by Marian Tee
Table of Contents
I Didn't Know He Was My Boss
About The Book
I Didn't Know | He Was My Boss
Part One
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Epilogue
Part Two
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Author's Note
Bad Boy Billionaire
My Billionaire Captor
My Boss' Best Friend
Billionaire Rancher Stepbrother
My | Russian Stepbrothers
Boys
For Angelo
Vivian likes a guy from work. She thinks he might like her back...until she finds out he's her billionaire boss with a beautiful ex-wife to boot.
Their after-office-hours fairytale should have ended there, but it doesn't. The billionaire surprises Vivian with a proposition she can't say no. He wants her to be a loving mother to his daughter, and in return he will be the perfect husband.
Can she say yes...even knowing the billionaire will never fall in love with someone ordinary like her?
This book was previously published as a duology (Devoured and Secrets). It has since been edited to remove all references to the Kindle World it was originally a part of.
Note: This is a steamy Cinderella-like romance with a cynical hero for her prince. Expect to laugh and cry and fall in love on your way to an angsty happy ever after. If you are a huge fan of authors such as Lynne Graham, Miranda Lee, and Sarah Morgan, then you might want to give this a try.
About The Book
Luca Valencia was jealous.
Before she could answer him, she felt his hands moving between their bodies, one arm going around her waist to tighten while another scooped between the gaps of her uniform to cup her breast.
A gasp tore out of her and she instinctively tried to move away, but his hold on her tightened, one hand pushing her even closer towards him, and the large, hot hand on her cotton-covered breast palming her flesh before squeezing.
This time, she whimpered against his lips.
Luca stilled, surprised at how such a simple sound could be so erotic, to the point of making his entire body harden in desire.
Apparently, he and Vivi had amazing sexual chemistry between them.
Unexpected, Luca thought, but it was certainly not unwelcome.
“Did he touch you like this, Vivi?” He squeezed her breast harder. “Did he?” He lifted his head so he could gaze into her eyes as he waited for her answer.
Slowly, her head moved. No.
And in those pure green eyes, Luca could see that she was telling the truth.
Even so, it wasn’t enough.
With his gaze locked to hers, he released her breast. He watched her sigh in relief only to hold her breath again when she realized that he had done so to unbutton her blouse.
“What are you doing?”
“Claiming what is mine...” Her blouse fell open, and with his gaze still holding hers captive, he tugged her bra down.
When she felt her breast spring free, Vivian didn’t know where to look or what to do first. She couldn’t believe what Luca had just done – and worse, that she had let him!
“From the very start, Vivi...”
Oh God, she should stop looking at him.
She should start running away.
But she couldn’t.
Not when he was looking at her so hungrily, like he wanted to devour her.
Not when she was feeling so helpless with need, like...she wanted just as much to be devoured.
His head lowered.
Run now, Vivian.
His hand cupped her breast.
Oh.
His head lowered.
Ooooh.
And then before she knew it, he was cupping her breast, plumping it until he could slowly draw her nipple into his mouth. The impact was astounding, the heat even more scorching than what she had experienced with his kiss, and her knees knocked against each other as she actually started to lose her balance. She might have fallen back, it was entirely possible, if not for his arm encircled around her waist tightening, and then he was sucking even harder on her nipple.
A whimper escaped her.
“Please—-” She didn’t know what she was pleading him for, but it seemed like he did, and Luca moved to her other breast, paying it the same lavish attention as he tongued her nipple before starting to suck.
Her hands clenched and unclenched, and then she somehow found herself moving her hands up, running them over the muscles of his arms, his shoulders, and finally she was gripping his hair.
Her fingers tightened.
He bit her nipple.
She moaned, and even as tiny bursts of fireworks exploded behind her eyelids, she also started to panic as the enormity of what she was doing – of what she was letting him do – hit her.
Somehow, Vivian found the strength to push him away. “S-stop!”
To his credit, he didn’t use his strength against her, immediately releasing her nipple from his mouth. She stumbled back as he straightened, her hands clumsily righting her clothing, pushing her bra up to its proper position and then pulling the sides of her blouse together in an effort to cover her chest.
“I know what you want,” she stammered, “but I’m sorry. I just—-” Her gaze fell to the receipt lying discarded on the carpeted floor. “I just can’t do it, even though you’re holding that against me.” She waited with bated breath for him to speak, her gaze searching, but every inch of Luca’s gorgeous face remained unreadable.
Crossing his arms against his chest, he asked in a neutral voice, “What do I want then?”
“To make me your sex slave.”
His eyebrows arched. “My...sex...slave.”
She could feel herself reddening. “Don’t tell me you don’t.”
“I don’t,” he said promptly.
And strangely enough, she believed him – which also meant she was wrong, and she had just made a fool out of herself, again.
I Didn't Know
He Was My Boss
By Marian Tee
This book was previously published as a duology (Devoured and Secrets) under Kindle Worlds.
Copyright 2020 by Streak Digital Publishing
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Part One
Prologue
“And then we lived happily ever after,” Angelo Valencia murmured in a self-mocking tone as he shared about his rollercoaster romance with his fiancée. "Or at least we will tomorrow, assuming I get out of this bachelor’s party alive.”
He surveyed his surroundings with lips thinned in annoyance. Although Angelo appreciated his friends' efforts at organizing tonight’s gathering, he would've rather spent the evening with Lane.
Luca could only shake his head at the look on Angelo's face. The younger man was obviously smitten, and he had to forcibly swallow all cynical remarks that were brimming on his lips. He had met Lane and found her lovely. A little eccentric, considering her strange aversion to men with wealth. Since Angelo was a billionaire in his own right, Luca wasn't quite sure how that would work out for the couple, but to each his own.
Luca raised his glass. “To your fortune, cugino.”
Knowing that his cousin was not referring to his material possessions, Angelo raised his glass in return. “I wish you the same luck, cugino."
After downing his third shot, Luca put the glass back down on the table and leaned back against his seat, silently contemplating the recent changes in his younger cousin's life. Like him, Angelo had one serious relationship before meeting Lane, and one that ended with his younger cousin deliberately breaking his girlfriend's heart.
Luca's previous relationship had also gone sour, but whereas Angelo's former flame Jaike had been an angel, Luca's ex-wife had been an adulterous bitch.
Even now, thoughts of Maria left a despicable taste in Luca’s mouth. He had grown up in an extremely conservative Italian family, with a strict but loving father who had done his very best to raise his only child to know right from wrong. Even though his father had passed away in his late teens, by then Luca’s character had been fully developed, and with his mother’s gentle, soft-spoken guidance, he had grown up to be honorable and hardworking, a man without any pretensions of himself and with no desire to sow his wild oats.
Unlike many of his peers, Luca had looked forward to starting his family young, and at that time, he could not imagine himself loving or marrying anyone else than his childhood friend Maria. They had grown up together, gone to school together, and he had been her first lover – as she had been his.
It had not mattered to Luca that she was the daughter of one of the countless servants employed at the Tuscan winery that his family owned or that she had only finished high school before leaving the countryside to work as a secretary in town. It had not mattered to Luca that her manners had been rather coarse, which at that time he had considered more charmingly refreshing than anything else, or that she occasionally showed wild bursts of temper.
At least she was being honest with him, Luca had thought then. It was better than those women in college who had constantly thrown themselves at him and pretended to be the kind of girl they thought he would like.
For Luca, everything about Maria was perfect because he had been in love.
And so he had married her, even knowing of his family’s tacit disapproval of her. It was not that his mother and their relatives had been snobs. Rather, they had simply cautioned him about not knowing Maria well enough to make her his bride.
Their concerns then had sounded ludicrous to him, and Luca’s lips twisted at the memory. How foolish he had been, he thought with self-contempt, to believe that knowing another person was a matter of years.
He had grown up with Maria, his brash twenty-five-year-old self had rationalized. So of course he knew her inside and out.
The first few months of their wedding had been bliss, and with hindsight, he realized it was Maria doing the same thing he despised other women for, which was to pretend to be someone she was not. The only difference was that where others had failed, Maria had managed to succeed, and he had considered himself the luckiest of all men. He had loved her so much that by the time Maria began to exhibit gradual but significant changes in her behavior, Luca had tried damnably hard to accept all of them.
First were the demands. She had wanted to spend more and more of his money and had thrown tantrums and threatened to leave him when he had forbidden her to do so. It was not that he couldn’t afford her expenses. He could. But it was the sheer frivolity of her purchases that were anathema to Angelo and went completely against how his parents had raised him.
Then there were the late night outs, with the way she had attended one party after another, dancing the hours away until the driver would be forced to take her home, drunk and incoherent.
Luca had found Maria’s behavior increasingly disturbing, but because he loved her, he had tried hard to understand her wild ways. Because he had been raised to honor his wife and stay with her through thick and thin, he had forced himself to swallow his anger and told himself that in time, Maria would grow weary of the party scene. In time, she would realize that she would be happiest when she was with him.
And then she had fallen pregnant.
The news of her pregnancy had appeared heaven sent for Luca. Finally, he would be a father. Finally, Maria would realize the error of her ways. Finally, she would have a reason to slow down and spend more time at home.
But she hadn’t.
Instead, Maria had acted even more outrageous. There were nights when she no longer came home, and when she did, it was only because she had either run out of money or places to go. Even so, Luca had been unwilling to restrain her...until the night he had received a call about Maria overdosing on recreational drugs.
Seeing her on the hospital bed, with dark circles under her eyes and looking so pale to the point that she appeared lifeless, Luca had blamed himself for being too lenient. It was now apparent that his wife had needed him to take control, and he hadn’t. All her actions now appeared nothing but the work of a rebellious child, someone begging for understanding and attention.
She clearly didn’t think she was ready for motherhood, Luca had reasoned out to himself. It was why she had taken more risks than usual, a typical way for someone desperate to blind herself to the truth. It was as if by pushing her body beyond its limits, Maria was able to deny the reality of her condition.
That day, Maria had woken up sobbing, terrified by her near brush with death. She had begged for his forgiveness, and he had given it freely, comforting her and promising his wife that he would be with her every moment.
And for a few months, they were happy again. He hadn’t even needed to lock her in the house as he had feared he would. She appeared content to simply spend time with him, and Luca began to hope that the worst was over.
Maria had eventually given birth to a baby girl, and she had insisted that Luca name her himself. Then, he had thought it incredibly generous of his wife, but now he knew of course that it was only because she had been completely uninterested in their child.
He had named their daughter Eula, and he thought her the most precious thing in the world. However, it became apparent soon enough that Maria was less than enchanted with their baby girl. Soon, he came to realize that motherhood was a mere obligation for his wife, and now that she had fulfilled it, she was determined to pick up her life right where she left off.
The parties continued, the late nights, and it was up to Luca and his own mother to care for Eula. While he knew Letitia was more than happy to continue caring for her grandchild, he also knew that it was neither right nor fair to take advantage of his mother’s love and allow her to spend her golden years babysitting his daughter.
When he had told his wife he expected her to spend more time caring for Eula, Luca had already expected that there would be fights ahead of him. And it did happen, but what he hadn’t expected at all was how bitterly acrimonious it would get between them, to the point that his work was affected and he began making mistakes – costly mistakes that eventually wiped out almost the entire family fortune.
When he broke the news to his mother and the aunts, uncles, and cousins who depended on him, none of them had blamed him. Ironically, the only one who seemed to be hit the hardest was also the unspoken cause of his problems.
Maria.
Upon learning that Luca would have to declare bankruptcy, Maria had flown into a rage. She had stormed out of their bedroom and when he attempted to s
top her from leaving, she had begun throwing things at him while screaming invectives. She blamed him for their financial downfall, blamed him for spending too much time on Eula when he should have been working harder to keep them in style.
In style.
Those had been her very words, and the sheer silliness and crassness of it had made him blow up. He had slapped her in the face, and for a moment there had been such stark silence between them.
Luca had found himself appalled and ashamed. He was not the type to ever strike a woman, so how could he have done such a thing, and to his own wife at that?
“Maria...”
But he had only taken one step towards her, and she had tried to claw his eyes out, her nails raking down an angry, bloody slash down his cheek. “I hate you,” she had hissed at him.
And then she had left.
The next day, all the major newspapers and tabloids in Italy had talked about his family’s downfall as well as the news that his wife was cavorting in a bikini with his business rival Piero Palumbo. The photos showed the couple on Palumbo’s yacht, with the sixty-year-old millionaire squeezing his wife’s bottom.
“Luca?” Angelo's quizzical tone brought him back to the present with a jerk.
“Scusa,” Luca apologized stiffly.
Angelo's gaze narrowed at the look on his cousin's face, saying disapprovingly, “You are wasting time thinking about her again, aren’t you?”
Luca shrugged but didn’t bother to deny the truth. Angelo was one of the few who knew the complete story behind his divorce, and the younger man had also been one of the few people who had insisted on taking the risk of investing a majority of his fortune in Luca's startup.
With the divorce taking what little assets he had left in his name, prospects had been extremely bleak. Although Luca was not afraid of poverty, he did not want it for Letitia and the rest of his family, and most of all, he did not want his precious daughter to suffer such hardship.
And so he had taken a risk. He sold his remaining shares in the family winery and had used the money to start his own software firm. Technology had always been fascinating to him, but being a dutiful son, Luca had always known his future lay in the winemaking business.
