Her Brother’s Billionaire Best Friend (Her Billionaire #1)

Chapter THIRTEEN

(Matthew)

Putting together a bachelor party for Scott hadn’t been easy. There had been so many rules. For example, no strippers and certainly no escorts. We couldn’t be out partying until dawn, either; we were well past that age, and we couldn’t show up to the ceremony looking like the bloated corpses of ourselves, having biologically died the night before.

But the entire point of a bachelor party was to feel young and single and carefree one last time, before marriage locked you down into misery forever.

The straights were very much not okay.

Still, a tradition was a tradition, and I wasn’t about to let my best buddy down.

We’d skipped out almost immediately after the rehearsal dinner, leaving the rest of the guests to drink and dance into the sensible hours. As I’d left, I’d spotted Charlotte. My eyes had been immediately drawn to her, the way they had been all night. She’d been on the dance floor, cracking up while voguing badly with her equally not graceful father, and something in my chest had melted at how sweet the entire thing was.

Then the danger alarms had gone off and I’d led my buddies perhaps too quickly through the resort, to the deserted conference facilities. Now, we stood in front of the double doors to the main conference pavilion, a huge octagonal building on the outskirts of the resort, my less physically-inclined friends sweating and red-faced.

They would see that it would all be worth the hike in a minute.

“Gentleman!” I announced like a ringleader. “We are about to experience the most outrageous night of our lives.”

“Can we experience it in the air conditioning?” Scott asked, wiping his brow.

“Shut up. This is pageantry, okay?” I cleared my throat. “Tonight, we are going to party like it’s freshman year. Picture it. New Jersey. Two-thousand and three. Drink of choice? Diet Mountain Dew. The soundtrack? System of a Down. Our mission?”

“To protect the world from the threat of fascism,” Shawn said, his bespectacled face lighting up with recognition.

I pointed enthusiastically to him. “Exactly. Gentlemen, I give you...” I pulled open the double doors with a flourish. “Call of Duty.”

“No way,” Scott breathed reverently.

Inside, a ring of tables bore some truly ancient hardware, still far better than the computers we’d lugged to the internet cafe off campus. None of these machines had cardboard boxes for a case, but I’d made sure they all had the tube monitors and wired mice we’d considered state-of-the-art twenty years ago. It was like a time machine.

All around the room, servers—the human kind—waited to bring us drinks and snacks at our request, so no one would have to leave their seats. Truly, it was the LAN party dreams were made of.

“Dude,” Dan, our camping store owning friend, said to Scott. “I’m sorry, but we’re gonna miss your wedding.”

As our friends rushed in to claim their conference center desk chairs, dutifully avoiding the humps of taped-down wires on the carpet, Scott clapped me on the back. Actual tears shone in his eyes. “This is... the perfect bachelor party.”

“I know.” I gave him a hug and, stepping back, said, “Come on. Let’s kill some Nazis.”

****

I didn’t know why I called Charlotte.

It was three in the morning. She would be asleep. And she’d never given me permission to put my number in her phone. That had been a risky move that had paid dividends. I pinched the silky fabric of her panties between my thumb and forefinger and rolled it idly. But I’d intended that text message to be a one-time thing. A quick little joke and we’d never need to contact each other that way again. One and done, delete her number.

But I hadn’t deleted her number and now I was drunk and alone and, after reliving most of freshman year of college all in one night, I was oddly depressed.

I didn’t know why I called her. But she picked up before I could change my mind.

“Matt?” She sounded awfully awake for this time of night.

“What are you doing up?” I asked, almost accusatory. “You’re supposed to be at a wedding tomorrow.”

“The Godfather was on TV, and I got sucked in. Then the second one came on and I thought, why not? Nothing going on tomorrow, right?” She paused. “What are you doing up? You’re supposed to be in a wedding in less than twelve hours. And how did your number get into my phone?”

“Sorry about that.” I should be sorry. It had been a supremely creepy move, in hindsight. “I thought it would be funny.”

“It was funny,” she said, and added, softer, “and fun.”

“Come over,” I said without thinking. It was the alcohol. It was the fact that my best friend was about to get married, and I’d just called off yet another engagement. It wasn’t because I needed to see Charlotte, specifically. It couldn’t be. Because if I had a crush on my best friend’s little sister, that would be pathetic and immature and...

She giggled. She had the sexiest giggle.

“Stay the night with me.” Was I begging? That had very much sounded like begging.

“The night is almost over,” she pointed out. “And you’re clearly drunk. And I think my parents would notice if I wasn’t here in the morning.”

“Fuck those parents,” I blurted, the drunkenness making me a little too forceful.

She laughed again. “Wow, you are lit up.”

“Like the Eiffel Tower.” I paused. “Have you ever seen the Eiffel Tower? We could go there.”

“Mmm, I’m not sure we have time to fit a jaunt to Paris in between the wedding and the reception.” She was reminding me that this would be over soon. We would be over soon.

“Then come over. We’ll look at a picture of it.” I sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m drunk and I feel weird.”

“I feel weird, too,” she admitted. “Not about you. The whole wedding... thing.”

“I ate dinner by a bear.” I held back a risky burp. “That was the most pants-shittingly terrifying thing I’ve ever lived through.”

“I know!” Her enthusiasm was a little too loud. I held the phone away from my ear. “It sat at the table like a person and ate off the plate!”

“They served it a meal.” The mind boggled at that. “Scott said they do that all the time. If there’s a holiday or a party, the bear is there. And he said Daisy used to sleep in her own twin bed in Lauren’s bedroom.”

“Do you think they’ll take Daisy on their honeymoon?” Charlotte joked. “She could take photos for them.”

“Probably not. Having witnessed her trick for drinking out of a glass, dexterity is not her strong suit.” I groaned. “I never want to be that close to any animal that big, ever again.”

“Yeah,” Charlotte said quietly. Then, “Do you really want me to come over and spend the night?”

“I really do. And that’s not the booze. I like you.” I stopped to quickly correct myself. “Not like you, like you. Not ‘do you like me, check yes or no.’ I like you as a friend I have sex with.”

“I appreciate that. I also like you as a friend you have sex with.” When she said it, the words didn’t sound quite as stupid. “Okay. Give me fifteen minutes?”

“I can come get you—”

“No, no. You stay right there. You don’t want to be the first alligator casualty on one of your own properties.” She did make a very good point.

“Okay. I will stay put. I’ll have somebody meet you to bring you up.” And in the meantime, I would brew every k-cup in the kitchen and try to sober up enough to hold a conversation.

Not sober enough to make sure your dick works? I hadn’t even thought of that. I’d invited her over without intending to have sex? That wasn’t like me.

Unless…

“I’ll see you soon,” she promised. “Don’t fall asleep.”

How could I fall asleep? I would miss precious time with the woman I was about to have a very, very difficult time letting go.

* * * *

(Charlotte)

I knocked on the door shortly after our call, and he opened it almost before I dropped my hand. Like he’d been standing right behind it, waiting for me. He grinned, threw his arm around my shoulder, and guided me through the door on a waft of peppermint and booze.

I pushed him gently away. “It’s not working.”

He frowned, his eyes visibly struggling to focus. “What’s not working?”

“The mint. It’s not working.” I sniffed the air and wrinkled my nose. “Or your cologne. Who wears cologne anymore?”

“People who are sweaty and gross and don’t have time for a shower before a hot girl shows up,” he stated unapologetically. “And I was partying pretty hard.”

“I can smell that. But it’s not a very wild bachelor party if it wrapped up by three.” I wandered into the living room, which was far too clean to have hosted a party, even for my boring brother. I wondered where they’d been and what they’d done.

Then I remembered it wasn’t my business what Matt did or where he went, and I should make it a policy to remember that for what little was left of the weekend.

“I know it wasn’t a very wild bachelor party, since it was for my brother,” I joked.

“Oh, it got wild,” Matt corrected me. “You’ve clearly never played Call of Duty.”

“You’re right. I haven’t.” I leaned against the back of the couch, my hands braced on the top. “It was a geeky computer party, then. No prurient thrills.”

“If you don’t get a sexual thrill out of killing Nazis, are you even alive?” He countered.

Okay, that was a good point.

“Look, if I smell so bad, there’s only one thing for it,” Matt went on.

I arched a brow. “Shower sex?”

It wasn’t a hot and sexy suggestion. It was a hot and sweaty suggestion. The climate in South Carolina was ridiculous and it had done neither of us a favor in the body odor department. If not the shower, I would have certainly recommended the pool.

He was still drunk enough to think making finger guns was a good response.

“I’m giving you a head start,” I warned, wrinkling my nose. “Get in there. And brush your teeth first thing.”

He gave me a wobbly salute and staggered off to the master bathroom. I followed him, listening to the clattering and swearing as he tried to do… whatever it was he was doing in the bathroom. If I heard any noises of pain, I’d investigate.

In the meantime, having a little poke around his bedroom probably wasn’t ethical, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to know how a billionaire lived. Or, at least, vacationed.

I wandered over to the enormous bed and checked out what he had on the nightstand. A couple of pill bottles, which I ignored—there was a limit to my spying—and a Kindle on a charger. So, he was a reader. I picked it up and opened the cover, and the screen came to life. I tapped my way into the library. Mostly fantasy novels, with some non-fiction about history.

Now, I understood why he and my brother were such close friends. Matt was a giant nerd.

I put the Kindle back and wandered to the armoire, to see if he was the kind of person who took out their clothes and put them away in a hotel room. Other than a hanging garment bag, he must have been living out of his suitcase. I liked that.

I liked a lot about him. It’s why I’d gotten out of bed and come over in the first place. Not that I’d been asleep. I’d been frustratingly awake, wishing I was fucking Matt instead of watching mobsters kill each other. Forcing myself not to answer his call on the first ring had taken serious willpower, and there was only so much to go around. I’d been fighting my crush since about ten minutes after we met, and I was losing the battle.

I had no illusions about what was happening between us. Weekend fling. That was all. And if I tried to picture us becoming something more, it never looked quite right in my head. But something intense was going on in my heart that I needed to keep an eye on if I didn’t want to spend a few days moping around my house as I came down from this high.

The shower turned on and I looked toward the sound. Matt’s towering height and impossibly broad shoulders filled the door frame. The body made up for the geekery in a big way. So did his smile. I could forgive all manner of endearingly embarrassing traits when he turned that huge, bright smile on me.

“I’ve brushed my teeth,” he said, motioning over his shoulder. “You should probably come fuck me now.”

“Good idea.” I stripped off my shirt as I walked and popped off my sandals at the bathroom door. Matt went ahead and got in. The shower took up the end of the bathroom, partitioned off by a glass wall and tiled with safe shades of brown and a pebble-textured floor. The jacuzzi tub snagged my attention, reminding me of the night we’d spent drinking and talking about nothing.

I shimmied out of my jeans and panties and got into the shower, standing back as he ducked under the rainfall head. The water ran down the trenches of muscle definition in his back and I had to withhold a moan of appreciation. How was this guy even real?

I walked over and stood behind him, putting my arms around his waist and leaning my cheek against his back, letting the water cascade over me. He put one hand over both my wrists and gave them a squeeze, then turned.

His big brown eyes searched my face as he gazed down at me. I was sure I didn’t look my best; my hair was only half-wet, my mascara was sure to be running, and I had to blink rapidly against the spray splashing my face. But from his expression, he wasn’t seeing any of that.

And he lowered his head to kiss me.

I hadn’t let him before. There was something too intimate about kissing that made it uncomfortable and unenjoyable, most of the time. But in that split second, as I licked my already wet lip in anticipation of his touch, I wanted to kiss him.

He froze and lifted his head. “Sorry. You didn’t want me to do that.”

I’d never said so. He’d taken the hint from the last time.

Why did he have to be so fucking perceptive?

A heaviness settled over us that I didn’t like and which I could not let grow. We needed something to push us out of this serious moment and back into serious fun.

I eyed the removable showerhead against the wall, then slid my gaze slyly back to his and caught the corner of my bottom lip between my teeth.

“Do you want to play a game?”