Steamy Proposal (Alphalicious Billionaires Book 8) Read online

  STEAMY

  PROPOSAL

  Alphalicious Billionaires

  Lindsey Hart

  CONTENTS

  BOOK DESCRIPTION

  COPYRIGHT

  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

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  LIST OF BOOKS

  BOOK DESCRIPTION

  I absolutely HATE him.

  Don’t ask me why but I asked my brother’s best friend to take my v-card.

  Annnnd he refused. Totally, squarely and completely shot me down for even asking him such a thing. Now, ask me again why I hate him.

  Ok, so I probably have no right but still, you would totally do the same thing if the arrogant jerk outright laughed and rejected you right in your face.

  Fast-forward to 3 years later, I’m back in my hometown, all grown-up, not that anyone noticed. And everything is pretty much the same including my brother’s best friend - albeit a couple of billions richer but still the same old A-hole.

  And guess what, he will finally give me that one unicorny night that I’ve spent half my life wondering about and that was in exchange for saving his life (don’t even ask me about that).

  But this time I’m calling the shots.

  Rule #1. It would be only one night.

  Rule #2. No one should know.

  Rule #3. When it’s over, we are going to pretend it never happened.

  Three perfect rules where we both get what we want without anyone being the wiser.

  What could possibly go wrong?

  It's not like my brother is going to walk in on us by mistake, right?

  Hey Loves, come meet those sexy men loaded with more than just that cash package and so ready to claim their not-so-reluctant heroine.

  The Alphalicious Billionaires series:

  - Married by Mistake

  - Faking It

  - Baby Mistake

  - Seducing My Best Friend

  - The Dating Game

  - Claiming Her V-Card

  - His Runaway Bride

  - Steamy Proposal

  Can be read in any order.

  COPYRIGHT

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, or transmitted by email without permission in writing from the publisher. While all attempts and efforts have been made to verify the information held within this publication, neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for errors, omissions, or opposing interpretations of the content herein. The book is for entertainment purposes only. The views expressed are those of the author alone and should not be taken as expert instruction or commands.

  Copyright © Passion House Publishing Ltd 2019

  All rights reserved.

  You can contact the team at [email protected].

  CHAPTER 1

  Alix

  The very moment which should have been one of the proudest moments of Alix Deroy’s life, was completely ruined by none other than the devil himself. Ross Rivers.

  Said devil happened to show up at her parent’s house. It wasn’t really his fault. He was, unfortunately, the son of her parent’s best friends and best buds with her older brother. It wasn’t like it was her college grad party or anything. It wasn’t like she’d worked her freaking ass off for four years to get her degree. It wasn’t like she actually got a say in who her parents invited over.

  It apparently never occurred to her mom that Ross Freaking Evil Ex-Babysitter Dip-His-Thingy-in-anyone-and-everyone-breathing Tormenter Of The Year wasn’t a welcome guest on Alix’s list.

  If she’d known he was coming, and bringing a matching date- that was, they were both dressed in navy blue with matching pops of red- blue slacks, white shirt, and a red tie for him, a blue slinky dress with a plunging neckline for her, a red scarf tied in her flowing blonde hair for her- she wouldn’t have bothered showing up to her own party.

  Damn, it was crap to be home.

  “You look like you just sucked a truck of lemons, Alix Bear. Or dipped your tongue in a completely disgusting anus. Either or fits the bill.” Chance’s annoying voice infiltrated her thoughts.

  Alix slammed the fridge in the kitchen, where she’d ducked into directly after sauntering down the hall, jetlagged as holy hell, and caught a glimpse of Ross outside. She wanted to be wrong. She wanted it not to be him. Didn’t he have too much money and didn’t that include better things to do?

  “What’s he doing here?” she hissed at her big bro. Chance was just about as annoying as Ross was, but he was her brother, so she had to forgive him. “I just freaking got off a plane. I taxied over here, thinking that I’d find you and mom and dad waiting for me with takeout pizza. I didn’t expect a party in full epic swing. Apparently, you couldn’t wait to start without me.”

  Chance grinned and punched her arm hard enough that her eyes teared up. She rubbed at the spot, wincing.

  “Come on. Don’t be sensitive. Your flight was over an hour late getting in. A few drinks and people were ready to get things rolling. It’s just a group of mom and dad’s old friends and some of our old high school classmates gathered outside. No one has even fallen in the pool yet. That should be proof that things aren’t in full full swing just yet.”

  “Still. Why would they invite him?”

  Chance rolled his eyes. He ducked past Alix and grabbed a six pack of beer out of the fridge. She glanced over his shoulder to see that the thing was packed. She hadn’t actually taken a glimpse when she opened the door to try and avoid being seen.

  “Not everyone knows that you’ve held a torch for Ross since you were old enough to know what a penis was.”

  “I didn’t!” Alix gasped.

  “Yeah right. You used to just about piss your pants when he’d babysit you.”

  “He only had to come over because you weren’t responsible enough on your own. Mom and Dad didn’t trust that you wouldn’t drown me in the pool back then. Or freaking get busy with some chick or your stupid video games and forget all about me even when you were supposed to be pulling my near lifeless body from the pool.”

  “Maybe that’s because you were too headstrong for your own good and wouldn’t stay the hell out of the pool.” Chance cracked one of the beers and took a long pull. He belched loudly right after directly in Alix’s face.

  She planted the palm of her hand in his chest and shoved him back, though given that her older brother was over two hundred pounds, it was pathetically ineffective. “For the record, I wasn’t headstrong. Mom and Dad seriously only invited any of your friends over as insurance that you wouldn’t forget I existed. You were four years older than me. You should have known better.”

  “Thirteen-year-old boys will be thirteen-year-old boys.”

  “Thirteen-year-old boys will be assholes and apparently they’ll grow up and stay assholes,” Alix said dryly. “And for the record, I don’t eat ass. Ever.”

&nb
sp; “Why would I ever want to talk about you eating ass.”

  Alix pressed her lips into a thin, hard line “When you came into the kitchen. You said-”

  “Oh, I know what I said. I was just looking to get a rise out of you. It’s been four years since you’ve been back like properly. Can you blame a guy?”

  Of course it’s been four years. She had tried to avoid staying in the house as far as possible during the short breaks when she had taken back to San Jose. I’d rather be anywhere in the world other than where Ross Rivers is.

  Ross Rivers. Responsible for her first crush. Ross Rivers, the one guy who’d never look at her as anything other than a kid. A kid sister. For him to think about her in any other way was obviously as disgusting as incest to him. He’d once told her he’d rather punch himself in the dick, twelve times over, than ever think about kissing her. He was seventeen. She was thirteen. She was probably obnoxious. Still. She might have been able to suck that back if she hadn’t been so blatantly gross over the years. It had been obvious to everyone that she was half in love with him. Or at least, fully in lust. He had known that alright.

  Even when she was old enough that she wasn’t straight jailbait… he’d treated her like absolute garbage.

  He screwed every girl that moved. He flaunted them in front of her. He made zero secret of the fact that he was an epic man-whore. Worst of all, he was always around. She couldn’t escape him. He was always hanging out with Chance. They were always in trouble together. Doing boy shit. Being gross teenagers. Dating girls. Talking about girls. Having parties. Going to parties. Inviting half the school over for pool parties that she wasn’t invited to, even though it was her own freaking house.

  They included her as little as possible.

  Her parents wanted her to stay home and go to a college close to San Jose. She chose to go as far north as possible.

  “Can you blame me?” Alix snapped. “I stayed away because this place is batshit crazy. Everyone still hangs out like it’s high school. Mom and Dad still work too much. You still live at home. Your friends all still come over. Your room is still a pig sty. And. He’s. Still. Here.”

  “Relax. Ross’s different now. He’s a shade or two classier now that he’s a billionaire.”

  “His family was always rich. That’s part of what I hated about him. How he liked to lord it over us. He’s likely worse now that he took their money and made a bunch of shitty stock market investments and they paid off and now he thinks he’s a rock star.”

  “He never lorded it over us. He didn’t give a shit about money growing up.”

  “Obviously he still doesn’t, or he wouldn’t have invested a million of his parents’ dollars in a stock market tip off.”

  “It was foolproof.”

  “I think what you should be calling it is insider trading. Don’t you know that’s a crime?”

  Chance slammed back the rest of the beer, belched again in her face, always the obnoxious older brother who reeked slightly of unwashed socks, sweaty closed-snin room, and stale beer.

  “Gross!” Alix waved her hand in the beer scented air. “You’re disgusting. You were always disgusting. You’re still disgusting. Four years hasn’t changed you at all.”

  “And you still have a stick up your ass.”

  “How cliché of you to say so.” Alix grabbed one of the sweaty, cold beers, but just gripped it in her hand. She liked the way the cold spread from her palm, right to the center of her chest, where that stupid tearing aching feeling burned and chaffed.

  “It wasn’t insider trading. He actually did study the market. He knew that the stock was going to pay out. That money was his inheritance, if you want to know. He didn’t gamble anything but his own money.”

  “How terrible to be able to get your inheritance before your family dies. And only a million? How paltry of his parents. Or should I say his grandparents?”

  “We both know it’s not the money that you hate about Ross. It’s the fact that he never screwed your bony ass, no matter how badly you wanted him to.”

  That. Was. It. Alix had just gone through weeks of stressful exams, her last in a long line of four years of hard shit she didn’t even fully understand half the time or want to be doing. She’d never wanted to go into business. As a kid, she’d actually wanted to be a fashion designer. Stupid. Yeah. Her parents never took her seriously. They straight up said they wouldn’t help her with college if she was going to throw her money away like that or a job that would never get her anywhere other than flipping burgers to pay the bills. Clothes were for fun. They were for stressful days, parties, and necessity. They weren’t for providing a living.

  Not that she thought there was anything wrong with flipping burgers. She would happily have worked at any fast food restaurant if it meant she could have done what she wanted to do and not been forced into getting a stupid Business Degree. So what if she could now do accounting? She still hated it. How was she supposed to build a future on that when she couldn’t even stand it?

  “God. You’re terrible,” Alix snorted. She cracked her beer and took a sip, even though she hated the stuff. She’d never liked it. “A real asshole. You know that?”

  “Not as terrible as you.”

  “This is my party. Because I finished school and I actually did something with my life.”

  Chance flipped her off in response.

  “You were just lucky you were born with a penis and basically got a free ride in life. Douchebag,” Alix retorted.

  “Having rich friends doesn’t hurt,” he quipped, sipping at his beer noisily, just because he knew she hated it. “You’re right. I owe Ross’s parents a lot. They got me in where I am now. I do pretty damn well for myself, even if I’m not a goody fucking two shoes tight-stick-ass little miss priss, like my darling sister. Your panties are so in a wad over this not truly being about you that you’ll never untangle them. Or are you wearing any? Did they melt off the second you walked into the house and saw Ross?”

  “Screw off, Chance.” It came out without much heat, and he grinned back at her.

  They’d always been like this. Her brother was an asshole. He was the typical, evil older brother who liked to torture her. He was gross. Obnoxious. Horrible. Foul-mouthed. Not much had changed.

  “Gladly. I want to get back out there anyway.” His eyes swept over her. “You should go back into your room. Crawl back in. Put on something a little tighter. Push up your non-existent chest with one of those cheater bras. Layer on the makeup. Spend another hour with your hair. Maybe by the time you’re done dolling yourself up for him, Ross will be gone, and you can pretend like you hate him behind his back, not to his face. Anyway. No matter what you do, you’ll never be his type. You’re too tall. You’re not blonde. You don’t have a fake rack and your ass really is bone thin. Didn’t you eat at college?”

  She flashed her brother the finger. He was just bugging her because he was bored. Working for the Rivers family as their lackey, watching your best bud become a billionaire overnight and get all the hot chicks, hot cars, hot everything, can’t be easy. Still, though, she had to hand it to Chance. Her brother never hated Ross.

  Growing up, their family had enough. Their parents weren’t rich. It never mattered to Chance. He had his video games and the pool outside, and he was blonde, tall, and stacked, and that pretty much guaranteed him endless popularity. And the fact that he was friends with Ross thrusted him straight to the top. Ross had everything. Nice cars. Nice clothes. A big house. A better pool. Anything he wanted. Always.

  Alix also wouldn’t give Ross credit and say that it didn’t matter to him, because she’d like to think of him as an asshole for taking it for granted. But it’s true he never threw it in her brother’s face. He never threw it in hers either, just like his parents never treated their parents any differently. Their dads met in college. Their moms became friends through their dads. The financial disparity between them never mattered to them.

  Alix knew they always secretly
hoped that she’d grow up and marry the Rivers’ only son. She was pretty sure that Ross’s parents hoped that too.

  She also thought that by now everyone knew that it was never going to happen.

  “I’ll also go gladly,” she shot back menacingly. “I’ll stay in my room until this stupid party is over and Mom and Dad do something normal like order pizza. I want pizza.”

  “Good. Your ass needs it.”

  “Maybe by the time I come back out, everyone will be gone. I’ll take a five-hour nap and when I surface, the house won’t be polluted by douchebags. I’m freaking tired anyway. It was a long flight. It was a long year.”

  “That’s what you get for being smart. You should have been born dumb like me. I turned out alright, and I had way more fun doing it along the way.”

  She flipped Chance off again and whirled down the hall. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t quick enough to dodge into her room and snap the blinds closed on the window that overlooked the back yard and pool. There were fifty odd bodies out there, her parents and the Rivers’ included, all milling about, talking, drinking, laughing, eating plates filled up with unhealthy snacks, but her eyes zoned in straight on Ross.

  He was stacked, jacked, and a straight up jerk, just like her brother. Unlike her brother, he wasn’t fair. He was dark where Chance was blonde. Mysterious and menacing and ridiculously and sinfully good looking. Female kind didn’t stand a chance in hell where he was concerned, but then again, Ross was the very devil himself, so maybe that made sense. Ross had piercing, cobalt blue eyes, the only thing that wasn’t dark about him.

  He’d had his arm draped over the gorgeous, model worthy looking blonde at his side when she’d ducked into the kitchen, but Alix realized, as she edged out of view of the window, ready to snap the blind closed, that she was standing a foot away.

  They appeared like they were locked in heated conversation, which was shocking because Ross didn’t normally use his mouth for anything other than bragging rights. Bragging rights about things that she was not going to think about, because it made her feel like someone had just trussed her up and plunged her into a burning pit of lava as punishment for even thinking about said carnal acts.