Beauty and the Billionaire

“Osborne?” A blonde steps in front of me, blocking my view.

“Grant,” I correct. Osborne is my father.

“Follow me.” She doesn’t move. In fact, she playfully starts to run her fingers down her neck to drop farther, trying to entice my eyes to follow. They don’t.

“Lead the way.” I make my tone bored and uninterested.

“Married?” She sighs.

“No.” Her lips purse. I’m sure she can tell I have money. Fucking suit always gives me away. I should have changed, but I was still in my office when I received the call to come and get Logan.

“I’m here for Logan,” I say to speed things up and deter her from making any more advances toward me. Time is money when you’re in business, and I don’t want to waste any more of it than I have to.

“You really are nothing like your friend.” She licks her lips.

I’m still not sure what Logan has done. I was told to come and pick him up. I was also advised to bring ten grand for the damage and the bill he racked up while he was here. At first, I thought maybe he got drunk and was being destructive. That he broke some tables or something. But seeing this place, I’m now starting to think it might be more than that. If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have called me, and he fucking knows that shit.

I never should have told him if he needed a lift that I was only a phone call away. I was trying to do the right thing. It was all I was willing to offer when I turned down his invite to go out to the strip club for his bachelor party.

“What did he do?”

“I’ll let Chicago tell you that.” With that, she turns, and I follow her down a long, dark hallway. Two men stand at the end in front of a door. One opens it as we draw closer.

The last thing I expected when I stepped inside the room was my whole world to change. In the back of a shady strip club, I find my future.

A little redhead not even half my size with a cut on her plump bottom lip. Ten grand is going to be nothing compared to the damage I’m going to inflict when I find out who put that mark on the woman that is meant to be mine.

2

REMI

What is in the water around here? I swear one man after another is bigger than the last. I divert my eyes from the intense stare of the last one to enter the room. He is the biggest one of them all. He’s also quite handsome. Which is the last thing I should be thinking about at this moment. All I want to do is get out of here.

Anna is, however, eating up every inch of the new arrival. She's been keeping an eye out for him since Chicago told her to and not because she was given the order. Her eyes lit with excitement when she learned that Grant Osborne was coming here. She even went back to the dressing room and changed into something even more revealing than what she had on and touched up her makeup.

Everyone seems to know who the man is. I haven't a clue. What I do know is he’s here to pick up his friend Logan. The jerk that had gotten more than a bit handsy with me when I made my way across the club to go to the bathroom. I fended off his advances and thought he got the hint that I wasn’t interested. But I was wrong. He cornered me as soon as I came out of the bathroom.

When I tried to escape him, I ended up tripping and falling. I’m sure the six-inch heels the girls in the back put me in earlier hadn’t helped my cause. When I fell, I hit my mouth and busted my bottom lip, which still stings. I run my tongue across the small cut. It finally stopped bleeding.

The bouncers weren’t quick enough with coming to my aid. Probably because I wasn’t noticed at first. I don’t work here. Well, not yet anyway. They likely didn’t even know I was here at all. I came in through the back. Anna pulled me straight into the girls’ dressing room telling me to wait there—that my cousin Chicago was busy at the moment, and she’d come and collect me when he was ready for me. That was two hours ago. Everyone is always on Chicago’s time.

Once the bouncers figured out what happened, they pulled the man off toward the back. He'd shouted the whole way, saying they didn’t know who he was. That he was connected to Grant Osborne. I steal another peek at the man in the expensive suit. His eyes are still on me, growing more intense by the second.