The Billionaire Bad Boys Club

“Here,” Zane called, signaling her from a table. “We’re ready for dinner now.”

Trey sat across from him in a gorgeous all-white tuxedo. That was awkward. What if Trey realized she’d slept with his closest friend? Unlike Zane, her new boss wasn’t smiling.

“I tipped you,” he said sternly, pointing to a pair of hundred dollar bills that lay across his bread plate. “The least you could do was leave him alone.”

This was an odd way to put it, she thought.

“Don’t listen to him,” Zane said. “He has no claim on me.”

Zane’s formal wear was black and white. He reached across the table to hold Trey’s hand—which seemed to contradict his words.

“I’m confused,” Rebecca said. “Do you two want me or not?”

With a simultaneity that had to be practiced, the men unzipped their tuxedo trousers and pulled out erect cocks. Rebecca gasped, suddenly painfully aroused. The men turned in their chairs to face her and began to stroke themselves. They’d spread their legs very wide. She could see into their trousers down to their testicles.

The display was too much for her. She wanted to drop to her knees before them, to suck one reddened cock and then the other until they exploded. They’d like watching each other. Somehow she just knew that.

Her heavy tray trembled on her shoulder. She realized she forgotten to pull on panties beneath her brand new skirt. Hot cream from her arousal was trickling down her leg.

“We would want you—” Zane began.

“—if you weren’t so needy,” Trey finished.

“I’m not needy,” she objected. “I work like a dog. I take care of everyone!”

Zane shook his head sadly. “You only pretend. We know how much you want to cling.”

“Fuck you,” dream Rebecca swore. “I’ll serve your food to someone else!”

She stormed away with her tray—or tried to. People kept bumping her, sticking their elbows and shoulders out from their seats. At last, she reached an empty table on the edge of the room. She set the courses down on the tablecloth. The plates were cold, an embarrassment to serve. All her hard work was ruined. She wanted to cry but refused to.

A shadow came up behind her. She didn’t turn. She already knew who it was.

“They see the real you,” her father said. “I’m not the only one.

Rebecca shuddered awake. Her heart pounded in her chest, fear and anger surging through her in sickening waves. What was she doing with Zane tonight? How could she imagine nothing bad could happen in this room?

Bad things could happen anywhere.

Settle down, she urged herself, conscious that the nightmare still had a grip on her. Then again, just because a dream was a dream didn’t mean she should ignore the reality check. She eased Zane’s head from her shoulder and sat up. The sky outside the porthole window was nearly dark. They must have slept a while.

Night was the time she worried most. About work. About the boys. Anything she could dream up. Especially since the twins had gone off to college, she felt vulnerable sleeping in the family house. The big man lying beside her tempted her to think differently. For countless reasons, that was a mistake. At the most, she and Zane would enjoy a fling. At the worst, she’d screw up the job she’d just won. That message from her subconscious was crystal clear.

She looked at Zane slumbering. He’d grabbed a pillow to hug instead of her and seemed happy enough with it. He was a good-looking man—a decent one, from what she could tell. What he wasn’t was a person she could afford to lean on.

She’d let his past and some excellent sex seduce her into thinking they had a bond.

He was a billionaire CEO. She was a fancy cook. He bought women thousand dollar dresses. She baked bread as gifts.

He was smoother than a 24-karat egg.

She couldn’t be trusted not to blow a gasket over undercooked salmon.

She eased naked from his luxurious bed, padding down the hall to the cabin where her real clothes lay. They felt rough as she pulled them on, as awkward as a hair shirt. She thought about writing a note for Zane, then decided he must be used to this sort of thing—though possibly not from the receiving end. Did people leave notes after one-night stands? Hell if she knew what was expected.

She crept like a thief down the stairs and across the dark living room. Fortunately, they hadn’t pulled away from the dock. Maybe Zane hadn’t had a chance to issue that order. Maybe the captain had given up and left. Whatever the case, no one challenged her as she slipped away.

~

Okay, Zane was human. Now and then he fell asleep after sex. Usually he only relaxed that much with Trey. Sometimes he intended a second round with a woman and woke up to find her gone. If the first round didn’t bear repeating, he wouldn’t fall asleep at all. He’d get up, pull on clothes, and make polite noises like, “Gee. Early day tomorrow. Maybe we’d better get to our own homes.” Women didn’t always like that, but most appreciated that it saved face.

He wasn’t sure what Rebecca’s disappearing act was supposed to save.

Zane hadn’t consciously decided he wanted Rebecca to spend the night. It was only when he woke to an empty bed that he knew he had. He was annoyed then, and insulted, and maybe a little sad. That was good sex they’d had. Sweet sex. The kind where you thought you’d made a real connection to someone.

Just in case she wasn’t gone, Zane pulled on a pair of boxers, got up and looked around. Her clothes weren’t in the guest bedroom any longer, and the yacht’s living room was dark. The kitchen hadn’t been entered, not even to make coffee. She’d left in a hurry . . . and silently.

Seeing it was 9:10, Zane called her on his cell.

She picked up after four rings, long enough to be considering not answering. “Uh, hello, Zane,” she said.

“Where are you?” was his admittedly gruff answer.

“Home. Were you expecting me to stay?”

“Yes,” he said, only stretching the truth a bit.

“Should I have left a note?”

“You should have woken me. At the least I’d have made you coffee.”

“It’s nine at night.”

“I’d have made decaf!”

A soft laugh came through Rebecca’s end, informing him this conversation was stupid. He imagined her rubbing her brow in that way she had, as if so many thoughts were in there they needed to be soothed. “Sorry,” she said in a less uptight tone. “I guess I’m having second thoughts about taking this any farther.”

He didn’t miss the irony that this was typically his line. “We can talk about that.”

“I’d rather not.”

Zane stared at the phone in disbelief. “You’d rather not?”

“I like my independence. I need it, if it comes to that.”

“Was I acting like I wanted to chain you up?” His dick twitched with left-field interest in that idea. Rebecca would look adorable shackled to a wall.

“No,” she admitted. She was silent for a moment. If she said it wasn’t him, it was her, he was going to reach through the phone and strangle her. “I just don’t feel comfortable with this hookup, given who you are and who I am and the fact that your business partner is my boss. I shouldn’t have let my hormones run away with me. I should have been more sensible.”

“Rebecca, I think—” Zane hesitated, every self-protective instinct urging him to shut up. With an effort, he ignored them. “I think this could be more than a hookup.”

“I can’t,” she said. “Look, Zane, I really have to go.”

And then she hung up on him.

“She hung up on me,” he marveled to no one. He didn’t dial her back. He had sufficient pride to restrain himself that much. He didn’t break out his black book either. Replacement sex with some other woman only would have proved how much realer making love to Rebecca was.

He went back upstairs to dress. Forget taking the boat out tonight. He’d go home. Hopefully, Trey would be in. They’d do something, or nothing, and they’d go to bed together.

He was pulling on his trousers when he noticed what was draped across the back of the bedside chair: Rebecca’s skimpy silver dress, the one that had stopped his heart when he saw her in it on the stairs. He’d bought that for her, to show her how beautiful she was. He was pretty sure he’d succeeded. She’d admitted she couldn’t resist keeping it.

“Fuck,” he bit out.

If she’d left this behind, she truly didn’t mean to see him again.

CHAPTER NINE

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.