Brother to the Boss: Billionaire Romance (Managing the Bosses Series Book 8) Read online

  “My apologies,” Mark said. “I was just thinking.” He smiled at her. “There's a lot involved in running a place like this and sometimes I get distracted thinking about all the things that I still need to do.”

  Anna giggled. “I'm sure you do. I get distracted often enough and I don't have a whole country club to run. It must be quite a job. Don't you ever get tired?”

  For minute Mark wanted to confess that he did, in fact, get tired. That he was starting to wonder if he'd made the right choice in wanting to run the country club in the first place. He’d had no idea it would be quite so intense. He held back, realizing that telling her wouldn’t do either of them any good. And it might give her ideas that she was more intimate with him then he actually felt her to be.

  When he looked back toward Erica, she was looking up at him. Even from where she stood, he could tell by her body language that she was less than pleased by his company. Mark gave her a little shrug, small enough that Anna, standing next to him, wouldn't notice unless she was looking for it. What was he supposed to do? He couldn't exactly ignore guests just because they were attractive women. Why was he even trying to justify it to himself?

  He smiled again at Anna, keeping his tone completely friendly. “Oh, you know,” he said, “everyone gets tired sometimes, but it's a job that I really enjoy. I've wanted to run a country club since I was a kid. Who actually gets to live out their dreams? And hey, I get to play all the golf I want.”

  The joke wasn't really that clever, or funny, but Anna laughed.

  The sound of footsteps in the grass alerted Mark to Erica's presence. He turned to her, catching her scent and smiled nervously at her. She looked less pleased than he had expected. Almost as soon as he had noted that, however, her face shifted to an overly-sweet smile.

  “Mark,” Erica said, “who is this?”

  “Erica, this is Miss Anna Blake. She's one of our new club members. I was just showing her around and explaining some of the perks of being a member here.”

  Erica’s smile looked sweet, but its edges were vicious as she turned it on Anna. “Nice to meet you Miss Blake,” she said. “I hope that you're enjoying your time at the country club so far.”

  “Oh, absolutely.” Anna smiled a smile that was just as sharp as Erica's. “I'm enjoying it very much. Mark has been so kind. He really is an excellent host.”

  Mark was beginning to get the feeling that he'd stepped into something he should have stayed out of. He didn't really understand the way women communicated. Sure, he could tell what they meant when they said it, but when they did that thing where they pretended to be happy and were obviously angry, he started to struggle. His ex-wife had done that. A lot.

  “So, Miss Blake, are you here alone?” Erika pointedly asked, surprising Mark slightly.

  Anna shook her head, her glossy dark hair spilling over her shoulders with the motion.” No, actually,” she replied. “I'm here with a friend.”

  “Oh? And who might that be?”

  Anna scanned the golf course and, seeming to spot him, lifted one hand and waved it in the air to try to get his attention. It worked.

  The man who walked over was tall and dark-haired, with bits of silver distinguished throughout, the sort of attractive that seem to run in wealthy families. He smiled charmingly at them.

  “This is Nicholas,” Anna said.

  “Nicholas,” Mark said slowly. “Not Sunrise Applications Nicholas?”

  The man looked surprised, but he smiled. “Actually, I am Sunrise Applications Nicholas. I didn't expect you to know the name.”

  Mark's eyebrows lifted, the friendliness disappearing from his face. “I do actually speak to my brother on a regular basis, you know.”

  One of Erica's hands hooked around Mark's arm as Nicholas started to frown, and she smiled at Nicholas and Anna both, the expression strained this time rather than sharp. “If you'll excuse us for a moment,” she said, tugging him away.

  Mark let himself be drawn a few feet to the left, but he shook his head when she tried to go farther. “What?”

  “Do you really think it's a good idea to take that kind of attitude with a patron?” she whispered.

  “You may not be aware of this, Erica, but he’s trying to ruin my brother. He's buying out his stock in an attempt to run his business into the ground.”

  “I am aware of it, actually,” Erica retorted. “You've told me about it, remember? But your brother has it under control, doesn't he? So why create a problem here just because he annoys your brother? If anything, you're helping Alex. You’re taking some of Nicholas' money. Is it a bad thing to let your enemies enrich you?”

  That wasn't really what he would have expected to ever hear her say.

  It was also kind of hot. Mark shook himself. “Letting my enemies enrich me isn't going to be a great excuse when Alex shows up demanding to know why I'm serving his arch-rival in the business world. This guy tried to screw over Alex and Jamie. He’s nothing but trouble.”

  “Who says Alex has to know?” Eric's hand tightened a little around his arm. “I mean, think of this, Mark. He's rich. As rich as Alex is, if not more. You should see the tip he gave me. The man is loaded and he's not afraid to flash it around. That, and his presence could be really good for the club. People are going to want to be where he is. He's a popular man. And he already told me that he likes to have a lot of his business meetings over golf. So he'll be bringing in other customers that way, too. You kick him out, and a lot of other people are going to go with him, or not come at all. Do you really want that?”

  Mark's jaw tightened as he considered the possibilities. Alex was going to be pissed at him if he found out about Nicholas. But only if he found out, right? He was playing with fire here, and he knew it. No matter what he did, he was going to lose in some way. And Erica did have a point about the money and the man's ability to bring in other customers. He wasn't going to sacrifice a quarter of his client base just to keep from annoying Alex. And if Alex did happen to find out, he could always explain. His brother, of all people, would understand putting business before other concerns.

  He sighed. “Alright,” he said, pulling his thoughts back from elsewhere and looking down at Erica. “I'll play nice. But he does one thing out of line and he's gone. I don't care how many customers he brings here.”

  “You got it,” Erica answered.

  She let go of his arm, and they made their way back to where Nicholas and Anna were still waiting, giving them expectant looks.

  “Well?” Nicholas asked. “Is there going to be a problem?”

  Mark gave him a smile that he was pretty sure didn't come across as totally genuine, but it was polite and that was what mattered. As long as he had plausible deniability, the man couldn't accuse him of anything but professional courtesy. “Welcome to Little Lake Country Club,” Mark said. “We hope you enjoy your time with us.”

  Nicholas' answering smile was like the cat that got the cream, and for a moment Mark wondered if he'd made the wrong decision. But there was no threat that came with it. Nicholas simply said he was sure he would, and moved back toward the driving range.

  “And you, Anna,” Mark said to the woman, who was still lingering. “I hope you enjoy your time here as well.”

  She smiled, dipping her head to look up at him through her eyelashes. “Oh,” she said, “I'm sure that it’ll continue to be a wonderful experience. After all, you run the place well.” She turned to follow Nicholas, and Mark felt Erica looking at him.

  “What?” he asked, turning his head to look at her.

  “Really?” she demanded, voice low enough that the guests a dozen yards away wouldn't be able to overhear. “You're going to fall for that simpering act?”

  “Simpering act?” Mark answered. “I was just being polite.”

  “Oh, sure you were.” Erica crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you going to be that polite to every attractive woman that comes out here?”

  “'I'm going to be that polite to eve
ry customer, regardless of whether they're a woman or not.” Mark took a step closer to her. “And I really don't know what you have to complain about. I saw you with those two guys the other night.”

  “What two—you’re shitting me, right? Arthur and Richard? Are you serious? I wasn't doing anything with them. Sure, they were flirting, but before you happened to appear I was going to politely get rid of them. Except you showed up before that was possible. And like you said, I was just making sure that they enjoyed their experience here. Not really something to convene the court about.”

  “So, what? You're allowed to flirt as part of doing your job, but I'm not allowed to be a maybe a little flirty with some women who are more likely to come back because of it? Don't you think that's a bit of a double standard? Who owns the club?”

  Erica growled at him and spun on her heel, stalking back toward the man she'd been teaching before she came up to find out what was going on with Anna. Mark watched her go. She really did look good when she was angry. Maybe he would tell her that, sometime when she wasn’t already angry with him.

  ***

  Mark didn’t get a chance talk to Anna again. He made his way around the course and through the club building, chatting with the occasional guest and dealing with the million minor crises that made up the rest of his day. Erica had seemingly made herself scarce or was ignoring him, because every time he passed by she was too busy to even look up. Mark didn’t say anything to her about it. If she wanted to sulk, that was fine. He did hope, though, that she would calm down by the time that the club closed.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. When Mark finally dragged himself up to his rooms after the building had finally been closed down and the last employee cars had left the parking lot, she was sitting stiffly in one of the chairs, a book in her hands that she obviously wasn’t reading by the time he opened the door, because she was looking over the top of it at him.

  “Yes?” Mark asked, unfastening the knot of his tie and working it loose with a sigh of relief.

  “I want to talk about what happened earlier,” Erica said, setting the book down without marking her page. “Maybe we could’ve handled it better.”

  “We?” Mark laughed. “I think I handled it just fine. You were the one with the irrational jealousy problem.”

  Erica’s lips flattened into a thin line, her eyes narrowing. “Don’t act like that, Mark. You were just as jealous of Arthur and Richard, apparently, regardless of the fact that we were both doing the same thing. Which is why I’m trying to approach this like a mature adult.”

  “So now I’m immature? I’ll tell you something, Erica. We weren’t both doing the same thing. I was talking to the woman. Sure, she was a little flirty, but she wasn’t handing out the kind of blatant bullshit that Arthur and Richard were shoveling. And you let them get away with a hell of a lot of it before you said a word to stop them.”

  She shook her head. “Unbelievable. I try to approach this with some degree of humility, and acknowledge that I could have spoken to you a little more nicely about the woman you were talking to, and you turn around and treat me like I’ve committed some horrible sin. Yes, they were flirting. Men always flirt with me.” She threw up a hand. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m generally considered pretty attractive. Guys come on to me. I don’t fucking ask them to. But a lot of them get pretty offended when you tell them that you’re not interested, so in a case where I’m trying to keep them happy with the club, I’m going to push that moment back a little in order to have a better chance of my rejection not ending in them storming out.”

  “Wow,” Mark said, stripping out of his suit jacket. “You talk about humility and then you come up with something like that. What? Men can’t handle rejection from you because you’re just so perfectly gorgeous?”

  Her expression tightened. “Last I checked, you were one of the guys who thinks I’m gorgeous.”

  That wasn't quite the way that Mark had intended it to go. “I am,” he said, feeling suddenly guilty. “I do.”

  “Unless someone else agrees with you?” Erica demanded. “Then my looks are clearly just overstated and I should shut up?”

  “No.” Mark sighed, and stepped forward. “That's not it at all. You're right. I overreacted and I shouldn't have talked to you like that about it. It's not your fault those guys were trying so hard to get in your pants.”

  “No,” she snapped, “it isn't. And it's nice that you want to apologize now, but why couldn't you have earlier? Why did you have to make it this big thing where I'm so in the wrong?”

  There was hurt in her voice, and in her face, and Mark wanted to step forward and take her in his arms. He resisted the urge. She obviously wasn't going to be in the mood for it.

  “I guess I'm just... It's a lot of stress on me, running the country club, and it's been making me kind of irrationally angry about things.”

  “I know that it's a lot of stress on you,” Erica said, and her voice had softened. “I try to help you with it as much as I can. You know that.”

  “I do know that.”

  She sighed, and her crossed arms loosened just a little. “So, you're not actually mad at me for what happened with those guys?”

  Mark meant to say that he wasn't. He really did. But he paused, just for an instant, because he did think she could have said something sooner.

  Erica must have seen it in his face, because she cut him off before he could even speak, shaking her head.

  “You're unbelievable, you know that? What makes you think that you have any say in who I speak to anyway?”

  He stared at her. “You mean that? Seriously? Like you're not sleeping in my bed every night? Sharing my drawers? Of course I get to have some say in who you speak to.”

  “No,” she hissed. “You don't. The fact that I'm fucking you, and that we maybe even have what I would call a relationship -- although tonight has put that on tenuous footing, for the record, because you're acting like an ass -- doesn't mean that you get to say who I talk to or how. I'm not going to give you or anyone else that kind of control over me!”

  “But you want it over me?” Mark demanded. “You were the one who got angry first. I was willing to let the whole thing with those guys go. I didn't say anything to you about it the night that it happened for a reason, you know. But you just had to get all worked up over the fact that I was speaking to a guest. Which is my job.”

  “It's my job, too!”

  Mark stalked forward. “If you know that, then why are you acting like this over the fact that I was doing my job just as much as you were?”

  “Because-” Erica cut herself off, turning away, and he wrapped a hand around her arm, drawing her back, though he was careful not to make it a yank. Nothing that could hurt her. No matter how mad he was, he wasn't going to get physical with her like that. “Because I was fucking jealous, okay?”

  That made him go still. “Seriously?”

  “Yes. Seriously. It's not like you're not the kind of guy who could have his pick of whoever. Maybe I was just a little insecure about the fact that you were chatting up a rich woman with way bigger breasts than mine.”

  Laughter bubbled up out of Mark's chest before he could stop it. “That's what you were upset about?” He took a step forward, his hand still on her arm, and she was forced to move with him, backing toward the bed. Her cheeks were pink and she wouldn't meet his eyes.

  “Well, I'm not exactly well-endowed in that department,” she mumbled. “And she was. And flaunting it.”

  “Babe,” Mark said, giving her a little shove that sent her tumbling back onto the mattress and crawling up over her to yank her shirt over her head before she could protest. He tossed it to the side, and started on the fastenings of her bra. “Your breasts. Are perfect.”

  Her mouth thinned. “Yeah, right. You're just saying that because you want to fuck me.”

  “Which I would think would be a sign that I'm pretty happy with your breasts. Considering the amount of time tha
t I spend wanting to get my hands on them.”

  She looked up at him, and Mark carefully worked her ponytail loose of her hair, letting the blond locks spill out over the pillow.

  “You sure about that?”

  “As sure as I am of the fact that you're hot as hell and that if I don't get inside you in the next -- oh, thirty seconds, I'm going to be pretty disappointed.”

  He reached down and unfastened her jeans, pulling them off too, and that seemed to get her attention, because in the next instant she was moving, too, working on the buttons that held his shirt closed so fast that he was pretty sure she almost yanked one of them off. He pulled his slacks down, adding them to the pile of clothing on the floor, and they were both in nothing but their underwear, only two thin layers of fabric between them. Mark got his hands on Erica's hips and flipped her onto her stomach. She gasped, a small, surprised sound that went straight to his cock.

  “You want to know something?” he asked as he pulled her panties down around her thighs, kicking his boxers off.

  “Fuck. What?”

  He lowered one of his hands to line himself up, and then pressed in, pulling her back onto his cock in the same instant and listening to her moan as he filled her.

  “I was fucking jealous, too,” he growled against her ear.

  His first thrust was hard and fast, and Mark didn’t slow down. His hands were still around her hips, holding tight enough that he wondered if they would leave bruises behind, and if Erica would mind them. She didn’t seem to have any problem with the pace he’d set. Her body was rocking back to meet every thrust, moans spilling from her lips like she couldn’t hold them in. And fuck, it was good. It was fucking great. If this was what happened when they fought, Mark wouldn’t mind having a few more of them on occasion.

  “Damn,” she gasped. “Mark. More!” Her fingers were curled in the sheets, her knuckles gone white with the force of her grip. Mark let a moan escape his own throat to mingle with the noises that she was making with every breath. One of his hands slid down over her belly so that he could find her clit with two of his fingers, rubbing circles over it to match the pace of his thrusts. Erica all but screamed, and he was glad there was no one around to hear her because he wanted the beautiful woman underneath him all to himself, screams and moans included. She was his, and so were the sounds she made.