Saved By The CEO: A Steamy Billionaire Romance E-Book

JL Ryan

• Herausgeber: J. L Ryan
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Desperation Meets Billionaire: Broke and facing eviction, Becky's world flips when a cocky French CEO offers a tantalizing escape. But can she handle the heat of his desires, or will his arrogance extinguish their spark before he jets back to Paris?

Becky is a woman who's always struggled to make ends meet, but lately, things have taken a turn for the worse. Bills are piling up, eviction is looming, and she's running out of options.

Just when she thinks there's no way out, fate intervenes in the form of Cristophe, a hot wealthy French CEO billionaire. From the moment they meet, Becky can't deny the attraction she feels for Cristophe. He's cocky, arrogant, and used to getting what he wants when he wants it.

As they spend more time together, the chemistry between them becomes too intense to ignore. Cristophe starts saying things that make Becky's heart race and her body ache, but he's going back to Paris soon. Now, she has to do everything in her power to keep him by her side...

Read Now!

Leseprobe

Refusing The Bar Hopping Invite

“Come on,” whined Jessica Rogers, throwing herself down on the bed. “You need a night out, Becky. It’s been ages. Staying cooped up in your house isn’t doing you any good.” She had been at this for almost an hour, trying to convince Becky to go out with her. Becky Hale frowned at her friend. She used the toes of one foot to spin herself around, letting the desk chair drift in an idle circle. “I’m broke. I still haven’t gotten a job. I don’t have the money to go to the bar right now.” “I’ll treat you, then!”

Jessica sat up, giving her best impression of puppy dog eyes. They were incredibly effective. Always had been. Jessica was a bit on the whiny side, but she was a queen when it came to getting her own way. In an effort to try and not just instantly give in, Becky pushed her chair around again, so she didn’t have to meet her friend’s eyes. “That doesn’t work for me, and you know it. I’m not a charity case, Jessica. I don’t want you to pay for my stuff.” “It’s not charity! It’s us being friends, and me really not wanting to go drinking alone!” Jessica insisted.

And okay, there might have been a point there… if not for the fact that Becky had been out of work for a while now, so it was absolutely going past getting a treat and creeping towards Jessica just constantly paying for everything. And sure, you could argue that’s what friends did for each other, except that Becky couldn’t return it at all. It wasn’t a favor or a one-off thing. It was just a constant sort of pressure, knowing that she couldn’t even do anything nice for Jessica in return. Unhappy with the thought of that happening yet again, Becky tried, “Then why don’t we just stay here and watch a movie?” “Because it’s the first Saturday of the month,” said Jessica, firmly.

She got up off the bed and crossed the room, grabbing onto the arms of the chair and forcing it to go still. “And that means it’s bar night. It should be club night! But I’m settling. And you know that this is a super important tradition for us, and it’s totally not fair of you to bail out on me.” “I’m not bailing on you,” insisted Becky. “It’s not my fault that the factory fired me! I didn’t do anything wrong, and you know it.” They’ve been doing this Saturday night routine of theirs for years now, and it wasn’t like Becky liked the thought of having to cancel it.

She just genuinely couldn’t come up with any way to make it work. Every option that Becky tried to come up with seemed to backfire on her or fall apart at the last moment. She tried to tell Jessica, “canceling because I don’t have money isn’t the same as bailing on you. And I totally let you know three days ago that I was pretty much down to nothing, and we wouldn’t be able to do anything this weekend. I told you that. It’s not my fault you, I don’t know. Didn’t listen.”

“You’re bailing on me because I’m, like, totally willing to pay for you to go out there, and you’re still just refusing. I didn’t get fired, okay? I’ve got a real cushy position, and you know that the vet I’m working for pays great. I don’t want to skip tonight,” said Jessica. “And I don’t want to go out and drink on my own, because it’s totally not the same thing and you know it.” Becky frowned.

She really did want to keep protesting, but Jessica had turned those baby blue’s on her in full force now, which meant there was no way that she could actually tell her no. If she did, Jessica would bring out the tears. And sure, they would be fake tears… but they were incredibly effective fake tears, and Becky just outright hated having to try and deal with them. So she gave a heavy sigh, trying to make it clear that she wasn’t happy about this arrangement. “Fine. But I’m only having the one drink, alright?” “Yay!” With a high-pitched squeal, Jessica straightened up, clapped her hands, and all but flung herself at Becky’s bedroom closet. “I knew you would totally be there for me! Okay, so, what are you wearing?” Becky deadpans, “this.”

Jessica looked over her shoulders, squinting. “Yeah, no, that’s totally not going to happen. It’s the first Saturday, so you totally have to wear something cute. Not some old band tee and those.” She said the last word as if it was an insult. Becky looked down at her bright pink and red baggy plaid shorts. “I like this!” “Mhm. I know you do, sweetie, but you’re not wearing them out tonight.” Jessica all but vanished into the closet. There was a clatter of hangers banging against each other and the overly loud whoosh of clothing being shoved around on the rack.

Jessica herself was already dressed and ready to go out; when she bent over, her bright blue glittery mini skirt barely covered the curves of her ass, and her tight black tank top left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Her makeup was just as flawless as ever, her hair already done up. Becky slumped into her chair, rolling her eyes and resigning herself to the night at hand. She stared up at the ceiling while Jessica raided the wardrobe – jumping a few moments later when a dress, thankfully already taken off the hanger, was thrown onto her. “There!” Jessica said, brightly. She gave another clap. “That’s exactly what you need tonight.”

The Calm Before The Storm

Becky held up the little black dress and raised a skeptical eyebrow at her friend. “Really? This is what we’re doing?” The dress in question was strapless, with tight-fitting rouching at the top, and a tight-fitting skirt. A lace drapery, also black, was attached at the hip, framing the skirt like a cage and adding a bit of extra movement to it.

Normally, the only place Becky wore this dress was out to the clubs when she was trying to get laid, prove a point, or make a past boyfriend jealous. It wasn’t really ‘drinking at the bar with a single friend’ material… even if this was the first Saturday of the month. “Yes! You need a boost, Becky. That dress is a total boost.”

Jessica told her, “I’m going to go find your purse. Get dressed and meet me downstairs. You’ve got ten minutes.” She paused at the bedroom door to give Becky another side-eyed look. “And do something cute with your hair, okay? You look like you’ve been letting my cats play in it.”

And then the overly excitable woman was gone, vanishing out of the bedroom and tromping towards the little crowded main entrance to Becky’s apartment. Becky gave another over-the-top sigh and then hauled herself up to get changed. It looked like she really didn’t have much say in the matter at all. “Maybe Jessica’s right,” said Becky, as she pulled her tee-shirt off and tossed it across the room. “Maybe getting out of the house will be good for me.”

She made short work out of changing and even shorter work out of trying to put her hair up, meeting Jessica down in the living room in practically no time at all. The other woman had already fetched Becky’s purse, which she held aloft at the sight of her friend like a prize. “Ta-dah! Purse found. Wallet found. License located.”

“My license should have been in the wallet,” Becky told her. “It’s called double-checking, Becky, duh. Now you aren’t going to have any reason to be like, oh no, I actually can’t do this after all, once we get there. I totally covered all of the bases,” said Jessica.

She poked her tongue out to show that she was playing, passed the purse over, and then flung an arm around Becky’s shoulders. “Look, I know you’ve been stressed. It’s really shitty that you got fired and all of that. But I think that getting out of the house and acting like everything’s normal for a bit will be good for you.” “Do you really think that, or do you just not want to miss our Saturday plans?” Becky asked.

She knew that things had been a little rough lately, but personally Becky thought that she was holding everything together brilliantly. Or well, as brilliantly as she was able to do. “I really think that, Becky. Staying in here all cooped up, it’s not good for you. And what’s the point in it, too? Like, okay, sure, you don’t want to waste money since you’ve been canned and all, I get that. But like, what’s the point when money isn’t an issue? You’re just making yourself suffer even more and for like, totally no reason.” Jessica insisted. “This isn’t good for you. Like, just getting out of the house and getting out of your own head for a while it’s going to make a major difference. I promise.”

Becky gave a heavy sigh and sagged against her friend, letting her head thump against Jessica’s shoulder. “I guess. It just seems…” She trailed off. It seemed like a lot of things. A part of Becky didn’t think that she really deserved being able to go out like this, and have fun like this. It felt a bit like she was giving herself a treat that hadn’t been earned.

She was jobless. Shouldn’t that mean she spend her days stressed, miserable, and overly concerned about everything? Especially since her job searching thus far had turned up with absolutely nothing? No one was hiring. They weren’t hiring some twenty-five-year-old woman, fresh out of college, with no real experience beyond factory work under her belt. Especially not out here in the middle of the city. In a couple of hours though, her lack of employment will be the least of her worries.

An Unexpected Detour

Finding a new place to work was just not panning out. But Jessica wasn’t usually wrong. She came off as a bit of an air-headed blunder, but Jessica was very smart, especially where people and social situations were concerned. Jessica gave her a squeeze and told her, “you’re overthinking things. I can tell. I can practically hear the gears moving in your head.” “Yeah? Is thinking illegal now?” Becky tried to make it sound like a joke, but she thought it just came out a little too sullen.

She tried to follow it up with a smile, but that didn’t help things much at all. “For tonight, thinking is totally illegal. We’re going to go out to the bar and pretend that neither of us graduated college, and act like our heads are, you know, totally empty and stuff. And it’s going to make you feel way better,” said Jessica, in a tone of voice that left no room for arguments.

Becky gave a heavy sigh and straightened up, running a hand through her curls to make sure that they weren’t too mussed up. “Yeah, okay. Let’s do that. Did you want me to drive?” “Girl, the whole point is to get you drinking,” said Jessica. She flung open the door to the apartment and stepped out into the hallway. The familiar musty air of the building slammed into Becky as she stopped and locked the door.

Becky asked, “does that mean you’re driving?” “That means I’m driving,” she said, agreeably. “And then I might end up just calling us a taxi at the end of the night. We’ll see how things go, alright? For now, let’s just focus on actually getting there.” “You say that like the apartment building is a maze,” said Becky, dryly.

She led the way down the hallway – skipping the elevator, which had gone out of service early last month, and hadn’t been brought back on yet. They had to take the stairwell. The inside of the apartment stairwell was brightly lit, if nothing else, and the steps were easy to make it down. She only lived on the fifth floor, so it wasn’t too long of a trip either.

The front lobby was a little on the shabby side. There was supposed to be someone sitting at the door, but Mike, the guy who had the job, walked off and quit two weeks ago. In a fit of desperation, Becky had even applied to take his position, but she hadn’t heard back from anyone yet. Which pretty much meant that they weren’t interested in her getting the job, unfortunately.