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Two Billionaires and A Bride 101
Laura slumped down on an overstuffed monk-red recliner covered in a funky silk throw, vibrant mustard yellow and rich steel blue competing with little reflector things. She could see Josie in the kitchen, the apartment a converted single-family home. Doorways were random and seemed to have no meaning, just plunked here and there. Aside from the bedroom and bath, it wasopen concept but with walls and thresholds, making the fairly-large place seem smaller.Josie used a Keurig, and shouted, “Glazed donut or Breakfast blend?” “Scotch!”“I have Bailey’s.” Her voice said she didn’t have scotch, though.“Good enough! Breakfast blend and Bailey’s!” It wasn’t even nine yet. Who cared? It’s not like she was really into following social conventions lately, anyhow. If a girl couldn’t get drunk the day both of her threesome boyfriends was outed as a secret billionaire on local television, when could she?“How did you hear about them?” she called
Last Updated : 2023-06-09Two Billionaires and A Bride 102
No. What she really wanted was two men who could be honest and open and tell the truth about themselves so they could all live happily ever after. Was that too much to ask? Jill had died and turned out to have gobs of money that she passed on to the guys. They hid that information from her because—Her blood ran cold, stomach twisting. Because they didn’t trust her.“Oh, God,” she muttered. “Josie.” Her friend sensed the shift in her voice and came closer, curling her legs under herself on a small, faded, orange velvet chair.“Yeah? What is it.”“They—they,” she stammered, her chin quivering now, eyes filling with hot tears and throat salty and thick. “They never trusted me. They wanted the money and a woman but couldn’t tell me because they didn’t trust me. They just— I don’t know!” she wailed, her volume increasing as her pulse raced and her mind raced even faster.“Oh, Honey,” Josie replied, reaching for Laura’s hand. “You are so trust
Last Updated : 2023-06-09Two Billionaires and A Bride 103
“Oh, my God! It’s the billionaire bachelor!” the receptionist screeched as the elevator doors parted and Dylan stepped out onto Laura’s floor. The lobby at Laura’s work was more crowded than it had been when he’d delivered flowers to her last month and heads turned. Then more heads.Then every.single.head.Oh, geez. The last thing he needed. “You remember me, right?” the receptionist crooned, walking over and extending her hand. “Debbie. I was here the day you delivered flowers to Laura.” Wink.The absolutely last thing he needed. He didn’t shake her hand. “Where is Laura?” he asked, not caring that he was being blunt, pointedly ignoring all the eyes on him.“She went home sick.” A deep male voice answered, to Dylan’s left. The man was middle-aged, greying temples, a bit of a paunch. Nice suit. Her boss? He nodded to Debbie, who skittered over to her station and began answering phone calls, eyes glued on the two men.“Oh. Is she OK?” He f
Last Updated : 2023-06-09Two Billionaires and A Bride 104
All those years Mike had spent sitting meditation, going to retreats, reading books by Jack Kornfield and Pema Chodron and the Dalai Lama, all the time he’d invested in breathing techniques and the miles pounded out on his feet, in skis, swimming and biking in triathlons to maintain a sense of inner centeredness was a waste.A complete, fucking waste. Because the rage that rose up in him, like a megamonster coming up from the sea in some cheesy B film, was very real, rapidly growing, and so quick to activate that he wondered how he had fooled himself all these years into thinking he had tamed it.Control? Hah. Control was an illusion. Awareness? Fuck that.The ache that grew its own voice and began keening within him was what hurt most. Why had he listened to Dylan? Why hadn’t he blurted out the truth to Laura when he’d been ready? Trusting Dylan had been such an enormous mistake. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he berated himself as he drove the quick hop from La
Last Updated : 2023-06-10Two Billionaires and A Bride 105
The sight of Mike’s back as he began to run away was unbelievable. Dylan stared, mouth open, the keys loose in his palm. The guy was running home? It was at least ten miles, which was nothing for Mike, but he was dressed in jeans, a polo shirt, and Merell shoes—not exactly runner’s clothing in August in Boston. He’d turn into a puddle of goo by the time he crossed the Charles River.Maybe that was the point.Right now, though, he really didn’t have a spare ounce of caring in him for anyone but Laura. How could he have been so callous? Man, he had totally misjudged how she perceived him and his every move. The “It’s always complicated” joke not only fell flat, it seemed to have been the nail in the coffin of any chance they may have had to rewind their botched attempt at waiting for the right moment to tell her about their money. Ego be damned; he could admit when he was wrong. He was man enough. And boy, oh boy, was he wrong.Mike didn’t even want to be in
Last Updated : 2023-06-10Two Billionaires and A Bride 106
“Wakey, wakey, sleepyhead!” Josie shouted, yanking open the curtains in Laura’s bedroom, the pink cloth swaying in a pattern that made Laura’s stomach queasy. Ugh. Bad enough she was exhausted; did Josie really need to make her nauseated, too? The coarse sun blinded her with too much, the glare off the world striking her as so harsh, too unyielding. Give her a nice, grey day with white cloud coverage so she could dip herself back into life.Let her suckle her depression, for it gave her so much comfort. Being a victim meant never having to think through your own actions, not reflecting on regret, and it definitely gave her ample excuse for eating entire pints of ice cream and wallowing in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” marathons.It had been a month since the guys...well, there wasn’t an easy word for what they’d done to her. The Big Reveal? The Big Not-So-Reveal? Laura’s Public Humiliation? Whatever you called it, a month had passed and somehow she’d survived
Last Updated : 2023-06-11Two Billionaires and A Bride 107
She snorted. Funny how there already was a third.The lie mattered, but what also mattered was that she had been ready to think about kids, to imagine pregnancy and birth and babies and toddlers and all the roly-poly love that came with them. If she was pregnant—she allowed herself to think in hypotheticals, her hands mechanically shampooing her greasy hair, the feeling of rinsing like a baptism, washing away the past month of dysfunction—then it would be OK.Everything would be OK. To be more precise, it would all work out in the end because she absolutely, positively, undeniably was not pregnant. And couldn’t be. It just wasn’t true, and as long as she willed it to not be true, she didn’t have to face any of the long term consequences of having a billionaire baby daddy.Or two.A quick rinse was all she could manage as her legs and arms felt like jelly, her body shivering no matter how much she turned the shower faucet for more hot water. Time t
Last Updated : 2023-06-11Two Billionaires and A Bride 108
Wah wah wah wah 345 wah, Somerville, Dylan heard, his ears ringing as he sat up fast, the cold night air hitting his bare chest when the down comforter slid to his waist. The dispatcher’s words sounded so familiar.When she repeated the address again, his blood ran cold. Then the words:multi-unit fire.If you had told him even a year ago that he could move that quickly, shove on pants and boots and a jacket, be down God knows how many sets of stairs and out the door and in his car in less than two minutes, he’d have told you were a fool.Tonight? Not tonight, though, because that was Laura’s address the dispatcher just announced, followed by the words multi-unit fire. Blood pumping hard, he fumbled for his phone (thank God it was still in his pants from yesterday) and as he peeled out of the garage he tapped through his Contacts list to Mike.Multi-unit fire.Weaving across two lanes, he sped to her place, the drive inching by s
Last Updated : 2023-06-12
Latest chapter
Two Billionaires and A Bride 113
Mike’s bronzed chest, with a sprinkling of sun-kissed hair, felt familiar and foreign under her finger tips, his hands lifting up under her thickened breasts, face gazing down and marveling, as if looking at a work of art for the first time. When his eyes met hers they were smiling, and he touched her lips with one finger. “I do love you.” Hand on her belly. “And her.”A lump in her throat made it hard to speak, Dylan’s hard, muscled form behind her, leaning against her back and ass. Heady from the touch of both, she tipped her face up and drank in Mike’s words. “I love you, too.” His smile, his mouth, their tongues touching as she was enveloped by manflesh, manskin, the two men who completed her—it made her feel truly, madly, intensely loved.Cherished.Dylan’s words were a trigger for so much more as he nipped her ear and whispered, “I love you, too.” Mike released her and she spun around, arms lifting over his shoulders, his muscled forearms on her back
Two Billionaires and A Bride 112
A palpable tension sat between him and Mike on the car ride up the mountain, a third partner who wasn’t nearly as appealing as Laura. Unresolved emotions, unspoken words, and a sense of uncertainty made the air thick, kept Dylan’s nerves on edge, and finally forced him to blurt out, “I was a total douche. I should never have made us wait to tell her about the money, and I almost blew it, and now here we are with maybe—kinda—sorta—a chance with her, and I don’t want to fuck it up again.”Cringe.“If you’re a douche, I’m a bigger one. Mega douche. Thor the Douche,” Mike bantered back, his voice jovial, but his face serious. Eyes on the road, he seemed to feel the change in the car. They were talking. Really talking, once again.“How do we make this right with her?” Dylan’s words had an urgency, a plaintive tone he could hear in his own voice and hated.Mike shrugged. “I think this time we actually listen to her and Josie and do what Laura wants.”
Two Billionaires and A Bride 111
Mike held the smartphone’s camera up and surveyed the soot-covered room slowly. Laura’s apartment building had just been opened for him and Dylan to come down, the fire investigation completed enough that they permitted residents to remove vital items. The conclusion: an electrical fire that started in the breaker box in the basement, directly under Laura’s place.She was damn lucky. A few more minutes and...well, he wouldn’t be holding a camera streaming live video to her on her smart phone, her sweet face asking questions and giving directions as she rested under a down throw on his couch, looking relaxed and healing nicely.His couch. At the cabin. When the fire investigators told her she wouldn’t be able to go back to her apartment for weeks, if not months, the structural damage too great for people to live there, the news had seemed to crush her. Quick to offer help, he and Dylan had both tried to get her to move in. Cabin vs. apartment?She’d chosen
Two Billionaires and A Bride 110
Barely four hours had gone by since Dylan’s phone call, and Mike had to absorb his first encounter with Dylan since their fight four months ago, seeing the two loves of his life endangered by fire, and now he had just learned that Laura was pregnant with their baby. Their baby. All three of them. He didn’t want to view it as his, or Dylan’s. But he had no idea Dylan felt the same way!Pointing at Dylan, he said, “You, too?”The smile on his partner’s face was so telling, impish and serious all at once in a way only Dylan could pull off. “Me, too. She’s ours. Not yours. Not mine.”Would Laura agree? Mike wasn’t sure. Seeing her there, on her side, radiant and scared, made him want to bar the door and protect her from whatever the world threw her way. Radiant! Hah! Now he knew why she seemed to be glowing when he saw her yesterday at Jeddy’s, through that window.A happy pregnant woman, full of life. Full of his child.His daughter.
Two Billionaires and A Bride 109
A fireball was in her crotch, pushing hard, so hard, to come out. Laura couldn’t breathe, scratching at her neck, trying to claw open her trachea to get air, air, air. Oxygen was gone, her throat spasming as her vagina split open, divided in two, and out came an enormous, glowing-orange sphere, shooting across the surgical room and catching the wall on fire.Screaming, she opened her eyes to find a nurse pushing buttons on some sort of box, a man in scrubs holding her arm down, and six very worried eyes watching her from a few feet away.Eyes she knew.She was on her left side and the nurse had her face in both hands, eyes boring into her. “Laura! Laura! I need you to breathe slowly, to focus. We can’t find the baby’s heartbeat— ”Baby! Heartbeat!“—and the more you panic, the harder it is to get the monitor hooked backup.”Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. The nurse took her through the motions, andLaura calmed
Two Billionaires and A Bride 108
Wah wah wah wah 345 wah, Somerville, Dylan heard, his ears ringing as he sat up fast, the cold night air hitting his bare chest when the down comforter slid to his waist. The dispatcher’s words sounded so familiar.When she repeated the address again, his blood ran cold. Then the words:multi-unit fire.If you had told him even a year ago that he could move that quickly, shove on pants and boots and a jacket, be down God knows how many sets of stairs and out the door and in his car in less than two minutes, he’d have told you were a fool.Tonight? Not tonight, though, because that was Laura’s address the dispatcher just announced, followed by the words multi-unit fire. Blood pumping hard, he fumbled for his phone (thank God it was still in his pants from yesterday) and as he peeled out of the garage he tapped through his Contacts list to Mike.Multi-unit fire.Weaving across two lanes, he sped to her place, the drive inching by s
Two Billionaires and A Bride 107
She snorted. Funny how there already was a third.The lie mattered, but what also mattered was that she had been ready to think about kids, to imagine pregnancy and birth and babies and toddlers and all the roly-poly love that came with them. If she was pregnant—she allowed herself to think in hypotheticals, her hands mechanically shampooing her greasy hair, the feeling of rinsing like a baptism, washing away the past month of dysfunction—then it would be OK.Everything would be OK. To be more precise, it would all work out in the end because she absolutely, positively, undeniably was not pregnant. And couldn’t be. It just wasn’t true, and as long as she willed it to not be true, she didn’t have to face any of the long term consequences of having a billionaire baby daddy.Or two.A quick rinse was all she could manage as her legs and arms felt like jelly, her body shivering no matter how much she turned the shower faucet for more hot water. Time t
Two Billionaires and A Bride 106
“Wakey, wakey, sleepyhead!” Josie shouted, yanking open the curtains in Laura’s bedroom, the pink cloth swaying in a pattern that made Laura’s stomach queasy. Ugh. Bad enough she was exhausted; did Josie really need to make her nauseated, too? The coarse sun blinded her with too much, the glare off the world striking her as so harsh, too unyielding. Give her a nice, grey day with white cloud coverage so she could dip herself back into life.Let her suckle her depression, for it gave her so much comfort. Being a victim meant never having to think through your own actions, not reflecting on regret, and it definitely gave her ample excuse for eating entire pints of ice cream and wallowing in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” marathons.It had been a month since the guys...well, there wasn’t an easy word for what they’d done to her. The Big Reveal? The Big Not-So-Reveal? Laura’s Public Humiliation? Whatever you called it, a month had passed and somehow she’d survived
Two Billionaires and A Bride 105
The sight of Mike’s back as he began to run away was unbelievable. Dylan stared, mouth open, the keys loose in his palm. The guy was running home? It was at least ten miles, which was nothing for Mike, but he was dressed in jeans, a polo shirt, and Merell shoes—not exactly runner’s clothing in August in Boston. He’d turn into a puddle of goo by the time he crossed the Charles River.Maybe that was the point.Right now, though, he really didn’t have a spare ounce of caring in him for anyone but Laura. How could he have been so callous? Man, he had totally misjudged how she perceived him and his every move. The “It’s always complicated” joke not only fell flat, it seemed to have been the nail in the coffin of any chance they may have had to rewind their botched attempt at waiting for the right moment to tell her about their money. Ego be damned; he could admit when he was wrong. He was man enough. And boy, oh boy, was he wrong.Mike didn’t even want to be in
