The Billionaire's Club Trilogy: Deluxe Box Set

by C. L. Donley

  The only other woman I’ve ever… um… “deflowered” was Amber. We’d lost our virginity to each other. I guess on some level you never stop searching for that first powerful experience. A few times I’d gotten close. Avery and I had great chemistry.

  With Mya it’s… something else. Amara would smack me if I used the word “exotic,” but… fuck it, it’s fuckin’ exotic. It just is. I eat everything with a crap ton of sour cream, okay? It doesn’t take much for shit to get exotic for me. And sex with Mya is that. It’s intense. She heightens my every sense until I’m dizzy.

  If there’s one stereotype I will admit being guilty of having, it was the one about shy virgins. I think I expected her to be all pent up like a dam, ready to break. In some ways maybe she was, but mostly it’s as though she became more reserved, more dam-like, as though she was pulling me down into her and I would lose myself fully if I succumbed. Usually I’m taking the lead, reveling in my own prowess during sex. But the whole time she was learning me. And I find myself helpless in the face of my new found greed to let her.

  Finally we slept. I tried to keep my eyes open to watch her, but I can’t.

  In the morning, however, I wake early with a start at the thought of her.

  Thankfully it wasn’t all another dream. I take in the sight, the curve of her smooth bare shoulder puncturing the whiteness of the crumpled sheet she is mummified in. Her eyes summon me even while they’re closed.

  I feel the familiar first stages of love setting in— the one of endless curiosity. It’s an optimism that I now loathe feeling, even while I always look forward to its reappearance.

  It doesn’t always happen, but I’m not surprised to feel it with Mya.

  The situation is all so strange and new— perhaps not entirely unexpected, but certainly not an orchestration of my own. It gives the illusion that fate is helping me out.

  I look at the time on my watch and reluctantly turn my phone back on. Almost time to go back to the real world. I don’t stick around to see what it’s saying, I simply let it whir and blip and burp while I ready myself in the shower.

  When I return to the bedroom, the bed is empty.

  Only my phone is lying there, my messages appearing in a tickertape scroll at the top.

  The most recent one is from Bel.

  I can’t see the message in its entirety, but the first sentence churns my guts:

  This bitch Kim is cray.

  Mya

  I wake up to the sound of Dale’s phone going off on the nightstand and showering going in the bathroom.

  I feel an ache in more than one place, both physically and emotionally. The memories of last night wash over me as I examine the ceiling.

  I break into a smile, then a laugh. Then tears, oddly enough. I’m not sad, but they’re not tears of joy. Whatever it is, it feels good to cry.

  Then, just as suddenly as I started, I am done crying.

  What the hell was that? A hormonal release of some kind?

  The fuck. This sex stuff is no joke. How do women cope with a lesser experience?

  Dale’s phone continues warbling and vibrating as if in protest. I reach across the bed and grab it. By the time I find the volume and turn it all the way down, my desire to sleep more has already begun to dissipate.

  I suddenly see Kim’s name at the top of his phone.

  This bitch Kim is cray. She… is all I can read.

  “Huh.” I say aloud.

  Time for an emergency phone call.

  I slip back into my dress and go out the door, leaving some of my things behind in a rush to get back to my room.

  Naturally, both Kim and Amara’s things are long gone when I get there. I removed my purse from its stashed location under the bed and find my phone at 17%.

  Shit. It will have to do. I brought my charger but had completely forgotten to buy a converter for the plugs.

  “Girl,” Kim immediately picks up.

  “Girl,” I return in a hushed tone, slightly more serious.

  “GIRL!” Kim suddenly yells.

  “Girrrrrl,” I eke out.

  Clearly we have a shit ton to tell each other.

  Dale

  I am panicked. I want to fuckin’ throttle Bel. It’s the second time in almost as many days that his big mouth is going to cause me problems with Mya.

  Is she pissed? She’s probably pissed.

  Why did she leave? After our night together, why wouldn’t she just confront me about the message so I could backpedal like my life depended on it?

  I put on jeans, open the door and stand out in the corridor. My sisters would’ve left by now, and probably constitute the bulk of my unopened texts, telling me how rude I am for not seeing them off. There are probably a few stragglers like me and Mya.

  Her room is at the end of the corridor on the other side of the balcony. The largest room where she, Kim, Amara, Rosetta and the baby all stayed.

  The balcony is a long u-shape. Were it an o-shape, I would’ve felt less like an idiot, creeping around the entire length of the interior to her room in just my pants and my robe.

  I get close enough to the door to find that it’s only cracked, and I can hear Kim’s voice warbling through the speaker. I can hear her clearly, and I suddenly wish I couldn’t, because she’s talking about Bel and his… anatomy. And has Mya’s rapt attention. Occasionally Mya lets out an infectious squeal that unconsciously has me grinning.

  “My phone is about to die girl, I hate that I didn’t buy that adapter,” Mya laments.

  “Well, come see us, he’s not flying me back to Nashville until tomorrow.”

  “Oh my God, Amara wants us to come to Mallorca!” Mya whines.

  “For what! Bitch is on a honeymoon!”

  “So are you, it sounds like,” Mya says.

  “What about you, girl, dish!”

  “I can’t…my phone’s going dead it would take like, two hours.”

  I grin.

  “It was good,” Kim confirms more than asks.

  “Girl I… can’t even process, what the fuck, just happened to me.”

  “I gotta be honest, I didn’t think he had it in him.”

  “Well, apparently he’s world renown, let Amara tell it.”

  What the fuck??

  “Oh my God girl, what if we all marry billionaires and live happily ever the fuck after?”

  “Girl, I am not marrying Dale.”

  My heartbeat accelerates.

  “Bish whaaa??” Kim says in an exaggerated tone.

  “I’m pretty sure Dale’s planning on having white kids with a white wife. We already had that conversation.”

  I partially rack my brain while also trying to eavesdrop.

  “Secondly, he’s an asshole, I’ll explain all that shit later.”

  Ouch. Kim must not know about the rooftop terrace fiasco. Yet.

  “Thirdly, it’s not like that with him, last night was just sex. What I look like marrying the first dick I ever got anyway, like what year is this?”

  More stabby knife feelings.

  “Are you sure, I mean… the way he was looking at you… I’m pretty sure he was feelin’ you. Like, hard.”

  “When?”

  “After the rehearsal dinner.”

  “What, when you were grindin’ on me on the dance floor, damn I wonder why.”

  “No, before that, when we sent him to look for you and he caught you dancing.”

  I can feel the blush.

  “What?” Mya asks, confused and intrigued.

  Mya’s phone beeps helplessly.

  “Shit!” she says.

  “Girl, find a phone and CALL ME,” Kim says.

  They’re wrapping it up and I’m torn. Even if I turned to run full speed back to my room I would never make it. Should I knock on the door and pretend I just suddenly appeared as soon as their conversation was over? Should I just let her find me standing there and tell her the truth, that I was afraid of her reaction to Bel’s text?

  It did
n’t seem to come up at all, unless I missed it. If it did, it hasn’t fazed them.

  I hear Mya’s shuffling grow closer and I’m frozen. Suddenly I hear it grow faint again, the muffled sound of pipes emanating from the wall. Probably the shower, I think. I breathe a sigh of relief and make the long trek back to my room.

  Why does the thought of Mya not wanting to marry me make me want to break something?

  I curse myself, knowing that my mind will likely turn Mya into a quest. As I’d done with Avery. Logically I know that in life people change, or sometimes they aren’t right for you, but internally I can’t help but wonder why loving any woman in the slightest causes them to slowly slip out of my reach.

  Twenty Nine

  Chapter 29

  Mya

  After a dish session with Kim and a shower, I return to Dale’s room wearing a loose white linen top and high-waisted cut off jean shorts, my locs in a high ponytail. I knock on the door and he opens it, grinning.

  “She just walked in,” he says.

  My cheeks warm. He’s on the phone. Talking to Grayson, most likely. I should’ve tried harder to eavesdrop.

  “They’re insisting that we meet them,” he says, moving the phone from his ear. “They already sent the jet back to guilt us.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “It’s only about an hour and a half, if you don’t like it we can just go home.”

  I smile.

  If I ended up with Dale, this could be my life.

  Ugh. I’d feel like such a hypocrite.

  It’s one thing to shack up with The Man, another thing entirely to be his woman.

  Yes, I’m still hot for him. Yes, he’s wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and his hair is still a little wet, and he looks like a baby-faced front man of a punk band right now. But he is not in a punk band. He is pure establishment, running one of the most corporate corporations that’s ever incorporated. I’m no activist, but dammit I wanted to be.

  Plus, I still hate him for being… how he is. That he made me go back on my word that he’d never get it by immediately giving it to him, right after saying that. Asshole. I’m embarrassed even now. I feel stifled around him. Like I can’t fully be myself. It could never work.

  My body laments.

  I still have one more day before it’s time to return to the real world. There’s no law against making the most of it. Right?

  On the way to Mallorca we fool around on the plane. A lot.

  When we land we take a car to the beach, past the touristy crowds and the slightly dated looking high rises to a quiet resort that resembles what I think must be what Greece looks like: stark white cabanas, sand, and modern white furniture against the bold azure of the sea. We spot Grayson and Amara lying serenely in a shaded hammock, while Sam and Rosetta are nearby on the beach. Amara is draped on top of Grayson, who is absent mindedly twirling strands of Amara’s locs in his fingers. Even from a distance one can see they are blissfully post-coitus.

  I fish for my sunglasses in my purse, finding an excuse to remove my hand from Dale’s.

  Amara also dons shades and, despite the oversized grin she wore, she looks like she’s asleep.

  “You made it!” she says as we draw closer.

  “We made it,” Dale repeats, as Amara climbs out the hammock and plants a kiss on his cheek.

  Amara links arms with me.

  “Bye!” is all she says as she whirls me around and practically drags me in the opposite direction.

  Amara

  When Dale and Mya get to Mallorca, I immediately whisk Mya off to the private beach so we can dish.

  “From the top, do not leave anything out,” I insist.

  “I kinda don’t know where to start,” Mya smirks, holding baby Sam as he teeths on her knuckles.

  “Grayson said you were flirting with Dale when you dropped off the letter?!”

  Mya shakes her head and smiles.

  “He started it.”

  “I know. You know I got a verbatim recounting,” I mutter.

  Mya laughs.

  “What happened after that? I mean, you were back pretty quick.”

  “Girl what, you think we just started doing it in the hallway?”

  “Did you??”

  Mya rolls her eyes.

  “We just talked.”

  “About?”

  “He apologized. For being ‘an asshole,’ his words.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes! Why are you grilling me!”

  “Because Grayson never even got the fuckin’ letter, so I’m trying to figure out what the hell you did to him.”

  Mya’s eyebrows go up as she cackles.

  “I didn’t do anything, I swear.”

  “Yeah right, you didn’t do anything.”

  “Girl, you know I’m a prude.”

  “So what happened when you guys left the reception?”

  “The first time or the second time?”

  “All the times, Mya for fuck’s sake, I want details!!”

  Mya looks smug as she speaks. “Shoe’s on the other foot, now isn’t it?”

  “What?” I ask, confused.

  “I don’t seem to recall any conversations about you and Grayson’s first time.”

  “Because it all happened so quick, and nobody asked! There was so much to tell, I didn’t think you even wanted to know!”

  “You wanted to keep a private part of your life private, and now I get that.”

  …Oookay.

  Is that what she thought? Has she felt left out this entire time? Why wouldn’t she say something?

  I shake my head, looking off into the distance as I speak.

  “I know you talked to Kim, why don’t you want to talk to me?”

  “Actually Kim talked, I listened. And I never said I didn’t want to talk to you.”

  I feel a lump in my throat that’s more anger than sadness. I just didn’t understand Mya anymore, and I feel myself losing patience. It’s like she’s putting limits on how much of a friend I can be to her.

  “Well, when you’re ready to talk, I’m ready to listen,” I concede.

  “Bitch, calm down, I’m ready to talk right now.”

  I make a gesture as though I’m giving Mya the floor.

  Mya lets out a deep sigh. “So… basically he went down on me on the patio.”

  I sit up with my mouth agape. Mya stifles a grin.

  “Please rate your experience 10 being the highest and 1 being the lowest.”

  “Girl 75, that shit was amazing.”

  I scream into my chair cushion.

  Mya laughs.

  “Tell me the sex was good.”

  “The sex was… completely ridiculous.”

  Mission Accomplished. Mission a-fucking complished!! It’s the best idea I’ve ever had.

  “Oh my God, I knew it. This is the best thing that’s ever happened,” I say.

  “Better than your husband and child?” Mya giggles.

  “Almost. I mean, I know it’s still early but this is like, the most promising relationship he’s ever been in.”

  “Amara—”

  “You should’ve seen yourselves walking up to this place, you guys are fucking hot together.”

  “We’re not ‘together.’”

  I look at Mya, trying not to hide the fact that she’s insane. Does she have a date with a gay ballet dancer that I don’t know about?

  “Says who?” I challenge.

  “Says me, says both of us I’m pretty sure.”

  “I guarantee you, Dale doesn’t feel like that.”

  “Look, I know you’re his new sister and everything, but I actually fucked him, and I’m telling you, it’s just sex.”

  Her remark throws me for a loop. I’m stunned.

  Getting Mya laid seemed to make things worse for our friendship, not better.

  If Spain hasn’t done the trick, and sex hasn’t done the trick, then that means it’s the friendship itself.

  Is it one of t
hose times where we need time apart? But we’re apart all the time now. Was it something I said? Something I’ve done?

  “You know if there’s something I’ve done, you can talk to me about it,” I offer.

  Mya shrugs. “I just wish you would stop acting like something is wrong with me just because I don’t happen to want to go along with your plans for my love life. Or is it his love life you actually care about?”

  I’m starting to get the gist. She’s jealous. More so than I initially feared.

  But doesn’t she see I’m trying to fix it? I’m trying to get them both in the “club,” here. And my plan is working like gangbusters. Is it still selfish if it makes sense?

  “I’m sorry, you’re right,” I concede, “but I’m not going to apologize for being over-excited. I mean, the fact that the two of you have sexual chemistry… that’s like half the battle.”

  Mya sighed, as if bored of hearing about my sexual expertise.

  “Did you get us a room? I’m kinda tired. Not a lot of sleepin’ went on last night.”

  I just stare at Mya. Why did I want her here again??

  Fine. If Mya wants to keep her private live private, I suppose I can respect that. Honestly, I don’t know why I’m surprised. Kim and I used to joke that Mya’s probably secretly an assassin. “Have you ever even seen her practice?” Kim would say. “What’s in that damn, duffle bag anyway?”

  “I put you in a villa. Dale’s got the details,” I say.

  “I bet you have a charger, don’t you.”

  “I do,” I reply. “You can use my phone, if you want to call Kim.”

  “No, I’m legit about to crash. Maybe later we can call her on speaker?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I say.

  We get up wordlessly and start searching for Grayson and Dale.

  Dale

  I watch Mya and Amara walk away toward the beach as Grayson slowly makes his way by my side. He slaps me enthusiastically on the back and grabs me by the shoulder.

  “What do you suppose they’re going to go talk about,” Grayson chuckles.

  “I have a feeling that whatever it is, it’s going to involve saying the word ‘girl’ at least 500 times,” I reply.