The CEO's Fantasy (The Billionaire Bachelors Series) (2 page)

Tracy muttered something in Spanish under his breath. “You joke all you like, but some of us care about our family legacy and having someone to pass it on to before we die.”

“Then get busy,” Peter countered, his irritation clear. “What’s stopping you,
Patricio
?
My
sex life or yours? Afraid you’ll have to stop practicing your roping skills on long-legged city girls who don’t know horns from balls about country living? Worried the woman who’s willing to put up with your schedule and your family to make a mini rancher or two will only do it with the lights out and no handcuffs in sight? I’m sure there’s a good, wholesome girl out there secretly yearning for a controlling cowhand. Track her, tie her down, make a baby and quit bitching about it.”

“It’s not that simple, smartass.” Tracy knuckles went white as he clenched the brim of his hat. Peter had struck a nerve.

“Why not?” Henry raised a brow. “Sure, dating is pain in the ass, particularly when every woman you meet for coffee gets a four-page spread in Sleazy-Gossips-R-Us—but it isn’t impossible. It’s just a poor little rich boy problem. We’re all intelligent, most of us are good looking and we aren’t exactly wanting in the financial department. To a man, we’re all a better catch than Anonymous makes us out to be.”

Poor little rich boy problems
. It was what Dean’s mother had said to his father every time he complained about his lot in life. If she were still alive, she’d agree with Henry, but Dean wasn’t sure he did.

“Which one of us are you calling ugly, you tattooed, bearded hippie?” Peter glared.

“Guess.” Henry caressed his full beard to show off his sleeve of tattoos. “But don’t change the subject. Anonymous is getting famous making us targets with her talk about the Billionaire Bachelors. Some of us are fine with the speculation and bad press—hell, it’s done wonders for ticket sales—and Tracy is the Teflon Cowboy, the kinkiest of us all but nothing sticks to him. I’d guess the head of Warren Industries doesn’t get off as easily. He’s spent the last five years being a sitting duck in a suit.”

Dean shook his head, taking another drink. “I’m a big boy, Henry. It’s nice to know you care, but I do just fine. I don’t need to be your between-tours project.”

“Bullshit,” Henry challenged. “You’re not doing fine, and everyone knows it. And not just because it’s time for another damn performance review. When was the last time you took a trip that wasn’t for business? Had such mind-blowing, earth-shattering sex that you couldn’t move your legs? When was the last time you did something you wanted to do without thinking about how it would look to that damn board? To Ms. Anonymous and the rest of her ilk?”

“Fuck off, friend.” Dean’s smile took some of the edge off his words. “When was the last time you kept your nose out of my business?”

“I can’t believe none of us have found out who she is,” Tracy grumbled, breaking the tension. “Tracked her down wherever she holes up to write and paid her off. I’m tempted to buy the paper just to fire her and be done with it. If we were the kind of men she believes we are we’d have done it already.”

Dean had thought of that, but the results would be disastrous and impossible to contain. Suing the paper for defamation or firing the columnist would only draw more scrutiny to his personal life, call into question his capabilities and remind them about all the worries they’d had when he took over. If he couldn’t deal with one basically harmless gossip columnist, how could he handle a multi-billion dollar corporation?

“I have something in the works on that front, but she’s not the real problem.” Henry leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “If she was, I’d have convinced Peter to hack into her computer by now. Gossip happens. She doesn’t help, but she isn’t the only one who shares every detail of our private lives for money. At least she’s honest about what she’s doing.”

Then she was a rarity, Dean mused, his fingers tightening on his glass. People lied all the time to get what they wanted, and everybody wanted something. A merger instead of a relationship. A scandalous chapter in an autobiography. A picture on the front page of their favorite tabloid. Money in exchange for silence. Everyone had a price.

No one could blame him for deciding to focus on the business for a while.

Henry studied Dean’s reaction. “We’ve all got horror stories. But this article… She plays to her reader’s fantasies about who we are. Who they want us to be. The way she worded it started me thinking.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“Thinking is not what he’s known for,” Peter agreed with Tracy smugly.

“Just some harmless dinner conversation, Tracy. And I’m surprised at you, Peter. You used to think my ideas were brilliant.” Henry swigged his beer. “Question. If you could have any woman you wanted—”

“Audrey Hepburn.” Peter interrupted swiftly. “Or Lara Croft. Let’s be safe and say both at the same time because I refuse to choose between them.”

“They have to be alive and not characters in a video game.” Henry kicked Peter’s chair with his booted foot. Hard. “I’m serious. What’s your idea of the perfect woman? Librarian, gymnast or candlestick maker?”

Exchanging amused looks with Dean, Tracy shifted in his chair and leaned over to steal a bottle from Henry’s bucket. “Aw, hell, this isn’t what men talk about when they sit around drinking and watching a woman get well and truly played. This is a Cosmo quiz.”

“Save us from our sensitive musician,” Peter intoned dramatically. “I feel like we should hug it out now and really share our feelings. Maybe Henry will co-write a song about it full of angst and alliterations.”

“No, this is logic. Strategy.” The guitarist persisted. “Something Dean has had to learn a lot about in the last few years. Humor me for a minute. Tracy’s easy so we can start with him.”

“I am
not
easy.”

“He wants a family. So a woman who loves children and old-fashioned family values, can cook and is probably as comfortable in the country as he is. And we’ve known him long enough to know he prefers blondes.”

“That description makes his dream girl sound like Auntie fucking Em.” Peter joked. “Daisy Duke in chains is more his speed. Someone athletic, open-minded and obedient. Preferably discreet. The last of his friends he introduced us to spent the entire evening enlightening me on his stamina and how she needed vitamin b shots and energy drinks to keep up with the stallion. Even showed me her rope burns. I wasn’t sure if she was bragging or offering me a challenge.”

“Not playing this game with you, Dick,” Tracy warned him.

“Suck me,” Peter snarled in response, and Dean took a drink to hide his smile.

When would Peter realize the only reason Tracy kept using that old gag was because
he
kept rising to the bait so beautifully?

“Well I’m playing,” Henry declared. “To make it fair, I’ll go next. I know exactly what my ideal woman is like.” He rolled his bottle back and forth between his palms and glanced across the table with a defiant smile. “But I don’t think Dick will approve.”

“Ganging up on me, I see,” Peter growled. “I thought we agreed not to talk about her anymore.”

Dean and Tracy looked at each other, both knowing immediately who they were referring to.

“Holly Ruskin,” Dean chuckled for the first time all evening. “I haven’t thought about that name in a while.”

Peter and Henry had both been in love with the brilliant, vivacious Holly in college. Competed for her affection as if it were an Olympic sport. She didn’t seem to mind. Dean distinctly recalled how often she encouraged the competition. For a time.

It seemed the one that got away was their fantasy. That made sense—everything came too easily to both of them. It was the challenge they loved.

“What about Dean?” Peter’s voice was gruff. “Does he get a pass because we’re worried about him, or are you going to tell us what kind of woman
he
secretly longs for so he can feel just as uncomfortable as the rest of us?”

The words came out of Dean’s mouth before he had a chance to consider them. “Curvy redhead. Smiling green eyes. Luscious.”

She likes cinnamon on her strawberries.

“Wow.” It was Tracy’s turn to laugh. “This conversation is officially interesting. Helluva lot of detail for a fantasy, my friend.”

Too much detail. Too revealing. And currently impossible. “This conversation is pointless,” he said restlessly. “I don’t need your worry. I’m perfectly capable of handling my own affairs.”

“
I
can manage my own affairs, too,” Tracy agreed, “but however much I hate to admit it, Peter’s right. It’s time I took charge of this the same way I would anything else. Make it happen.”

Peter’s eyes widened. “I’m right? Did he just admit I was right?”

“Shut up, Peter. We’re talking about Dean.” Tracy pinned Dean with a piercing look. “About why you know what you want—sounds like
who
you want—and you’re not going after her. Does the bastard finally have something on you? Ready to let us take care of him?”

“My uncle makes a play for the company following each review, but after five years he still hasn’t gotten what he wants. Unless pissing me off is his only goal.” Dean’s laugh was hard. “As to why I’m not dropping everything to chase a momentary thrill? It’s called facing reality. Henry can be a wicked rock star like his father was before him because his mother married him despite the backlash. Rebelliousness runs in his family. Peter’s from old money that not even he could work his way through or scandalize his way out of in one lifetime. And you have more relatives than any of us, all of whom could pick up the slack if you let them—if you really wanted to start a family. But that’s your choice. You
all
have a choice. I don’t.”

Peter whistled under his breath. “It’s really getting under your skin isn’t it? The will didn’t stipulate that you
had
to be in charge of running the company, Dean. You could be traveling the world right now, taking dirty photographs, falling in love and sleeping in.”

He slammed his glass down on the table. “You’re right, Peter. I could have said fuck the business my grandfather built from nothing. I could have grabbed my substantial inheritance and let my uncle take the reins at any time since he refuses to sell me his shares every year. Of course, he still wants what he wanted five years ago—to break up the company like a jigsaw puzzle and ship the pieces he can’t sell overseas.” He swore under his breath. “Shit, I’m sorry, guys, but I don’t have time to play in Fantasyland. I have rules I have to follow. Rules I don’t break.”

Poor little rich boy problems.

“Hell, man,” Tracy murmured. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Ignore me, Tracy. I’m in a rotten-ass mood.”

“Like hell we’ll ignore him,” Peter declared. “At least he’s finally opening up and getting some of that inner jackass out. That is the first step to healing, and it was very informative. We can discuss this company business later, but right now I’m more interested in the redhead.” His smile was enigmatic. “She works for him. He has the hots for someone at Warren Industries. No wonder he’s tense, Henry. He takes that shit seriously.”

Dean shook his head. That
would
be what they took away from his rant.

“I know he does,” Henry sighed. “About as seriously as he’s been taking himself lately. But I think it’s time for him to drop the Daddy issues and break his rule. Fuck this board bullshit. The world isn’t going to end if you grab a little ass in the copy room. In fact, I think it’s the only thing that will cure your current mood.”

“That’s your advice?” Dean scoffed. “Stick to your songs, Vincent. You suck as a therapist.”

Henry shrugged. “Everyone believes that’s what we do anyway. That we’re spoiled deviants who use the fame and fortune at our disposal to get our way.  You’ve been living like a hermit and following your rules and they still report your every move. I say if they’re going to talk about you, you might as well give them something to talk about and get what you want in the process. Think of it as a challenge, Dean. I will if you will.”

“Don’t you dare,” Peter warned.

“Afraid I’ll find her first?”

Tracy‘s laugh boomed through the small private room. “Jesus, you two are dogs over that bone. What if she’s taken? What if she’s married and she’s spent the last fifteen years having a dozen babies?”

“She hasn’t,” both men said in unison.

Dean was no longer paying attention. He was still too thrown by what had come out of his own mouth. They’d been friends for so long now his bitter venting hardly made a dent. What
they’d
said, however, had. They were right about him being a jackass, right that he was avoiding life beyond work. Avoiding what he really desired.

Curvy redhead. Luscious.

Sara Charles. The accountant on the twenty-third floor had tempted him for close to two years with a smile that always reached her eyes, full, succulent breasts that would overflow in his hands, and that sweet, delectable ass that would look even better bent over his desk.

She’d woken needs in him he thought he’d buried a long time ago. Desires that were more than most women could handle. Insatiable desires. Not pressing her against the wall of the elevator and reaching for the bounty she offered on a daily basis, or joining her in the atrium where she always had her lunch and spreading her legs to feast on her until she screamed loud enough to alert security, had been his own personal torment. A true test of his willpower and a silent testament to the fact that he was nothing like his father, who’d practically invented sexual harassment during his tenure as CEO of Warren Industries. He may be guilty of wanting someone he couldn’t have, but he never acted on it.

He’d come close. So close there was a file in his desk with her name on it that he’d shamelessly requested but never opened. If he wanted to, he could find out everything about her. Where she was born, how many men she’d slept with. He could satisfy some of his curiosity and see if she was, unlike most of the women he’d dated over the last few years, what she seemed to be.