The Billionaire’s Betrayal
Page 1
The Billionaire’s Betrayal
Mika Lane
Headlands Publishing
Contents
Introduction
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
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
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Also by Mika Lane
About Mika
Introduction
so what do you say to my offer you shouldn’t refuse?
what’s the offer?
a date. with me
that’s all you’ll tell me?
that’s all you need
well then. okay. i accept
The Billionaire’s Betrayal
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Copyright© 2017 by Mika Lane
Headlands Publishing
4200 Park Blvd. #244
Oakland, CA 94602
The Billionaire’s Betrayal is a work of fiction. Names, characters, (most) places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s creativity or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of quotations in a book review.
ISBN ebook 978-1-948369-02-2
ISBN print 978-1-948369-03-9
Chapter 1
Nara
“You are not my husband, Simon. Stop telling people that.”
“Nara my dear, but I am your husband. And I will tell anyone I please that I’m your husband.”
Good thing he was on the other end of the phone line.
I swallowed hard. I couldn’t let him know how he rattled me. “I don’t know why you are making this so hard. We agreed that as soon as you got your US citizenship, we’d start on the divorce.” I’d lowered my voice so the whole office didn’t hear.
Long sigh, followed by a chuckle.
Smug fuck.
“Darling. Darling. Now, you know what you have to do if you want to cast me off so badly. ’Course that one night in London…well, it didn’t seem like you wanted to ever leave my side. Or should I say, my cock?”
God. The mistake of a lifetime. We’d been in London, his hometown, taking fake pictures to prepare for our big, fake US Immigration and Naturalization Service interview where we were going to fake being in love. Simon had hired a friend to drive us to several different locations—with wardrobe changes—to take photos that would show how in love we were and that we would never, ever try to fool the INS. People did it all the time he’d assured me, and there was ten thousand dollars in it for me. Good news all around.
Except for the one night I drank too much and ended up in bed with said future faux husband.
That had not been part of the deal. While he had that awesome British accent that Americans love, he also had bad teeth, a pasty complexion, and was at least two inches shorter than I. And yet, I’d fucked him.
Oh, to do things over. But I’d needed that money. I’d been working on developing my software app for three long years with little income. Crashing on my best friend’s couch was getting old. Really old. That’s when I answered a Craigslist ad to marry someone for a green card. It had sounded easy at the time, just like that adorable 90’s movie Green Card, I told myself. And now I was stuck with the bastard.
“Simon,” I said with all the fake patience I could muster, “that was a fun night. It really was.” I choked on the biggest lie I’d ever told. Truth was, I remembered nothing of our tryst, and that was just fine with me.
But I could hear him smiling through the phone. How I wished I could smack that grin off his face.
I continued, “But sweetie…”
I could almost hear him puffing his chest out.
“We’ve taken care of business. We both got what we wanted. I’m grateful for that. And now, it’s time to honor the last piece of our agreement.” How could he argue with that?
“I’ll tell you what,” he said as if he hadn’t heard a word I’d just said. “My latest offer still stands. If you repay me the ten grand, I’ll disappear out of your life forever. We’ll annul the marriage and go on about our business like it never happened.”
My face burned, and my hands shook. “Look. I helped you get your green card. You’re in. You’re as good as American, thanks to me. I earned that ten grand, I lied for you, married you, and even fucked you—”
“That was only one time—”
“That’s not the point. You need to forget about extorting money from me. Give it up. It’s not gonna happen. Plus, I don’t have ten grand to give you even if I wanted to.” A migraine circled my head like a bird looking for a place to land. Not now, I begged. I needed my wits about me.
“Oh, Nara. We all know your software company has grown nicely. I’m sure you could write a check right now and be done with it,” he said.
Where did he get such a stupid assumption? I’d been breaking my back over my Mommy Knows for years. Yes, we were starting to get a little press. Yes, we were attracting the eye of potential customers and investors. But that didn’t mean I had two nickels to rub together. We were waiting for investors to come through, and until they did, the company was surviving off a line of credit. And getting perilously close to maxing that out. If we didn’t get an infusion of cash soon, I had no idea what I’d do.
“Let me make this very clear,” he said. “If you do not come up with the money I’m asking for, I will make sure all your current and future investors know you committed the felony of defrauding the INS. That will speak volumes about your character, and no one will touch your company with a ten-foot pole. And, I will not make it easy to divorce me.”
He paused for effect. “So, darling, what will it be?”
The migraine was no longer circling. It had landed with a crash, feasting on my poor little brain. Eyes closed, I rummaged through my desk for a pill, the only thing that would save my day. But it’s hard to find things with closed eyes. A loose pile of staples stabbed my thumb.
I said slowly and steadily, “I do not have ten thousand dollars. And if you ruin my company or me, there is even less chance that I ever will. You know that. You’d be sabotaging yourself.”
It seemed he was thinking, due to the momentary silence.
“I want that money. I’ll give you a month. I don’t care how you get it. Take a cash advance on one of your credit cards, for god’s sake.”
Could I have hated someone more at that moment?
A movement caught my eye, and I turned toward the opening of my office-that-was-really-a-cubicle.
Joi—my best friend, my founding partner, my chief financial officer—stood in the doorway. I loved having her in charge of the money. She wasn’t getting paid much, either, so she spent most of her days chasing after i
nvestors so that she someday would. I held up a wait a minute finger and turned back to my call.
“Simon, I have a meeting I have to run to. We’ll continue this conversation later.”
“I wouldn’t wait too long—”
I hung up on the asshole.
No, I could never have hated someone more.
Chapter 2
Brodie
“Mary, please slow down. I can’t understand you. Take a deep breath and tell me what’s going on.” My hotel’s long-time housekeeper was getting close to hyperventilating right in my office.
“Mr. Brodie.” Her hair was pulled back into the severe knot that all the maids seemed to wear, and her top lip was quivering. “Mr. Brodie, I saw something in the penthouse suite. It was…terrible.” The tears started.
Christ, what had she seen? A dead body?
But I shouldn’t joke about something like that. People committed suicide in hotels all the time.
“Mary, sweetie, let’s sit down over here.” I put an arm around shoulder and led her to one of the club chairs in my office. I sat opposite her.
“Oh, Mr. Brodie. I don’t know if I can say it.” She picked at the edges of her uniform’s apron.
If she didn’t spit it out soon, I’d just go up to the penthouse and see what the frig was going on. I stood to go.
She blurted out, “Mr. Joel and Miss Pam were in there. Together. Doing…” She waved her hand around. Apparently, she thought her hand wave was the universal sign for fucking, but no matter. I got the picture. Loud and clear.
I put my hands on Mary’s shoulders. “Thank you for telling me. I really appreciate it. Now, why don’t you relax here until you feel better? I’ll have Trudy bring you some water.”
I’m gonna kill him.
I flew out of my office and down the hall. Before I barged in and launched into my tirade, I laughed at the sign on his office door.
Joel Fox, General Manager
General manager my ass. The dickhead wouldn’t have a job if not for me.
“Joel, you in there?” I rapped my knuckles on the door.
There was of rustling from the other side. “Brodie, c’mon in, man.”
Yeah, he sounded all cool and shit. Wait till I got ahold of him.
I flew in and slammed the door. Joel was adjusting his necktie. His shirt was wrinkled, and he’d missed a belt loop. Jesus, he couldn’t even hide the evidence. Might as well have been walking around with his dick hanging out.
“Dude, were you in the penthouse suite again? No, don’t answer that. Because I know you were.” I paced the room. “And you’re fucking Pam? Are you kidding me?”
His head whipped around. “What’s wrong with Pam?”
“That’s not the point! You shouldn’t fuck anyone at work, especially not on the premises, and especially not in the freaking penthouse suite.”
He had nothing to say.
“And you gave Mary from housekeeping a freaking heart attack. You know how straight-laced she is. She’s probably a goddamn virgin.” I quit pacing and whipped back around toward Joel.
He was trying not to laugh. I hated when he did that.
“Look, asshole, it’s not funny. If the Dickhead Twins found out, I could be in a heap of trouble.”
Joel shrugged in a lame attempt toward support. “They won’t know. Don’t worry about it.” He had the nerve to lean back in his chair with his hands behind his head. Not a care in the world.
I put my hands on his desk and got in his face. “Next time you have the urge to screw Pam or anyone else from work, go to another fucking hotel!”
“But Brodie—”
I missed whatever he said after that, because I was out the door and halfway down the hall. My admin, Trudy, caught up to me.
“What’s up T?”
“Phone call,” she said in her usual efficient way. I couldn’t live without her. She’d been my dad’s admin for years, and now she was mine. Like a second mother.
“Who is it?”
“Steve and Hardy, calling from Minneapolis.” She raised an eyebrow. Damn, she knew me well.
The Dickhead Twins.
How could so much be so shitty, so early in the day?
“Want me to tell them you’re out?” she asked.
It was tempting…
“Nah. I gotta take it. Thanks.” I returned to my office, glad to see Mary had recovered and gone. One of her snotty tissues had fallen to the middle of the floor. The expensively carpeted floor. Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t ask Trudy to pick it up. So I did.
I pressed the speaker on my desk phone to speak to the W and E of HWE, LLC—Harcourt, Wooten, and Evershire, the partnership we’d formed to run the hotel after my dad had royally screwed over their dads. I was working to make amends and pay them back, but they still treated me like I was the criminal every chance they got.
“Gentlemen,” I said with as much fake cheer as I could muster.
“Hey, Brodie,” they said unison.
I cleared my throat. I hated this part. “Hey, good to hear from you. Say, you guys give any thought to the San Francisco expansion I brought up a couple weeks ago?”
“What was the deal with that?” one of them asked. Yeah, like they didn’t remember. I’d only been bringing it up with them for the last six months.
“Hardy—” That was Hardy, wasn’t it? They sounded so much alike. “I gave you numbers last week on what I think we could do with a property in San Francisco. The place is a convention and vacation heaven. It’s always jam packed with people.”
“Oh right,” one of them said as if he’d forgotten.
Phony bastards. I clicked and unclicked the clasp on my gold Rolex, something I did when irritated.
“Yeah, well, Steve and I have decided against that,” Hardy said.
Had someone just poured molten lead into my stomach? Because that’s how I felt.
Stay calm.
“Geez, guys, I’m really disappointed to hear that.”
“Good idea, but impossible to execute on. There are more hotel rooms than ever in Frisco. We can’t risk a property with a low or even average occupancy rate.”
Narrow-minded assholes. Wouldn’t know an opportunity if it bit them in the ass. And no one says Frisco.
I kept my voice friendly. It wasn’t easy. “Hey, if it’s okay with you two, I’d like to discuss this more. I feel like it’s a great opportunity, and I know how we all hate to leave money on the table.” I wasn’t ready to let go, not by a longshot.
“Ya know, Brodie, your best opportunity is to keep your head down in New York City with Hotel Vertigo. Your numbers are getting better every month.”
Condescending prick. That’s why I called them the Dickhead Twins.
“They’re getting better, because I know how to run a successful fucking hotel,” I barked. Oops.
“Hey now, let’s not get bitchy. We just told ya you’re doing great. Keep it up.”
“Well, I gotta run,” Steve said.
“Yeah, me too. Bye!”
Thank god they were in another state. Kept me from strangling the assholes.
* * *
My shitty mood must have been clear to anyone who saw me that day. The hotel staff gave me wide berth as I stormed around the back office halls. The accountant even pushed her door shut as I walked by. It wasn’t the first time.
But when I emerged into the lobby—the breathtakingly beautiful lobby of the hotel my father opened when I was just a kid—I was all calm and composure.
I surveyed the room. All was under control. Just how I liked it. The bellmen were smiling and helping guests with their luggage, the concierge was scoring some last minute theater tickets for some delighted guests, and reception was checking people in at record speed. Even the gardener was trimming and watering so discretely that no one noticed him.
This is how you run a fucking hotel.
The head of housekeeping spotted me and approached with quick steps. Like my admin, Trudy, she
’d been with the hotel for years, going back to my father’s days.
“Mr. Harcourt, would you like to inspect a couple rooms now?” she asked.
Inspecting rooms was part of my daily ritual. I always checked out a couple random rooms to make sure the housekeeping staff were on top of it. Nothing puts a hotel out of business faster than dirty rooms. Once news like that hit the social media sites, word would spread like wildfire.
You know those hidden camera news stories where hotel maids wiped out used bathroom glasses with a dirty towel and set them back out for the next guest?
Over. My. Dead. Body.
“Yes, Jones. I’m ready for inspection. Let’s start with the penthouse suite.”
Her face dropped all semblance of color. For a moment, I thought she might faint. “Um, well, um, Mr. Harcourt, the penthouse isn’t ready just yet.”
Of course it wasn’t ready. Joel, the general manager, had just fucked Pam, the HR manager, there. Jones would have heard it from the freaked-out maid.
“Well, we both know that only the bed needs changing since no one—theoretically—spent the night there. What’s the hold up?”
“Mary doesn’t want to go back in there. So I need one of the other girls to clean it.” She hesitated. “Or you know, I could clean it,” she said quickly.
Good girl.
“You know I always say that everyone in management—myself included—is expected to be ready to jump in, no matter what the task. That’s what keeps this hotel great,” I said.