The Playboy's Ménage (The Billionaire Bachelors Series) (6 page)

Disbelief doused her in a shower of ice. “
Peter?
Damn it.” She rolled away from both of them and got to her feet beside the bed, her knees like Jell-O. “I don’t remember you being a tease.”

He pushed himself off the bed and she could see how aroused he was, his erection—God, she still remembered how he felt inside her—pressing insistently against his pants.

“Funny,” he responded darkly. “I remember quite clearly that you were.”

Henry took her pillow and covered his face to muffle his scream of frustration. “You’re tearing me apart,” he shouted the iconic James Dean quote through the down and cotton pillowcase, making Holly smile. He lowered the pillow and blew her a kiss. “He’s right though, Betty. You were an epic tease. The queen of the tease. Kept us dangling for months. Maybe that’s why you were such a good stripper.”

“Burlesque dancer.”

“Don’t spoil my dream.”

Peter took her hand and she felt all her frustration start to fade. “Are you sure, Peter?”

He squeezed her fingers gently before letting her go. “I’m sure this is the only way it will happen. Think about it and we’ll see you tomorrow. As soon as you come to us, you’ll come for us. Henry?”

“Son of a bossy bitch,” Henry grumbled, rolling off the bed and reaching for his shirt. “I guess we’ll be going now that he’s chosen his form of payback. I’ve got to tell you, this is not how I was expecting the evening to end.”

Holly stood there in her shirt and underwear, crossing her arms over her chest to hold herself together until they left. “Me either.”

She wasn’t sure how she’d been expecting it to go, but this was not even close.

He pointed at her and wagged his finger. “I’m not so sure. I was settling in for an evening of banter and sexual innuendo that would eventually lead to the reveal of my master plan. You were the one who played the research card as soon as he walked through the door. I knew when you said it he wouldn’t be able to resist. I think you did too.”

He slid his finger under her chin and tilted her lips up to his for a soft, lingering kiss. “This is what you were waiting for, isn’t it? What we were both waiting for. Now don’t let me down. Pack your bikini and your Burlesque costume and join us at the Faraday estate tomorrow morning. If you don’t show up by noon he might call out the National Guard. Or ninjas. You know he has the resources and he’s in that kind of mood.”

She laughed and closed her eyes when he pressed his lips to her forehead. “Goodnight, Henry.”

As soon as you come to us, you’ll come for us.

Holly definitely had a touch of masochism, but she wasn’t an idiot. She’d needed to start packing.

Three months.

How much clothing would she really need?

Henry threw a balled up napkin at Peter’s head as he finished his breakfast on the patio.  “Are you done yet, 007? Satisfied?”

Peter glared up from his computer in irritation. He’d spent his morning shamelessly perusing Henry and Holly’s email exchanges. Despite it being Henry’s idea, he felt like a damn Peeping Tom reading her responses to the “Holly Report,” but he wouldn’t allow himself to be sorry. He’d been kept outside the loop for too long. 

“Not even close, Vincent. But you didn’t show me these to satisfy
me
as much as you did to ease your own guilt.”

Henry rolled his eyes, grabbing his plate and getting to his feet. “Figure that out by yourself, genius? Look, forget it. You know just about everything now. We talked, we met for drinks, and we talked some more. Tame and boring stuff.”

“I suppose you weren’t trying to seduce her.”

“I was taking my time, getting to know her again,” Henry corrected. “Then you showed up and five minutes later, here we are. You get to run things for the next three months, we all get laid and I will do my damnedest to remember that I owe you and follow your lead. I have no problem with that role, as long as it gets me what I want. And just so you know, I’ve wanted to tell you about Holly for a while.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He paused, stopping beside Peter. “Honestly? I wasn’t sure you’d forgiven her for leaving yet.”

Peter scoffed. “After seventeen years you thought I hadn’t…but you had?”

Henry nodded, his brown eyes sad and sincere. “I forgave her as soon as she walked out the door. You might have too, if I’d been a better friend and told you why, whether you were ready to hear it or not. Chalk it up to being young and dumb and too wrapped up in my own regrets to hold your poor little rich boy hand.”

Peter slammed the computer closed and got out of his chair, following Henry inside to the cavernous kitchen where he used to chase the cooks around as a child. “You’re telling me you knew why she left? That you always knew?”

“I’m telling you I respected your moratorium on all things Holly.” Henry sighed. “I miss Martina. She made the best breakfast burritos. I know you have day crews still coming in, but are you sure we can’t keep the permanent staff on for this project of ours? They’ve kept bigger secrets, and cooking might be the one skill you haven’t mastered.”

“Henry.”

“Fine.” He set his plate down and turned to lean against the counter, his large body tense. “Mom heard things back then. The world of the filthy rich is a small one, its own little cul-de-sac of sin where everybody knows everyone else’s business. Mom hasn’t got a judgmental bone in her body—I mean, look who she’s married to—but when I told her I was dating Holly, she warned me to steer clear of meeting her mother. Said she was bad news, already on her third husband and looking to upgrade to a richer number four. From the implication, she wouldn’t have been above seducing her daughter’s young boyfriend if he fit the bill and she got a tiara out of it.” He took a breath, shaking his head. “After Holly left, I found out about the scandal that happened the day she showed up at our place. I guess her stepfather found her mother in bed with his married golfing buddy. There was a fight and the police were called. Everyone knew.”

Peter ran a hand through his hair and tugged, feeling a headache coming on. “Bullshit. How did I not know this?”

Henry winced. “Because I didn’t tell you. I thought if she hadn’t said anything, had never mentioned her mother once since we started seeing her, it probably wasn’t something she wanted to talk about.” He shrugged. “I can’t say that I blame her—you know how much flak she took at our school from those rich sorority bitches. Can you imagine how they would have reacted after finding out her mother was a bona fide gold digger?”

Had Holly thought Peter or Henry would judge her because of her mother’s obvious ambitions? Had she made an assumption based on the kind of money they came from instead of who they were?

I was just being selfish. Greedy. I think it’s genetic.

Her words came back to slap him in the face. And the emails—how many times had she mentioned to Henry the relationships she’d cut short because she didn’t want things to get serious? She didn’t want to hurt anyone when “reality” got in the way. Almost exactly what she’d said to Peter that last day.

Was that the reality she was talking about? Did she think she was anything like her mother? Or was she trying to make sure she wasn’t by limiting her commitments? Hell, even the three-month project rule and her job writing other people’s stories made more sense now.

She was still running.

It would be better for all of them if he kept that in mind for the next few months. Holly wasn’t going to stay.

Peter crossed his arms. “No wonder you’re being so agreeable, Henry. You haven’t kept this many secrets from me since we were five and you thought you were a magician. Is there any-
fucking
-thing else, Henry? Anything you didn’t tell me that I should know about Holly?”

Henry’s eyes shifted and Peter swore. “I’ll be damned.”

“It’s a suspicion,” his friend insisted. “Nothing concrete or anything.”

“Tell me.”

Henry shook his head. “If I do, you’ll be pissed and this will be over before she gets here. You don’t want that. I don’t want that. Nobody wants that, man.”

“Tell me anyway.” He braced himself.

Henry looked down at his boots. “I think she might be Ms. Anonymous.”

“What?” Peter shook his head adamantly, shock reverberating through his body at Henry’s accusation. “That’s insane. What would make you— No way.”

Henry scratched his beard, his expression regretful. “You can see why I didn’t mention it. But it adds up. She’s a writer in communication with some fairly high rollers in Hollywood who’ve recruited her for her services. She has the connections. I looked into her professional bio. I know she wrote that book where Dean’s lack of after-sex cuddling takes up an entire chapter. You remember that one. I know because you sent us all a copy for Christmas to get under his skin.” Peter’s head felt like it was going to explode. Henry saw his expression and took a step toward him. “On the other hand, how much harm has Ms. Anonymous actually done, other than irritating Dean? Tracy’s the Teflon Cowboy and God knows you and I never gave a shit about being in the news. Sure, you don’t want to believe the woman you’re about to fuck five ways from Sunday thinks you’re a lewd, heartbreaking playboy with a penchant for public indecency…but other than that, would it really matter?”

He refused to believe it. “Holly is
not
Ms. Anonymous. You just told me about her mother’s scandal. Why would she become a gossip columnist after growing up around that?”

“I thought about that, I did, and I don’t know the answer. But if she isn’t, then she knows the person who is.” Henry was persistent. “You read my emails, man. You know for a fact I put in one or two stories that weren’t true, just for shock value. Use that recording device you have for a brain and think about it. Did they sound familiar? Ms. Anonymous referred to them in her columns before I could tell Holly I was joking. That’s when I started wondering.”

Peter reached for one of the stools lining the kitchen island and sat down, floored. Henry was right about that. He had seen a familiar correlation. But there had to be another reason.  “And
I’m
right back to wondering why you didn’t tell me any of this until now. In fact, why are you telling me now? You’re getting what you want. Why this confession?”

“Because I don’t want any uncomfortable discoveries after she gets here. You’d poke and prod and end up pushing her away, and we need her.” When Peter laughed, Henry scowled and slammed his hands on the counter. “Damn it, I’m serious. Call it closure, call it a satisfying form of payback, but don’t deny that you want this chance with Holly. I’ve seen your gallery, pal—I know you haven’t let it go. She might have been in a bad place back then but so were you. Before she came around, you were the fucking Batman origin story. The rich, genius orphan lurking in the shadows of his giant mansion. We got you into that house off campus after a hell of a lot of arm twisting, but secretly we were all waiting for the cheesy one-liners and the rubber-suited cry for help.”

“Fuck. You.”

“Until Holly,” Henry continued, undaunted. “She changed you, changed us both, only I’m not denying it. But it was over too soon. Now we have a chance to taste that again, what it was like to be a part of that, and I don’t fucking care if she
is
Ms. Anonymous. I don’t care if she’s as commitment-phobic as you are and only suggested this research as an excuse so she could write a tell-all book about us. I know she’s more than that.
We
were more than that. And whether you’ll admit you do or not,
I
want her. Are you really going to mess this up for me by sending her away?”

Peter couldn’t hold onto this anger, not when Henry was right. “No. I won’t mess this up for you. I don’t think I could send her away if I wanted to. What I have planned for the summer will be hard enough without you having to worry about that.”

Henry looked up at the ceiling with a resigned laugh. “I had a feeling. Care to clue me in?”

“No.” Peter turned to leave the room but stopped at the door, looking over his shoulder. “Henry, I need your word on a few things before she gets here.”

“I’m not shaving.”

He shook his head, hating the vulnerability that had crept into his heart. “No more secrets. And no sex or satisfaction unless we’re all together. You can’t take her unless I’m in the room. For now.”

Henry held out his hands. “This is your show, boss. As long as Holly’s here and we get to touch her, I’ll read from your script.”

His “show” was already being rewritten in his mind. He needed to think. To assimilate the new information he’d been hit with and alter his plans accordingly.

Was Holly Ms. Anonymous, the gossip columnist who’d coined their nickname, The Billionaire Bachelors, and hounded the missteps of his friends with her wit and judgment for years?

He‘d find out before this was over, but right now Henry had said exactly what he was feeling—it didn’t matter. Didn’t change the plan or stop either one of them from wanting her. And whatever she truly thought about them, she still wanted them. Enough to spend the summer following Peter’s lead, as long as she got her ménage.

He’d make sure the experience was one she’d never forget, but not before he added one or two more scandalous scenes to this play. Not until she was begging him for the final act. He had a lewd reputation to uphold, after all.

Peter heard the sound of a car coming up the drive and smiled. She came.

Not yet. But she would soon enough.

He was a man of his word.

Holly had obviously lost an important piece of her mind—the screw or bolt that kept her from doing things that weren’t healthy for her, things that were dangerous to her physical and emotional wellbeing. Being an adrenaline junkie in the name of research was kind of her thing. She’d enjoyed cliff diving and bungee jumping. Even her experiences with cleanses had been moderately life threatening—or at least they’d caused some truly unfortunate hallucinations. But this? This was madness.