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chapter 11
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2024-02-29 17:16:00Related chapter
One Night Stand With The Billionaire Boss chapter 12
He gets up from the table and walks toward me. I back away and meet the wall with a bump.He stops in front of me. Even with my high heels, I’m still about ten inches shorter than him, and I have to crane my neck to look up at him.He gives me a look that’s hot and sultry. “Are you trying to turn me on?” he murmurs.I blink. “What the…?”He shrugs. “I dunno. The word impregnate gets me all hot and bothered.”“Jesus.”“Say inseminate.”“No.”“Fertilize?”“Hux!”He laughs. Damn him, he’s so incredibly charismatic. “You’re not going to win this argument,” he says, amused. “I don’t care how much you stamp your feet.”I glare at him. “I’m not stamping, not in these heels.”For a moment I think he’s going to kiss me, but he doesn’t. Instead, his gaze turns gentle, affectionate. “Look, ten years ago I did something stupid. I know that, and you were right to tell me to get lost.”“I didn’t—”“Let me speak. You were right, and so I convinced myself you were better off without me, and I let you
Dernière mise à jour : 2024-02-29One Night Stand With The Billionaire Boss chapter 13
ElizabethOn Saturday, I arrive at Huxley’s parents’ place around 3:30 p.m. They live in a huge house on Shore Road with a gorgeous view across Hobson Bay. I have to wait for the white double gates to slowly swing open before I ease my Mazda MX5 convertible down the drive.Several cars are parked out the front, including my own parents’ Ford Ranger, as they’re good friends with Huxley’s parents. Huxley’s beloved obsidian Mercedes AMG GT is also already here, snoozing like a panther in the afternoon sunshine. I slide the Mazda into the space next to it and turn off the engine. After unclipping Nymph’s safety harness from the seatbelt, I get out, and she leaps across my seat, out the door, and sprints around the side of the house toward the back garden.Smiling, I retrieve the wrapped present from the boot and follow the poodle.Huxley’s mum, Helene, is an artist, a very good one, and sells her paintings at a local gallery. I doubt she makes a fortune, though, and most of their fortune
Dernière mise à jour : 2024-03-01One Night Stand With The Billionaire Boss chapter 14
“Will you come in?”“Yeah,” he says good-naturedly, putting one arm around her and hugging her. “Hey, have you said hello to Auntie Elizabeth?”“No, hello!” She comes up and hugs me.“Hello, you.” I give her a big cuddle. She’s only a few inches shorter than me. “You want your prezzie now?”“Ooh, yes please!” She sees the parcel I brought on the table and rushes over to it. “Can I open it now?”“Of course.”She rips off the paper as her friends crowd around, and they all squeal. It’s a nail stamper kit with kid-safe polish, over a hundred icons, and five design pods.“I thought you could all give yourself mani-pedis at your sleepover tonight,” I tell them.“I love it! Thank you so much!” She comes up and hugs me again and then runs off with her friends to investigate the different icons.Huxley gives me a wry look.“What?” I ask.“You know they’re going to want to give me a manicure.”“Why do you think I bought it?”He meets my gaze, and his eyes are hot, bright. “Don’t think I didn’t
Dernière mise à jour : 2024-03-01One Night Stand With The Billionaire Boss chapter 15
ElizabethI squelch back up to the deck, ignoring Huxley, who walks beside me, trying not to laugh.“Come on,” he says, “don’t be mad.”“I’m not talking to you.” I mount the steps, while everyone who’s sitting there stares at me as I drip all over the deck.“Oh my God,” my mother says, “what happened?”I glare at Huxley. “He threw me in.”“Oliver,” his father scolds. “Seriously?”“She asked for it,” he says, picking up a towel from the pile on the side and tossing it to me.I take it and rub my hair, knowing I must look a sight. I’m not wearing waterproof mascara for a start. “That wasn’t very gentlemanly,Ollie.”“Then maybe you should have said yes,Liz.”“Yes to what?” Brandy asks.“Yes,” I say, “why don’t you explain?”“If you want me to,” he replies, amused.I glare at him. His gaze dips down, and his smile widens. I follow it and discover that my dress is plastered to my body. It’s now very obvious that I’m not wearing a bra.“Jesus.” I clutch the towel to me.He chuckles, comes o
Dernière mise à jour : 2024-03-01One Night Stand With The Billionaire Boss chapter 16
HuxleyWhen I finally get out of the pool, having been dunked by a dozen girls about a hundred times, I make my way up to the deck and discover Elizabeth stretched out on a sunbed, drying her hair in the sunshine. She’s wearing a dress that I think is Brandy’s, which is of course far too long for her, but she’s pulled it up a little to let the sun get to her legs.I stand over her and shake myself like Nymph. She puts a hand up to shade her eyes and glares at me.“I’ve just got dry,” she says.I laugh and pick up a towel. “Dress a bit long, is it?”I can see her about to tell me to fuck off, but then Joanna comes up on the deck, so she leans back and closes her eyes again.Chuckling, I go inside, grab my shorts and tee from the bag I left by the door, and head to the bathroom to change. When I come out, Mum and Raewyn are in the kitchen, starting to get the food ready for the girls’ tea.“Are they ever getting out of the pool?” Raewyn asks. “They’re going to look like prunes.”“They’l
Dernière mise à jour : 2024-03-06One Night Stand With The Billionaire Boss chapter 17
I think about the way she kissed me on Valentine’s Day, and the feel of her soft body beneath my hands.I guess I am.“How about we have a bet?” I ask.“A what?”“A bet.”“What kind of bet?”“Come to the Sky Tower with me and watch me jump off. If I back out, I’ll do it in a cup for you, and you can have all the semen you want. But if I jump, you give me one night.”She stares at me. Then she laughs. “You’d never jump off in a million years.”“So what have you got to lose?”“Huxley, do you remember that time we went into the restaurant at the top of the Sky Tower? You couldn’t even sit near the window. You spent the whole evening with your back to the view, practically glued to the column. We had to peel you off it.”“Yeah…”“So how, exactly, do you think you’re going to jump off?”“I don’t know. I’m already beginning to doubt my sanity.”“I’ve done it myself, remember? For charity a couple of years ago. It’s over six hundred feet—a hundred and ninety-two meters. Fifty-three floors. Y
Dernière mise à jour : 2024-03-06One Night Stand With The Billionaire Boss chapter 18
HuxleyVictoria, Mack, and I are in one of the club meeting rooms and have just started our weekly Friday lunch when Titus rolls in around 1:15 p.m.“Sorry I’m late,” he says, taking a seat next to Mack at the table.“No worries,” I say. “Coffee?”“Actually, can I have water, please? I’ve just had a coffee with Elizabeth. If I have any more, I’ll have tachycardia all afternoon.”“Elizabeth?” I pass him a bottle of cold water from the fridge. “Is she coming today?”“No, she asked me to send her apologies. She’s got some Japanese investors over—I think she brought them here yesterday?”“Oh yeah, that’s right. I forgot they were staying until Friday.” My heart sinks a little. I was hoping to see her today.I think she’s avoiding me. I’ve only seen her a couple of times this week—two lunchtime meetings and once yesterday when she brought the investors in for a karaoke evening in one of our bars. I had the misfortune of catching her performance of Adele’sSomeone Like You. The lady has many
Dernière mise à jour : 2024-03-06One Night Stand With The Billionaire Boss chapter 19
“It’s kinda romantic,” Victoria says. “And fucking stupid at the same time.”I glower. “I’ve asked her out pretty much every month for ten years. She won’t go out with me. What was I supposed to do?”“Give up?” Victoria suggests. “Accept you’ve lost?”“Yeah, that sounds like something I’d do.”“How are you feeling?” Mack asks.“Fucking terrified.”“But you’re still going through with it?”I shrug and give him a helpless look. “I can’t think what else to do.”He meets my eyes for a moment, and then we both smile. Now he’s got Sidnie, he understands the stupid things you do for the woman you love.“So if you jump, she’s agreed to give you one night?” Victoria asks. “What happens after that?”“I’ll be so absolutely amazing in bed that she’ll beg to see me again.”She lifts an eyebrow.“Yeah,” I say, “it’s a stretch, I know. I’m going to have to pull out all the stops.”“You mean you’ll actually have to do some foreplay for a change?”“And pay for the pizza at the end.”They all snort.Ma
Dernière mise à jour : 2024-03-06
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One Night Stand With The Billionaire Boss Epilogue
June 21st (two months later)KipIt’s the winter solstice, exactly six months after I met Alice, and Mum and Dad’s house is full of people who’ve come to celebrate the renewal of Saxon and Catie’s vows and their baby-naming ceremony. Saxon sprung a wedding on her after Christmas while they were on holiday, because he wanted to marry her but knew she’d be overwhelmed by having to say her vows in front of lots of people. However, six months have gone by now, and she’s settled down a lot, to the extent that when he suggested they combine a naming ceremony with a vow renewal ceremony, she jumped at the idea.Dad’s twin brother, Brandon, and my aunt, Jenny, are chatting to Mum and Alice’s mum. Penny has been spending a lot of time with Mum, and I’m so pleased that they genuinely seem to get on well. Penny’s holding one of Catie’s twins and Mum’s holding the other, and the two of them are clearly enjoying themselves.Kennedy’s helping Catie get ready. Her husband, Jackson, with baby Eddie, i
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He holds out a hand to me. “Let’s go outside.”Meekly, my head whirling, I let him pull me up and lead me out into the garden. It’s dark now, and a couple of moths are fluttering around the kitchen window, but there’s enough light for us to see each other clearly, and it’s not cold.Still standing, he turns me to face him. “What do you think?” he asks.“I don’t know what to say. I… I’m ashamed Mum feels that Charlie and I didn’t listen to her. She’s right of course. I was determined to make the sacrifice because I thought it was what I should do. But she is still my mother, and she deserves to have a say in it.”I look down at where he’s holding my hands. “But it’s not easy. It would be a huge change for her to move, and I know that change is one thing she really struggles with. When anything big happens, it always makes her unwell.”“That’s fair enough, but we’d make sure we did it in small steps so it didn’t become too overwhelming.” He lifts my hands and kisses my fingers. “Whateve
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I glance at Charlie, a little ashamed. She looks back at me, her lips twisting.“I don’t think it occurred to either of you to ask me what I want,” Mum says. “And every time I tried to talk about it, you shut me down.”I stare at her, horrified. Is that true? I suppose it is. She did try to say she wanted to find a solution that would mean neither of us would have to give up the men in our lives, but we both steamrollered over her, insisting we weren’t going to cave.“When I talked to Kip, though,” Mum continues, “he said, ‘What do you want?’ I was so touched I nearly cried.”I glance at him, but he’s looking at her, his lips curving up behind his fingers.Mum looks at me. “As I said, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. But I’m not going to let either of you pass up on the chance of happiness with the man of your dreams for me. Alice!” She snaps as I open my mouth. “Please!”I close my mouth again, shocked at her sharp tone.“I know that over the years you’ve had to step up an
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AliceI’m absolutely shattered.Charlie’s revelation yesterday threw all three of us into a whirlwind of heightened emotions, and it’s been very difficult to stop them spinning us around.Mum went to bed early last night, exhausted from the whole thing, and the two of us stayed up until very late, checking on her from time to time, both frightened of leaving her alone.“We have to sort this,” Charlie told me at one point, long after the sun had set. “We can’t keep doing this to her.”“I know that,” I snapped. But I couldn’t see a way clear through the thick forest of our problems.In the end, both of us were so tired and irritable and upset that we decided to sleep on it and talk again the next day.I lay awake for about an hour, thinking about Kip, missing him, and feeling miserable, and fighting with myself because he’s my best friend, and I wanted to call him and talk it over with him, and I couldn’t. Eventually I crashed out, slept too long, and I’ve woken with a headache, grouchy
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I sigh. “Shit.”“Yeah. She was so happy, and I just couldn’t bring myself to say it. I kept thinking about the baby, and I knew I had to try and make a go of my marriage for the baby’s sake. So I stayed. I told Renée I couldn’t see her again. She texted me occasionally, but we didn’t meet up. I tried, I really did. But Chloe had morning sickness for the first few months, and after that she just didn’t want sex—she said it felt weird while she was pregnant. And then the baby was born, and even a few months after, she still wasn’t interested. I tried to be understanding, and accept she was tired and probably sore, but… I know it makes me a terrible person, but I just kept thinking about how Renée wanted me, and how good she made me feel… And then one day she contacted me again and asked to see me. And I’m only human, Kip. I was lonely, and I know it sounds pathetic and childish and makes me an arsehole, but I was angry with Chloe for not wanting me, and for not taking my needs into acco
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KipAfter my long phone call with Penny, I send a text to Sam, the pilot of the Knight Sky, then take my laptop out onto the deck and spend half an hour browsing and jotting down some notes until the doorbell goes. I answer it to find Craig standing there. To my relief, there’s no sign of Renée. I’m tempted to say, ‘So she let you out on your own, then?’ but I manage to restrain myself.“Jesus,” he says, staring at my eye, “what happened to you?”“Don’t ask,” I reply wryly. “Come in.” I stand back and let him pass, close the door, and follow him down the steps. “You want a coffee?”He shrugs. “Okay.”I take it as a sign that he’s planning to stay at least long enough to have a drink, and turn on the machine. “Thanks for coming,” I say as I start the espresso pouring. “I wasn’t sure you’d agree to it.” I glance at him. “Was Renée okay with you coming?” I’m genuinely curious, as I was convinced she’d arrive with him.He sits on one of the barstools and scratches at a mark on the counter.
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He puts his arm around her. “It’s amazing,” he says softly. “Thank you.” The last ounce of resentment has vanished from his eyes.“They’re lovely gifts,” Mum tells me. “Well done.”One of the babies—Liam, I think, because he’s wearing red—stirs in the cot, waving his tiny fists in the air.“Can I pick him up?” I ask, and Catie wipes her eyes and nods..“Of course.”I lift the baby out and walk beneath the umbrella so he doesn’t have the sun in his eyes.“Hey, little fella,” I murmur, and he looks up at me with his big blue eyes. He smells sweet, of milk and talcum powder, and when I stroke his cheek with a finger, he grabs it and tries to suck it. I chuckle and look at Saxon, who’s watching me with a smile.I feel a huge swell of relief. It’s the first step to putting things right with the people I love, and it feels damn good.I just hope I can do something similar with Craig and Alice.*I stay for another hour, drinking my coffee and chatting to my family. Then, just before midday,
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KipI read it several times, then send it.It’s time to head over to my parents’ house. Dad bought each of us a breathalyzer when we were younger so we could make sure we weren’t over the limit after a few drinks. I haven’t used it for a while as I don’t tend to drink at all when I’m driving, but I take it out of the cupboard and blow into it, relieved to find I’m well under.Taking the presents with me, I get into the Merc and head out into the sunny morning.When I pull up at the house, Saxon’s Aston is already there, gleaming in the sunshine. I pick up the parcels and make my way inside, my stomach fluttering. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the need to apologize for bad behavior.As I pass the kitchen I see Mum there, talking to Pamela as they load a tray with cups of coffee. They both look over as I stop and walk in. Pamela gives a wry smile, and Mum gives me a look that says, ‘What am I going to do with you?’“Morning,” I say, going up to Mum, leaving the parcels on the cou
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KipI vomit twice more in the night, but luckily Damon’s there to help me stumble to the bathroom, and to encourage me to drink more water. So when I eventually wake up for real, I feel a tad fragile, but not half as bad as I might have done if he hadn’t been there.I check the time—07:14. The sun is up, flooding the room with pale yellow light. The sky is such a light blue that it’s almost white.The bed next to me is empty, and I can’t hear Damon upstairs.Still no message or calls from Alice, but there are a few others waiting for me. The first is from Damon.Hey bro, I left around two a.m. once you stopped throwing up. Take the Panadol and drink the orange juice, then go apologize to Saxon and Catie and I’m sure you’ll feel better. DThe second is from my father.I’d like to see you here at eleven a.m., kiddo. Make sure you’re not over the limit. Dad xHe hasn’t called me kiddo for years. It’s obviously a reflection of my behavior last night.The third and fourth are from Saxon. The
