Her Sizzling Billionaire (Tycoons of Pleasure Valley #1)

1. Saylor

SAYLOR

The clip had forty million views by the time I pressed play.

Three people ahead of me in the Bitstream line, my coffee order already decided, thumb hovering over a video I’d watched twice since rolling out of bed.

I was watching someone’s reaction video—a woman shaking her head in disbelief while a podcast clip played underneath.

The audio featured a tech CEO’s voice, steady and unbothered, while the interviewer lobbed a softball about the latest round of layoffs across the industry.

Every CEO in the country knew the script.

We’re deeply saddened. Our hearts go out. We’re committed to supporting affected employees through this transition.

He didn’t use the script.

“Look,” he said, and I could almost hear the interviewer’s posture change.

“The truth no one wants to say is that if automation can do the work of a hundred people for a fraction of the cost, no company is going to keep paying a hundred salaries out of sentiment. Pretending we’re heartbroken about it doesn’t change basic accounting. ”

The clip cut there. Every time. Fifteen seconds, stripped of whatever he’d said next, packaged for maximum damage. It had been on every feed and in every group chat for three days straight.

“That man needs a publicist or a muzzle,” I said. “Possibly both.”

I wasn’t talking to anyone. That was the problem.

Bitstream was my coffee shop—ground floor of my building—and at 6:45 on a Tuesday, the place was never all that busy.

I’d gotten comfortable enough to talk to my phone screen the way I talked to my TV.

Out loud. Unfiltered. Full editorial confidence.

“Muzzle’s cheaper.”

The voice came from directly behind me. Low, unhurried, carrying a warmth that didn’t match the words.

My shoulders pulled tight before I turned around.

When I did, the first thing I registered was the tattoos.

Dark, intricate ink covering both arms from wrist to shoulder, vanishing under the sleeves of a plain black T-shirt that stretched across a chest broad enough to block out the menu board.

Full beard, neatly kept. Dark hair, slightly pushed back.

He was tall enough that I had to tip my chin up to find his eyes. When I did, the second thing I registered was that he was looking at me with an expression caught somewhere between amusement and genuine interest.

My face went hot. “I wasn’t—”

“You were.” The corners of his mouth moved. Not quite a grin. Just enough. “A publicist or a muzzle. Those were the options.”

“I didn’t realize anyone was behind me.”

“I got that.”

Someone behind him cleared their throat. Neither of us moved. He stood with his hands loose at his sides, still in a way that said he was used to the room adjusting to him, not the other way around.

I faced front and ordered my usual. When I stepped to the pickup counter, he should’ve stayed in line to place his own order.

End of interaction. But he stepped up beside me instead, close enough that I could see the edges of an ornate design across his chest, just visible above his collar.

Wings, maybe. Or something more intricate.

My eyes tracked the lines before I could stop them.

“So what would you do?” he asked.

“What?”

“If you were his publicist. Not his muzzle. What’s the move?”

I looked at him. The amusement was still there, but underneath it, something sharper had surfaced. Real curiosity.

“His problem isn’t what he said,” I told him. “His problem is that fifteen seconds is all anyone’s seen. A clip that short is doing the storytelling for him. If you let someone else’s edit define your narrative, you’ve already lost.”

“And if what he said is what he actually believes?”

“Then you don’t make him walk it back. PR 101—you never put a client in front of a camera to say something they don’t mean. Audiences can always tell.” I stopped. Work voice. Coffee shop. Stranger. “Sorry. Occupational hazard.”

“Don’t stop.” His eyes hadn’t moved from my face. “What would you actually do?”

“Find the piece of the truth that the clip cut out. There’s always one. And you let that do the work.”

He studied me for a beat too long. His gaze dropped to my mouth and came back up, and my pulse did something I was going to pretend didn’t happen.

“You do this for a living,” he said. Not a question.

“I’m in PR.”

“You’re a good person to know.” He stepped back. “The piece of the truth the clip didn’t show. I’ll remember that.”

He walked out. No name, no number, no backward glance. No coffee, either—he’d left the line to stand next to me and never gone back to it.

I grabbed my iced latte and took the stairs to 3C, passing the girl from 3F on the second-floor landing. Dark hair, earbuds in, eyes down. She lived at the end of my hall, and I’d seen her a dozen times. She had never once said hi. One of these days, I was going to fix that.

By 7:30, I was showered, dressed, and walking through the glass doors of T.

Tomlinson Public Relations. The office was half-empty.

Renata and Chuck were at a crisis communications conference in San Diego through Friday, which left Tasha, me, and Dennis holding down a client list already too long for five people.

Tasha’s office door was closed. Through the glass wall, I could see her on a call, one hand pressed flat against her desk, jaw tight. The Glassman account. It had been on fire for a week.

Dennis intercepted me at my desk. “We got a call last night. Juniper Intelligence.”

Everyone in PR knew that name this week.

“Their CEO’s podcast clip went nuclear,” Dennis continued. “The board wants crisis management yesterday. Tasha took the call at eleven last night and said yes. She’s drowning in Glassman, I’m maxed on the Ridgewell rebrand, and she needs someone to take the intake meeting.”

My stomach tightened. “The intake meeting. With Juniper Intelligence.”

“Friday morning. Their offices. Standard intake—company background, timeline of events, his version of what happened on the podcast. Gather the raw material, bring it back, Tasha builds the strategy.” He pulled up a briefing deck on his laptop and turned the screen toward me.

“Read through this tonight. Everything you need on the company and the—”

His face filled the screen.

Dark beard. Dark hair. Tattoos disappearing under a charcoal suit jacket this time, but I knew exactly what was underneath it. The photo was corporate—boardroom backdrop, jaw set, no trace of the almost-smile he’d given me forty-five minutes ago at a coffee shop counter.

Maddox Vale. CEO, Juniper Intelligence.

Dennis was still talking. Something about the board’s timeline, the scope of the engagement, Tasha’s expectations. None of it registered. My iced latte was sweating a ring onto my desk and the hum in my chest had collapsed into something closer to free fall.

The man I’d told needed a publicist or a muzzle was now my client. And I’d already given him my entire strategy for free.