Beddable Billionaire

by Alexx Andria

  “What do you want?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest.

  Nico held a manila envelope in his hand. I caught a subtle shake as he handed me the envelope. “This is for you and Grady.”

  I frowned, confused. “What is this?”

  “Just open it. You’ll see.”

  Was this some sort of gimmick? Another fake project? I sighed and decided to humor him just so he’d leave. I opened the envelope and pulled a sheaf of legal paperwork. I frowned, even more confused when I saw Grady’s name on the documents.

  “What is this?” I repeated, my palms becoming sweaty. I saw Houston’s name, and my vision blurred. This couldn’t be what I thought it was. My gaze flew to Nico’s, needing confirmation before I started crying. “Nico...what am I looking at?”

  “Houston Beaumont has relinquished his parental rights to Grady. You’ll never have to worry about him showing up on a whim, using his family money and influence to force visitation. Grady is yours and yours alone.”

  I’d never dared to dream that Houston would sign away his rights. It was what I’d always wanted but had been too afraid to push out of fear that Houston might retaliate and insist on being a part of Grady’s life. I bit my lip, unable to stop the tears. I clutched the paperwork to my chest, unable to form words, so overwhelmed by the treasure in my hand. “How did you do this?”

  “I convinced him that it was in his best interest to leave you and Grady alone. After a short conversation, he agreed.”

  I shook my head, confused and stunned. “Just like that? A conversation?”

  “Well, I punched him in the face first, but after that, he seemed more than willing to walk away.”

  Nico had punched Houston. In the face. I smothered my watery laugh behind my hand. God, how many times had I wished I could do exactly that? But Nico had somehow made the impossible happen. I stared at the paperwork again, afraid I was dreaming or lying in a coma somewhere, hallucinating.

  “This is real, right?” I couldn’t help myself. “This isn’t a joke or some kind of scheme?”

  “I wouldn’t joke about this. It’s one hundred percent legal and binding, so I hope it’s what you really want.”

  “God, yes,” I exclaimed, holding the paperwork tightly. Thank you seemed so inadequate a statement for what I was feeling in my soul, but I said it anyway. “I’m so incredibly grateful. Thank you.” Tears dribbled down my cheeks as I met his gaze, questioning. “But why? Why would you do this for us?”

  Nico drew himself up with a deep breath, and I’d never seen him appear so vulnerable or scared. He swallowed, wetting his bottom lip, before answering humbly, “Because I couldn’t make Grady my son until Houston was out of the picture.” I gasped, my breath hitching in my chest as I shook my head, more tears coming. Was he actually asking if... Was this happening? Nico slowly went down on one knee, producing a black jewelry box, and I nearly fainted.

  “Marry me, Lauren.”

  One simple statement held such power and depth—the power to make or break three separate lives.

  He opened the box, and the prettiest diamond engagement ring twinkled in the light. “Nico...” I whispered, shaking my head. I couldn’t see straight. My nerves were raw. “I...I...”

  But then Grady burst from the bedroom, clearly listening to everything we’d been saying, and he was suddenly wrapped around me like a monkey, jabbering, “Say yes, Mama! Say yes! Pllllease!”

  My heart sang through the sheen of tears that washed away the pain of the last wretched month, but I couldn’t get my mouth to work. My throat had closed, and each time I tried to open my mouth, all I could do was gape like a fish and cry.

  “Is that a yes?” Nico asked, peering up at me, his blue eyes worried.

  I bobbed my head in a desperate motion, saying yes with my heart. Nico jumped up and placed the ring on my finger, still shaking, then sealed his mouth to mine, his joy and relief an echo of my own. I tasted his tears and mine. Forehead to forehead, he murmured with the utmost sincerity, “Thank God. I can’t live without you, Lauren. I’m a lost soul and a pitiful bastard without you in my life.” He drew a shuddering breath as he vowed fervently, “I promise to work every day to be the man you and Grady deserve.”

  I wanted to shout to the rooftops that he already was. Still clutching the paperwork to my chest, I watched as Nico then dropped down to Grady’s level and said with the seriousness the occasion warranted, “Will you be my son, Grady Hughes? Will you do me the honor of becoming Grady Donato?”

  Grady’s little eyes welled with tears but he nodded vigorously in answer, and Nico folded him in his arms as if he’d always belonged there.

  I couldn’t love Nico more than I did in this moment. Everything else faded until it was only the three of us who existed in this world.

  I knew he wasn’t perfect, that he’d made mistakes and would likely make more, but Nico loved us with a pure heart, and for that, I loved him all the more.

  And in the warm space of that love, I forgave him for all the stupid crap he’d done before this moment.

  Nico rose, hoisting Grady up with him, pulling me in for a deep kiss. In his kiss, I tasted love, commitment, laughter and joy—and I knew I’d finally found what I never knew I’d been searching for.

  Nico was my soul mate, my touchstone, the future father to all my children and the man I couldn’t wait to start a life with.

  Even if I still didn’t know his favorite color.

  * * * * *

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  Getting Lucky

  by Avril Tremayne

  CHAPTER ONE

  ROMY RANG THE DOORBELL, and a few seconds later, heard a “Coooomiiiing,” from somewhere inside.

  It was hard to believe that this house—or was mansion the correct word for Russian Hill?—was Matt’s. To say it was a departure from his usual student-like accommodation was a whopping understatement.

  An inside door slammed. A closer “Gotta find the keys” was called out, followed by an even closer, much louder “Fuck!”

  Okay, it was definitely Matt’s place.

  She ran a neatening hand over her hair while she waited for him. Unbuttoned her overcoat. Brushed at the flared skirt of her new red dress.

  Stupid, really. Matt never noticed what her hair looked like or what she was wearing. He saved such observations for women he wanted to have sex with—and Romy had come to terms with not being one of those women ten years ago.

  Still, her natural inclination was to look immaculate-but-fashionable for business discussions, and the deal she’d made with Matt on the phone two weeks ago was definitely in that category, despite the chaos of that crazy call. Serious enough to warrant a flight from London to San Francisco to dot every i and cross every t.

  Footsteps on floorboards. A fumble at the lock. Another “Fuck” that had her battling a giggle, because it was so typical of Matt to be impatient with a door that didn’t open fast enough. A click, a swoosh...and there he was.

  Six feet three of lean, hard muscle looking rebelliously casual in just-snug-enough jeans and a just-tight-enough T-shirt; hold the footwear because he never wore shoes unless he had to. Good-looking in a boy-next-door-meets-fallen-angel way. Thick waves of red-blond hair, sharply alert green eyes, incongruously olive skin. Tick, tick, tick, tick and tick—Matthew Carter was a prime genetic specimen.

  “Good evening, Mr. Carter,” Romy said, tamping down another giggle at the absurdity of assessing Matt’s attributes like he was breeding stock. “I’m here to discuss your sperm.”

  Matt gave her a censorious tsk-tsk at odds with the twinkle in his eyes. “I hope you don’t say that to all the boys, Ms. Allen!”

  “Only the ones with a really big—Matt!”—as he yanked her over the threshold and into a fierce hug.

  “A really big what?” he asked, digging his chin into the top of her head. “Go on, I dare you to say it.”

  “Cup, you pervert,” she said, dissolving into laughter even though her bottom lip was suddenly trembling from the emotional toll of being on the cusp of something momentous with him. “A really big cup!”

  “Cup?” he scoffed. “More like a bucket! We’re talking serious size and don’t you forget it!” He released her, looking down at her with a grin that promptly faded. “Uh-oh, do not cry! You know you look like a troll when you cry!”

  “Trying not to,” she said shakily. “It’s just...you’re just...you’re going to hate me for saying it again, but you really are my—Hey!” as he dragged her in for another hug.

  “If you call me your fucking hero one more fucking time I’ll squeeze you hard enough to crack a fucking rib!”

  “Okay, okay!” Watery chuckle. “Enough fucking!”

  “There’s never enough fucking to suit me, you know that.” And as she chuckled again, “But I mean it, Romy. It’s one hybrid kid. Not like we’re spawning a dynasty of Targaryens to rule the Seven Kingdoms.”

  “Except I feel like I’m carrying the iron throne in my briefcase,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Weighs a ton.”

  “Briefcase?” He half and half laugh/groaned. “Tonight is going to suck sooo badly.”

  “A briefcase which you made me drop. Serve you right if it gouged a hole in your floorboards. And you’re squeezing me hard enough to crack two fucking ribs, by the way.”

  He dug his chin into the crown of her head again. “Keep complaining and I’ll bench-press you!”

  “You’ll give yourself a hernia.”

  “I’ve been working out—I can take you.”

  “You haven’t seen my backside lately! It’s expanded. Way bigger than anything you’re used to.”

  “I’ll look at it if you want me to, but as an expert in all things posterior I usually start by copping a feel,” he said.

  “Hmm, well, I’ve eaten enough to feed an army in the past two days and I’m fit to burst out of my clothes, so maybe just take my word for it. I wouldn’t want to shock you.”

  “You always eat enough for an army, so don’t try using that as an excuse for your butt—or for not cooking the paella you promised me, if that’s where you’re heading.”

  She choked up again, because paella was a pathetically inadequate thank-you for what he was doing. She searched for words to express her gratitude more eloquently, but she knew he wouldn’t let her say them—he never let his friends thank him, always brushed them off, said it was easy, he was doing it for himself, no big deal, anything to shut them up—so she simply rested her cheek against his chest and...ahhh...breathed. In, then out, in, out.

  “It’ll be all right, Romy, I promise,” he murmured into her hair.

  “You always say that,” she said huskily.

  “Because it’s true.”

  Romy smiled against his chest. Matt’s It’ll be all right, I promise had become a group slogan in their Capitol University days. He’d said those words to her, Rafael, Veronica, Artie when he couldn’t run away fast enough, and even the older and more rational Teague, whenever he was trying to convince them to do something off-the-wall. Skydiving, bungee jumping, that outrageous sex-in-a-public-place challenge, the horrendous pub crawl during a near blizzard, flying all the way to Sydney, Australia, for a weekend to support Frankie the Aussie barmaid when her bastard ex got married, skateboarding down Lombard Street the time they’d all come to San Francisco to hear Matt speak at that tech conference and he needed to release some energy. An endless stream of dares that had them following Matt like lemmings off a cliff because whenever he said It’ll be all right, I promise, they believed him. And even though such adventures mostly didn’t end up all right in the end, they’d lemminged after him the next time anyway, because Matt was invincible.

  But this time, this dare, the consequences were forever. And while Romy wasn’t so much willing to embrace those consequences as desperate to do so now the carrot had been dangled in front of her, she couldn’t bear the thought that this might be the one time Matt wound up regretting something.

  Already, though, she was ready to believe things would be as all right as Matt promised. That was the effect he had on her, probably because he was always picking up her pieces, whether they were fully broken, slightly chipped or just a little bit scratched.

  She closed her eyes, blocking out everything except the smell of the arctic pine soap he always used, the feel of his chest rising and falling with his breaths, the well-washed texture of his T-shirt beneath her cheek, his hand pressing between her shoulder blades, bringing her closer. So close her heart felt bruised against his hardness. No...not bru
ised, squeezed. Squeezed until it was pounding. Pounding until she was dizzy.

  And then she realized Matt’s heart was pounding, too, and the world tilted. A rush, a swirl, a blaze of heat, and she was in territory that was both familiar and unfamiliar—like she’d been pitched into a color-saturated virtual reality. A picture darted into her head. The two of them chest to chest and hip to hip against the wall, Matt’s mouth on hers, his hand fumbling her skirt up out of the way, his fingers tugging at her underwear, and then... Oh God, God, he was big and hard and sliding into her until she was full of him, stretched and throbbing and wildly wanting. You want my sperm, then take it, Romy, as much as you need, take it all, but take it like this. Her legs wrapping around him, jerking in time with his thrusts. Yes, please, Matt, please.

  “Matt, please!” she whispered, tilting her hips into his as though what she saw in her head was hers for the asking, for the taking.

  Matt went perfectly still, and so did she as reality clubbed her back to her senses.

  Long moment of nothing but hectic heartbeats and held breaths. And then he let her go so suddenly she stumbled back and almost fell over her briefcase. He grabbed her arm, righted her, released her abruptly again.

  Romy, frantically replaying that fantasy in her head, knew how that breathy Matt, please must have sounded—like a woman on heat. Nothing new for Matt, who’d been beating women off with the proverbial stick ever since she’d known him, but definitely new between the two of them. And Matt’s holy-fuck-help-me expression was telling her their status quo wasn’t about to change.

  “Sorry, jet lag,” she said—the first excuse she could think of. “It kicked in last night, and I barely slept so I’ve been feeling light-headed all day. I guess when you squeezed me like that, it made me a little...a little woozy. A little...breathless...?”

  Okaaay, best case scenario would be for Matt to grab her in a headlock, rub his knuckles against her scalp and tell her to stop bullshitting him, because she’d been flying between the UK and the USA for ten years without suffering from jet lag, so she should just confess—ha-ha-ha—that she’d thrust her hips at him like a nymphomaniac because she wanted his body. To which she’d respond—ha-ha-ha—that being part of a harem wasn’t her style and he should stop wanking over himself. The same comedy routine they’d been doing since the night they’d met to ward off any vaguely sexual frisson that might oscillate between them.