by Elise Faber
“Tanner.”
Her gut twisted.
Double fuck.
And a shit for good measure.
“That’s fine, right?” Bas asked. “You guys seemed to get along great.” Concern rippled across his face. “Is there something wrong. Did—”
“No,” she said quickly. “That’s great. I’m sorry. I’m just preoccupied with my new project.”
He grinned. “Always work with you.”
She blew him a kiss. “You know it.”
“Great. So you’ll be paired up with him. And I know it’s been a while, but he’s coming into town next week to catch up.” He tapped the roof of her car, took a step back. “You want to grab dinner with us?”
“I’d love too,” she lied before getting into her car and with a wave that hopefully didn’t show her dismay, Kelsey drove away.
Paired up with Tanner.
Been there, done that.
Got the souvenir broken heart.
Triple fuck.
—Bad Boyfriend coming January 19th, 2020. Preorder your copy at www.books2read.com/BadBoyfriendEF
Billionaire’s Club
Did you miss any of the other Billionaire’s Club books? Check out excerpts from the series on the following pages or find the full series at www.elisefaber.com/billionairesclub
* * *
Bad Night Stand
* * *
Bad Breakup
* * *
Bad Husband
* * *
Bad Hookup
* * *
Bad Divorce
* * *
Bad Fiancé
* * *
Bad Boyfriend
Bad Night Stand
Book One
(www.books2read.com/BadNightStand)
* * *
CHAPTER ONE
Abby
“You’re a good friend.”
The male voice sent a shiver from my head to my toes. It was honey, warm and languid as it slid down my spine and sent my blood pumping.
Which was very, very dangerous.
I sighed. This was always the worst tactic, the most underhanded masculine effort to get my friend’s attention.
Going through the slightly-rumpled, cute-but-definitely-not-gorgeous, exceptionally-clumsy best friend.
It sent my inner sidekick radar on full alert.
Mostly because I’d been hurt this way before.
So “mmm-hmm” was the only thing I said in response.
“Jordan.” A hand appeared directly in front of my face, unfairly positioned between my booze, my book, and my eyes and mouth.
I huffed and finally looked up.
Then promptly felt my lips fall open. Because—holy fucking shit—this guy was gorgeous. Way out of my league, of course. But blond and blue-eyed and hard and tall and ripped. He brought every single Thor fantasy to life—the short-haired, shorn, lightning-bolts-on-the-side-of-his-head version.
Which, face it, was obviously the better variety.
He wore a pair of slacks and a gray button-down that was so sinfully tight around his biceps I half expected it to burst open. I studied those seams for signs of wear. I mean, a girl had to watch out for the rest of humanity, right?
Unfortunately for me, the shirt stayed in place and the signature lightning bolts weren’t present in Jordan’s hair, but his pants were so tight that his hammer—
I shifted on my stool, thighs unconsciously pressing together as blood pooled there.
Which was the exact moment that I remembered he wasn’t there for me.
Damn.
He radiated that same allure as my best friend. Wasn’t life just perfect sometimes? A gorgeous redhead was perched on the stool behind him, leaning forward in an almost obscene pose in order to compete with Seraphina’s cleavage.
She couldn’t, of course.
But it wasn’t just one woman vying for his attention. No, they were dotted around the room, coquettishly blinking at him, crossing and uncrossing legs, adjusting outfits. Even the bartender—female, brunette, beautiful—had chosen to polish glasses two inches from his right elbow.
He was movie star handsome and he . . . was perfect for Seraphina.
“Abigail,” I eventually made myself reply, putting my hand out to shake his.
It wasn’t disappointment curling around my stomach. It couldn’t be, not when Jordan was so stratospherically far out of my league.
He grinned—nice smile, of course—and shook my hand. I suppressed the zing of pleasure that coursed through me at the contact. Instead, I pulled back and hitched a thumb over my shoulder. “Her name is Seraphina. She likes cosmos and hates cheesy pickup lines, despite her kindness in accepting them.” I decided to throw him a solid because, really, they were absolutely perfect for each other. “Talk to her about how much you love CSI.”
I tucked my phone into my purse, grabbed my drink, and drained it.
“I hate CSI,” he said, brows pulling down.
“If you want a chance with her, you might want to discover a newfound love for it.”
My legs took a long time to reach the ground—short people problems—but luckily they’d made contact with the wooden surface before Jordan spoke again; otherwise, they might have kept on slithering until I was ass down on the sticky floor.
“I don’t want a chance with her,” he said. “I want a chance with you.”
My eyes flew up, and I couldn’t help my breath from catching. I wanted that, too. A horizontal, writhing chance. Or hell, vertical. Semi-reclined. I’d take any of it.
My body was very aware of exactly how hot he was.
But then I remembered reality.
“I’m the best friend,” I said and lifted my chin, forcing my words to be matter-of-fact. I’d been through this before. “You might be fuckable to the nth degree and perfect for Seraphina, but I refuse to set her up with a liar.”
In a movement too quick for my brain to process, my stool was shoved to the side and I was pinned against the bar, heavy hips pressing into me, a hard chest two inches from my mouth.
Seraphina whipped around at the movement and I could just see her over Jordan’s shoulder, her blue eyes concerned.
“Hi, Seraphina, I’m Jordan,” he said, calm as can be, gaze locked onto my face then my eyes when mine invariably couldn’t stay away. “I’m going to borrow your friend for a minute.”
“Abs?” she asked, and I knew she’d go to bat for me right then and there if I needed her to.
“Weasel or no?” I managed to gasp out. For some reason, I couldn’t catch my breath.
Not that it had anything to do with Jordan.
No, it had everything to do with him.
“Weasel?” he asked.
I shook my head, focused on my best friend. Weasel was our code name for the men trying to weasel, quite literally, their way into my pants and then into hers.
I was just about ready to say fuck it—or me, rather—even if Jordan was a Weasel. He smelled amazing. His body was hard and hot against mine.
And it had been way too long since I’d had sex.
“No chemistry on my part—” Seraphina began.
“Your friend isn’t who I’m attracted to,” Jordan growled out. “You are, and it’s fucking pissing me off that you don’t believe that.”
—Get your copy at www.books2read.com/BadNightStand.
Bad Breakup
Book Two
(www.books2read.com/BadBreakup)
* * *
CHAPTER ONE
Cecilia
* * *
Cecilia sat on the plane, her first-class seat luxurious and insanely comfortable. It might have been the first time in her limited travel experience that she didn’t feel like cattle shoved into the back of a truck, and instead, like an actual person with wants and needs.
“Your champagne, Ms. Thiele.”
“Thank you,” she said and took a sip, leaning back into the butter-soft leather with a sigh.
&nb
sp; She’d just closed her eyes when someone sat down in the empty seat next to her.
Rustling accompanied the movement as the person got settled.
“Can I get you anything?” the flight attendant asked.
“A whiskey.”
Every hair stood up on Cecilia’s neck. Oh, God no. It couldn’t possibly be—
She clenched her lids tightly, refusing, absolutely refusing to open them. No. She was imaging things. It had been years since she’d heard that voice.
Too many years.
“Here you go, Mr. McGregor.”
Oh, fuck.
Her eyes flew open, but she didn’t move her head. She couldn’t chance it. But she did risk a peek out of the corner of her eye and that was enough to have dread twisting her stomach into knots.
No. It couldn’t be.
She’d booked this flight last minute, deciding to use the voucher gifted to her by Abby after she and Jordan had returned from their honeymoon.
Cecilia’s life had felt stagnant.
She’d needed to get away, and she’d had the free flight and hotel.
It made sense to use it, however last minute.
Plus, everything had worked out. There had been one first-class seat open. Only one cabin at her dream resort.
And now she was sitting next to Colin McGregor.
“Flight attendants, arm the doors,” the pilot’s voice chimed through the plane’s speakers.
A thud signaled her last avenue of escape disappearing.
She was trapped on a nonstop flight for twelve hours.
With the man who’d left her at the altar.
How was this possibly her life?
“Cecilia?” that masculine voice asked. “Is it really you?”
And just like all the times before, her eyes were drawn to him. She’d never been able to ignore him. Not Colin. Not even when he’d—
But this time was different.
She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t a vulnerable girl in a rough place.
She’d been through hell and back.
Colin had no power over her.
Not anymore.
Cecilia put in her earbuds and turned her back on the man who’d devastated her world six years before.
—Get your copy at www.books2read.com/BadBreakup.
Bad Husband
Book Three
(www.books2read.com/BadHusband)
* * *
CHAPTER ONE
Heather
“I’m getting drunk,” Clay said, but allowed her to pull him inside the car so that her driver could shut the door behind them.
“You’re already drunk,” she said.
He stiffened. “More drunk.”
“Fine,” she said, half-worried he was going to launch himself from the sedan. She’d never seen Clay like this. Usually he was so cold and uncompromising, impenetrable even under the toughest of negotiations. He was . . . well, he was typically as Steele-like as his last name decreed.
She wrapped her arm through his in order to prevent any unplanned exits from the vehicle and gave the driver the name of her favorite bar. “If you really want to drink, let’s do it right.”
And then she’d drop him at his hotel.
Except it didn’t happen that way.
Yes, they hit the bar.
Yes, they drank.
Yes, they got plastered.
But then they woke up . . . or at least, Heather woke up.
Naked.
With a softly snoring Clay Steele passed out next to her in bed.
That wasn’t the worst part.
Because Heather woke up naked and with a softly snoring Clay Steele in her bed and she was wearing a giant diamond ring on her left hand.
Still not the worst part.
That came in the form of a slightly crumpled marriage certificate tucked under her right cheek.
And not the one on her face.
She pulled it from beneath her, a cold sweat breaking out on her body, dread in every nerve and cell.
She still wasn’t prepared for the horror she found.
The marriage license had been signed by . . . Heather O’Keith and Clay Steele.
Holy fuck, what had she done?
—Get your copy at www.books2read.com/BadHusband.
Bad Hookup
Book Four
(www.books2read.com/BadHookup)
* * *
CHAPTER ONE
Rachel
“This your doing?”
Rachel froze, all her nerve endings going on alert.
She knew that voice.
She knew if she turned around, she would see him.
Him.
Tall, much taller than her, but lean when compared to her curves. Still, all that lankiness hadn’t meant a lack of strength. He’d been all sorts of hard and hot as he’d pinned her against the door and pounded into her.
Rachel cleared her throat but didn’t rotate to face him. “Not my doing. I just helped out.”
A long pause, probably because normal people usually looked each other in the eyes when they conversed.
“Well, from what I’ve seen, you’ve done a lot of helping out.” He put a hand on the table next to her, and she shifted away, shivering. She remembered what those fingers could do, how they’d traced over her skin, slipped between her legs, slid inside.
Shuddering, she smoothed out a wrinkle on the tablecloth.
“For a last-minute surprise wedding, everything is beautiful,” he said, no doubt waiting for her to say something semi-coherent.
She didn’t.
Instead, Rachel shrugged and began fussing with the placement of the warming dishes.
The man didn’t take the hint. He didn’t leave.
Why won’t he leave?
She dropped her chin to her chest.
“So,” he finally said after another lengthy—and silent—moment. “Gay, taken, or not interested?”
“Oh my God,” she moaned, one hand coming up to push her bangs off her forehead. “This is not happening.”
“I—” A beat then his voice was incredulous. “I know that moan.” Warm fingers grasped her wrist, tugged until she could see him in all his yumminess.
Her moment of weakness. Her hookup because she’d been feeling desperate and lonely and—
“It’s you,” he said softly.
Yes, it was her. Rachel, the good girl who didn’t sleep around, who certainly didn’t hook up with random strangers in a bar.
Rachel, who had hooked up with a stranger.
The sex had been damned good. Incredible, actually.
But it had been just that. Sex. And she hadn’t been able to let go of the guilt. She’d now slept with a grand total of two men in her life, and one of them was her husband.
“I—” She tugged at her wrist. “I need to go.”
Heather and Clay chose that exact moment to saunter over.
Why universe? Why?
“Rachel,” Heather said, closing the distance between them and hugging her tight. “I told you not to work so hard on the wedding. This”—she swept her hand around the deck—“is all too much.”
“You deserve to have a beautiful wedding,” Rachel murmured to her boss and gave her a quick squeeze before she stepped back.
Heather shook her head, but she was smiling. “Thank you.”
“Yes, thank you,” Clay said. “For all of it. I know it was a lot of work, but we appreciate—Oh, good”—he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, turning her to face Sebastian fully—“I was going to introduce you two, but I guess you’ve already met my assistant, Sebastian.”
Sebastian’s expression flickered with shock—no doubt mirroring her own—but luckily, Clay and Heather were too lost in each other and the moment to recognize just how big of a bomb Clay had just dropped.
After a few more words, their bosses moved on to talk with a business associate, and Sebastian’s blue-gray eyes darkened. His stare, all heat and desire and sex appeal, was
what had undone her the first time they’d met.
But it was his words, the hint of a growl edging into his voice that made her insides tremble in that moment.
“I’m really looking forward to working with you, Rachel.”
She tipped over a bowl of salad dressing.
—Get your copy at www.books2read.com/BadHookup
Bad Divorce
Book Five
(www.books2read.com/BadDivorce)
Bec
But there was another person waiting just outside her front door.
A person she never expected to see again.
Luke Pearson.
Her ex-husband.
It was one-fucking-thirty in the morning, and her ex-husband was sitting on the floor outside her apartment.
Asleep.
Fuming, she marched over to him and kicked his shoe. Hard.
“Luke,” she snapped. “Why in the ever-loving fuck are you here?”
His lids peeled back, sleepy green eyes met hers. “Becky,” he murmured. “You’re gorgeous as always.” The drowsiness began to fade from his expression. “Did you just come from work?” He glanced down at his phone. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Of course I know what time it is—” Bec bit back the rest of her words. Fuck, but wasn’t this conversation an exact replica of the broken record they’d played way too many times over the course of their relationship?
She crossed her arms. “Never mind that.” She shot him a glare that had withered balls much bigger than Luke’s. “Why did you break into my apartment?”