The Misters Series (Mister #1-7)

by J. A. Huss

  It was a crazy move on my part. But she wanted this house. This piece of land. And this dog. So I got it all with hope in my heart. Hope that she would forgive me for treating her dreams like they are something to be ashamed of.

  I slide the door open and give the pilot another thumbs up. Scout waits her turn for once, as I get out and help Ellie with the same steady hand that helped her get in.

  I will be crushed if she rejects me today, but I will give her the house anyway. I will give her the dream, even if I can’t be a part of it. It’s all in her name anyway. Even Scout’s registration papers.

  We duck into the wind of the helicopter blades and then it takes off and the world goes suddenly silent.

  Ellie looks out at the barn and pasture beyond the house. “Is that…?”

  “Sheep,” I say, laughing at the absurdity of it. “Every good sheepdog needs some sheep. She chases the hell out of them now, but I’m sure she’ll come around.”

  Ellie lets out a long breath of air and then turns to face me. I’m still holding one hand, but I take the other one too. “Eloise, I love you. And I missed you so bad, it was torture. So I consoled myself by trying to make your dreams come true. I don’t want to do any of this without you, so if you say no to a second chance, I’ll understand and it’s all yours. No hard feelings. No resentment. No debt to be paid back. I just want you to have the dream.”

  Ellie stares at me, then her beautiful face scrunches up. “No hard feelings? Well… I’m kind of disappointed in that, McAllister.”

  “What?” I say, caught off guard.

  “Well,” she says, looking at me sideways with a coy grin on her face. “A man should fight for the woman he loves. Maybe you don’t love me?”

  “Hell.” I laugh. “I’m a lying fuck, Miss Hatcher. I have a dungeon in the basement where I plan to tie you up and never let you go if you tell me to get lost.”

  She bursts out laughing, her cheeks bright pink from the wind and the cold. Scout jumps up and down at our change in mood, tugging on the leash until I drop it and take Ellie in my arms. “Is that a yes, Ellie? To our second chance at the delusional dream life? Will you help make all the things that never happened to us happen now? Because I want this.” I drop her hands and spread my arms wide. “I want all of this, but I only want it with you.”

  “I want it, Mac. I want you, and her,” she says, nodding towards a running Scout. “And this. And the dream. Not just any dream, but our dream.”

  “Then let me take you inside. Because I have a lot to show you. I’ve been so busy in my delusional world since we last saw each other.”

  Her hands latch on to my arm and she leans her head into my shoulder as we walk up towards the house.

  “But we’ll have to order out for dinner. There’s no food here.”

  “Nothing?” she asks. “You haven’t been living here?”

  “Without you?” I scoff. “Never.”

  “Well, I can’t wait to grocery-shop with you, Maclean Callister,” Ellie says with a sigh.

  “I take that back,” I say. “I do have one edible thing in the house. But we won’t be using it for toast tonight.”

  Ellie leans into my chest and her laugh comes out as a mist of air from her mouth. I lean down and kiss her lips. So warm. So familiar. So ready.

  “Butter will never be the same. And neither will the kitchen table. Because I’m going to bend you over it the moment we get inside.”

  Yeah.

  This is perfect.

  Every bit of this is perfect.

  But only because Ellie is my Mrs. Perfect.

  Epilogue - Mac

  “Nice party, Perfect.”

  Ellie and I got engaged last week and I wanted to share the good news with my best friends. I can’t wait for them to find happiness like I have. It’s been a long time since we’ve all been together. Even Mr. Mysterious is here tonight. Though where he is right now, I have no idea.

  “Thanks, Corporate,” I tell Weston Conrad. “I do my best.”

  “And you always do it perfectly.”

  “What can I say?” I shrug and take a sip of my whiskey. “They didn’t call me Mr. Perfect for nothing.”

  “But hey,” West says, turning more serious. “I’m worried, man.”

  “About what?” I ask.

  “Not what. Who,” West says.

  “Who then?”

  “Do you see Nolan over there?”

  “Yeah.” Nolan Delaney, AKA Mr. Romantic, is being his usual player self to the girl he brought with him. I’m not sure she notices, but that’s probably because she’s only using him for his money. “So what? He’s looking and acting the same to me.”

  “Exactly,” West says. “And look, Mr. Match came alone. Alone, dude. What the fuck is up with that?”

  “Oliver? Shit, he never has a girl with him, I hear. His sister is always harping to Camille about it. How can a guy who owns the world’s largest dating site not have a girlfriend? It’s bad business, don’t you think?”

  West grunts. “And look, quick! Before he disappears!” I look in the direction West is pointing to, but there’s no one there. “Fucker,” West says. “Asshole slipped out again.”

  I can only assume he’s taking about Mr. Mysterious, AKA Paxton Vance. Who has been even more mysterious than usual these past few years. I know he’s here—several people have mentioned that he looks like he just got out of jail with that six-day beard stubble. But Pax has always been the angry type. And he’s never been to jail. Surely, I know that about him. I’d probably be the guy to get his only phone call if he needed a lawyer.

  “This is all wrong,” West says. “It’s not good for them to keep living in the past, you know?”

  “What do you suggest?” I take another sip of whiskey.

  “A good talking-to, I think.”

  I smile at my old friend. And then we laugh. And laugh and laugh and laugh. Oliver wanders up and asks what’s so funny. West and I just keep laughing.

  A good talking-to is fraternity-house slang for, Let’s fuck with them.

  “I’m in, dude.”

  We fist-bump. We even get unsuspecting Oliver to join in.

  Let the games begin.

  END OF BOOK SHIT

  Welcome to the End of Book Shit – the place at the end of each book where I get to say whatever I want. They are never edited so don’t judge my grammar, typos, or comma usage. It’s always last minute when I write these and everything comes off the top of my head. You might hear fans call it the EOBS in conversation. They really look forward to these little rants of mine and I really enjoy writing them. Especially in a controversial book.

  Mr. Perfect isn’t very controversial but I still have quite a bit to say about it. If you’ve read a few of my EOBS chapters then you might remember me saying I like to think about a book for a pretty long time before I start writing. Usually about a year. Sometimes a lot longer than that. One of the reasons it takes me so long to go from idea to book is that I plan my year out ahead of time. So when I came up with the idea for this book in the spring of 2015 I already had a full plate of books to write before I could get to it.

  The main premise was always the same. Delusional girl meets practical man, but before they meet, practical man gets a huge dose of her delusional world via text messages.

  This book actually started out as an angsty new adult story about a girl who lost her first love and fell for his best friend. But eh, I got bored with that. The original title was All The Things That Never Happened and if you do a search you’ll see I used that phrase a couple times in the book to pay homage to a title I loved.

  It became Mr. Perfect after I decided to give Mac a little “team” just like the one Ronin, Ford, and Spencer had in the Rook & Ronin books. I had just written the Happily Ever After epilogue novella when I started itching to do another series. I spent almost all of 2015 writing standalones. I did start a new superhero romance series with Anarchy Found, but everything else last year was
a standalone. I guess Wasted Lust was more of a final Dirty, Dark, and Deadly book, but it was also a spin-off of 321. So eh. You could read WL alone, but no one really wants to. Sasha was too big of a character in all the other books, going way back to Ford’s Slack book.

  The really cool thing about a series is that you get to build a world and hang out in it for a while. When I wrote the Happily Ever After book for Christmas last year I felt like I was going home to the Rook & Ronin world. It was so much fun. But it was over. The End. And yes, I will be writing about some of the kids—particularly Five. I know there are a ton of people waiting on Five, but I just don’t feel ready to put that on paper yet, so it’s being held back until spring 2017. We want Five and the Princess to be perfect, right? ;) And there might even be another “team” kid cropping up in a future book quicker than you think. Keep your eyes peeled!

  But I needed a new series. A new group of people in a brand new world. I set this first book in Denver, but the second book is in California and New England. I try to write places I know and that’s why you usually get Colorado, California, and any of the many southwestern deserts from me. But I’m branching out, bitches! :) New England here I come. I’ve never even been there (Aside from Eastern PA), so it won’t be as big a part as my other locations, still, I should get some cred for trying.

  And even though Mr. Perfect started out as a standalone drama I like it much better as a book one of a standalone series.

  So… the team. ;) Hot guys with money and suits. All of them share a secret past and you got a small dose of that past in this first book, but of course, what kind of JA Huss book would it be if I gave you everything straight? Remember Tragic? Remember how you knew Rook had a little somethin’ somethin’ going on before she met Ronin. And remember how with each book it got a little bigger? A little more twisted? Well, the Mister Series is a little bit like that.

  There are five men as you just found out.And each guy played a part in ‘that night’, but maybe not the part you—or their friends—think they did. Mac got off easy. (Insert evil laugh) But that might not be the end of the story for the rest.

  But the main story is mostly about love and how each of these damaged men come to terms with their past, find their soul mates, and move forward. I think each of the ladies will be challenging to them in a unique way and each of the men will be pantie-melting hot between the sheets and the pages.

  Thank you for reading, thank you for reviewing, and I’ll see you in the next book.

  Julie

  Mr Romantic

  MR ROMANTIC

  BY JA HUSS

  Edited by RJ Locksley

  Copyright © 2016 by J. A. Huss

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-978-1-944475-08-6

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  DESCRIPTION

  Ivy is the “preacher’s daughter”. Everything about her screams “innocent” and ready for corruption. She’s well-educated, well-respected, and desperate for a job after just graduating college. She’s sunning herself one day when a sweet job offer is literally hand-delivered from the infamous Mr. Romantic, Nolan Delaney, himself. Well… his driver, anyway.

  Ivy knows who Mr. Romantic is. All the Misters are infamous. They were involved in a media-frenzy college scandal some years back and everyone knows Mr. Romantic was the one who “did it”.

  They miraculously beat the rap and have been busy being billionaires ever since. But even though Ivy is ready for the challenge (and really needs this job) something is up at Mr. Romantic’s desert resort.

  Nolan Delaney might be deliciously hot, but he’s got a dark side lurking under that charm.

  And when I say dark… I’m talking… depraved.

  Chapter One - Ivy

  The whole thing is like a dream, something surreal and inexplicable. A long dark car pulls up in front of the townhouse. A man in a black suit gets out, buttons his suit coat as he walks up towards my front patio where I am reading a book in the late afternoon sun, and stops, staring down at me from behind a decorative iron gate that has no security purpose whatsoever.

  “Miss Ivy Rockwell?” the man asks, tilting his head down at me, looking past the sunglasses.

  “That’s me,” I say, nervously putting my book down and getting to my feet.

  The stranger reaches into his suit pocket and pulls out a silver envelope. “I have an invitation for you and I’m required to wait until you read it before leaving.”

  My brow furrows. “What kind of invitation? From whom?”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to open it up to get that information, Miss Rockwell.” He thrusts the silver envelope towards me.

  I’m not sure what to do other than take it, so I lean over the gate that separates us—it barely comes up to his waist—and take the envelope.

  The paper is thick, the kind you use for weddings or fiftieth anniversary parties. And it’s sealed with a sticker made to tear easily if anyone tries to open it. The card inside is not folded, more like a postcard. It’s silver, like the envelope, and just as exquisite. The paper has fibers in it, like that handmade stuff you get from craft stores. And the lettering is embossed.

  It says:

  You have been selected to interview for a managerial position with Delaney Resorts in Borrego Springs, California. The time and arrangements will be contingent upon your acceptance. Please notify the delivery man of your decision.

  “What?” I ask, looking up at the impassive delivery man. He does not look like any delivery man I’ve ever seen. He looks rich, and a lot like a man who is used to getting what he wants. I try to see his features behind the dark sunglasses, but can’t come up with anything very identifiable. “What’s this about?’

  “A job interview, Miss Rockwell.”

  “Obviously,” I say, but not meanly. “Delaney Resorts? I never applied for this job. I think I’d remember applying to a resort in California.”

  “I’m not able to comment on that, Miss Rockwell. I’m simply here to get an answer, and if you say yes, I’m to have you sign a non-disclosure agreement about the job and give you the transportation details.”

  I blink. Non-disclosure agreement? “What is Delaney Resorts? I mean”—I laugh a little—“I can’t possibly be expected to pick up and go to California without a little more information. Especially when I’m being asked to sign a NDA.”

  “As I said, all the details will be provided once you accept and sign.”

  “I have to accept before I get any more details? And agree not to talk about it?”

  “Yes, Miss Rockwell.”

  “I don’t know,” I say, suspicion taking over. “It sounds fishy. Too good to be true.”

  “You can tell your family about the interview, just not disclose anything else.”

  “What if I get the details and change my mind?”

  “There is a number to call should that happen,” the stony man says. “So the private jet can be cancelled and you can be briefed on the legalities of the NDA.”

  “Private jet?” I have to shake my head for a moment.

  “I’m afraid I can’t comment further.”

  “Well,” I say, turning away from him so he can’t see how uncomfortable this is making me. What kind of invitation is this? I’ve never heard of such a thing. A phone call is a nice personal way to invite someone to interview. An email is typical. But sending a messenger with news of a private jet tucked inside expensive printed cards? That’s weird. “Can I have a moment to look up Delaney Resorts before I comment?”

  “Of course, Miss Rockwell.”

  I nod. “OK, one sec. Let me go inside and get my phone.” My phone is in my pocket but I need a moment to compose myself. If this is a real job interview, then I need to take it seriously. I’ve applied to dozens
of places since graduating last spring and had no bites at all. I need a job. Soon. But looking at the man in black and the limo he arrived in parked in front of the townhouse is making it hard to concentrate.

  I enter the house and close the door, peeking out through the front window at the stranger. I wait for him to shift his stance or pull his phone out to relay the progress of his mission, but he simply stands there, hands in his pockets, staring at the door.

  “OK, Ivy, get it together.” I pull my phone out and do a quick search for Delaney Resorts. “Oh, hell.” The information I’m looking for comes up immediately. And I suddenly understand who it is I’m dealing with.

  “Nolan Delaney,” I whisper. The infamous Mr. Romantic. No wonder he has all this hocus-pocus privacy stuff.

  I stare at his picture longer than I should, but I can’t help it. Nolan Delaney is the hottest guy I’ve ever seen. Of course, I’ve seen him before. His face was all over the TV when I was a teenager, but not in recent years. He was young back then. My age now. Looking like a college kid looks. But today, ten years later, he looks every bit the businessman he is.

  It’s real. This invitation might be unorthodox, but it’s real. I’m sure if Mr. Delaney feels he needs this kind of privacy protection he has a good reason for it. He was, after all, accused and almost tried for serious crimes back in college. He must still be feeling the sting of those long, depressing years.

  I open the door and say, “OK, I accept.”

  Delivery man in black says, “Perfect,” as he once again reaches into his suit coat and produces another silver envelope, which he places on the brick post of my tiny gate. “The arrangements are in there. If you need to cancel there is a number to call. But first,” he says, producing a more conventional white envelope, “I’ll need you to sign this.” He hands the white envelope to me and then finds a pen.