Cocky Duke: A Modern Aristocracy Billionaire Romance (Endowed Book 1) Read online

  Cocky Duke

  Endowed, Vol. 1

  SARA FORBES

  ©Sara Forbes 2017

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be considered as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  www.saraforbes.com

  Acknowledgements

  Thanking the people who cheered me on and gave me priceless feedback: SusieQ, Kathleen Rovner, Marisa Wright, Debby Wallace, Jhawk, Robin and Alix. Also my editor, Claire, and writing guru, Tammi, and my ever-wonderful cover designer, Neptunian. And finally, the awesome Sterling&Stone guys and all the apprentices.

  Table of Contents

  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

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  1

  HAYLEY

  TWO WEEKS TOURING ART GALLERIES in London—that's what my Uncle Stig promised. A nice quiet trip with my favorite relative. The only problem? It's a little too quiet. I crave something more than four o'clock tea and crumpets. Which is how I ended up here, at Jayvee's nightclub.

  Not a soul has spoken to me since I arrived an hour ago. Not even after my energetic stint on the dancefloor. It goes to prove how exclusive this VIP section is, if the polished teak, starched shirts, and stiff laughter didn't already make it obvious. Or maybe all London clubs are like this, I don't know. I'm from Laxby, Oregon, population: 2514, and we don't do nightclubs.

  Halfway through my second Cosmopolitan, a man's grumbling interrupts my thoughts, but it's just the bartender losing his shit. I peer over the bar and see the problem—a dome of froth billowing out of a cocktail glass. The barman growls again. “Why the hell does everyone want Cuba Reales? This damn thing is broken.”

  I recognize the problem right away. His soda gun is getting too much gas. It's a faulty valve. This sometimes happens with my airbrush back home. I open my mouth to explain, but he's bent down, tugging at the connection to the regulator.

  “Don't do that!” I plant my butt on the bar, swing my legs over, and yank his arm off the connector. The CO2 leak probably wouldn't kill us, but I hate to see equipment manhandled like this.

  “Trying to poison us?”

  He looks unsure.

  “The pressure's too high.” I eke an opening in the valve and watch the needle lower to 280 psi. I straighten, hot faced.

  My heroics have drawn attention from a bunch of supermodels lounging in a nearby alcove, their faces contorted in horror—or amusement, it's hard to tell which.

  The barman grabs up the soda gun. “Now scram, American girl.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He draws an air rectangle, indicating his domain behind the bar. “Staff only.”

  When I don't react, he says, “What do you want? A medal?”

  I straighten my T–shirt. “A simple thanks would do.” Whatever happened to the famous British politeness?

  “Leave your number. We can hook up. Isn't that what you call it?”

  I refuse to dignify that with an answer.

  He inspects the nozzle. “Better not have broken it.” Pressing the trigger, he gets his answer—soda blasts toward me, zaps my chest, soaks my T–shirt.

  I shriek.

  With a faintly apologetic look, he hands me a wad of napkins. I shoot him my meanest look, which I've been told looks adorable, but it's all I got.

  Back on my bar stool, I hunch over my drink. He continues with the now perfectly shooting soda gun. All it needed was my tweak to that valve. I force myself to focus on higher matters—the galleries I want to visit tomorrow, day two of my two–week stay, my plans for world domination—but it's hard to concentrate. The supermodels are jittery. They swing their blonde tresses petulantly and giggle loudly. What, seriously, is their problem?

  Within seconds, I notice a flash of white in my periphery. I slide my gaze down the bar and I almost laugh. Correction, I do laugh, but it comes out more like a whimper.

  To say the man in the gleaming white shirt is handsome is a disservice to him. His is a beauty perfected by centuries of selective breeding, perfect bone structure, luscious dark hair, a broad plane of a forehead, straight insolent nose, luminous skin. And the eyes … they're arresting. He's the kind of model I dream of encountering in my life–drawing class—a joy to sketch. And if he's not a billionaire of some kind with his expensive suit, heavy red gold watch, and glistening shoes, then I'm not an impoverished art student in a soda–soaked T–shirt.

  I'm about average in looks—could be better, could be worse—five pounds overweight, depending on who you ask, and I've accomplished nothing yet. He's so far out of my league, I wouldn't find him with the Hubble telescope. If he comes an inch closer, I'll run.

  I shut my eyes and let the negativity pass. When I reopen them, he's draped his blazer over the stool between us, which, as any anthropology student will tell you, means he's marking territory. But I'm pretty sure that when he has the cream of the crop at his disposal, he wouldn't go for someone like me, so this is just some game to pass the time or to lure the models out of their cozy corner.

  A cocky smirk etches a groove across his perfect jaw. I whip my gaze away.

  “Gin. Tanqueray,” he says to the barman.

  I love his commanding baritone voice. His clipped accent is one degree of snobbery away from the Queen herself, calling to mind aristocracy dramas on the BBC. Seriously, I didn't know people still talked like this. Even in Britain.

  The barman hunts among bottles on a shelf for the correct gin. Then he stands frozen with the soda gun aimed at Mr. Model. Is our hapless barman going for a double strike?

  “Lemon and tonic, sir?”

  “Sir?” Mr. Model repeats. He gives the barman the briefest of once–overs. “You're new.”

  “First day, sir.” The barman laughs nervously. “Uh, lemon and tonic?”

  Mr. Model's gaze flickers to my soda–soaked chest. “Neither. Cucumber and ice, if it's not too much trouble.”

  I roll my eyes and pour the last of the Cosmopolitan down my dry throat. As much as Dad's meekness gets on my nerves, I'm not overly fond of his opposite either—entitled jerks, full of power, money, and themselves. From hanging around with Uncle Stig, I've met quite a few like that. I bet Mr. Cucumber's day consists of jet–setting, networking, Michelin–starred dining, late night socializing in clubs like this, then Michelin–starred fucking. He'll take one of those supermodels home tonight and disappear tomorrow into thin air. And yet, I'm riveted to him with the same fascination I'd have for a wolf with brilliant, ice–blue eyes.

  “Hi.”

  The vision has spoken. To me, apparently.
>
  “Oh.” My heart gallops off, my brain lagging far behind. “Hi.”

  “You're also new.” His gaze slides over me and I get the sense he's already slotted me neatly into some category far down the food chain.

  I clear my throat. “Yeah, just over from the US. I've been looking at the art today.”

  He nods. “Hard to fit it all in in one day, don't you think?”

  “Not least because eighty percent of it's in storage,” I shoot back.

  His wolf eyes widen a fraction and conduct a more leisurely tour of my T–shirt and then my face. “Are you cold?”

  “I'm fine.” I put down my empty glass for emphasis. And then I have no clue what to say.

  “Nice rescue action.” He tilts his glass at me, like he's Jay Gatsby or something, and raises it to his bountiful lips.

  “Oh, you saw that?” I flick my gaze meaningfully to the barman and back. "He was all gratitude. He even offered to hook up with me." I don't know why I'm sharing this with him.

  Mr. Cucumber's gaze as it meets mine is intense and steady. “Is that your best offer tonight?”

  “It's the best so far.”

  He inhales deeply, filling out his broad chest, making the shirt peel back a little more to expose hints of dark chest hair. My fascination with his beauty is no longer academic—I've an urge to slip my hand inside the shirt, to hold my palm flat over his pecs, smooth my hands down the gym–honed muscles, making them tighten for a moment. I want to feel a perfect body like his on top of mine, beneath mine, beside mine, inside mine, before I go and carry on with the rest of my normal life.

  I brazenly hold his gaze as I pick up my glass, but then I remember the damn thing is empty, so I put it down again. I search around for another prop. If this was an old eighties movie, I'd light up a cigarette and blow a smoke ring in his face. For now, all I can do is clasp my hands around my knee.

  He raises his left index finger an inch away from his glass and cocks his head. The barman zooms over so fast I'm beginning to wonder if Mr. Cucumber here is the owner of this joint.

  “Fill her up,” he says to the barman.

  I cringe. But his face betrays no signs of having meant it suggestively. When the barman hands me a new Cosmopolitan, I accept, saying, “Thanks, you came a lot faster than I expected.”

  The barman throws me a dour glance and goes away.

  A smile tugs at the edge of Mr. Cucumber's lips, causing a cross between a dimple and a laugh line to indent his perfectly stubble–covered cheek. I feel ridiculously happy to have earned this much from him.

  His beautiful eyes narrow to lines of dark lashes. “I hope your expectations are not too low.”

  “Regarding?” In a fatalistic way, I want to see where this is heading. Whether, in theory, he'd be interested in someone like me. I might learn something about flirting with the British upper class, although I can't imagine what. I think my uncle purposely got my name onto this VIP list because he reckoned I'd never manage to pick anyone up here.

  “Regarding your offers for tonight.”

  “I'm open to suggestions,” I say, lifting my gaze brazenly to meet his.

  “As am I.” His grin is wicked. “Watching your skirt flying as you leapt over the counter to fix that gas leak or whatever it was, was very suggestive. And, should I say, most welcome. Not to mention the Hello Kitty knickers.”

  Heat seeps into my cheeks. “Yeah. I really didn't expect to be showing those to anyone tonight.”

  His glass hovers at his mouth. “Bottoms up.” He polishes off the cucumber gin in one gulp, presses those gorgeous lips together and looks at me, waiting.

  “How has today treated you?” I ask out of a sudden desire to keep this conversation alive.

  “It's been interesting.” He swivels the bar stool to face me directly, legs stretched in front of him, crossed at the ankles. My feet dangle in the air and I force myself to stop swinging them. I wonder what the height difference would be between us if we were both to stand up. “But information has a price.”

  My skin prickles. Is he propositioning me? God, if he could hear my heartbeat, it would so betray me. He'd know how fired up I am about the thought of touching him, let alone doing something mercenary in exchange for information.

  He gets up and drapes his blazer across my shoulders, trapping in what little heat is there. I relish the way his fingers graze the nape of my neck, making my hairs stand on end. A line has been crossed.

  "Name your price." There, it's out. I said it.

  “Your name would be a start,” he says. "And your number."

  “Sure.” I've got nothing to lose giving him my number. It's a temporary SIM card for this trip only. I'll never use it again after I return home in two weeks.

  “Here.” He slides a coaster toward me, and without warning, leans in and reaches inside his blazer, his fingers mere inches from my chest. He smoothly produces a pen from a hidden inner pocket and hands it to me. I uncap it carefully, focusing on not dropping it and ruining my act of nonchalance. It's a fountain pen. Heavy, gold–plated. The Cartier logo catches my eye. As I jot down my name and number, they glide out in silky blue ink.

  Who are you? He can't be a banker or doctor—they don't make so much so young. He's dressed too conservatively to be a tech entrepreneur. An industry mogul, perhaps? Or the son of one. He looks too young to have built up an empire by himself. His complexion suggests time spent outside, in the sun, in the wind—as opposed to in an office. Although the ruggedness adds a few years to his appearance, he's still only mid–twenties, not more than four or five years older than me.

  He's reading the coaster. “Thanks … Hayley.”

  I like the sound of my name from his lips.

  Glancing around, I realize we've built up quite an audience. People are either staring blatantly at us or they're huddled, whispering about us. We seem to outrank the celebs in the corner because they're all watching us. I swivel back to him. It's time I asked him who he is and stuff, although it feels like an intrusion on the cozy atmosphere of mystery we've got going on.

  He draws closer, pushing aside the in–between stool. This is not the kind of place where they nail stools to the floor. His body blocks my view of the prying eyes, enveloping me inside his cocoon of attention, so close I could touch his hand if I let my arm flop down. But I don't. I wait for him to say something, relishing the close–up view of his luminous skin and the intoxicating aftershave, musky with blackcurrant top notes.

  “You want to know what else happened today? Apart from meeting you?” He flicks the coaster between his fingers. “So, let's see. Before I came here, Ken and I—Ken, my brother—we went to a dinner over in the Overseas League, an annual affair. We had lamb.” He winces. “Always lamb.”

  “Can't stand it either,” I say, laughing.

  He grins back and my heart warms another few degrees. “After pudding, I got involved in a bit of a standoff with a certain dignitary. Are you telling me you haven't seen this on social media yet?” He pulls out his phone from his pants pocket.

  I shake my head. Am I supposed to know who this guy is?

  “See for yourself.” He holds up his phone. It's YouTube. I lean in to follow the video.

  “He started it. He had the gall to suggest that our dealings in the Middle East were suspect. Talk about the pot calling the kettle. Well, I put him straight.”

  I grab the earbuds he's offering and shove them in my ears. My eyes and ears greedily absorb the details of the scene. Mr. Cucumber is sitting at a lavish banquet with another sickeningly handsome guy beside him, same looks, but blond, who can only be his brother. Someone off camera is addressing him. “And what does the Duke of Fernborough say to this?”

  Duke? This guy's a duke?

  “Well, if Mr. Lawson is so worried about our family dealings, I suggest he refocus some of that apprehension on his own cronies' affairs.”

  My heart gives a sickening lurch when I hear "Lawson." Around the banquet table, hands fly
to mouths, just as mine is doing now. I lean in closer to the phone. Cameras flash as the duke continues to argue. He can't shut up and makes it worse as he talks more and more—and more. Blond guy's squirming, yanking his sleeve, telling him to shut the fuck up.

  A familiar roar sounds: “Do you know who you're talking to?” to which the duke smoothly replies, “Absolutely, Mr. Ambassador. Having diplomatic immunity has turned you into a first–grade asshole.”

  And then with a jerk of the camera, the video's over. It has 374,857 hits. Posted forty–five minutes ago. I scroll up and read the title. “Cocky Duke Offends US Ambassador!”

  I yank out the earbuds, slam them back onto the bar beside the phone. I pull off his blazer and throw it back on the stool. I scoot as far away from him as my body will go without falling off the barstool. “Did you hit him?”

  He brushes imaginary lint off his blazer. “Of course not.”

  “Hurt him in any way?”

  “No.”

  “You insulted him enough, though.”

  “He deserved it.” His grin returns at half wattage.

  In a flash of white rage, I lift my full Cosmopolitan and throw it over him. “Nobody insults my Uncle Stig!”

  I take a moment to enjoy the look of incomprehension written on his perfect face. I'd actually been aiming for that. But his soaking crotch is a satisfying outcome too. I leap off the stool and stomp the hell out of there.

  2

  ALEX

  “WHY, ALEX? WHY, WHY, WHY?” Ken shoves the iPad across the desk toward me. I don't have to rise from the depths of my leather chair to see what site he's on. Instead I loll my head back against the headrest, letting the silence draw out whatever grievance he has with me.

  The study is still crammed with Father's books and some of his more recent art acquisitions that nobody knows quite what to do with. Ken's been holing himself up here writing a book on his most successful racehorse, Silmarillion, although I suspect he spends more time surfing. I normally only ever come here to pour myself a gin from the collection—Father's hardly going to complain now—and to enjoy the unspoiled panorama of leather, gold, and parkland. But this morning before breakfast, Ken said he wanted “a word” in a quiet place. So here we are.