by Julia Kent
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It’s Always Complicated
by Julia Kent
Copyright © 2016 by Julia Kent
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
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Author’s Note
When I first started writing Her First Billionaire in the summer of 2012, while staying at a campground in Maine (not the one I describe here, which is entirely fictional), I never thought that readers would want more. I wrote Her First Billionaire, Her Second Billionaire, and Her Two Billionaires as a trilogy.
Just a trilogy. No plans for more. But you know what they say about making plans? Plans are what you make while fate laughs at you. ;)
I published Her First Billionaire and Her Second Billionaire in November 2012 and was working on Her Two Billionaires—
And then.
And then, reader emails began coming in to my email box, one a week, then two, then more, asking me about “the rest of the story.”
The what? The rest of the what? Other than Her Two Billionaires, there was no “rest of the story.”
But readers loved Mike, Dylan and Laura and wanted more, so I did what any self-respecting novelist does, and I made the heroine oops!—pregnant.
Hence Her Two Billionaires and a Baby.
That baby was Jillian, who is now three and a half (in this book you’re about to read). I went on to write It’s Complicated, which is Laura’s best friend’s story—and you met Dr. Alex Derjian, who is one of my favorite heroes (shhhhhh, don’t tell the others).
I started the Obedient series, with Lydia and her big, loving family back at the campground in Maine, and connected her to Madge, the waitress/owner at Jeddy’s Diner, by making Madge her grandmother.
By the way—I have had SO MANY EMAILS from readers asking if the food at Jeddy’s is real. Nope! Just from my drooling imagination.
With It’s Complicated, I introduced Josie’s cousin/niece, Darla—who is the headliner of my book, Random Acts of Crazy and the Random series.
Random Acts of Crazy hit the USA Today bestseller list in June 2013, and when I took the four novellas for the Her Billionaires Boxed Set and bundled them together, that boxed set hit both the New York Times bestseller list and the USA Today bestseller list in October 2013, catapulting my fiction career, and making me forever grateful to readers like you.
I thank you, each and every day, for giving me a life where I get to write whatever comes into my head whenever it infiltrates, and giving me the chance to connect with so many of you.
And I finally come to the point of this Author’s Note:
There are four men named Mike in this book. Mostly because I am stupid.
But also because I never expected to write a book where their paths would cross!
Forgive me, Dear Reader, as I work to make certain you do not confuse Mike Pine (ex ski-instructor, looks like Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, billionaire in a threesome relationship) with Michael (Mike) Bournham (ex-CEO/playboy, looks a touch like Anderson Cooper, not-quite-a-billionaire-but-close, in a threesome relationship) with Darla’s Uncle Mike (big teddy bear of a truck-driving man) with a fourth Mike (who I can’t describe because that would be a spoiler). ;)
I have said that It’s Always Complicated would be the end of my Her Billionaires series. That outrageous comment led to writer’s block on my part, an affliction I have managed to avoid for my entire writing career, until now. And with this book—only this book. I promised this book would be published in July 2015, and I failed you. Here it is April 2016, and I’m finally releasing this completed book.
But.
Put simply: I don’t want to end this series.
One day I realized, Hey! Wait a minute! I’m the author! I control this world! I don’t have to end it.
So I’m not!
No promises about future books in either the Obedient or the Her Billionaires world. My Shopping for a Billionaire series has taken over, and Darla and the guys in the band Random Acts of Crazy have a few more books in them.
I’m working on some other projects (if you get my newsletter or follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ll know when those come to fruition). Mostly, though, I hope you enjoy It’s Always Complicated. This book comes at the end of 1,400 pages in the series, including all the earlier novellas and novels, and like getting together with old friends you haven’t seen in a while, I hope you slip right in and surround yourself with the love and fun of Mike, Dylan, Laura, Josie, Lydia, Mike, Jeremy, Madge, and all the other wonderful characters.
I don’t make up the stories. The characters just tell them to me.
Thank you for enjoying my books. You, Dear Rabidly Wonderful Romance Reader, make this all possible.
With much gratitude,
Julia Kent
It’s Always Complicated
Chapter One
Josie
A small crowd of men wearing gun holsters ran past Josie and Alex, followed by three uniformed TSA agents.
“I wonder what that’s about?” Alex marveled, his eyes tracking the fracas. He and Josie had come to the Portland, Maine airport to pick up her mother, Marlene, and Aunt Cathy, Uncle Mike and her new Uncle Calvin. All the Ohio relatives were here for her and Alex’s wedding.
A cold wave of dread washed over her. They were running toward the baggage claim for the airline her entire family was on.
“I’ll bet it’s my mother,” she groaned, leaning against him for support. His strong arm wrapped around her shoulders and gave her the comfort she needed. Too bad he couldn’t give her a second backbone made of steel.
If he could, she knew, he would. The thought made her smile.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said, giving her a squeeze. She looked up at him. Way up, given the enormous height difference between the two of them. His warm, brown eyes met hers and for an instant, she wondered if he might be right. That eternally positive outlook he had was a bit infectious.
Maybe she needed to stop assuming the worst of every situation.
A rotund security guard huffed and puffed, running past them, holding what looked like a spare uniform. He was talking into a walkie-talkie.
“Naked?” Huff huff. “She’s naked? What size?” Huff huff.
Alex’s kind eyes filled with alarm. It was both charming and horrifying. Josie couldn’t quite decide which impression she enjoyed more. There was a kind of schadenfreude in realizing she was right. His idealism was sweet, but sometimes she needed him to be more of a realist.
And Marlene served up an entire buffet of realism.
“Mile High Club again?” the guard asked, pausing to catch his breath. Josie watched him with a morbid fascination.
“You don’t really think it’s your mom in there, Josie,” Alex said. He caressed her shoulder absent-mindedly, watching the guard. “I mean—”
“Two men in one bathroom with a naked woman?” the guard barked into his walkie-talkie, eyebrows hitting the brim of his hat.
Josie snorted, the sense of dread spreading.
“How could it be anyone else?”
“That sounds more like something Darla would do,” Alex said. “You sure she’s still in Boston and not on this flight?”
&nb
sp; Just as Josie was about to reply, the commotion got louder.
“MARLENE!” Josie heard the sense of outrage in her Aunt Cathy’s voice. The airport was small, but not that small. Cathy’s voice could carry. “WHAT IN THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOUR CLOTHES?”
“It will be fine, he said,” Josie intoned, the “he” in question being Alex. “Have a wedding and invite your mother, he said.”
Alex just stared in the direction of Cathy’s bellowing voice and blinked like an owl.
“I suggested we just run off to Atlantic City and get married by a Trump impersonator with a drunk platypus as the witness,” she added. “But noooooooo. Some people had to have the whole traditional wedding thing.”
“That is looking better, I must admit,” he muttered.
“Which part? The Trump impersonator or the drunk platypus?”
Just then, the baggage claim carousel stopped turning. It made a pneumatic wheezing sound, then a series of mechanical groans, punctuated by a great metallic screeching noise.
The crowd of people waiting for their suitcases groaned, too.
Security guards and TSA agents flooded the baggage claim area, flocking to the door where the baggage came in on the conveyor belt, delivered from the cargo hatch of the plane.
The machine began again, then stopped. Started, then stopped.
And then the plastic curtain opened up and belched out Josie’s naked mother. The carousel continued moving, Marlene’s limp body sprawled out.
She wore a nipple clamp with a luggage tag attached.
“I am not claiming her. Nope. Nope nope nope,” Josie hissed as Alex stared, transfixed. Security rushed to cover her and it took four agents to carry her prostrate body.
“Is she conscious? She might need medical attention,” Alex said in his authoritative doctor’s voice.
“I am the Queen of the Double Mile High Club!” Marlene shouted.
“Oh, she’s conscious, all right,” Josie muttered.
“JOSIE!” Aunt Cathy’s shout pierced the air and distracted the crowd, who turned to watch her aunt bum-rush her.
“JOSEPHINE!” boomed Uncle Mike.
Josie nearly fell over from the shock of being hugged by both Cathy and Mike at the same time. They all pretended Marlene wasn’t being manhandled into a three-sizes-too-big blue uniform while screaming for someone to find her lost piece of peeled ginger root.
“Did she just say ‘ginger root’?” Alex murmured under his breath, as if puzzling that one out. Josie heard him, but didn’t have the heart to mention that she knew exactly what that meant, all thanks to Darla.
Who had recently read Grey, by E.L. James, and explained the precise significance to her.
“Alex!” Mike said, turning to her fiancé and shaking his hand with a hard and fierce grip. The two clasped and pumped arms for so long they might as well have just whipped out their penises right here to see whose was bigger.
Not that Josie ever wanted to think about that.
“Is anyone accompanying this lady?” one of the security guards shouted to the crowd.
Josie looked at Cathy and Mike. They all acted like they hadn’t heard a thing.
“Um, aren’t you going to say something?” Alex asked her.
“He said ‘lady.’ My mother hasn’t been a lady since—”
“She’s my sister-in-law,” said a calm, resigned voice.
Mike, Cathy, Josie and Alex all turned toward the person.
Uncle Calvin.
Who was frowning at Aunt Cathy.
“We have to claim her,” he said clearly, and without judgment. “She can’t help herself.”
“Oh, she helped herself all right, Calvin,” Mike thundered. “Helped herself to two of them college hockey players on the plane.”
A series of hockey duffle bags flooded the baggage claim carousel suddenly. Josie eyed the plastic curtain nervously, wondering if two naked hockey players would come tumbling out.
Then she just eyed it curiously. A little hopefully, even. Hmmm. Naked hockey players...
“Cathy!” Calvin said sharply. “We need to go and get her out of there. Once they understand about her, they’ll give her back to us.”
“Understand?” Alex asked.
Calvin smiled and shook Alex’s hand. “Alex! Congratulations, and good to see you.” He gave Josie a polite peck on the cheek, then turned to Cathy.
Who was arching her eyebrow so high, it might as well be the Gateway to the West.
“What do you mean, Calvin?” she asked. Uncle Mike tensed at her words, and Josie felt her senses sharpen, like that moment when you’re on a hike deep into the woods and realize you need to be a little more aware of your surroundings, but you can’t exactly explain why.
“We need to handle her with kid gloves,” he said.
“I’d recommend anyone put gloves on right now before they handle Marlene,” Cathy answered, wrinkling her nose.
“That’s not what I mean, Cathy, and you know it. We’re traveling here for Josie’s wedding and it’s our responsibility to make sure we take care of her mother in the best way possible so everyone can have a memorable family experience.”
Check that one off the list, Josie thought to herself. Memorable? Achieved.
Aunt Cathy looked a little shocked that Calvin wasn’t backing down. “Take care of Marlene?” she asked, eyes narrowing.
“You really oughtn’t make fun of Marlene like that,” Calvin said. It was evident that arguing with Cathy pained him. “She can’t help it.”
“Can’t help what?” Cathy asked, seeming as surprised as anyone to find herself at odds with her new husband. Josie froze, watching the two of them. Cathy was like a mother to her, and she’d never imagined Darla’s mother would ever marry. Watching them interact was fascinating. Like watching Animal Planet, only with humans.
“Marlene can’t help all her sexual...proclivities.” Calvin tapped the side of his head with his fist. “She’s, you know. Touched in the head. She had a traumatic brain injury, after all. She can’t help herself.”
Cathy peered at Calvin like he was peeling off his human outer shell and revealing himself to be an alien.
“What in the hell are you talking about, Calvin?” she asked softly. Josie’s back pulled up straight. The tone. Oh, she knew that tone.
That was the tone that said Darla was getting a whuppin’ for disobeying her mama. And to hear Cathy use it toward Calvin boiled up a mess of emotions inside Josie that felt icky.
“I’m saying that when Marlene was in the car accident and she got that brain damage, it messed up her head. You know the doctors told us she can’t control herself sometimes. And she has problems with executive...functioning? That’s what they said.” He faltered, frowning, clearly struggling to remember what the doctors had said.
Calvin looked at Alex like he was throwing a Hail Mary pass. “You’re the one who helped us get her a new evaluation with the neurologists in Cleveland and in Pittsburgh. The accident did this to her, right?”
“Did what?” Alex asked, his face a neutral mask. His eyes jerked around the large, cavernous baggage claim area, bouncing between Cathy and Josie. He was, Josie realized, figuring out the lay of the land.
“Made her a, a, a—a loose woman,” Calvin said, his voice holding a desperate urgency.
“You think,” Cathy thundered, limping over to her husband and getting in his face, “that we should go easy on Marlene fucking two hockey players in the airplane bathroom because she got brain damage from an accident that happened twenty years ago?”
Alex exhibited remarkable intelligence by remaining silent. Josie was impressed. Either he was being smart or he was scared shitless. She was pretty sure it leaned toward the former, but you never knew with Aunt Cathy.
“Yes!” Calvin exclaimed. He turned to Alex. “This behavior of hers can be explained by the brain injury, right? You’re a doctor.”
“I—” Alex sputtered a bit. Josie felt bad for him.
�
��Calvin, Marlene was an utter whore long before she ever got into the car accident with me, Charlie and Jeff!” Cathy declared.
Josie felt her face flush at the word “whore.”
Calvin’s expression went from quiet determination to dissembled horror.
“What?”
“She stuck to Jeff once they were married,” Cathy said to Josie, laying a hand on her forearm. “She didn’t fuck around on your daddy.”
“Oh.” Josie didn’t know what else to say. The word floated off into the air like a drunk butterfly.
“But lord knows she drove that man to hide from her sometimes. She had the libido of a seventeen-year-old boy. Jeff used to call and beg Charlie to break something on the car so he’d have an excuse to come over whenever Marlene’s hormones were flying. Said he sometimes thought about buying a stick shift car just so Marlene would have something to use in a pinch when his cock was twice dead.”
“Oh.” Josie definitely didn’t know what to say to that.
“He used to buy Neosporin for the chafing. But then Marlene just said it made good lube.”
Josie wished she could poke her eardrums.
“And then there was the weird fetish for having sex outdoors,” Cathy added.
Josie felt Alex freeze. He went stone stiff. Neither of them breathed.
“But that was all on Jeff. He was the one who—”
“Cathy, honey, I don’t think we should speak ill of the dead,” Calvin beseeched her.
“Speak ill? How is talking about their sex life ‘speaking ill’? You want me to speak ill about him, I got plenty I can say. But I can tell you one thing: Marlene ain’t fucking two guys at a time in public because she got her brain injured in the car accident. She’s just drawn to it.”
“Like Darla,” Calvin murmured, his eyes alight with understanding. “So it runs in the family.”
Cathy’s turn to freeze.
“Did you just call my daughter a whore?”
“Poor Calvin,” Alex said under his breath. Cathy’s finger was in Calvin’s chastened face, waggling like she was conducting the Boston Pops. Calvin’s hushed tones of apology were like shooting a squirt gun at a wildfire.
