Beautiful Secret (Beautiful Bastard #4)

Advance Praise for
New York Times
Bestselling Author

CHRISTINA LAUREN’s

“Like Brit hero Niall,
Beautiful Secret
is bloody freakin’ hot.”

—Joyce Lamb
,
USA Today’s Happy Ever After

“Christina Lauren reads our minds and creates, yet again, a perfectly scrumptious main character in Niall that all the ladies will lust after. This addition to the Beautiful Bastard series will convince you that under any stiff-upper-lipped Brit is a man just waiting for you to bring out a beast in bed.”

—
That’s Normal

“
Beautiful Secret
is so fresh, so adorably awkward, and—
wow
—the heat is
explosive!
”

—
Rock Stars of Romance

“Christina Lauren’s most swoon-worthy book yet! The only way this book could be hotter is if it was on fire. No one writes romance like Christina Lauren does—with humor, heart, and the sexiest scenes around.”

—Kate Spencer

“Will we ever stop falling in love with Christina Lauren’s fictional men? The answer to this is HECK NO.”

—
Fangirlish

“Writing duo Lauren have really hit their stride, blending erotic romance with a flirty, funny new adult voice . . . . Lauren continues to write simmering sexual tension like no other, and the creative sex scenes keep things interesting.”

—Romantic Times

Praise for
CHRISTINA LAUREN
and the Beautiful Bastard and Wild Seasons series

“A sexy, sweet treasure of a story. I loved every word.”

—Sylvia Day, #1 bestselling author on
Sweet Filthy Boy

“
Hot!
 . . . if you like your hook-ups early and plentiful.”

—
EW.com
on
Beautiful Stranger

“A devilishly depraved cross between a hardcore porn and a very special episode of
The Office
 . . . . For us fetish-friendly fiends to feast on!!”

—
PerezHilton
on
Beautiful Bastard

“Lauren has mastered writing delectable heroes and strong-willed heroines to match, and the contrast between rough-edged Finn and polished Harlow makes for a passionate romance. Each character’s relationship with their families gives the story depth, all while setting readers up for [the next] story.”

—
RT Book Reviews
on
Dirty Rowdy Thing

“The thing that I love the most about Christina Lauren and the duo’s Beautiful books is that there is always humor in them. As well as hot steamy moments and some of the sweetest I love yous.”

—
Books She Reads

“This book, like the others in this series, sucked me in right away, and I couldn’t get enough.”

—
The Autumn Review
on
Beautiful Player

“The perfect blend of sex, sass and heart,
Beautiful Bastard
is a steamy battle of wills that will get your blood pumping!”

—S. C. Stephens, author of
Thoughtless

“Both dirty and rowdy . . . . In a story that is easily devoured in one sitting, the details are sparse but spot-on . . . and witty dialogue carries the plot swiftly to a happy ending.”

—
Kirkus Reviews
on
Dirty Rowdy Thing

“I loved
Beautiful Bastard
, truly . . . . I wasn’t sure how Christina Lauren planned on topping Bennett . . . . They did it . . . . Max is walking hotness.”

—
Bookalicious
on
Beautiful Stranger

“Smart, sexy, and satisfying,
Beautiful Bastard
is destined to become a romance classic.”

—Tara Sue Me, author of
The Submissive

“Christina Lauren’s done it again! The perfect dose of romance that sexy comedy fans of the Beautiful Bastard series have come to expect and adore.”

—
The Stir
on
Sweet Filthy Boy

“
Beautiful Bastard
has heart, heat, and a healthy dose of snark. Romance readers who love a smart plot are in for an amazingly sexy treat!”

—Myra McEntire, author of
Hourglass

“Christina Lauren are my go-to gals for when I’m in the mood for a laugh-out-loud, sizzling sexy romance.”

—
Flirty and Dirty Book Blog

“It’s official: I’d read Christina Lauren’s grocery list if they’d let me. The girls wrote the French-boy fantasy I didn’t know I had.”

—
That’s Normal
on
Sweet Filthy Boy

“Hilariously entertaining, blazingly passionate and deeply emotional.”

—
Sensual Reads
on
Beautiful Beloved

“A sweet, superhot introduction to a promising series.”

—
Library Journal
on
Sweet Filthy Boy

“I recommend this story to everyone who is old enough to read . . . Fans of
Fifty Shades
,
Bared to You
, and
On Dublin Street
will love this story and will have their own love/hate relationship with Bennett (the Beautiful
Bastard).”

—
Once Upon a Twilight
on
Beautiful Bastard

To Kresley:
The first line, and all that follows, is for you.

“I’m not saying I bet his cock is massive, but I’m not
not
saying it, either.”

“
Pippa
,” I groaned, covering my face in horror. It was seven thirty on a Thursday morning, for God’s sake. She could not possibly be drunk already.

I aimed an apologetic smile at the wide-eyed man standing across from us, and wondered if I could speed the elevator up with the power of my mind.

When I glared at her across the elevator, Pippa mouthed, “
What?
” and then held her index fingers up about a foot apart. She whispered, “Hung like a bloody
horse
.”

I was saved from having to apologize again when we stopped on the third floor and the doors opened.

“You realize we weren’t alone in there, right?” I hissed, following her down the hall and around a corner, stopping at a set of wide doors with
RICHARDSON-CORBETT
engraved into the frosted glass.

She looked up from where she was
digging through her enormous purse, the bracelets on her right forearm clinking like wind chimes while she searched for keys. Her bag was huge and bright yellow and covered in glittering metal studs. Under the brash, fluorescent lights, her long red hair looked practically neon.

I was dark blond and carrying a beige crossbody; I felt like a vanilla wafer standing next to her.

“We weren’t?”

“No! That guy from accounting was standing right across from you. I have to go up there later and, thanks to you, we’ll share accidental, awkward eye contact while we remember you saying
cock
.”

“I also said ‘Hung like a bloody horse.’ ” She looked momentarily guilty before turning her attention back to her bag. “Guys in accounting need to loosen up, anyway.” Then, motioning dramatically to the still-dark hallway in front of us, she said, “I assume we’re acceptably alone for you?”

I gave Pippa a playful curtsey. “Please. Go ahead.”

She nodded, brows drawn in concentration. “I mean, logically it’s
got
to be huge.”

“
Logically
,” I repeated, biting back my grin. My heart was doing that flip-tumble thing it always did when we talked about Niall Stella. Speculating on the size of his penis might be my undoing.

With a victorious thrust of her arm into the air, Pippa brandished the keys to the offices before fitting the longest of the set into the lock. “Ruby,
have you seen his fingers? His
feet
? Not to mention the fact that he’s about eight feet tall.”

“Six foot seven,” I corrected under my breath. “But hand size doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” We closed the door behind us and flipped on the main office lights. “Lots of guys have big hands and aren’t especially gifted in the Man Parts department.”

I followed Pippa down the narrow hall to a roomful of desks in a smaller, far less opulent corner of the third floor. Though cramped, our little section of the office was at least cozy, which was lucky considering I spent more of my time there, working, than in the tiny flat I rented in South London.

Richardson-Corbett Consulting may have been one of the largest and most successful engineering firms in all of Europe, but it kept only a handful of interns on staff at a time. Soon after graduating from UC San Diego, I’d been thrilled beyond belief to snag one of the spots. The hours were long, and the money had immediately quashed my shoe habit, but the sacrifice was already starting to pay off: after completing the first ninety days of my internship, an actual metal nameplate had replaced the piece of masking tape with the name
Ruby Miller
scribbled across it, and I’d been moved from what was no more than a closet on the second floor, to one of the joint offices here on the third.

I’d breezed through high school and survived undergrad with only the occasional freak-out. But moving
halfway across the world and rubbing elbows with some of the finest engineering minds in the UK? I’d never worked so hard for anything in my
life
. If I managed to finish this internship as well as I’d started it, a spot at Oxford in the graduate program of my dreams would be mine. Of course,
finishing it well
most likely involved not talking about executives’ cocks in the elevator at work . . .

But Pippa was just getting started.

“I remember reading that it was wrist to the tip of the middle finger . . .” she added, and used her fingers to measure the length of her own hand, and then held them up to further illustrate her point. “If that’s true, your dream man is packing.”

I hummed, hanging my coat on the back of the door. “I guess.”

Pippa dropped her bag to her chair and leveled me with a knowing look. “I love how you try and look all disinterested. Like you’re not staring at his junk whenever it’s within a ten-foot radius of you.”