My Best Friend’s Dad (Scandalous Billionaires #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter one

Bellatrix

You know that sound vehicles make right before they die? The cough, cough, splutter, clunk, bang, boom, and then the ominous silence?

My car pretty much just did the world’s most accurate impression.

The last clunk is especially ominous, so I think fast and veer off the road.

I’m downtown, but it’s so late that, luckily, there are empty parking spaces lining both sides of the road.

I’m able to drive right into one, thank the stars, because Oh Mylanta, I guarantee I wouldn’t have been able to execute a parallel park with old Susan malfunctioning and banging away—or okay, on a good day with a car that has a backup camera, park assist, and the function that just takes over driving for a person, period.

As soon as my front passenger tire brushes along the curb, Susan stops the loud clunking, the lights stop flashing all wonky in the interior, the wheel turns into a brick, and everything goes ominously silent.

I’m barely able to get the gearshift into park, and I’m still not even fully into the parking space.

I curse under my breath and try the ignition several times with no luck, just more ominous silence.

I take it to mean she’s given up on running forever and for good without significant repairs.

Which I can’t afford.

Case in point, it’s how we got to this exact moment.

I was told a few months ago that my transmission was going, but who the farge can afford between four and six grand to fix that? The car isn’t even worth a thousand bucks. The very sweet old mechanic’s advice, given with a wiggle of bushy bush eyebrows, was to “drive ‘er ‘til she dies.”

Alas.

Also? Fuck.

This is the last thing I need tonight of all nights.

But what exactly does one even need after heading over to their boyfriend’s house to surprise them and finding them balls deep in not one, not two, but three women?

Okay, so I get that, physically, he could only be in one, but he had his fingers in the other pies.

I barely even got a good look at their faces, but I’m guessing they were older because I walked in on him calling them “Mommy” and telling them to punish him for being a bad boy.

That’s bad, but the worst part is Kevin looked right at me. They were on the couch and, umm, the coffee table and the floor, and his front door is such that it opens right into the living room. He didn’t even have the grace to look ashamed.

Maybe I should have taken the hint about our relationship reaching the final stages of officially being over. We haven’t had sex in weeks. Instead of just calling it a day, I planned a sexy surprise for him. It was very un-Bellatrix-ish. It had taken me days to talk myself into it.

“Fuck!” I lower my forehead to the steering wheel and allow the tears to come, even if I should be cursing Kevin.

And his decidedly average-sized member. Not like it mattered.

He was having plenty of fun in there. “Ugh!” I know my name means female warrior and all that, but at the moment, I’ve used up all my warrior nature.

The tears streak down my cheeks, scalding hot, until my pale, freckled skin is pinched with salt streaks.

Thank goodness I didn’t waste years on Kevin of the Average Member.

We’ve only been dating for five months. It’s not like this is the heartbreak to end all heartbreaks.

It’s just…does anyone enjoy getting cheated on?

Aside from being utterly humiliating, it’s just one of those trust-busting incidents that shakes one’s faith in the male population.

Err, well, maybe all the population. I can’t say cheating is limited to men.

Kevin and his darned, “Let’s date, babe. It’ll be fun, babe. We’ll be great together, babe.” Does anything that starts with those words ever end well? Probably not, as per the whole internet full of “It’ll be fun, they said” memes.

Well, barnacles on a biscuit, this night isn’t the least bit amusing.

On top of my relationship being dead and over in the most obvious and salty-wounds-inspiring of ways, I now have no vehicle.

It’s pushing toward eleven on a Wednesday night, which means I have work tomorrow and no way to get there. Public transportation and getting my steps in it is, I guess, but it doesn’t fix the mess I’m in now.

I raise my head, swipe at the sticky, gooey mess on my face, and snatch my skull purse up to fumble inside for my phone.

And I do mean fumble. The thing might get tons of oohs and ahhs and a whole lot of oh my god, where did you get that amazing bag?

comments, but it’s hardly practical. For one, the zipper absolutely eats.

As in, it freaking eats the skin of your hand every time you reach in.

It’s like sticking your fingers into the jagged maw of garbage disposal death.

The top flap of the cranium—is the top of the head a cranium?

I need to make a mental note to look up all the head and skull anatomy later—opens up to the tiniest inside pocket, but somehow, everything still manages to get lost in there like it’s a black hole of destiny.

I’ll always love this bag, and I make sure to use it plenty because my bestie, Mika, gave it to me, and she acts like it’s the best day of her life every time she sees me wearing or using something she’s gifted.

I lose half the skin on the side of my hand and my pinkie, but when I find my phone, it’s worth it.

I can call for a tow truck, and I’ll probably be home in an hour.

I might just have a small, bland condo, but at least it has a great tub.

Nothing would feel better than putting on some rage, I mean classical music, and sinking down into warm water before I toss myself into bed and not cry myself to sleep.

The phone…

Is…

Dead.

“You have to be kidding me!”

There’s no head-flopping onto the wheel this time, but I do full-on knuckle punch it, which results in a little toot of the horn that makes me jump so hard that the seatbelt locks up, pinning me to the seat.

“Motherflucker!”

That just reminds me of everything I’m currently trying not to think about.

A whole body shudder rocks me, which makes the seatbelt of prison death tighten up further.

The upper part is pretty much right across my airway.

I drop my dead phone and fumble with the release, but the evil belt of car strangulation gets a good thirty seconds of cutting my air off before the click of relief comes.

I grasp at my throat, panting and gasping for air.

In the span of half an hour, a good portion of my life has gone straight to shit.

My relationship? Dead. My car? Dead. My phone? Dead.

I resist the very tempting urge to have a full-scale meltdown.

While raging would certainly feel good at the moment, I need help, and needing help involves venturing out of this car into public to try and hunt down a phone.

Or maybe payphones? I can’t remember the last time I saw one.

It’s now just past eleven. Most businesses will be closed.

I can’t walk into some place with snot running down my face and my eyes swollen shut from crying and expect anyone to want to loan me a phone.

I very unwisely wore my contacts. I don’t have my glasses with me, and even though my eyes feel like mini sandstorms and shitstorms had a baby, I’m going to have to keep them in or stumble around almost blind.

I genuinely try to look on the bright side of the shitty times.

I’m lucky enough—if I can even use that word right now—that my car decided to die downtown.

I wasn’t even going to drive this way, but traffic was light, so I decided not to take the twenty-minute detour around the normally packed streets.

Downtown means there has to be something open.

I could be stuck on the side of a road right now with nothing more than a trench coat and towering heels on.

There’s no way I can walk more than a few blocks in these shoes without feet death, so my car dying right in front of a number of buildings is a blessing.

Providence has to be one of the most underrated cities in this whole country.

I was born here. I thought about leaving to go to college and trying to make my way somewhere else, but I love the old-timey, classic, romantic aura.

The pictures of the nighttime downtown skyline with most of the buildings lit up and clustered right on the water, giving off sleepy reflections, stand as the poster child for how picture-perfect this place is.

I can practically hear my mother’s dry voice of reason echoing in my head as I zip my purse back up, throw the strap over my arm, and get out of the car.

All this could have been easily avoided if you’d done what I told you to do and picked a stable, soul-sucking career with set hours and a reliable paycheck.

Or a stable career with unreliable, wild hours that will exhaust you and leave no room for anything else in your life but will at least provide some semblance of satisfaction.

It could also have been avoided if you’d been responsible, charged your phone, and not gone out with a heaping toolbag of douchey trouble. I’m not the kind of mother who says I told you so, but I saw this one coming from a mile away.

My mom is a doctor. She’s good at giving long speeches and sad mom faces when I inevitably end up disappointing her.

My dad’s a lawyer, and he’s perfected the stony, give-nothing-away aura.

If he found out about tonight, he’d just shake his head, but even with his face blank, his thoughts would be obvious.

Since the fob won’t work, I lock the car manually and then stand on the sidewalk for a second, glancing up and down the street for signs of late nightlife.

My heart gives a funny little bounce in my chest in a good way when I realize where the car died.

I’m only a hundred feet or so from the Bellhop Hopperbell.

My bestie since my last year of high school is the most amazing, badass, fight a herd of stampeding monkeys for you type of woman, and it just so happens I know her uber duper rich and sort of absentee father owns the place.

It’s just one of a chain of many hotels that he runs. Magnate? Dominator? Mogul?

Whatever the right term is for being so crazy rich, thank freaking farge.

I cut a straight line down the sidewalk, my heels clicking noisily.

I went for the total cliché surprise your boyfriend with a trench coat and spicy lingerie underneath, so no, I don’t have anything on under this coat except a bunch of straps and lace that offer my lady bits exceptionally dubious coverage.

From the trench coat’s hem on down, I have a professional look going on.

Stockings and heels. I also took care to do my hair, straightening my unruly curls.

Do you know how freaking long it takes to do that?

I even did my makeup dark and sultry. I wish I had looked in the car’s tiny little visor mirror before I bailed.

That sultry look is probably giving a drowned raccoon now.

Double fuck. Fuck on fuck. Fuck with fuck on top.

It’s too bad my bestie is just into goth in a big way, not the devil-worshipping stuff that people always assume goes hand in hand. She knows zero hexes. In the past five minutes, I may or may not have decided that an average member is not a real curse. Shrinkage should occur.

Like many of the buildings in Providence, the hotel’s front is stone, though the sides are brick.

The building is only about five floors tall, or at least it has five banks of windows along the impressive sides.

The street view is lovely, with one huge stained glass round window as the focus.

The massive wooden doors are straight out of a fairytale castle. On the inside, I bet it’s stunning.

This would be a lovely place to get married.

I don’t know why it hasn’t made my list.

Depending on whether or not they let me use a phone, it could end on another list.

The shitlist or the hex-wish list.

The huge doors, with the arch on top and lion-head knockers, swing open surprisingly easily. The lobby is all marble with dripping chandeliers, rich red carpets, and spiral gold staircases. Exactly what you’d expect from an old-timey hotel that wishes it were a castle.

I should approach the front desk and ask if I can use a phone or, better yet, request they call a tow truck for me. I have a twenty. I can pay them for the call if they can’t do it out of the goodness of their hearts.

I take one step in that direction, but a hefty wooden door, partially ajar, catches my eye. I creep a little closer until I can see that just beyond the door, the place looks like a cave with mood lighting.

There’s always that part in the movies where you know someone is going to get killed for walking in the dumbest direction. Anyone would know they’re going to their doom, but still, they persist. And sure enough, bam! They’re eaten by monsters or chased by a chainsaw-wielding maniac.

Lucky for me, I’m not in a horror movie.

This is a classy hotel. Even if the place is haunted, I can’t say my night could actually get any worse.

It’s just a lounge, and honestly, you know what?

I’m not a drinker, but I think this night calls for one.

Even a freaking cranberry juice would be welcome.

I’m suddenly parched, probably from the massive tear fest in the car where I cried out half my bodily fluids.

The lounge might be small, but as I walk in, I’m pleasantly surprised to find that it’s actually not cave-like at all.

It’s drenched in the same luxury as the lobby, minus the chandeliers and the marble.

It’s a different kind of luxury here. Old gentleman’s club comes to mind.

The gold framed paintings, dark upholstered booths, hardwood flooring, cherry-hued wainscotting on the walls, and matching crown molding on the ceilings are a straight throwback to a hundred and fifty years ago.

The bar takes up the entire back wall. It’s made of ornate black wood with tufted velvet done up with little gold buttons on the front.

The mood lighting along the rows and rows of glass shelves stuffed with bottles behind them offers an almost jarring contemporary touch.

Two things immediately catch my eye: the piano in the far corner of the room, sitting forlorn and lonely, and the man behind the bar.