Everything He Wants: Billionaire Breakfast Club: The Jock A #MeetCute Romance
Lisa Hughey
(Billionaire Breakfast Club, #1)
Publication date: February 13th 2018
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Boy Meets Girl. It’s the way romances usually begin…and while we all love a happy ending, it’s the #meetcute that wins our hearts.Everything He Wants (Billionaire Breakfast Club #1 The Jock) A #meetcute romanceTheir friends set up an interview, it was supposed to be simple….D’Andre Smith has it all.Fame. Money. Women. On the outside, his life looks perfect. But he’s got a secret that could destroy it all, so the last woman he should get involved with is a reporter.Elise Putnam is searching for a scoop to scoop all scoops to prove her investigative chops, so the last thing she should do is get involved with an interview subject.Their instant attraction has the potential to develop into something more if D opens his heart and Elise opens her mind. But their ingrained desire to protect their secrets may be stronger than their love….Everything He Wants is the first book in the Billionaire Breakfast Club series. Seven strangers-with nothing in common except the desire to succeed-discover true love….Everything He Wants: D’Andre and EliseShe Feels Like Home: Peter and BrittanicaHis Dirty Little Secret: Jay and CourtneyThis is the first installment in a new contemporary romance series, Billionaire Breakfast Club, by Lisa Hughey. Seven strangers (with nothing in common except a desire to succeed) discover true love…
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EXCERPT:
Everything He Wants is the first book in my new series, The Billionaire Breakfast Club. The BBC is a group of seven very different friends who meet when they are young and (mostly) poor, but with dreams of one day becoming billionaires. Now they are all on the cusp of realizing their success goals, but suddenly wealth and fame don’t seem so shiny anymore. Can they learn that love is the greatest fortune of all?
Spring 2008, Cambridge, Massachusetts
D’Andre glanced around guiltily.
It was pretty much impossible to be inconspicuous as a six-four black kid while he snuck out of the Young Entrepreneur seminar, but he managed to slide out a side door as the speaker’s attention was snagged by some girl in the front row who raised her hand every five minutes.
His head hurt.
Yeah, he’d promised his mother but even this dumb football jock knew that the guy at the podium was no longer on the cutting edge. He was taking about venture tactics that might have worked when D was in elementary school but the world moved at a crazy pace.
He nodded sharply to a Hispanic kid who sat on a bench outside the closely guarded lecture hall. Something about the guy struck D as dejected but you’d never know it from looking at him.
The kid stared at D’s badge then sighed and stood.
A perfectly-groomed blond guy with shiny hair and the requisite country club attire of a navy blazer and tan khakis eased out a different side door. Huh, Richie Moneybags was cutting out too. He stopped when he saw D, then gave him a chin lift and a conspiratorial grin.
“I’m heading over to the diner across the street. Wanna come?” He was purposely slurring his words together, but even with the attempt to be ghetto, the prep school diction came through.
“Dude, that was lame.” Some surfer guy sauntered up to them as the entire lecture hall came streaming out of auditorium for a scheduled potty break. He held out his fist and waited for a fist bump. “Duke.”
D obliged. “D’Andre.”
“You are a beast.” Surfer Duke wore a suit and tie but his hair was silvery gold from salt water and he had mixed heritage olive skin with a killer tan.
“Jay.” Preppy boy nodded at them both.
Jay’s princess counterpart, the perfect preppy girl, bounced up to their little group. “Fabulous!” She clapped. “Let’s go.” She smiled at them all.
“This is Tracy,” the prince said. They made a flawless couple like a prep school Ken and Barbie.
They all walked out together. D noted that the Hispanic kid trailed behind them.
When they entered the diner, a skinny little Asian kid sat at the largest table in the place, one of those with a booth and a weird circle banquette type thing and a chair on the end. His tag hung around his scrawny neck, and D had the random thought that he could crush the guy with one hand behind his back. But Tracy walked straight up to him and smiled. “Hi.”
The kid blinked. “Uh, hi?”
“Can we sit with you? We’re from the same seminar. We also decided we’d be better off trading ideas than sitting through more of that lecture.”
“Sure?”
“Great!” She slid into the booth and basically herded him into the corner.
No way was D squeezing into that sitting area.
He grabbed the lone chair, turned it around and straddled it.
The Hispanic kid had followed, except now that he was closer D could see the guy was older than him and the golden kids.
“Peter Nguyen.” The Asian kid chattered nervously, “I’m at Harvard. Graduated number one in my class but I’m already a junior because I took a billion AP classes.” He paused, looked at everyone as if waiting for them to list their academic prowess. “Not really a billion, of course. I was attempting to be relevant. But clearly I’ve failed at social interaction.”
And after that, everyone else said their names again with no mention of where they went to school or what their GPA was, thank fuck.
Preppy Ken said, “Jay Hollingsworth.”
“The fourth,” the bouncy girl added.
The Hispanic kid thrust out his hand. “Diego Ramos. School of life.”
No apologies. D’s impression improved.
“Why did you come here?” D wondered.
“Read about this seminar and wanted to see if I could get in.” His posture was slightly defensive as if waiting for them to tell him to get lost.
Instead of being disgusted at his sheer balls, Hollingsworth the fourth’s mouth spread into a wide, welcoming smile. “Nice. A rule breaker. Have a seat, Diego.”
The chatty princess folded her hands in front of her and bounced on the seat. “Smart. You must be really motivated.” She wasn’t rude exactly but more like examining them all like bugs under a microscope as if they were some exotic unknown species that she wanted to study.
And maybe they were.
He’d bet that he, Nguyen, and Ramos were all foreign entities in her rarified world.
“Tracy Thayer.” She gave a little wave.
“Thayer?” Nguyen asked. “As in— ”
“Ugh, yes. That’s my family.”
Jay raised one eyebrow at Harvard boy.
“Understanding the political climate of my adoptive state is only smart.”
He probably had plenty of time to study politics since he clearly didn’t get out much.
“Let’s focus on why we’re here,” Tracy said. “Entrepreneurs in training.”
“I want to be a billionaire,” Nguyen stated quickly. “But that seminar wasn’t informative enough.”
“Me too!” Tracy said.
“Money doesn’t suck,” Jay contributed.
Diego said, “I’m going to own my own business.”
They all had large goals. No way was D going to admit that he was only here because of his mother. But as he looked around the table, he thought this band of misfits might be good friends to cultivate. And he was nothing if not friendly.
Before anyone could say anything, Nguyen blurted, “Hey, we’re like the movie The Breakfast Club.”
Five blank faces.
“The Jock, the Nerd, the Rebel,” he slid a sideways look at Diego. So the Nerd paid attention. “The Free Spirit, and the Prince—” he stopped himself before he said Princess.
“Jesus, Nguyen. Do you ever get laid?” D snarked out. Peter Nguyen was the guy he couldn’t stand. So crazy smart he looked down on everyone else.
He’d clearly hurt Peter’s feelings. But shit.
Diego shot D a look. “Chicks dig smart guys. At least, according to my friends who are also crazy smart.”
“The Breakfast Club…but the billionaire version,” Nguyen said.
“We aren’t billionaires,” D was compelled to point out.
“Yet.” Jay cocked his blond head and bared his white teeth in a cocky grin.
Of course, he was pretty much guaranteed to be a billionaire by the time he was thirty.
“Uh, the building we just bugged out of was named after your grandfather. Pretty sure you’re a shoo-in.” There went Nguyen, shooting his knowledge and showing off.
Jay flushed. “Family money doesn’t mean it’s going to come to me,” he muttered.
Still, D couldn’t even imagine that kind of money. He was seriously thinking about going into the draft in a few weeks. Then he’d be making more money than he’d ever dreamed of. He might not go in the first or second round, but it would still be insane amounts of cash. That’s why his momma wanted him to come to this seminar. He wasn’t about to be stupid with his money. But billionaire?
He’d just be happy to be able to support his momma so she could quit her jobs.
The surfer dude piped up. “Got to think big, man.”
Yeah, but even D knew that what the seminar speakers were talking about wasn’t the future. So the Emerging Young Entrepreneur Seminar was a bust.
Even though Nguyen annoyed the shit out of him, D liked his optimism. Sitting in this greasy diner, he thought maybe he’d found his tribe. They all wanted similar things. Money, fame, acknowledgement. And he personally thrived on competition.
“Money isn’t everything.” Duke, the crunchy surfer dude, practically had Berkeley pacifist student tattooed on his forehead.
They all snorted.
Duke ducked his head. “Okay, yeah, it’s important.”
Diego pushed. “How about a wager, gentlemen…and lady?”
A feminine hand with black nail polish slapped on the Formica tabletop. “I’m in.” The skinny girl from the back row with the multi-colored hair and multiple piercings tossed a smirk at Hollingsworth.
“You don’t even know what it is,” Jay argued.
“Doesn’t matter.” She shoved in next to Duke. “Name’s Courtney. And this looks like the meeting to be at instead of the lame bull they’re slinging back there.” She jerked her head toward the building they’d left.
Jay tilted his chin in the air like a complete jerk. Weird since he’d been pretty mellow and open up until this point. “We didn’t invite you.”
“Oh, really. Who made you the head of this band of brothers?”
“And sister!” Tracy piped up, watching the back and forth avidly.
D tuned out Jay and Courtney as they bickered.
What could they wager?
“Guys, what’s the wager?” Courtney kicked him under the table.
Diego said, “Okay, okay, first person to make their first million buys breakfast for everyone.”
They looked around the table at each other, blinking, nodding.
“We need a name,” Tracy bounced again, such perky, slightly annoying cheerfulness. “First rule of marketing is to create and stick to your brand.”
“Billionaire Breakfast Club,” Nguyen said stubbornly.
Billionaire. D had to admit, the idea was growing on him. He loved the sound of that. As he glanced around the table, the name was already sticking with everyone.
“All those in favor say, aye.”
The chorus of Ayes was robust.
Everyone put their hand in the middle and bumped fists.
And the Billionaire Breakfast Club was formed.
Author Bio:USA Today Bestselling Author Lisa Hughey has been writing romance since the fourth grade, which was also about the time she began her love affair with spies. Harriet and Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys later gave way to James Bond and Lara Croft and Jason Bourne.Exploring the complex nature of a profession that requires subterfuge and lies fascinates her. She loves combining her two passions into fiction. As evidenced by her Black Cipher Files series.Archangel Rafe was her first foray into the paranormal but after spending time in the Angelic Realm, it won't be her last. At their heart, the Seven novels are about the dynamics of family relationships. But the really hot Archangels don't hurt.And recently she's been immersed in the Stone Family novellas, four stories about a blended family of brothers and sister who have a lot more in common than they realize. But of course she couldn't just write about family and romance. There are complex plots, bad guys, and suspense too.Lisa loves to hear from readers and has various places you can connect with her, although, shh, Twitter is her favorite.
Sounds great!
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