ALEXANDER: A Billionaire Romance (NIGHT OF THE KINGS SERIES Book 4) Read online

  ALEXANDER

  A Night of The Kings Novel

  Shayne Ford

  Copyright © 2017 by Shayne Ford

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, organizations and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features mentioned in this book are the property of their respective owners and have been used without permission and in an editorial fashion only, with no implied endorsement.

  The publication/use of these trademarks is not associated with, approved of or sponsored by the trademarks owners.

  This book is for entertainment purposes only. The author and publisher disclaim any and all responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise, incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly in relation to this book.

  This book is intended for mature audiences only.

  Written by Shayne Ford

  www.shayneford.com

  Twitter:@ShayneFordBooks

  Cover design by Shayne Ford

  The image on the cover is a licensed stock photo, and it is used for illustrative purposes, any person who may be depicted on, is a model.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Also by Shayne Ford

  About the Author

  1

  LEX

  “What’s the problem, Lex?”

  “No fucking problem,” I mumble, keeping my eyes on the phone.

  “Is that Rain?”

  “Yeah... It fucking is,” I say as I swipe the screen with my thumb and scroll down to see the pictures.

  “How come I didn’t get any?”

  I shoot my eyes at Ed.

  “Because it’s not your fucking birthday, pest. That’s why.”

  A knowing smile curves his lips. It quickly gets on my nerves.

  “Don’t give me shit, Ed.”

  He chuckles.

  “I didn’t do anything, man. Stop busting my balls.”

  “Keep your mug under control. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Running his hand through his silky, brown hair, he studies me, stretching a sly grin.

  I flick an eyebrow, and he drops it.

  Smoothly, he tears his gaze away from me and motions to one of the girls.

  “Another round,” he says without asking me.

  The waitress rushes away, and his eyes come back to me.

  “It looks like you need it, birthday boy.”

  I shift my eyes back to the screen.

  “Stop fucking with me, Ed,” I say, not in the mood.

  Another soft chuckle rolls off his lips. He stays silent for a few moments.

  Intrigued, I shoot a glance at him.

  “Why are you so pissed?” he asks, serious.

  “I’m not pissed,” I say, sounding pissed as fuck.

  We get our drinks.

  I gulp half of mine before he even touches his. The whiskey travels down fast, the fire coursing through my blood within mere seconds.

  “You think too much, man...” he says, twiddling his thumbs on his phone.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I ask as the light shifts fast on the screen.

  Gaze glued to his phone, he types his fingers off.

  “Chatting,” he says.

  Biting his lip, he laughs quietly.

  I study him for a moment and finally, crack a smile. You gotta love the man. Nothing can faze him. I lean back in my seat and run my gaze over the crowd in the club. The place is packed with patrons.

  Red’s gotten even busier since we opened the Casino.

  I catch the eye of a blonde who’s sitting at the bar, and shift my focus back to Ed.

  “Care to cue me in?” I say, tossing my phone on the table.

  “It’s some girl I’m chatting with,” he murmurs, pursing his lips into a wolfish smile.

  “Girl?”

  He glances at me, a smug smile on his face. I take another sip.

  “How old is this girl?”

  “She’s, um... I dunno. She says she’s twenty-two, but who the hell knows? This is the fucking online world. Anyone is whoever the hell they want to be.”

  A small smile tickles my lips. I set my glass on the table, and cross my arms over my chest.

  “And?”

  He snickers again.

  “She’s sex chatting with me,” he says, unable to suppress his chuckle.

  Slowly, I shake my head.

  “You are something else, Preston. What happened to you? Have you run out of ideas? The tail supply has dried up? Both?”

  He shoots me a dismissive look before he moves his eyes back to the screen and starts cocking his head left and right like a dog drooling over a treat.

  Finally, he flips his phone to grasp a better view. Adjusting his view angle, he zooms in on whatever he’s ogling on that patch of light.

  Quirking his lips into an appreciative smile, he quietly growls.

  “To answer your question...” he says, slowly raising an eyebrow.

  “I’m on the edge of my seat, biting my nails...” I sneer.

  He waves me off.

  “No, my supply of tail hasn’t dried up, but now that you brought it up, I can ask you the same thing. Why are you still stuck on Rain, when you have so many options?”

  “I’m not stuck on Rain. What the fuck are you talking about?”

  He almost rolls his eyes.

  “I’m not. What the fuck, Preston? How can you say something so stupid.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yeah... It fucking is,” I say, snatching my glass off the table and bringing it to my lips, to hide my face and also my smirk. “Stop sticking your nose in my business, Ed,” I say, only half jokingly.

  “Look who’s fucking talking...” he grumbles. “You’re up to your eyeballs in his business, and you keep tabs on me? Does he know she texted you?”

  “He knows, smart ass. He was the one who took some of those pictures. She sent me the message and wished me Happy Birthday. That’s fucking all.”

  “Yeah... But she remembered it.”

  “So fucking what? It doesn’t mean a thing.”

  “Say that to your dick,” he says, shifting his gaze back to his phone, barely stifling a chuckle.

  “It’s nothing really...” I say with a mellow voice this time.

  His eyes shift back to mine.

  “You miss her,” he says, no longer smiling.

  “I miss James more than I miss her if you really want to know. That’s not what this is.”

  He raises his glass to his lips and tilts it back, taking a good swig of the amber liquor.

  He winces as the alcoh
ol hits his throat.

  “Shit... this really burns,” he says. He sets his glass back on the table. “So what bothers you then?” he asks.

  Running the tip of his tongue across his lip, he observes me in silence.

  “To answer your question...” I say, smiling, “the options you talk about no longer cut it for me,” I mutter, my grin fading away. “Not after her anyway.”

  “She was never yours,” he says, his eyes flicking back to the screen.

  “And that’s the bigger problem. I got a taste of something I never thought I’d want. She came at the right time, but also at the wrong time, and that’s what messed things up. But I didn’t know then. That’s why I fell for her like a fool.”

  “You think you want someone like her?”

  I shrug.

  “I can’t possibly want someone like her. I need to forget about her. Do I want a different kind of woman ? Yeah... Perhaps. To be honest, I have no fucking idea,” I mutter, my mood shifting for worse.

  He starts typing again, and I empty my glass.

  “How does she look?” he asks, his eyes trained on his phone.

  “Good. They both look great. I’ve never seen them so happy,” I say.

  I pick up the phone, swipe the screen with my thumb, and check their pictures again.

  It was James’ idea to spend a few weeks overseas. They traveled to Italy and Spain, and then Greece. The pictures that they sent me are from a Greek Island.

  I wouldn’t be surprised if he bought the damn thing just because he loved the light, and the azure water and the way it made them look in the snapshots.

  My gaze lingers on one of the photographs.

  Rain wears a white dress that makes her bronzed skin look darker and her blonde hair, brighter. Her hazel eyes capture the sunset, glinting with a warm smile.

  They lock eyes in one of the snapshots.

  She looks at him mesmerized, every bit of her speaking of her deep love for him.

  We all knew she was a beautiful woman, but nothing compares to seeing her in love.

  I can’t tear my eyes away, she’s so stunning.

  A woman in love.

  I pull up a few more photographs and study the next one.

  His arms wrap around her, and her back presses into his chest as he nuzzles her hair. Head tipped to the side, she grins softly at him, drinking him in.

  A dull pain grows in my chest.

  In another one, they both look at the camera and the person who took their picture.

  Smiling, they lean against a white wall, the turquoise sea looking like a sparkling gemstone in the background. Buried in his arms, she looks happy and settled while his lips harbor a soft smile as if he finally has it all.

  My gaze lingers on them for a few more moments before I flick my thumb over the screen and everything turns dark as if I pulled a curtain over them.

  Sometimes I wish I could do the very same thing to my memory.

  “Had enough?” Ed mumbles, without raising his eyes.

  “You?” I toss back at him.

  He looks at me, and I motion to his phone.

  A grin lights up his eyes.

  “You mean sex chatting?”

  “Yeah...” I say, laughing. “You do things backward, Preston. Most people sex chat to get laid. You, on the other hand, waste your time sex chatting when you could rail some hot piece downstairs.”

  He shakes his head, smiling smugly.

  “You don’t get it, do you? That’s the thing. There’s no mystery when I pick someone at Red’s or at the Casino,” he says, copiously amused. “This is a fucking game of sex, lies, and deceit,” he mutters.

  “That... Or you may set yourself to fall into a trap, and it may bite you in the ass if she’s not who she says she is.”

  “As if I am who I say I am...”

  He gives me a cheeky grin.

  “So who does she think you are?”

  “Some college student, who’s... um, just about now, cramming for the finals,” he says.

  “So you’re like...what? Twenty-two like her?”

  He holds three fingers up in the air.

  “Twenty three? Really?”

  He nods, a wolfish smirk stretching across his lips.

  “For your own good, I hope she’s twenty-two, man...”

  “She looks like she is...” he says.

  I throw him an incredulous look.

  “You just said it’s a game of deceit,” I add.

  He shrugs.

  “It is what it is.”

  “Why college student?”

  “She said she’s in school.”

  “What do you do if she wants to talk with about college shit?”

  “Then I get busy, and no longer have time to chat with her because I have to study, so she drops it quickly.”

  A quiet laughter rocks my chest.

  “You’re good.”

  “Trying.”

  “So what else does she know about you?”

  “That I have a job, and no family left.”

  “Finally, there’s something true. The last thing, I mean.”

  “She didn’t care much about it.”

  “Hmm... So she thinks you’re poor, a struggling student and, um.. what exactly makes her sex chatting with you? Does she know what you look like?”

  He shakes his head.

  “No, not really.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  It takes him a few moments to come up with an answer.

  He may be sneakier and smarter than I thought when it comes to women.

  “I didn’t show her my face. I don’t know what she looks either.”

  “That’s a lot of deceit right there. Is she stripping for you?”

  He grins.

  “Yes, she is.”

  “What do you give her in return?”

  “I text dirty stuff to her. Once in a while, I send her a picture. Me drinking coffee, my bare chest, or hand or whatever....”

  By the time he finishes, I bite the inside of my cheek to push back a chuckle.

  “So she doesn’t know you’re almost twenty-eight, rich as fuck, and have a face that could easily get you married by the end of the night.”

  “No, she doesn’t have a clue.”

  “You wanna meet this girl?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Why poor?”

  “Because like an idiot I sent her a picture in the beginning with me and my new ride.”

  “Oh...” I say, washed with revelation. “That explains a lot. You found yourself a little gold digger.”

  He shrugs again.

  “If that’s the case, then it makes everything even more fun,” he says. “If she’s a gold digger, there are better ways to spend her time, other than me, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets a glimpse of her perky ass. I’m probably one of the many on her roster. I’ve already told her the car was not mine and it belongs to a friend. I keep feeding her bullshit, but she doesn’t want to let go of me.”

  “What does she study?”

  “History.”

  “Does she?”

  “That’s what she says.”

  “What else does she say to you?”

  “That she likes how I look.”

  I shoot him a questioning gaze.

  “You said she didn’t see you.”

  “She saw parts of me. From chin down... Shirtless...” He smirks. “Or in my bed... naked...”

  “Go on.”

  “My hand wrapped around my cock.”

  I shake my head, grinning.

  “That’s why she can’t let go of you, fucking jerk. You’re no better than her, Preston.”

  He breathes out a soft chuckle.

  “I never claimed I was. You should try it...” he says.

  “No way in hell. I don’t like the women I can see, let alone those I can’t see...”

  “This one is hot,” he says as he moves his eyes to his phone, the screen flash
ing a new text and a picture.

  He taps the screen and slides his finger up, scrolling. His eyes glint with hunger.

  “Damn... She gets me so hard,” he murmurs. “She looks hot. And she sure knows how to arch her back in these snippets.”

  “If that’s her.”

  “I don’t know many women who are willing to borrow their bodies as a man bait for another woman.”

  He plops the phone on the table and slides it to me. I pick it up and zoom in on the first picture.

  It’s a side shot of the woman’s naked body, a white sheet covering her lap. She’s propped on her hands, her spine curved, her bare chest pushing up, her long dark hair almost touching her waist.

  She conceals her face with a heart shaped sticker.

  Oh, now I know what the thrill is. Whatever he can’t see, spurs his imagination. Same goes for her.

  He lured her in this game, and now she stalks him.

  I wish you were touching me, reads the caption, and I chuckle quietly.

  “You sure she doesn’t do group sex chatting?”

  “No, I’m fucking not... Check out that one,” he says, tapping the phone screen with his finger.

  A gif starts playing on a loop.

  It’s a cropped shot of her body, showing her from her nipples to her lips. Her chest rises and falls as she slowly and teasingly runs her teeth over her bottom lip.

  I feel a rush through my cock.

  The clip plays over and over again, and it’s impossible not to watch it and want to see more of her, it’s so easy to get hooked.

  I nudge the phone back to him.

  “So?”

  Discreetly, I slip a hand under the table and adjust my erection.

  “Didn’t I fucking tell you that it fucking works?” he says, amused.

  “It does... and it works on anyone as you can see. So chances are you’ve stumbled on some sex chat babe who fishes for a pocketbook. That explains her interest in you after she got a glimpse of your car.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m having fun. And don’t worry, I can fuck with her as much as she fucks with me,” he says, finally turning the chat off. “So, ready to go home, birthday boy?” he asks, the glint in his eyes giving him away.