MISTER TEMPTATION
Bachelor International, Book 1
He’s a self proclaimed bastard with a double helping of lying asshole. He's also her new boss.
From the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the acclaimed SUBMISSIVE Series comes the first book in a new series perfect for fans of Helena Hunting and Maya Banks.
Mia Matthews never thought much of big shot matchmaker Tenor Butler, but when she finds out he loaned her late business partner a quarter of a million dollars and no one told her, there aren’t enough four letter words to describe him. She’d like nothing more than to pretend Tenor doesn’t exist, but she owes him all that money, not to mention he’s hot as hell.
Tenor doesn’t see why it’s his fault Mia didn’t know about the loan. In fact, he thinks he’s being very magnanimous when he offers to forgive the loan if Mia closes her own matchmaking business and works for him for five years. But as he gets closer to Mia, he realizes two things: 1) he doesn’t want her as an employee and 2) she hates his guts.
When an old flame threatens them both, Mia and Tenor find themselves working together and are unable to ignore their mutual attraction. But it might be too late for these two romance experts to create their own love story.
Chapter One
Mia
I was walking down a sidewalk one day years ago, not really paying attention. My best friend, Wren, was with me and if I had to guess, we were probably talking about boys. It’s an assumption we all have that the sidewalk will just be there when we step down. Unknowingly, I made that same assumption, and when my foot came down and met air instead of sidewalk, I sucked in a breath as I tripped into the unseen hole and fell to my knees.
The horrible knowledge that had twisted my stomach upon realizing that what I had counted on to always be there for me and was not, was the same thing I experienced the day my mother died.
She had not been sick. She didn’t have anything wrong with her. One minute she and a friend, Opa, were headed to lunch and the next, her car flew into the median as a perfect stranger ran into her at a high speed in his attempt to get away from the pursuing police cruisers. Mom and Opa were killed instantly. The man who hit them had just robbed a gas station. For my entire life, my mother had been my sidewalk and then suddenly, she wasn’t there anymore.
Two weeks after her funeral, I had a feeling the sidewalk was going to be ripped out from under me again. I sat in our lawyer’s office and I knew it wasn’t going to be good news based on the way everyone in the office looked at me when I walked in, eyes filled with something that looked like pity. I hated that. I didn’t want their pity.
I also didn’t want to be here. Lawyer meetings were about on par with doctor’s appointments and they both always had the most uncomfortable waiting areas. It must be a periodical they all subscribe to: Waiting Rooms to Lose Your Mind In.
“Clayton,” I said, when he finally sat down after his admin gave him some papers he’d asked for. He’d been acting edgy and odd since I walked in.“I promise I’m strong enough to handle whatever it is you’re hesitant to tell me.”
What worried me more than anything at that moment wasn’t my suspicion that he was hiding something, but that whatever he had to tell me was going to be much worse than I had originally thought. I had asked a week ago for this meeting and he’d kept postponing with the excuse he didn’t have all the paperwork.
“Mia,” he said and then stopped as he read something in the folder he’d just received. He looked horrible. He’d always been on the pale side, but he appeared even more so today. Not to mention, his much-too-thin frame didn’t help matters out.
“Spit it out, Clayton.”
He took his glasses off and though I thought I’d prepared myself for whatever he was going to tell me, I hadn’t. Not by a long shot. “You know it’s been a rough year for the business,” he said.
My mom and I were co-owners of Cross My Heart, a boutique dating agency in downtown Boston. She dealt with the numbers side and the money, while I worked my magic with the people side of the business. We didn’t plan to get rich from our venture, but it paid the bills and we were two of the lucky ones who could say we loved our jobs.
Granted, the last year had been more difficult than others, simply because one of our well-known clients had been accused of inappropriately touching a female co-worker. Technically speaking, it shouldn’t have affected us at all, but right before the allegations came out, he’d done some promo and advertising for us, so we were seen as guilty by association.
It had unquestionably been a rough time, but mom and I had put our heads together and worked through it. I blinked back a tear. God, I missed her. Who would I weather the next storm with?
“Yes,” I told Clayton. I could not fall apart. Not right now. “Mama had told me, but she didn’t make it out like it was anything major. In fact, I seem to remember her saying things were looking up recently.”
“Yes, well,” he said, shuffling through the papers. “The thing is, your mother took a loan and put the business up for collateral.”
“What?” I asked, because there was no way he’d just said what I thought he did. “That can’t be. There’s no way she’d have done something like that and not tell me.”
“I’m afraid she did. In fact, I helped with the terms of the deal. I told her when we were doing it that I thought she should bring you in.” He shook his head, but refused to look at me. “She didn’t want to and I didn’t push it the way I should have because she thought she’d be able to repay it without you ever knowing. Obviously, we never expected this.”
“How much was the loan for?” My body starting shaking, ever so slightly and I willed myself to stop.
Was that guilt I saw reflected in his expression?
“It’s not only the matter of the amount, you see,” he said. “It’s also who the loan was made with.”
I was starting to get the feeling that I wasn’t seeing anything at all. I glared at him. “I think you better explain to me what it is you’re so hesitant to talk about.”
“Your mother got the loan from Tenor Butler.”
He might as well have punched me in the stomach. My mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. It was several long seconds before I managed to get out two words. “Tenor Butler?”
Oh, my God. Anyone other than him.
Clayton winced. “Yes. She went to a few banks first, but none of them were willing to loan her anything. Tenor was her last hope.”
I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that the business found itself in that much trouble, much less that my mother had to make a deal with the likes of Tenor Butler. But, whatever. I had a bit of money left over from her life insurance. It wasn’t a lot, but hopefully it’d be enough to pay Tenor back. “How much did he loan her?”
Yes, there was definitely guilt now, written all over his face. Shit.
“I’m so sorry, Mia."
“How much, Clayton?” My heart felt as if it would pound through my chest, because somehow I knew it would be too much for the life insurance to cover. And yet, I still wasn’t prepared for his next words.