Bad Fiancé

by Elise Faber

  Bad Fiancé

  Billionaire’s Club Book 6

  Elise Faber

  BAD FIANCÉ

  BY ELISE FABER

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

  * * *

  BAD FIANCÉ

  Copyright © 2019 Elise Faber

  ISBN-13: 978-1-946140-35-7

  Cover Art by Jena Brignola

  Billionaire’s Club

  Bad Night Stand

  * * *

  Bad Breakup

  * * *

  Bad Husband

  * * *

  Bad Hookup

  * * *

  Bad Divorce

  * * *

  Bad Fiancé

  * * *

  Bad Boyfriend

  Contents

  Billionaire’s Club

  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

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Billionaire’s Club

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Elise Faber

  One

  Seraphina

  Sera was going to lose her mind.

  Or throw a fucking tantrum.

  And see? There it was. A curse word.

  Seraphina Delgado did not curse. It wasn’t seemly or ladylike, and . . . she was a thirty-something-year-old woman who still saw her mother’s disapproving face in her mind any time she dared utter a curse word.

  Well, know what?

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity-fuck.

  There. Ha.

  Mental diatribe somewhat satisfied, Sera turned to the source of her wannabe tantrum.

  Tate Conner.

  Tech genius. Real estate client—

  Or, rather, former real estate client because he was a giant pain in her as—tush.

  Congrats, Mom. I sound like a four-year-old.

  But Tate Conner had become a former client because he was such a pain. He didn’t like any of the houses she’d selected, and he never showed up for appointments. In fact, she’d lost count of how many times he had forgotten about a scheduled showing after number twelve.

  So yeah, she’d kissed away any hope of a giant commission and told Tate they would no longer be working together.

  That had been four months ago.

  And now he was here in her office, looking all . . . Tate-like.

  Super helpful description, she knew, but it just wasn’t fair. Weren’t these tech guys supposed to be nerdy and unattractive? Because Tate Conner definitely didn’t fit that description.

  He was tall and lean but strong. Months ago while en route to one of the appointments he’d actually made, Sera had gotten a flat tire. She’d managed to get her car to the showing then had called AAA, and Tate had shown up while the man was struggling with her lug nut—poor phrasing, but so not the point. Anyway, he’d approached the tow truck driver, tweaked the angle of the wrench, and the nut had popped right off.

  Again, more poor phrasing, but—

  Sera mentally shook herself.

  He’d claimed it was all about leverage, but she’d seen the way his muscles had rippled under his T-shirt. He was strong, and she could tell it was more of a natural strength rather than a result of spending loads of time in the gym.

  Want to know the worst part?

  Besides the whole strong and as tall as her—hard to do considering she was over six feet—Tate was also pretty.

  Really pretty.

  A chiseled jawline, a straight nose, lips that were totally kissable, and a pair of dimples that only made the rare appearance. He also had the prettiest blue eyes she had ever seen and sandy blond hair that was more appropriate on a surfer than an executive.

  That hair had been her undoing. Well, that and his brain. He was the head of a huge tech company, brilliant, and—insert a long mental sigh here—he was also funny. Tate had a quiet wit that never failed to make her smile.

  So, as she always did, Sera had fallen in love.

  Fallen fast. Fallen hard.

  For a man who had absolutely zero interest in her.

  Her friends—none of whom had ever dreamed about finding their happy endings and several of whom had been decidedly against them, she felt required to point out—were all married or paired off. Abby had babies. CeCe was due any day, and—

  Sera was alone, pining after a man who’d created the latest social media craze.

  Yup. Her life was ah-maz-ing.

  Tate cleared his throat, and Sera realized she’d been staring at him dumbfounded for a good couple of minutes.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Conner.” She stood, forcing herself to shake his hand. “I was woolgathering.”

  Sparks. The moment their skin touched, she felt actual sparks.

  Just like every time before.

  And just like every time before, she was the only one affected.

  He smiled—eliciting more sparks, because her body was a stupid jerk—and said, “I’ve been known to do that from time to time.”

  Sera indicated for him to sit in the chair in front of her desk as she sank into her own chair. He continued to stand, but she started talking anyway, desperate to get this conversation over with. “How can I help you today?” she asked. “I do hope”—Do hope? What was she, British? Ugh.—“I-uh . . . I hope you were able to find a house. The agents I passed along are very good at finding unique properties, and I even gave them a few locations to start with . . . ” She bit her lip, attempting to stop the ramble.

  “No.”

  Just no.

  Um. Okay.

  He lifted a hand, rubbed the back of his neck. The movement made his shirt lift, exposing several inches of flat stomach and tan skin and, oh God, a trail of blond hair leading south. Her mouth watered, desperate to trace that path with her tongue—

  Sera sucked in a breath, popped to her feet.

  “Ah. I’m sorry.” She picked up a random file, pretending to know what was in it. “I’m actually really busy, so this will have to continue another time.”

  Like never.

  She rounded her desk, forced a smile. “Mr. Conner,” she said when he didn’t move. “I’ll have my assistant schedule something soon.”

  “Seraphina.”

  She shivered at the sound of her name on his lips—soft, a little raspy, and deep enough to conjure all sorts of unhelpful fantasies in her mind.

  Shaking herself, she moved to open the door.

  Suddenly, Tate was there, hand on hers, body inches away, spicy scent inundating her senses.

  Sera’s breath caught. “What are you—?”

  He seemed to be arguing with himself then finally, those piercing blue eyes locked onto hers. “I need you to marry me.”

  Two

  Sera

  Her knees wobbled and she wavered, almost colliding with the wooden panel.

  Tate placed a hand on her shoulder, steadying her. “You all right?”

  She sl
ipped from between him and the closed door, not sure if her reaction was from the physical assault of Tate on her senses or because she’d just received her first marriage proposal.

  Or neither. Sera was hungry; that was all. Or she might have developed hyperglycemia.

  Or both.

  Or—

  Her eyes stung and she turned away, blinking rapidly.

  Or she was an idiot.

  The truth was that she was upset because no words of love had accompanied the asking. No romantic setting. No—

  So. Fucking. Stupid.

  As in, she was so fucking stupid. How could she possibly be worrying about the fact that her childhood fantasy of a cliffside proposal at sunset, her man down on one knee as he recited a heartfelt poem he’d written just for her—

  Stop.

  Because how could she possibly be worrying about any of that when her former client had just asked her to marry him?

  Delusional.

  She was delusional.

  And the most pathetic part was Sera thought that if all those pretty things had accompanied Tate’s request, she might have actually agreed.

  To get married. To a man she barely knew.

  Her brain had poofed away, like so much smoke. Or maybe it had been her logic and reasoning skills that had disappeared. Or . . . perhaps she was just so fucking desperate to find her own slice of the happily ever after her friends had cobbled together.

  A hand on her shoulder had her stiffening, jerking out from under the contact.

  “Sera,” he murmured.

  She sucked in a deep breath then turned back to reach for her purse on her desk, not looking at him, not risking getting sucked into those deep blue eyes again.

  “I can’t help you, Tate. I’m—” Barely managing to bite back the apology—because what in the heck did she have to apologize for?—Sera stepped around him and yanked open the door.

  Her assistant, Hector, glanced up, brown eyes concerned.

  “Can you give Mr. Conner the contact information for Zedd and Associates and Brown Estates again?” she asked, slapping a smile on her face and breezing by him. “Mr. Conner lost them. Thanks.”

  She managed to keep her smile steady despite the knot in her stomach because she’d had a lifetime of experience in shoving down every emotion that didn’t align with the bubbly little princess her parents wanted. She was excellent at tucking her feelings into a locked box in her brain. She knew how to padlock it shut, to compartmentalize it away to deal with later.

  When she didn’t have to worry about shattering the carefully placed mask she wore.

  “Sera.”

  Tate saying her name again in that soft rasp of his made her shiver, but she kept walking.

  “Take an early lunch, Hector,” she said, ignoring Tate and reaching for the door to the stairwell. She pushed through, navigated down the three flights to the garage, and hustled to her car.

  Thank God, she didn’t have to unlock the door. Thank God, she only had to tug on the handle and the door unlocked itself.

  Because at that moment, she didn’t think that she would have been able to search through her bag and locate anything—wallet, cell, and definitely not the small key fob to get into her car—

  Rambling.

  She was rambling. Even in her own mind, she couldn’t help the flood of words, of emotions, and . . . memories.

  So much for that locked box.

  She sucked in a breath, released it slowly, and focused . . . on the memories.

  Because that was what she needed to grab on to. Not the memory of Tate helping with her tire, but the memory of him forgetting about their appointments, how it felt to be left waiting over and over again.

  Because Sera had been there, done that. Got the souvenir beach blanket.

  She’d grown up with parents who shouldn’t have been parents. People so wrapped up in their own lives and competing with those in their social circle that they should have just stuck with designer pooches.

  She’d been that fluffed up and oddly groomed poodle, hair trimmed and dyed, except instead of a crystal-studded collar—because Delgados would never wear something as uncouth as rhinestones—she was clad in designer clothes and shoes, one outfit that cost more than her nanny had made in a month.

  In reality, that was all she knew. Clothes and looking pretty. Nannies and prep school and beauty pageants. Until she’d had enough and had refused the pageants, resisted the modeling.

  Then it had been boarding school.

  Devasting and freeing.

  Lie.

  “The second one,” she muttered, buckling her seat belt and pushing the button to start her car. “I haven’t been free one day of my entire life.”

  She was too scared to be.

  If she wasn’t sweet and nice and kind Sera, then who was she?

  The scary . . . okay, pathetic thing was that she didn’t know.

  Was she tough and strong like Bec, one of her best friends and a famous lawyer who was incredibly smart?

  Was she a talented artist with a heart of gold like CeCe?

  She didn’t have Heather’s business acumen or the slice of softness tempered by a steel spine her friend also possessed. She wasn’t a great project manager, like Abby, nor a freakishly organized woman with every aspect of her life together, like Rachel.

  She didn’t have a traumatic past, hadn’t been hurt or abused or abandoned. Sera had been sheltered, cossetted, packed in cotton.

  And she’d gone along with it, just accepted the sheltering and cossetting and the stifling cotton.

  Because she was weak.

  But no more.

  “No. More,” she promised, shifting into reverse and letting her foot off the brake. “I’m not that person any longer,” she whispered furiously to herself, turning her head to glance both directions for traffic. “Everyone is happy. It’s my tu—”

  She broke off on a scream.

  Three

  Tate

  One second, he was reaching up to knock on the passenger’s side window of Sera’s car and the next, he was flying ass over teakettle—such an odd idiom, by the way—and landing hard on the payment.

  He blinked, stunned at the quick turn of events, then stood, lifting a hand to touch his right temple.

  It stung like a son of a bitch.

  Wincing at the contact, he pulled his hand away, brought it in front of his face. His fingertips were coated with blood.

  He went woozy, knees wobbling, and he found himself on his ass on the pavement for the second time in as many minutes.

  Tate sucked in a breath, wiped his fingers on his jeans.

  Vaguely he heard the click of a car sliding into gear, trailed by the slam of a door and a frenzied clattering of heels on the pavement.

  Fuck, his head might be spinning, but he knew that sound. He loved the heels Sera wore, loved that even though she was only a couple of inches shy of his six-foot-three, she still had the confidence to wear them. Strappy sandals, black leather pumps, suede booties—he’d actually Googled women’s footwear types until he’d discovered the correct name for those. He’d fucking drooled over every pair she’d strutted around in, showing him houses that were perfect, but that he picked apart and found unreasonable flaws in anyway, even “forgetting” appointments to draw out the process because he’d been desperate not to let his time with Sera end.

  Until she’d dropped him.

  He couldn’t blame her either.

  He’d been a pain in the ass, a waste of her time, and she’d been . . . perfect.

  But Tate had resisted her allure or at least resisted yanking her into his arms and unbuttoning the fastenings on the silk blouses she wore always tucked into form-fitting black slacks or skirts. Still, he hadn’t been able to resist spending time with her.

  Of course, he’d justified it by telling his logical brain that spending time with someone was completely different from asking a woman out on a date.

  Because he didn’t do relati
onships.

  He didn’t date.

  Not anymore. Not ever again.

  Which is what had gotten him into this mess.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, remembering why he was there, why he’d sought out Seraphina, why his pathetic aversion to blood was really not going to help—

  “Oh my God,” Sera said, sinking to her knees beside him and cradling his face in her palms. “Tate? Oh my God. Can you hear me? Are you alive?” She leaned in, eyes searching his deeply, and he was inundated with the smell of her, strawberries and cream with a touch of floral.

  Intoxicating.

  Heady.

  Irresistible.

  His lids slid closed and he sucked in another breath. He needed to resist, needed to focus so he could find a way to convince Sera to help him.

  “Oh no,” she moaned, clutching his head to her chest. “I’ve killed you.”

  It wasn’t a bad place to be, all things considered, cradled against those glorious fucking breasts. He didn’t even consider himself a boob man, but Sera’s were insane—bouncy, perky globes that had threatened his concentration and control.

  He wanted to lick and suck and . . . he was so lost in the cradling and the mental image of what he’d do to those breasts that it took Tate a few seconds to process what Sera was saying.

  “ . . . need to call 9-1-1 . . . bleeding . . . oh my God, he’s bleeding . . .”

  “I’m fine,” he said, gently pushing her away and meeting her concerned gaze. “Hell of a headache, but my fault for putting myself there. I didn’t realize you were—”