The Billionaire’s Sweet Surprise(2)

Lana sighed and graced Emma with a look that plainly said you’ve lost your mind before tentatively asking, “Is there something else going on? Are you and Vince okay?”





“We’re fine,” Emma reassured Lana but maybe there was a part of her that worried Vince wouldn’t find her sexy any longer after she’d pushed out his kid.





There were men who changed after seeing that. What if, after she gave birth, no longer saw her downstairs department as something desirable? She blushed, hating her own thoughts.





Was she being pathetic?





“I’m doing this for me.” And she was but there was the tiniest sliver of insecurity in her reasoning, too.





Lana smiled. “Okay. Just checking because by the looks of things Vince is more in love with you than ever before, not that I thought that was even possible,” she said dryly. “I mean, when the man looks at you, I’m not sure if he wants to love you or eat you.”





Vince had a way with his mouth, for sure. Emma wisely kept her comment to herself.





“The problem isn’t Vince. He loves my pregnant body. It’s me. I just don’t feel sexy any more. I’ve always wanted to take a pole dancing class and I figure now is the time to do it before I lose my nerve. Admittedly, I probably could’ve picked better timing.”





“All right, as long as you know what you’re doing is a little borked I’ll go along for the ride. Besides, someone needs to be there to drive your ass to the hospital when you put yourself into labor trying to do the splits.”





Emma laughed, saying, “Don’t worry. I’ve been doing preggo yoga since the beginning so I’m pretty limber.”





“Oh goody.”





Heart light, Emma jumped onto the freeway. Pole-dancing lessons, here I come!





Bookmark: 3





-3-





This was not the best of news.





“What happened?” Vince asked, rubbing at his brows. “Everything was set to close.”





Dillon, irritated at the setback, tossed his pen to the desk. “Fucker pulled out at the last minute. Seems he had a change of heart about owning an underground sex club. Go figure.”





Malvagio, the secret, members-only elite club owned by him, Nolan and Laird Teichert, was once again, on the market. This was not going to go over well with Emma and Lana.





“I knew he didn’t have the stones to own Malvagio but I went against my better judgment and accepted the bid,” Nolan said, just as pissed. “Damn it. This club is becoming like an unlucky penny that we just can’t get rid of.”





“The only saving grace is that it’s still making money hand-over-fist,” Dillon said. “But I don’t have to stress that distancing yourself from the club is a smart thing. Not only for your marriages but for Buchanan Enterprises, as well.”





Sutton Buchanan, a recent addition to the Buchanan Enterprises board, didn’t see the problem, nor would he, given the fact that he was not quite as reformed as the rest of them.





“Maybe this is a sign that the club should stay in the family,” he suggested. “Identities are hidden and the club is by invitation-only. I say we fold the club into a Buchanan Enterprises holding and enjoy the cash raining from the sky. Seems like a solid investment to me.”





Vince scowled at his cousin. “Nolan, Laird and I — the owners of the club — are not selling to Buchanan Enterprises. Dillon is right, we need to wash our hands of it.”





“Why?” Sutton asked being deliberately difficult.





“Because my wife and her sister were assaulted there and it’s no longer appropriate for our lives,” he answered coolly, hating that Sutton never missed an opportunity to be an ass. Somethings never changed.





Sutton chuckled as he cast an amused glance Dillon’s way. “Remember when Vince had balls?”





“Cut it out,” Dillon warned. “The last thing I need is you two idiots trying to break each other’s jaws in my office. Look, we’ll put the club back on the market, quietly and discreetly, of course, but in the meantime, we need to have someone manage it.” He looked to Vince. “Seeing as neither you, Nolan or Laird are interested in managing the club, maybe Sutton should take over until we can secure a new buyer.”





Sutton managing Malvagio? Aww, hell. That idea made him want to eat glass but what choice did he have? He looked to Nolan. “You okay with that?”





“No,” Nolan answered sourly but he’d already come to the same conclusion. Sutton was the best choice for a temporary solution to a sticky problem. “But I guess it’s the best option.”





“Gee guys, I love your vote of confidence. Makes me feel all soft and squishy inside,” Sutton quipped with a twist of his lips.





“Cut the crap, Sutton. There will be rules. Lots of them,” Vince said.





Sutton rolled his eyes, bored. “You and rules. No wonder there are so many dungeons at the club. You, my cousin, have control issues.”





Good God, he hated Sutton. The smug bastard had always been a pain in the ass.





“I mean it, Sutton. The only way I’m agreeing to this is if you agree to follow our rules. Otherwise, I vote we shut down the club and let it rot. I don’t care how much money it brings in.”





Nolan, the cooler head between the two, stepped in. “Dillon is right. There’s no sense in cutting off an easy cash flow if we don’t have to.” To Sutton, he said, “Vince is right about you following the rules we’ve already established. That will keep things moving smoothly and without incident. We don’t want another situation like we had with Preacher getting in.”





“That’s the guy who went all crazy on your wives?” Sutton asked.





“Yeah.”





“Whatever happened to that guy?” Sutton asked.





Dillon shot Sutton a quelling look. “He was taken care of.”





Vince smirked. Dillon may have become more civilized but he was still enough of a bad ass to shut down Sutton’s wise-ass remarks.





“All right, for the time being, you can manage the club but if I hear of one misstep, I’m shutting it all down. Got it?”





No one argued his terms, which was good because Vince wouldn’t have listened. There were some things that were nonnegotiable.





Dillon nodded. “It’s settled then.”





“I can go over the responsibilities and expectations if you want to get back to Emma,” Nolan offered. “I know you’re probably itching to get back to the house.”





Vince rose, grateful. “We’re in the final stretch. Thank God. My nerves can’t take much more of this.”





Both Dillon and Nolan, who had children of their own, understood but Sutton just looked at him with pity. “Better you than me, cousin. You’ll never see me tied down and neutered.”





“Like anyone would have you,” Vince muttered as he grabbed his leather jacket. “Sutton, I’d question the sanity of any woman who’d stay with you longer than it took to throw away the used condom.”





“Speaking from experience?” Sutton mocked and Vince had to leave before he ruined the carpet with Sutton’s face.





He and Sutton had never really gotten along, too much alike Nolan always said but he hated to think he was anything like Sutton.





But you couldn’t choose your family. More’s the pity.





Now that the East Coast Buchanans were taking their seats on the Buchanan Enterprises board, they were going to be around a lot more.





God help them all.





If it wouldn’t bankrupt the company, he’d urge Dillon and Nolan to buy them out.





He didn’t want the cousins mucking up the good thing they had going.





Sutton was a bad influence — one he didn’t need around his family.





Bookmark: 4





-4-





Emma was sore, a little flustered, and a lot embarrassed.





Lana tried to pick up her spirits with the offering of a chocolate shake. “You were doing really good until you tried that spinning thing. Honestly, you could’ve pulled it off if it weren’t for your belly getting in the way, which is something I warned you about in the first place.”





“No gloating,” Emma said, accepting the shake and slurping loudly. Not even chocolate could ease her ego. “This was a terrible idea,” she mourned, feeling like an idiot. “Did you see the instructor’s face? I think she was having an aneurism trying not to laugh.”





“To be fair, it was pretty funny.”





Emma shot her sister a dark look and Lana instantly sobered.





“Okay, so you tried something a little crazy and you, sort of, failed at it, doesn’t mean you can’t try again once you’ve had the baby.”





Tears pricked Emma’s eyes. “I just want to feel normal again.” She groaned as her back spasmed, clenching her muscles like a vise. “And my back is killing me. I feel like an 80-year-old woman.





“Cut yourself some slack. You will get back to normal, after you push out that tiny bundle of joy currently sucking up all your brain cells.”