The Night I Bought a Billionaire by Tessa Kelwyn
The Night I Bought a Billionaire
Description
Melany Refoy is twenty-five, broke, and raising a five-year-old son who looks nothing like her. Cameron has ocean-blue eyes, sharp features, and the kind of face strangers stop to photograph on the street. He is the spitting image of a man Melany never saw clearly - a stranger she mistook for a gigolo in a dark club room six years ago. She left him $100 and disappeared before dawn. Now she is back in the city she fled, desperate for work. Her new employer is Randy O'Harrow - billionaire CEO, the coldest man in every room he enters, and the father her son has never met. He recognizes her instantly, but not as the mother of his child. As the woman he believes destroyed his business. Randy wants her gone. Melany needs the job. Between them - a son who dreams of meeting his dad, a younger brother everyone assumes is the real father, and a wall of suspicion neither of them is willing to tear down first.
Chapter 1
Sep 30, 2026
Melany’s POV
Six years ago
I got cheated on less than twelve hours ago, and here I am… In bed with a complete stranger. Giving my virginity to him.
A very hot stranger, I must mention.
His hands slide around my waist, warm through the thin fabric of my dress. I smell his cologne, sharp and clean, with a note of whiskey under it.
"You're shaking…" he says, right next to my ear. "Is it because of me, dove?"
"It's cold in here," I lie, smiling when he pulls me closer, his thumb moves along my ribs.
There's only a thin line of light under the door, and he's a tall dark shape against it.
I can't see his face, and I don't even want to know what it looks like. If I never see his face, I won't recognize him if we ever pass on the street. No shame, no regrets.
"I wanted my hands on you the second you walked up to me." I like how rough his voice sounds.
"Then what are you waiting for?" I grab his shirt and pull him closer.
He kisses my neck, and my knees go soft. For one second, I slip back.
Our apartment, hours ago. The seating chart is in my bag. My closest friends’ laughter reaches me before I even open the bedroom door.
Joe didn't even sit up when he saw me in the doorway. Kept laying there naked, one arm still under Tiana's head. "Seriously, Mel? You couldn't call first?"
The chart slipped out of my fingers.
"We're getting married tomorrow, and you just…" I barely heard my own voice. "With her?"
"Five years of 'not until the wedding', babe." He shrugged. "What did you expect?"
"Don't look at me like that, I didn't take anything from you." My now-ex-best friend, Tiana, pulled the sheet up to her chin. "I just gave him what you wouldn't."
"Hey." A stranger’s hand comes up to my jaw and brings me back into the present. "Where did you go just now?"
"Nowhere…" I pull his mouth down to mine.
He kisses me slowly, fingers find the zipper of my dress and stop there.
"Really?" he asks.
"Really." My voice cracks, so I say it again. "I’m here, with you…"
The dress drops to the floor, and his shirt follows. My palms slide over his broad and muscular chest. His heart pounds under them, as fast as mine.
So his heart is racing too. Or he's just good at faking it.
That's his job, right?
The bartender told me what this place was. I was on my fifth shot when she nodded at the back hallway.
"Those guys by the private rooms are for hire," she said. "Just so you know what you're looking at."
I looked. The tequila had blurred his face, but my eyes kept sliding over the rest of him. Wide shoulders under a black shirt, strong forearms, one big hand wrapped around a glass. He took a slow sip, and my mouth went dry.
I'm not a bride anymore. I don't have to be a good girl tonight.
So I walked up to him on shaky heels.
"Do you want to be the reason I don't sleep tonight?" I asked.
I don't remember what his answer was. I only remember his mouth on mine as we fell through the door of one of those private rooms, his strong shoulder practically tore it off its hinges.
Now he lays me down on the bed. He's heavy and warm above me, and I run my hands down his back. He kisses his way down my throat, then lower, and my back arches off the bed.
His hands are big and slow, and they don't skip a single part of me.
"So soft and beautiful," he breathes against my stomach. "Everywhere."
I grab the sheets with both fists, and a sound comes out of me that I've never made before. It hurts at first. I bite down on my lip, and he goes still.
"Did I hurt you?" His voice drops lower.
"It’s nothing," I whisper. "Keep going."
He waits until my body stops being so tight. Then he moves slowly and tells me I'm perfect, over and over. I dig my nails into his back until there's no room left in my head for Joe.
* * *
Pain wakes me — a dull ache low in my body, and a worse one behind my eyes.
Oh God… What did I do?
A handsome stranger is asleep on his side, so I only get a hint of his jawline and dark blond hair on the pillow. When I glance at the clock, it glows with 7:04 AM.
Damn it! My bus leaves at eight. My ticket out of this city, and the station is across town.
I slide out of bed, scared to wake him, and pull my dress on with shaking hands. In my purse, there's an envelope with my savings.
What do you even pay a man like that?
I pull out a hundred-dollar bill, and my throat goes tight.
Stranger’s hand lies open on the sheet, palm up. I fold the bill and press it into his fingers. When he shifts, I freeze and count to ten until his breathing goes even again.
"Sorry," I whisper. "Nothing personal."
I grab my heels and run barefoot down the dark hallway, past the empty bar and out the back door. I wave down the first taxi I see.
At 7:58, I sprint across the parking lot as the bus driver pulls the door shut. I slap my palm on the glass, and he opens it with a sigh.
I drop into a window seat as the bus pulls out. The city starts to slide past the glass, gray and wet and already behind me.
My hand goes to my neck, like it always does when my stomach twists. I reach for Mom's pendant, my anchor. But my fingers only find bare skin.
"No…" I pat my collarbone, then yank at the neckline of my dress.
The chain isn't there.
I dump my purse onto my lap. Lipstick, tissues, the envelope, my phone. I shake the empty bag upside down. Nothing.
It's the only thing I have left of her. It could be in the club, in the taxi, on Joe's floor. Or in that dark room. With him.
I can't go back and check. I can't go back at all.
I press my forehead against the bus window and watch the changing view.
I didn't know yet that the night that took one precious thing from me would give me two others instead.
The Night I Bought a Billionaire
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