One-Night Stand: Opposites Attract Romance, page 1
Table of Contents
One-Night Stand (Billionaires of Miami)
One-Night Stand
Part One
Nine Years Ago
Eight Years Ago
Present Time
Part Two
Six Years Ago
Five Months Ago
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Part Three
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Part Four
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Epilogue
Previously published as A Fling with the Greek Billionaire
I'm impulsive and flirty. He's a workaholic billionaire and a control freak. Is a one-night stand all there can be between us?
I've kissed (but not slept) with a lot of frogs (twenty-eight to be exact, but who's counting?), and none of them turned into princes. I've almost given up on love...until I met Greek billionaire Nik Alexandropoulos.
I fell in love with him at first sight, and to make him love me back, I needed to utter one little white lie. Or maybe two. Like I said, who's counting?
All's fair in love and war, and it's not like I plan to keep lying to him. I'm sure he'll forgive me for it, and we'll live happily ever after. Right?
One-Night Stand
by Marian Tee
(Previously published as A Fling with the Greek Billionaire)
Copyright 2022 by Streak Digital Publishing
All rights reserved. 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.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Part One
Nine Years Ago
I twirled in front of the mirror slowly, wanting to see the full effect of my new dress front and back. It was a daring little thing made of black silk, its front held by thin strings tied behind my neck and completely backless.
I did another twirl, asking out loud, “Do you think this looks good on me?” I wanted my friends’ opinions before they left to have dinner with their families and I had to leave for my second date with my week-old boyfriend.
“Everything looks good on you,” Alyx said, rolling her eyes. She was on the armchair in the corner, one leg tossed carelessly over the side. Slender with boyishly cut hair, she could always be counted on to say the truth, no matter how harsh it was.
Even so, I still felt insecure. I always was when it came to the boy I loved. Glancing at the other girl who made up our close-knit trio, I asked Yanna, “What do you think?”
“It’s what I always think,” Yanna said simply. Petite and curvy, she was lying on her stomach on the floor, flipping through the latest issue of Teen Vogue. Seeing that I was waiting for an explanation, she laughed and elaborated obediently, “You look drop dead gorgeous.”
The words should have comforted me, but it didn’t. I knew Yanna meant what she said, and not just because she happened to be the nicest and most polite person I knew. She was also hopeless when it came to lying, and that was probably why I felt worse now. Doubt had shadowed her gaze as she uttered the compliment, and the sight made it harder for me to stay deaf to the warning inside my head.
FROG ALERT, FROG ALERT, FROG ALERT.
After my third breakup disaster, Alyx had told me I was just like the princess in the fairy tale, and that I was destined – or cursed – to kiss a lot of frogs before finding the prince. The analogy had stuck, and since then my paranoid brain had used it to warn me away from potential heartbreakers.
But this one was different, I told myself. And besides, wasn’t I supposed to follow my heart? The heart should know better, and that was that. I was going to ignore what my brain said and follow my heart.
I met my friends' gazes through the mirror. “Wish me luck?” I asked lightly and pretended not to notice the way Alyx and Yanna exchanged worried looks between them.
“Good luck,” Yanna said finally, but her smile was forced.
Alyx opened and closed her mouth.
When she opened her mouth the second time, I chickened out and shook my head. “Don’t.”
She stilled.
I didn’t want to hear her repeat the words that my brain had long been trying to tell me.
Victor was NOT a frog.
Period.
An hour later, and the words had turned into a mantra. Victor was late. It was just our second date, and he had already made me wait for an hour.
FROG ALERT, FROG ALERT, FROG ALERT.
My brain had turned snarky, reaching the point of croaking out the words like a frog.
Damn you, brain.
I mentally shook a fist at it. You’re not going to make me lose faith in true love. Victor was late, yes, but I was sure he had a good reason for it. In fact, I was going to prove that right now.
Victor’s fifth-floor apartment was only fifteen minutes away from mine, but I got there in ten. He lived alone, preferring to work rather than finish college. That could be the reason why he’s late, I thought as I knocked on the door. Maybe his job at the bar had been so tiring—-
The door opened, but instead of Victor’s twinkling eyes, I found myself staring into heavily made up eyes that were more taunting than curious. She looked a couple of years older and was dressed in a leather bra and matching mini skirt.
“Well?” The other woman impatiently crossed her arms over her chest when I still failed to speak.
FROG ALERT. My brain’s voice meant serious business.
I ignored it.
Clearing my throat, I asked, “Are you, umm, a colleague of Victor?”
The woman burst into laughter. “Co-the-fuck-what?” She glanced at me from head to toe, smirking. “You sure talk fancy for a kid.”
FROOOOOOOOOG ALERT! My brain was in panic mode by the time she finished speaking. It urged me to leave, to run in the opposite direction and never look back.
But it was too late.
I offered my hand to her. “I’m Daria. Victor’s—-”
The sound of Victor’s voice in the background cut me off. “Who is it, babe?”
I stilled.
My brain lost its snarky tone. My brain stopped pretending to croak like a frog. And this time, like a bad omen I couldn’t escape, both my brain and my heart said the same thing.
Please, Daria.
Please listen.
FROG ALERT.
But for some reason, I just couldn’t make my feet move.
Another moment passed, and this time the door opened more widely, revealing a bare-chested Victor. His hair was bed-mussed, his face unshaven. He looked very cute, in a scruffy sort of way. He would have looked cuter, however, if I didn’t notice the guilt flashing in his eyes.
A second later, and the guilt turned into resentment.
His eyes on me, he pressed a kiss to the other woman’s forehead. I flinched, and satisfaction gleamed in his gaze.
PLEASE LEAVE NOW. Both my brain and heart begged for the same thing, but I couldn’t make myself listen to either of them. It was almost like a matter of honor. I had started this stupidity. I would see it to the end.
“Don’t mind her, babe,” I heard Victor murmur huskily. “She’s just a spoiled little rich girl wanting another hard fuck from a real man.”
The other woman laughed. “You really are a stud.” She grabbed his crotch right in front of me, and when I flinched, I saw the same satisfaction gleam in her eyes. Turning back to Victor, she purred, “Too bad for her, she’s not a real woman, not like I am, right?” She started stroking him as she spoke.
Victor visibly bit back a groan. Giving her a smack on the ass, he said roughly, “Go back inside, babe. I’ll deal with this.”
Not bothering to look at me this time, she gave his cock one last stroke before walking away, the taunting sway of her generous hips almost like a middle finger pointed at me. Take that, bitch, those hips said.
And I took it. Because I had to. It wasn’t her fault I fell in love with a frog. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but mine.
“What the fuck are you still standing there for?”
The coldness in Victor’s voice made me swallow. I looked at him, and even as my heart broke, I couldn’t make myself deny the truth. He was a frog. Just like the other guys before him, he turned out to be a frog but even so, I had loved him. And that was what I couldn’t understand.
How could I have loved a frog?
How could I still love him even now?
Victor turned red. “Don’t look at me like that.” His voice was tight and bitter at the same time. “Don’t make it my fault. This is all yours. You led me on.”
I wanted to ask how. How did I lead him on? Just because I liked wearing sexy clothes, just because I enjoyed flirting, just because I was the first to tell him I liked him – that all meant I was an easy lay and that being my boyfriend meant he had the right to fuck me?
Was that it?
I wanted to ask, but I didn’t because there was no point. He was a frog, and I knew by now that all frogs thought the same thing.
“Get the fuck out of my life.”
Victor’s angry words should have hurt, but they didn’t. Heartbreak always made me numb, and I had learned to be thankful it was so. It made the walk of shame more bearable, made me able to hold back the tears until I reached a place where I could lose all dignity and bawl like a kid.
“You’re Magnolia Everest’s daughter. You can have any guy—-”
I shook my head. “But I wanted you.” I knew it would be wiser to shut up, but I just couldn’t. I didn’t want anyone to make me feel ashamed for falling in love, even if I had ended up falling for another frog. “I loved you, and I thought you loved me—-”
“Yeah, well, I thought you were a whore like your mom.”
My hand hit his face even before he was finished talking.
“Don’t talk about my mom like that!”
Victor slapped me back, hard enough to cause my face to turn to the side and the corner of my lip to start bleeding.
Fear flashed in his eyes when he saw the blood on my face. “You fucking can’t sue me for that. If you do, I’m going to tell everyone you provoked me. You made a fool out of me. You dated all of those guys before me, and they all said you fuck like dynamite. So why not do me?”
Because they were lying.
All of the guys I had dated lied about fucking me, the same way I knew Victor would soon start lying about me.
I took a photo of myself and had saved it to my Cloud drive before Victor realized what I was doing.
“You fucking—-” His hand rose in the air.
“Hit me again and I will sue you.”
Victor froze.
“I don’t care what you say about me, but if I ever find out that you’ve said something against my mother, I will sue you. And you won’t win.” My lip curled. “Because I am Magnolia Everest’s daughter, and I can buy your life ten times over.”
The drive back home was quiet and slow. It took me thirty minutes to get back and even then, I hadn’t succeeded in completely blocking everything from my mind.
I wanted a hug.
I wanted my mom’s hug.
She would make everything all right.
She would make me believe that I was right to keep on falling in love.
But when I unlocked our front door, the first thing I saw was Magnolia sprawled on the living room floor, half-naked and seemingly unconscious.
“Mom!” I rushed to her side, falling on my knees as I checked her pulse. It was strong and steady. She was alive. Also, she was drunk. The smell coming off her made it obvious.
Her eyes blinked open. “Baby?”
“What happened, Mom?” Not taking my gaze off her face, I carefully pulled the ends of her robe back into place. I didn’t want to see how her breasts had started to sag, didn’t want to see how much she had let herself go ever since my father had dumped her when I was six.
“How was your date with Vic-Vic?” Her voice was slurred, but her eyes were intensely bright, and I knew she had started using again.
My heart broke the second time, but this one was worse because the wound was older and deeper.
Before I could answer her, Magnolia continued sadly, “Roland left me. He told me I’m an old hag.”
Goddamn you, Roland. Granted, he was twenty years my mom’s junior, but he didn’t have to say that to her face.
Magnolia looked up at me. “Do you think so, too?”
I gazed at her, and I saw who she had been. The world’s most successful model turned entrepreneur, someone who had used her inheritance to build a fashion empire.
I gazed at her, and I saw who she was now. A woman the whole world laughed at for the way she kept kissing younger frogs in search of true love. None of them seemed to remember how beautiful my mom was, inside and out, when she thought my father had still been a prince and he hadn’t turned into the biggest frog on earth by leaving her for my own babysitter.
The world might never remember who my mother was, but I did. She was the greatest mom, then and now, and I would never hold her need for true love against her. Pushing her hair away from her face, I shook my head. “I’ll never think that, Mom.” All the hurt that I felt from Victor’s betrayal faded in the face of my mother’s pain. My heartbreak could wait. It was Magnolia who mattered.
My mother stirred in my arms with a sigh. “You have it so lucky, baby.”
The slur in her voice was more pronounced now, and it was accompanied by a deliriously singsong note. She was no longer herself, and knowing it hurt. I looked around and saw the empty bottle of whisky on the center table as well as the stuff she used for taking drugs. The sight of it hurt even more, and it made me want to cry. The pain of having Victor – the boy I loved – slap me was nothing compared to this.
Magnolia’s eyes drifted shut. “You have it so lucky, baby. You’re still so young. No one’s going to think you’re an old hag.”
No, Mom, I thought fiercely. I’m lucky because I have you.
Her voice turned into a sob. “I just want someone to love.”
And you do.
I’m here for you, Mom.
I love you.
But I didn’t say the words because I knew that Magnolia wanted a different kind of love, and it wasn’t wrong for her to want it. It wasn’t.
Fighting to hold back my tears, wanting to be strong for her the way she was once strong for me, I started stroking her hair again. “You’ll find him sooner or later, Mom,” I whispered.
And as long as Magnolia kept kissing frogs, I’d do the same thing, too. I’d prove to the world that kissing frogs didn’t make me – or my mom – a slut.
It was just one way of finding a prince.
Eight Years Ago
Nik Alexandropoulos’ handsome face remained impassive throughout the twenty-minute footage that revealed Beth Lewis’ duplicity. His posture was just as unrevealing, Nik’s straight back and elegantly crossed legs merely painting the same picture of formality that he had always displayed.
No one inside the private conference room would ever guess that deep inside, the twenty-year-old heir to one of Greece’s most powerful billion-dollar empires was reeling. Why was he even surprised, Nik found himself wondering tautly. Why did he even foolishly think she would be different?
Beth was not the first one to betray his trust, wasn’t even the second. She was just one in a long line of foster parents assigned by the law to take him in until he reached his age of majority and was able to take full control of his fortune. Like all her predecessors, she had found herself unable to resist the temptation of cashing in on his name.
When they reached the end of the footage, Antonis Grivas, the head of the legal team appointed to oversee the Alexandropoulos’ billion-dollar trust, turned to Nik deferentially. “Your decision, sir?” He might be a decade older than Nik, but Antonis was no fool. Nik was his father’s son, and it meant that even now, Nik’s intelligence or ability to wield power should never be underestimated.
“Have her arrested.”
Everyone in the room stiffened in shock. Antonis was just as taken aback by the ruthlessness displayed by Nik, even though he could understand where the younger man was coming from. Beth was Nik’s seventh foster mother, and the one who had lasted the longest at five years. Most had lasted mere months before trying to either steal control of the Alexandropoulos fortune or sell photos of Nik to the press, which could easily fetch thousands of dollars each. Such was the world’s fascination with Nik, with the media painting him as the quintessential poor little rich boy.
Antonis had thought with Beth, Nik had finally secured himself a proper family environment to grow up in. There had been no red flags in the woman’s history, and he and his team had scrutinized everything and everyone in Beth Lewis’ life thoroughly. She was a widow who had a high-paying job and a loving family in the background. Repeated miscarriages had made Beth unable to have any children, and Antonis thought that would have clinched it, would have ensured the woman would love Nik unconditionally.
In a perfect world, that would have happened.
But as Antonis knew and as Nik Alexandropoulos kept finding out for himself, the world they lived in was not perfect.
