by Monroe, Max
My Brother’s Billionaire Best Friend
Published by Max Monroe LLC © 2019, Max Monroe
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-7321702-5-4
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Editing by Silently Correcting Your Grammar
Formatting by Champagne Book Design
Cover Design by Peter Alderweireld
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Author’s Note
Dedication
Intro
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
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Epilogue
Wildcat Excerpt
Intro
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note:
My Brother’s Billionaire Best Friend is a full-length, stand-alone romantic comedy novel that is part of our Billionaire Collection.
At the end, we’ve included an excerpt from Wildcat, one of our best-selling romcom sports romances and the first stand-alone in our Mavericks Tackle Love Series—aka a hilarious and sexy football series with smokin’ hot professional football studs.
Now that you know, please don’t buy a voodoo doll in our honor because My Brother’s Billionaire Best Friend concludes at around 90%. We’re not very good at writing through any kind of pain. And, trust us, once you finish this sexy and hilarious book, you’re going to be ready for the next billionaire in the Billionaire Collection. ;)
Also, due to the hilarious nature of this book’s content, reading in public is not recommended. And we strongly suggest that you reconsider (aka: don’t do it) eating and/or drinking and/or operating heavy machinery while reading.
Sidenote: If you’re the type of gal who can successfully operate heavy machinery while reading romantic comedies, please email us at [email protected]. We’d like to meet a badass woman like that with those kinds of multitasking skills.
Happy Reading!
All our love,
Max & Monroe
To anyone who has ever hit send on an embarrassing text message they wish they could take back: this book is for you.
To Nina, Monroe’s former (and very conservative) boss from that German restaurant she worked at for, like, a year in college:
Remember that time you received a picture message with cleavage in a bathing suit top and the words Look at how much fun my boobs are having?
That was crazy, right? You never responded or even brought it up, but just so you’re aware, that actually never happened. You might think it happened, but it didn’t. It was just your imagination that a tipsy twenty-one-year-old Monroe accidentally texted you instead of her college boyfriend while on a spring break cruise with her friends.
Yeah. That definitely did not happen.
To *anyone who’s ever texted their dad “Hey, Daddy” and gotten something like “You know I love it when you call me that” in response. We’re so sorry for the trauma this case of mistaken text identity has caused.
*We’ve never received this, thank all that is holy and our fathers, amen.
Maybe
Here I rest, you guys.
R. I. Mother-flapjacking P. to me.
And now, I’m coming to you live from what I believe is the afterlife.
Just think of this as that morning show with Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest, Live with Kelly and Ryan.
Only, change the name to DEAD with Maybe, take away the celebrity guests, and fill the audience with people who don’t mind witnessing a full-on embarrassment-fueled emotional breakdown.
Good God, if I would’ve known I was going to kick the bucket right before I reached twenty-five, I sure as shit wouldn’t have spent the last six years of my life slaving away at Stanford for a bachelor’s and master’s degree in English Lit.
I would’ve partied in college rather than studying until my eyeballs bled.
I would’ve danced on bars. Flashed some nip for beads at Mardi Gras. Actually gone to Mardi Gras.
I would have indulged in unlimited pasta night at the Olive Garden instead of counting carbs, and I wouldn’t have stopped binge-watching Game of Thrones on season flipping six.
I would have tongue-kissed loads of guys and spread my legs like a contortionist for any of them who seemed reasonably adept.
You know, a little bam-bam in my ham-ham.
Some not-too-big, but not-too-small P in my V.
A good old-fashioned pants-off dance-off…
Sex, you guys. I’m talking about sex. And if you haven’t picked up what I’m putting down from my delirious ramble, I’ll lay it out for you.
I’ve yet to be sexed up by anyone.
That’s right. I have officially bought myself a one-way ticket to the afterlife as a virgin for-freaking-eternity.
And now, I guess I’ll never know how it feels to have an actual penis rub up against my G-spot because, you know, I’m dead. And I’m pretty certain God probably frowns upon people flashing their boobs at the angels and public displays of leg-spreading and definitely the unchaste actions of a desperate-to-bone but unwed woman. No way. Heaven’s strictly G-rated.
I put it all off. I figured I had time. I mean, I thought I’d at least get to see The Office do a reunion special before I went lights out for good.
Although, my parents’ flower shop feels more like purgatory than heaven, and I thought for sure I’d be wearing something other than jean shorts and Converse when I headed to meet the Big Guy upstairs.
Honestly, the afterlife feels eerily like real life, and I’m not one to be dramatic, but I have to be dead, you guys. Seriously. Because no one could live through what I did.
I’m talking a 10.0 on the R
ichter Scale of embarrassing and awkward.
A Category 5 hurricane of humiliation.
A twisting, catastrophic EF5 tornado of comedic disaster.
No freaking way I survived that…right?
Okay. Fine. So, I can be a little dramatic sometimes…
And maybe, just maybe, I’m exaggerating things a bit here, but I’m doing it in the name of self-preservation.
Because, trust me, if you did what I did, you’d let yourself mentally pretend to be dead for a little bit too.
Because if I’m not dead, I’m going to have to face the consequences of my awful, humiliating, cringeworthy actions.
I’m going to have to face him.
Milo Ives—a tall, handsome, unbelievably sexy drink of water.
A man I’ve known since I was a prepubescent girl.
A man I’ve basically been crushing on my whole damn life.
A billion-dollar-empire kind of successful man who just so happens to be my brother’s best friend.
I’ll say it again for the folks in the back.
Milo Ives is my brother’s billionaire best friend.
And I’m in way over my head.
Maybe
“Yoo-hoo, Betty! Where is Maybe? I thought she was going to man the front for a few hours?” my dad shouts, his voice filtering with ease into the back room of the floral shop.
Just the sound of it makes a deep, cavernous sigh escape my lungs.
And the fact that he’s asking about my whereabouts? Now that’s worthy of a tight chest.
“I think she just needed a minute to—” my mom starts to reply, but she’s cut off before she can convey any real information. Bruce the super-sniffing shark only needs a trace of blood in the water to attack.
“Needed a minute?” He guffaws. “I’ve needed a minute for the past thirty years, but you don’t see me dillydallying around.”
“Bruce,” my mom chastises. “Stop being such a grumpy bastard.”
My dad’s been on the warpath since he found out our shipment of Gerbera daisies is running behind schedule, but his behavior really isn’t the slow delivery’s fault. Today, when it comes to Bruce, isn’t any different from any other day.
He always has zany criticism for me and my mother—what we call Bruce-isms—and an overabundance of dad jokes locked and loaded and ready for use.
Deep breaths, I coach myself as I finish up an email to a potential publishing house. This is only temporary.
Too bad it doesn’t feel that way.
I’ve only been back in New York for two weeks, but it may as well have been an eternity.
I just completed graduate school on the West Coast and moved back here to find a career in publishing, and all in all, I felt like I was making the right moves. While I had friends in school, I never found the core group of people that would be mine for life, and in New York, I have an emergency support system.
Plus, New York has far more options for a career in publishing than California and over eight and a half million people who could be potential friends.
Honestly, before turning in my final thesis, it all sounded pretty simple.
Find a job—preferably as an editor at a prominent New York publishing house.
Get an apartment.
Find new friends.
Find a man etc, etc.
Alas, things in real life are never as easy as they are on paper, and as a result, I’m currently spending forty hours of my week working side by side with my parents and living out of my brother Evan’s old bachelor pad in Chelsea.
As I’m the blood sister of the former resident, the single-guy paraphernalia littering the place is an actual nightmare. But hey, I guess I can thank the stars, the sun, and the moon that I’m not living in my childhood bedroom.
Still, my New York friend count is at a staggering zero, and I’m not even going to address the reality that when it comes to the whole find-a-man task, I’m woefully behind the curve.
I just kind of forgot to make it a priority.
I was too busy reading Stephen King novels, studying hard to keep a perfect GPA, and chasing a level of perfection high enough to trigger unmistakable pride from my hard-to-please father.
Bruce Willis—aka my dad—is a man of too many words and most of them are stubborn, cantankerous, and filled with enough sarcasm to make Amy Schumer’s new Netflix special look watered down.
For as long as I can remember, his life has revolved around two things: his family and his business—Bruce Willis & Sons Floral. Established in 1980, my family’s florist shop has become one of Chelsea’s pride and joys.
Ironically, my dad only has one son, my brother Evan, who lives in Austin, Texas.
So, really, it’s just Bruce Willis & Wife & “Temporarily Back Home from Graduate School but Not Planning on Working Here Forever” Daughter Floral.
But that’s too long to fit on the storefront marquee, so I’m stuck dealing with all the looks I get, wondering if I’ve undergone gender reassignment surgery.
And now I, Mabel Frances Willis, am a twenty-four-year-old, college-educated, sexually stunted woman, who’s barely held a penis in her hands.
Prospects on penis-encounters aren’t looking great with that old-lady moniker, but thankfully, everyone calls me Maybe. A nickname that was created because my parents realized about two years into my life that the name Mabel wouldn’t suit me until I reached an age where senior citizen discounts and Melba toast became a constant in my daily routine.
Although, maybe Maybe isn’t the world’s greatest nickname.
The utter definition of the word revolves around indecisiveness.
Do I want to meet a man? Maybe.
Do I want to have sex? Maybe.
Do I want to live the rest of my life as some virginal literary spinster with more cats than chairs in my house? Maybe.
See what I mean?
“Maybe!” My dad’s voice fills my ears again. “Where are you?”
With the way he shouts, you’d think the shop was a ginormous warehouse, but it’s barely 1500 square feet.
“I’ll be there in a sec!” I call back, but he doesn’t wait. He never waits. Waiting is nowhere in Bruce’s vocabulary.
“Okay! But I need to know one thing! Did Phil follow up on the Carmichael wedding?”
“Yes!” I shout back and add my resume to the email in progress.
“And what’s the status?”
“The bride is still convinced she wants tiger lilies and cascading orchids in her bouquet!”
My dad’s Dr. Evil-inspired chuckles echo off the walls of the shop. “Sounds like that bride is about to take her dear old dad for an expensive ride!”
Oh my God, get me out of here.
I hit send on my email and cross my fingers that this publishing house—Windstone Press—will actually call me for an interview. Once the little whooshing sound that signifies my message was sent fills my ears, I shut my laptop, step back out into the main shop, and prepare to face the Bruce-themed music.
“Where in the hemp oil have ya been?” he asks, crossing his beefy arms over his chest. “I thought you were going to man the front.”
“I had a few resumes I needed to send out.”
“To who?”
“Publishing houses.”
“Which ones?”
I sigh. “New York ones, Dad.”
“Pretty sure I had that one figured out.” He grins at my sarcasm. “So, that’s what you do with a degree in books? You work in publishing?”
A degree in books. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
I majored in English Literature and got my master’s degree at Stanford University, one of the most prestigious English Lit programs in the country. With the way he talks, you’d think I went to some back-alley online university and obtained a degree in dog walking, but it’s not worth the explanation. I’ve said all of these things no fewer than a thousand times, and this is still how the conversation always goes.
“Yeah, Dad, that�
�s what you do when you get a degree in books,” I respond blandly. “You work in publishing, preferably as an editor somewhere.”
“You think you’ll be able to find a job in the city?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Not to stress you out, but it’d be a real kick in the gonads if you can’t put that expensive degree to good use. Me and your mom could’a had a tropical love nest somewhere.”
Love nest? Jesus. Now I’m stressed and skeeved.
“I’ve been back home for two weeks, Pops,” I say as much to myself as I do to him. “These things take time.”
“Well…” He pauses and gives me a good hearty pat to my shoulder. “I guess I should just be thankful I get to see your smiling face here at the shop for a little while, huh?”
My chest eases a little, and I’m reminded of why my mom and I haven’t arranged to have him meet an early grave. “I guess so.”
“You certainly brighten the place up,” he adds with a secret smile that reminds me so much of Evan it’s not even funny.
Whereas I am nearly the spitting image of our mom—long brown hair and big brown eyes—my brother could be our father’s twin.
Which, surprisingly, isn’t a bad thing.
With hazel eyes, now salt-and-pepper hair, and a strong jaw, my dad has always been a handsome guy.
“Not to mention,” he adds a little too loudly. “You’re a real nice change of pace from cranky Betty.”
“I can hear you!” my mom chimes in, and my dad chuckles through a big ole, full-teeth smile.
“I know you can!”
“And like you should talk!” she adds. “You’ve been on a rampage since you found out that daisy shipment was running one day behind schedule!”
“Now, listen here, Betty.” Bruce turns away from me to shout in her direction. “It’s the end of May, and everyone and their mother wants fresh bouquets! Which means, unless someone wants trouble, no one should get in the way of a florist man and his godspamming Gerbera daisies!”
My mom cackles. “Yeah, so we’ve all heard!”
