The Deal Read online

  Table of Contents

  Part I

  Part II

  Epilogue

  Part III

  Stay in touch!

  The Deal

  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

  The Deal

  Holly Hart

  Contents

  Stay in touch!

  I. The Deal

  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

  II. The Baby Race

  57. Jeremy

  58. Jeremy

  59. Evan

  60. Jeremy

  61. Caitlin

  62. Jeremy

  63. Jeremy

  64. Caitlin

  65. Caitlin

  66. Caitlin

  67. Jeremy

  68. Jeremy

  69. Jeremy

  70. Jeremy

  71. Caitlin

  72. Caitlin

  73. Caitlin

  74. Jeremy

  75. Caitlin

  76. Caitlin

  77. Jeremy

  78. Jeremy

  79. Caitlin

  80. Jeremy

  81. Evan

  82. Caitlin

  83. Evan

  84. Jeremy

  85. Jeremy

  86. Caitlin

  87. Caitlin

  88. Caitlin

  89. Caitlin

  90. Caitlin

  91. Caitlin

  92. Jeremy

  93. Jeremy

  Epilogue

  III. Keeping Her

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Chapter 128

  Chapter 129

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131

  Chapter 132

  Chapter 133

  Chapter 134

  Chapter 135

  Chapter 136

  Chapter 137

  Chapter 138

  Chapter 139

  Chapter 140

  Chapter 141

  Chapter 142

  Chapter 143

  Chapter 144

  Chapter 145

  Chapter 146

  Chapter 147

  Chapter 148

  Chapter 149

  Chapter 150

  Chapter 151

  Chapter 152

  Chapter 153

  Chapter 154

  Chapter 155

  Chapter 156

  Chapter 157

  Chapter 158

  Chapter 159

  Chapter 160

  Chapter 161

  Chapter 162

  Chapter 163

  Chapter 164

  Chapter 165

  Chapter 166

  Chapter 167

  Chapter 168

  Chapter 169

  Chapter 170

  Chapter 171

  Chapter 172

  Chapter 173

  Chapter 174

  Chapter 175

  Chapter 176

  177. EPILOGUE: SARA

  Stay in touch!

  Stay in touch!

  I hope you love this collection of delicious bad boy novels nearly as much as I loved writing them.

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  Part I

  The Deal

  Three billionaires.

  A dark secret.

  And one rule: Don't fall in love.

  The Deal. We made it to keep us safe.

  We agreed never to marry, never to let a woman close enough to find out what we did.

  But men get urges.

  We need the touch of a woman. The smell. The taste.

  So we found a solution.

  We decided to share.

  We picked three women, to spend a year with each of us in turn.

  And then live the rest of their lives in luxury.

  It worked for years. It protected us.

  Until Stella.

  There’s something intoxicating about her.

  Her curves. The way she arches beneath me.

  I'm addicted.

  I don’t want to share. Not this time. Not her.

  So I won’t.

  But Stella has a secret, too. O
ne that wasn't part of the deal.

  And now my former partners are coming to seek revenge.

  But I'll risk everything to save our family.

  I lived my life by one rule. It's time to break it.

  1

  Stella

  I toss my gym bag in the corner and peel off my sweaty top and sports bra in one. Time to get into character. Countess BeeBee never breaks a sweat, any more than the pampered maltipoo she’s named for.

  We dreamt up a whole life for her—me and Jen and Asha—over lattes and tiramisu, the day I came up with Countess BeeBee’s Bee-Lieve It Or Not. She’s up at the crack of noon, downing mimosas in the bath till one. Two to five is champagne brunch; five to seven’s mani-pedi time. Then, it’s party, party, party, till dawn sweeps the glitterati away. She drinks like a fish, eats nothing but chocolate and foie gras, and somehow weighs ninety-five pounds. Thinks food stamps are edible postage. Dyes her dog to match her outfit. Owns a Segway. She’s Marie Antoinette, New York edition.

  I can’t afford the arsenal of lotions and gels the Countess would use, or spare an entire hour for a bath, but I spice up my shower with a foamy, bougainvillea-scented body wash that reminds me of home. Afterwards, I slip into my other indulgence: a sinfully fluffy robe that cost me a month’s coffee money. A glass of sparkling water, BeeBee’s Favorites on my iPod, and it’s time.

  My browser’s already open to Wordpress. I open a new entry and hesitate, fingers hovering over the keys.

  Romance of the Three Kingdoms

  I sip my water, frown, and backspace over that. BeeBee’s a dirty girl. She’d say something more like...more like—

  The Three Booty-aires: Good Things Cum in Threes?

  Yeah. Straight to the point.

  I keep typing. It’s getting downright easy to slide into the zone.

  Klara Dunston. Shazia Khatri. Anne Sherman. What do these three wannabe socialites have in common, besides tragic hair, man-hands, and, ahem...problems walking in heels?

  Picture time: I drag in a photo of Shazia stumbling on the red carpet during Fashion Week, arms flailing, chunky necklace smacking her in the face. Caption: Have a nice trip! See ya next fall!

  I hit up Facebook next, in search of dumb middle names, wardrobe disasters—anything I can mock without stooping too low. And there it is, under “home town”—

  Well, they all burst onto the scene out of literally NOWHERE (Medicine Hat, Anne? Is that even a place?), they’ve all been spotted clutching limited edition Birkins (like, what!?!?!?!? HOW!?!?!?!?), and they’ve all banged the same three billionaires.

  And this isn’t the first time Erik Moss, Magnus Gunnarsson, and Jack Brightman have made their love lives a team effort. Before Klara, Shazia, and Anne, there were Rita, Valentina, and Jane. Fiona, Maria, and Kate. Nine women in nine years, cycling between billionaires in groups of three. Uh, guys? They’re vaginas, not timeshares in Aruba.

  I highlight the last two sentences and hit delete. There are limits!

  Now, Countess BeeBee’s all in for swinging (and sex swings!), but this takes it to a whole new level! I mean, a year’s, like, an entire relationship. What happens if one of them falls in love? Or two of them can’t stand each other? How do they FIND each other? Is there a secret, super-exclusive swingers club I’m somehow not a member of? Some kind of...Tinder Groupon? Do they hold auditions? So many questions!

  I pull in an animated gif of a dog scratching its head. Caption: WTF?

  Erik, Magnus, and Jack share more than their taste in women. All three grew up in the Bronx, went to the same summer camp, and began their rise to riches with their surprise takeover of private military contractor Blakemoor, nearly a decade ago. All three served our country (thanks, boys!), Erik and Magnus taking to the skies with the US Air Force, while Jack was a big, bad Marine.

  I grab another photo. Jack’s definitely the most photogenic of the three, six-plus feet of sculpted Greek god. I take a moment to drink him in, shirtless in a GQ spread, black-and-red Cerberus tattoo snarling its way over one bulging bicep. Its three snake-tails wind down his forearm to whip around his wrist. He’s let his hair grow out since his military days, and it sweeps low over his brow, giving his eyes a mean, shadowed look. His upper lip’s quirked into something that might be a smile or a snarl. Caption? Hoo-ah!

  Magnus is more the Nordic prince type: burly, blond, blue-eyed. Erik’s the most military of the three, stone-faced, close-shorn, standing in his corporate portrait like a general surveying his troops. I add their pictures below Jack’s. Holy billionaire beefcake, Batgirls!

  What do you think, sweethearts? Would YOU sign up for three years of high-society hanky-panky with these hunks? Countess BeeBee says “Sirs, yes SIRS!”

  Vote below, and don’t forget to like, share, and comment! <3 <3 <3

  I add a poll: Where do I enlist? / This is totally Section 8! / Only if I get a Birkin bag out of the deal! ;-)

  I’m excited about this one. Tempted to drop it right away. But I click on Save Draft, instead, scheduling the post for tomorrow at noon. Because Countess BeeBee’s a total bathtub blogger. And because predictable update schedules equal better reader retention.

  There’s more to this story. I can feel it. All kinds of intrigue, bubbling under the surface. Kink, maybe—or what if there is a network, a club, some kind of...underground sex-swap empire? Dozens of people could be doing it. Hundreds, even. These three only pinged my radar ‘cause they’re hot and famous. But there could be others: bankers, judges, doctors, professors—a who’s who of the nation’s rich and boring.

  There could be enough for a followup, even a series. A book, if I play my cards right.

  The sun’s going down. I should at least try to push on with my actual book, the one I’ve been working on since I quit my nine-to-five. I switch BeeBee’s Favorites for Nostalgia, Wordpress for Microsoft Word, and dash off a couple of lines.

  I didn’t mean to look back, but halfway across the Ponte Regina Margherita, my eye lit on the rearview mirror. There it was, the sword of the Archangel, and the tip of his wing, intruding on the sky.

  I replace “lit” with “caught,” and “intruding on the sky” with “piercing the blue,” but none of it sounds right. None of it captures the moment. I delete it all, type My mother, and sit watching the cursor blink for a good five minutes.

  Well, shit.

  My alarm goes off at six. I fumble for the snooze, miss, and send it clattering to the floor. Well, now I’m up. I drape my quilt over my shoulders and head for the kitchen. Countess BeeBee would be doing her nightly walk of shame right about now, stumbling one-stockinged down Park Avenue, Jimmy Choos swinging from her pinky. She’d be falling out of some drapey Valentino thing with a high price and a low neckline. Pushing last night’s artful ringlets—this morning’s wilted rat-tails—out of her face. Still half-drunk, and already half-asleep.

  I set some water boiling and plop in an egg. Barefoot on the linoleum, watching the bubbles rise and burst, I plan my day. Got a tip about a gallery opening both Katya and Kylie Lederer are set to attend. Neither knows the other’s coming. Could be some juicy drama there. Later, there’s Gerome Heriot’s birthday bash. Everyone’ll be there—myself included. I didn’t expect an invite, after that one awkward date last summer, but looks like I’m on the list. No need to slip in as someone’s plus-one.

  When my egg-timer’s half done, I pop a slice of sourdough in the toaster. The smell of burning crumbs permeates the air. Just enough time for....

  Countess BeeBee @grandcountess * just now

  Heyyyyy, party people! <3 Little BeeBee's caught wind of three FILTHY rich piglets dipping their snouts into TRIPLE trouble! I know you're DYING for the deets, but first, your Countess needs her beauty rest! Catch up soon...usual time, usual place! ;-)