Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (171 page)

But
Red
had texted her and told her to stop by the room, so that gave her a little more
courage.

As
she
approached the door to the room, she could hear the two of them laughing and
talking inside.
 
They sounded so
happy, so in love—she could feel it all the way out here, in the hallway.

It
hurt
a little, she realized.
 
As happy as
Kallie was that everything had worked out and the baby was safe and Nicole was
healthy—Kallie couldn’t help but think about how alone she was, and how
she didn’t have any of what they had.

Still,
this
wasn’t the time for selfish and self-pitying thoughts.
 
It was time to think of her friend’s
joy.

Kallie
knocked.
 
The door was ajar, but she didn’t want
to presume.

“Come in,” Nicole called out.

When
Kallie
stepped into the room, she was struck by just how radiant the two of them
were.
 
Nicole’s face was glowing,
and Red had a smile like she’d never seen on him before.

“Congratulations!”
Kallie cried, and ran to Nicole’s hospital
bed.

She
hugged
her, not too hard, and realized that right at this moment she was completely
and utterly happy for Nicole.

Look
at
her, Kallie thought.
 
She deserves
this.
 
She deserves every bit of it.
Nicole smiled and held Kallie’s hand for a moment.
 
“I really want to thank you for
coming out here to support us today.
 
Red and I both appreciate it more than
you know.”

“Thanks,
but it was the least I could do after
everything you’ve done for me.”

“You’ve
more
than repaid us for all of that,” Nicole said, waving her off.
 
“And especially after the way I treated
you earlier.
 
The way I spoke to you
was completely unacceptable and I’m ashamed of myself.”

“Nicole,
you don’t have to say—“

“I
do.
 
I really do.”
 
Nicole looked at Kallie, her eyes
unwavering.
 
“Do you forgive me?”

“Of
course!
 
Of course I forgive you.
 
It’s water under the bridge for me,
seriously.”

“Good.”
Nicole
patted her hand again, and seemed to lighten.
 
“Now we can move on to other important
matters.”
 
She glanced at Red and he
took over the conversation.

“Kallie,
Nicole
and I’ve been thinking about our situation.
 
She’s going to likely be recovering for
the next few weeks, and we don’t want to take any chances with her health.”

Nicole
scooted
up in her bed a little and continued.
 
“We figured that it might be nice for all of us if you stayed on,” she
said.

“Stayed
on?”

Nicole
smiled.
 
“We’re asking if you want to be our
nanny.”

Kallie
was surprised.
She hadn’t seen that coming at all.
 
And then she realized that she wanted to
do it very much.
 
She liked being
around Red and Nicole.
 
She liked
their energy, and their love, and she valued Nicole’s friendship so much already.

“I’d
love to,” she replied.

After
some more celebrating, Red asked if Kallie
wouldn’t mind running back to the Connecticut house to pick up some things for
Nicole, since she didn’t have anything prepared for a hospital stay.
 
“I’ll have a car come and meet you out
in front of the main entrance,” he told her.

Kallie
got
the house key and the alarm code, and then made her way down to the main
entrance.
 
Her head was
spinning.
 
So much had changed in
just the last twenty-four hours and she didn’t know how to process it all.

But
she
did know that she was happy to have this job, and to be working with people she
liked and respected.

As
she
waited out front for the car that Red had sent to pick her up, Kallie looked
around at all the passing traffic and people going about their daily
lives.
 
There was something so
connected about it all, she decided.
 
People were driving, honking, running, walking, talking on phones,
listening to headphones.
 
But
somehow they were all a part

of
this, all together in this weird little
world.

For
the first time in a long time, she felt
connected—truly connected to the world around her.
 
And that’s when she knew she’d made the
right decision to leave home and come to New York.

Everything
had led her to this place and this moment.

A
second
later, a black car pulled up beside her on the street.
 
The passenger door was pushed open from
the inside, and Kallie pulled it the rest of the way open and bent down to peer
inside.

This
wasn’t the car that Red had sent for her.

Because
Hunter
Reardon was sitting in the driver’s seat, looking at her as if there were
nothing strange about him showing up here.

“What
are
you doing?” she asked.

“Get in,” he said.

“I
can’t,”
she told him, even though her heart was pounding—and telling her yes. She
wanted to get in. She couldn’t lie to herself—she was happy to see him.

“You
can.”

“I’m
waiting
for another car to pick me up and take me somewhere important.”

Hunter smiled enigmatically.
 
“That’s fine.
 
You can wait for it with me.
 
Just give
me five minutes of your time, Kallie.
 
I’ve come a long way to see you.”

Sighing,
she
got inside and immediately the air was charged.
 
She couldn’t look at him for fear that
he’d see in her eyes how much she still wanted him.

“Why
did you come?” she asked.

“Because,
I
need to explain why I act the way I do.
 
I need to help you understand.”

“You
don’t
owe me any explanations,” she said. “But it’s important to me.
 
You’re important to me.”

There
was
a long silence after he said it, and Kallie’s pulse raced.
 
Was it crazy that she loved hearing
those words, even as she dreaded what it might mean for her?

“I
feel like I might get hurt if I keep
seeing you,” she said softly.

Hunter
licked
his lips and looked straight at her.
 
Slowly, he reached out and put his hand under her chin, nudging her so
that she would meet his gaze.
 
“I
never want to hurt you.
 
But there’s
something I need to explain.”

“Okay,
explain.”

“It’s
a lot to get into
in five minutes,” he replied carefully.

“You said that’s all you needed.”

Hunter
grinned.
 
“Okay, fair enough.”

She
suddenly
realized that Hunter Reardon was nervous.
 
What about her and this conversation could possibly make him nervous?

“I’m
listening,”
she said.
 
“But I’m getting out of
this car unless you tell me what you want from me.”

Hunter
grew
quiet, and he seemed to search for words.
 
Finally, he spoke. “Have you ever heard of BDSM?”

Kallie
heard the words and didn’t know what to
say.
 
She nodded slowly, and then

Hunter
began to speak.
 
And she couldn’t believe what he said
next.

THE END
OF BOOK 6 OF FOR HIS PLEASURE

Book 7 is available now!
 
Click here to
continue reading
.

Can’t Take The Heat (Brooklyn Heat, #1)

By
Locklyn Marx

~Chapter One~

Alyssa Cotler ran down Seventh Avenue in Brooklyn, her high heels
slapping against the pavement.
 
She
was late.
 
Fifteen minutes late, to
be exact, which didn’t sound like a lot, but when your entire job and possibly
your entire career was hanging in the balance, fifteen minutes was an eternity.

She stopped at the corner, ignored the don’t walk sign, and plowed
across the street.
 
As she went, she
knocked into a woman carrying a briefcase and talking on a cell phone.

“Watch out!” the woman yelled.

“Sorry!” Alyssa called as she rushed by.
 
She didn’t understand what the woman was
so upset about.
 
This was New York
City, after all.
 
And wasn’t it
supposed to be known that New Yorkers were all rude and bumped into each other
all the time?
 
At least, that’s how
they were in the movies.
 

She ran three more blocks, finally arriving at Lerner Field, where
she was supposed to have arrived fifteen minutes ago.
 
It took her another few minutes to
figure how to get in the place, and once she did, she ran up to the security
desk.

“Alyssa Cotler,” she said, out of breath.

“Where does she work?” the security guard asked.
 
He was a big, burly man with a bushy
mustache and acne scars all over his face.

“No, I mean, I
am
Alyssa
Cotler.”
 
She caught sight of
herself in the wall of mirrors behind the desk and gasped.
 
She was a mess.
 
Her hair, this morning slicked back into
a perfect and sleek low ponytail, was now a loose mess of frizzy curls framing
her face.
 
Her shirt had slipped
down her shoulder, exposing one bra strap, and her skirt had somehow hiked up,
making her Spanx visible to the world.
 

“And who are you here to see?” the guard asked.
 
There was an edge to his voice.
 
Apparently this guy was exactly like
those mean, hurried New Yorkers in all the movies.

“I’m here to see Cliff Billingsley, the head of the Brooklyn
Heat.”
 

The security guard looked at her skeptically, like he couldn’t
imagine that the disheveled woman standing before him had any business meeting
with someone as high-powered as Cliff Billingsley.
 
Not that Alyssa could blame him.
 
In fact, technically she wasn’t even
supposed to be here, Cordelia Bloom was supposed to be here, but there’d been
that whole thing with the sexual harassment charges and then –

The elevator doors dinged and slid open, and the sound of footsteps
echoed on the polished marble floors. From around the corner came one of the
best-looking men Alyssa had ever seen.
 
Tall, dark, and handsome, he was a little bit of a walking cliché.
 
But as he got closer, Alyssa saw that
his eyes were bright blue, and there was a little bit of stubble on his chin,
which was a stark contrast to the dark pinstriped suit and crisp white shirt he
was wearing.

“Mr. Havens,” the security guard said, suddenly standing up
straight.

“Jensen!” the man said. “You hear about Billingsley?”

“No,” Jensen said.
 
He
licked his lips and leaned over the security desk.
 
“What now?”

“He got the ticket sales numbers back,” Mr. Havens said,
grinning.
 
“The old man about
flipped his wig, he ran out of here like a ---”

“He ran out of here?” Alyssa cried, dismayed.
 
Great.
 
Now what was she going to do? This was
so typical.
 
She’d finally gotten an
assignment that actually meant something, and now this Cliff Billingsley person
was going to screw it all up.

The man in the suit turned and looked at her.
 
His eyes slid up her body slowly, taking
in her messy hair, the run in her stocking (how had that happened? She’d been
so careful!), and the bottom of the Spanx that still peeked out from under her
skirt.
 

“I’m sorry,” Alyssa said hastily.
 
“I just… I had a meeting with Mr.
Billingsley, that’s all.”
 
She
turned back to Jensen.
 
“So what do
we do now?
 
Is there a secretary or
someone I can – ”

“Alyssa Cotler?” the man in the suit asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“I’m Jay Havens.”
 
He
smiled, revealing a set of perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth.
 

Alyssa’s heart sank.
 
Jay Havens.
 
Shortstop for
the Brooklyn Heat.
 
She recognized
him from his picture on the website.
 
Although in the picture he was clean-shaven, and had been wearing his
navy blue and white Brooklyn Heat baseball uniform.
 
Either way, he was very intimidating,
and not just because of his fame.
 

Jay Havens was the reason that Alyssa was here.
 
Four months ago, the website she worked
for, The Juice, had been invited to send a reporter here, to Brooklyn, to
become immersed with the Brooklyn Heat.
 
To live with the team, attend their practices, travel with them, and go
to their games.
 
And the reason The
Heat was willing to let someone do that was because of their PR problems.
 
And their PR problems were mostly
because of Jay Havens.

“Hello,” Alyssa said.
 
She yanked on the bottom of her skirt.
 
“It’s very nice to meet you.”
 
Her boss was going to kill her.
 
This was a big assignment, huge, even,
and the only reason Alyssa was even here was because Cordelia Bloom had gotten
caught up in some sexual harassment charge (something to do with their male
intern who was always wearing tight jeans.)
 
So Alyssa had been called in to pinch
hit, no pun intended.
 
And she was already
screwing everything up.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Jay said.
 
He turned to Jensen.
 
“I’ll bring Ms. Cotler up to the
offices.”

“Oh, no,” Alyssa said.
 
“You really don’t have to –”

“I insist,” he said, smiling at her.
 
“Who knows when Mr. Billingsley will be
back. Besides, you can’t just stay down here.”
 

She started to protest again, but he was already signing her in, he
was
writing her name
in a book that
Jensen had pushed across the counter, and the next thing she knew she was
wearing a visitor nametag and following Jay Havens into the elevator.

***

The elevator was one of those big roomy posh ones, but for some
reason, Jay felt it necessary to stand close to her, and it made Alyssa wish
she were alone.
 
Something about the
man made her nervous – he seemed slick, and kind of….dangerous.
 
Also, she didn’t understand why he was
taking her upstairs.
 
Didn’t a
famous shortstop have something better to do?
 
Not that Alyssa really knew anything
about baseball players.
 
Or baseball
for that matter.
 
Although she had
been reading up on it and watching a lot of highlights on youtube since she’d
gotten this assignment a couple of weeks ago.

She shifted in her high heels and watched the numbers in the
elevator slide up toward the thirteenth floor.
 
She glanced at Jay nervously out of the
corner of her eye.

Although no one was actually coming out and saying it, everyone
knew that Jay Havens was the reason she was here.
 
The Brooklyn Heat’s ticket sales were
suffering big time.
 
A little
research had revealed that Jay was their main problem.
 
The Heat had paid a lot of money for him
– 73 million dollars over three years – and there had been a huge
hoopla when they’d landed him.
 

But Jay had always been a partier, and it seemed like in the past
year, he’d gotten worse.
 
A marriage
to a stripper he’d met in Vegas, a bunch of photographs of him out with several
different women, an annulment to his stripper marriage, questions about how
dedicated he was to the team….

“So where are you from?” Jay asked easily as the elevator continued
its ascent to the Heat offices.

“Boston,” Alyssa said.
 
It wasn’t really a lie.
 
She’d lived in Boston for the last six months, ever since she’d gotten
the job at The Juice.
 
Before that,
she’d lived in the same little town in Upstate New York where she’d been born
and raised.
 
But she couldn’t tell
this guy that.
 
She didn’t want him
to think she was an easy mark, someone he could just walk all over and charm.
 
She was going to write the truth about
him and his team, no matter what.

“Boston’s nice,” Jay said.
 
“If you like that kind of vibe.”

“What kind of vibe?” Alyssa asked.

“The uptight, pseudo-intellectual vibe,” he said.

“Boston’s not like that.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“How long have you lived there?”
 
He looked at her, and grinned, and
Alyssa felt red-hot indignation boiling up inside of her.
 

“That,” she said, “is none of your business.”
 

His grin got bigger.

“Anyway,”
Alyssa said, “I thought I’d be meeting with Mr. Billingsley.
 
Do you have any idea when he might be
back?”

Jay shrugged.
 
“Nope.”

The elevator doors opened, and they stepped out onto a plush
cranberry carpet.
 
Gold columns
flanked either side of a huge white marble reception desk, white couches with
curling gold legs dotted the lobby, and huge crystal chandeliers hung from the
ceiling.

Alyssa’s mouth dropped as she took it all in.

“Mr. Billingsley likes things gaudy,” Jay said.
 
“Not my style, but you know, it has its
charms.”

Alyssa walked to the reception desk, deciding to ignore Jay
Havens.
 
She had no reason to feel
so nervous around him.
 
In fact, he
should be the one feeling nervous around her!
 
He should be kissing her ass and feeling
anxious about what she was going to write about him.
 
She considered taking a pen and paper
out of her bag and pretending to write something down about him to throw him
off his game, but she decided that might be going a little too far.

“Hello,” she said to the receptionist, a pretty twenty-something
girl with red hair.
 
“I’m Alyssa
Cotler.
 
I’m here to see Mr.
Billingsley.”

The girl looked down at the appointment book in front of her.
 
“Yes,” she said.
 
“I see you had a two o’clock
appointment.
 
Unfortunately, Mr.
Billingsley isn’t here right now.”