The Accidental Bride: A BWWM Billionaire Romance Read online

  The ACCIDENTAL BRIDE

  Published By Tiana Cole, 2016

  © 2016 Tiana Cole

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.

  Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.

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  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ALSO FROM TIANA COLE:

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  Waking in a strange room, disoriented, James Andrews struggled to open his eyes. The air in the dark room was like a thick, heavy, fog that lay on him like a blanket. He was drenched in sweat and his heart beat with the effort. Painfully, slowly, he fought to find his way to consciousness from the pit he was in. It seemed like he’d been walking through this layer of darkness for a long time.

  What happened?

  He wanted to remember. He needed to remember, but his recollections were fragmented and useless. Only a vague, rather dim memory told him that he wasn’t at home.

  Shaking off the pain in his head, he took stock. The room was a lavish hotel room, with heavy drapes drawn, making it impossible to know if it was night or day. He remembered that he’d come to Las Vegas. He’d come to meet Shen Liang and talk business.

  Some business this was, that had his head thick and fuzzy, his eyes stuck shut and his mouth full of cotton.

  And then there was the girl.

  He was aware of her, but it took time for the idea to become real and penetrate his fogged brain and register. He was in his hotel room, in bed with a naked woman. Her soft breathing told him she still slept. The bed reeked of sweat and the odors of sex. He ran his eyes over this lithe dark woman, taking her in.

  The sight of her very sexy body didn’t arouse him, partly because the incredible throbbing of his head blocked out almost everything else, and because, through that pain, he realized he was drained dry—sexually. He’d obviously enjoyed himself with her more than once, and not all that long ago.

  Too bad he couldn’t remember most of the night.

  His gaze still lingered on the naked surprise next him. She slept peacefully, sprawled out on her stomach, legs slightly apart. The vision helped his eyes to focus and he tried to recall who she was and where he’d met her. After a time he looked around his room, hoping to find clues—about what had happened and who she was. The state of the place startled him. It had the hallmarks of the site of some kind of wild party. His clothes, the suit and shirt he’d been wearing, were scattered over the floor, and mixed in with a dress, panties, and a bra. A pair of high heels sat akimbo in the chair by the dresser. By the door, a room service cart stacked with empty plates and a wine bucket, with a champagne bottle turned upside down in it, suggested a celebration.

  A fastidious person under normal circumstances, James found the disorder almost as jarring as the presence of the naked woman he couldn’t even remember meeting. Clearly he’d had a wild night. The question was, just how wild had it been?

  I think you had a bit to drink last night, Jimmy boy. Too much.

  The way his head felt now, he considered himself lucky to wake to find just one woman in his bed. He had to have been out of control. One woman was bad enough. On the other hand, this one seemed to be quite a girl. At least there was that. He’d lost his mind, but his judgment about women had remained functional. That was some small comfort.

  Now came the chore of finding out exactly what had happened, what events had gotten them there, into this bed together. As a man of means, he was supposed to be careful about entanglements.

  He needed to find out exactly what he’d gotten himself into. If he’d been smart, or lucky, then this might just be the inevitable result of two people who’d been having a good time. Looking at her, he assumed they did have a very good time. How could they not, especially with a body like that?

  Painfully he clawed his way back to the here and now, digging his way through the shock of the situation. A hangover on this scale was something new. He wasn’t normally a party animal and wasn’t in Las Vegas for what most people called a good time. No, he was here for important business.

  He excelled at business, at negotiating deals. Interacting with people one on one, getting to know them, finding out what made them tick was his forte, not parties. He had no taste for the stupid chit chat that took place when strangers or casual acquaintances were put together and fed too much booze. Excessive use of alcohol, drugs, anything that clouded his judgment, dulled his senses in any way, made him edgy and off guard. He’d tried pot once and hated the way it made him lose focus.

  Being well known, especially for being rich, had its drawbacks. His face had been bandied about online and in magazines too often because of the high-profile business deals he’d been involved with. Sometimes he was involved with celebrities, as investors, or those who lent their high-profile credentials to some enterprise.

  So far, he’d found being involved with them beyond that point always seemed to have unpleasant consequences. He’d even had women want to sleep with him just because he was seen with a particular movie star. Star fucking by proxy. It was all too weird.

  Not that James was a prude, but he valued his relationships. Far too often the women he met offered themselves to him with the goal of snagging a rich husband. Attractive women, clever women, seemed to consider rich bachelors as relatively interchangeable entities, and that bothered him. Fortunately, he found most gold diggers easy to spot early on. Their basic tactic, being seductive, going well beyond flirting, and making it clear that he could have them if he wanted them, long before he even knew who they were, was fairly obvious—unless you were drunk, of course. Last night he’d been way too drunk.

  Even though being defensive and suspicious reduced his opportunities for fun, they also prevented mornings like this from happening. Clearly he’d let his guard down. He’d screwed that up big time. Although last night wasn’t the first time he’d ever drunk too much, it was the first time he woke unable to remember what he’d done, and that frightened him. And it was the first time he’d ever awakened to find himself naked and in bed with a woman he couldn’t even remember. That didn’t sit well with him, and she was clearly a woman worth remembering.

  The realization of what he’d done made him tense, and the tension twisted his stomach into knots. He fought back the urge to throw up.

  This trip to Vegas was important to him. It wasn’t the biggest deal he’d ever tackled, but it meant a great deal. He’d wangled an introduction to Shen Liang, a Chinese industrialist, to talk about partnering on a deal. He’d wanted to talk with James about representing Liang’s interests in the United States. Shen Liang’s people had called him!

  The money would be good, excellent, actually, but the exciting thing was the chance to work with Liang and be part of his circle of associates
. Few people knew who the man was. He deliberately had a low profile, and stayed almost invisible despite being the power and money behind several giant tech companies. Using interlocked dummy corporations, his control remained out of sight. And his life remained private.

  James had studied his career and knew the man had incredible instincts for where and when to invest—when to pack it in and run away. Best of all, the man was scrupulously honest. That appealed to James—it was how he liked to do business.

  For a year he’d tried to get Liang’s companies interested in working together. Then, out of the blue, Shen Liang’s assistant asked him for a meeting in Las Vegas. Liang had decided to focus on some investments in Africa for a time. “I wish to take some risks there and that will require careful attention, all of my attention,” Liang said. “I have reliable help in Asia but I need someone I can trust implicitly to run my US operations. Someone who can operate independently to grow the seeds I’ve planted.” And he had called the people he was considering to a series of face-to-face meetings in Las Vegas.

  James considered it an accomplishment that he’d made the short list. The initial meeting had gone well. Liang saw each candidate separately, insisting they be available to suit his schedule. That was difficult, but James had arranged it, and so far he’d felt that they’d hit it off. Not that they were great pals or anything, but it seemed that he and Liang saw eye to eye on business matters. He liked what the man was trying to do, and was confident that Liang was seriously considering him for the job. Liang’s eyes suggested he liked what James brought to the table. All the signs told him they were close to signing a contract.

  That was when he messed up.

  After a full day of talks, he and Liang ate dinner together in the hotel. “I will be out of town tomorrow,” Liang said. “I am going to Lake Havasu to meet another candidate. When I return depends on how that goes, but it won’t be for at least a day.”

  He remembered that. He could almost see Shen Liang’s unwavering gaze as it continually measured him. The pressure of feeling it had worn him down.

  Now he needed to remember what had happened next. Had he made an ass of himself in front of Liang? That would suck big time. Could it be that the girl was a hooker who Liang had fixed him up with? He’d heard of that sort of thing happening and for a moment the idea gave him hope, but that didn’t wash. The man wasn’t at all the “hire a hooker to close a business deal” type of guy. He was an old school conservative.

  No, he had to hope that the girl had shown up later, that he’d met her after Liang had gone to bed.

  Whoever the fuck she was, this sexy woman beside him.

  He watched her, unable to resist starting at her lovely ass, its enticing curve. He wracked his brain, trying to recall the night. The dinner had been wonderful.

  They’d had a little wine with an excellent lamb meal. The memories were vague but coherent. He’d been sober then and pleased with himself. Yes, he remembered that Liang’s attitude made James feel he was seriously in the running. He could remember sitting at the table and Liang standing. He’d made his excuses, something about calling Hong Kong to catch his secretary first thing in the morning.

  James stayed at the table to finish his wine. He was still sober then, still riding the high.

  The girl coughed in her sleep, catching his attention. He ran his gaze over the line of her jaw and face. He’s kissed those lovely lips…he must’ve, but he couldn’t remember the way they felt on his. Damn.

  He remembered that Alan had been there, at the hotel. After Shen Liang left, James had paid the bill and left the restaurant. It opened out onto the casino floor to spare customers the terrible fate of missing out on a chance to gamble away their money.

  Surrounded by the machines, he stopped. The sight of people playing the crazy assortment of games the machines offered mesmerized him. He wasn’t a gambler, not that kind, anyway. He’d never tried games of chance, but the flashing lights and sounds intrigued him, the fact that they actually lured people to put their money into them confounded him. He’d stood there, like some primitive gazing at the skyline of a great city, seeing but scarcely believing what he saw. He stared at the machines trying to figure out the point of the games. They were complex video games with odd names and promises of large payouts. He’d watched a man whose hand trembled as he poked buttons that made a machine come to life, with numbers flashing, and then muttering curses. James watched until he heard someone call his name. Then he turned and saw Alan standing behind him with a drink in his hand and a smile on his face.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” he said.

  The man’s appearance was more than a simple surprise. “What are you doing here?” James asked, curious.

  Alan seemed pleased to see him, and he wondered why. They’d had some good times together, worked together, but they’d never been close. Alan looked a few years older, he’d lost more of his thin hair and gained some weight, but otherwise seemed exactly the same as before.

  “I’m here trying to hustle some new business, of course. Same as always.”

  The shock of him appearing began to settle on James. After all that time, to see Alan pop into his life again in such a casual encounter was almost laughable. After years of not seeing each other, two men who weren’t gamblers reconnecting on the floor of a casino—what were the odds of that happening? How unusual was it to run into an old pal this far from home when you hadn’t seen him in so long?

  He didn’t really know Alan, but they went way back, all the way to his first job. Right out of college they’d both been trainees at the same finance company. Colleagues for a few years, then they’d both become consultants, and friendly competitors. In fact, the last time he’d seen him, he beat Alan out for a contract. It had been a fairly big one and completing it had made James’s reputation.

  And now, waking in his room, he remembered the coincidence of meeting Alan clearly because it had been such a surprise. A surprise that changed the course of the night.

  Of course, you didn’t run into an old friend, or even an acquaintance and not catch up a bit.

  He asked the polite question. “Where the hell have you been lately? You disappeared.”

  Alan gave him a big grin as if he knew some secret. “Working in Singapore. I dropped out of the consulting racket and took a job with an international bank. I needed something that paid a real salary for a time. I picked up a few new tricks and ideas and finally quit a few months back. Now I’m on my own again and here trying to nail down a potential client.”

  As tired as he’d been, James suddenly felt the night seemed young. It turned out that they had the next day free but hadn’t finished their business. That too was business as usual. And it pleased Alan immensely.

  “Then we are free to celebrate.”

  “I’m not much on partying.”

  “So I remember. How about we got to bar for a couple of drinks and swap stories? My treat. After all, who knows when we’ll see each other again?”

  As enthusiastic as Alan was about their reunion, it seemed churlish to refuse, so off they went. In the bar they ordered drinks and swapped stories. The alcohol snuck up on James. He remembered that he’d been having a lovely time and then realized his thinking was getting muddled. He’d had too many fucking drinks, but Alan was in an exuberant mood—happy at the fine accident of running into James. “Even us being in the same casino is a hell of a coincidence.” And it was. An amazing and happy coincidence.

  Normally, when he hadn’t been drinking, James didn’t care much for coincidence. He wasn’t even sure he believed in them, but this was Las Vegas. The rules were different here, or so people said.

  He took a break from trying to recall things, and eased himself into a sitting position. The change made his head throb painfully.

  Okay, I deserve that. Let it come.

  He’d get through pain. He could use it as an anchor. But his memory was getting vaguer. At least Shen Liang had already left when the rest of
it, whatever that was, happened.

  Next to him the girl snored softly, only her shoulders moving with her breathing. Again he reflected on how pretty she was and how it was the kind of beauty that appealed to him. Every man had a different vision of beauty, and this one…even with her face a bit puffy with sleep she was an ebony princess. She was young, probably in her early twenties, with dreadlocks.

  He almost chuckled at the situation, but suddenly his stomach churned violently and he fought back the urge to puke.

  As the nausea subsided he turned his attention back to the girl. She was a lovely distraction from the pain. Like something out of a dream. He did laugh then —at himself and his bizarre romantic streak. He wasn’t normally romantic, but this situation…he woke from a dream to find a girl who was his fantasy woman. Whatever else was going on, that alone was enough to make him wonder, for she had been the woman of his dreams even before he’d laid eyes on her.

  It went way back to when he was young. He and his friends had played a game where they imagined what their perfect woman would look like. Most of them just decided to pick variations on movie stars or other celebrity women, knowing the others would agree with them. How could you tease someone for thinking a celebrity was hot?

  For some reason James had taken the idea seriously. Long after the game was over he gave this woman a lot of thought. What attracted him to a woman? What did he want her to be like? What made her special? He’d found his fantasy girl to be remarkably consistent.

  Over the years, whenever he wasn’t in a relationship, he continued playing the game, thinking that if he kept her image alive, one day he might meet her.

  And what had him rattled was that his dream girl slept naked next to him now. A further irony was that he’d apparently fulfilled his fantasy—he’d made love with his dream girl, but he couldn’t remember one minute of it. Not even that first, special kiss.

  He took long breaths and slowly his head cleared, although his pulse throbbed in his temples. After a bit, he was able to trust his ability to stand. Maybe he could even make his way to the bathroom without even throwing up.