Bossy Billionaire

by Deborah Garland

  Lexi groaned, reacting to the orange zing on her clit. She draped one leg next to him, spreading wide.

  “You feel so good,” he spoke low and husky.

  Her body opened up to him. Her clit swelled and her hips moved. She was close already. He might use this stuff on himself.

  “That’s it,” she whined.

  “Tell me you love me,” he groaned.

  “I love the shit out of you,” she breathed in harsh clips. Whining, she said, “Luke, don’t stop.”

  “Never. Never, baby.”

  Baby? His eyes found the corner of the stick. He didn’t want Lexi stressed. She cried out, throbbing against his hand. He made her come undone, and he loved it. When she came down from her orgasm, he said, “Lexi, sit up for a minute.”

  When she moved forward, he grasped the sides of the tub to stand up. “Where are you going?” she asked, panic filling her voice.

  “Lay back. Just relax. I want to know.” He took a few steps toward the sink, his heart pounding. Water sluiced down his naked body. His cock hard from Lexi rocking against him.

  “What does it say?” she asked, her head down, her breathing labored.

  “What’s positive?”

  “Two blue lines,” she answered. “Please tell me.”

  He smiled then turned back to her. Kneeling, he said, “If I asked you to marry me without knowing, what would you say?”

  “Are you asking me to marry you?”

  “I’d prefer not to do it this way.” He took a soft pink strand in his hand, darkened from the water. “You deserve something much more special than this.”

  “More special than this...mom?” She tried to peek at the stick in his hand.

  “No.” He showed it to her. “One blue line. You’re not pregnant. And I’m kind of feeling insecure about my manhood.”

  “Don’t be. Except we just...”

  “We’ll figure that out. How we... How I can take you every night and properly plan our future.”

  “I love you, Luke. So much.”

  He kissed her mouth. “I love you back, my little pink-haired law student,” repeating what he’d called her the night he met her, except now she really was his.

  Alexis blew into his life like the storm outside. Turned it upside down and challenged everything he thought he knew about himself. What he wanted and what he didn’t want. He was an empty well that couldn’t give anything. Alexis filled him up and allowed him to be the man she needed. Whatever she wanted. He’d give it to her.

  Only the perfect woman could give a bossy billionaire the one thing he could never buy.

  A kick in the ass with a side of true and perfect love.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  One year later...

  Luke

  Luke’s heart was breaking for Lexi with every hour that passed. Pacing in front of her computer ready to break down. Waiting for her bar results. He had no doubt she passed. If someone asked him if the last year had been a piece of cake, he’d roll his eyes.

  Sharing Lexi with her law school classes, cramming for her finals, and then studying for the bar had been excruciating.

  At least she’d been in his bed every night, their bed. He reminded her whenever possible, the penthouse was her home, too.

  Whether anything not law school-related penetrated into her head, he didn’t know. She often forgot her own name. Her new name, Alexis Markham Hart. He didn’t mind her keeping her family name, especially when she said she wanted to keep a piece of her father with her.

  What name she would practice under was still up in the air.

  “Let’s go take a walk,” he said, unable to take the angry stomping.

  Dagger eyes laid on him, then after a breath, she said, “Fine.” She was down to one-word sentences.

  The poor woman’s stomach had been in knots for weeks. Did she seriously think she didn’t pass? At least she still wanted sex. Lots of sex. Using it as a stress-relieving exercise. He didn’t mind her using his body. She still blew him away in bed. Fucking his wife brought out a different side to his possession and passions.

  He and Lexi had beaten Tristan and Laney to the altar. But only by a week.

  If Luke had guessed right about his nightmares being his CEO and lawyer side tearing him apart, Lexi filled the hole he felt from leaving his law practice. Everything he loved about practicing law he now got to live vicariously through her.

  They rode the elevator down to the lobby where the completed renovation still took his breath away. He still got choked up passing the sheer panels, the Hart family crest catching his eye every time.

  Tristan strutted past the front desk talking on his phone holding his baby girl, Abigail. He and Laney had named their daughter after Luke’s grandmother.

  “Any news on the bar exam?” his brother asked with the phone tucked into his shoulder, Abbi trying to grab it. Tristan had gone all-in with fatherhood. Luke saw that kid in his brother’s arms more than Laney’s.

  “No,” Luke answered since Lexi had gone non-verbal on the elevator ride down. “Have you heard from Gray?”

  “No,” Tristan answered grimly about Grayson, who’d gone to California months ago. At least they thought he was in Cali.

  Gray was missing.

  Promoting the hotel’s grand reopening had jump started his acting career. Offers poured in, but they were all in L.A. Things had been going great, but then his brother went dark and no one had heard from him.

  Luke was going out of his mind, but wanted Alexis’s bar exam out of the way before he went apeshit from not hearing from his brother. He was ready to hire a P.I. to fucking find and bring Gray’s ass home. To New York, where he belonged.

  Luke kept these panicked and worried thoughts about Gray to himself, to not put more stress on Lexi. He snuck a glance at his wife, who clutched her phone so tight he feared it may break in half.

  When she’d been semi-sane, she suggested the P.I. to find Grayson. He intended to bring him home for a party for Lexi because there was no way she didn’t pass the freaking bar.

  Lexi’s phone rang and she jumped, gasping. “Hi, Mom. What?” A smile finally crossed his wife’s gorgeous mouth. It immediately made him want to stick his dick in it. “She got it. The offer from Chevalier.”

  He took the phone from her. “Mom, congratulations! That’s fantastic news. We’ll come out this weekend and celebrate.”

  “Thank you, Luke. This wouldn’t have happened without you,” she sounded weepy.

  He couldn’t have thrown money at Sylvia fast enough to help her renovate the Portside Inn. Lexi tried to draw up an investment agreement where he’d get paid back with interest. He tore it up because family doesn’t pay family interest. The most satisfying aspect was the feedback from his new Chevalier guests who’d been to the Jersey Shore resort and came back with stunning praise for the chic, but retro seaside resort.

  “How’s Ed?” he asked about the boyfriend Lexi was slowly warming up to.

  “He’s good,” Sylvia kept it at that. “Oh gosh, did Lexi get her results yet?”

  “No, not yet,” he answered Sylvia, staring at his wife. “As soon as we know, we’ll call you. Okay, bye. Love you, too.” He loved how Lexi’s mom ended every call that way.

  He tried to hand Lexi’s phone back to her, but she shook her head and began pacing in his lobby holding her middle. Not good for the employees to see The Sterling’s General Counsel fall apart. “Let’s get some air.”

  She nodded and gripped his hand. He had a dozen calls planned for that day, but after he put on his suit and found Lexi crying in the shower, he told his new assistant, Max, to reschedule them all.

  Maxwell. Not Maxine, as he had to clarify wondering if someone had been playing a joke on him.

  “Wait. Wi-Fi,” Lexi said when they got to the revolving door.

  “Your phone switches to 5G, honey.”

  “Right.”

  The summer tourists had crowded into that part of the city. “Wanna take
the limo for a ride? Tom’s right there.”

  “Um.” She gasped at another call coming into her phone. “What?”

  He slipped the phone away fearing she’d lose every friend she ever made. “Hey, Theo. That’s great. Your brother passed his final exams.” He watched Lexi put on a brave face. Oh God, everyone was getting good news today. And today...today she might get a knife in the heart.

  Jesus Christ.

  “Let us know when the ceremony will be.” He liked Theo, who spent his days off at the hotel. Hard working and a little broken, he fit in great with him and his brothers. “We’ll do a party at the hotel.”

  A chime on Lexi’s phone made him trip over his next sentence. He checked the notification panel on the top of her Samsung. Her bar results were in. Part of him wanted to check and absorb any blow. He wouldn’t want her to get the worst news a law school student could get on a screen. Like getting dumped with a text.

  “Theo, I have to go, Lexi’s bar results are in.”

  She raised wide eyes to him. When she clawed for her phone, he stepped back.

  “Yep, we’ll call back with the results.” He ended the call and stared at the email notification with a link to get the results. “Do you want me to check?”

  No response.

  “Alexis. My love. The love of my life. My general counsel...” He also talked The Dynasty, Salem House, and Dama Diablo into hiring her as outside counsel once she got licensed. “You are the most incredible woman I’ve ever met. I wanted you the moment I met you. And it had nothing to do with you being in law school or whether or not you graduated. Or passed this damn bar. I love you for you.”

  “Know,” she said, still in one-word blurt mode.

  And he believed beyond a shadow of a doubt, she wasn’t interested in his money. That her desire was for him. The man. The broken man he’d been when they met. The man she brought back to life.

  “So, me or you?” he asked, staring at her.

  “Together?”

  He took her hand and led her to a set of stone steps of a church. Ignoring the sign that read, No Loitering, he dragged Lexi on his lap. Her butt against his dick, her pink hair tickling his face, and the fresh floral smell of her still drove him wild.

  With his arms around her, he held the phone so she could see. He tapped on the notification icon that brought up the email from the New York State Bar Association.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  Lexi nodded.

  A lot had changed since he got his results and he didn’t know what he’d see when they clicked the link in the email.

  Taking a deep breath, he tapped it.

  It happened so fast. Lexi screamed and twisted around to hug him. She shook with sobs and the phone slipped from his fingers.

  “Honey, what? What?”

  She slid out of his arms and sat on her heels with her hands on his knees.

  “I was so lost...” She figured out how to speak in complete sentences again. “That day. The day I got kicked out of school. The same day I met you.”

  He held her face. “I know, honey. Me, too.”

  “I had to go through that in order to meet you. I sat in that bar thinking, I’d never go back to school. That it was over. Sitting with another lawyer gave me the strength to go on. You, Luke. You changed everything for me.”

  “Lexi, you passed, right?”

  “Does it matter?” Now, she got cute.

  “It doesn’t matter to me if you passed. You’ll take it again. If you don’t want to, that’s fine, too. It doesn’t matter to me if you’re a lawyer. You’re my wife. That’s all I care about. And your happiness. We have billions of dollars. I’ll support whatever you want to do.” He’d married her without a pre-nup, just like Tristan and Laney. Because deep inside, he and his brother had found down-to-earth women who in their souls were the same as them. Alexis and Laney couldn’t be bought if he and Tristan tried. “I want you to pass because you worked so hard for it. Because you deserve it. Because this is what your father wanted.”

  Her breath hitched, and she lowered her head.

  Oh, dear God, she didn’t pass.

  “Lexi,” he snapped at her. “Look at me.”

  “I didn’t....” She bit her lip.

  “Oh, honey.”

  “I didn’t just pass. I got a perfect score.”

  The tension left his body, and he yanked her back on his lap. His mouth found her warm sweet lips. He had a wild urge to unbuckle his pants and take her under that skirt. Right fucking now. He’d never been so turned on in his life.

  “Folks, even people wearing suits and expensive shoes can’t sit on the church steps,” a cop with mirrored shades warned them from on top of a horse idling at the curb.

  Luke wanted to make a snarky comment about how the cop’s horse also shouldn’t be dropping piles of shit everywhere. But he didn’t want Lexi’s joyful day to end up with him in jail.

  “No problem, officer.” He stood and took Lexi’s hand.

  Walking back down Fifth Avenue, Lexi asked him, “Where are we going?”

  “Home. I’m taking you home. We’ll celebrate in private first.”

  “Can we go swimming?” She skipped in front of him, spinning around.

  “Sure.”

  “Naked?” She plopped her lips against his.

  He laughed. “I’ll hang my tie on the rooftop door.”

  Thank you for reading Bossy Billionaire. Please leave a review if you enjoyed it.

  So where in the world is Grayson Hart??

  Watch out for Rebel Billionaire: An Enemies to Lovers Romance.

  Coming November 2020!

  Sign up to be notified of Grayson’s release: http://eepurl.com/dsHN3D

  Where in the world is billionaire Grayson Hart? That’s for a feisty PI with secrets of her own to find out.

  Grayson Hart doesn’t want to go home to New York and to the 5-star hotel he owns with his brothers. He doesn’t want to face them about where the hell he’s been for six months and what he’s been doing. Even though the answer is...nothing. For an actor, that’s worse than a scandal. So he’ll stay off the grid in L.A. Let everyone go on with their lives and not deal with him and his failures.

  Enter Sabine O’Rourke, the Private Investigator who’s also avoiding her family, brothers who are experts in security, investigations, forensics...and not matchmaking. They want Sabine to marry a trusted family friend, a stable, upstanding man who will keep her tucked away and protected. They don’t want her investigating criminals on her own, three thousand miles away in L.A.

  When Luke Hart offers her an ungodly sum of money to find his wayward brother Gray and bring him home, the job’s too good to pass up. All she has to do is get Grayson to LAX and on Luke’s private jet and she’ll get one million dollars. That can buy a girl a lot of freedom.

  Only Grayson has skills she’s not prepared for. Seduction being one of them. And he won’t be put on a plane like a child. He’ll get to New York on his own terms. Sabine ends up on a cross-country trek with Gray, in a rented vintage convertible Corvette, having the time of her life.

  But in New York, Grayson will be welcomed and adored, while she’ll be pressured into marrying a guy who doesn’t get her, a guy who can’t make her happy.

  So...why is she still in this damn car?

  Coming November 2020!

  While you’re waiting, grab Carter Holden’s road to forever in Must Keep You, a Billionaire’s Surprise Baby.

  And watch out for Victoria Holden’s brush with fire in Fiery Billionaire, a short story in the Lords of Gotham Billionaire world and part of the Saints & Sinner’s Anthology for 99 cents, releasing January 2021. Reserve your copy now and be the first to see how a billionairess gets roped into being a fireman’s fake girlfriend.

  MEET THE LORDS OF GOTHAM

  New billionaires navigating the world of serious money and the women who can’t be bought.

  A high-heat romance series set in the glitzy and wealthy world of
New York City about HAF guys who’ve gone from middle classy to filthy rich. These alphas never had trouble with women before they were loaded. Now they have fortunes and secrets to protect. They need strong women who want a man for richer or for poorer.

  Trophy wives need not apply.

  The Lords of Gotham series features a recurring cast of sexy billionaires, but each book can be read as a stand-alone. No cheating. No cliffhangers.

  Get the whole series:

  Reluctant Billionaire, Book 1: A Fake Fiancé Billionaire Romance

  Alpha Billionaire, Book 2: A Billionaire Romantic Comedy

  Bossy Billionaire, Book 3: A Grumpy Boss Billionaire Romance

  Rebel Billionaire, Book 4: An Enemies to Lovers Billionaire Romance

  OTHER BOOKS BY DEBORAH GARLAND

  The Mallory Family Series in order

  Family Drama Romance

  Available Now:

  Must Love Fashion

  Must Have Faith

  Must Be Crazy

  A Must for Christmas

  Must Keep You

  The Princeton Allegiant Series in order

  Paranormal Romance/Vampires

  Available Now:

  Drawing Bloodlines

  Guarding Bloodlines

  Matching Bloodlines

  Standalone Romances Coming Soon

  Cruel Cowboy ~ A Cowboy Bully Romance

  The Country Star’s Second Chance

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  When planning this series, I had an idea of a billionaire named Luke who was having woman problems. He went to see a shrink and paid her to be his girlfriend. I wrote half the book, but when I wrote Alpha Billionaire and put Luke in the final scene with Tristan, the Luke paying for a girlfriend was very different from the lawyer who helped Laney get her designs back. I was on a deadline to release Luke’s story 30 days after Tristan’s. I also loved the idea of setting Luke’s story in his iconic hotel, the glimpse I gave of The Sterling at the end of Alpha Billionaire wasn’t enough for me. (Beta readers agreed, they wanted more of the hotel). The first story I wrote wasn’t cutting it. So... I started over.