by Alexia Adams
This geek is about to meet his match...
Internet security guru, Liam Manning made a death-bed promise to complete his beloved brother’s manuscript. That means stepping down from running his billion-dollar empire and finding a woman to teach him about romance, regular-guy style. So, falling back on his hacking skills, he infiltrates an online dating site to find a suitable love tutor.
All Lorelei Torres wants is an honest man to love and raise a large, happy family with. Relocating to San Francisco after her last boyfriend turns out to be a lying snake, her mother takes action and signs her up with an online dating agency. Maybe it’s time an impartial computer chose a man for her…
Played by the Billionaire
Alexia Adams
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Alexia Adams. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
2614 South Timberline Road
Suite 109
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.
Edited by Alethea Spiridon Hopson & Rima Jean
Cover design by Liz Pelletier
ISBN978-1-62266-605-8
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition May 2014
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Acknowledgments
About the Author Betting the Billionaire
The Billionaire’s Demands
The Boss and her Billionaire
Seducing the Enemy
One Night with a Cowboy
An Unsuitable Husband
The Seduction Game
A Night of Misbehaving
Reforming the Playboy
To my sexy IT guy and all the resultant little bots who have made sure this mother is never bored.
Chapter One
“Oh man, you are so screwed.”
Liam glided the Aston Martin into his reserved double-wide parking space before glancing over at his friend. He couldn’t really argue with David’s statement. It was exactly how he felt.
“I have to do it. I promised Marcus.” His chest tightened at the mention of his brother. Two weeks hadn’t lessened the burning pain he’d experienced as he held Marcus’s hand and watched him slip away. All his money and he hadn’t been able to save the one person in the world who loved him unconditionally. Liam unclenched his hands from the steering wheel.
“So you’re going to take a leave of absence from being CEO and Chairman of IWC Security to finish your brother’s book? Go from king of the Internet security world to a writer?” The incredulity in David’s voice couldn’t have been greater if Liam had said he was going into space next week.
“It’s the only thing he’s ever asked me to do. I promised I’d finish it within three months and I can’t do that if I’m running the company. He has a publisher ready to look at it, but it has to be on his desk by the end of September. Marcus said it was his best, his life’s work—his legacy. He wants to be remembered for his writing, not his rare heart condition.” Liam flung open his door and stepped from the low-slung sports car.
“I still don’t understand why you have to write the rest. Can’t you hire someone to do it? What about Marcus’s wife? Why can’t Crescy write it?”
They climbed the concrete stairs to the main level of IWC Security corporate headquarters. Instead of taking the door to the lobby to go up to the offices, Liam exited left, onto the street.
“I promised Marcus I would write the rest personally. It was important to him that someone who loved him saw it through. Crescy is devastated and has gone back to Saint Lucia. Besides, she’s only been part of his life for four years. I had thirty-two years to get to know how his mind worked. I’ve got an editor lined up to fix my bad grammar, and I’ve read all of Marcus’s writing books. I’ve written stuff before, you know.”
“You write security programs in a variety of languages, English not being one of them. Are you going to write the novel in Perl?”
Liam ignored his friend. Writing the book was the least worrying part in this whole stupid situation. It was the romance aspect that had him waking in a panic every night since he’d made the promise to his brother.
“By the way, where are we going?” David was breathless. He had to jog to keep up with Liam’s long strides.
Liam slowed, seeing his friend start to sweat despite the chill in the air. It might have been July in San Francisco, but that didn’t mean it was warm. “To do some research,” he said.
“What kind of research?”
Liam stopped and punched the pedestrian cross button. A young man, wearing a black hoodie with his pants halfway down his backside and a cigarette dangling from his mouth, took a step sideways out of Liam’s path. A sardonic smile crept over Liam’s face at the punk’s movement. Why couldn’t he have been this size in high school?
Growing nearly a foot and developing muscles after he finished school hadn’t made up for all the years Marcus had had to play protective big brother. That’s why he had to do this now. Marcus had always been his champion, the only person to understand and love him. He’d do anything for his older brother. Liam’s chest squeezed again and he sucked in a huge lungful of air, hoping to relieve the pressure.
The shrill chirping of the crossing signal, indicating it was safe to walk, broke through Liam’s misery. “Marcus was writing a mystery novel with romantic elements. The hero is an everyday guy who gets caught up in some intrigue. Along the way he meets a girl and falls in love. The mystery bit I can write with no problem. Marcus outlined his plot on that one. The romance element is another thing. I’m not exactly out on dates every night. And evidently for the emotion of a scene to come across I have to be familiar with it. So I need a girlfriend.” Liam spat out the last word as though it were poison.
“Why don’t you call up one of the women you’ve gone out with before?”
“Trust me, I thought of that. According to Marcus, it has to be a real relationship. Not one based on my wealth. All my previous girlfriends hung around for the expensive dinners, exotic holidays, and nice jewelry.”
“What about that Latvian girl, what was her name? Svetlana? You dumped her as soon as the words ‘I love you’ came out of her mouth.”
“It was Iliana and she was a model from Lithuania.” Liam heaved a sigh. “Once a woman says she loves you she expects marriage and babies. I don’t do marriage and babies. It was better to end it with an appropriately expensive present than for anyone to waste any more time on the relationship. For the story, the hero is an everyday guy. So I have to pretend to be a regular guy and get a regular girlfriend. No flashy dates, no trips on the private jet to the Caribbean, regular guy stuff. None of the women I’ve dated before would go for that.”
“And how do you expect to get a girlfriend who doesn’t know who you are? One Google search and she’ll spot you in twenty seconds.”
�
��That’s why I’m going to shave off my beard, get a makeover, and use my middle name. Even if she searches she’s unlikely to think William Manning rich guy is the same person as Liam Mackenzie, regular guy. I’ve set up a couple social media profiles as regular guy Liam, and some mysterious virus has temporarily eaten any photos of William Manning on the Internet. There’s a limited life span on the virus so they’ll restore in a couple of weeks’ time, save me having to go back in and fix them later.”
He pushed open the door to a small coffee shop. There were ten people waiting in the order line. Signaling to the barista behind the espresso machine, Liam bypassed the long line and picked up the two coffees she placed on the counter. He smiled at the woman, whose cheeks turned pink, before leading David over to a small table in the corner.
“Hold on. Did you just say you were going to shave? Has anyone ever seen you without your beard and mustache?”
“No, and that’s exactly the point. No one will recognize me, and I can play the regular guy until I finish this stupid book and get back to my real life.” He ran a hand over his beard, a bit longer than usual as he hadn’t trimmed it since Marcus went into hospital for the final time. He’d never shaved since sprouting his first whisker at the age of sixteen.
“What are we doing here? Are you researching what normal people do in the morning?” David took a gulp of his coffee. A flicker of surprise crossed his face as the rich flavor passed over his tongue. “God, this is so much better than the crap I normally drink.”
“That’s because it’s hot and freshly made. By the time you remember you ordered a coffee it’s cold with scum on the top. Not that I’m complaining, you’re the best programmer I’ve got. I appreciate your single-minded dedication to your work. To answer your original question, I’m here to see a woman.”
“What? You’re going to pluck a woman out of the lineup here?” David scanned the row of people waiting to order.
“Of course not. I’ve made arrangements.” Liam sat back in his chair. He tried out the deep breathing technique Marcus had used to cope with pain. If it had been anyone other than his brother who’d come up with this idea, he’d have shot him down in an instant. Liam had spent the last ten years avoiding love and relationships.
The two times he’d let himself feel something for a woman had ended in absolute betrayal. He was smart enough to know his limitations. He wasn’t love material. Iliana might have said she loved him, but what she really meant was she loved his money and was willing to put up with the rest of him for the sake of a cushy life. The fact that she’d hooked up with another rich guy within a month of their breakup proved it. Forcing a smile to hide his discomfort, he glanced at his oldest friend.
“Spill, Liam. That’s the look you get when you’re about to crack a competitor’s system.”
“I did some research last night.” Liam waved his hand in a vague gesture.
“In other words, you hacked.”
“Shush, not so loud. You’ll freak people out.”
“Chill, man, people think hackers are pimply teenagers who live in their mothers’ basements. You’re wearing a suit. No one would ever believe you know more tricks to bypass security systems than anyone else on earth.”
“I don’t know more than anyone else on earth, just the vast majority. Anyway, I went onto a dating site and found a woman. She’s going to be my fake girlfriend. According to her bank statement, she comes here for coffee every morning. I want to make sure she’s appropriate. The photo on her profile seemed too good to be true.” Despite his best effort to remain calm, his heartbeat accelerated.
“Does she know about this?”
“Of course not. The emotion has to be genuine, on her part at least. So I can’t tell her.”
“What if she falls in love with you?”
“Unlikely—I’m not all that lovable. And even if she does, she’s falling in love with a regular guy, not me. After I finish the novel, I’ll let her down gently with a nice piece of jewelry or a trip to Antigua.”
“And if you fall in love with her?” David sat back in his chair as though making sure he was out of range of Liam’s fist.
“Not going to happen, man. Not going to happen.”
A bus stopped out in front of the café; the passengers got off. The majority trudged down the street toward their day jobs, looking bored already. Two walked into the coffee shop—an older man in a stained raincoat and a young woman in a dark-gray fitted pantsuit. The drab color didn’t hide her curvaceous hips or full breasts. Light-brown hair, more golden in places, was pulled back into a long, thick ponytail. Her face was very pretty with full, pink lips, glass-cutting cheekbones, and light-green eyes. She had the sort of face that lingered in the memory long after she left.
Liam took a long swig of his coffee, hoping to drown the niggling sensation of pending doom in his stomach. “There she is.”
David swiveled and nearly fell off his chair. “Her photo didn’t lie. I’ll say it again, my friend. You are so screwed.”
…
Lorelei counted the number of people in front of her and then glanced at her watch. If everyone ordered promptly she’d still make it to work on time. It was the ditherers who threw the day off. How could people spend ten minutes in the lineup and then not know what they wanted to order when they got to the counter? She didn’t even need to tell the cashier what she wanted; it was the same every day. Even though she’d only been in San Francisco for a little less than a month, she’d been coming to this coffee shop each workday. It gave her a sense of family, seeing the same faces each morning, which she missed having moved so far from home.
Maybe that was her problem. She was too predictable, ordering the same thing every day, never spicing it up or trying something new. Like her taste in men—predictable. Each and every one had turned out to be a liar and a loser. Today she should try something different. She stared at the menu behind the counter, wishing genuine love were printed on the chalkboard. She’d order that in a heartbeat.
As if on cue, her cell phone vibrated in her bag. She eventually found it under an empty package of cinnamon gum. Groaning as she saw her mother’s number on the screen, she pressed answer anyway. If she didn’t speak with her now she’d keep calling until she did.
“Good morning, Mama.”
“Morning? It’s almost noon here, aren’t you at work already?”
“No, it’s only quarter to nine. Remember, I’m three hours behind you now.” She was sure her mother ignored the time difference on purpose, just to show she could still interfere in her daughter’s life whenever she wanted.
“It’s Wednesday. At least it’s Wednesday here. Do you have a date for the weekend yet?”
Lorelei clenched her jaw and mentally counted to ten. When that didn’t calm her she counted backward, in Spanish. Her mother had lived in America for the past thirty years, but when it came to her daughter, she was 100 percent old-school Mexican. In her mother’s eyes, Lorelei’s main purpose in life was to marry and provide grandchildren. A responsibility she was reminded of almost daily.
“I think I’ve been disconnected? Hello? Lorelei?”
“I’m still here. Yes, it’s Wednesday. I’m the other side of the country, not the globe. As for a date, I haven’t got one yet, but the week is still young.”
“Haven’t you met anyone?”
“Mama, I’ve been in San Fran for twenty-eight days. I haven’t had time to meet many people.” She was three customers away from the counter. With any luck she’d legitimately be able to hang up in approximately two minutes. Seemed as though she’d have to have the usual, because there was no way she was going to stand at the front of the line and read the menu from there.
“Well, I thought you might be having trouble so I’ve signed you up on one of those Internet dating sites. I’ve emailed you the details. There are some very nice men on there. I wrote down their names and sent that to you as well.”
“You did what?” Several heads turned in
her direction as her voice rose three octaves and ten decibel levels.
“Bernice Anderson came to visit last night and said her daughter had trouble finding a husband as well. But after she signed up online she was married within three months.” The triumph in her mother’s voice was unmistakable.
Lorelei shook her head. Bernice Anderson’s daughter, with her unibrow and fondness for doughnuts, would never be the poster child for any dating site. One more person stood between Lorelei and her coffee order. Please be quick, please be quick.
“I’m not desperate.”
“Querida, you’re also not getting any younger. Thirty is only a couple years away, and you know what they say about women over thirty. They are statistically more likely to get murdered than married.”
The man in front of her was debating the merits of a decaf mocha over a soy latte with the cashier.
“I’ll keep that in mind. I’ve got to go. It’s my turn to order.”
“Promise me you’ll go online and check out the men.”
“I promise. Bye, Mama. Te quiero.” Lorelei pressed end call before her mother threatened to come and visit and find a man for her personally. She’d promised to look. Didn’t mean she had to go out with any of them.
While waiting for the barista to prepare her vanilla latte, she glanced around the café. Three regulars she spotted right away and returned their nods of recognition. A huge, hairy guy in his early thirties filled the corner of the café. Their eyes met and she blinked at the intensity of his dark gaze. The other man at the table with him was of similar age but smaller, and trying to hide a bald spot with a comb-over of light-blond hair.
Lorelei peeked at her watch; she had eight minutes to make it to her office. Fortunately, for her at least, her need to flee Buffalo had coincided with an Event Director vacancy in the San Francisco office of the Happy Day charity. If she hadn’t been one of the top event planners for the charity, she was sure she’d have been fired rather than transferred after her last relationship blackened her name. Thankfully, the scandal seemed to have remained back east and she could continue to help raise money for sick children to enjoy a dream day. Now if only the weather would warm up, she could begin to enjoy her new start in California.
