moment. The characters are strong and layered, and I enjoyed how Jenna clashed with Grant. Who doesn't love a good power play between the sexes? When they finally came together, it made me sigh with happiness. This was the perfect, sexy read to take me away for a few hours, and I can't wait to see what's next!”
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jessica Clare
“An Avery Laval romance is like a ripe cherry drenched in chocolate—delicious, sexy, and utterly addictive!”
Nina Lane, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Spiral of Bliss Series
“Avery Laval has a flair for writing multi-faceted characters who are refreshingly smart and irresistible. A Tycoon's Jewel has just the right amount of smoldering chemistry, Vegas glamour, and delightfully fast-paced plot. A story to be devoured.”
Tina Ann Forkner, award-winning author Waking Up Joy and The Real Thing
Also by Avery Laval
The Sin City Tycoons Series
A Tycoon’s Jewel
A Tycoon’s Rush
A Tycoon’s Secret
A Tycoon’s Bargain
Coming Spring of 2019
A Tycoon’s Deception
Acknowledgments
I believe that men of all religions and women of all creeds deserve love, regardless of their homelands. I further believe that those who can look deep into themselves and find a way to give their hearts freely again after baby loss of any kind deserve love. I’m grateful to the people in my small town who shared firsthand knowledge of both experiences to help me tell Marissa and Khalid’s story. This book is dedicated to them.
Writing a story set in the Mideast may not be palatable for all readers. I hope you’ll give it a try, but if it’s not for you, there are plenty of other wonderful small press romances out there for you to enjoy. Find me at AveryLaval.com and I’ll be happy to recommend a wagonload!
Finally, I’d like to give my special thanks to Katie Rose Guest Pryal, my insightful editor. Khalid was the man of my dreams. But with Katie’s help, he became a man worthy of Marissa.
Prologue
Las Vegas, Nevada, Three Years Ago
Soap and hand lotion. Shampoo and hair dye. Greeting cards. Marissa Madden walked through the aisles of her local drugstore hoping against hope none of her brothers would happen by. It was a ridiculous thought, she reminded herself. Las Vegas was a city of two million people, and besides, she was twenty-five years old. Certainly old enough to walk into a pharmacy and buy a pregnancy test without having to explain herself.
Right?
Wrong, she knew at once. Her three brothers had some kind of special sense that always brought them rushing to the scene when she was trying to keep something a secret. And there was no bigger secret than the one she might be dealing with today. For today, she would finally find out if the reason her period was three weeks late was because she and Khalid, the man she’d fallen in love with the moment she’d laid eyes on him a year ago, were expecting a child.
Her heart squeezed a little tighter at the thought. Yes, she knew it would have been better for them both if they’d done everything in the proper order—first the wedding, then the pregnancy. But even so, the thought of carrying Khalid’s child nearly brought her tears of joy. There was no doubt in her mind that he was the one she was meant to be with forever, and he’d made no secret of the fact that he felt the same way about her. Nor had he hidden his desire to have a large family when the time came. She couldn’t wait to get home and share her suspicions with him, to show him the pregnancy test, so that he would be by her side when they got the results. So that they would find out if they were going to be parents together at the exact same moment.
Overwhelmed by the thought, Marissa pulled down test after test, reading the labels on each box, trying to figure out which gave the fastest—and most accurate—reading. To her excited eyes, the words on each package were just garbles of marketing nonsense and pictures of pink and blue lines that meant nothing. In the end, she picked out the one that promised to give an answer in words—“Yes” or “No”—so that she would be sure to understand the results. She paid the cashier without even noticing how much it cost and hurried through the rare desert rainstorm to her car.
As she drove home, windshield wipers frantically batting back and forth, she tried hard to collect her thoughts and forced herself to consider all the possible outcomes ahead. If she weren’t pregnant, then she and Khalid would just go on the way they had been, spending every second not consumed by his pursuit of a business degree and her budding marketing career with each other. She would keep getting to know him even better and daydreaming about the day he would come to her with a ring and ask her to be his wife.
But if she were carrying his child? Would he drop to one knee there in her little black-and-white-tiled bathroom and propose marriage on the spot? Or was there a chance he’d be displeased, and balk at his responsibilities? Marissa forced herself to consider this possibility—she had to be realistic, no matter how hard it was to imagine. But that response seemed so uncharacteristic of Khalid, who believed more than anything in the importance of family. Still, she reminded herself, this pregnancy, if she were indeed pregnant, was unplanned. She had to give thought to the possibility that it would not be well received. After all, they were both right in the middle of pursuing their p
rofessional goals, and they had only been together for a year—though it felt as if she’d known him forever. And they’d been taking precautions when they made love in order to avoid this very thing.
But surely Khalid would understand that sometimes, life found a way to break through even the most stalwart precautions. And when two people were meant to be together, it didn’t matter if everything happened exactly as it was supposed to. All that mattered was that they took what came at them as a team, side by side.
With a start Marissa realized that she had made it all the way to her enormous apartment complex without even noticing all the turns and stops along the way. Was it any wonder, she asked herself, as she pulled into the underground garage, out of the barrage of rain pelting Las Vegas for the first time in months? What happened when she got up to her tenth-floor apartment might be one of the most important turning points of her life. And there was no turning back now.
She unbuckled her seat belt, gathered up her purse, in which she’d tucked the bag from the pharmacy, and the paper bags of fresh bagels and cream cheese she’d used as her excuse to leave the house so early this morning, and stepped out of her car, swinging her hips to close the door behind her. Then she made her way to the elevator, stopping halfway to the doors when she remembered what she’d forgotten in the car. A bottle of sparkling cider, for a little toast if the news was indeed, as she hoped, worth celebrating. She rushed back for it and managed to secret it away in the bag that held the tubs of cream cheese, where she hoped he wouldn’t notice it until she’d told him what was going on. Then back to the elevator and up, up toward home.
When the doors opened with a chime, Marissa stepped out into the hallway and turned left, starting down the long corridor to her apartment with great purpose. She unlocked and flung open her door and bounded inside.
But from behind the armful of bags she carried, she caught sight of something that made her stop dead in her tracks. Down the long hallway, sitting on her living room sofa across from Khalid, was a man with the exact same coloring as his. The man had bronze skin, dark heavy brows, and a black mustache. His hair was covered in a kind of hood that bobbed every which way as he spoke animatedly, but otherwise his dress was entirely Western—a fine suit and tie that accentuated the man’s strong build and made it impossible to guess his age. He seemed agitated, and his gestures were big and staccato, as if he were trying to convince Khalid of something, but Marissa couldn’t make out the words from the entryway.
For a moment she had no idea what to do. Should she race into the living room and find out what was what? Or leave them their privacy? She’d never seen the man before, and she couldn’t help but think there was something foreboding about the way he carried himself along with the large metal briefcase that sat beside him on the floor. Something very unusual was under way here. Before she could think twice, she advanced on them as noisily as she could, calling out, “Khalid, I’m home!”
“Marissa!” Khalid exclaimed when she burst into the living room, her arms still laden with bags. “You’re back already?”
Marissa started. Was that a guilty tone in his voice underneath his surprise? “Of course I’m back already,” she said, looking from him to the stranger and back. “I only had to run to the bakery.” Why did she sound so defensive? She chided herself for her unwelcoming behavior. This was not how she wanted to start such an important day.
Khalid lowered his chin slightly, and Marissa was taken, as she always was, by his beautiful shock of mahogany hair. “Of course, of course,” he said. “Let me take those bags.” He took her bundles and whisked them to a side table. Then he pulled her to him. “Marissa, I’d like you to meet Abdul-Malik Abbasi.”
“Abbasi?” Marissa searched her brain as she shook the stranger’s hand, trying to remember where she’d heard the name before. “Why does that sound so familiar?”
Khalid squeezed her to him tightly, and looked her right in the eyes, something that never failed to send chills up her spine. “Because,” he whispered in his low voice , “it is the surname of the man who signed the ‘father’ box on my birth certificate.”
Marissa gasped. She looked hard into the face of the man who stood in her living room, and took in his hooded eyes, the strong, broad nose on his face, and that razor-cut jaw that looked so similar to Khalid’s. She did see a remarkable resemblance, but now that she was facing him straight on, this man seemed far too old to be Khalid’s father. “Are you saying he’s related to you?” she whispered back, trying to avoid being out-and-out rude.
But he heard her perfectly, and crossed the room in long strides to shake her hand. “Ms. Madden, I presume?” he asked in a thick accent.
“Yes, but how did you know that?” she asked brazenly, all thought of decorum out the window.
“My investigator tells me you are the woman in Khalid’s life.”
Not just any woman, but possibly the mother of his child, Marissa thought, but she bit her tongue. This was certainly not the time for that revelation. “Why would you have us investigated?” she asked him, her confusion—and trepidation—rising.
“I apologize for the intrusion on your privacy. As I explained to Khalid earlier, I had you investigated because I was looking for my grandson,” the older man said matter-of-factly. “And now that I have found him, I promise I will scrutinize you no further.”
Marissa let her gaze move back to Khalid, and saw from the lack of surprise on his face that he’d heard this already. But to her, it made no sense. “Khalid is adopted,” she said, flustered. “He grew up in the Nevada foster care system. He has no father, much less a grandfather.”
The stranger—could he really be Khalid’s grandfather?—shook his head slowly, a sad look on his face. “Though it shames me to no end to say so now that I know the truth, Khalid’s father was my son. A troubled man, there can be no doubt, but to think that he abandoned his child for others to raise?” He crumpled his hand into a fist, as though he could bully the past into changing. Then he shrugged his shoulders, as if with just one motion he could put it all behind him. “It is regrettable. And it is more regrettable still that he is not alive today to explain himself. But in the end, he endeavored to make it right. For when he died—” With those words, the man put a hand to his chest, as if the hurt of his son’s passing was still fresh. “—he left behind word of your existence. His last act, and a wise one too, was to ensure that the emirate exclave of Rifaisa would have an heir, and you, Khalid Abbasi, are that heir.”
Marissa felt the color go out of her face at his words. They seemed perfectly crazy to her. An exclave? An emirate? An heir? But how could any of this be true? She thought back to the stories Khalid had told her early in their relationship. He was an orphan, raised in a succession of foster homes until age twelve, when a kind older couple legally adopted him and raised him as their own. He’d worked his way through college, and then gotten a great job that included school incentives that had allowed him to return to get his master’s in business at night. It was a lot of living for a man only thirty-one years old, but nowhere in there had he mentioned anything about being the heir to an exclave in the Middle East.
She was pretty sure she would have remembered that little detail.
“Mr. Abbasi,” Marissa started, since Khalid was silent. “This is all a very nice story, but surely you have Khalid mistaken for someone else?”
“There is no mistake, I assure you. I took great pains to be sure about what I’m telling you long before I darkened your doorstep. Let me show you.” With his words, the man propped his shiny metal briefcase up on the back of the sofa, where Marissa and Khalid so often curled up together at the end of a long day. He put in the key codes and snapped the latches open, and retrieved an unlabeled manila envelope. Marissa watched wordlessly as he closed his briefcase just as methodically as he’d opened it, and then opened the envelope. He retrieved from within several sheets of paper and glossy photographs. It was obvious from only the slightest glimpse that
the photos were of Khalid—taken by Abbasi’s investigator, no doubt.
How long had this man been looking into them? Marissa wondered with a chill. But before she could ask, he handed Khalid a sheet of thick vellum for his inspection.
Khalid looked down at the sheet for a few moments and then back at Mr. Abbasi with a nod. “Show it to her, please,” he said, and Marissa found herself wondering just how long this man had been talking to Khalid. He handed her the papers, and she glanced down at them, took in the seal from one of Las Vegas’s most prominent medical centers.
“You had Khalid’s DNA tested?” Pushed too far, her voice was defiant, angry.
“Please understand,” the older man said, his hands open wide. “Rifaisa may be small, but it is still a very wealthy state, and the sheikh who rules it all, rich beyond words. I had to be absolutely sure that your Khalid was the true heir, or a disastrous mistake could have been made.”
“But how?” Marissa interjected.
“It is frighteningly easy,” he said with a dismissive wave. “A discarded cup of coffee, or clippings of hair from the barber.”
Khalid shook his head. “It is almost more than can be believed,” he said to Marissa, “but what he says appears to be true.”
Mr. Abbasi gave one slow nod. “It is unbelievable news,” he said, taking a sideways step closer to Khalid. “But it is also joyous news for the kingdom of Rifaisa. The people have long prayed for a strong leader who can take the reins of power when my time is at an end. My son, sadly, was not up for the task. But I can see with my own eyes that my grandson is truly worthy.” As he spoke, Marissa saw him move a hand quickly up to his eye, but not quick enough. One fat tear escaped down his cheek.