Seducing My Best Friend (Alphalicious Billionaires 4)

Like, with his hand.

Except that she was pretty sure that Jesse was capable of getting a lot more than his hand. He could have any woman he wanted. She hadn’t exactly missed the fact that he was now obscenely rich or that his company for a new brand of moisture wicking underwear for both women and men, had really taken off. As in, his name was on billboards and magazines.

The damn company was called something along the lines of Samson’s tighty unwhities. Or maybe it was Steel Gotch. God. She couldn’t remember what it was called, but it had some stupid name like that, and her brain was hurting. All she wanted to do was go home.

After refusing to pick out a ring, which told her that either Jesse was playing one hell of a prank on her, or that he was dead serious- a horrible thought that she refused to consider because it scared the bejesus out of her, she was taken to a dress store and again, Francis not Francis, told her to pick something she liked and somehow, magically, they’d produce it for her up in Philly.

Yeah. That was so not happening.

“What am I going to do with you?” Francis not Francis asked from the front seat.

He carefully navigated the black SUV back into traffic, away from the dress shop he’d pretty much had to force her into.

“Not drag me around the city hungover as hell,” she ground out, “just for starters.”

“Not my problem. I have my instructions. I’m sticking to them.”

“Yeah, well, how about you get your boss on the phone and we talk this out like normal people?”

“No can do. Orders.”

Sydney sighed, the kind of sigh that filled up the entire SUV. “Well, if you can’t get him on the phone then take me to the stupid jet and let’s go. Let’s waste a fuck ton of resources flying across the country just so I can tell him to his face that this was all a shitty, stupid, drunk mistake.”

The SUV lurched over to the side of the street so fast that cars honked all around them, and Sydney was tossed nearly across the backseat into the opposite window, even with her seatbelt on.

Francis not Francis slammed the vehicle into park and wrenched around in the driver’s seat, his mild-mannered face not nearly so mild mannered any longer. Sydney righted herself and shrank back against her seat. She wished, not for the first time, that she’d brought her Taser with her. She had one hidden in the cupboard in the kitchen, though she was pretty dang sure that procuring one from a pawn shop out the back was seriously not legit.

She didn’t bring it out for just anyone.

Okay, she’d never brought it out.

Once.

There was never anyone special enough to deserve it.

For Francis not Francis and his rich as hell boss, a Jesse she didn’t even know, a guy who got super rich by selling expensive as hell underwear, she might have to make an exception. If she ever saw her home again.

Given the way that Francis not Francis was currently scowling at her with a look so black it could turn even the devil’s heart to stone, it was looking less and less like she was going to come out on top of the whole screwed up situation.

Remind me to throw my phone into the damn toilet before I go out drinking, just so I can’t drunk text. Drunk message. Drunk Post. Whatever.

“Listen here, little miss entitled pants. Wipe that look off your face and keep your hands where I can see them. There is no way in hell that you’re going to pepper spray me.”

Holy shit. The guy was a bloody mind reader. If only he knew she wasn’t thinking about something as innocent as pepper spray. Or even hair spray. She didn’t have anything in her purse but a pack of gum, a few stray tissues probably too wadded up to be of any use, her wallet, her phone, and her house keys.

Sydney shifted uncomfortably in the seat. “Yeah, well, you can’t just come here and take me. My mom will wonder where the heck I’ve gone.”

“You have a cell phone. Get it out and use it.”

“I… you shouldn’t even be here. That shit I wrote online wasn’t serious. I was drunk-”

“I don’t care what you were,” Francis not Francis snarls, and holy shit, he’s pretty scary when he’s not all butlery. Like he might actually be an old bodyguard dude in training. The kind of guy who doesn’t have to be big to kick a person’s ass with some karate action. Or maybe his gun does all the talking.

Okay. Getting a tad bit carried away here.

“What you’re going to do, fancy pants, is text your mother. Tell her what happened. Tell her you’re on your way to reconnect with an old friend and he’s paying your way for the week. I don’t know. Tell her whatever you want. Make something up. Just do it. I don’t care. Maybe you should have thought of that before you started writing all sorts of stupid things online like a careless, inconsiderate, little brat. What you are not going to do is hurt my boss’ feelings.”