One Night with a Billionaire (Playboy Billionaire Club Book 1) Read online

  One Night with a Billionaire

  Playboy Billionaire Club Book #1

  Lane Hart

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue were created from the authors’ imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual people or events is coincidental. The authors acknowledge the copyrighted and trademarked status of various products within this work of fiction.

  © 2021 Editor's Choice Publishing

  All Rights Reserved.

  Only Amazon has permission from the publisher to sell and distribute this title.

  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 brief quotations in a book review.

  Editor’s Choice Publishing

  P.O. Box 10024

  Greensboro, NC 27404

  Edited by Angela Snyder

  Cover by Marianne Nowicki

  Photo by James Critchley Photography

  Model Andre D’Cruz

  WARNING: THIS BOOK IS NOT SUITABLE FOR ANYONE UNDER 18.

  Contents

  Synopsis

  Playlist

  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

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  Coming Soon!

  Also by Lane Hart

  About the Author

  Synopsis

  Billionaire Harrison Avery always gets what he wants, and as soon as he sees Siena Butler, he’s desperate to have her.

  Too bad Siena has sworn off all men, especially gorgeous arrogant ones. She wouldn’t date the sexy rich boy for even a million dollars, which is exactly what he offers her.

  Harrison never meant to offend the beautiful beach shop cashier when he gave her a million-dollar check. He was just trying to get her attention. How could he have known that Siena was fed up with men and would use the check to try and ruin him?

  When Harrison buys up the beach shop where Siena works as payback, her opinion of him isn’t improved. But the more time she spends with her new boss the harder it is to keep hating him.

  Siena soon realizes that she can only resist the billionaire’s charm for so long. What harm could there be to let herself indulge in just one steamy night with the playboy?

  Playlist

  Lewis Capaldi - Fade

  Ray LaMontagne - Hold You in My Arms

  Matchbox Twenty - Push

  Taylor Swift - Wildest Dreams

  Don Henley - The Boys Of Summer

  George Michael - Faith

  Niall Horan - Put a Little Love On Me

  Armin van Buuren - Something Real

  The Weeknd - Save Your Tears

  Adele - Make You Feel My Love

  Lady Gaga - Million Reasons

  Jason Mraz - I Won’t Give Up

  Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5jC4XbCgnCAH8mIqUXUVDR

  Chapter One

  Siena Butler

  Most people think the beach is one of the best places to live.

  Those people don’t know what it’s like to live in such a beautiful, picture-perfect world year-round and be dirt poor. The kind of poor where you sometimes have to count the loose pennies in the bottom of your purse to pay for dinner until you get paid the next day.

  The truth is, even if I did have money, I probably wouldn’t leave Sunset Beach because I do love being so close to the beautiful ocean. I just hate most of the tourists – the self-entitled boys of summer who are only looking for a good time with the local trash before they go back to their private schools and trust funds.

  Stupid me, I fell for one such jerk who was here celebrating New Year’s at his rich parents’ beach house with his frat boy friends. By the time the sun came up, he was gone, just like all the rest, the bullshit sweet-talkers who tell you everything you want to hear until they get you naked. Sex is all they’re after; and once they get it, they don’t even bother staying the rest of the night!

  Screw that. Braxton Walker will be the last boy I ever let fool me.

  “What are you doing? Don’t you have to work today?” Kim, my best friend and roommate, asks when she comes outside and finds me sitting in a cheap, plastic beach chair on the balcony of our shared apartment with my phone in my hands. She’s dressed for work in her stiff gray business suit that makes her look even taller than her five foot eight height that towers over my barely five-foot frame, her auburn hair pulled back in a low bun to complete the professional look.

  “I’m deleting all of my dating apps,” I announce. “I don’t know why they’re called dating apps when guys only use them for hookups. They have no intention of dating!”

  “Wow, that last guy really did a number on you, didn’t he?” she asks.

  “You have no idea,” I mutter. “I’m not just swearing off dating apps, I’m swearing off men for good.” I delete the final app, Finding HEA, the one responsible for my misery and then look up at Kim. “Maybe I should become a nun.”

  “That’s a little extreme, girl. You’ll be back in the saddle again by the time the summer hotties roll into town.”

  “No, I’m serious, Kim. I’m –”

  “Save that thought,” she interrupts, holding her palm up between us. “I’m running late; and if I don’t make the coffee for those uppity schmucks, who will?”

  I deflate a little more, slumping down further into my lounge chair. “You only have one boss at the Daily Tribune, and he lets you get away with murder.”

  “Yes, but he’s never going to let me actually use my journalism degree.”

  “Maybe he will if there’s ever a story interesting enough in this town to write about!” I assure her. “Remember, it could be worse. At least you get to do research and help find new stories. You could be sitting in an empty store for ten hours a day, twiddling your thumbs.”

  “True. That’s way too much time for you to spend hating on the opposite sex,” she says as she slips back inside.

  Isn’t that the truth.

  Chapter Two

  Harrison Avery

  “This is the worst time for you to be on vacation, Harrison! There are end of the year reports to finish evaluating, a new marketing director to hire, the servers need to be upgraded before the merger, if the merger even happens. Who is going to hold Thomas Morgan’s ass and kiss his hand if you’re not around? Huh, Harrison? That’s not part of my job description!”

  “Jim, calm down. It’s just one week! I’ll be flying back next Friday and will use the weekend to get all caught up on anything I miss. If you’ll come in, I’ll pay you triple time, okay? Until then, please just handle shit the best you can,” I tell my
assistant through the Bluetooth of the Mazda SUV I rented at the airport as I eye the names of the street signs passing by, looking for Sandpiper Lane.

  “Everything always goes to hell when you’re not here,” he says with a groan.

  “I know, that’s why I hardly ever take a vacation, but this week was a non-negotiable,” I tell him as the woman’s voice on my phone’s GPS interrupts our conversation through the speakers to tell me my turn is coming up on the left.

  “Gotta go. Do your best. Don’t call me again unless there’s an actual world ending emergency, okay?”

  I need this week more than ever to just relax and unwind from the stress of running a corporation that takes up every minute of my day.

  “Okay, I’ll try,” he agrees before I end the call.

  I make the turn and follow a sandy path down to a black, metal gated fence surrounding an enormous beachfront mansion.

  “Damn, Micah,” I mutter, impressed with his newest real estate purchase.

  “Calling Micah,” my oh so overly helpful voice assistant on my phone says.

  “No! Don’t call Micah.”

  “Calling Micah,” it repeats, ignoring my commands as the phone starts to ring through the stereo.

  “Dude, where are you? Everyone else has been here for hours,” Micah, one of my oldest friends from college, answers the phone with the question.

  “I’m right outside the gate.”

  “Then get your ass in here! The code’s 6969. I thought I told you.”

  “Yes, you did,” I agree with a chuckle when I pull up closer to the little intercom box with keypad and roll the window down.

  “We were taking bets on whether or not you would show,” he says as I punch in the numbers.

  “Have I ever missed one of our February vacations?” I huff.

  “No. But you do hate missing work.”

  “I do, but I’m here, so quit your bitching,” I tell him with a smile he can now see through the windshield when he opens the double doors on the front of the house. He jogs down the front steps barefoot in a t-shirt and boardshorts with the phone on his ear, followed by four other beach bums.

  The gate slowly slides open, and I pull inside, parking next to someone’s white Benz.

  I get out, telling them, “You fools, confused? It’s February out here, not July.”

  “It’s always July thanks to my new, heated indoor pool,” Micah says with a toothy grin that crinkles his blue eyes that are set in the well-known face. As an actor, women flock to the big screen to see whatever latest action film he happens to star in where everything around him is always blowing up. His dark brown hair is wavy since he’s growing it out, and there’s several days of scruff on his jaw since he’s on vacation.

  “Indoor pool? Damn, that’s nice,” I tell him. “Wish I had known. I didn’t bring any boardshorts. I thought this was a drinking and gambling weekend.”

  “No women, no housekeepers, no cooks, no drivers,” Micah remarks. “Not sure if I’ll be able to survive until I hire staff for this place. And I already sort of miss Vegas.”

  For the past six years, the guys and I have been getting together annually, usually sometime around Valentine’s Day to avoid clingy women so we can all catch up. This year we aren’t living up the nightlife in Las Vegas. Instead, Micah wanted us to come down to the coast of North Carolina to show off his latest real estate purchase.

  “Nobody to change your diapers either,” Wesley teases Micah, then uses his strength earned from being a professional football player to put him into a headlock. “Guess you’ll have to learn to be a big boy.”

  “Fuck you,” Micah says as he punches Wes in the side.

  “Seriously, this is a nice place,” I tell Micah, able to smell the ocean from a few feet over the sandy dunes. “Wes, man, try not to injure our host before he gambles this little gem away,” I say to Wesley when I reach up to ruffle his dark curls.

  “Like I would do something so stupid?” Micah asks from under Wes’s arm. We all glance at each other and then laugh because yes, yes, he would. “But seriously,” he whines. “Watch the face! I start filming next week!”

  Rogan, Callihan, and Donovan come up from behind Wes and Micah to break them apart before an actual fight happens. Rogan is still just as pretty as always with his shoulder length blond waves, always ready for a camera to snap his photo, while Donovan, or Van as we call him, has nearly every inch of his skin tattooed like the stereotypical rock star, his hair cut short, so it looks more brown than red. Cal is the lazy slob of the group since he doesn’t have a daytime job. He lives for his hobbies and his dirty blond hair needs a serious cut.

  Now that I’m looking at all of them face to face for the first time in a year, I notice that they’re all so cliche it’s almost ridiculous.

  You probably couldn’t find six more different guys; but somehow in our freshman year of college at Lenox University, we were thrown in the same dorm. A year later, we started a business together – a wildly popular dating app that took the world by storm, finding matches rated by compatibility of singles in the same geographic area. We called it Finding HEA because it fit with happily ever after and was also my initials. After all, it was originally my idea. Still, it took all six of us to make it a multi-billion-dollar business. By the time we graduated college, we were all worth more money than we could ever spend. The others decided to sell me their shares of the company to go live their lives while I stayed behind in New York. Micah James wanted to pursue acting — now he’s a Hollywood heartthrob, at least that’s what all the magazines in the grocery store say. Callihan “Cal” Frasier is a gamer with no ambitions other than beating the next level on whatever new release is out. Rogan Maslow models just for fun because he loves being admired and having women run their fingers through his hair. Donovan “Van” Row is the lead singer in a platinum record selling rock band Rogue Renegades, and Wesley “Wes” Thorne is nationally recognized for his skills on the football field as a starting linebacker for the Wilmington Wildcats.

  We’ve all done pretty well for ourselves. And no matter how different our everyday lives are, there’s one thing we can all agree on – we’re playboy billionaires for life. Women are fun and all, but I’ve yet to meet one that’s not looking to cash in by getting me to try and put a ring on her finger.

  Fuck that.

  I have no intention of getting tied down, having to tell a woman where I’m going, where I’ve been, who I’ve been with. I don’t need or want a keeper, a wife, or a family. Ever.

  Before we can finish greeting each other and get my luggage inside, my cell phone starts ringing.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Cal asks.

  “We’re going to have to steal his phone,” Donovan threatens.

  “You can try,” I smirk at him before pulling out the device and checking the screen. “It’s my assistant. I told him not to call unless it was an emergency,” I explain.

  “This is your last business call of the day or we’ll toss the damn phone into the ocean,” Micah warns.

  “Fine,” I say with a sigh. I answer while they start pulling my luggage out of my rental. “What’s up, Jim?” I ask into the phone.

  “Thomas Morgan’s assistant just called about the merger. He says Mr. Morgan wants to meet with you to go over the final details and then sign.”

  “Holy shit,” I mutter. The merger of Finding HEA with Morgan’s social media company is one I’ve been working on for months. The failing company has been in serious financial trouble for more than a year, facing liquidation if they didn’t find an adequate buyer. I’ve spent at least six months trying to convince Morgan and our Board that together we could both help each other.

  “When should I set the meeting?” Jim asks.

  “Monday morning,” I tell him.

  “You’re not going to come back early for it?”

  “No. I made a promise to my friends that I wouldn’t bail for work,” I say. “First thing Monday when I get
back.”

  “What if Mr. Morgan wants it sooner?”

  “He’s made us wait this long, now he can cool his heels until next Monday.”

  “If you’re sure,” Jim says like he doesn’t think it’s a good idea to put Morgan off.

  “I’m sure. Don’t call me again unless the sky is falling,” I warn him before ending the call. “Now, let’s get this party started!” I tell the guys when I follow them into the house, taking in the vaulted ceilings, marble floors, and chandeliers that practically drip with money.

  “Hard to have a party without girls,” Rogan complains.

  “Ro, are you doubting your beauty already without the constant adoration of the opposite sex?” Callihan teases him.

  “You’re just jealous. How long has it been since you’ve come out of your dungeon to touch a woman?” Rogan teases him.

  “Haha, fuck you,” Callihan says while flipping him the bird rather than deny it.

  “I don’t know about y’all, but I’m ready to hit the pool,” Micah says.