Her Two Billionaires and a Baby

Copyright © 2013 by Julia Kent

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

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Her Two Billionaires and a Baby

...picking up where
Her Two Billionaires
left off...

WHEN IS A LIE REALLY A LIE?

Laura flees after an amazing encounter with Dylan and Mike, a threesome lovemaking experience that sets her senses on fire and her heart ablaze. But hopes are quickly extinguished when reality settles in and she feels duped. Had they set her up just to get her in bed? Was she the butt of some elaborate sexual joke? Running for the safety of her best friend, Josie, she pours her heart out and learns that Josie has a few secrets of her own involving threesomes...

COMING CLEAN IS HARDER THAN IT SEEMS

After Laura leaves in a panic, Mike and Dylan must wrestle with their past, to come to terms with how it may jeopardize their future with her. A chance run-in with Laura and her friend Josie at a legendary Boston diner gives them renewed hope that they have a shot with Laura. When she accepts their offer for dinner – and
only
dinner – the guys see that being normal and comfortable and fun is the best remedy for their past transgressions, and they're determined to win her back, one Italian meatball and homemade tiramisu bite at a time.

BUT FEAR MAKES EVERYONE KEEP SECRETS

Laura lays it on the line: tell her any more secrets they might have. They just can't, though – hiding their billionaire status, they decide it's too much, too soon, with Dylan taking the lead as Mike feels they should tell the truth sooner than later. Deferring to Dylan, he keeps his mouth shut. The trio move on, and a night at Laura's house gives her the closure she needs to trust them again, a no-holds-barred lovemaking session that seals the deal and heals her wounds.

Until a morning news show reveals that Dylan, Boston's hottest eligible bachelor, is actually a billionaire. And so is Mike. Standing in the office lobby, gawking at the television as it spewed unbearable secrets, Laura is agog and sprints to the safety of Josie. Shutting Mike and Dylan out for good, she licks her newly-opened wounds and prepares for a life without them.

Until a positive pregnancy test changes everything.

And this time, Laura's the one keeping secrets...until a dangerous fire in her apartment leads to her rescue by Dylan, who learns the truth in a life-or-death blaze that makes everything more complicated, because...

It's
always
complicated.

Her Two Billionaires and a Baby is the 67,000-word final episode in a four-novella arc (though this one's novel length!) that brings closure to the very unconventional, loving relationship between curvy Laura, hot firefighter Dylan, and calm, mellow Mike.

Author's Note:

I never, ever, in a million years thought that the fourth episode in this series would be more than 67,000 words, or over 200 pages in print. NEVER. Readers started emailing me right after I published
Her First Billionaire
and
Her Second Billionaire
in November 2012, telling me how much they loved the story and how they couldn't wait for the third. When
Her Two Billionaires
debuted in December 2012, I had already begun the final installment, but the deluge of requests for
more more more
from readers caught me by surprise. So many folks who emailed me said they loved the characters themselves, so as I wrote this fourth installment I found myself getting deeper...and deeper...into who they are and why they act the way they act.

And here you go – what was meant to be another 30,000 words turned into so much more, and now a spinoff series (see the end for more information on that!).

I absolutely love to get email from readers, interacting and being interactive. You sway the choices I make and definitely help me in my writing, so keep in touch – and I hope you enjoy this final (mammoth) episode as Laura and her two billionaires...well, you'll see. ;)

Julia Kent

January 2013

Chapter One

The waitress's giant set of balls always threw her off.

Jeddy's was one of those neighborhood holes in the wall that had probably been a breakfast joint since Laura's grandma was a kid. During the height of factory shift work it had been open twenty-four hours and, as a relic to the Industrial Age, had never stopped. Even as the fluorescent lights buzzed and blinked and the streets were empty in that surreal hour between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. when everyone in the world is asleep and you're not, Jeddy's still had the cheap red vinyl bench seats, gummed-shut sugar containers and a few ancient men scratching their balls and chewing on a piece of something from 1983.

And then there were the waitress's balls. Someone, years ago (since Laura and Josie were in college) had taken a cut-out cardboard life-size person, put a Jeddy's uniform on her, and attached a pair of those truck hitch plastic balls to it.

It had, uh...stuck. So the waitress with balls greeted every customer with a smile, except that the cardboard cutout was actually Julian Sands from the old '80s movie, “The Warlock.”

The stuff of nightmares and cheap Netflix thrills. Everything about Jeddy's screamed old, forgotten, ratty and dated.

Except the food.

One of the owners had passed the restaurant on to a family member who had earned a degree at Le Cordon Bleu in Boston, and this had created as schizophrenic a restaurant as ever there was, for as Josie and Laura greeted the ball-bearing waitress, which involved giving her nuts a squeeze and saying “How you doin'?” in the best Joey Tribiani imitation, the aroma of the restaurant was strictly gourmet. Better than gourmet. Cheesy roadhouse Top Chef Gordon Ramsey Fucking Awesome gourmet.

Chipotle maple sausage. Cinnamon caramel ricotta crepes. Peanut Butter Hulk Smash cake. You name it, Jeddy's had it, including honest-to-God real fried green tomatoes, but with a dill agave tarragon cream sauce for dipping instead of ketchup.

All served on chipped, ancient industrial-grade restaurant wear by an old woman named Madge who'd been working the booths since 1948. And could still walk and talk faster than Josie on three espresso shots.

“Whatcha want, Sweets?” Madge asked Laura, her breath the graveyard where old cigarettes and Chanel go to die. The woman had to be at least eighty but looked fifty – except for her mouth, where smoking lines were grooved so deeply her lips looked more like an elephant's puckered asshole than anything resembling human flesh.

“Oh, let me see,” Laura said, amazed at how quickly she downshifted into comfort here. The glare of the overhead strip lights and the cracked vinyl held together with duct tape didn't faze her. Madge's bags under her eyes, though, were mesmerizing, with caked-up foundation in the creases. Who knew undereye circles could have wrinkles in them that would hold enough makeup to cover a small community theater's needs?

China blue eyes reminded her of Mike, and when Madge started tapping her stylus on her ordering tablet, the incongruity hit her.

“You guys use a wireless ordering system?” She pointed to the smartphone-like device in Madge's hand.

“No. This is a chisel and a chunk of marble. Grog back there deciphers it all with hand puppets and grunts. Now what are you two eating? I've got work to do.”

Josie craned her neck around, surveying the nearly-empty joint. “It sure is hopping.”

Madge smirked. “The silverware don't roll itself.” Those eyes. Mike. A pang of despair hit her – hard. His hands on her. Dylan's tongue on her.

Josie shot Laura a skeptical look and turned to Madge. “What are your specials?”

“At 4 a.m. you get the fryer and the desserts. And maybe a limp salad. Jeff ain't here now to cook the good stuff.”

“Do you have coconut shrimp with that aioli?” Laura perked up. Despair faded a notch.

“Yep.”

“Two of those, an order of chipotle maple saus – you got that tonight?” Madge nodded, not looking at them, hand flying with the stylus. “With cheesy potato pancakes. One piece of Peanut Butter Hulk Smash cake and a giant peppermint hot fudge sundae,” Josie declared.

“And drinks?”

“Just water,” Laura replied.

“Watching yer weight, huh?” Madge snickered, walking away. Fortunately for Laura, she'd looked at Josie when she said it. The last thing she needed right now was a comment on her weight. Eating comfort food – even at 4 a.m. – no, especially at 4 a.m. – was exactly what she needed.

“What about coffee?” Josie asked.

“I'm not making you any.”

“Hah. I'll order some after we pig out.” Each booth had an old-fashioned jukebox attached to it. “You have a quarter?” Josie begged.

Laura fished one out of a pocket. Josie slipped it in as Laura wondered how they got away with still just charging a quarter. She remembered long car trips to visit her relatives in Ohio and stopping at the L&K Diners, the jukeboxes identical, a burgundy red she only saw in ancient Italian restaurants and rest stops in the Midwest.

Back then a quarter got two songs. Now, one. Josie punched some buttons, fingers more accustomed to glass phone screens than analog squares, and soon Gloria Gaynor crooned.

Laura groaned.

“
First I was afraid! I was petrified
,” Josie sang, using her rolled silverware as a microphone. Seriously? The song was bad enough. Josie's tone-deaf performance would be worse.

“
Kept thinking I could never live without them by my side
...”

Them?

“Stop it,” she hissed, whacking Josie's forearm. The fork slid out and shot across the room, hitting a table leg. Madge strode by without missing a beat, picked it up, and threw a clean one on the table in front of Josie, her stride completely fluid.

“
And then Thor and Superman, they came to me in the same bed, and now I'm half dead, ooooooh now I am half dead!
” Josie wriggled and thrust her neck out as if singing, her voice a cross between an eight-year-old's earnest choir attempts and something out of Killer Karaoke.

“You have the music ability of William Hung.”
And the stage presence.

“
I will menage! I will menage!
” As Josie parodied the familiar chorus, Laura lunged across the table and clamped her hand over Josie's mouth. That was quite enough.

“No brawling,” Madge chided as she used a bissel to sweep the tattered carpet a few tables away. “Don't make me call the bouncer.” She hooked her thumb over at the old homeless man sucking on a cup of coffee. He looked up and grinned, two teeth total in his mouth, eyebrows shooting up to a bald pate and creased, greasy hand waving. The girls laughed and Laura settled back down in place.

“You are such an asshole.”

“But you love me.”

“Well, now you're buying.”

“No way.” Laura reached for the triangle game with pegs. All the writing had worn off long ago, and the wood was a solid block – this was an old stand-by that had probably been original to the place when it opened. The pegs were worn down and the colors faded, but the premise was the same: get down to one peg.

Laura played. Three pegs.

Josie played. Three pegs. “Doo doo doo doo,” she teased, like music from a creepy movie. “The universe it telling you something.” Laura snatched the damn game out of Josie's hands as Gloria Gaynor went into her second verse.

Just then, Madge appeared with the potato pancakes and a huge, steaming pile of coconut shrimp. Three cruets of aioli and she and Josie dug in before Madge could croak out with “Anything else?”

“Mmmmmmmm,” Josie groaned, her mouth nibbling on the end of a fried shrimp the size of her hand. “Uh, yeah.” Brow furrowed, she caught Laura's eye. “Did we forget the fried green tomatoes?”

Before Laura could reply, Madge said, “Got it,” striding off.

“We are going to be so full,” Laura said, using the side of her fork to cut a pancake.

“Is that a complaint?” Josie opened her mouth and panted, trying not to burn her tongue.

“Nope. Can't you wait until it cools down?” She pointed at Josie's mouth.

“Nope.” The two sat in silence, the only sound now their masticating, jaws working furiously on dissembling the amazing tastes before them. It was a relief for Laura; too many hands, too many mouths on her, too many feelings that didn't have a home. Eating was easy. Order delicious food. Have it delivered. Open mouth. Enjoy. Repeat ad nauseum.