Royal Flush (Billionaire Bachelor Pledge #1)

1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Friday night

G erard Barrett slid into the driver’s seat of his carbon-colored McLaren F1 and started the engine. The throaty roar hummed through him. God, he loved this car. As much as he loved the monthly poker games. He tossed his phone onto the neatly folded suit jacket, rolled up the sleeves of his Tom Ford business shirt, and ran his hands along the steering wheel, ready to let the day go.

Pulling out of his spot at the Barrett Investment Group building, his pulse pounded with exhilaration as he sped off down the street. In almost no time, San Francisco’s evening traffic frustrated him. It took over half an hour to get to and across the Bay Bridge. Another hour until traffic on the 80 thinned out and he could open her up. Gerard pulled over, removed and stowed the hard top, then pulled back out onto the quiet road and pressed the gas pedal to the floor. The scenery flew by as he left everything from his day, his week, his month behind. A rare grin lifted his lips as he headed for the monthly poker game that was about the only reason he’d tolerate Friday night traffic. It was worth it once he got away from the city.

Noise disappeared, leaving only the wind, the road, and the engine. Man and machine in sync and no emergencies or phone calls to disrupt the calmness that settled him during this drive. And he had a lot that needed settling. With a financial organization the size of his, stress went along with the territory. For him, since his father had retired, he had a lot to prove to a board that didn’t think he and his sister were the right people for the job.

Sometimes, the drive to Solano Stables was too short, not giving him time to think through his problems. His solitude would disappear when he arrived, though he couldn’t complain. Reflective time would be replaced by a camaraderie five years in the making. He couldn’t feel bad about that.

His grin widened as he thought about the week they all met. He’d sponsored a weekend think tank for CEOs from finance, tech, and basically any industry with the desire and ability to shape the future of capitalism in the world. The last night of the conference, he’d sat around the outside fire pit at the ski chalet with five remaining men, smoking cigars and drinking thirty-year-old Glenfiddich. All of them were from the San Francisco area at the time, hungry for growth, and full of ideas.

Now, five years later, they still met monthly for a game of poker and a sharing of ideas. It had served them all well. Except maybe Brody, who’d given up the fast track lifestyle to run his parents’ dude ranch.

A car roared up beside Gerard on the two lane road. A bright yellow Porsche Boxter convertible, so it had to be Mateo. Taking his eyes off the road long enough to glance at the blond-haired man who grinned back at him, Gerard’s smile widened, and he opened up the throttle.

Mateo whooped as he kept pace with Gerard for all of thirty seconds before the McLaren, with its top speed of 240 mph, left him in the dust. Gerard waved, laughing. Every month, Mateo tried to best him. Every month, he failed.

Movement in the rearview mirror caught Gerard’s eye. Mateo slowed, then turned into a side road. Gerard looked around. Shit. He’d blown right past the entrance to Brody’s ranch. Mateo would beat him there tonight.

Well, there was a first time for everything. He slowed, turned around, and soon pulled up beside the yellow Porsche in a small, gravel parking lot outside a one-story, stucco ranch house with a clay tile roof. Mateo, the quintessential Californian with his short, trendy blond hair and blue eyes, leaned against the hood of his car, arms crossed over his chest, and a wide grin on his face.

“All right, all right,” Gerard said, as he turned the car off, then climbed out and ran his hands through his hair to straighten it. “You beat me.”

“Won’t be the last time, either.”

“Ha. We’ll see about that.” He slapped Mateo on the back, and the gesture was returned twice as hard.

“Looks like the others are already here.”

Xander’s white four-door Bimmer sat next to Ben’s black Cadillac, an electric one, of course. That was Ben’s thing, away from the movie business. He followed all the current trends about saving the environment and ecosystems for future generations.

Gerard looked at his watch. Nine o’clock. In spite of the traffic, they were right on time. “We’d better get in there. Otherwise, Ben will ignore the no phones rule, and Xander will be fast asleep.”

Solano Stables’ main house was a sprawling Spanish-style abode. He grabbed his overnight bag, and they strode up the wide steps to a verandah as long as the house, heading inside without knocking. Brody lived alone, so why he needed a six-bedroom home was beyond Gerard. His own tight three-bedroom condo was all a single man needed, right? A bedroom, a spare, and a home office. Perfection, and all in shades of his favorite color. Gray.

Brody’s place teemed with color. This was what Brody had chosen when he left finance to return to his parents’ ranch. A ranch he now owned and operated since his parents passed away a couple years earlier.

“Hey, here’s the latecomers,” Ben said from the bar, brushing his shoulder length hair back. A movie exec, he’d lived the most lavish lifestyle of any of them, in the public eye, at least. Behind closed doors, he was one of the most down-to-earth people Gerard had ever met.

“I have to look like a player,” he’d said when they kidded him.

“About time you got here,” Brody said, sitting next to Xander at the poker table. He grabbed the deck from his friend and shuffled the cards.

Xander, the quiet one on a good night, was positively sullen tonight and didn’t even crack a smile when Gerard nodded a hello. What was up with that?

“We hit traffic,” Mateo said, heading for the ornate bar that spanned one whole side of their poker room. It didn’t fit the motif of the house, but Brody had fallen in love with the antique from a local pub that had been torn down. He’d painstakingly sanded down the mahogany and stained it lighter. It worked in here, a large gathering room he used for guests and poker nights. The only thing missing was the mirror behind the bar. Brody had commissioned a mural of ranch life in its place.

“We all come from cities, kid,” Ben said. “Traffic is no excuse.”

“You moved to L.A. and flew up in the company jet. That doesn’t count,” Mateo said, placing five cigars on the table.

“Hey, I had to drive here from the airport.”

Gerard shook his head and went to the bar.

“The usual?” Ben said.

“Of course.”

As soon as they all took their seats, Brody set the cards in front of Gerard to cut, and the game began.

Three hours—and several drinks—later, the ventilation system had given up ridding the room of stale cigar smoke, and the conversation had gone quiet. Gerard, sitting on a full house, aces over tens, focused on maintaining his poker face while under the strong influence of good whiskey, until Xander woke them all up.

“Danni left me.”

“What the hell?” Ben, who’d become Gerard’s only competition this hand, threw his cards down. Face up.

“Hey,” Gerard said. “You can’t just throw down like that, damn it. I’ve got the best hand I’ve had all night.”

“I don’t care. Take the pot.” Ben turned to Xander. “What happened?”

“She said she couldn’t do this anymore. Didn’t give me any explanation, except to say, ‘It’s not you, babe. It’s me.’”

Brody reached for Xander’s shoulder. “Ah, hell, man. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Sucks.” Xander cleared his throat.

Gerard sighed, staring at his cards.

“Sorry I ruined your hand,” Xander mumbled.

Gerard tossed his cards to the center. With one last look of regret, he turned to Xander. “You’re more important than a poker hand. I’m sorry about Danni.”

“You couldn’t change her mind?” Brody said, picking up all the cards.

Xander shook his head. “She had her say, then ran out before I could even wrap my head around it. Then, she just…disappeared.”

“When did she leave?” Ben said, stubbing out his cigar.

“Thirteen days and five hours ago.”

“That’s harsh.” Brody boxed the cards up.

Gerard thumped the table with his fist. “I’m sick of women messing with us. Brittney just filed a lawsuit against me for harassment.” Always careful who he dated, he’d let the twenty-something convince him they could sleep together without strings. He knew better, and now, she’d screwed him royally.

Mateo cocked his head. “Remind me…which one was Brittney?”

“The starlet.”

Ben held up both hands. “Not someone under contract to my company.”

“We went out exactly two times, made love once, and she got all starry-eyed, wanting some serious relationship. I told her I don’t do serious, and bam , I got served almost before the sheets cooled.”

“She doesn’t work for you, so how can she claim harassment?”

“She says with me being so well off financially, I held the position of power in our relationship, and I used her for sex.”

“That’s bullshit.” Brody, who’d grabbed his cowboy hat from the back of the chair, stared at it like he wanted to punch it, then jammed it on his head instead.

“I know. I’m done with women. All they do is take, take, take.” Gerard drummed his hands on the table. “In fact, I’m ready to pledge, right here and now, that I’m done. No sex, no serious relationships, and absolutely no ideas about marriage. Anyone want in?”

“I’ll jump on that bandwagon,” Xander said. “It’s not like there will ever be another Danni, anyhow.”

“Me too,” Brody chipped in, rubbing his beard. “Women come here all the time and don’t want to ride anything but me…all the way to the bank. I don’t take them up on their offers, but I need a break from it all, and this might be an excellent excuse.”

Ben scrubbed a hand through his hair. “All right. I’m in. I’m tired of the shallow women I’ve been meeting. They all have ulterior motives, so I’m your fourth.”

The four of them turned to look at Mateo, who glared at each in turn. “What do you want from me? Women are fun, and I love them.”

“You just haven’t been stung yet. Probably because you manage to keep your wealth fairly well hidden, though that car is a dead giveaway,” Gerard said. “One of these days, you’re going to get hit and hit hard. And I’m not talking about the car.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m ready to be celibate for the rest of my life.”

“All right.” Gerard grabbed a piece of paper. “How about a bet? A five-year moratorium on women and dating.”

“Fuck no,” Mateo said. “That’s too long. One year.”

“Two?” Ben said.

“I can live with two years,” Gerard said.

“Works for me,” Xander mumbled.

“Yeah, sounds great,” Brody chimed in.

“That’s a fucking long time to go without a woman.” Mateo slumped down in his chair.

“You’ve always got your hand. It’s more loyal, anyhow,” Gerard said, writing as he spoke.

“Ha ha.” Mateo threw a box of cards at Gerard, who caught it mid-air and kept writing.

“What’s the bet?”

“$100,000 each,” Ben said.

“No one said anything about putting money on the table,” Mateo cried.

“Gotta make it worth staying the course. So”—Gerard looked around the table—“whoever breaks the pledge pays in a hundred grand. Last man standing solo gets the pot.”

“Wait a minute,” Mateo said. “You’re the most competitive of all of us. You’d go down in flames before you lost a bet.”

Gerard grinned. “It’ll keep us all in line.”

“What happens if we all fall?” Brody said.

“At the same time? Not going to happen.”

“It could.”

“I don’t know. I suppose, if the last two fall at the same time, we could donate the money to charity.”

“Works for me,” Ben said. Everyone else nodded.

“Okay, here’s the pledge.” Gerard picked up the paper and read aloud what he’d written, wondering if they were all insane or not. To him, it sounded like the perfect solution. He could focus on work and forget all the peripheral shit.

“We’re fucking crazy to sign this, you know,” Mateo cautioned.

“Now you can focus more on that company you own,” Gerard shot back.

“My company is doing just fine,” Mateo grumbled.

He handed the paper and pen to Brody. “Read it, sign it, and date it.”

Once the pledge made it around the table, he folded it and tucked it into his pants pocket. “I’ll put this in my safe at work next week.”

Ben stood. “On that note, I’m beat.” He looked at Brody. “Same room as usual?”

“Yep. Your rooms are all ready.” He held his head for a moment. “Breakfast will be late, say, eleven?”

“Works for me.”

Xander pushed up from the table. “I’ll probably pass on breakfast and head back to the city.”

“You can’t bail on the weekend,” Gerard said, frowning. That was the rule. They stayed the weekend.

“Not in the mood, Barrett, so get off my back.” Xander flipped him off and walked out.

Gerard was the last to leave the poker room and turned out the lights. They’d been staying here for so long, they all knew their way around the house in the dark. He found his room easily and paused in the hall, looking at Xander’s closed door. His friend was hurting, and Gerard had been a prick, damn near picking his poker hand over Xander. He needed to make this right, so he crossed to the door, knocked, and went in. He found Xander on the verandah.

Sticking his hands deep in his pockets as he joined Xander, Gerard said what he’d come to say. “I’m an ass.”

“Yep.” Xander didn’t look at him, just kept staring out into the darkness.

He placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You know I don’t do emotions well.”

That was an understatement.

“I hate that this happened to you,” he continued, trying to get through. He squeezed Xander’s shoulder again.

“Yeah, I know.”

“We good?”

“Yeah. We’re good.”

He’d done what he came to do. Make things right. Yet it was hard to see Xander like this. He was a good man and a good friend. “You want to talk?”

“God, no.”

Nothing more he could do. Damn it. Only time could take the man’s pain away. “Good night, then.” With a final squeeze, Gerard turned to leave. At the door, he turned back. “You need anything, call, all right?”

With one quick nod, Xander acknowledged the offer. Gerard left and headed for his own room. He wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on anyone, especially not his friend. Brittney was a royal pain in the ass, but at least she hadn’t broken his heart like Danni had Xander’s. Women were nothing but trouble, and that pledge would be the best thing for all of them.

Gerard looked at the bed, not quite ready to climb in. Instead, he opened his own verandah doors and stepped out into the darkness. He noticed that Xander’s doors were now closed.

Brody’s love of this place was understandable. As Gerard sat quietly in a chair and put his feet up on an ottoman, he listened to the crickets and night birds and felt the calm of ranch life sink into him. A couple deep breaths and all the tension that held him together eased. He melted into the chair and closed his eyes.

Listening. Not thinking. In the moment.

Until he fell sound asleep.