Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (26 page)

   
by

Locklyn Marx

Copyright 2012, Locklyn Marx,
all rights reserved.
 

C
hapter
O
ne

Jaxon Hale was not the type of man you would
expect to see at a baby shower.
 
At
six-foot-two and two hundred pounds of lean, hard muscle, he stood out among
the pastel balloons and stork-themed gift table like a bull in a china
shop.
 

But it was his sister Katie’s baby shower, and
since Jaxon hardly ever made the trip from Los Angeles back to Connecticut to
see his family, he figured he’d better show up and be supportive.

“Having fun?” Katie asked, walking across her
backyard to where Jaxon was standing in the fading June sunlight.

“Who decided co-ed baby showers were a good
idea?”
 
he drawled.
 
Jaxon had been born in Concord,
Connecticut, in an uptight, WASP-y area filled with McMansions and organic
supermarkets.
 
But after an
adolescence marred with fist fights and suspensions, he’d been sent to a
boarding school down south, the kind of institution that was supposed to teach
troubled young boys how to become good Southern gentlemen.
 
But all Jaxon had picked up at Wentworth
Academy was a penchant for breaking hearts and a tendency to sound like he’d
been born and raised in Alabama.

“Co-ed baby showers were thought up by women
who decided men were going to have to share in their torture,” Katie’s husband
Adam said as he joined them.
 
He was
holding a big wicker basket with a shiny yellow bow stuck to the front.
 
He held it up and squinted at it, as if
trying to decipher a particularly hard riddle.
 
“I’m not exactly sure what this is.”

“It’s a diaper tree,” Katie said, taking the
present from him and setting it down on the picnic table.
 
She sounded delighted. “Who’s it from?”

“Anna brought it,” Adam said.
 
“And what the hell is a diaper tree?”

“It’s just a cute way of arranging cloth
diapers,” Katie said, taking a sip of her lemonade.

“I thought we had agreed to use disposable
diapers,” Adam said, sounding slightly panicked.

“Anna
Webb?”
Jaxon asked, stopping with his beer bottle halfway to his lips.
 
“Anna
Webb
brought that?”

“Do you really have to drink at a baby shower?”
Katie asked.
 
“I mean, is it really
necessary?”
 
She shook her head at her older brother,
then brushed a strand of dirty blonde hair out of her face.

“Anna
Webb?”
Jaxon asked again.
 

Katie nodded.

Unfuckingbelievable.
 

Jaxon quickly drained the rest of his beer and
prepared to make his exit.
 
He
didn’t care if his little sister was the guest of honor, or if he was staying
at Katie’s house while he was in Connecticut. If Anna Webb was here, there was
no way in hell he was sticking around.
 
He’d drive around the block until she left if he had to.

Anna was Katie’s best friend – or at
least, she had been when they were kids.

Growing up, Anna had been like an annoying
little sister to Jaxon, joining Katie in all manner of normal sibling
hijnks.
 
When he was nine and Anna
and Katie were eight, they’d hidden a frog in his bed.
 
He’d gotten them back two years later
when he’d moved the ladder away from their tree house, leaving them stranded up
there for a couple of hours.
 

Anna had been nothing more than a nuisance to
him back then, his kid sister’s best friend.
 
When Jaxon went away to boarding school
at fifteen, he hadn’t given Anna’s long blonde hair and lanky body a second
thought.

But the summer after his senior year, when he’d
come home to Connecticut for one last visit before heading off to college, Anna
had been all grown up. Her long hair was now lush and full, tumbling down her
back in soft luscious curves.
 
She’d
grown into her legs, and her little cupid bow mouth and full lips were enough
to make Jaxon fall in love with her at first sight.

Well.
 
As much as Jaxon Hale
could
fall in love.
 
Up until Anna, Jaxon
had been positive he was immune to any kind of romantic feelings.
 
At eighteen, he’d already caused more
girls than he could count to cry themselves to sleep after being kissed and discarded,
just a blip on his radar as he moved on to the next hot thing.

But that summer, fifteen years ago, he’d
immediately set his sights on Anna, vowing to make her his.
 
She’d made him work for it, refusing his
advances even when he’d pulled out all his usual moves, moves that had been
foolproof for years.

Jaxon was puzzled at first, the way men who are
extremely good-looking can be when they’re not getting what they want.
 
But he refused to give up, and when he’d
finally broken her down (the turning point involved a cat that had been hit by
a van in front of her house– Jaxon had loaded the animal into his car and
taken it to the vet, and when he’d come home, Anna had softened a bit, and from
there, he’d been able to rely on his usual charms), they began spending nearly
every moment together.
 

There’d been long sunny days filled with sweet
ice cream cones, sticky glasses of lemonade, and walks down by the creek.
 
But all good things had to come to an
end, and that long-ago summer had been no different.
 
Jaxon was off to college at UCLA, where
his father had somehow convinced (read: paid) someone in admissions to overlook
Jaxon’s spotty record and mediocre grades.
 
California was a thousand miles away, which would have been daunting for
any relationship, but was almost insurmountable when you were only eighteen.

On the Labor Day before he was set to leave for
Los Angeles, he’d swallowed his pride, kissed Anna, and asked her to come with
him.
 
Jaxon’s jaw set now as he
remembered that night.
 
The way Anna
had twisted her hands in her lap as they’d talked while sitting in the front
seat of his beat-up old Dodge Neon, her voice cracking, her eyes filling with
tears.
 
She loved him, she said, but
she had to say in Connecticut and finish high school.
 

There were high schools in California, he’d
told her, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.
 
Good ones.
 
Boarding schools, charter schools,
private schools… they could talk to her parents together, come up with a plan
that would work.

But she’d shaken her head.
 
She was set to be valedictorian, she’d
already scheduled her AP classes, her debate team was counting on her, she
couldn’t leave her parents, she needed to graduate with her class.

Jaxon had said it was okay, then kissed her
softly and told her that of course they’d stay together, that there were
planes, trains, automobiles – whatever it took, they’d make it work.
 

But his pride had gotten the best of him, and
he’d been young and stupid.
 
That
night, they’d had plans to go to the fireworks by the creek.
 
He was going to pick her up after
supper.
 
But he’d stood her up, left
her waiting for him at home while he went drinking with his buddies.
 
He hadn’t spoken to her since.

“Yes, Anna Webb,” Katie said.
 
“You remember her, don’t you, Jaxon?”

“I thought she lived in London.”

“She does,” Katie said.
 
“She does something in international
finance at some big firm.
 
But she’s
back now, she came to visit her parents for a week.
 
And when she found out I was having my
shower, she – ” Katie broke off, her eyes focusing on something over
Jaxon’s shoulder.

“Anna!” she cried, then rushed over to meet her
friend.

Before Jaxon could stop himself, he turned
around.
 
Damn.
 
Anna Webb had gone from little Anna Webb
to teenage Anna Webb to hot woman Anna Webb.
 
She still had those gorgeous long legs,
which she was showing off in a pair of denim cut-offs.
 
Her blond hair cascaded over her
shoulders, and a tight baby blue tank top showed off every curve of her chest.

Jaxon felt himself harden in his jeans.
 
God damn.
 
Well, it was too late now.
 
He couldn’t get out of here without
creating a scene.

They were walking toward him, Anna and Katie,
the distance between him and Anna shrinking by the second.

“You remember my brother, Jaxon,” Katie said.

“Of course,” Anna said, and gave him a
smile.
 
“Nice to see you again.”

“Nice to see you, too,” Jaxon said.
 
He grabbed another beer from the cooler
by his feet and popped the top.
 

From the other side of the yard, an older
woman’s voice called,
 
“Time to play
pin the tail on the baby!”

“Oh, God,” Katie said, her face contorting into
panic. “I told my mom no shower games!”
 
She rushed off to deal with the impending crisis.

As soon as Katie was gone, Anna turned to Jaxon
and glared. “Drinking at a baby shower?
 
Real classy, even for you, Jaxon.”

“Sorry I offended your delicate sensibilities,
Princess,” he said, and grinned.
 
It
was the name he’d called her all those years ago, back when they’d been
kids.
  
It had started the
first night she’d refused to sleep with him.
 
They’d been making out in the sand at
Mill’s Beach, after dark.
 
Her
parents thought she was with Katie, his parents couldn’t give a shit where he
was.
 
His hands had snaked up her
shirt, lingering over the soft smooth skin of her lower back.
 
She’d pushed his hands away, and he’d
been sexually frustrated and feeling rejected.
 
So he’d sat up and said,
 
“That’s okay, Princess.”

She’d hated it then, and from the look on her
face, she hated it now.

“Screw you,” Anna said, fire flashing in her
dark blue eyes.

“I see you’re still holding onto a grudge from
ten years ago, Princess,” he said and took another pull off his beer.
 
“That’s not so nice.”

For a second, he thought maybe she was going to
hit him.
 
But Anna was way too
controlled for that.
 
Instead, she
just glared at him again and then turned on her heel.

“Good bye, Jaxon,” she said.

But Jaxon wasn’t about to let her walk
away.
 
Not again.
 
He reached out and pulled her toward
him, right there at the party, right there in front of everyone.

***

“What the hell are you doing?” Anna exclaimed
as Jaxon crushed her against his chest.
 
She felt her breasts flatten against the hard muscles of his pecs, and
heat rushed through her body.
  
Why the hell had she worn such a flimsy tank top?
 
Because
you knew he would be here.
 
And because
you wanted to look sexy for him.