by Whitley Cox
Quick & Dirty
Book 1, A Quick Billionaire Series Novel
Whitley Cox
Copyright © 2018 by Whitley Cox
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review
ISBN: 978-0-9958210-6-4
Contents
About the Book
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
If You’ve Enjoyed This Book
Sneak Peek Of Quick & Easy
Quick & Easy - Chapter 1
Other Available Books by Whitley Cox
Upcoming Releases of 2018
Acknowledgments
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About the Author
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About the Book
The best way to get over a millionaire is to get under a billionaire.
Travel writer Parker Ryan wants to erase every last trace of her ex from her mind, body, and soul, and what better way to forget a man than to take an all-expenses-paid trip to Tahiti? She’ll have ten days to write a feature piece about The Windward Hibiscus Resort. That leaves plenty of time for fun and sun—
And a smoking hot fling with Tate McAllister, billionaire resort owner, scuba instructor, philanthropist, and let’s face it—sex god.
Parker knows she’s not supposed to mix business with pleasure, but Tate’s ready and willing to wow her in and out of the bedroom. She can get the job done and let him fulfill all her fantasies, can’t she?
But she won’t, repeat—won’t—fall in love with the man. Even if every part of her wants to.
For Alicia
You, lady, are a true friend.
xoxo
Prologue
Tate
My eyes darted around the lobby of the hotel. Something was off. Something didn’t look right, but what? I needed everything to be perfect, beyond perfect. I needed everything to be immaculate—spectacular. Despite the fact that my hotel only brought in the elite of the elite, I wanted the reviews to be glowing, and Parker Ryan, acclaimed travel journalist and hotel reviewer, must not be disappointed. Everything and anything he wanted, he was going to get. And if I happened to make a friend along the way, all the better. My therapist said I’m lonely and I need to make friends. I wasn’t sure I agreed, but whatever. I was too busy to be lonely. My days were full of making sure the hotel was running smoothly, my guests were happy and my staff was taken care of. It’s impossible to make friends or be lonely when you’re the Big Kahuna and work eighty hours a week. I had no time for either.
I’d arranged for Mr. Ryan to stay in the most luxurious villa, the presidential villa. He’d get daily massages, deep-sea sport fishing with our best guide, a sunrise hike up to the Belvedere Lookout, table-side dinners by the executive chef and, if he was up for it, spear-fishing, parasailing and skydiving with yours truly.
Yes, everything must be perfect. I needed to impress Parker Ryan, and I needed to impress him big time. It didn’t matter that my resort was one of the most sought-after holiday spots in the entire world and that only the elite one percent of the population could afford to come here, to the tropical island haven of Moorea; I had other properties, and they needed the exposure, too. So if Parker Ryan wanted to come here to Moorea and interview me, he was going to get star treatment all the way. He just couldn’t take my picture.
I continued to stare at the framed painting of a tropical sunset hanging above some wicker chairs. Something was off; there was imperfection afoot.
Ah ha! It was crooked.
I hustled over and fixed it, then I noticed some dust on the top of the frame. Using the handkerchief from my breast pocket, I began to dust. Muttering to myself, I took to dusting the entire sitting area.
“This is not my fucking job. Where is housekeeping?” Probably off doing their job; they’d get to this room later. I immediately chastised myself for my thought. My staff was actually fantastic, and I had nothing to complain about. I was letting the nerves get to me. I’d just never agreed to an interview before, and it was stressing me out. I prided myself on my ability to remain under the radar and out of the public eye, maintained an anonymity most people with my level of wealth found difficult to keep going. I could walk into a bar anywhere in the world right now and no one would know who I was, no one would know that I’m Tate McAllister—a billionaire. And I intended to keep it that way.
I glanced at my watch as I continued to dust, desperately trying to rub out a smudge on the glass top of the side table. No smudges. There would be no smudges in my hotel’s review, none. Shit, it was closing in on go-time. Mr. Ryan was going to be here soon. Damn it!
I lifted my head up from the glass and was dumbstruck. A vision. Illuminated like a redheaded angel with the afternoon sun glowing around her in an ethereal halo as she sashayed her way in through the open doors. The warm breeze snagged the hem of her skirt and flipped it into a jet stream of ivory behind her, while dark crimson tendrils got swept up on another sudden gust and danced around her head like an arc of fire. She made a half-hearted attempt to tame her wild mane, but then, when her efforts proved futile, she gave up.
When she stepped farther into the lobby and out of the sun’s radiance, I was suddenly sent into a fit of panic. Her face was nearly as red as her hair, and her eyes were filled with what could only be described as white-hot seething rage.
Without a second thought, I raced up to her. “Hello, and welcome to The Windward Hibiscus Hotel. Is there anything I can help you with?”
Blue eyes the same color as the crystal-clear ocean outside flashed up at me, full of flames . . . and something else.
“Yes!” she said with a huff, her perfect little freckle-covered nose lifting into the air just a touch. “You can take me into the nearest broom closet and fuck me senseless.”
Chapter One
Parker
“Hey, it’s me again. Look, I know you’re pissed, but it’s really for the best. You weren’t making me happy. I need a woman who has more spark. More fire. More passion. You’re like a dead fish, really. I think you might have some daddy issues there, darling. Not enough hugs growing up or something.” His syrupy-sweet voice made me wish there was an app where you could reach inside your phone and throat-punch the caller on the other end. How I wanted to just watch him choke and gasp for air, his smarmy eyes bugging out as his hands found their way to his neck and he looked at me in panic.
Motherfucker! Daddy issues?
Fuck him. He knows nothing about me. NOTHING!
But like the mouse that keeps going back to the same freaking trap, I put my ear back to the receiver.
“I need someone who is going to be there for me when I need her, you know? Besides, were you even happy? Half the time I can’t even tell. Happy, mad, sad. For a woman who doesn’t get Botox anymore, you sure have a face like one. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I’ve put all your things in a box and had my chauffeur drop it off at your apartment.”
Swallowing the taste of bile that had suddenly formed a thick film on my tongue, I deleted the message on m
y phone before his voice could continue.
Fuck him!
Fuck Xavier Rollins and his millions. Fuck Xavier Rollins and his beautiful downtown penthouse apartment. Fuck Xavier Rollins and his nice cars, his family’s private jet, his enormous yacht. Fuck him and fuck everything else. Fuck everyone else. Fuck everyone he knew, he worked with, fuck them all. I was done.
I’d wasted three years of my life with that asshole, three fucking years. And apparently during the last year (but who really knew? It could have been the whole damn time) he’d been screwing everything with two X chromosomes that batted heavily mascaraed eyelashes at him. His assistant, his secretary, his kid’s nanny, his ex-wife apparently from time to time. You name the bitch, and chances are Xavier had slipped his pasty-ass body between her thighs. And yet the bastard had the audacity, the audacity to dump me.
“I’m not sure it’s working anymore,” he’d said on New Year’s Eve as we ate dinner in one of Xavier’s New York restaurants. The entire place had been closed down for a private party hosted by Xavier himself. The room was packed with New York’s most elite socialites and celebrities, all “friends” of the eccentric millionaire and giddy as can be to be part of such a lavish event.
“You’re never around. You’re always off working. And you’re, well . . . ” He actually had the decency to grimace slightly. “You’re not exactly warm or adventurous in bed, darling. I need a woman who’s willing to, you know . . . ”
I shook my head and blinked at him a few times before deciding to open my mouth. “No, I don’t know. What is it you would like me to do?” I scanned the nearby tables, hoping nobody was eavesdropping on us, but it was a party, it was New York, it was Xavier Rollins. People were listening. They always were. Bringing my voice down a little lower and leaning closer to him, I swallowed before speaking. “Can we not discuss this here, please, Xavier?”
He took a sip of his rye and tonic while simultaneously giving a half-wave and a smile to Gigi Hammond across the room. She winked at him and bit her lip the way a woman does when she wants you to bite her “other” lips.
“No, we’ll discuss it right here. I want a woman who is adventurous.”
“I’m a travel journalist. I go on adventures for work. You’re not making any sense.”
He coughed slightly while his eyes took on an almost bored, glazed-over look. “Yes . . . but not in bed.”
Suddenly my cheeks felt as if they’d gone up in flames. “Please,” I said with a hiss, “let’s not talk about this here.”
He flicked his wrist again as if I were not more than a pesky fly buzzing around his head, a mild irritation he could just bat away. “I’m sorry, darling, but you’re boring. You’re boring me. I want a woman who is around more. You’re like a dead fish. Cold, boring, lifeless. We’re through.”
I shook my head, still not entirely able to process what was happening but nonetheless feeling the harsh sting of his words.
Cold.
Boring.
Lifeless.
A dead fish.
A distant ringing sound began going off in my ears, and my chest hurt. Was I having a heart attack? A stroke?
“What kinds of things in bed are you wanting? You’ve never said anything. You want me to quit my job and just follow you around like some groupie?”
“Not a groupie.” He got a wistful look in his eye. Xavier had always wished he could be a rock star. Live the life of a rock star. And despite the fact that he had millions of dollars and hobnobbed with the richest of the rich, partied with rock stars and movie stars, models and politicians, he wasn’t a rock star. He was heir to The Handy Dandy Soap Company, a big household cleaning supply company that his grandfather had founded decades ago. Sure, over the years Xavier had bought up restaurants and a couple of nightclubs, made a bit of a name for himself, but no matter how much he tried to run, he couldn’t escape The Handy Dandy Soap Company or his nickname, “Bubbles.”
“Not a groupie,” he said again. “Just a doting girlfriend.”
“I am. When I’m home.”
“Which is not enough and why this won’t work any longer,” he said blandly. “You’re not what I need. You’re not who I want.” He raised a hand and signaled the waiter for another drink. “You. Me. We’re through, darling. I’ve moved on and so should you.”
My bottom lip dropped and nearly hit the table. “You’re dumping me? Here? In front of everyone?” I asked. “All because I’m not adventurous enough for you, which by the way is the first I’m hearing of your discontent with our sex life.”
He looked about ready to get up and leave. Bored out of his tree and wanting to find a more lively conversation companion. “That and the fact that you work too damn much.”
“But you suggested I take this job. It was your idea. I like what I do.” Only when I said the words out loud, they tasted foul on my tongue, because the truth was, I didn’t really like my job anymore. I was tired of it. Tired of the travel, tired of never being home more than a few days a month, tired of living out of a suitcase, tired of eating at restaurants. I wanted to cook my own meals, sleep in my own bed more than two nights in a row, and have a closet full of clothes I could stare at while complaining I had nothing to wear.
But I also wanted to do something worthwhile. I’d never understand these millionaires’ and billionaires’ wives who did nothing all day long, simply because they didn’t have to. Even if Xavier and I got married one day, I would still want to work in some way. Devote my life to charity work or fulfill my lifelong dream of writing a book. I couldn’t simply spend the rest of my days playing tennis, getting my nails done and making wait-staff feel like garbage at the country club bistro. No, I needed more.
He lifted one shoulder cavalierly. “It was either now or tomorrow morning. But I would rather take Felicity home with me tonight. So now it is.” And as if on cue, his little assistant, Felicity with her size zero waist, Double-D chest and mile-long legs, sauntered up in a barely-there black leather miniskirt and matching crop top. Jesus Christ, how old was this chick? Xavier was forty-seven; was he old enough to be her father? I wouldn’t doubt it.
Felicity perched on his knee and wrapped one svelte arm around his back, her coal-black eyes fixing me with a lethal stare.
What the fuck?
We used to be friends . . . sort of. She and I had grabbed lunch in the past. I babysat her cat, and it’d barfed all over my Aubusson rug. And now, all of a sudden, she’s his new fuck buddy and I’m chopped liver?
“So . . . what? You want me to stay the rest of the night at the party, or should I just go?”
I didn’t know what to do. People would be wondering why I’d left. It’d be all over social media by morning, if not sooner. The breakup, the speculation as to why. Rumors, some true and some not, flying out from every moron with opposable thumbs and a cellphone, trying to somehow cash in and weigh in on a very public breakup. And then the memes would start. I’m sure people were snapping pictures of us at this very moment. My mouth hanging open like a codfish, Xavier sitting there all smug with his hand up Felicity’s skirt, her siren-red lips nibbling on his ear as if it were some piece of decadent chocolate and not old-man ear with hair sticking out of it. Well, now I wanted to barf as well as scream and throw things.
Fucking Xavier Rollins. Fucking Bubbles!
“Oh, no. Of course not. That would be incredibly awkward for me . . . and for you. You can go.”
I gawked at him. He was dismissing me? Three years I’d wasted with this asshole, three goddamned years, and I meant that little to him that he was breaking up with me in a room full of people with his mistress perched on his lap like a puppet in a crop top. I continued to just stare at him, stare at what I was losing.
And then it hit me.
How had I not noticed any of this sooner? The greasy, poufy hair, the semi-squinty brown eyes, the nervous twitch in his left eye — I’d been blind to it all. Blinded by love. Because even though I’m not sure I’d ever said it
to him, I did love Xavier. At least I thought I did.
“Did you hear him, Parker?” Felicity asked with an almost giggle, well, more like a cackle. “He said you can go.”
And you can go straight to hell, you traitorous little bitch!
But I didn’t say anything. Over the years I’d learned that it wasn’t always important to have the last word. Sometimes the best thing to do was gather up what remained of your dignity and leave with your head held high.
I reached for my purse and my coat, then, with nearly a hundred pairs of eyes on me, I walked out of the “XR” restaurant, hailed a cab and didn’t look back. And now, two weeks later, I was on the tropical island of Moorea and about to interview a billionaire.
“Stupid fucking Xavier . . . ” I muttered after I thanked the man from the shuttle for retrieving my suitcase from the back of the van. I clicked the handle up and headed to the lobby to check in. “Stupid fucking Xavier. I can be warm. I can be adventurous!”
I rolled my suitcase down the slate path toward the big open doors, the rhythmic clickity-clack sound of the wheels on the exposed rock drowning out the din of hotel lobby noise while the strident cry of a random tropical bird punctured the air like a car backfiring in a quiet street.
I scanned the entrance into the hotel, not quite sure what exactly I was looking for but knowing I’d know when I saw it.
