The law firm’s draconian security system didn’t let them access files from outside the office unless they had been checked out, a stupid process involving speed-typing security codes.
“Oh, Grant. Leave your husband, Grant, for me, Rox. I’ll take you to Fiji for our honeymoon.”
They played this game a lot, too, sometimes every day. “Never. He’s six-foot-seven and a blond-bearded Norse god.”
Cash mused, stroking the soft hairs of his short beard, “Last week, you said he was six-three, two seventy-five of pure muscle, and a Latin lover.”
“Grant is all things to all women,” Rox said, her chin held high.
“Is he coming to the office volleyball tournament this weekend? We could use a guard, if he really is that tall.”
Yet another opportunity for Rox and all the other female staff to view Cash with his shirt off, displaying his rippling abs and black tattoos, always an impressive sight. A tribal-looking tattoo illustrated the left side of his body. A swirl of black fire on his round pectoral muscle spread into flames that reached over his shoulder to his back, trailed down his left arm all the way to his wrist, and slid over his rippled stomach to duck into his waistband.
Rumor suggested that the ink ran down the cut vee of his belly, over his hip, and to the middle of his thigh, but Rox had not seen that much of his skin.
“No,” she said, blinking. “He’s busy working on his screenplay, and that’s taking up a lot of his time. One of the series that he does stunts for is going to start shooting next month, so he has to get his script done because choreographing the stunts gets in the way of his writing. He gets really sore from being beaten and blown up all day. And he’s thinking of auditioning for ‘American Obstacle Course Warrior’ this year.”
Cash frowned. “I saw one of their contracts. It was reprehensible. Don’t let him sign anything unless we look at it first.”
“Josie Silverman always looks over his contracts.”
He nodded. “Josie is good. All right, then. But come back to the office tonight.”
And spend yet another long night curled up on those couches under Cash’s diploma, feeding each other with chopsticks or plastic forks, battling legal wits and cracking jokes, while she watched that beautiful man harmlessly flirt with her, that gorgeous man who was so delicious on the outside but poison when tasted?
Not if she could get out of it.
Rox said, “I need to spend a little time with my actual husband instead of my work-husband.”
Cash laughed. “Tomorrow morning, then?”
“You’ll get it when it’s done. You know that Bessie will try at least one thing like this,” she tapped the red flag in Watson’s contract, “for her studio. Maybe she’ll try to tie Leo down to a fifty-year right-of-first-refusal clause or something.”
Cash shook his head. “Why do we always play these games? It’s going to end the same way.”
Rox glanced at him, wary, but the seriousness in his green eyes meant that he was talking about the movie studios’ contract shenanigans. She said, “I couldn’t say, Cash.”
He pushed off the desk, his biceps pumping under his shirt, and ran a hand through his gold and bronze hair. “Until tomorrow, then. What would I do without you?”
Rox lifted her nose in the air as she walked away. “Wither away and die, I s’pose. Good night, Cash.”
She went back to her own office, a much smaller, interior room. The only window was beside the door and looked down a corridor between cubicle dividers. None of the other paralegals had a separate office, instead working in the cubicle farm in the center room, but Rox got whatever she wanted from HR.
She sucked in a deep breath.
It was exhausting, sometimes, being around him, knowing that she shouldn’t, knowing that she must not, and waiting for a touch or a glance from him that never came.
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A Note From Blair Babylon
Hi again,
It’s me, your intrepid author, and this is the last of these notes in the Flicka series.
It’s bittersweet for me to end these series, which is probably why I keep going on and on about characters in epilogues. I live with these characters for months, in this case, years if you include Flicka and Dieter’s first appearances in Wulf’s book in 2015 (over 3 years ago) and all the epilogues since.
When I’m writing a book or series, I dream about my characters. I am both of them as they talk to each other. I both fall in love with them and am loved by them. I live the worst and best days of their lives with them as they struggle to survive and love each other.
I can feel their emotions more clearly than any other human’s because they are my own. To some extent, my characters are real—at least real to me—and I am closer to them than I am to my husband and child because I can read their thoughts and feel their emotions. We are not bound by mere bodies. It’s intimate in a way that humans cannot approximate by any other means.
And then, they leave.
I’m left being just me, a woman with a kid just starting high school and a lot of neglected housework to catch up on.
And my characters—who were more intimate with me than lovers, more bound to me than children—are gone, flown, caught in a stasis field of elections and paper.
Gone, but forever young and forever happy together.
I still dream about Xan Valentine sometimes. We talk backstage about music and art, and he shows me the colors of the music he’s working on.
And Wulf.
Always, Wulf.
All of this, of course, is the appeal of reading literature. When you read a book, you experience the same thing. We become the characters, and we are them. We love and are loved by them. We walk with them through the most difficult days of their lives, which is how friendships are forged.
And then we let them go.
Readers live a thousand lives, and literature lives forever.
I hope you enjoyed Flicka and Dieter. I hope you loved them like I did.
And next, on to Maxence.
Love,
Blair Babylon
Blair Babylon Books
~
BILLIONAIRES IN DISGUISE SERIES
READING ORDER
Here’s the theoretical and chronological reading order:
Working Stiff (Runaway Billionaires #1, Casimir)
Stiff Drink (Runaway Billionaires #2, Arthur Duet, Part 1)
Hard Liquor (Runaway Billionaires #3, Arthur Duet, Part 2)
“Rae Falling” (The first, free part of Billionaires in Disguise: Rae) ~FREE!
Billionaires in Disguise: Rae, Complete Omnibus Edition (includes “Rae Falling”)
“An Extravagant Proposal” (A Side Story for Billionaires in Disguise: Rae)
Falling Hard (Billionaires in Disguise: Lizzy, #1) ~FREE!
Playing Rough (Billionaires in Disguise: Lizzy, #2)
Breaking Rules (Billionaires in Disguise: Lizzy, #3)
Burning Bright (Billionaires in Disguise: Lizzy, #4)
“Alwaysland” (Rock Stars in Disguise: Xan, A Prequel)
What A Girl Wants (Rock Stars in Disguise: Rhiannon)
Somebody To Love (Rock Stars in Disguise: Tryp)
Every Breath You Take (Billionaires in Disguise: Georgie and Rock Stars in Disguise: Xan, #1) ~FREE!
Wild Thing (Billionaires in Disguise: Georgie and Rock Stars in Disguise: Xan, #2)
“Skiing in June, A Rae and Wulf Epilogue #1” (Billionaires in Disguise: Rae)
“Kidnapped, A Rae and Wulf Epilogue #2” (Billionaires in Disguise: Rae)
“Rae and Wulf: At the Hospital”
Lay Your Hands On Me (Billionaires in Disguise: Georgie and Rock Stars in Disguise: Xan, #3)
Nothing Else Matters (Billionaires in Disguise: Georgie and Rock Stars in Disguise: Xan, #4)
“Montreux, A Rae and Wulf Epilogue #3” (Billionaires in Disguise: Rae)
The Rock Star’s Secret Baby (Rock S
tars in Disguise: Cadell)
“Dream On” (Billionaires in Disguise: Georgie and Rock Stars in Disguise: Xan, Epilogue #1)
“Keep Dreaming”
Santa, Baby (Rock Stars in Disguise: Peyton)
Runaway Princess Bride (Billionaires in Disguise: Flicka)
In Shining Armor (Runaway Princess #2) (Billionaires in Disguise: Flicka)
In A Faraway Land (Runaway Princess #3) (Billionaires in Disguise: Flicka)
At Midnight (Runaway Princess #4) (Billionaires in Disguise: Flicka)
Happily Ever After (Runaway Princess #5) (Billionaires in Disguise: Flicka)
Stiff Competition (Runaway Billionaires #4, Maxence)
You don’t have to read everything perfectly in this order. I try to recap or make books as standalone as possible. The mini-series within this overall list, such as the Lizzy books or the Georgie books, should be read in order. ~BB
Also, just so you know what you’re getting up there, novel-length books are in italics, like this, but “short forms,” like short stories and novellas, are in “quotation marks.”
Check for New Releases by Blair Babylon at Google Play
~~~
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Q. Are Blair’s Billionaires Books erotic romance or erotica?
A. Blair’s Billionaires Books are all erotic romance or contemporary romance.
Erotica generally centers around the sex act, a preponderance of the page count is given to the sex act, and the main characters usually do not build a life together after the sex act. The main character usually discovers or accepts something new about herself or himself, thus it is a journey of self-discovery.
Erotic and contemporary romance concerns itself with the two people falling in love and, usually, building a life together in a very, very sexy way. Romance novels generally end with an HEA (Happily Ever After) or at least an HFN (Happy For Now).
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You can email Blair Babylon by putting her name in the subject line when you email Malachite Publishing. She loves to hear from readers, reads every email, and does her best to respond to everyone. You can also connect with Blair via her Facebook Group or Goodreads Page.
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About Blair Babylon
Blair Babylon is an award-winning author who used to publish literary fiction. Because reviews of her mainstream fiction usually included the caveat that there was too much deviant sex in her novels, she decided to abandon all literary pretensions, let her freak flag fly, and write hot, sexy romance novels. She’s having much more fun, now.
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~~~~~
Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading Billionaires in Disguise: Flicka.
If you’d like to know when my next books come out, please visit my website or sign up for my newsletter.
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Copyright 2018 by Malachite Publishing LLC
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s wild and naughty imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or other, without permission from the author or publisher.
1st Edition: September, 2018
Happily Ever After (Runaway Princess: Flicka, Book 5) Page 31