“Then, it’s time for us to go.” Roxanne staggered to her feet.
“Wait!” Dree said. “You just ordered four shots.”
“Oh, yeah.” Roxanne gulped down one of them, leaving the other three filled shot glasses sitting on the table in front of Dree, who’d already had more to drink than she should have.
“Holy cow, Rox!” Gen grabbed at the shot glass in Roxanne’s hand but missed. “You’re cut off. If you pass out, I cannot drag you and this baby bump back to the hotel.”
Roxanne leaned on the table and stared blearily into Dree’s eyes. “You have a good night and a good life. Don’t waste it. Do something amazing. Do something crazy. Do something you think you should regret, but you won’t. When you look back at it later, you’ll know it was the best night of your life. Do it all.”
Gen dragged the stumbling Roxanne off and waved good-bye at Dree as she grinned over her shoulder.
Alone in the booth, Dree stared at the napkin.
Curly writing in black ink covered the fragile paper.
Get a tattoo.
Go to the Louvre.
Walk from the Tuileries to the Arc de Triomphe.
That list of foreign countries and cities where Dree was supposed to visit or live.
Have a one-night stand.
She could do the walking from the Tuileries to the Arc thing. That sounded inexpensive.
Dree picked up her tray with the three remaining shot glasses and slipped through the crowd back to the bar, where men in slim-cut Italian suits were flirting with girls who wore beautiful dresses. You could tell they were Europeans, all so skinny and stylish.
Dree looked at her list, written in three different, feminine handwriting styles.
Do fun and wonderful things.
Dance in a parade on the Champs-Élysées.
Sleep with a beautiful man who you’ll never see again, just for the fun of it.
—London, Amsterdam, Monaco, and Nepal.
Dree swallowed hard, a little terrified, but a lot excited.
She sipped her first shot slowly and looked at the men lurking around the bar, sizing them up.
Most were attractive, well-dressed, and had good skin.
She stared at the napkin that read, Have a one-night stand.
Dree stared at those words a long time while she sipped the tequila and listened to several songs that the DJ played, psyching herself up.
The Buddha Bar partied around her.
Sequins on dresses flashed in the flickering strobe lights from the DJ booth.
Men leaned on the bar to talk to women and buy them drinks.
The air rang with flirting, laughter, and the subtle, hormonal undercurrent of people trying to fuck each other.
Yeah.
A one-night stand.
That should be Dree’s plan.
With those two more shots of liquid courage sitting in front of her, maybe she would go a bit farther down the list to the items where Roxanne and Gen had been one-upping each other, both of them trying to write something more scandalous than the last.
A threesome.
A foursome with three guys.
A gang bang.
That last one wasn’t happening.
Although, those three shots of tequila lurking on the tray might change her mind.
Dree finished her first tequila shot, feeling the burn down her throat, and set the empty shot glass on the wooden tray beside the two full ones.
Really, why shouldn’t she do something wild and crazy and irresponsible?
That asshole Francis had stolen everything she had worked her whole life for, from her savings account to her car.
Dree literally had nothing left to lose.
She should do something outrageous.
That girl Roxanne had been right.
Dree should have one crazy night to remember for the rest of her life.
The list beckoned.
Fuck a man against a wall in an alley.
An incredible night on the beach by the sea.
Ménage a whole bunch.
A little way down from her, a man stepped between the people on two bar stools and leaned on the bar to order a drink. He was tall, so very tall, and wearing a white tee-shirt that stretched tightly across his broad, muscular chest and shoulders. His biceps strained the cotton sleeves. When he reached for his amber drink, he wore a brushed-steel watch on his wrist that looked expensive.
When he turned and she saw his perfect face, Dree almost dropped her next shot of tequila in her lap, but she didn’t have the money to waste on spilling good booze.
It took her a second to start breathing again, though.
The man’s cheekbones were strong, and his jaw was a perfect right angle, carved by testosterone. His abs were small, hard bulges under his painted-on white tee-shirt, and his waist was narrow enough to wrap her legs around easily. His black hair curled in loose, silky spirals around his face and the back of his collar, and he looked a little tanned and windblown like he might work outside. His nose was straight like a Roman statue.
Her whole body blushed, turning hot under her dress.
His pants weren’t jeans or khakis. They looked like dark suit trousers. His white tee-shirt looked like he was dressing down or he’d misplaced his dress shirt and suit jacket.
Like maybe he’d misplaced them on her hotel room floor.
Her heart sped, pulsing faster than the beat of the electronica music blasting from the speakers.
Dree sipped her second shot of tequila and consulted her napkin-based to-do list.
Have a one-night stand.
That gorgeous man glanced over the crowd, casually looking around.
When he caught her staring at him, he smiled a little but turned back to the bartender to say something.
Lights from the DJ loft spun faster.
Dree stared at her napkin and considered her options.
A foursome with three guys.
She sucked the rest of that tequila shot into her mouth and grimaced at the astringency.
It burned all the way down and tasted like reckless courage.
A gang bang.
She reached for the last shot glass of tequila, steeling herself for the burn and the drunken craziness that would rise within her.
The music in the Buddha Bar grew louder in her ears.
People writhed all around her, screaming.
Red, black, and gold from the walls and ceiling smeared like chaos in her mind.
Except for that beautiful man who, when she glanced back down the bar, was watching her with a small smile on his luscious lips.
He looked like someone who would be up for something crazy.
Dree held the last shot in her fingers, considered how stupid she was, and threw the liquor down her throat.
Tequila and recklessness spun in her head.
Dree stood on the foot rail on the tall bar chair, holding onto the counter with one hand so she wouldn’t flip the chair and face-plant on the wood. She raised her empty tequila shot glass to the enormous Buddha and shouted into the whirling lights and screaming music, the words grating her throat as she screamed, “I’m gonna fuck every man in this bar tonight!”
CLICK HERE TO SEE
ROGUE: BILLIONAIRES IN DISGUISE: MAXENCE #1
My life has become a sad country music song, but instead of heading south, I went to Paris.
I had nothing left to lose, literally. My boyfriend had stolen it all.
Everything.
Everything except a non-refundable plane ticket to Paris, which was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime where that deadbeat was going to propose at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
So, it’s understandable that when I started drinking at the Buddha Bar, things got a little out of hand.
Luckily, a man intervened. He was so ripped that I could see every thick rope of muscle of his abs, obliques, chest, and arms through the tight tee shirt he was wearing. He was so tall that he towered over the g
uys who were bothering me, and they backed off.
So I took him back to my hotel because I was full of drunken, bad decisions that night.
The last thing I needed was a man who wanted to save me when I was trying to disappear.
Maxence was hiding. His own brother was trying to kidnap or kill him, and an organized crime thug definitely wanted to cut off his head and feed it to the sharks for an entirely different reason.
So when a cute little blonde stood up on a bar stool in the middle of the Buddha Bar in Paris and announced something scandalous, Maxence swooped in for the rescue. Everything about her appealed to him: her sweetness, her giggliness, and especially the fact that she was in trouble.
That last part made her sugar and catnip to Max.
Luckily, he only has five days before he has to leave Paris and Europe for wherever his global charity job was going to send him this time.
Why shouldn’t he spend it with the funny blonde who insisted he lie to her about who he was?
Indeed, if she thought everything he said was lies, he could tell her the truth about everything: confess his sins, unburden his soul, and reveal what he thought he never could.
Five days with her sounded like Heaven, if he could just convince her to stop throwing him out of her hotel room.
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ROGUE: BILLIONAIRES IN DISGUISE: MAXENCE #1
Hello!
Blair, here. I’m so excited to give you the prequel to the Maxence books. Here we go!
Maxence Grimaldi is mentioned as far back as Xan Valentine’s books, which start with Every Breath You Take, if obliquely. (I just reread the scene where Alexandre torments his uncle while asking permission to marry Georgie, in which Max is mentioned. I had fun writing that.)
I’ve been thinking seriously about the Maxence books ever since I started writing Casimir’s book, Working Stiff. He developed as I wrote Arthur’s books, Stiff Drink and Hard Liquor. I have loved the little peeks of him in those books and in Flicka’s books that start with Once Upon A Time.
This book dovetails with Flicka’s book At Midnight and takes place the evening of and the day after Pierre sent Maxence to negotiate with Flicka in Geneva.
When I first started writing Working Stiff, I had intended these three Runaway Billionaires stories to be shorter, standalone books. The problem is that I don’t write like that. I write long, involved epics that delve deeply into characters and have twisty plots. I like to read long series where you get involved with the characters and stay with them for a while. I’ve been reading all my life, so I tend to read quickly. If I read a short standalone, I can read it in an hour and a half. That’s not enough for me on a regular basis. I mean, I like quick standalones. I read them often. But if you give me a nice, long, juicy series that I can chew on for a week or more and think about between reading times, I love it. I remember it. I fangirl it. So, that’s what I write, too.
So, here begins my newest big, involved, juicy epic. I hope you’ll like it.
Also, a big shout out and thank you so much to my sensitivity readers: Marie Fowler, Serena Buffaloe, Cindy De Suza Herbert, and especially Lanette Bekoe, who helped me so much and talked me through writing a Black character with sensitivity. All remaining mistakes and dumbassednesses are mine. All the good stuff is due to them. I had psyched myself out by overthinking some cultural things, and they steered me back to the right track. THANK YOU, LADIES.
Love to you all,
Blair
Take a look at ROGUE
Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence #1
Interested in something to read right now?
Hot, ripped, tatted-up Casimir van Amsberg is a hotshot entertainment lawyer in L.A. and my boss. We’re been work buddies for years because I’m the only girl in the office who won’t sleep with him. But when a terrible accident lays him up for month, someone needs to take care of him, and that someone is me. I can’t stop myself from listening at the bathroom door while he showers. He may have been almost killed in a car accident, but I think I’m going to die from wanting to crawl into his bed.
Working Stiff ~~~ Working Stiff Audiobook
Insanely rich, gorgeous, hot as sin, and a waste of oxygen. Lord Arthur Finch-Hatten, Earl Severn, is my worst and only client at my law firm. When I beg him to behave himself in public, he is spotted snorting something off a stripper’s ass. Finally, in order to save his inheritance and my sanity, I move into his London penthouse to force him to pretend he’s a respectable citizen and nobleman, worthy to keep his earldom and his wealth.
And then I learn he’s a spy in the Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and he’s in trouble.
Stiff Drink ~~~ Stiff Drink Audiobook
The Dom has no name, not that anyone knows. He’s the hot, ripped, incredibly tall, kinda-scary, blue-eyed owner of a BDSM club. My friends are trying to get me a job there with them so I can pay for college.
But for some reason, during an impromptu interview that I thought was just flirting at a party, he told me his name.
Wulf.
Wulf von Hannover.
He has secrets.
Royal secrets.
And tragic ones.
Billionaires in Disguise
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Copyright 2020 by Malachite Publishing LLC
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s wild and naughty imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or other, without permission from the author or publisher.
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1st Edition: August, 2020
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One Night in Monaco Page 14
