by Kira Blakely
“You’re moving to LA!” Mom was talking too loudly now, excited and happy.
“And you should come visit us,” Vincent suggested, laughing with her.
“Can you imagine? Dan and I have been on an airplane only once before. What a treat!” Mom was saying, beaming at Dad.
I hadn’t seen them this happy in several years. They were thrilled for me, for themselves and at how unexpectedly everything just seemed to be working out. Vincent and I had our eyes locked on each other again. No, my fairytale wasn’t ending, it had only just begun.
Six months later
Gemma
I blinked at myself in the mirror in our bedroom. The same room where I had woken up on the carpet six months before, wondering if it was going to be my last morning with Vincent. Now, I couldn’t believe that this was the place I called home.
I had just finished putting on a bright pink lipstick, which clashed with my still-pale complexion. Surprisingly, I hadn’t tanned yet in the harsh LA sun. I’d set my hair to cascade in curls around my shoulders. For the evening, I had selected an A-line black cocktail dress. Black pumps for my feet and a thin set of diamonds for my neck. Vincent had surprised me with the necklace only a week ago, when we were celebrating my graduation.
I placed the lipstick back in its box on the dressing table, and I took in a deep breath. This was our first time entertaining as a couple. I had insisted that we do this, and that I cook everything from scratch. Neither Tim nor our full-time cook were allowed to help. I’d spent the whole afternoon cooking an elaborate three-course meal, and now Tim was laying it all out on the dining table downstairs.
I heard the door open behind me, and Vincent walked in.
“They’ve arrived downstairs, Gem,” he said, walking briskly over to me. We were looking at each other in the mirror, as he placed his large hands on my shoulders. Vincent looked handsome, in a crisp blue shirt and black dress pants. Crystal cufflinks shone at his wrists, I’d picked them out for him to match my necklace.
“You look beautiful,” he said tenderly, placing a kiss on the top of my head. I smiled at him in the mirror. I’d been living in LA for six months now, and yet I was still nervous. I still had fleeting images in my head of the scene at the party. How I’d just hitched up my dress, kicked off my heels and run out. Facing the four of them again was going to be a real exercise of bravery, but I was determined to do it. They were Vincent’s best friends. I couldn’t avoid them for the rest of my life.
“Wish me luck,” I said, standing up to face him.
He towered over me, his dark hair curling at the bottom edges, behind his neck. His eyes twinkled as he looked at me. I knew what he was thinking; he was already undressing me with his eyes. I bit down on my bottom lip and suppressed a smile.
“You don’t need luck. They love you already because I love you,” Vincent said and gave me his hands. Our fingers interlaced and, hand in hand, we stepped out of the bedroom.
Tim was in the process of taking their jackets at the bottom of the stairs.
“Ah, Gemma!” Lily looked up at us with her kind blue eyes. She was more casually dressed today, in a long floral dress with lace sleeves. She had her arm entwined with Casper.
“Hi, Lily… everyone,” I said, smiling with burning ruddy cheeks as we descended the stairs in a rush.
Nash and Bonnie were smiling at us, too, and we all exchanged tight hugs. I was relieved to find that none of them appeared to be awkward. I was still conscious of our previous meeting, I was desperate to please them, desperate to make them see that I deserved Vincent.
“Gemma’s slaved away all day cooking for us,” Vincent said, thumping Nash on his back.
“See, Casper, you really should let me cook!” Lily said, to which Bonnie and Vincent laughed.
“In our house, it’s Nash who does all the cooking. I honestly never have time,” Bonnie said, rolling her eyes. Vincent was leading us into the living room already, where Tim was mixing cocktails at the bar and pouring whiskey for the men.
“I don’t think I’ve visited your house before, Vincent. It’s lovely,” Bonnie said, walking beside me.
I could feel that familiar feeling of anxiety rushing up inside me. Even if nobody was mentioning it, I knew they were all thinking it. That awkward moment when I darted out of the room without any explanation. They were speaking amongst each other, but I wasn’t paying attention anymore, all I could think about was how embarrassed I was, how I had embarrassed Vincent in front of his friends that day.
Tim was now handing out drinks to us from trays, while Vincent offered chairs to our guests. Eventually, it was just him and me standing.
“Come, sit with us.” Lily patted the seat next to her, where Bonnie was sitting on the other side. I tried to paste a smile on my face as I walked over to her and sat down between them. I still felt intimidated by their presence, by the knowledge that these people knew Vincent more intimately, for longer, than I knew him.
Vincent smiled at me, as he sat across from us, closer to his best friends.
“So, Gemma. Give us all the gossip. Tell us everything.” Bonnie leaned in toward me. I turned to her and gulped, but Lily was speaking again. The two of them looked happy, thrilled. Their excitement was infectious. I could see that they were dying to discuss something they had been curious about for some time and hadn’t had the opportunity to talk with me about before.
“Yeah, you go first and then we’ll fill you in on our story,” Lily said with a laugh. I was staring at them, looking from Lily to Bonnie and back to Lily again. What did they even mean by that? What story did they want to hear? Also, what story did they have to tell me?
“Oh, I see Vincent has told you nothing. The three of us have one thing in common, Gemma,” Bonnie said, grabbing my hand in hers. She was patting my hand like she was about to give me some bad news. Uh oh, here it comes. She’s going to disclose something about Vincent that is going to ruin everything for me. Am I his mistress? Are we three mistresses to these three men? Does Vincent have a wife who I don’t know about? My nervousness didn’t put anything past the man I was in love with. I was ready to expect the worst.
“We were all in the same boat once, not very long ago,” Bonnie added, and the smile on her face put me at ease, somewhat.
“Yeah, we were each bad for their business,” Lily said with a loud magnetic laugh.
***
“So, Saturday brunch at my place?” Bonnie said, giving me a hug before she leaned over to hug Lily.
“See you then.” I smiled at her, before hugging Lily myself.
It was two in the morning, and we were all a little drunk, but nobody had wanted the party to end.
“It was great meeting you, Gemma,” Casper said and I turned to find him engulfing me in a tight bear hug. Nash came over to hug me at the same time, and I was squashed between both men now.
“Yeah, glad we all got to know each other. Vincent has been hiding you from us for too long,” Nash added.
“I tried, for as long as I could. Keeping Gemma’s best interests in mind, of course.” Vincent had come over and placed a hand on the small of my back. When the other two released me, I snuggled into Vincent’s arm.
The two couples had come with their own chauffeur-driven cars, and now they were waving as they got into their respective ones. Six months ago, I wouldn’t have ever imagined that I would have friends like these. That people like them could be nice people. Down to Earth, warm and so welcoming.
Vincent and I waved back as the two cars drove away, and he drew me closer to him.
“Alone at last,” he said, wrapping his long muscular arms around me. I placed my head on his chest, a smile appearing on my face. I was tired, my feet hurt from wearing heels for so long, but I had never felt happier than I did tonight. Six months, and it had finally sunk in; this was actually my life. All of this was happening to me, for real.
“Your friends are lovely, and Lily and Bonnie are terrific,” I said, my voice m
uffled by his chest as he held me close to himself.
“They are, aren’t they? I could tell that they like you. Their little girl gang is strengthened in number now,” Vincent said, moving his hands down to my waist now.
Soft tunes were floating outside through the open window of the living room. Someone had turned on the vintage gramophone in the room, and now Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable” was on. Vincent had started swaying gently, forcing me to sway with him.
“Kick off those heels,” he said when I looked up at him, my face shining and bright with utter happiness.
I was only too pleased to take my shoes off. Now, barefoot, I stepped on Vincent’s polished black shoes as he led me in a slow dance to the love song. He looked handsome, smelled great, and he made me feel warm and safe in his arms as we danced.
“Do you think I’ll get into med school?” I asked.
“If your college results are anything to go by, yes, you will,” Vincent said.
I smiled, proud of what I had achieved. I couldn’t have achieved any of that without Vincent’s help or his support. My job at his company was good; it helped me learn and feel more passionately about medicine. Also, importantly, it had helped me pay off all my family’s debts and now I was in the process of helping my parents find a new house to rent in Carlow Ridge.
No trailer park for them anymore; no tattered armchair either. Dad’s medical bills were all being taken care of by Vincent, and my family couldn’t be happier. Their daughter had done well for herself. I was working hard, and I had the support of a kind and generous man.
I stroked Vincent’s arm with my cheek, and he gripped my waist tighter. I could feel the warmth of his body now, as our feet worked slowly with the rhythm of the song. This was what happiness looked like. Who would have imagined it?
“Thank you for everything,” I said, suddenly breaking the silence and looking up at Vincent. He had been paying attention to the music, but now he turned his eyes on me.
“I should be thanking you, Gem. You saved me from making the worst decision of my life, marrying someone for the sake of my parents. I chose you, and you chose to be with me, too. I have never been happier,” Vincent said, and he scooped me up for a kiss. He was holding me up by my waist and my feet weren’t touching his shoes any more. I was like a rag doll in his hands, and he could do as he pleased with me.
I was laughing as he kissed me, uncontrollably, because I didn’t need to hold back my happiness any longer. There was no need to. It was okay to be happy.
I would never have to work in a diner again. I would never have to build castles in the air. All my dreams were coming true, and then some. All because my tire blew and a handsome man offered to fix it for me. And especially because I didn’t let him.
Billionaire Bad Boys
THE COMPANY INK SERIES
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DAWSON
I run my business like I fight and like I f*ck; deep. Savage. Made my first billion before I was 30. I want for nothing now. There’s nothing that walks through the doors of my building which I cannot possess—until Lexie. Sweet, shy Lexie. So innocent. She doesn’t want an office romance… but giving over her soft body right now is an order.
ASHTON
I’ve always had to fight. I fought my way into this wild life. I fought for every shingle on my roof, and I’ll never back down from my goddamn dreams. I met Laura in a bar fight, and I’ve shown her body love many times—but she has no idea how real and how deep that fire burns.
JACKSON
I know what people think about me. I don’t belong. Not to this world of glamour and riches… I just found a back door that wasn’t locked. But they’re wrong. I work hard and I work alone. That’s how I got here; talent and heart. I finally want to show that to the beautiful Hope, but she won’t have anything to do with me. She doesn’t see it yet. I belong right here.
1
AS HE WATCHED the woman get dressed, Dawson held back a sigh of frustration. He’d enjoyed the previous night; he’d have to be dead not to have enjoyed having sex with a beautiful woman, even if he couldn’t remember what her damn name was.
But as he watched her getting ready to leave the warmth of his bed, he felt cold inside. She turned to face him as she started to put on her bra and flashed a smile that was all perfectly straight, white teeth and false eyelashes, and he knew what she was going to say even before she uttered a word.
“So, gorgeous, when will I see you again?” Her voice was as fake as her tits were, and the coldness he felt inside quickly turned to a feeling of disgust. “And could you possibly give me some money to pay for a cab home? I seem to have misplaced my purse.”
And there we have it, he thought. Another fucking gold digger out for what she could get off him. He was so sick and tired of being treated as a meal ticket by almost everyone he knew, especially women, that he was at the point where he could quite easily throw in the towel and move to a secluded island.
There were just two flaws to his getaway plan: he loved money and the power it gave him over people, and he loved sex with beautiful women, even if it meant he had to use his money in order to get it. Miss fake-sexy, whatever-her-name-was seemed oblivious to the fact that his expression had grown cold as he swung his legs off the bed and reached for his wallet on the nightstand. He withdrew a hundred-dollar bill and walked over to where she stood, ogling his muscular nakedness, before thrusting the money into her hand.
“You won’t see me again, but thanks for a good night,” he said.
The woman’s expression turned petulant, and he was reminded of a sulky child who had been told she couldn’t have any more candy, which, considering the things they’d done the night before, made him cringe.
Thankfully, she took the not-so-subtle hint though, and a short time later he was alone in his penthouse apartment mulling over his life and where the hell it was taking him. He supposed that he had no one to blame for the way people treated him but himself, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier to swallow. He knew that he’d been dealt a rough hand from the minute he’d been born, but he’d managed to make something of himself despite that – or maybe it was because of that – so why couldn’t he find someone decent to share his life with?
Because you can be an asshole. Your mother was an asshole. Your father was probably an asshole, and you can definitely treat people like assholes, which is probably why you get treated like an asshole in return. What else can you expect? He knew that he wasn’t really an asshole – not in the grand scheme of things. Too many people had told him otherwise for it to be true. But sometimes it was hard to ignore the demons of his youth that reared their ugly head during times of self-doubt, and during his formative years, he’d been told so many times that he was a good-for-nothing waste of space.
He shoved at the mental voice that had decided to answer his rhetorical question, pushing it resolutely back down into the recesses of his mind where it belonged. He refused to think about his parents or their effect on his life any more than he wanted to think about the ‘system’ he’d been raised in as a result of their non-parenting skills. That was a dark road that he really didn’t want to travel down – not if he could help it. At least he had one thing to thank them for; they’d made him determined not to turn out like them.
Unfortunately, once he started to think about it, the thoughts were hard to shut off, no matter how hard he tried. As he took his shower and got ready for work, he couldn’t help but dwell on his past.
He hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, despite what a lot of people thought when they found out that he was filthy rich. Hell, he hadn’t even been born with
a plastic one either. If truth be told, he had no idea if his birth mother had known anything about spoons, other than to use them to do whatever drug users did with them to get the filth into their wasted bodies. He’d been born premature – tiny and suffering from the effects of his mother’s heroin addiction, and despite not being given much hope of surviving, he had recovered and thrived, thanks to the care he received from the neo-natal nurses.
Of course, he couldn’t remember any of that. His earliest memory was probably when he was about three years old, and it was the memory of children crying in their cribs or playpens at the children’s home he’d been taken to when he’d been well enough to leave the hospital. Most of his memories since then were carefully tucked away in some dark recess of his mind where they couldn’t escape to haunt him.
Occasionally, especially during adolescence, he hadn’t quite managed to keep them held back, and they would resurface when he least expected it, resulting in him being expelled from numerous schools and being labelled as a rebellious thug who would never amount to anything. Rather than adhere to everyone’s low expectations of him, he doggedly worked his way up the food chain until, eventually, he owned his own business. It felt good to actually employ those same people who’d said he’d never get anywhere in life except jail. As he thought about that, he smiled for the first time that day.
2
ALEXA HUNG UP THE PHONE with shaking hands and then gave a whoop of glee.
“Woohoo!! I’ve got an interview, Laura!”
She tried not to get too excited about it as she shouted through to the kitchen, but it was hard not to be, especially after the conversation she’d had with her best friend and roommate, Laura, earlier that day. Feeling disillusioned with city life in general and being unable to find a job in particular, she’d told Laura that she was just about ready to call it a day and move back home with her parents. It wasn’t what she wanted to do, but if she couldn’t find a job before her meagre savings ran out, then she wouldn’t really have an option. Laura had told her that she needed to at least give it a couple more months, but she wasn’t sure that she could wait that long.