by Marr, Maggie
Built: An enemies to lovers second chance bad-boy alpha romance
Maggie Marr
Happily Ever After Inc.
Copyright © 2019 by Maggie Marr
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
Epilogue
Also by Maggie Marr
Dedicated to Let It Rain
Thank you for the love, support,
laughter, and whiskey.
Introduction
When Becca Ryan moves home after a failed engagement she takes a job running her father’s construction company. Unfortunately the job also comes with Jake Warner, the one man that Becca loves to hate and hates to love. Get ready for this enemies to lovers second chance bad-boy alpha romance extravaganza! Over the top sexy-time with loads of laughs. It’s insta-love the second time around!
Chapter 1
Becca
“I hate you, Jake Warren. Loathe. Detest. Can’t stand to be around you. I—”
A wicked-slow smile spreads over Jake’s face. A smile that I’m almost willing to risk losing my job over to wipe from his smug mug.
Almost.
One of the reasons I hate that face so damn much is that Jake’s face is perfect. Not perfect in the sense that it’s got nothing wrong with it, because there’s that tiny scar that cuts through his right eyebrow from when he fell out of the tree in Mrs. Gibson’s front yard trying to get my cat, Mr. Biggles, down from the maple tree. Jake was ten and I was seven. That moment, in my childhood, when Jake played Prince Charming to my weeping Damsel in Distress resulted in four stitches, a broken arm, and a saved Mr. Biggles.
But none of that matters now. None of it.
That was twenty years ago and ever since I returned home and took the job at Ryan & Sons Construction, my Dad’s construction company, there’s been nothing, and I mean nothing charming about Jake Warren. In fact everything about him has been downright loathsome.
I. Hate. Jake.
I should get a tattoo. Or maybe a t-shirt.
No matter how perfect his face and body are—those two things don’t matter because I can’t stand his full, cupid-bow lips and indented cleft chin, and I definitely detest his square jaw with high-cut cheekbones. And his dark brown, curly hair and ice-blue eyes that seem to see right through every part of me.
Like this very moment, he’s standing so close to me that I can practically feel his muscles pulsing beneath that sweaty white Stanford t-shirt he’s wearing.
Show off.
So what if you went to Stanford and have perfect biceps and work with your hands and wear a tool belt slung low on your hips.
So. What.
Jake stands in front of me with his hands on his hips, with those lips—those damned pillow-cushion lips—nearly even with my eyes, like he’s some kind of crown prince because he can lift a two-by-four, swing a hammer, and hang drywall…he stands there in his dirty Levi’s with that hip cocked, staring right at me. Knowing full well that he was the boy that saved my cat, kissed me when I was twelve, and saw me naked at sixteen.
And broke my heart at twenty-one.
Well, I’m not naked today. Nope, today I’m pissed. I stand in front of him just back from an afternoon meeting with a Chinese investor who may or may not want Daddy’s company to build two hundred new homes, with my hand on my hip, my tablet in my hand, ready to tell Jake Warren why he should never, never, never speak to a client because that is my job as the front-facing newly minted sales team at Ryan & Sons Construction, and while I’m deadly serious, Jake’s eyes are…are…wickedly playful.
Asshole!
His damn ice-blue eyes are wickedly playful in this completely inappropriate way that causes my nipples to harden and my lady-bits to tingle like they do nearly every day that I work with Jake. Which for the last ten months has been every damn day.
Nope. I hate him. Loathe. Detest.
“Becca”—he lifts an eyebrow and his gaze streaks up and down my body—“you know you love me.” His words are honey. Sweet and slow and slick and sticky and they pull me to him almost as certain as if he’d taken that big strong arm of his and snaked it around my waist and pulled me close.
Which he didn’t do, and in fact hasn’t done in what seems like nearly a lifetime, and another reason why I absolutely can’t stand this man.
“Love you? Ha! I just told you I can’t stand you. Do you even listen to me Jake Warren? Do you listen to anyone? Ever?” I wave the tablet for emphasis because the email I just got from a client—a very important client—proves yet again to me that a) Jake Warren never listens and b) he should be fired so that c) I can run Daddy’s construction company like I was meant to do without any interference from this clown.
“Oh, I hear you, Becca,” Jake says, those ice-blue eyes gazing right past me and toward the open doorway and the construction office filled with support staff and other guys that work for Daddy on various construction crews, all of which Jake Warren heads up. “I think everyone in the entire firm hears you too.”
“Fuck you,” I silently mouth. I take two steps backward, and press my stiletto to the office door, between us and the rest of the company and kick the damn door closed. “Private enough for ya?”
“Guess it depends on what you have in mind, Tiger.”
Heat floods my neck. No one. No. One. calls me Tiger—or no one has since Jake did all those years ago and there have been a whole lot of years, plus one college degree, an MBA, and a failed (very public) engagement since the last time Jake stood this close to me and called me Tiger.
“Becca,” I say between gritted teeth. “That’s Becca to you. Or, if you prefer, you can call me Ms. Ryan,” I say.
“Riiiiiight.” He takes a step closer. “And what if I prefer Tiger?”
I swallow and don’t move because deep down inside as much as I currently hate Jake Warren, I actually, if I’m honest, prefer him calling me Tiger too.
“I got an email from Mr. and Mrs. Branson,” I say, waving my tablet yet again. Jake takes a deep breath and I retreat to the safety of my desk.
“I told them,” Jake says and sighs, “that the tile isn’t in and when it arrives we can finish the kitchen and the bathroom, but not until then.”
“The entire Branson project is six months behind schedule. I’m trying to add high-end clients and convince a major investor to let us build over two hundred homes and I can’t accomplish any of that if we’re continually behind schedule on the projects we have.”
“The entire Branson project is eight months ahead of every other contractor’s best estimate,” Jake says and plants his hands on his hips. “Besides, she ordered everything custom from every nook and cranny of this entire planet, so yeah, things get behind and backed up but we’re on schedule.” Jake runs that rugged hand through that mane of hair and I can barely breathe. He turns and walks toward my office door and I avert my eyes because really the only thing I see is that Levi’s-clad, perfectly round ass that I’m
pretty certain absent those jeans I could bounce a quarter off of.
“There are no nooks and crannies,” I say.
“Excuse me?” He turns and his bright blue eyes laser into me.
“We live on planet Earth, a globe, there are no nooks and crannies on a round ball,” I say. I sit down in my chair and pop open my laptop; I’m already composing in my mind the first email to the artisan that is meant to complete and send us the tiles from Portugal, and then the perfect email response to Mr. and Mrs. Branson letting them know the timeline, as well as reiterating the cause of the delay and what the artisan has told me as far as delivery and—
“You really think you know everything, don’t you, Tiger.”
So caught up in my thoughts I didn’t hear or notice that Jake had walked from the door to my desk, but he did and here he is, all six-foot-two of pulsing, perfect man-flesh in a white t-shirt, dark blue Levi’s, and a body built for any sins I might want to explore. I swallow and force my gaze past all that testosterone-fueled manhood and right up to Jake’s eyes.
“Uh…” The ability to speak has left my mind. All that remains is a dull buzzing sound because all I can think is that how come if I hate Jake Warren this much, all I want to do is strip off that dirty white t-shirt and those Levi’s and let my fingertips explore all those muscles? I want to press my lips to his lips and have those strong arms pull me close and tight so that the bulge in his pants—that is now eye level—presses against me…or is free to, you know, let me find all those sins that I want to explore.
“When was the last time you went out?” Again with the sexy-as-velvet voice.
I look up past the bulge of his cock in his pants and meet his eyes. I open my mouth to reply with some sharp comment, but then I stop. Those forearms.
Fuck. My. Life.
Jake has crossed his arms over his chest and those damned forearms are all muscle, and again I’m a quivering mass of want and need and desire for his man-sex.
“A while,” I say. My words are a whisper, a confession, an embarrassment because while my very public engagement to a very public venture capitalist also resulted in a very public and humiliating broken engagement, said man is now dating a Costa Rican supermodel while I’ve moved home to El Segundo to work in my father’s construction firm. Obvs putting my MBA to good use.
“You need to get out, Tiger,” Jake says. “Galvenetti’s at eight.”
Again my mouth opens to tell Jake Warren how much I hate him and just exactly how not only
am I not going out with him tonight at eight, but I will never, ever be going out with him—even if we are the final two inhabitants of the globe known as planet Earth.
My mouth starts to move and I look into those mother-fucking-blue eyes and my nipples grow hard and I think of those jeans slipping down over that perfect-round ass and letting loose that anaconda in Jake’s pants and instead I say, “Okay.”
And Jake Warren with his perfect biceps and crooked smile and scar over his right eyebrow is out of my office, and as much as I absolutely hate Jake Warren, I know beyond any doubt that there is nothing I want more tonight than to absolutely have sex with that man.
Chapter 2
Becca
“Oh my God, you cannot have sex with that man!” Torrey, my best friend practically since I was born, pushes back into downward dog.
“Shhhh,” the woman to Torrey’s left hisses.
“Sorry,” Torrey says and turns back to me. “You cannot have sex with Jake Warren,” she whispers. “I can give you a million reasons why.”
I close my eyes and inhale all the good thoughts and reasons why I should have sex with Jake Warren and exhale all of the million reasons that both Torrey and I know as to why I shouldn’t. I pull forward to chaturanga on my breath, and then flow through my entire sun salutation and the rest of yoga class without making the fifty-year-old woman beside Torrey shush us again. I return my blanket and straps, then go back to where Torrey stands beside my mat.
“I know you heard me and you know I’m right,” Torrey says. She slings her mat strap over her shoulder. “Jake Warren is bad news.”
“He’s not bad news. You say that like he’s some sort of career criminal. He’s sexy as hell, he’s fully employed, and he’s single. That beats out ninety-nine percent of the men I know.”
Torrey’s gaze rolls up toward the ceiling. “Really?” She shakes her head and stares right into my eyes. “Do you really need me to explain why? Your very best friend in the whole wide world, you know except when you were livin’ too large for me and kicked me to the curb—”
“I’ve apologized for that, like, a million times,” I say, bending over to roll up my mat.
“Right, and I accepted, but the fact remains while you were out in New York whoopin’ it up I
was here making a life, and I can tell you that Jake Warren was not pining away for the girl whose heart he broke.”
“Ouch, Torrey,” I say and press my lips together tight.
“Okay, okay, okay, maybe too harsh, but do you remember the aftermath of the Jake Warren heartbreak of 2013?”
I cringe. I pick up my mat and stand.
“And then there was the heartbreak of 2011, and 2007, and 2006, and 2003, and—”
“Okay, okay, okay! I get it,” I say.
“Do you?” Torrey takes a swig from her water bottle. “I will say one thing for you,
you’re persistent. I mean you’ve given this thing between you and Jake so many chances that I’d think by now—two very smart people—would’ve figured out that this is just not going to happen. For whatever reason. Every single time you go and give Jake another chance, something or someone prevents this from happening, and there could be a very good reason.”
Chapter 3
Jake
Hot water washes away the dirt and dust of my day. I scrub over my body getting sexy-fresh for tonight. I’m actually whistling—whistling? Me! Jake Warren, so not a whistler—like never. Especially not since…well not since ever. Nope. I shut off the hot water, pull open the glass door, and grab a towel. But hey, those days are over. This is got-his-shit-together Jake. This is grateful for a second chance with the girl I always wanted Jake because Becca Ryan is all that and a bag of chips…or at least she thinks so and…well…she isn’t wrong. I mean the girl—excuse me—woman is smart as hell and drop dead gorgeous. It’s a deadly combination that honestly could scare the shit out of any guy. I mean, it scared me. Not that Becca knows that, nor do I have any plans of telling her. She’s got so many pluses I can’t even get my mind wrapped around the reality of who Becca, sister of my best friend and the little gap-toothed girl with braids and freckles with a cat named Mr. Biggles became this…this…woman.
How often does a guy get a second chance with a girl like that? Uh. Never. That dumbass VC guy that nearly locked this girl down really fucked up because there is no other woman in the world who has anything on Becca Ryan and that includes a Costa Rican supermodel.
Fuck yeah, I checked. When the girl of your dreams gets engaged to some billionaire and then comes scurrying back home to Daddy, tail between her legs, you do some snooping—especially if you still want the girl. And I do still want the girl—not that I need her to know that—not yet, or her dad who is my boss, and my father’s best friend. Nope.
I scrub my hand through my hair, do the toothbrush, the deodorant, and pull on my jeans. I walk into my closet—custom made by me—and grab a button down, blue, box check-printed shirt that, according to my big sis, looks great with my eyes. I turn to the full-length mirror, and it would seem that once again big sis is absolutely one hundred percent correct—my eyes look pretty fucking blue. Wonder if Becca even knows the color of my eyes because I sure know the color of hers.
I also can tell when she’s happy, sad, excited, angry, or mad just by looking into those gorgeous eyes. Eyes that I could stare into for a lifetime…eyes that I wanted to stare into for a lifetime until I went and fucked that all up.
Deep breath. Second chances. I walk through my place, give my dog Lulu a quick pat, scoop up my wallet, keys, phone and—
Buzzz.
Oh for fuck’s sake. I shake my head and close my eyes. It’s Dave, my best buddy and Becca’s older brother. Deep breath. Play it cool.
“What’s up?” I say into the phone as I walk out of the front door of my house.
“Man, I…”
He’s completely out of breath and totally agitated. My heart starts to pump fast just hearing his voice.
“You okay?”
“I…uh…I don’t know.”
I stop on my front porch; something in Dave’s voice sounds very not good and makes me pause. “Where are you, are you—”
“I need help man, I don’t have anyone else to call…I…just don’t. Can you…can you help me?”
I close my eyes and take another deep breath. “Sure man, just tell me where you are.”
“You know the civic building downtown…”
“Right, but man it’s nearly eight.”
“Right, well, I’m uh…I’m at the police station.”
“Wait—what?”
“Yeah…well…you know you’re kind of my one call.”
“Sure, man, I’ll see you as fast as I can get there.”
I hustle down the front steps and to my car. Fuck. I press Becca’s number and of course it goes straight to voicemail. “Becca call me…something…something came up and…well, call me. We have to reschedule.”
Chapter 4
