The Groomsman: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Billionaires of Club Tempest) Read online

  The Groomsman

  Billionaires of Club Tempest

  Sloane Hunter

  Stockton Publishing

  The Groomsman

  Billionaires of Club Tempest

  * * *

  Sloane Hunter

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Sloane Hunter 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  ALSO BY SLOANE HUNTER

  Billionaires of Club Tempest series

  The Boss

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Thank You for Reading!

  Prologue

  Alice

  “What happened to girl’s night?” Jordan muttered out of the corner of her mouth.

  Daniel had to have heard her. He was only standing a couple inches behind me, so close I could feel his breath on my ear. From the look on my friend’s face, I doubted she cared.

  I sighed and puffed a piece of loose hair out of my face. I didn’t have much of an answer for her. Daniel’s presence was almost as much a surprise to me as it was to her. He’d texted me as I was slipping on my red party dress, asking what I was up to.

  Girl’s night, I’d told him.

  All night? was his reply.

  I’d ignored him after that, but he hadn’t stopped texting.

  I told myself through every bar, at every club, during all the stops we made at the beginning of the night, don’t answer him. Don’t respond. Let it die. And yet, despite my best intentions, I caved. Somehow I blinked my eyes and found myself standing in the long, long line outside the Black Shade Saloon with Beck, Jordan, and Kylie by my side and Daniel at my back.

  Daniel had been happy to get there and was just as happy to leave immediately with me in tow.

  “Are you sure you want to go inside?” he asked, hands snaking around my waist to rest on my hips. “My roommates are gone. We could just head back there.”

  To be honest, I was over the night already. I was happy to go, but I also wasn’t particularly in the mood to have sex with Daniel. I was still currently pissed at myself for allowing him to push his way in, a feeling my three friends shared. Well, maybe just Kylie and Jordan. Beck was off in La La Land thinking about our boss, Sam Callahan and hadn’t been paying much attention to anything all night.

  “We’ve been standing in this line for almost an hour,” I said. “We’re getting in and having at least one drink.”

  “And then you wanna head out?” he pushed.

  “Maybe,” I said. It meant yes, but I wasn’t about to give in a second time, at least not so easily.

  I tried to ignore Daniel’s hot breath on the back of my neck and refocused on my friends.

  “Doing okay?” I asked Beck. She was standing next to me, gazing off in another direction with a twisted look on her face. She started when I nudged her.

  “Yeah, definitely,” she said. “Just thinking.”

  About Sam’s hunky figure, I completed the sentence in my head.

  Beck was my former college roommate/best friend and had just moved onto my couch from Kentucky. In typical Beck fashion, she’d fallen immediately into a torrid love affair with our boss, the billionaire real estate mogul Sam Callahan. Beck was currently in the least fun stage on the road to acceptance (denial), and this night out was supposed to do her some good. Ever since they’d hooked up on her first night in the city, there’d been a frown on her face and an undeniable listlessness in her voice. I wasn’t sure if she was regretting it happened or sad it might not happen again.

  The dilemma left her face as she met my eye, clearing into a soft smile. “Having fun?” she asked in a light Southern drawl.

  “Sure, sure,” I said. My own accent had been purposefully dropped when I moved to the city. “Just want to get the hell inside.”

  Kylie said something from Beck’s other side before she could respond. My friend turned away to answer, leaving me back alone with Daniel.

  I pretended to dig in my purse so I didn’t have to talk to him. Honestly, Daniel wasn’t that bad. He was a little pushy, occasionally conceited. He could be a douche, but he was cute in an Ivy League-trust fund kind of way. And he was okay in bed, which was a lot more than I could say for Harrison, my previous boyfriend.

  There was nothing really wrong with Daniel, nothing that couldn’t already be found in thousands of young guys across the city. And maybe that was the issue. I was getting a heavy sense of déjà vu. Another Cornell frat boy that I met on Tinder (or was it Bumble?) who I’d date for six months until he left his dirty boxers on my kitchen table for the final time and I washed my hands of it all.

  Daniel was supposed to be a hookup, a fling to put the spark into singles life lest I forget the touch of a man. But the past few times I’d gone out, he’d come with me. Not just at the end of the night either. Like, stay the whole time and then come home afterward. Which was not what you did with a hookup. That was what you did with a boyfriend.

  And was I ready for a relationship again already? My brain declared a resounding no way. And yet somehow Daniel stood behind me anyway.

  Stood behind me a little too closely. I started as Daniel palmed my ass through my dress. He leaned closer and I could smell the liquor on his breath as he whispered in my ear. “God, Alice. I’m so hard.”

  Yeah, and what exactly do you want me to do about it now?

  As it turned out, he had an idea in mind. He pulled one of my hands behind me and pressed it against his length. I glanced out of the corner of my eye at my friends. Beck was still talking to Kylie, and none of them seemed any the wiser. That being said, while I wasn’t above experimenting sexually, a public hand job mere feet from my best friends was a single step (or three) too far.

  I yanked my hand out of his. “Stop it,” I hissed out of the corner of my mouth. “You can wait until we get home.”

  “But this line is so long,” he whined.

  “Your balls aren’t going to fall off. And anyway, we’re almost at the front,” I said, thankful for the excuse so this conversation could die.

  As the words left my mouth, the group in front of us was ushered into the Black Shade. I walked forward, but because Daniel was slightly leaning on me, the movement caused me to stumble.

  “Shit!” I cried, just as Beck swooped in for the Best Friend of the Year Award by catching me before I went down hard on the pavement. />
  “Damn, Alice, are you okay?” Beck asked, righting me and keeping her hands on my arm to hold me steady.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I just tripped.” The only thing wounded was what remained of my pride.

  “Sorry, babe,” Daniel whispered in my ear. I turned and he grinned sheepishly at me. “Didn’t know you were about to take off like that.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “Let’s just go in and—” My sentence faded away as I turned and looked directly into the eye of the unsmiling bouncer.

  “I wouldn’t bother waiting,” he said, confirming that, yes, he was going to be a dick.

  “What do you mean? Why the hell not?” I demanded.

  “I mean I’m not letting you in here. You’re too drunk. Can’t serve you.”

  My mouth fell open. I had not wasted an hour of my Saturday night just to be turned away at the door.

  “I’ve been in this line so long, I’m completely sober,” I said. “We’ve been waiting forever and you’re just going to turn us away?”

  The bouncer’s face was set. “You’re too drunk,” he repeated. “I don’t care. Get out of here.”

  “I’m not drunk!” I insisted. “I wasn’t stumbling. I tripped. You try walking around this city for hours in heels.”

  The line behind us was starting to murmur in annoyance, but I didn’t care. Unfortunately, neither did the bouncer. “Nobody ever thinks they’re drunk,” he said. “Everyone ‘just tripped’. Well, sorry, but I’m not getting yelled at by my boss for letting in a group of wasted chicks.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but Beck put her hand on my arm. “Come on, Alice. Let’s just go somewhere else.”

  I turned on her. “But we waited in this long-ass line!”

  To my left, a booming voice with a thick Irish accent exploded with all the noise and fervor of a cannon’s shot. “Kyle! How ya doin’ you fat feck?”

  I whipped around, half-deafened in one ear, and saw the swaying figure of one of the most striking men I’d ever seen. He was not overly tall, standing not much higher than six feet, but his chest, shoulders, and arms expanded with solid mass, stretching the fabric of his clothes. His black hair was long and pulled back in a knot and stubble graced his chiseled jaw. His clothes stood out as oddly formal in the line of club dresses and skinny jeans — a full three-piece suit with a tie that hung loose around his neck. His full lips were curled into a smile that revealed shining white teeth. The smile reached his bottle-green eyes, and, for a moment, they left the bouncer’s face to connect with mine before returning to my enemy’s.

  All of that passed through my brain in a millisecond before the next bit of information hit — this man was stumbling drunk. Those devilish eyes were dulled by drink and as he stood beside us, he leaned as if a stiff breeze might knock him to the pavement.

  “MacKenzie Walsh,” the bouncer, Kyle apparently, said. The previous disdain slipped away and was replaced by a mirrored grin. “Thought you found a new favorite bar.”

  He reached out a hand and the drunk, MacKenzie Walsh, took it. “Course not,” he slurred. “The Black Shade always has my heart.”

  I watched their hands and saw a flash of green as the bouncer withdrew. So that was how it was going to be. I pushed aside my initial attraction to the large Irish man and fixed them both in an indignant glare.

  “Are you letting him in?” I demanded. The guy was wasted and even if I was — which I most certainly wasn’t — it was such a blatant double standard that anger rose up inside me and threatened to spill. He hadn’t even stood in line for god’s sake!

  “Are you still here?” Kyle asked.

  I opened my mouth to really let loose when the drunk guy, MacKenzie, said to Kyle, “Is that any way to talk to my friends?”

  I did a double-take, looking at him to guess his meaning when suddenly another man appeared behind him. He was dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans, but he carried himself with the lazy arrogance of a wealthy man. Though he was a lot smaller, cut rather than bulky, he brushed MacKenzie aside impatiently and said to Kyle, “They’re with us.”

  The new guy was incredibly handsome as well, and I didn’t miss the wink he shot Kylie as he glanced over our group. Compared to his friend, he didn’t seem drunk at all.

  “Let’s just go,” Daniel said behind me.

  I stifled an eye roll. Of course he was silent up until it looked like we were going to get in after all. And I was sure he wasn’t liking the fact that these guys were scooching in on us. A couple more of their friends were coming up behind them, but I didn’t give them much of a glance because Kylie spoke up beside me.

  “No, let’s go in.” She was making heavy eye contact with the Black T-shirt guy who’d defused the situation.

  “But—” Daniel started.

  An angry voice shouted from somewhere behind us, “You have about two seconds to move before I kick someone’s ass.” An echo of anger went down the line from the others waiting to go inside.

  “Well,” Black T-shirt said patiently, “we’re going in. You ladies are welcome to join us at our private table.”

  Kyle opened the door for him and MacKenzie, who was looking back angrily at whoever called. Black T-Shirt grabbed him by the sleeve of his suit and yanked him toward the door.

  MacKenzie refocused his attention away from the line and directly back onto me. There was a playful glint in his eye, and his lip curled into what must have been his lady-killer smile. Maybe it would have gotten me if he wasn’t still visibly swaying on his feet.

  Black T-shirt was already through the door and gestured for us to follow. I disdainfully brushed off the man’s glances and walked as confidently (and non-stumblingly) as I could through the door. Beck, Kylie, and Jordan followed in my wake as the other guys, MacKenzie and his two friends, brought up the rear.

  Once inside, Black T-Shirt gestured for us to follow him up the stairs to the elevated VIP section, and we climbed to find a roped off area with couches set around a glass table where whiskey and vodka already waited. An attendant stood by, looking for anyone who might not belong. He unhooked the velvet rope and nodded to Black T-Shirt as he entered, welcoming him as ‘Mr. Blackburn’.

  I was too busy examining the bottles lining the table, looking for my favorite vodka to hear exactly what made Beck shout in alarm, but the urgency of her tone scared me. I whipped around, ready to fight, and found myself looking at the handsome face of our boss, Sam Callahan. Beck was staring at him with equal parts shock and horror, and I couldn’t help but gasp as well. Of course. With Beck’s luck (or lack thereof), why wouldn’t her billionaire sidepiece show up out of thin air?

  “Do you know each other?” the fourth man asked. He was tall and muscular like his friends, but cut in the manner of Mr. Blackburn rather than bulky like Sam and MacKenzie. He had an unusual combination of steel-gray eyes and black-gray hair that looked natural despite the fact that he couldn’t be out of his early thirties. His voice was smooth and calming, and his eyes were thoughtful. While I was still making my mind up about the rest of the group, I found I liked him immediately.

  Sam smiled, though it looked forced. “This is Beck. She’s my new assistant.” Then, much to my surprise, Sam turned to me. “And this is…” he paused, searching his memory. “Alice,” he finally completed.

  “I’m surprised you know who I am,” I admitted.

  Sam took a seat at the couch and moved over so the other guys could follow him. “I know everyone who works for me,” he said. “I enjoyed your ideas for the Astor.”

  I grinned, but it faltered slightly as I felt Daniel by my side. He kept trying to get closer to me on the couch, hooking one of his arms around my neck and scooching so close he was practically sitting on my lap. It wasn’t subtle. In the light of Sam’s praise, he was trying to claim ownership of me which was about as unnecessary as it was embarrassing.

  Who the hell did he think I was? That I’d try to sleep with my boss, the same one that my best friend was currently s
wooning over and trying desperately not to? I wanted to push him off, but it would be even more embarrassing to look like this wasn’t something we normally did.

  Kylie was asking about work, but I was too busy trying to send some secret signal to Daniel to listen to her. I tried pinching his leg, but he ignored it. It was hard to concentrate because MacKenzie was still looking at me hungrily with boozy eyes, and Beck was looking a little peaked on my other side.

  Should I try to get her out of here? I knew this was a terribly uncomfortable situation for her. She wasn’t sending me any signals, but knowing Beck she didn’t want to interrupt the night. It was ridiculous. I didn’t care how long we waited in line. The minute Beck wanted out, we were out. I tried to catch her eye, but she wasn’t looking my way.

  My attention was being pulled in too many directions and I almost missed the round of introductions. Sam I knew, of course. Black T-Shirt became Henry Blackburn, while MacKenzie was introduced as Mac Walsh, which sounded familiar. I tried to remember from where until the gray-haired man was introduced as Mason Reads and Beck’s reaction distracted my thoughts away.

  “The artist,” she said. “Sam said he knew you.”

  Beck looked star-struck while Mason looked uncomfortable with the attention. Now that she mentioned it, Mason Reads did sound familiar. Something I’d absorbed through osmosis, a name spattered across the cover of The New Yorker and The Times and other things I didn’t read but passed often enough on newsstands.