Unwrapping The Billionaire: A Steamy Christmas Novella
Unwrapping The Billionaire
A Steamy Christmas Novella
Catherine Wiltcher
Contents
Unwrapping The Billionaire
1. Jonas
2. Grace
3. Jonas
4. Jonas
5. Jonas
6. Jonas
7. Jonas
8. Jonas
9. Jonas
10. Grace
11. Jonas
12. Jonas
13. Grace
14. Jonas
15. Jonas
Acknowledgments
Hearts Of Darkness
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
About the Author
Also by Catherine Wiltcher
Copyright 2019 © by Catherine Wiltcher
www.catherinewiltcher.com
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication, other than those in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. 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 in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. The information in this book is distributed on an “as is” basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, the author shall not have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book.
ISBN: 978-1-9164455-8-1 (eBook)
Everybody loves a Christmas redemption story…
Here’s one that has redemption, sex, and billionaires.
* * *
Lisa.
Rest in peace, you beautiful soul.
Unwrapping The Billionaire
Jonas Farley is a Christmas-wrecker.
Two years ago, he broke my heart, and this year, he’s on the brink of destroying my father’s legacy.
I hate that man, even though his voice drips like warm honey into unmentionable places...
But even dirty-talking titans of industry can’t escape a reckoning. And this Christmas, Jonas Farley is about to get more than he bargained for.
Three spirits will shine a light on all he’s done to me, and everything in between the sheets.
Three spirits are going to bring that man to his knees...
And then I’ll make him pay.
“No space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused”
Charles Dickens
1
Jonas
Present
Every city has a beating heart, or so I’ve been told. I never stay in one place long enough to find out. For the last two years, the world has been my chessboard—my every move dictated by my greed, and my lust.
A new million-dollar deal is like a drug to me.
Another mindless fuck perpetuates the high.
I’m not even aware of my own heart beating anymore. It exists purely for physical survival, and anything else is a luxury I don’t prescribe to. I’m a master at breaking them, though… I learned from the best.
Every city pulses with hope and optimism.
Apparently...
I can’t abide by such mawkish sentiment. Very little flows through my veins, other than boredom and discontent. Not while she’s still alive and breathing the same oxygen as me. Not when she struck a match against my soul, and lit a goddamn funeral pyre with my emotions.
Grace Parker.
Sweet, innocent, not-so-full-of-Grace Parker.
These days, my money and social standing are like a magnet to all the pretty vacants out there. I can’t seem to scratch the itch, though. It’s entrenched too deep, and it’s only getting worse…
I exit my chauffeured black Lincoln, and make my way toward the glass-fronted entrance of Farley Industries. It’s Christmas Eve—as evident by all the cheap, shitty lights hanging in the windows of nearby stores, and in the trees lining the sidewalks. With their glints of burnished gold, the last remaining leaves on the branches remind me of the highlights in her hair.
I always find myself back in this city at Christmas. The ties that bind me to New York seem to tighten their grip at this time of year.
My hometown.
Her hometown.
New York can bite me.
I take the elevator to the top floor. My secretary is waiting for me when the doors spring open.
“Welcome back to New York, Mr. Farley.” Her greeting is cautious—her eyes aiming just shy of my own. Scorned women aren’t the only ones who can testify to my reputation. “Here are the new acquisitions files you requested.”
I take the files without thanks as I glide past into my office, letting the door slam shut in her face. She can thank me for my disinterest later.
Tossing them onto my desk, I pause by the floor-to ceiling glass windows. The skyline outside is a gaping jaw of industry, with each building taking on the jagged shape of a new multi million-dollar tooth.
Winter isn't white. It’s gray. The clouds up here are as dirty as the sidewalks down there. I don’t allow myself to remember a time when my life played out in Technicolor, but I know that she’s out there somewhere, moving amongst the faceless: The girl with the big dreams and the lying eyes.
Fuck you, Grace Parker.
Growling in frustration, I lean back against my desk and skim through the files. If I can't have that woman in my bed, I’ll satisfy myself with the next best thing: tearing apart other people’s companies and livelihoods. Other people’s failures...
I pause on the second-to-last profile.
It can't be.
Parker & Fisk Publishing.
It’s her father’s company… The one she inherited. It would seem that Grace is as bad at running a fucking business as she is at being loyal to me.
Is fate conspiring in my favor?
I know how much this company means to her. It’s the last surviving piece of her father, but it’s nothing but road kill in my headlights now. It’s about time I made her pay for what she did to me.
Will she beg for my leniency? Will she sink to her knees if I spare her the worst; if I back away nicely, and call off my scavengers?
My dick throbs just thinking about the power I could yield over her…
The buzz of my intercom interrupts me.
“There’s a Miss Parker on line one for you, Mr. Farley. She says it’s urgent.”
That was fast… A grim smile paints my lips. Maybe this trip to New York won’t be such an imposition, after all.
“Put her straight through,” I say smoothly.
I’m going to enjoy hearing that pretty mouth beg.
2
Grace
Present
My heel catches in the gap of the elevator carriage as I exit in a rush, forcing me to slam my hand against the door to save myself.
“Shit!”
If only I could blame Jonas Farley for my clumsy ass feet too, I reflect angrily. You know, as well as ruining everything else that’s good in my life.
My hate for him has been smoldering away inside of me for two years now.
Painful memories keep the embers stoked.
Fragile glimpses across crowded bars have turned my beating heart to ash.
After today, I want nothing more than to serve up my hatred with a side of cold-blooded murder.
&nb
sp; Damn you, Nathan, for putting me in this position.
How could my brother have been so stupid?
For the last twelve months, I’ve watched on, helplessly, as he seduced the board with his empty charm, leading them into one bad decision after another, and exposing Parker & Fisk Publishing to Jonas Farley.
That man is the Count Dracula of mergers and acquisitions. He sinks his teeth into failing companies, and rips out their soul, before selling them off, piece by piece, while dining on their bloody trails of dollars.
But not this one… Not if I can help it.
There was a last minute deal on the table that could have stopped today’s sale. I’ve spent the last week working my ass off to make it happen—anything to stop this company from going under. But Nathan wouldn’t wait. He couldn’t see past his own damn agenda... Like most of the men in the Parker family, he refused to listen to me, believing I should stick to making lipstick choices, and not smart corporate decisions.
Never mind the Harvard business degree.
Never mind that it was all my hard work that turned our company around when dad passed away.
When every other small-time magazine publisher was going under, it was me who’d suggested diversifying our market online. Under my guidance, we’d launched a new fashion publication that appealed to recent graduates, as well as seasoned professionals. In the first three months, we’d outsold three of our five major rivals, but then strange stuff kept happening. The website went down on publication day, my top editor left to work for a competitor, and we lost two major fashion scoops in a row… That, along with my brother’s stupidity, hammered the final nail in the coffin for Parker & Fisk.
Dad was the only one who believed in me, and my sense of shame over what’s happened today has turned a white Christmas into something bleak and unthinkable.
My only hope is to beg for a stay of execution from the one man who hates my guts. The same man who turned my whole world a shade of blue.
I hate myself for what I’m about to do, but what choice do I have? Jonas can hang my pride in a fancy frame on his office wall, next to a glass jar of my total and utter humiliation—just so long as I get my father’s company back.
Hurrying down the familiar faded teal hallway with my cellphone fixed to my ear, I can see that most of our employees have already left for the holidays. The place looks stale and vacant, not helped any by the lingering death vibes of a failing business in the air. The Christmas tree in reception has already lost her sparkle.
I skid to a halt outside my office door as the call reconnects.
“Miss Parker?” His secretary sounds brisk and efficient.
Is he fucking her?
Is she one of ‘them’?
Does she say, “Thank you, Mr. Farley,” in that same prissy manner when he’s coming all over her face?
“I have Mr. Jonas Farley on the line for you. I’ll put you straight through—”
“To hell,” I mutter, but she doesn’t comment.
There’s a pause, and then his voice comes on the line. A voice that I know so well… It’s the one that used to whisper secrets and lies to me in that same, slow, mocking drawl, and the one that can still drip like warm honey in between my legs.
“Grace. It’s been a while.”
I can tell he’s enjoying this right away.
“Jonas,” I say, gritting my teeth so hard his name comes out as a hiss.
“To what do I owe this, ah, pleasure?” He delivers his last word to me on a silver tray of derision.
“I think you know exactly why I’m calling.” You’re destroying my father’s legacy, and I’m betting you have a smile on that beautiful face while you’re doing it.
I can just picture him now, sat there in his massive penthouse office: Cool blue eyes that are already bored by my intrusion, black hair mussed up to his usual exacting standards, the hint of a five o’clock shadow on that firm jaw after a long day of butchering companies.
“Ah, let me guess… Parker & Fisk?” He makes it sound like my father’s company is the last thing on his mind, but I know its all bullshit. He’s been waiting for this moment for two years. “What poor decisions you’ve been making, Grace.” He tuts at me patronizingly. “Then again, you always did excel in that area…”
The worst, by far, was falling in love with you.
“Don’t make me beg, Jonas,” I say wearily. “You know how much that company means to me. I have a bailout deal agreed already. I made a couple of calls, and I know you haven’t finalized the sale paperwork yet… Rip it up, and give me a chance to put this right.”
“And why the hell would I do a thing like that?”
Piece of… He really is going to make me beg.
“Well?” he snaps. “Why should I lose out on making a fuck load of money because of your incompetence? I can make double…treble…selling off Parker & Fisk for what I bought it for.”
“Because you’re one of the richest men in New York,” I say, trying desperately to reason with him. “You’re not doing this for the money—”
“True,” he admits, conveying with one word just how little he thinks of me. “So tell me again, Grace. Why should I throw your precious company a lifeline? And don’t give me anything nauseatingly glib like ‘a shared history’, because you and I both know that went up in flames a long time ago.”
“Because it’s Christmas Eve!” I splutter. He always did have the ability to smash his hand against every single one of my buttons. “Stop being such an asshole!”
There’s a long silence.
Shit.
I rest my forehead against the cool glass of my office door, and wait for him to toss all my hopes and dreams into the same garbage can as he did my heart.
“I see your language hasn’t improved,” he murmurs eventually. “Maybe you should have attended that finishing school in Switzerland your mother was so insistent on. What a waste of an expensive Harvard education you turned out to be.”
“You know what, Jonas?” I say, fighting back the tears. “That’s just the sort of crap I’d have expected to hear coming from your father’s mouth, not yours.”
There’s a low growl on the line as my insult hits home. So he does still feel something underneath all those layers of ice…
Jonas’ old man was a titan of industry, but at the expense of everything else, including a relationship with his two sons. He’s Jonas’ Achilles heel—the type of man he never, ever wanted to aspire to—but I’ve heard all the recent rumors. These days, Jonas is a carbon copy, albeit without the trophy wife, but it’s only a matter of time in that respect.
“There is nothing you can do to stop this sale, Miss Parker,” he says coldly, reverting back to my surname. The same one he’s planning on obliterating, just because he can. “I suggest you stop embarrassing yourself and accept the inevitable. You failed, and I won.” He can’t keep the triumph out of his voice.
I hate you, Jonas Farley, with every breath in my body, but that damn emotion skids way too close to another for my liking.
“This isn't a battle that either of us can win Jonas…” I glance at my desk, more specifically at Al my cactus, who’s sitting, pride of place, next to my laptop. It was a present Jonas bought for me on our first anniversary. It came with a note: The only other pricks allowed near my spitfire. Now, he’s acting like the biggest prick of all.
“I beg to differ—”
“Please.” My father’s face swims before my eyes.
“Are you still on the line? Don’t you have more important things to do, like clearing out your office? I’m hanging up…”
Don’t say it, Grace. Don’t say it. Don’t tumble back into a tangled web of hell and heartbreak with that man.
“I-I still have your red silk tie,” I stutter, shutting my eyes tight and refusing to listen to my inner voice.
There’s a pause. Does he remember?
“Meet me in my office in an hour.” All that cold composure is gone. Not everything
in our history went up in smoke, it seems. “Come prepared to sell your fucking soul to me tonight, Grace Parker, if that’s how you want to play it. If you really want that company back, you’ll give me everything. And I mean everything. You’ll swallow down every damn order I give you, without question. Understood?”
Before I can answer, he’s already hung up.
3
Jonas
Present
I was fulfilling my role as a Grade A bastard perfectly until she mentioned the tie. I was acting colder than frosty the fucking snowman. She was suffering, and I was eating that shit up. She may have landed that blow about my father, but I’d recovered like a pro...
Until that goddamn tie.
It was like a time warp. All of a sudden, I was back in that hotel room with her. Christmas Eve, four years ago… Kissing her, fucking her, getting off on the taste and smell of her excitement, and watching her skin bloom red under my touch.
Ending the call with a savage swipe of my finger, I fall backward into my executive chair. Right now, my dick is throbbing harder for a memory than it ever did for any of the women I’ve been with since.
Damn her!
I’m going to strip her raw for exposing my weakness like this, and then I’m going to fuck all that pride and stubbornness out of her.