Kissing the Billionaire's Sister (Blue Ridge Mountain Billionaires Book 4), page 1
Kissing the Billionaire's Sister
Copyright © 2022 by Elizabeth Lynx
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No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
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Chapter 1
Jenner
If there was one thing I was good at, it was keeping secrets. Hell, I got paid well to keep my big mouth shut.
I was a lawyer, and I was good at my job.
But there was one secret I had kept for almost ten years. It had nothing and everything to do with me being able to keep paying my bills.
And if that one secret—let’s call it Phil—ever got out, I’d be fucked.
I kept Phil well-hidden. Just a tiny scrap of paper no one would ever see.
“Guess who’s staying at The Blue Spot?” Hamish leaned back in the small wooden chair as he lifted the paper cup filled with coffee to his lips.
Hamish Blackwell was a big client of mine. And by big, I meant he was a billionaire. If a billionaire called me, I knew to drop everything and do what he asked.
Hamish wanted to meet at the Hard Grind, a coffee shop in the small mountain town of Castle Ridge. It was quaint, with everything wood and brown, and the coffee-scented aroma filled the air.
I stared into his gray eyes that seemed to dance with amusement. If there was one thing I knew about Hamish, it was that he made mistakes—lots of mistakes—but he could afford to. And when he got that sparkle in his gaze, I knew I had a lot of work to do. Because at the end of whatever job he threw my way, I’d be paid handsomely. But that didn’t stop my shoulders from tensing, my heart from quickening its pace, and that ulcer in my stomach to increase in size.
Despite all that, Hamish was my friend, and I’d come even if it didn’t involve a job.
“Please don’t tell me Dick escaped and showed back up at The Blue Spot.”
Dick was Hamish’s asshole cousin. I made sure Dick paid for his dickish behavior to Hamish a few months ago.
Hamish shook his head. “No, not him. Eric. Eric Hudson.” His brow rose as if it was the juiciest secret in the world.
“I know. He’s my friend. He’s on his honeymoon.” I lifted my paper cup and sipped the piping-hot coffee.
Hamish’s brow rose. “I thought he married years ago?”
“No. He got divorced last year. It was all over the internet. Remember, she caught him with the nanny.”
“Nanny? Wait. He has a kid?”
I snorted. “No. It was his ex-wife’s sister’s nanny.”
“What number?” Hamish asked.
“Number?”
“Marriage. It’s his third, right?”
“No, fifth.”
Hamish made a face that I understood immediately.
Eric was born into a very poor family, and his father became rich by being a ruthless jerk. I hated to speak ill of the dead, but, yeah, that guy sucked the big one. My dad worked for his dad, and that was where my family’s problems began.
From what Eric told me, he was just as terrible to him and his sister as he was to every human being he ever met. Eric could never be a kid; his father forced him to work for him instead of attending school.
It surprised me that his father was never arrested, just on his kid’s truancy alone. My guess was he paid many a cop off to look past Eric’s lack of school attendance.
Once Eric became an adult, he decided it was time to act out and be the kid he never was. He was a nice guy and the most loyal friend I ever had, but the guy was one big man-child. And when it came to finance, he was very much a child. Luckily, his father left him with lots and lots of money.
“How old is he?”
“Twenty-nine.”
Hamish shook his head and sighed. “What does his sister think of all this?”
My eyes widened, like they always did whenever Lola Hudson was discussed. I sucked in a breath and turned my head. “I do not know. No one’s heard from her for the past year.”
Hamish sat up, causing the chair to scrape against the hardwood floor. “That’s right. His brother was trying to arrange her marriage to that oil tycoon’s son, uh... Jackson; no, that’s not right. Jacob—”
“Julius Harold Lexcore the Third.”
Hamish threw his head back and laughed, but I did not join.
After some wheezing, he sat up. “Oh my god, I remember that guy. He was like a super creepy version of Dick, if that’s even possible. No wonder she ran.”
Good. There should be a law where it was illegal to marry or come within one hundred miles of Julius Harold Lexcore the Third.
“Yeah.”
Hamish’s laughter faded as he stared at me. “You’re not laughing, Jenner.”
I shrugged. “Just not in the mood today. Didn’t get a good night’s sleep,” I lied.
Sighing, Hamish leaned forward, resting his elbows on the small square table, causing it to wobble. “I remember Lola; she was incredibly sweet. I kept thinking, how could someone with a father like hers end up so kind?”
Something in my heart cracked.
“Yup, nice.” I nodded but kept my gaze focused on the large window that overlooked Fitzlee Street as the people clutched their coats against the bitter cold and falling snow.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Surprised, I blinked and turned my gaze back to Hamish. “Huh?”
My heart thumped loudly in my chest. He didn’t know; no one knew my secret. That wasn’t true. There was only one other person who knew, and she had more to lose than I did if it got out, so there was no reason for her to ever breathe a word of it.
“You’re usually the one with all the gossip. Telling me everything you know about someone in the latest scandal. What’s going on in their life; if they’re a jerk, etc. But I mention Lola, and it’s a ‘yup, kind,’ and that’s it. What aren’t you telling me?”
Hamish may have made many poor decisions in life, but unfortunately for me at the moment, he was no dummy.
I slapped on the most awkward smile I could muster and shook my head while I told the biggest lie of all. “There’s nothing to tell. Sure, she’s pretty and kind, like you said, but she’s just one of those people who never really made an impression on me. Like, if she was in the room, I wouldn’t even notice her.”
Hamish focused on me for quite a while, and I felt the suffocating heat from his stare, but I refused to let him see me wipe the sweat from my brow.
“I never said she was pretty.”
Fuck.
“Really? I must have misheard you,” I lied again.
Ugh, that wasn’t like me. Sure, as a lawyer, I twisted things to make my clients appear to be upstanding pillars of the community, but I never flat-out lied.
I knew what lies did—they destroyed lives. I had witnessed it too often with my clients and their spouses, their jobs, or their personal lives in general.
It was all the talk of Lola. There were things about her that drew you in, like a magician about to put you in a trance. It was exciting. She was exciting. But then, once you woke up from the spell, you’d be left with a cold emptiness that made you regret ever meeting the magician to begin with.
Lola was beautiful, but it was her sweetness that was the true spell. When she disappeared, I thought it was the worst thing to happen in my life. But now I realized she did me a favor by performing her vanishing act—it was the only way to get me to wake up from her spell.
Hamish sighed. “Look, I will not pry into whatever happened between you and Lola. But if something happened, you better hope her brother Eric never finds out. He may be a hot mess, but he’s a scary hot mess.”
I swallowed. Hamish was right.
“Then let’s move on to the reason I’m here, since I’m sure you don’t want to know what might make Eric’s hot mess turn in your direction.”
Hamish winced.
Now it was my turn to lean forward and glare at him. “What are you avoiding telling me?”
He cleared his throat. “The thing is... Eric is here.”
My eyes widened, and I nervously scanned the coffee shop. Just the usual morning rush with people standing in line to order at the dark wooden counter with a happy-looking brunette taking their orders. No large, menacing billionaire lurking about.
“I
“He’s not on his honeymoon, Jenner. He’s at The Blue Spot.”
“But that’s what he texted me last week. He was going to the Galapagos with his new wife, who studies birds or something. Anyway, did he get back early?”
Yes, Eric was a friend and a client, but he was one of those friends you enjoyed having on your side during tough times. He grew up rough because of what his dad did to him, and that was how he learned to deal with problems.
We grew close because I could relate to having a crappy father, though mine never hit me. He wasn’t the type of friend you hung out with on Saturday nights, drinking at a bar. Because it would always end badly. I even took him to lunch once, and he wound up punching the server.
“He didn’t mention any of that, so I don’t know. But what I do know is he wants to fix up Hudson Estate, the one near here, and turn it into some luxury bed-and-breakfast. He talked to me about it to see if I wanted to invest... not that he needs the money, but you know Eric.”
I nodded. “Yeah, always worried about losing money. It’s like, no matter how much he has, he thinks the next project he works on will wipe it all away.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
I shook my head. “I still don’t understand. I’m not the type of lawyer he would require to turn his residence into a commercial property.”
Hamish gnashed his teeth and mumbled something I couldn’t understand.
“What was that?”
“I can’t believe Eric tricked me into asking you to do this.” Hamish rubbed the back of his neck.
“The whole Hudson family seems to be silver-tongued,” I mumbled.
Hamish’s brows rose. “What? No, never mind. It doesn’t matter. The thing is, that property wasn’t left to him in his dad’s will... It was left to Lola.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “But how does that involve me?”
“No one can find Lola. I told Eric to get her claimed as legally dead, but he said—”
“No.” I sat up in my chair and spoke loud enough for all eyes in the café to turn to me.
Hamish pointed at me. “That’s exactly how Eric reacted. But how can he turn the property into a bed-and-breakfast if he can’t get the owner to sign off on it?”
I suddenly understood what Eric asked Hamish to do. I reached in my jacket pocket and nervously ran my fingers over my good luck charm—my mom’s wedding ring.
“He wants me to find a way for him to legally turn the property into a bed-and-breakfast.” I took a breath and was lifting the coffee to my lips as I continued, “I hate to say it, but there’s really no way to—”
“He wants you to track down Lola.”
Chapter 2
Lola
“Are you sure you’ve done this before?” I asked my neighbor Lydia.
She lifted the fake, miniscule plastic glasses to her eyes and puffed out her cheeks.
“Did you hear me, Lydia?”
“Excuse me, Jenni, but your mom is asking me a question I’ve already answered ten times in the last twenty minutes. But she’s nervous, having never had a job in her life, and realizing she now has to leave you for the first time.” Lydia put the glasses back on the potato-shaped toy and stood, pulling back her red hair that had fallen in her face.
“I’m sorry. I know I’m being a nuisance, but you’re right. It’s nerves.” I twisted the bangle on my wrist, not knowing what to do with my hands.
Lydia opened her arms. “Come here. It’s hug time.”
I let her pull me into an embrace, and it worked—I felt all my worry melt away. Damn, she was a miracle worker.
I moved into this home two years ago, which was the only one on the block that was a rental. It was also the smallest house in the neighborhood. All the floors were covered in a cream-colored carpeting, and most of the furniture was secondhand, as I couldn’t afford new anymore.
I only met Lydia six months ago. When I moved here, it was her grandmother who lived next door, but she passed away last year, and Lydia moved in. She’s been my very first girlfriend. I never was allowed to interact with anyone but my brother and occasionally his friend. Lydia was the first female in my life I could open up to or hang out with on a Saturday night.
She had other friends I had met, and one was even dating a hockey player. But since her grandmother grew sick and passed, I think hanging out with someone who knew her grandma helped her. I liked that I could be there for her, and she could be there for me.
“Thanks. I needed that.” My eyes grew wide. “What if they fire me? It’s only my first day.” I gazed down at the love of my life, Jenni, and my heart pounded wildly in my chest.
“I doubt that’s going to happen. I watched you work your butt off to get your GED. There’s no one I know who works harder than you. They would be crazy to fire you.”
I had never had to worry about money or where to live—things were just provided for me. My brother told me how that wasn’t always the case. My dad worked a lot, especially after Mom died when I was only a year old. It was all he did; so much so that he became a millionaire. But even then, he didn’t stop or slow down. He worked even harder until he was a billionaire.
My brother Eric was my hero. Dad wasn’t around much, and I didn’t grow up with friends, as I wasn’t allowed to go to school. The various babysitters and nannies I had were usually fired shortly after they started—not because they weren’t good at watching my brother and me, but because once they mentioned to my dad that we needed to go to school, he let them go.
My dad hated the idea of anyone else telling us what to think. We had the occasional tutor to learn basic math and reading, but that was it.
It was bad, but my brother had it the worst. He took the brunt of my father’s anger to protect me from it, which was why he was my hero. I always did whatever Eric told me; he acted more like my father than my actual dad.
But when he told me to marry someone I didn’t love, I said no to him for the first time. Then I ran as far away as I could. I grabbed enough money to last me two years, thinking I’d easily get a job, but without even a high school diploma, no one wanted me.
Then I gave birth to little Jenni, who was the reason I stayed hidden. I knew my brother, and I loved him, but in some ways, he was like my father. He could get angry too. And I feared how he would react to Jenni. I focused on earning my GED so I could get a job, as the money I had taken with me was almost out.
I sniffed the air. “Jenni, did you go poo-poo in your diaper?”
Jenni covered her mouth and giggled.
I groaned. “I’ve been thinking about potty training her. You think it’s too early, since she’s only one?”
“I don’t know much about kids, but she just started walking last month, so maybe it’s a little early.”
I bent over to pick her up when Lydia stopped me. “Let me. Since I promised to watch her while you’re at work, I can begin my babysitting gig now.” She winked and pulled Jenni into her arms as if she weighed nothing.
I didn’t stop her, as my back was thankful for the break.
As Lydia and Jenni headed off to her room, I marched over to the list I made for Lydia, which I left on the kitchen counter. Nibbling on my thumbnail, I reexamined the items I had jotted down when someone from long ago popped into my head. My breath caught in surprise.
Jenner Cartwright.
He was the last person who put a smile on my face until I had Jenni. That time in between Jenner and Jenni was some of the worst moments of my life, and I had never felt so alone.
I shook my head, pushing back my shoulders. I had no one to blame for my empty life but me. I was the one who ran, hoping never to be found, I reminded myself.
But then I moved here and met Lydia’s sweet grandmother. And after that, I gave birth to the silliest, but absolutely most wonderful little girl on the planet. And when Lydia showed up, I realized how full my life became. I went from being surrounded by males to being embraced by females—and it really felt like the most incredible embrace.
“I think it’s time,” Lydia announced as she held Jenni in her arms.
Jenni was her usual joyful self. That girl could discover happiness in the sourest of places.
