BOYFRIEND MATERIAL (Billionaire Romance)

by Mia Carson

  She held out her hand, and he took it lightly. “Nikki Thompson.”

  “Deputy Jenson Drayer,” he replied. “Nikki could return home and give our town some good publicity, so do me a favor and just make her a damn martini. What can it hurt?”

  Danny’s face went blank, but he grinned and bowed his head. “Of course, Deputy, anything for our sad little town. Let me fetch that drink for you.” He stalked off down the bar.

  “Thank you,” Nikki said and motioned to the stool beside her. “Care to join me?”

  “I have an hour before I have to be officially on duty,” he said happily and sat down. “Now, what is a fine woman like you doing in Lundy? You said you had a rough morning?”

  She crossed her legs and smiled seductively as Jenson’s eyes followed the movement as her dress hiked higher up her thigh. “I came here looking for someone, but it turns out I’m not wanted anymore.”

  “I find that very hard to believe,” Jenson replied and leaned a little closer.

  Danny set the martini down silently, glaring at them both before walking away again. Nikki saw him pull out his cell and start texting as she swirled the olives around her drink. “Well, believe it. He’s here with another woman. Even pawned my engagement ring to rub it in my face, but that woman he’s with? She’s not good enough for him.” She shot back the whole glass and held it up, trying to get Danny’s attention as she chewed an olive loudly. “Another, please.”

  He walked unhurriedly towards her and took her empty glass. “You want some food to wash it down with?”

  “Watch your tone, Danny,” Jenson warned, and Danny turned on his heel and walked off. He kicked open a door behind the bar and disappeared behind it. “He’s just a lowlife. Don’t worry about him. Who’s this man you’re chasing after?”

  “Alec Wolf,” she snarled. “The rotten bastard left me to run away here! And he’s hooking up with some… with some brown-haired woman who looks as if she’s worked on a farm all her life! It’s horrible. His mother will lose it if she finds out what he’s doing to the family name.” She sniffed hard, glancing down the bar for her next martini, but Danny hadn’t reappeared yet. “He was supposed to marry me, a Thompson and a Wolf together. We’d be unstoppable, but not now.”

  Jenson nodded slowly beside her, his eyes calculating. “Did you catch this woman’s name?”

  “No, but she’d slept with him,” she muttered darkly. “I could tell by the way he held her hand, the way he looked at her. She’s sleeping with the man who’s supposed to be my fiancé!”

  She pouted, glaring at her reflection in the mirror as that woman’s face popped into her mind again. She wanted to claw her eyes out, tear her hair out by the roots for taking her man away, her precious Alec. Nikki hadn’t meant to cheat. It had just happened, but Alec didn’t understand that. He said he never even loved her in the first place. For all she knew, he’d been seeing this other woman on the side while she was seeing Mark. He had simply disappeared several times, and she didn’t know what he was up to. Not that she’d cared back then. She’d usually taken those days to sneak off with Mark.

  “Nikki, I think I might be able to help you out,” Jenson said quietly as Danny finally returned to replace her martini. He motioned her away from the bar, and they situated themselves in a back-corner booth.

  “I don’t want him arrested,” she whispered, holding her martini glass to her lips.

  “Of course not, no, but you do want him back, right?”

  “I want him back, and I want my three-carat engagement ring back,” she whimpered, thinking of that beautiful ring on someone else’s finger, on that horrible woman’s finger. “I want what we had back, all of it.”

  He nodded and leaned closer. “That woman he’s with? She and I have a history, and I’ve been desperate to have her back in my life, but Alec stole her from me.”

  Nikki tilted her head and rubbed her toe against Jenson’s leg under the table. “Are you proposing we split them up to get them back?”

  “I’m suggesting something of the sort,” he said, and Nikki heard the strain in his voice. “There is something I need you to do for me, something I need destroyed in Alec’s house.”

  “Why don’t we go somewhere more private so we can discuss the details of this little arrangement,” she said softly. “Figure out the best way to help each other in such a tough situation.”

  Jenson’s lips curled as desire pooled in his eyes. “I have a bit of time before my shift. Let me get those drinks for you, and I’ll show you where the mayor’s son gets to live.”

  “The mayor’s son?” she repeated, intrigued.

  “Yes, which is why, if you can remove this pest Alec Wolf from my town, I would be forever indebted to you.” He rubbed his fingers together, and Nikki’s eyes lit up even more.

  “Then by all means, lead the way,” she said and followed Jenson out the door.

  Chapter 13

  Still riled up from Nikki showing up unexpectedly at his home, Alec couldn’t focus at the range and after slamming his fingers in the register drawer for the fourth time, August shoved him towards the door and told him to take off.

  “Really, I think I can handle it,” he muttered. “Go get a drink and clear your head.”

  “What if she’s at the house?” Alec whispered, hating how the words sounded coming out.

  August shrugged, not sparing him a glance. “You’re a big boy. You can take care of yourself. Now get out of here and watch out for the—wall,” he said lamely as Alec ran into it, missing the door.

  “I’m good,” he called back. “Good.”

  The whole drive back to the house, his hands twisted against the worn leather of his steering wheel as he pictured Nikki’s convertible parked outside his house—or worse, her waiting for him inside. What he found instead was Joe sitting on his front step, holding a box with a worried look etched into the weathered lines of his face.

  “Hey, Joe,” he said as he climbed out of his truck. “Didn’t know you were swinging by.”

  “Just called the range. August said you were heading home, so I thought I would meet you here.”

  “Sure, come on in. Want a beer?” he asked, showing Joe to the kitchen. “I think I need at least one. Maybe two.”

  “I heard you had an unexpected visitor this morning,” Joe said and set the box on the kitchen table. “And yes, I’ll take a beer. I might need it for what we’re about to dig into.”

  “Is this about what you found yesterday?” Alec asked and reached into the fridge for two beers. “Does it have to do with why the Drayer family doesn’t like the Newton family?”

  “I think it has everything to do with that,” Joe said and sat down at the table with a heavy sigh.

  Alec joined him, his eyes darting to the front door, paranoid now that Nikki would magically appear again in his house and try to drag him off somewhere. She had always been crazy, especially when she was pissed off. Seeing him with Iris just might send her off that ledge into crazy town, so he texted Iris again, just checking in to make sure she hadn’t seen Nikki at all.

  Joe took the lid off the box on the table and pulled out several stacks of files as Alec sipped his beer and wondered what the old man had found at City Hall. His gaze drifted around his kitchen to the framed photograph Iris had left there that morning. It sat on the edge of the table, and he stood to move it out of the way.

  “I wish she would keep that,” Joe said quietly, his eyes darting to the photo.

  “I’m sure I can find a way to sneak it into her house,” Alec said. “She looks so much like Gyda. It’s strange they’re not related.”

  Joe held up his finger, shaking it as he pulled out one more stack and set the box on the floor. “That might not be true, not anymore. Iris has brought me several family heirlooms over the past year, pieces of jewelry passed down in her family for generations and worth quite a lot, pieces that I have recently discovered belonged to our dear Gyda Lundy.”

  Alec set his
beer down slowly and picked up the file filled with aging papers and records falling out of it that Joe indicated. “You’re sure?”

  “When Astrid and Jim ran the museum, they had a local historian on call,” Joe explained. “A very dear friend to them both. Since I saw the first piece of jewelry turn up in another photograph of Gyda, I’ve been setting them aside and meeting with this person. It has taken many phone calls and months of digging into the archives of this town and those surrounding it, but every piece,” he said, leaning closer in his excitement, “every one of them belonged to Gyda Lundy. One of them was a gift from my tribe.”

  “You recognized it?” Alec flipped through the records of family histories in the town, his eyes glancing over names and dates going all the way back to the founding of the place.

  Joe handed over a photograph of the beautiful, handcrafted earrings. “The first piece she ever brought me. Broke her heart to do it, but I’m damn glad she did. I might never have realized what the Drayers did all those years ago.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, many years ago, it was the Newton family who owned the town. They weren’t called that,” he explained, pulling out several pages and laying them flat on the table. He tapped his finger on a different name.

  Alec craned his neck to read it. “Lundin. They changed it to Lundin?”

  “A variation of Lundy,” he said. “It was a very common thing to do back then for immigrant families. In 1946, the Lundin family disappeared and the Newtons came to this town. The Drayer family, also residents here for many years, had their name in everything. They owned the town after that, and no one has bothered to ask questions since.”

  Alec grabbed another file and stared at page after page of documentation for the town, anything mentioning either the Drayer family or the Lundin name. Joe and he went through three more beers each before he sputtered on a mouthful and slapped a filed down on the table.

  “Right here… Look at this,” he said and turned it around to show Joe.

  Joe’s eyes narrowed over the page. “This is an arrest record for… Derrick Drayer? Arrested for money laundering.”

  “In 1946,” Alec pointed out. “Then the next page… Look who’s the new mayor barely a week later: Derrick Drayer.”

  Joe rubbed his tired eyes. “There was always confusion when it came to how the Drayer family took control of the town. They were the wealthiest, probably had half the town on their payroll and most certainly the sheriff. Whatever happened back then, I doubt there’s any real record of money changing hands to ensure he stayed out of jail and in charge of the town.”

  “And no one in the town stood up to him?”

  “Not back then, no. They were probably too busy welcoming home soldiers from the war, getting their lives back together. Half the town might not have even realized he’d been arrested first.”

  “Well, not long after that, there’s a list of the new families who moved to Lundy.”

  “Miller, Thornton, Dickson… There they are, the Newton family.” Joe set the pages down and leaned back in his chair. “So they did do it. They bought the town right out from under them. They took over the deeds to the land rights and everything else, and Astrid and Jim… I think they knew.”

  “Didn’t you say the mayor didn’t want them to open the museum?” Alec asked. “Could this be why?”

  The two men stared at each other across the table. As the hairs on the back of Alec’s neck stood on end, he and Joe turned to stare at the photograph at the end of the table. Gyda Lundy’s eyes reminded him so much of Iris, there was no way they could not be related, but a DNA test would take months, at best.

  “We need proof,” Joe said quietly, voicing exactly what Alec thought.

  “We can’t even tell what happened. One day the Lundin family is there, and the next, they just disappeared from the town.”

  “I know several people at City Hall,” Joe told him, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his eyes. “And they all owe me at least one favor. I will see what else I can dig up on that arrest date. In the meantime, I suggest you head to the bank before they close.”

  Alec stood, stretching his back and arms, too. “The bank?” He’d almost forgotten what they were trying to do for Iris and smacked himself in the head. “Jesus, what time do they close?”

  “In about two hours, and that is when Iris will be closing up shop, so I suggest you hurry.”

  “You think they’ll actually sell it to me?”

  Joe laughed, a sound that echoed around the house and filled Alec with a strange sense of calm, as did every other aspect of this man. “If you give them enough incentive, they will sell the shop to you. No more leasing from those cheating bastards.”

  Alec nodded firmly and walked towards the door. “Mind locking up for me?”

  “I will,” Joe said, shuffling files together. “You know, you can walk away from all of this.”

  Reaching for his keys off the small table by the door, Alec turned to study Joe’s face and try to understand what he meant by his words. “I could, but I won’t. Not ever.”

  “Love is a funny thing, is it not?” he murmured quietly before waving Alec along.

  Grinning excitedly, his heart pounding in his chest and discovering that the idea of Nikki no longer bothered him, Alec darted out the door, realizing there was no more hiding it. He was meant to come to Lundy not to escape his old life but to find the woman who would help create his future. A future filled with laughter and love instead of bitterness and betrayal.

  ***

  Before Iris got home she knew something was up with Alec. Sam texted her an hour before she closed the pawn shop to say Alec was stopping by for dinner though they hadn’t made plans. Iris asked what he was doing, but her brother never texted her back, a sure sign that he was involved in whatever Alec and Joe had been up to the past two days. They thought she didn’t know, but she overheard them yesterday on the phone. Whatever Alec was doing was big enough to involve Joe, and she was going to demand answers that night.

  “At least Nikki isn’t here,” she muttered quietly to herself as she parked her car and gave Alec’s rundown, black truck a smile.

  The front door was unlocked, and she spotted Alec and Sam in the kitchen. “There you are,” Sam said and jumped out of his chair. He grabbed her hand and dragged her into the kitchen where Alec stood holding two tiny boxes in his hands. “Alec has something he would like to tell you.”

  Iris dropped her purse to the floor and swallowed hard, staring at the two small boxes. “Alec? I know we’ve hit it off this week, but… uh, but I think this might be… I mean… just…” Words failed her and she stared into his eyes, trying to plead with him mentally that they needed to slow down. His brow scrunched, and then he burst into laughter.

  “Oh God, Iris, I’m not proposing,” he said, and she planted her hands on her hips, instantly silencing his laughter. “Not that I haven’t thought about it.”

  He raised one brow, and her heart pounded even harder. “Good. I thought maybe you’d gone off the deep end after the visit from your ex.”

  “Nope, not yet, but I do have something else for you,” he said and handed her the box in his left hand. It was small and she shook it, but nothing sounded inside. “Just open it.”

  Iris eyed Sam to see if he would give anything away, but all he did was smile excitedly. She tore the paper from the box and lifted the lid off to find a silver key surrounded by torn strips of paper. “It’s a key,” she said slowly and held it up. “The key to what, exactly?’

  “That one is a key to my house,” Alec informed her.

  She lifted her face to see the range of emotions filling him as he smiled sweetly and held out the other box to her. He had given her a key to his place, and she could barely get out the words to say what that meant to her. Tucking the first key safely back in its box, she handed it to Sam and took the second. Again, she shook it, and Alec crossed his arms, annoyed. This time, she heard the slight cl
ink of metal against metal, but this box was a bit larger than the last.

  When she pulled the lid off, she found another key—a key she would never forget. It was bronze and old fashioned, just as her dad had wanted so it would match the shop. The heavy key fell into her palm, and all she could do was stare at it in wonder and confusion.

  “Look what else,” Alec urged.

  She wiped her eyes before the unshed tears could fall, and holding the key tightly in one hand, pulled out the manila envelope it rested on. Iris opened it and pulled out a stack of papers, signed and dated from the bank. She read the words quickly, and her knees buckled as she sank to the floor of the kitchen.

  “You… you… Oh my God,” she breathed, staring up at Alec as he joined her on the floor. “You bought my dad’s store?”

  “Bought it completely,” he stated. “No more owing money to the Drayer family, ever. It’s yours. I’m gifting it to you as of first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Iris didn’t know what to say. Her gaze fell back to the key she never thought she’d hold again and the papers in her other hand saying Alec Wolf officially owned the shop and was giving it to her tomorrow. The papers said it was paid in full. In all her years of trying to keep those damn doors open, no one had ever shown her such a kindness except Joe, but she’d never been able to take money from him. He had his own business to run.

  “I know you said no charity,” he told her hesitantly, “but you can’t refuse an outright gift—”

  She tackled him to the floor, kissing him fiercely, unable to get her arms wrapped around him enough. Sam cackled nearby, but she didn’t care. All that mattered in that moment was Alec and what he had done for her when he didn’t have to. His telling Nikki to go away had done much to show her how deep his feelings ran, but for him to buy the shop—a place that meant so much to her and her brother—was beyond anything she’d hoped for. Part of her was annoyed, but he was right. It was a gift, and she was taught to never refuse a gift given out of love.