Mister Billions
A Small Town Enemies-to-Lovers Fake Marriage Billionaire Romance
Cassie-Ann L. Miller
Mister Billions (A Small Town Enemies-to-Lovers Fake Marriage Romance)
Copyright © 2020 Cassie-Ann L. Miller
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents appearing therein are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be interpreted as real. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
The author acknowledges the trademarked status of the various products referenced in this work.
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Contents
Stories by Cassie-Ann L. Miller
About “Mister Billions”
Prologue
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
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Epilogue
Calling all dirty folks!
Dirty Cameos
Let’s stay in touch!
Stories by Cassie-Ann L. Miller
The Bad Boys in Love Series
Mister Billions
Mister Baller (pre-order)
Mister Baby Daddy (pre-order)
The Blue Collar Bachelors Series
Lover Boy
Play Boy
Bad Boy
Hot Boy
Rich Boy
Dream Boy
Blue Collar Bachelors Box Set
The Dirty Suburbs Series
Dirty Neighbor
Dirty Player
Dirty Stranger
Dirty Favor
Dirty Lover
Dirty Farmer
Dirty Silver
Dirty Forever
Dirty Christmas
The Esquire Girls Series
Amber Nights (Amber – Books 1, 2, 3 & 4)
Madison’s Story
For Madison, Always (Madison – Books 1, 2, 3 & 4)
Ruthie’s Story
Ruthie’s Desire (Ruthie – Books 1, 2, 3 & 4)
Hailey’s story
Moments with Hailey (Hailey - Books 1, 2, 3 & 4)
Esquire HEAT Series
A Very Eager Intern
A Very Frustrated Attorney
Standalone Novels
Holiday Hookup with the Rockstar
Happy New You
About “Mister Billions”
Bossy. Infuriating. Sexy as sin...I can't stand the man.
And he's waiting for me at the altar.
I'm up to my eyeballs in unpaid rent. So is half this town.
Cannon Kingston is the devilish, arrogant billionaire with the power to save us all. But he wants something in return...
My hand in marriage.
The terms of our twisted contract are simple. A month or two of dirty, dirty matrimony and he'll drop the eviction threats.
No biggie. I've got this...
Until he switches up the rules on me halfway through the deal.
First comes the bed-breaking orgasms.
Then come the late nights, spilling secrets in the dark.
Now, he's after my heart.
But this is strictly business. Falling in love is a big, fat no-no. I'm not looking for a fairytale ending. I'm just trying to save myself and my town.
Cannon Kingston is a man who always gets what he wants. And now, I'm at the top of his wishlist.
I'm no spineless damsel, though. I can bring this king to his knees.
...Unless he steals my heart for ransom first.
Mister Billions is a steamy, laugh-out-loud, marriage of convenience small town romance featuring a billionaire with a sinful body, a cocky grin and a serious attitude problem. It is set in small town Illinois and is book 1 in the Bad Boys in Love series.
Prologue
Cannon
It's the plot twist of every cliched telenovela to ever get cancelled in its first season.
My best friend bolting up from under my Italian brocade silk comforter and flinging my live-in girlfriend's naked body clear across the king-sized bed.
Said girlfriend toppling over the side of the mattress and landing on the marble floor with the poise of a disgraced spider monkey.
Each of them spewing an array of nonsensical pleas an excuses my way.
"Cannon! You're home early!"
"D-don't do anything crazy, bro! I can explain."
"Baby, it's not what it looks like! You weren't supposed to find out like this!"
"I tried to say no but she threw herself at me!"
"I couldn't help it, Cannon. You work all the time. And it's been taking you forever to propose. Plus, my life coach said this sexual exploration thing is a healthy part of my natural evolution toward becoming the most authentic version of myself…”
I stand in the doorway stunned, frozen, as Margot scrambles around to unclip the gold-plated nipple clamps hanging from her tits like mini-chandeliers. Meanwhile, Carl kneels on the bed, hurrying to stuff his flaccid penis into his shit-stained white briefs.
I'm one momentary lapse in judgment away from torching the mattress with him in it.
Because there's no way in hell I will ever be able to lie on that bed with that woman in my arms again. Or sit on the couch in the living room and enjoy a Monday night football game with the hairy-assed asshole I built a billion-dollar software company with out of our college dorm room. Or take a deep breath of the hot, dense Manhattan summer air without choking on the putrid stench of this betrayal.
This is some fucked up shit.
I hear a faint whisper at the back of my mind. It sou
nds strangely like my grandfather’s voice. Why are you even surprised?
To know who will betray you most devastatingly, look to the one you trust most ardently.
That phrase was underlined in red ink in a dog-eared book the grumpy, old man used to read over and over again when I was a child. I never fully understood it until right now.
Barely able to see through the red haze blurring my vision, my claws clamp down on the sheets and yank them from the bed. My roar rips a new hole through the ozone layer. "You motherfuckers!" I charge across the room and tear the bedside lamp out of the wall with blinding fury. Carl squeals like a terrified piglet when I raise it above my head.
But right as I'm about to do something dramatic—and very, very stupid—I'm struck by a dizzying flash of clarity. A premonition, really. I get a glimpse of myself, despondent and disheveled, being handcuffed and hauled into a cop car. Then, I’m posing for an impromptu photo shoot courtesy of the fine officers of the NYPD. And then I’m sharing a concrete holding cell with a chatty-drunk trucker named Jim for a state-imposed time-out.
Not worth it, man.
My mother already has one hot-tempered idiot spawn behind bars. She wouldn't be able to handle another.
Nah. Not worth it.
Pushing her bleach-blonde hair from her eyes, she hollers after me. “Cannon, baby! You can’t let them do this to me! You can’t just leave me on the street! We love each other! Where are you going, baby?”
I sink behind the wheel of my sportscar and screech away from the curb without sparing a look back. I’m going home, bitch…
I always knew Margot was an opportunist. She first sank her fangs into me with a formidable blowjob at the house party where we met back at NYU. The minute my start-up got funded, she dropped her liberal arts classes like a knock-off handbag covered in questionable bodily fluids and made a name for herself around campus as my 'supportive girlfriend'. In other words, the whiny chick who spent her days online shopping with my credit card and then doing elaborate Facebook Live un-boxings to complain that the merchandise never quite lives up to the website product pictures.
But I was a horny college sophomore. And she was always down for morning sex.
By the time I was swiping my Black Card for her second rhinoplasty, she was sort of entrenched in my life. I was an idiot, so distracted by my success that I didn’t realize how little she was actually contributing to our relationship.
As for Carl, he’s dumb, lazy and as useful as the ‘p’ in pneumonia. But I put up with his inadequacies because he was with me in the trenches from the beginning, when we were getting doors shut in our faces by investors left and right. So despite his shortcomings, I didn't toss him to the curb like a dirty mattress the second our company made it big.
Because I believe in fucking loyalty.
Well, apparently, he doesn’t feel the same. And I don't play that backstabbing shit, as he’s about to find out.
I drive through the night, my tires eating up the dark lanes of the I-90 north. I don't stop once. Not to grab a hamburger. Not to take a piss. My only companion is the red hot pissed-off-ness that suffocates every other emotion that even dares to rear its stupid head.
Twelve hours later, the first flicker of daylight is breaking on the horizon. I slide on my aviators against the early morning sun. The meandering hatchback clogging the off-ramp up ahead is the only thing between me and the triple shot espresso I’ll need to nail down the specifics of the comeuppance Margot and Carl have heading their way.
I crank the steering wheel sharply to the left and stomp down on the accelerator. My Tesla clips around the zigzagging Volkswagen Quantum barely holding its shit together under layers of duct tape.
When the startled teen driver looks up from the cellphone in his hand, our eyes meet. I shout in the direction of my closed window. "No texting and driving, Fuckface!"
I leave his ass in the dust.
Beneath my aviators, my gaze flicks up to the huge green highway sign looming above the roadway.
Welcome to Crescent Harbor.
I coast past the sign with the calm assurance of a man about to ruin some fucking lives.
But first...coffee.
1
Lexi
Some girls think that friendship is all about glamorous spa days, getting matching mani-pedis and gossiping about boys while sipping on mimosas. Or nights on the town, wearing sparkly dresses and taking Instagram-worthy duck-face group selfies in the washrooms of glitzy, pretentious nightclubs.
I know better.
I know that friendships are defined in the dark moments. The moments that come with snotty Kleenex and empty wine bottles on the floor.
The moments when your heartbroken bestie needs help moving the bodies.
Or the body parts.
The ten-inch, three-speed, silicone body parts.
Penny hoists the strap of her sweaty tank top up her shoulder and throws a horrified glance at the contents of the crumbling box we’re hauling through the dark alley toward the backdoor of my bridal shop. “What are we gonna do with all these dildos?”
My stomach gurgles with anxiety. I’m the furthest thing from a prude but this is not how I typically start my Monday mornings.
"Don't get your nipples all in a bunch, Penny." I scold her in my I've-got-this-under-control voice. "I'm gonna tape up the box, drag it over to the post office on my lunch break and ship it back to the seller for a refund. Simple as that."
...And right on cue, the bottom of the box gives out. Sex toys pour down onto the rain-drenched asphalt.
Ladies and gentlemen, I do not, in fact, have this under control.
Penny scoops a severed butt-plug out of the muddy puddle at her feet. She groans. "Remind me again how I got dragged into this mess."
My thoughts travel back to the weekend. I witnessed Iris on the verge of a complete emotional breakdown after her douchey (soon-to-be ex) husband came home with hickies on his neck, lipstick on his collar and a used condom clinging to the sole of his shiny leather shoe. He abruptly served her with divorce papers and hustled out the door, brimming suitcase in hand.
She showed up at my house in tears. And I'm never one to turn away a friend in need so I set aside my Friday night plans and took her in. Just like she took me in two years ago when I came to Crescent Harbor, not knowing a soul. A quick text message to Penny and she cut short her shift at the Frosty Pitcher to be there for her cousin in her time of need.
And yes, there were Lizzo songs involved. And wine. Copious amounts of wine.
My bestie got sloppy-drunk and stood atop my wobbly coffee table where she swore off men for all of eternity then committed herself to a lifetime of silicone peen. Penny and I sprawled inebriated on the carpet, showering Iris with compliments and words of encouragement and profound one-liners from Deepak Chopra books. ‘Cause we're supportive like that.
At some point, Penny whipped out her wallet and produced a coupon to some random online sex store.
Penny always has the best coupons.
Next thing you know, there was a virtual shopping cart full of sex toys on my computer screen. Iris’s drunken finger must have somehow hit the 'buy now' button. Because the UPS guy showed up at an ungodly hour last night, delivering a shit ton of x-rated merchandise to my door.
Now, Penny and I are in an alley. With a box of sex toys. At the crack of dawn.
We're trying to clean up this disaster since Iris is still too much of a hot mess to deal with life.
A classic case of Friday’s-fun-ends-with-Monday's-consequences. Oops!
Anyway, I'm just glad Penny volunteered to help me walk the box over from my house five blocks away. I'm saving up for a ca
r and there's no way I'd be able to handle this by myself.
Penny crouches down, piling muddy packages into her arms. She gives me a doubtful look. "Lexi, these are sex toys. Not T-shirts off the rack from Old Navy. I'm not sure the seller's gonna just hand over a refund. Plus, that website looked pretty sketchy, if you ask me."
Not getting the money back is not an option. Iris is in dire need of cash, especially with her impending divorce. We have to get the money back. I don't plan to leave my friend hanging.
"Well, we'll try to return them. And if that doesn't work, we'll think of something else, okay?" I twist the key in the lock and elbow the backdoor open.
"Something like what?" Penny shuffles past me as I scoop up the rest of the vibrators.
"I don't know. " I shrug, flustered. "Something..." I mumble under my breath. "I just hope I don't end up having to install a sex toy vending machine in the middle of my bridal boutique. If I have to, I will. But I hope it doesn’t come to that.” I may have a reputation around town for being a notorious party girl but there are two things in life I take seriously; my friendships and my business.