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Two Billionaires and A Bride 24 - Idle Hands
REBECCA had plenty to keep her busy in the wake of cutting things short with Zane. She pulled her semi-new crew together, putting them through their paces in the fully loaded Lounge kitchen. Her friend Raoul bounced around like a kid in a candy story. Trey’s choice of equipment—and his willingness to buy more—made him her head chef’s new hero.“Finally!” he crowed. “Everything is how you like it. We’ll throw mud in the faces of those culos at Wilde’s Bistro.”Rebecca secretly hoped so but merely smiled when he said this.She and the crew tinkered with her recipes: cooking times, temperatures, this ingredient or that. The results Rebecca achieved by herself, with every detail under her control, weren’t the same as what a busy brigade of line cooks produced. Rebecca’s crew was skilled and proud of it. Nonetheless, some needed coaching to reach her high standards. Those who weren’t used to her methods tried her patience, but they worked through it. They all knew consistency was key. They
Last Updated : 2023-05-19Two Billionaires and A Bride 25
“Sent ’em home,” she said. “We were getting over-prepped. I told them to enjoy the weekend, and I’d see them first thing Monday.”“You sent everyone home.”She seemed to recognize this was out of character. She poured beer into the glass she hadn’t been drinking from. “Sit,” she said. “Taste. I think this will complement our spin on Boston beans and bacon.”This was one of their appetizers, served on lace-thin triangles of sourdough toast. Unsure what he was getting into, Trey sat and sipped. “Yes,” he said. “That combination ought to work.”When she said nothing, he studied her. He was irrationally content to be in her presence, though he disapproved of the dark circles beneath her eyes. She looked thinner than the last time he’d seen her, and she couldn’t afford to miss the weight. That bothered him. This job was supposed to ease her burdens, not add to them.“Are you okay?” he asked.She let out a ragged laugh. “I had a moment today when I was convinced everything was crap. I honest
Last Updated : 2023-05-19Two Billionaires and A Bride 26 - Opening night
THE Bad Boys Lounge put its most beautiful face forward. Flickering candles and fragrant flowers softened the men’s club atmosphere. The fat coffee table books were shelved in their built-ins, the glassware polished like crystals. Everyone who stepped through the entrance looked glamorous. Here was a female anchor for local TV news; there a player from the Bruins with a date so stunning she could have been the celebrity.Some of the guests congratulated Rebecca on her brothers’ recent interview— either because they assumed it was smart promotion, or because they admired her courage in raising the twins alone. She accepted the slightly discomfiting compliments with the best grace she could. Mercifully, they were infrequent. Rebecca bought the “Best New Wines” issue every year, but at more than ten bucks a pop, the subscription base for Bad Boys Magazine wasn’t huge. She expected this was deliberate. Neither Zane nor Trey was afraid of appearing exclusive.Then again, who was she to talk
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“Fast and pretty!” she yelled after him. “Presentation is important. Don’t send anything hot out cold!”“You’re staying?” Raoul asked, seeming relieved by this. Apparently, they were closer to the weeds than he’d wanted to let on.“Yes.” She took control of the departed newcomer’s sauté pans. “You’re overseeing the grill?”“Yes. Lorenzo’s expediting.”She’d seen this on her way in. Lorenzo was one of their senior men. Once they picked up speed, he ought to have no trouble keeping the train on track.“Focus,” she reminded the sweating newbie beside her. “When Lorenzo calls an order for your station, let him know you’ve got it. If someone is working on the other half of your dish, keep him in the loop on how far along you are. Everybody communicate!” she finished with a bellow.“Yes, chef!” the kitchen bellowed back.She smiled at that, and turned back to work. For the next ten minutes, the kitchen’s chaos became the nimble dance it was meant to be.Then the lobster started returning.Lo
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Rebecca pulled away from Zane so fast her back went into cramp mode. “Shit,” she hissed, trying to ease the spasm by thrusting her arm back there.Poised in the doorway with his hands braced on either side, Trey looked both angry and hurt. Somewhat to her surprise, Zane was the person he directed his fury to.“I held back,” he said. “All these years I wanted to pursue her, but I held backfor you!”“What are you talking about?” Zane asked, which could have been her line. “You barely know Rebecca.”“I held back ten years ago!” he spat out. “What?”“The waitress at Wilde’s. The night you asked me to be your business partner: your partner for real, I thought!”Obviously, Rebecca was missing a couple checkers from this game. “I waited on you at Wilde’s?” she asked, choosing the safer of her two confusions.“Yes.” The sparks Trey’s eyes were shooting shifted to her instead. “You warned us not to order lobster because the purveyor delivered frozen. You looked at me like you saw my soul. You
Last Updated : 2023-05-19Two Billionaires and A Bride 29 - Buck house
REBECCA hadn’t officially agreed to anything, but that didn’t seem to matter. Trey told the valet to bring Zane’s car around the back, and Zane carried her to it. Fortunately, the silver convertible was a four-door. She and Trey fit in the rear seat.“This isn’t necessary,” she said as Trey arranged her with her head resting on his lap.She was curled on her side, which seemed less helpless than lying on her back. Free to do so, Trey ran one hand soothingly down her tense muscles. His palm was warm, and it really did make her feel better. She steeled herself against liking it too much as Zane pulled out of the Lounge’s lot.“At least tell me you’re taking me home,” she said. “We are,” Zane assured her. “Our home.”This stunned her. “Not that mansion in Lexington!”“What’s wrong with Lexington?” Trey finger-combed her hair.“Everybody says it’s Sodom and Gomorrah, that you throw wild sex parties on weekends.”Zane snickered and shifted gears.“If they claim that,” Trey said, “they’ve ne
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Her back was fine, but she sensed that wasn’t behind the instruction. He wanted her restricted. He got off on it. Zane had come closer while they were kissing, only a step away from the sleek sports car. One palm rested on his belly, like he was afraid or maybe embarrassed about moving it to his cock. He hadn’t minded touching himself before. Trey had to be the source of his hesitation. He was opening the buttons on her blouse. Zane met her gaze and flushed.“Zane bound my hands the first time he got me off,” she said.Trey lifted his head, breath suspended for a heartbeat. She’d spoken impulsively. From the men’s reactions, this was the right topic to bring up.“He used his belt,” she went on. “He wrapped it around my wrists and went down on me.”“In his car?” Trey’s voice rasped like sandpaper. “In his car. He barely had room to move.”Air wafted over her cleavage, above the satiny bra she wore. Trey closed his eyes. “Are you saying you’d like him to bind you now?”“I’m saying if you
Last Updated : 2023-05-19Two Billionaires and A Bride 31
Zane and Trey’s garage was bigger than most houses. Clad in brick and draped in ivy, it resembled a residence from outside. Rebecca was dressed again, at least haphazardly. Following Trey, she padded barefoot across the long stretch of grass to the house proper. A bright partial moon lit what appeared to be very spacious, very picturesque landscaped grounds. The plantings were nicer than Boston Common. No question about it: Rebecca had left the humdrum world.Trey caught her hand as she slowed to gawk. “Do you like it?” he asked, long fingers squeezing hers.“It’s beautiful.”He smiled, seeming to hear her unsureness. “We earned it,” he reminded. “I doubt we grew up any fancier than you.”His hand was warm. Though she tugged a little, he didn’t allow her to pull away.“Let me,” he coaxed. “I like this kind of thing.”It seemed silly to object when he’d just ravished her atop a car. Holding hands wasn’t more serious than that. She had no cause to feel self-conscious simply because the g
Last Updated : 2023-05-19
Latest chapter
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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
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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.”
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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“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
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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
