Billionaire's Fake Fiancé (An Alpha Billionaire Romance Love Story) (Billionaires - Book #10)

by Claire Adams

  “Fuck you, Dax!” he shouted as he grew agitated. “I didn’t screw you over, you screwed me over! You went back on our deal!”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I said angrily. “I did everything I promised I’d do! I gave you the money and the freedom to pursue the new venture, and you’ve screwed it all up! I don’t know how that qualifies as going back on our deal!”

  “You fell for the girl,” Finn said in a voice that reminded me of when we were kids in the school yard. “You weren’t supposed to fall for her.”

  “What the fuck?” I said caught off guard. “I haven’t—”

  “Yeah, you have,” he said shaking his head. “You just haven’t realized it yet.”

  I stood staring at him, not knowing what to say as his words worked their way into my brain. It seemed absurd that I’d have to defend myself, but Finn was right. I’d fallen for Payton, and I’d fallen hard.

  “I…I…don’t…” I began and then trailed off. “You said she was a spy.”

  “Yeah, I know. At first I thought she was, but then as I watched the two of you, I figured out she was the real deal,” Finn said. “I know it. Gram knew it. You’re the only one who doesn’t seem to know it. I started the new venture when I realized that you weren’t going to sell the team. I don’t love this game, Dax. I never have. It’s the thrill of the chase for me, you know that, but I can’t run the management company without a partner like you. You’re the one who does the heavy lifting. I’m just the front man. The deal maker. I can’t sustain a business like that without you.”

  “So, where’s all the money,” I asked.

  “What do you care?”

  I thought about it for a moment and realized he was right. I didn’t care about building a new business, and I certainly didn’t care about what happened to the money I’d given him; if I had, I’ve have been on top of the details from the get go.

  “I just want to know,” I said.

  “I made a donation to the library fund,” he said, looking away. Then quietly added, “Your grandmother was good to me, too, you know.”

  I said nothing as I wrestled with conflicting emotions. I was pissed at Finn for betraying me by not doing what he’d said he’d do, but I also knew that he’d done the best he could. Finn waited for me to say something, and when I remained silent, he nodded and then turned and walked out.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Epilogue

  “Ellie Connor, get down off of that coffee table!” I shouted as I rounded the corner and found my three-year-old daughter effortlessly scaling the only living room obstacle she had yet to conquer.

  It had been five years since Dax and I signed our contract, and in that time, we’d watched the Storm become NFC champions in their first season only to lose to the Bears in the playoffs. They’d come back stronger and faster than next season, and forged ahead to win the Super Bowl, beating the Seahawks in a nail-biting game that went into overtime.

  “No,” she replied stubbornly, pulling herself up to a standing position and putting her hands on her hips. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing at her adorably defiant pose.

  “Young lady, do not test me,” I warned as I walked across the room and lifted her off of the table. She stared up at me for a moment before heading right back to the table.

  Dax and I had ended our official contract after that first season when he’d gotten down on one knee in the middle of an empty Storm Stadium and presented me with two boxes. One held the contract and the other a ring, he asked me which one I preferred and when I chose the ring, he tore up the contract and used it as confetti to celebrate our engagement.

  “I do it,” she said as she began pulling herself back up. “You not stop me, Mommy.”

  “David Connor, get in here and set some limits for your daughter!” I yelled in as stern a voice as I could manage.

  “What in the hell is going on out here?” Dax said emerging from his office holding his phone and looking confused.

  We’d gotten married in a surprise ceremony the following summer in the backyard of Gram’s house with a small group of close friends. Val, who was pregnant with her first child and finding monogamous married life with Sir Richard much more fulfilling than she’d anticipated, stood up as my matron of honor and cried through the whole ceremony. Dax and Finn had patched things up as much as they could, and had agreed to start a new venture that would provide low-cost groceries and dry goods to the folks in the Back of the Yards on a regular basis. Gus had stood in for my father and proudly walked me up the aisle to meet my groom. After the wedding, Gram’s house had been converted into a community meeting center where neighbors could come and tend the garden, cook meals, and sit on the porch sharing cookies and lemonade made by an older woman who’d agreed to live there rent free.

  “Little ears,” I said, reminding him that he needed to watch his language.

  “Eleanor Halas Connor, what on earth are you doing?” he asked our curly-haired daughter as she reached the top of the table yet again.

  “Want to be tall, Daddy!” she shouted as she stood up and put her hands on her hips again. “Tall like Yonny!”

  I’d kept my job at the Storm, but had hired several assistants and a team of scouts that helped keep the workload to a manageable level as I tried to balance my new marriage with my desire to see the Storm succeed. Dax was supportive, but we’d had to work through some rough patches during the draft when he’d felt shoved aside by my passion for the game. All of this had shifted once I had Ellie, but I’d found that since Dax and I had managed to negotiate enough of the difficult things before she arrived, we were better at splitting duties without much trouble. It wasn’t perfect by any means, and I often had to fight my own stubborn impulses, but with help from an adept nanny, we managed to cover all our bases.

  “This is all your fault,” Dax said looking at me pointedly. “You passed on the gene and now you brought her to the club house to meet the players. I blame you.”

  “Oh, no you don’t,” I laughed as, once again, I removed our child from the dangerous perch she’d chosen. “You’re the one who chose the furniture that demands it be climbed!”

  “Mommy, no!” Ellie wailed as I gathered her in my arms and kissed her small head. She was a beautiful child and was the perfect mix of Dax and I, with dark, curly hair and bright-blue eyes. She’d also inherited our risk-taking natures and double the stubbornness.

  I hadn’t been able to fully make peace with my mother because neither one of us could completely forgive the other for our betrayal. I’d spent a long time trying to decide if I wanted her at our wedding, but when I finally sent her an invitation, she’d declined. It stung, but I knew why she’d done it, so I tried to forgive her as best I could. The lawyers been unable to locate Dax’s father, so we put his inheritance money in a trust for Ellie with the stipulation that if her grandfather showed up, the money would go to him.

  I handed our squirming girl over to her father and watched as he whispered something in her ear that immediately stopped her active resistance. When he set her down, she made a beeline for the kitchen yelling, “Come on, Daddy!”

  “What did you promise her?” I asked as I watched my husband’s gaze follow our bright-eyed daughter’s movement.

  “Oh, you know, the usual,” he said, wrapping an arm around my waist and kissing the top of my head. “The moon, the stars, and a huge bowl of strawberry ice cream.”

  “You are impossible,” I laughed as I wrapped my arms around him and looked up into his handsome face.

  “I’m really not, you know,” he said, smiling as he kissed my lips. “I just specialize making dreams come true.”

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  ROCK STAR BILLIONAIRE

  By Claire Adams

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and
incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 Claire Adams

  Chapter One

  Owen

  I hadn’t felt that energized in a long time. Nothing compared to the feeling of pouring my heart and soul into a microphone with my band. And tonight, I was feeling adrenaline I hadn’t felt since the early days when we were still unknown teenagers playing dive bars and practicing in the garage. Why? Because something was about to happen that hadn’t happened in over five years. Something I had missed terribly, but hadn’t realized just how much until the very moment I was standing there with the mic in hand and the guys playing behind me.

  “I can’t believe we are actually doing this, Owen! Bleeding Heart, finally back together.” My younger brother, Talon, beamed at me, pushing his blond hair out of his face. He twirled one of his drumsticks with stylish flair as he sat behind his old drum set.

  “And, we actually don’t sound half bad for being so out of practice,” Jeremiah, my best friend and lead guitarist, added. “I’m just shocked we got you out of the office,” he added, looking directly at me. “You've been wearing a suit and tie for so long now, I was wondering if you even knew how to slip into those ripped-up jeans anymore.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “What can I say, man? The record company has been keeping me pretty damned busy. You know how crazy this business is, and when you get to the top, you really start to understand just how hard you have to work to stay there.”

  “Right, right,” Jeremiah piped in. “We get it, but we’ve been talking about coming out of hibernation for the last three years, and it's only happening now. I'm not trying to bitch about it, but, hell, aside from Talon, most of us have barely even seen you. Still, it's great, dude, it's really great to have you back where you belong. You might be a billionaire record mogul now, but being on stage in front of that mic is where you truly belong. It's where you've always belonged, and you know it.” Jeremiah slapped a heavy hand on my shoulder as the other guys nodded in agreement.

  It was true. I did tend to get lost in my work, but I couldn’t help it. Especially when my record company Young Productions had still been in its infancy. My dedication had paid off, though, because I’d managed to bring the company from a small, indie label to a billion-dollar up-and-coming monster of a label that was constantly churning out hot new talent and Billboard Top 40 hits.

  Still, telling my band mates that didn’t make a difference when I had continuously promised that I’d get back behind the mic—a promise I’d made a long while ago and had taken years to fulfill. All they wanted was for me to keep my word so we could get back in the studio and on the road. I’d heard from each of them over the years, including our other guitarist, Jay, and our bassist, Nate, but ultimately, it had been Talon that had convinced me to make good on my promise.

  “So, we going to play the new song you sent out or what? Give it a whirl?” Talon waggled an eager eyebrow at me as he continued twirling his sticks impatiently.

  When I'd finally made the decision that we should get together, I’d sent out a new song I'd written to each of them. After being inspired by my brother’s struggle with drugs, I wrote the music and lyrics in just a couple of days, then attached it to an email and sent it out to everyone along with the note telling them it was time we got the band back together. Naturally, everyone was pumped to try the new song since they’d all been waiting on me for years.

  Talon was especially pumped. He was a good kid, and one of the best drummers in the business, but he had gotten into some bad stuff for a while. He had a nature that was easily tempted.

  I nodded at Talon, smiling. “Yeah, man; let’s do it.”

  Nate started on the bass, strumming the first few measures as we all took in the beat, then Jay and Jeremiah came in on guitar before my brother hit it on the drums. I couldn't help but beam out an ear-to-ear grin. Hearing my newest creation coming to life with the guys I’d always been close to, despite the time and distance away from each other, was a sensation words truly couldn't describe.

  When I came in on the vocals, all the pieces finally came together as one, and it sounded as good as it felt. Granted, it was different from our old stuff, but despite this, it still remained true to the heart of our sound. I could feel everyone’s energy merging, and the song started coming together even better than when I had imagined as I was writing it. Some people have different views on what heaven might be like, but at that moment, right there, playing with the band is what it felt like for me.

  I looked back at my brother during one of the guitar solos. He had a wild grin on his face as he slammed on the drums, his hair flipping around. He winked at me and nodded. This is some good shit right here, that look said.

  My smile widened as I went into the next verse and my energy rose. Playing was such an adrenaline rush for all of us, not just me, and it had been since we had started the band as teenagers. We'd always been in it for the thrill of the music, for the intensity of it, for our shared devotion to the beauty and power of what music could do for the soul. You could just see it in the movements and in the strumming of guitars, in the booming of the bass, in the pounding of the drums. Yes, this was it. We really were back together—maybe even for good this time.

  “Hell yeah! Owen, you need to write more new stuff. That was sick as shit!” Talon announced after the last few thumps and the final cymbal crashes on the drums.

  “Yeah, well, you make a good muse on occasion, little bro,” I winked at him.

  “Well, I can be a bit a…musing.” He flashed me a sly, cheesy grin and followed it up with a quick drum roll and a cymbal crash.

  “Jackass,” Jay snorted, chuckling. Aside from being one of the guitarists, Jay and Talon were best friends, always on each other’s asses with snarky and idiotic jokes flying back and forth.

  “Whatever, man, you love my ass. Just like the ladies.” Talon flipped sweaty strands of hair out of his face, his green eyes glowing with mischief. “Speaking of ladies, when are we going to get this tour on the road? You said you had our first gig set up in a month, right?”

  “Yep, Tal. One month exactly. Then it's on.”

  “Hell yeah, man. I’m pumped as shit, seriously pumped!” He was practically bouncing on his stool with excitement. “Open road, tour bus, shows…and chicks, oh yeah, chicks. Can’t forget about that, no, no, no, we cannot forget about them girls.”

  There was a collective eye roll amongst the rest of us. Sometimes it seemed as if my brother seriously had a one-track mind. “Just as long as you don’t forget we are in this to play music. You're not on this tour for the sole purpose of fucking your way from coast to coast,” I said. “This is about the music and our fans.”

  “Why not both? I can’t help it if ladies love the ‘D.’”

  “And there he goes about his dick. I was wondering how soon it would be before that would come up,” Jay shook his head, laughing.

  Talon’s eyes narrowed into mischievous slits. “That’s exactly what she said, man.”

  “Damn it, Tal,” Jeremiah choked on his beer as the rest of us broke into laughter.

  My brother and I were complete opposites. He was outspoken, loud, crude, and ridiculous, while I was more of the stereotypical quiet type, only a bit more intense and definitely a lot more focused. I was the one always keeping the business in mind in addition to the music. It was probably why he got laid more often than any of us on tour the first go around, though. All he cared about was banging the drums, then banging chicks. As long as it kept him happy and off the drugs, we were okay with it. After all, it could have been worse. Indeed, there had been many times when it had been worse...a lot worse.

  “So, speaking of touring, and leaving the topic of groupies alone for a bit,” I gave my brother a sideways glance that told him we needed to get down
to business. “We have a lot to do before we kick off the tour. I mean, first and foremost, we have to rehearse our asses off. We have a reputation as a band to uphold, and our fans will not be satisfied with second rate, sloppy performances. We have to be tight as shit. We didn't get to the top by messing around and being lazy, so this is no time to start with that shit.

  “We have to practice more of the newer songs as well as our old stuff, of course, but there’s also bookings, accommodations, updated gear for the road, promotion, travel plans, sponsors. I mean, we have a few people on that stuff, but we need to go over all those details ourselves as well, just to make sure everything is perfect.”

  The others nodded, but not one of the assholes was taking notes. Before, they had relied on me to take care of most of those things, if not all of them. And, I hadn't minded so much, seeing as I had always been a bit of a workaholic. But, unlike before, I now had a Titanic-size business to run on top of everything else. I just couldn’t afford to do it all by myself again, not if I wanted to sleep more than an hour every night. That was part of the reason I’d gotten burnt out on touring the last time.

  “How about we do this? Each one of you takes responsibility for a couple of the tasks I've just mentioned, and we can all get that stuff knocked out together,” I suggested. “It'll just be easier, more streamlined, and more efficient like that, and everyone is pulling their weight equally. That's fair, right?”

  Grumbles of dissent circled the group along with flimsy excuses. I sighed and couldn't help the sting of anger and frustration bubbling in my core. They surely knew I couldn’t do all of it by myself again. Didn’t they?

  “That’s funny, Owe. You think the rest of us are responsible enough to help manage a tour?” Talon cocked his eyebrow, then hit a “da dum tiss” on the drums and hi-hat.