by Lena Skye
A BILLIONAIRE
WITH BENEFITS
LENA SKYE
Copyright Notice
A Billionaire With Benefits © 2016, Lena Skye
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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Summary
“Don't call me unless I call you.
Don't tell your friends about me.
And definitely do not tag me on social media.”
These were some of the rules that barista Mikaela Johnson had to live by whilst she was dating Billionaire Justin Henderson.
Justin did not want anything serious. Just a friends-with-benefits relationship and nothing more.
And in this case the benefits were too good to turn down.
Rent paid for. Fancy gifts. Fine dining. Exotic vacations. And the company of a desirable man. Not many girls could say no to that.
It was a good life to have but very soon Mikaela was to discover that everything she ever believed about her billionaire with benefits was not as it originally seemed...
Contents
Chapter1
Chapter2
Chapter3
Chapter4
Chapter5
Chapter6
Chapter7
chapter 8
chapter 9
chapter 10
chapter 11
chapter 12
chapter 13
chapter 14
Chapter1
She had that beguiling, wide smile that many loved to see. One would expect to see that kind of smile grace the covers of magazines, billboards, and maybe on those pesky YouTube ads. That smile couldn’t be found there, however. Her smile was constantly found in a coffee shop, at Uncommon Grounds, a home-grown brand that had given her a job for the last year and a half.
Mikaela Johnson enjoyed her work as a barista and had been recently promoted as shift supervisor. She didn’t want to take it, she knew she wouldn’t be working there forever, but upon the insistence of the octogenarian owner himself, she relented.
The spunky twenty-four-year-old had bright, hazel-colored eyes, as well as her trademark grin. On her nose was a smattering of freckles which was pleasantly surprising against her umber-toned skin. Her black hair came in thick waves that hung on her shoulders, suiting her heart shaped face. She preferred this to long hair, and it didn’t look too tomboyish either. Just a good wash and wear for her work schedule.
The day began like any other day, a day she had been used to. Mikaela loved the smell of coffee, but she wasn’t a heavy drinker. She made excellent drip coffee, though, which was one of the reasons why Uncommon Grounds didn’t want to let her go.
She was glad that they didn’t. It meant she was valued and loved by her peers and bosses. It was important for her to be respected. She had worked honestly and judiciously and was pleased her efforts had worked. If her parents were still alive right then, they would have been proud. Mikaela thought about the other goals she hadn’t achieved yet. She was going to get there someday; she wasn’t quite sure when, but someday. It was a promise she made to herself and a promise she made in front of her parents’ graves. Morbid as it seemed, it was a source of motivation. There was nowhere else to go but up, right?
While the owner of Uncommon Grounds didn’t want her to be just an ordinary barista, his patrons still wanted to see the bright young woman serve their coffee. If they couldn’t remember her name, they remembered her grin, which was good enough for Mikaela. To the keen observer, she wasn’t extraordinarily pretty, but her features were well proportioned, except for that mouth that loved to turn up at the corners. When she smiled, her existing looks magnified even more, rendering her at her most attractive.
“Don’t you want to be a model?” a patron asked her today.
She shook her head as she received his card to swipe.
“I don’t think that’s going to work for me. I’d like to be in the medical industry.”
“Yeah, you’d cure people with that personality of yours,” the elderly gentleman said as she handed him his card and receipt.
“I’mma just serve it to you, all right?” she told him. She liked Mr. Jordan. He was a former NASA technician and lived in a nearby retirement home, but was ambulatory and enjoyed taking walks along the beach which was just a few blocks down the street. Uncommon Grounds had fascinating patrons in the two years she had worked here.
She had moved from Washington a few years ago after the deaths of her family members. Mikaela had hoped for a fresh start after enduring difficulties in the wake of their passing. It was a slow, painful process and one of those rare times that she found it difficult to smile.
Getting hired in a fast-food joint was just the start as a nineteen-year-old living all alone in California. It was where she’d met one of her closest friends, Lynne Young. Fast forward years later, she was working in a coffee shop and Lynne had become an account agent for a global bank.
Lynne had wanted her to work in a bank, but she enjoyed the aura in the coffee shop. The pay wasn’t amazing, but it was decent and it gave her time to teach kids dance at a local studio on weekends. She wasn’t paid for that, but she counted it as a sort of giving back to the community labor.
“Hi.” She gave her trademark bright smile, facing a customer. “Welcome to Uncommon Grounds; what’ll you be having for today?”
He was someone she hadn’t seen yet. A new face. He was a nonchalant-looking man, wearing a charcoal gray suit and sunglasses. He scanned the menu board and she quickly gave him a copy on the counter.
“Here, to make things easier,” she said, pushing the menu in front of him.
“I like making things difficult,” he said in a quiet voice. He had a wonderful inflection, she realized. There was a moment of silence. “I’ll have the caramel macchiato with low fat milk. Easy on the caramel drizzle.”
Mikaela wondered what he meant by what he said, but she nodded anyway, ringing the order up. “Can I have your name? Would you like a membership card? Points get you free stuff,” she said.
He shook his head and paid for it in cash. “Justin.”
“I’ll call your name in a few.”
He said nothing and proceeded to an empty chair. He sat down and faced the window, patiently waiting for his order as he diddled on his phone. Mikaela thought he wasn’t the friendly type and he probably wasn’t from this side of town either.
“Drink for Justin,” she called out moments later.
The tall, brooding-looking customer came up to the counter, said a quick thanks, and left a hundred-dollar tip after taking his first sip of Uncommon Grounds’ caramel macchiato. They made their caramel drizzle from scratch, and
it was one of their most popular drinks.
Her eyes widened, seeing the bill on their communal tip box.
“Did you see that?” her co-worker, a trainee named Kimberly, asked, clearly amazed. “He left a hundred. A hundred buck tip for coffee that only cost him three fifty.”
“Good: you’re starting to recognize the prices for our products,” Mikaela told her.
“Are people always that generous here?” Kimberly said, still awed.
Mikaela shrugged a bit. “He was a weird one. And he must’ve really liked his first sip. Hooray for Uncommon Grounds.”
Her ten-hour shift was a breeze. It was past five in the afternoon when her work hours finally ended. Her phone rang just as she had taken off her apron.
“Where are you?” that familiar, high pitched, yet comforting voice asked her.
“Work. Well, it just ended,” Mikaela told Lynne.
“Listen,” Lynne began, “so there’s this party this weekend. It’s a cocktail event—”
“And you need to borrow a dress?” Mikaela teased.
“Sadly, no. I got a new one, because this is an investor’s event. Okay, where was I? I need a date.”
This surprised Mikaela. Lynne almost always had a date wherever she went. The blonde bombshell was a hit with men with her honeyed voice and Southern accent. She and Lynne were opposites in many ways, but managed to become very close.
“You need a date?” Mikaela laughed. “Why don’t you get one from the party?”
“I need the cheerleader effect,” Lynne said earnestly. “There’ll be a lot of men there, and it’s a manly world, after all.”
“Don’t you have friends from the bank? Or the banks?”
“I need someone they don’t know.”
“Ouch. I just might get popular someday.”
“As the world’s number one barista?” Lynne teased. “Or as America’s best nurse?”
“Har har.”
“Come on, Mikaela. Saturday will be your break day, right? I need to show you off, too. It’d be unfair if they only saw me. We’re both single and ready to mingle with the big shots.”
“Are you husband hunting?”
“Just potential dates. They’re sure to have money. Or if they have significant debts, I’m sure they have other assets.”
“Oh my God, you’re starting to think like them,” Mikaela said in mock horror.
“I’m thinking for my future,” Lynne corrected. “So what do you say?”
“Well… Lynnie, I have dance classes.”
“Oh psshh. They’ll be fine without you for that day. Besides, you’re not even getting paid for it.”
“I don’t mind not getting paid, Lynne. You know it’s—”
“Giving back to the community,” Lynne interrupted with a sigh. “Come on, be a dear to me, will you? I haven’t seen you in two weeks and a few hours is all I’m asking for. Would it kill you to look prettier than you usually are for a night? In heels and a nice dress?”
“Now it sounds like you really want to borrow a dress,” Mikaela laughed.
“Actually I thought about that little number you bought the last time we went shopping. The gold A-line dress?”
“Knew it.”
“I’m so glad we’re the same size. So I’ll pick you up this Saturday, six o’clock sharp?”
Mikaela huffed. “Fine. How fancy is this party anyway that you have to dress like you’re gold bullion or something?”
“Just a lot of big wigs I’d like to impress. You might catch someone big too,” she joked.
“You and your double entendre shit,” Mikaela said.
“Oh you’re using fancy words aren’t you?”
Mikaela laughed. “I read about it, researched a bit about it. I’d like to use big words every now and then that I don’t understand to make—”
“Myself sound more photosynthesis,” they finished together and laughed.
“I’ll see you Saturday, all right?” Lynne said in her trademark croon.
“All right. See you. Love ya.”
“Love ya, too.”
The other line clicked. Mikaela put her phone down to stretch a little. Her neck ached and she massaged it a bit. Then she grabbed her bag to head out to the parking lot. The sun was sinking over the horizon and it had been a long day. She thought about what to cook for that night. Something easy. Or she could cook nothing and just sleep and starve her way to a diet.
Mikaela was a thin woman, and Lynne teased her about her boobs and her butt. “Those are so not a black woman’s assets,” she’d tease her good naturedly.
Lynne was the only one who could tease her that way, and Mikaela teased Lynne in the same harsh, yet comical manner. Mikaela drove down the street, feeling the cool air come from the ocean. She loved the beach, but had seldom gone to one in months. Life just happened, working life just took over her.
She drove a beat-up car, a 2005 Honda Accord she had paid for in cash. She loved the car nonetheless, despite its aging exterior and interior. Lynne had joked she could sell it as an antique. She didn’t want to, for practical, monetary purposes. She had saved a substantial amount, enough for two years of nursing school, but that was only two years, far from the bachelor’s degree she wanted. She’d have to work three more years at the café or find work that paid at least $4,000 a month. Or she could leave the apartment she had come to love. It was a studio, twenty-four square meters of neatness that she tried to decorate well enough, like the ones in architectural digests. She bought used furniture, salvaged abandoned pieces and did those DIY projects that she had come to hate and love at the same time.
She tried to incorporate bits and pieces of her childhood into her apartment, whatever she remembered was in their old house, that old house with its picket fence and the tall columns. Her father had been the only child, and her mother was also an only child. Mikaela and her brother had a happy childhood and she had been spared from that accident only because she played hooky.
They were attending her brother’s awarding of Best in Reading and Best in Math for his grade year. She was fifteen years old and had gone through that rebellious stage where she wanted to hang out with her friends and get to know a few boys better, perhaps score a date. She had used the excuse that she needed to do some group study.
She had regretted that moment in the deepest parts of her soul. She could have died with them, but she was alive because she lied. To give some semblance of comfort to herself, she felt that she was alive for a purpose. Her whole family had left her on earth for a purpose. She didn’t want to delve in the pain of it, so she forced herself to move forward to the best of her youthful ability.
There were times that Mikaela felt lonely, but she didn’t let it get the best of her. In the rarest times, on one of those cold nights in Malibu, she would walk down the beach and listen to the sea just to alleviate her loneliness and the memory of her family.
***
The nonchalant-looking man, wearing a charcoal gray suit and sunglasses, walked out of the café after taking a few sips of his coffee. It was good coffee, he had to admit, and he’d had coffee in five-star hotels in far flung mountains during his travels and in the comforts of his own homes. Plus, the barista had this lovely smile he wished was on some of his employees’ faces. He was happy to give that hundred-dollar tip; it would brighten the minimum wage people’s days for sure.
Justin Henderson was a twenty-eight-year-old businessman with a knack for making millions in hours. His muscular build and his strict mouth certainly helped with business, as everyone took him seriously. Physically he wasn’t intimidating, although he was a force that no one would have wanted to reckon with. His dark eyes made people conscious, and those who were supposedly confident in their tasks were no longer sure if it was done properly—all for the way he stared.
He also had a beard that he maintained at a maximum length, which was a hassle, but it made him recognizable as Justin Henderson, businessman extraordinaire. Justin Henders
on wore tailor made suits and genuine leather shoes made by artisans in Italy. He was rather vain and justifiably so. One had to look the part of the successful, powerful man who didn’t have time to look the least bit sloppy.
This was why he avoided the beach even though he loved it; e the beach made him look too casual, which he didn’t like the world to see. While he wasn’t paparazzi material, there were still media hounds that liked to follow him around. He dated popular women after all, from celebrities to models and daughters of millionaires.
He was glad that they stayed away from his immediate family, and he was glad they were in England, far from the madding crowd who liked to milk everything, from what whichever actress wore, to who did whom.
The only son of a steel magnate and a baroness, Justin helmed his father’s conglomerate as soon as he graduated college, a difficult feat, but one he managed with aplomb that was unheard of in his age. His father had died three years ago, and his source of strength and infinite wisdom had been relegated to him and him alone.
He had two younger sisters, both still in finishing school. His mother was busy with charity work, something she loved doing better than office work. The hours and the meetings stressed her out, so she opted from the company and only represented the charity/foundation and was a consultant for their socio-civic duties.
In England as a student, the media hounded him. They were fascinated by him, popular not by choice, but by public demand. He had thought that moving to America would improve his chances of living a normal life. He was wrong. The European media followed him soon after, much to his chagrin.
Justin liked to keep his private life as private as possible, but the women he dated wanted otherwise, loving their time in the tabloids and social media sites. He scoffed at the headlines he had seen often about his dating life.
Billionaire to Propose to Model Girlfriend.
Justin ‘Hunky’ Henderson Seen Canoodling with (insert name of A-list actress here).
