Unravel You: A Hot Billionaire Romance (Cole Brothers Series Book 1)

by Diana A. Hicks

  “Enough of that. How do we fix this? Would the customer be agreeable to delaying the project a few more weeks?”

  “Oh no. You’re not roping me into saying anymore. No more work for today. Tomorrow.” I pulled her to me. “As your boss’s boss’s boss’s boss, I’m giving you permission to take the day off.”

  She giggled. “You really have given up on all decorum and pretenses when it comes to the office, haven’t you?”

  “What is there to pretend about? They all know I’m madly in love with you. And they know you’re brilliant at what you do. If you leave, they’ll be hurting for months, if not years. And they know that.” I removed her blazer and threw it on my chair.

  “Then why go through all that ruse with your team? You could’ve just asked them to leave.”

  “You seemed so embarrassed by the misunderstanding.” I kissed her neck.

  “Don’t remind me. I was mortified.” Her skin flushed under my touch.

  “See? I didn’t want them to know we were going to have sex in my office all day.” I cupped her breast, feeling the tight nub through the silky fabric of her top.

  “It’s ten in the morning. We can’t just drop everything.”

  “You gotta start early if you’re gonna go all day.”

  Her laughter was the only thing I needed to know I’d made the right choice. Not just for today but the rest of my life. I picked up the phone and called Sam to make sure our calendars were clear.

  “You know, she knows what we’re doing in here.”

  I shrugged. “Do you want to go somewhere else? How about we fly to Vail? The chopper’s here. We could be there in time for lunch. Em would be more than happy to stay with Max if you want to spend the night.”

  “That sounds tempting.”

  “We could get more of that sex you promised.”

  “I didn’t promise anything.”

  “I beg to differ. You did promise to marry me on September twenty-first.” I kissed her before she could protest. What was really holding her back? We were meant to be together. She had to know that. I parted my lips, and she ran her tongue along my teeth. Why was this the biggest turn-on? Pulling back a tiny bit, I let her try again. She liked it hard but was too afraid or too shy to demand. When she moved in, she lifted my hand from her waist and pressed it to her breast. I deepened the kiss and was rewarded with a moan.

  “I’m yours,” she whispered.

  “I know. So about September.” I paused for effect. She exhaled but other than that issued no more complaints about the date. “Before now and then, we need a trip to Atlanta. I think it’s bad form for the parents of the groom to meet his bride on the day of the wedding. Feels like a shotgun wedding to me.”

  She laughed. “A little. Though I’d never force you into anything. You know that?”

  “I know that. Don’t change the subject.”

  “Okay. When do we go?”

  “How about next week?”

  She leaned back and looked up at the ceiling, as if the perfect excuse to say no were written there. Truth was, I understood her hesitation. Meeting the in-laws was a big deal. I was a wreck when I met her parents last month. Valentina’s mom was so much like her it was easy to talk to her and get her to like me. Her dad, the retired cop, was another thing. My mom wasn’t a cop, but she had her reservations about me marrying someone so soon after my divorce. She’d lost all faith in my ability to choose the right woman this time around, which was why I wanted Mom to get to know Valentina and fall in love with her the way I had.

  “I guess that could work.”

  “My family is going to love you.” I cupped her face to make her look at me and not at the ceiling. “I honestly believe that all you have to do is show up and they’ll see why I’m so crazy about you. They’ll give their blessing, and then that’s it.”

  She squished her eyebrows together and opened her mouth, but no words came out. When she didn’t speak for several seconds, I kissed her forehead. She had a way of retreating into her own head and shutting me out. “Say something.”

  “Does it have to be so soon?”

  “Yes. We don’t have long before the wedding.” I braced myself for impact because she’d definitely have a problem with what I was about to ask of her. “I was thinking we could visit Atlanta for a month.”

  She jumped off my desk and buttoned her blouse. “The what?”

  3

  Don't Run

  Valentina

  Their blessing?

  We needed his family’s blessing to get married? I hadn’t considered that. What if his dad hated me? Or worse, what if his mom hated me? This was too much, too fast. I walked around Derek’s desk and grabbed my blazer.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?” I glanced up at him. Where his gaze could be at times intense and so intimidating, he also had a soft side to him, a serenity that was contagious.

  “I can see the wheels in your head spinning out of control.” He put up his hands the way someone would approach a wild animal.

  “What about Max?”

  “I know. How about this? Let’s go somewhere for lunch and talk about it.”

  A few hours with Derek? Who could say no to that? “I can do lunch.”

  His sexy grin made me wish he had offered something other than lunch. But he was right. We needed to talk, not a repeat of what we did on the sofa. I hadn’t completely recovered from that yet. The orgasm had been more intense than anything I’d ever felt. After two months of sex with Derek, that was saying something. I rubbed the side of my face to make the tingling go away.

  He ran the pad of his thumb across my cheek. “Let’s go before I change my mind and take you back to the house instead.”

  As it always happened with Derek, all he had to do was send a text or make a phone call and things just got executed. By the time we reached the landing pad, the helicopter pilot was already in his seat, engine running, waiting on us. Derek shouted a few more instructions to his admin while he held my hand. I glanced across the courtyard to my office window. The life of a billionaire was still something I could not wrap my head around. This morning, I’d woken up thinking I would spend my day in the confinement of four walls, putting out the usual fires, attending meetings, and trying to make progress on my projects.

  Instead, I was on my way to lunch at ten in morning with Derek Cole. I climbed into the back seat and let him buckle me in and adjust the headset over my ears. Flying made me nervous, but most of my jitters dissolved when he slipped his hand under my skirt a few inches, enough to reach the bare skin beyond my thigh-high stockings. He pressed his lips to mine. Tied down the way I was, all I could do was touch my palm to his freshly shaven face.

  “Have you ever been to Vail?” He settled in the seat next to me and expertly worked the five-point harness around his chest. He’d flown in this chopper a million times. To him, this was nothing.

  “No.” I shook my head. Did he not realize how far apart our worlds were? To Derek, lunch in Vail was just lunch. To me, a small-town girl, it was a new place, an adventure I’d never considered. The biggest move I’d done on my own had been from Casa Grande to Tucson for school. When I was little, Dad took us to the beach a few times. We never went anywhere that wasn’t within driving distance. Helicopters or private planes didn’t exist in my world.

  “That’s my fault. I should’ve thought of this a long time ago.”

  “A long time ago? We’ve been together officially for a month.”

  Mom had called it “a whirlwind romance.” In the span of four weeks, Derek went from being my landlord to the man of my life. In truth, the move into his mansion hadn’t been that big of a leap since the rental Derek offered me at the beginning of the summer was nestled at the end of his property. A grin pulled at my lips at the memory of his first kiss in that cottage. I’d never been kissed like that.

  I sank into the plush leather as the pilot maneuvered us off the building. The courtyard and the buildings s
lowly disappeared beneath us.

  Derek squeezed my fingers, and his deep voice boomed in my ears. “Would you like to see the house from up here?”

  The house? He meant his mansion. “I would love that.”

  He nodded to the pilot, and my stomach dropped from the sudden change in direction. Cool air blew in my face as we easily glided across the blue sky. The static from the headsets and the close confinement of the cockpit made this feel like Derek and I were the only two people in the world.

  “There it is.” He pointed out my window.

  Yeah, there it was. The pilot slowed down, then we tilted and made a wide circle around the grounds, soaring over Las Nubes. The Clouds was the name of Derek’s mansion. Our house? The Catalina Mountains provided an incredible view from the terrace outside his room, but from up here, they were part of the whole: the fifteen-thousand-square-foot home laid out in a big U seemed to wrap itself around the mountain. Miles of desert landscape stretched past his lush backyard, the infinity pool, the soccer field, batting cages, and the cottage at the edge of the property.

  I smiled down at the small house Derek had offered me when we first met. When I was desperate to find a home for my son Max. When would he realize I didn’t deserve any of this?

  He tapped the window again. “You see the part where the ravine starts?” I nodded. “That marks the end of the property line.”

  “Jesus, you basically own the whole mountain.”

  He chuckled. “Part of it anyway.”

  “You’re doing it again.” I met his gaze. He gave me one of his intense looks. If I hadn’t been strapped down, I would have melted into the floor. When he glanced at the pilot, static followed by a quiet pop crackled in my ear. We were alone. Or at least, our conversation was now private.

  “What am I doing?”

  “You’re using your billionaire wiles to get me to do what you want.”

  He laughed, not at all offended by my accusation. “Is that what I was doing?” Heat flushed across my skin, and I wiggled under the harness. “I wish I’d thought to bring you on a chopper ride before. You can’t escape me here.”

  The pilot veered right. Our view switched between the flat desert below us to a blue sky spotted with white fluffy clouds.

  “You’re not playing fair,” I said.

  “I’m okay with that.” His smile said he wasn’t going to back down until he got what he wanted.

  “You really want me to go with you for a whole month?”

  “I have three reasons for that. First, I have another trip to Atlanta that will require me to stay there for a month.”

  A month? Three weeks had been hell. I wasn’t ready to go through that again so soon. “I could visit.”

  “I know, but you know it won’t be the same.”

  “What’s your second reason?”

  “A quick visit to meet my parents won’t be enough. I want them to really get to know you. So I thought we could invite them over for a week or two.”

  Why did I get the feeling this visit to meet his family had just escalated? “What exactly do you have in mind?”

  He blew out air and glanced over at our pilot, as if he would have the precise words I needed to hear to say yes. Truth was, the more he said, the less I wanted to go to Atlanta with him. “Okay. I will tell you. It’s not bad. The only reason I hesitate is because you have this tendency to run away from me.”

  He wasn’t wrong. Even now, I wanted to get off this helicopter and go home. I never reacted well to change. I was working on that. “I’m strapped in. Where am I gonna go?”

  “True.” He hooked his index finger in the harness and pulled. “I have a house in Atlanta that is big enough to host all of us. I thought we could all hang out.”

  “Hang out? Was this your mom’s idea?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why couldn’t you tell me that?” I hated the idea of being in the same house as his family. Only because of the pressure to have to be in likable mode twenty-four seven

  “Because I know I’m asking for a lot.”

  His honesty disarmed me. What wouldn’t I do for this man who loved me and my son without reason?

  The headset crackled again, and the pilot’s voice filtered through the speakers. “Is this good? I can get you closer.”

  “No, this works. A walk sounds like a great idea.” He glanced down at his phone. “It looks like our lunch isn’t quite ready yet.”

  “The nerve. They’ve had a full two hours,” I teased.

  “Ninety minutes, really.” He winked.

  We landed on a patch of land that looked as if it’d been conditioned for a helicopter—not exactly a landing pad, but it was clear enough of debris. “How often do you come here?” I asked when the pilot took off, leaving us in an odd silence. My ears hadn’t adjusted to not having the loud rumble around me.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “Not very. Bridget used to come to Vail a lot.”

  My face flushed at the mention of her name. Derek’s ex-wife had almost succeeded in taking away his company and everything he worked so hard for. She’d done it to feed her gambling addiction and to pay off a huge debt she’d incurred with some loan shark. Despite all that, he had shown her kindness, and in return for a divorce, he’d agreed to pay off whatever money she owed and let her go on her merry way.

  “You think this was a good idea?”

  “She’s never been to this cabin. This is only for us.” He took my hand and pulled me toward him. We followed a path down the mountain. In the distance, the log cabin sat surrounded by pine trees. The whole scene had a postcard vibe to it. “In the winter, this area is covered in snow. You can sit on the front porch and watch the skiers go by.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  Sticks crushed under my pumps as we made our way to the clearing. The scent of burning wood and fresh pine lingered in the cool air and made me think of Christmas, which was the only time of year when Casa Grande smelled like that.

  “That’s Vail Village down there.” He pointed at the line of buildings with German-style architecture. It was what I would imagine a village in the Alps would look like. “We can go for a walk after you change.”

  I nodded. I’d go anywhere with him right now. He opened the front door and ushered me in.

  Inside, animal carvings adorned the Douglas fir walls. Plush leather sofas with fussy throws sat on one side of the great room, where a massive river-rock fireplace ran up to the vaulted ceiling with tall windows on either side of it. The other side of the room had four over-sized leather chairs facing a wrought-iron stove. This was a huge house and so over the top with every inch of it covered in wood.

  “There are four bedrooms upstairs.” He sauntered toward the kitchen, where a chef had something sizzling on the stove. “Thank you for coming out on such short notice.”

  “My pleasure, Mr. and Mrs. Cole.” The chef smiled at me while her fingers kept up with the chopping.

  I opened my mouth to correct her but decided against it. “It smells amazing. Thank you.”

  The kitchen area was in the opposite corner as the living areas, under the loft office that was supported by thick wood beams. “Is this a bear?” I pointed at the face at the end of a log that ran across the load bearing beam.

  Derek chuckled. “Yeah. That’s a bear. Very aptly, the cabin’s name is Bear Cabin.”

  “Cute.” In his world, bear cabins were a thing. And so were private chefs. “This wasn’t necessary.”

  “It was.” He sat on the barstool and pulled me to him. “I can’t cook.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet.”

  I rolled my eyes. He had brought me here to talk me into his crazy plan to spend thirty days in Atlanta. “You already know I’m going to say yes.”

  He held me in his arms, and I knew my words were true. I couldn’t say no to him. But he had more to say, and judging by his long pause, he didn’t want the chef to know.

  “We can ta
ke it from here.”

  “Absolutely. My crew will come back later to clean up.”

  “I appreciate that. Thank you.”

  “It was great to meet you, Mrs. Cole.”

  When the door shut behind her, I turned my attention to Derek. “Are you the one spreading rumors that we’re married?”

  He chuckled. “It’s your fault. You wouldn’t give me a date. I figured it’d be easier if I told them we were already married. Avoid that whole conversation of when’s the wedding and why does your fiancée act like she’s having second thoughts.”

  “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

  He shrugged with an innocent look on his face. “Why don’t you go wash your hands while I make you a delicious elk burger. After you eat this, your life will never be the same.” He gave me a quick pat on my butt and pushed me toward the bathroom. “Powder room is past the stairs by the entrance. There should be a change of clothes in there too.”

  I did as he ordered. After the short walk down the mountain, my feet were killing me in these pumps. I removed all my clothes and donned the jeans and T-Shirt in the Patagonia bag. Derek had also thought to include a knit sweater for me. Desert girl over here. The soft socks and boots made me feel like I belonged in this house.

  As I washed my hands, I peeked out the window toward the creek running behind the house. Along the edge, a cub picked its way across the rocks. It strolled into a grass area on the side of the house and then dropped on its belly. Max would have loved this place. I left the washroom and headed out toward the front deck. The cub moved on to chase something along the grass, chomping at the weeds every now and then.

  It came closer to me, and I sat on my haunches. If it got closer to the railing, I might be able to snap a picture. What did bears eat? Berries? I looked around the deck for something to entice it with but didn’t find anything. What a shame. I’d never been this close to a wild animal. The Phoenix Zoo didn’t count.

  “Hey, buddy.” I stepped onto the stoop. The cub glanced up at me and happily dawdled toward me. I giggled, excited the furry thing wanted to interact with me.