The Boss (Billionaires of Club Tempest #1)

by Sloane Hunter

  Contents

  Title Page

  PROLOGUE Sam

  CHAPTER ONE Beck

  CHAPTER TWO Beck

  CHAPTER THREE Sam

  CHAPTER FOUR Beck

  CHAPTER FIVE Beck

  CHAPTER SIX Sam

  CHAPTER SEVEN Beck

  CHAPTER EIGHT Sam

  CHAPTER NINE Beck

  CHAPTER TEN Sam

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Beck

  CHAPTER TWELVE Beck

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN Sam

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN Beck

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN Sam

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN Beck

  EPILOGUE Sam

  Thank You for Reading!

  Sam

  Billionaires of Club Tempest

  Sloane Hunter

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

  Copyright © Sloane Hunter 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  PROLOGUE

  Sam

  On a quiet street, in a corner of the West Village, there was a private club called the Tempest.

  It was an elegant structure, four stories with engraved oak doors and dark-shaded windows to keep out wandering eyes. If you were curious enough to open the door and take a peek inside, you would find a doorman in the entryway, dressed in a dark blue vest and tie under a gray jacket, who would politely yet firmly tell you to continue on your way. The doorman’s name was Eli or William, depending on the day and the time, and the two men knew every member of the Tempest by sight alone. There were no need for identification cards or secret knocks there. Only a reputation that preceded you.

  If you were to pass beyond Eli (or William), you would go through another door and enter into a high-ceilinged entry hall with a twisting staircase that led up to the second floor. You could wander through the rooms for some time. There was a billiards room, a formal dining hall and kitchen, a steam room with lockers, a library, and a small art gallery decorated with donated works. On the second floor there was also a fully stocked bar, complete with a barman to tend it, and if you wanted to go back there and pour your own drinks, he wouldn’t get in your way. The bar was furnished with tables and chairs, couches and recliners, and at the head of the room was a large, stone electric fireplace that burned every day and every night.

  While the first two floors were open to all members of the Tempest, the third and fourth were where you went for a bit more privacy. Continuing up another staircase, down a separate hall and behind a door on the left, was a small drawing room. Inside, it was comfortable and well-outfitted. A small bar containing taps, bottles, and chilled glasses was situated against the wall. On the opposite side was another fireplace though that one was rarely lit. Beside the bar was a pool table and, in the center of the room, a round table with six chairs sat under a Tiffany-glass chandelier. It was in this room that the Knights Tempest met, an exclusive club within an exclusive club.

  The Knights consisted of myself, MacKenzie Walsh, Mason Reads, Keegan Thompson, Henry Blackburn, and Twain Conrad. The conditions for membership were these: To be a Knight, you must be within a five year age range of the three founding members, and you must be a self-made billionaire.

  The age policy was flexible; we all knew that. The founding members, Mac, Henry, and myself, had started the club several years ago after being rather rudely shunned by some of the old men in the Tempest, sour that we were worth twice as much as them at half their age. The policy was intended to keep the Knights from being an old man’s club, at least, until we were old men ourselves.

  The “self-made billionaire” part though was set in steel. Occasionally some cocky trust fund brat met one of our members somewhere else in the Tempest and attempted to buddy his way into our private chamber. Him and all the others like him were told to fuck off. We could be friends or business partners in the outside world or even just in the lower floors of the Tempest, but that room on the third floor was only for the ones who had the balls and the brains to make it big on their own, no help from daddy.

  Self-made millionaires were respected, but told to try again once their fortunes got a little (or a lot) bigger. There were no small fish allowed in the Knights.

  Other than those simple rules, there were no barriers that kept someone out of the club. Whatever crimes you might have committed, whatever unseemly hobbies you might keep, whatever backwater, one-horse, cousin-fucking town you might have grown up in, once you became a Knight, you became one of us. And we protected our own. Even if our own could get on our every last nerve.

  Which was where Mason was currently sitting in my book. He was seated on the couch behind the table and had been watching me intently for the last two hands.

  I ignored him. Directly across from me, Mac was staring just as intensely with bottle-green eyes. If you looked close enough, you might be able to tell that one was glass. Mac’s story changed on how exactly the eye got taken, but the few consistencies seemed to be that, one, it’d happened in his native Ireland back when he was a younger and significantly poorer man, and, two, that the fellow who’d taken it had received much worse for what he’d got.

  I watched the glass eye, the left, idly, looking for that slight delay when his right flashed down to reexamine his cards. The pot was a cool two million, but it wasn’t about the money for either of us. It was about the fact that I’d won the last seven hands, busting all the other Knights out of the game. Twain and Keegan had gone to the bar, but Henry and Mason hung around to watch the finale. Or, in Mason’s case, to watch me.

  Mac’s jaw clenched and I knew what he was going to do before he even started pushing his chips in.

  “Call,” he said in a thick Irish accent.

  “Hope you know what you’re doing there,” I said, taking a sip of my scotch.

  “I know you’re full of shit, my American friend,” he replied. “Nobody gets that lucky so consistently.”

  I shrugged. Mac’s call forced him to go all-in. There was nothing left to do now other than see who was walking with the pot.

  He threw his cards on the table. A jack and an ace combined with the community cards to make a comfortable two pair. Would I have wagered a million on it though? Not if I was smart.

  I threw my own down, a diamond flush, king high.

  “Feck,” Mac cursed. “You son of a bitch.”

  Henry chuckled at his indignation. “Well, looks like I’m joining the boys at the bar,” he said, getting to his feet. He buttoned the jacket of his tailored dark blue suit and headed over to where Twain and Keegan conversed against the wall.

  Mac muttered something under his breath, shook his head, and got up as well.

  “Come on, Mac,” I said, leaning back in my chair and resting my hands behind my head. “Don’t be sour. Nobody likes a sore loser.”

  “Nobody likes a cheat either,” he muttered.

  My eyebrows shot up. “What the fuck did you just call me?” I asked.

  “Mac…” Mason said. Mac waved him off. He looked, for a moment, like he was going to double down on the accusation and the silence thickened in the small room. Even the guys at the bar, who didn’t seem to be paying attention to the game, stopped talking and glanced o
ver. Mac was a fighter back in the old country, but I wasn’t inept myself when it came to talking with my fists. The question was, did he think this piddly game of cards was worth it?

  Mac’s good eye hardened as we stared each other down. But then he looked away and the tension dissipated. Mac was quick to anger, but smart in his battles. He knew it wasn’t worth it either. He walked across the room to join the guys at the bar without another word. My mouth curled into a smile as my eyes met Mason’s.

  “Ol’ boy got a bit overly invested,” I muttered to Mason, standing myself and stretching, feeling the movement my expensive new jacket allowed me. I joined him on the couch in front of the fireplace. “I figure there’s a reason you’ve been staring me down?”

  He shrugged, but his lack of response told me everything I needed to know. Mason was typically a direct man, but he always got cagey when it came to work. “New girl?” I prompted.

  He shrugged again. “Maybe.”

  I knew Mason well; he was probably my best friend amongst the Knights. He was a man who chose his words just as carefully as he chose the colors he applied to his canvases. That was another quirk the Knights had compared to other social clubs in the city. We didn’t discriminate on your business. While I was in real estate, Mason had made his fortune as an artist, some of his pieces selling for almost as much as my buildings did. And he hadn’t become one of the most successful artists in the world by rushing his choices.

  “That woman you were with at the MET Gala last month—” he started.

  “Chelsea,” I said, already knowing where he was going.

  He nodded, his steel-gray eyes flashing at the name. “Chelsea. Would you mind…”

  I gave a sharp laugh. Mason was a trip. Too damn polite for this circle. If it had been Mac, he’d have fucked her first and— actually, no. He wouldn’t have asked questions later. In fact, he probably wouldn’t even have remembered her afterward.

  “Damn, Mason,” I said. “You know me. I don’t keep a girl longer than a night. I don’t care what you do with her. In fact, I can ask my assistant to pull her number tomorrow.” I paused. “Actually, check that. I’ll ask my new assistant when she starts in a couple days. But honestly don’t expect it until next week at the earliest. The girls always find things overwhelming at first.”

  Mason’s stern face broke into a slight smile. “I appreciate it, Sam.”

  I slapped his back possibly a bit too aggressively and stood. I was starting to get a thirst. “Speak nothing of it, my friend. Though I’ll admit, I’m surprised. You really want to follow me up?”

  Mason stood as well and laughed softly. “No, I don’t sleep with my models.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Seems a bit of a waste, doesn’t it?”

  “I become intimate with them on the page,” Mason said as we crossed the floor to join the guys.

  “Is that so?” I asked. I liked Mason but damn he could be a weird motherfucker.

  We joined the rest of the Knights at the bar to a chorus of boos and jeers from the guys I beat. Mac joined in with them, and when I gave him a second glance I saw that the hostility from earlier was gone.

  “All right, all right,” I said, waving them off. “Someone pour me a scotch and let’s get the hell out of this boy’s club and find some women.”

  The jeers turned to cheers and a glass of scotch connected with my hand. This was what I needed tonight. A night out, a glass of good liquor, and hopefully a woman in my bed by the end of the night. There was still so much to do before I could put the Astor building on the market and losing my assistant had only put me further behind. Oh well, that was a problem for work hours.

  Hopefully the new girl could keep up.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Beck

  A long, thin crack ran along the plaster of Alice’s ceiling. It was the first thing I saw when I’d woken up on my back and for the past ten minutes I hadn’t moved a muscle. My eyes traced the crack up and down its length and reveled in the imperfection. Such a flaw would never have been allowed in Troy’s house. It was a sign that I’d really done it. That I’d really gotten out of there. I wouldn’t allow myself to move, fearing that if I rolled over on my side, I might drift off again and wake up to find myself back in Gainesville, back next to Troy, back to my old life.

  It was the traffic noises that really woke me all the way, shattered any fears that the ugly ceiling might just be an illusion. Traffic wasn’t a thing in my sleepy Southern hometown. In fact, I wasn’t sure most locals even knew what the word meant. Ditto to rush hour and gridlock.

  I turned over on Alice’s couch, no longer in danger of drifting off again and squinted up at the wall clock that hung beside her doorway. Two in the afternoon. I felt my mouth drop. What? I felt like I’d barely closed my eyes and yet somehow I’d managed to sleep for thirteen hours.

  I sat up quickly and stood, stretching and yawning loudly. The apartment was dark, just cracks of sunlight streaming in past the pulled shades. Alice must be at work. What day of the week was it? Thursday? Something like that. The past few days had been so chaotic. I moved carefully past Alice’s tasteful Ikea furniture and opened a shade, flinching at the bright sunlight reflecting off the metal towers around Alice’s apartment building. She lived in the Village, a hip neighborhood surrounded by bars and clubs and other late-night venues and eateries. It might as well be an entirely different planet than the one Gainesville existed on. It sure had seemed so yesterday.

  My mind drifted back to last night. My bus had pulled into Port Authority at ten fifteen and it had taken me almost an hour just to find my way to the exit where Alice was meeting me. My old college roommate had moved to the city after she graduated and we’d kept in touch over the years. I knew it had hurt her as much as me when I had to leave college early.

  Alice had squealed when she saw me and raced across the lobby like I was her long-lost love. She’d pulled me into a hug, chattering about how great it was to see me again and how much fun we were going to get up to in the big city together. I tried to help carry the conversation along, but soon realized that Alice could do most of the heavy lifting. She seemed to know not to press me. She’d heard my voice over the phone yesterday. And she knew me. She knew I wasn’t the kind of person who asked for help. That if I was calling now, it was because something serious had happened and I needed to get away.

  It had and I did, and I was in no state last night to discuss it. I would tell her more details one day, hopefully over a bottle of wine. Or three. But for now, Alice just welcomed me into the fold, brought me into an Uber, and whisked me into Wonderland. When we got out on her street, I didn’t know where to look first. There were so many sights and sounds and colors and people, all swirling around me. I knew I must have looked like such a country girl, slack-jawed at the big city, but Alice was nice enough not to comment or tease. Then she’d brought me upstairs and I’d slept for thirteen hours straight. Quite an achievement, and it was more than welcome. As I stood at Alice’s window, I felt refreshed after my long journey on the bus yesterday.

  I didn’t have time to waste looking out the window. I needed to get things in order. I checked my phone and saw a text from Alice saying that she’d be back around four and that she’d bring food but to help myself to anything in her kitchen. I went to the bathroom and splashed water over my face, rubbing it into my pores and then realizing that what I really needed was a shower. So I found a towel and washed my long blonde hair until all the country grit was swept from its folds. In the shower, as the hot water ran trails down my back, I got the feeling that I was washing away the girl I’d been back in Gainesville, the girl I’d been with Troy.

  What would Alice have thought of that girl, if our paths had crossed last week? She wouldn’t have even recognized her as the driven, determined roommate she’d had for two years. She was a girl that had gotten used to being told what to do. A girl frozen in fear, barreling toward a future she didn’t want. A girl that knew exactly what her life was
going to look like for the next ten, twenty, fifty years. And I was scrubbing her away. Sweeping that layer of person down the drain to rot away to nothing in the New York sewers with the other forgotten things. The Beck that emerged from the water was baptized in self-assurance and self-reliance. If I could drop everything, break off my engagement, sever my last ties to my hometown, and move to New York, then I could do anything. And I would do anything to make this all work.

  I brushed my hair and my teeth, dressed in a pair of slim jeans and a red t-shirt. I needed new clothes if I was going to make it here. Actually, forget that. That was spoken like the Beck that was molded by Troy and his limitless cash. First I needed a job and my own apartment and then I’d worry about the clothes. As long as I wasn’t streaking down Fifth Avenue, I was fine. Now that sounded like me. Welcome back.

  Work would hopefully not be a worry for long. Alice had hinted last night that she might be able to get me a job at her company. We’d both been design majors at the University of Kentucky. But while I’d gotten trapped in Gainesville after a hiatus to take care of my dying father, Alice had graduated and gone on to the big city. She’d gotten herself an internship at an up-and-coming real estate firm called The Callahan Company. According to Alice, her boss, Samuel Callahan, had spent the last six years becoming ridiculously successful flipping offices and apartment buildings and that, with the company’s rapid growth, they were always looking to hire. At least, that’s what she’d told me over the phone yesterday morning when I’d called her tearfully asking if I could come live with her in New York until I got on my feet. I just needed to keep my fingers crossed that they needed someone when she asked around for me today.

  I opened the rest of the blinds and cleaned up a little, just to have something to do. Alice’s apartment was small, a one bedroom, but, from what she was telling me about rent prices, I gathered she was lucky she didn’t need to have roommates. Once I was done taking care of myself and cleaning, I flipped on the television and idly changed channels, trying not to think too hard about what Alice’s bosses might say about the resume I’d given her. I hadn’t worked a job outside of the service industry since college, and my last work experience had ended at my engagement seven months ago. Troy hadn’t like the idea of his fiance working, and I’d naively gone along with it.