BILLIONAIRE BOSSHOLES

  Mr. Grump

  Mr. Jerk

  Mr. Cocky

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  RELAY PUBLISHING EDITION, JULY 2023

  Copyright © 2023 Relay Publishing Ltd.

  All rights reserved. Published in the United Kingdom by Relay Publishing. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Leslie North is a pen name created by Relay Publishing for co-authored Romance projects. Relay Publishing works with incredible teams of writers and editors to collaboratively create the very best stories for our readers.

  www.relaypub.com

  BLURB

  I lie down for just a second…

  Next thing I see is the chiseled and extremely grumpy face of my billionaire client, Theo Barnes, looking down at me.

  If I’m Goldilocks, he has all the grouchiness of three bears.

  I was overworked and overstressed juggling photographing his fleet of yachts with my other projects.

  Add in a super comfy bed on one of his yachts and I’m out.

  Now I’m about to be fired.

  Except, we’re in the middle of the ocean and he’s looking at me like I’m the missing piece of a puzzle.

  Instead of getting the axe, he offers me an insane amount of money for a single day of work—an amount it’s really, really hard to say no to.

  But I should have.

  Because this bosshole wants me to be his pretend girlfriend for the afternoon.

  The rules: no PDA, don’t get cornered by his mother and the deal is done once we dock.

  That first rule lasted about four minutes.

  This pretend girlfriend thing was supposed to be a one-and-done gig, but now his mother insists he bring a “nice” girl to a family wedding.

  And Theo thought of me.

  A “nice” girl would have said no, but here I am, stuck with Mr. Cocky.

  It’s not all bad.

  There are those rule-breaking kisses.

  And the scorching sex.

  But sex has consequences.

  And Goldilocks has a surprise for her grumpy bear.

  MAILING LIST

  Thank you for reading “Mr. Cocky”

  (Billionaire Bossholes Book Three)

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  CONTENTS

  1. Theo

  2. Max

  3. Theo

  4. Max

  5. Theo

  6. Max

  7. Max

  8. Theo

  9. Max

  10. Theo

  11. Max

  12. Theo

  13. Max

  14. Theo

  15. Max

  16. Theo

  17. Max

  18. Theo

  19. Max

  20. Theo

  21. Max

  22. Theo

  23. Theo

  24. Max

  25. Theo

  26. Max

  27. Max

  28. Theo

  29. Max

  30. Theo

  31. Max

  32. Theo

  33. Max

  34. Theo

  35. Max

  36. Theo

  37. Max

  38. Theo

  39. Max

  End of Mr. Cocky

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  Sneak Peek: The Bossy One

  Also by Leslie

  1

  THEO

  Most intruders are all about breaking and entering.

  Others, it seems, are all about sleeping and snoring.

  “What the…?” I narrowed my eyes at the sleeping woman in my bed. I’m no stranger to having women in my bed—but usually they’re invited.

  The woman wasn’t just dozing, she was so far gone that she looked like she was hibernating. She was curled up on her side in the middle of the bed with part of the duvet pulled over her midsection, in jeans with holes on the knees and a black tank top. Her long, blondish-brown hair was fanned out on the bed, so perfect that it looked like someone had styled it to frame her pretty face.

  How the hell did she even get here? We were in the premiere bedroom suite on one of my yachts, two full hours away from shore.

  I’d taken a prospective business partner and his wife out on the water in a last-ditch attempt to get him to finally sign the damn contract. Negotiations had been hellish, but there was no one who could customize a yacht like Ford Peterson, and I needed him to take my business to the next level.

  When we’d talked about the excursion, he’d seemed right on the verge of signing. But nothing had gone at all the way I’d planned, and I’d ducked in here so I could have a moment alone to regroup and strategize in peace.

  And instead I’d found her.

  If I was Prince Charming and we were in some messed up fairy tale, I'd have left her sleeping.

  But I'm not a Prince Charming, and this wasn't a fairytale.

  I moved closer, reached for her shoulder, and—

  “Wha—?” The woman bolted up as if raised from the dead. “Who are you?”

  First, her eyes went wide.

  Then, her hands curled into fists.

  “Me?” I frowned. “I should be the one asking the—”

  “Help!” One of her tiny fists flew in the direction of my nose. “Get away from me, you freak!”

  I stepped back, doing my best to avoid getting a bloody nose. This was the last thing I needed. I was minutes away from closing the deal of a lifetime, and now I had the she-devil version of Goldilocks to contend with.

  Not content with trying to knock my teeth out, the woman jumped off the bed and started trying to claw at my face, her fingernails turning into knives.

  “I’ll scream!” she shouted, flailing like a fucking lunatic. “Swear to God, I’ll—”

  “Fucking hell, lady,” I growled, my hands flying to her wrists. “Will you chill for a damn minute?”

  “I will not chill,” she shot back, gritting her teeth as she stared me down. “I don’t know who you are, but I’ll warn you, the man who owns this boat should be here any minute and he will—”

  The man who owns this boat?

  Oh, for fuck’s sake.

  I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling, an exhausted sigh escaping my lips, and let the woman go. Not the smartest of moves—she could have taken the opportunity to go back to trying to stick her thumbs in my eyeballs—but she was so taken aback by my reaction that she only stood there.

  “That’s right,” she said, some fake confidence filtering into her voice. “You should get out of here before—”

  “Before what?” I crossed my arms over my chest, right eyebrow cocked. “Theo Barnes—yacht owner and saint patron of trespassers—comes barging in?” I pointed at the cabin’s porthole. Outside, the sun bounced off the crystalline blue of the ocean. “Is he swimming all the way here? Maybe riding on the back of a shark?”

  The woman’s jaw dropped.

  For a moment, she forgot all about me and turned on her heels. She raced to the porthole and pressed her forehead against the glass, her wide eyes taking in the expanse of the ocean.

  “Oh, no,” she muttered. “No, no, no.” She glanced back over her shoulder at me. “Where are we going? They hired me to do a photoshoot here this morning, but I was up all night editing photos from another project. I only sat down for like a second after I’d finished, but I was so tired I guess I just…”

  My assistant had mentioned something about hiring a photographer—Max something?—to freshen up our marketing.

  Did I need to make some adjustments to the job descriptions we were posting? The right applicant will be able to stay awake after completing the job and get off the fucking boat before it leaves the harbor. Disobedient employees in ripped jeans and tiny tank-tops will be disciplined at the boss’s discretion.

  “Do you make a habit of napping on the job?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at her.

  Was I baiting her? Yes. Did I want her to squirm a little? Also yes. I wasn’t about to let the fact that she was absolutely breathtaking cancel out that she’d committed a major faux pas on my time and my boat. The last thing I needed when I was fighting to land the deal with Ford was a gorgeous photographer messing up my afternoon even more.

  “That’s none of your business,” Max snapped. “Now for the last time, tell me where this ship is going.”

  She glared at me, beautiful and furious. She had guts, I’d give her that. Awake, she looked less like a princess and more like a feisty warrior queen hungry for battle. I couldn’t resist having a little fun with her.

  “We’re heading to Barbados for the night and we’re already an hour and a half into the trip,” I deadpanned.

  “No!” Max looked around the stateroom in a panic, like a caged animal. “I’m so screwed.”

/>
  She looked so genuinely horrified that I decided I’d toyed with her long enough. “I’m kidding. This is a four hour in-and-out cruise. We’re turning around now, and we’ll be back in by six.”

  Her head turned so fast that I thought I heard something crack in her neck. “Wait, seriously? That line about Barbados was just you screwing with me? Do you have some kind of pathetic pirate fetish? Why would you do that?”

  I didn’t actually have a great answer for that, although if she wanted to do pirate roleplay, I’d be more than willing to…

  Tie her to my mast.

  Plunder that booty.

  Find her buried treasure.

  I frowned. Okay, clearly my inuendo needed work.

  I realized she was still staring at me, waiting for an answer.

  So I went with the truth. “Because it was funny?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Toying with people is fun for you?” she shot back.

  Toying with you is, I thought. Maybe it wasn’t the most gentlemanly impulse, but on a day like today, when everything I did had to be calculated and moderated for the sake of landing the deal with Ford, it felt like a relief to just give into impulse. And every impulse I had said it would be fun to play with Max.

  Max grimaced. “Unbelievable,” she muttered under her breath. “Un-freaking-believable. I can’t believe Theo Barnes would let a jerk like you on his ship.”

  I coughed. “About that…”

  She held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear it. I hope he throws you overboard.”

  Just then, I heard footsteps approaching from down the hall. “Theo, darling? Theo, is that you?” The unmistakable shrill voice of Pam Peterson.

  Ford’s wife, Pam, was the reason the deal had nearly fallen apart a dozen times. Why? She kept hitting on me. Openly. Unrelentingly. Without ever taking a single hint that I was definitely not interested. But every time I pretended to ignore another come on, she just got more blatant…and Ford got increasingly jealous, and increasingly less likely to sign the partnership papers—today or ever. I needed a way to convince him there was no way in hell I was a threat to his marriage… without insulting him or his wife in the process. It was rare moments like these when I wished I was a relationship type of person. Shit like this never happened to my friends who were blissfully coupled up.

  Sleeping Beauty’s eyes widened in horrified understanding. “Wait. You’re Theo Barnes?”

  I smirked. “Guilty.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “There’s no coming back from this, is there?”

  Pam’s steps were getting closer. Suddenly I had an idea. “I know a way you can make it up to me,” I said in a low voice. “Just follow my lead, okay?”

  I stepped closer and draped my arm around Max’s shoulders, just as Pam stepped into the room, looking very inch the angry Florida trophy wife she was.

  Pam stumbled to a halt when she saw us. Her eyes darted back and forth between me and Max, obviously displeased. “Well. What’s going on in here?”

  2

  MAX

  “Umm …”

  I tried to come up with a response, but frankly, I was drawing a blank. Also, it was really, really distracting to have his arm wrapped around my shoulders.

  I had no idea who this angry-looking woman was, or what her connection was to Theo Barnes, but it was very obvious that she didn’t like seeing him standing so close to me.

  Lady, if you want this asshole that badly, have at him, I wanted to say—but I bit the words back.

  Yeah, he was a grade-A jerk, but apparently, he was also my boss. At least until we hit land. He’d contracted to pay me really well for this job, and I couldn’t afford to blow it before the check was cut. Not to mention, he was a bigshot. The kind of guy who could easily get me blacklisted out of future jobs if he decided to be petty. My career was only just starting to get on solid footing—I couldn’t afford to alienate anyone with deep pockets and high-class connections.

  I’d already tempted fate by yelling at him before I knew who he was. If all I had to do to get back in his good graces was play along and follow Theo’s lead, then that was exactly what I’d do.

  “Pam, I’d like you to meet my girlfriend, Max.”

  What. The. Hell.

  I jerked slightly against his hold, and he tightened his grip on me, which I interpreted as a silent warning to keep my mouth shut. “We were out last night, a little too late, and let’s just say that her sea legs went missing today,” he continued. “She’s been in here recuperating.”

  Pam’s narrowed eyes bounced between us. “Girlfriend? How come you haven’t mentioned her before?”

  I glanced up at him hoping his answer would give me some clarity as well. He smiled, and fuck, it did something to me. He was hot before, all tall, broad, and bearded. He had the kind of sandy brown hair that probably got lighter in the sun, and the kind of deep brown eyes that probably got dark as sin when he was turned on. But when he flashed that smile, I began to understand how he got away with being so cocky.

  When your smile looked like that, you could lie to a woman, and she’d thank you for the privilege.

  “We’re private people,” he shrugged. “I learned the hard way after I sold my first business that I need to keep parts of my life to myself. You know how it goes, I’m sure. We reveal what we want to reveal and keep the rest private. But Max had every intention of joining us eventually. Let’s just blame the Cristal for the hiccup. Right, hon?”

  He turned that smile on me, and I felt my mouth go dry. He was so close, and so damn cocky, and he smelled like the ocean…

  The tightness of his fingers on my shoulder drove home that the only possible response was agreement. Pam’s eyes landed on me, and I felt compelled to speak up.

  “Girls and champagne, am I right?” I managed with a weak laugh. Theo chuckled and loosened his grip on me.

  Pam frowned. “I really wish I’d known about her.”

  She sounded irritated. What the hell was going on here?

  “Better late than never,” Theo replied. His voice was cheerful, but there was steel underneath. “Right now, Max needs to freshen up a bit. We’ll meet you back at the table, okay?”

  She didn’t answer as she turned on her heel and stomped out of the room.

  The moment she was out of earshot Theo let go of me and breathed out a long sigh.

  “Okay, hold on,” I said, moving closer so I could see his expression. “What just happened? Your girlfriend?”

  “Hey, you fell asleep on the job,” he said. “I am not the only one making questionable decisions today.” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, I’m dealing with some … sensitive dynamics during a business negotiation, and I had to think on my feet.”

  I put my hands on my hips and glared. “I need more of an explanation than that if you want me pretend to be your girlfriend in front of people I’ve never met.”

  Theo studied me. “Fair enough,” he said at last. “That was Pam Peterson. She and her husband, Ford, are here today so I can sign an agreement to partner with him. He’s a master yacht craftsman, and he’s the perfect addition to my portfolio. The problem is …” He trailed off. “How do I put this?”