Kissing a Billionaire

by Hart, Taylor

  Copyright © 2019 Mirror Press

  E-book edition

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles. These novels are works of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places, and dialog are products of the authors’ imaginations and are not to be construed as real.

  Interior Design by Cora Johnson

  Edited by Kelsey Down, Kim Dubois, Lisa Leigh and Lisa Shepherd

  Cover design by Rachael Anderson

  Cover Photo Credit: Shutterstock #249010933

  Published by Mirror Press, LLC

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  The Undercover Billionaire

  by Taylor Hart

  Be My Plus One

  by Heather B. Moore

  To Hide and to Hold

  by Sophia Summers

  Bow Tie or the Billionaire

  by Annette Lyon

  How to Woo a Billionaire

  by Danyelle Ferguson

  A Billionaire Abroad

  by Sarah M. Eden

  “I told you, since you insisted on sending me to the backwoods of Wyoming, I’m taking some time off. I’ll be out of reach for ten days, Dad. Starting now.” Mia dropped her luggage on the bed in her hotel room while she talked. “It’s Thursday, so don’t plan on hearing from me until next Sunday. That’s when I’ll turn my phone back on.”

  “You’re going into this project completely undercover? No one is going to know you’re a Jagger?”

  She scoffed. “Exactly. I want to be name free. And, just to remind you, you’re the one who forced me into being on this project.” Resentment coursed through her, and she thought of where she really wanted to be. Her fingers itched for a knife to cut beautiful vegetables, and her nose longed for the smell of fresh garlic.

  “Sweetheart,” her father said hesitantly, “is this attitude because of my feelings about cooking school?”

  Mia could imagine him staring out of his New York skyline office, wrinkling his nose at thoughts of her in a kitchen, cooking. Her father was in charge of Jagger Energy Enterprises, a conglomeration of companies that dealt in all types of energy. He viewed his company as the most important thing on the planet. That company was the very reason she was on this little field trip to Casper, Wyoming.

  Mia squelched down her urge to fight with him. She would have ten days away from arguing with her father about her dream. “It’s called culinary school, Dad. And let’s not talk about your feelings right now. I know your feelings on that.” She couldn’t stop without one more comment. “And let me remind you: it’s not like I need your approval, Dad. I am twenty-five and capable of making my own decisions.”

  Silence on the other end of the line. “You’re my right-hand man,” her father said quietly.

  “Woman,” she corrected him again.

  “Pfft. I know that.” She could practically see him rolling his eyes in long-suffering patience. “You know I’m not a chauvinist.”

  “That’s exactly how you sound, Dad.”

  He sighed, again. “I want to keep my daughter at the head of my company. Tell me how that’s chauvinistic.”

  Not wanting to point out that it wasn’t really chauvinism—more controlling-ism—she opted for a different argument. “You shouldn’t underestimate the guys either. I have five brothers that could all do my job.”

  “No. I need you,” he said in a clipped, decided manner. “You have a sharp mind, a head for business. Look, who negotiated the Harrington deal last month? You. Without you, we wouldn’t have gotten that five-hundred-million-dollar deal.”

  “Yeah, the rest of us are just a bunch of idiots,” her brother Sam called out from the background.

  Mia sucked in a breath. She hated when her father didn’t tell her he was on speaker and that there were others in the room. “Dad, who else is there?”

  “We’re all here, Mia,” Sam stated, and she heard annoyance in his voice. Sam worked so hard to gain his father’s approval.

  Mia had five younger brothers: Sam, Mark, Daniel, James, and Cohen. They were each a little more than a year apart, and all were employees of Jagger—some of them earned their salaries, and others were still working their way up in the company.

  The rule for the Jaggers was college first, then the company. They could opt out, of course, but their father made it too profitable to join the family business. He was controlling, and Mia had been the first child, so she was in the deepest. Recently he’d promoted her to Vice President of Business Operations. While she could admit she was good at business and even enjoyed negotiating the deals, she didn’t love it. As of late, she’d decided to go for the things she did love—cooking up culinary delights. It might sound trite to her father, but she didn’t care. She just wished she really had the guts to quit the company and walk away. Ten days, she thought, of the sweet freedom of mental space.

  “You fall in love with a mountain man yet?” Mark asked. Mark was the snarky brother.

  She was grateful Mark had changed the topic. “Ha. Ha. You know love isn’t in the cards for me.” It’d been over a year, but she’d had a messy breakup with a guy she thought she would marry.

  Her father chuckled. “Our girl isn’t meant for a mountain man; she needs a husband who is a power player.”

  Testiness coursed through her. Here was another topic her father thought he could control. “I don’t need a husband.”

  “I bet she’ll be there for a week and never want to come back to the city and start riding horses or something,” Daniel added with another round of laughter.

  “A cowboy,” Cohen joined in. “She’s going to marry a cowboy with a big cowboy hat.” She could hear them all laughing and imagined them slapping hands.

  “Right,” she said flatly. She had learned a long time ago that the best way to shut them up was to ignore them.

  “We will miss you, Mia,” her father said. “Don’t forget to check out Charm Ranch. We want to make sure it’s the property we need to acquire.”

  “I will. But remember, Dad, I won’t be talking about it until next Sunday, got it? Don’t try to contact me. Give me this time! I’ll talk to you next Sunday.”

  “Love you, sis. And be careful.” This was James, the brother to whom she w
as the closest. He was more into the things she liked. He composed music, and they hung out even outside of family gatherings.

  “I will.”

  “Don’t get taken or anything.” Sam cursed. “We should have chipped her.”

  Mia bristled. She knew he meant it.

  “We should have,” Mark agreed. “It’s a crazy world.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have chipped me,” she said, scoffing. Sam was always paranoid. “I’m not a dog, and I choose what I do with my life, so don’t even try to contact me. My phone is turning off. Locator turned off. I’m off grid.”

  “I know a guy we could fly out there to do it,” Daniel chimed in. “He could keep tabs on her.”

  “Great idea,” Sam agreed.

  They still weren’t kidding. Mia growled, “You’d better not, or you’ll pay. Love you all. Goodbye.”

  “Wait!” her father called out. “Mia, you make sure to take your pepper spray with you if you don’t have your phone.”

  “Okay, okay.” Despite herself, she felt a surge of warmth fill her. Even though her dad and brothers annoyed her to no end, she loved them so much. “Goodbye again. And . . . I love you all. And yes, Daddy, that includes you!”

  They laughed as she pressed END on the call. She put the phone down and then turned it off, all the way off. She would make good on her promise to disconnect this week.

  Putting it down on the dresser, she abruptly didn’t know what to do. The thought brought a rush of excitement—she wouldn’t be chained to her phone all week, wouldn’t be pestered by its interruptions. Head space. Yes, that’s what she’d been yearning for.

  With a sigh, she turned and let herself fall onto the hotel’s king-sized bed, the pillows fluffing around her. She longed for good food, too. Extraordinary food. She wondered what good restaurants there were in Casper, Wyoming. It wasn’t New York, but it had to have something amazing, right?

  She closed her eyes, deciding she’d take a nap first. After that, she’d take a taxi out to the Charm property and go for a hike. Might as well get the work part of her trip out of the way. Then it would be time to completely relax.

  The sunrise almost made up for the fact that Ross had to get up at the crack of dawn every morning to get a jump on feeding the animals and moving sprinkler pipes before he met at the high school for drama camp this week.

  Being a high school acting teacher was a good gig, and he wouldn’t deny that it worked with his love of ranching and farming. He didn’t have a huge farm; basically, he just raised feed for the cattle. Too bad he hadn’t realized how hard it would be to make ends meet some years, even with the combined income of teaching and ranching. These days, it was harder than ever, as he’d been paying off medical bills since everything had happened.

  His wife’s face flashed across his mind, and he paused, putting a hand on the center of his chest. The thing about losing someone, he’d realized, was that no matter how much time had gone by, sometimes a memory would just hit you by surprise and take the wind out of you. He sucked in a breath, forcing himself to focus on the task at hand and not dwell on everything he’d lost. He couldn’t go down that path today.

  He hopped out of his Ford pickup and kicked the door shut behind him. He’d already taken care of the animals. Now he was out by the north end of his property, checking the pipe. Even though he had technology hooked up to move the pipe to water his alfalfa during the day, he always had to make sure it was working. Rushing over to the pipe, he quickly checked the digital equipment. Yep. Like clockwork, the sprinkler shot on.

  He was proud of himself. It was a feat to keep up with all the changing tech with farming and ranching and stay in business. Leaning back on his heels, he surveyed the budding crops and the perfect way the sprinkler moved. Yes, it was all working out.

  Ross thought about the letter from the bank that lay on his desk. He and his brother, Troy, co-owner of the ranch, were trying to figure out how to deliver on the back payments. Ross had put everything into curing his wife, even paid out huge amounts of money for nontraditional treatments, all to no avail.

  He sighed and tried to think about something good, but the effort was fruitless. Thoughts of her always lurked in the back of his mind. It’d been two years since the cancer had taken her, but sometimes it still felt like yesterday. He focused on his breathing, trying to calm his heart rate. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately, his mind spinning about how to pay back the huge debts he owed between the ranch and the alternative care they’d tried. His hand clenched into a fist; he hated that his brother wanted to help him. It shouldn’t be Troy’s responsibility, but Troy wouldn’t stop trying to help.

  The two brothers had inherited the land from their parents when they’d passed suddenly five years ago in a car accident. At that point, Ross had taken over and managed everything, but now Troy had come home. Troy was a doctor and still had a lot of student loans, but Ross was still grateful Troy was here.

  A text showed up from his sister-in-law, Kathy. Thanks for doing extra chores for us while we’re gone. We fly out at ten tomorrow morning.

  He smiled. Troy and Kathy and their son were finally going on a family vacation, which Kathy had won on the radio. He texted Kathy back. No problem. The least I can do for all the times you watch Kinley. Have fun in Jamaica! You deserve it.

  Bobby loves to play with her.

  Ross hurried back to his truck, thinking about how Kinley and Bobby, almost the exact same age, were a bit of trouble together. He grinned, remembering the text with the smashed mud pies against their house last week. Though he hadn’t been smiling when he had to help clean it up.

  Suddenly, a flash of red registered in the corner of his eye. Stopping, he turned and saw what looked like someone on the ground at the edges of the tree line by his property. Who would be out here at six thirty in the morning? And who would be on his property?

  He jogged toward the person, who looked like a woman. “Hey!” he called out, but as he got closer, he saw she wasn’t hiding. She was just lying there, maybe asleep—then he saw the blood.

  “What do you mean, she was just lying on the field in the north forty?” Troy asked, yanking on the gurney and pulling the woman into the hospital with the help of another ER worker.

  Ross had acted on instinct, picking her up, rushing her to his truck, and taking off for the hospital twenty minutes away. On the way, he’d called Troy, because of course he would call his brother, the doctor. He’d told Troy to be ready to intercept them at the ER. Ross could have called 911, but that would have been a waste of time.

  After that, he’d called Kathy and asked her to go to his house and get Kinley. Kinley wouldn’t freak out if he wasn’t home to get her, because she was used to being alone a lot, but he was thankful Kathy could go pick her up.

  Ross hovered next to the gurney, feeling somehow responsible. The woman was alive—he’d felt a pulse—but there was so much blood on her head. He’d found himself praying all the way to the hospital. “I went to check the sprinkler pipe, and I caught a flash of red,” he explained. “When I got closer, I found her like this.”

  Troy swore and pushed the gurney into the ER. “You know the cops will be coming. You’re going to have to miss the drama camp today.”

  Now Ross swore. It was true.

  “Stay there. I’ll be back.” Troy disappeared behind some doors in the ER.

  Ross turned back to the waiting room. Reluctantly, he whipped out his phone and called Theresa Smart, the other acting teacher at the high school. She was constantly hitting on him, so he didn’t like calling her.

  “Ross,” she answered, a bit out of breath. “I’ve been running. Sorry, I’m a bit breathy.”

  He explained the situation and asked if she would cover for him at the camp.

  “If I recall,” she said, a hint of irritation in her tone, “you made it clear you didn’t need a partner to put on this camp. You didn’t want a partner.”

  “Theresa.” He swallowed back his ow
n annoyance. She was right: she had offered to help, and he’d told her very adamantly that he didn’t need her. “Please.”

  She sighed. “I don’t usually give up any of my summer days. We’ve talked about this.”

  “I know.”

  “But I will on one condition.”

  Relief washed through him. “Thank you.”

  “You’re going to owe me a date for this.”

  “We’ll work something out. Thanks again.”

  He hung up as she continued talking, but he didn’t feel bad. The woman would take her pound of flesh, and he would worry about that later. Now he had to focus on the police.

  He pressed the number for his friend the police chief, George Harper.

  “What’s up, Charm?” George asked, using Ross’s last name. Old football habits died hard in a small town.

  “George, I have a situation . . .”

  It was an excruciating three hours later when George finally showed up and brought a detective with him.

  Troy emerged out of the ER doors right as George showed up, announcing, “She’s stable, but she took a hard hit. I don’t know when she’ll wake. From the tests I’m running and the specialist out of Rapid City I’m consulting, it looks like a coma.” He grunted and turned to Ross. “So you just found her?”

  George exhaled. “Yes, please tell us how this woman got there.”

  Ross threw up his hands, frustrated. All he’d been able to do for the past three hours was pace with worry about the redhead he’d brought in and remember the last time he’d been in this ER, with his wife, Brook. “I told both of you. I was checking the sprinkler this morning on the north forty, and I saw her there on the ground. I—” His voice caught, and he said more quietly, “I was worried she was dead, to tell you the truth, with all that blood on her head.”

  “Head injuries bleed a lot,” Troy said, nodding.

  George frowned. “Was there anything on her that identifies her?”