Her Billionaire Heartthrob: Billionaire Bachelor Mountain Cove Read online

  Her Billionaire Heartthrob

  Kaylee Baldwin

  Sweetly Us Press

  Copyright © 2020 Kaylee Baldwin

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Sweetly Us Press

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  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

  Epilogue

  Bonus Material

  OTHER BOOKS BY KAYLEE BALDWIN

  ABOUT KAYLEE BALDWIN

  ONE GREAT CHRISTMAS LOVE STORY SNEAK PEEK

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 1

  Liam’s hands shook as he stood, but he chalked it up to exhaustion. The board room was full, every seat taken, some faces as familiar to him as his own family, and some brand new. Since his dad had died nine months ago, Liam had tried to visit every Pets and More location and meet individually with the board members. He’d had no idea how much his dad had handled. Sixty-to-seventy hour workweeks had become Liam’s norm. Leaving him precious little time for anything else … including sleep.

  “What we have here are next year’s projected numbers,” he stated, casting the presentation slide to the large television at the head of the table. A camera on a tripod across the room recorded and streamed this meeting for the board members who hadn’t been able to make it in person. “We do plan to see a minor decrease in sales as more of our competitor’s Pets! Pets! Pets! stores open up across the nation.”

  The shaking in his hands turned into a buzzing in his ears. He grabbed his water bottle to take a long drink from it. Tonight, he had to get more sleep—after he finished writing up this report. And going through manager applications for the store in Albuquerque, which had been causing him problems all year. Normally that was something he delegated, but as this would be their fourth manager in a year, he wanted to take it on himself and see if they could save the store. As he looked around at the board, their faces blurred. He blinked and they came into focus once again.

  “That said, Xander and I, as well as our CFO Felicia Dillon, believe that our business models are different enough that after an initial drop in sales, we’ll recover.” He looked at every board member, making eye contact with each of them, stopping momentarily on Felicia, who nodded in agreement. She’d been a lifesaver this last year. Competent and smart, she’d been working with the company since before Liam had graduated from college, and Liam had learned a lot working under her tutelage.

  His gaze rested finally on Xander, his younger brother, who had only come to this meeting to officially present Liam as CEO. It was a long time coming and everyone was expecting it, but for some reason, Liam’s chest felt tight. He let out a dry, short cough and took another drink of water.

  Xander’s eyebrows shifted inward in concern, but Liam shook his head quickly. He was fine. Maybe he needed to sit for a minute though. His fingertips suddenly turned cold, while his veins felt like they were pulsing with molten lava. He swallowed. “Xander.” He motioned for his brother to take over.

  Xander stood and the attention of the board swiveled toward him. “As you know, our father died in February, and it was his wish that Liam take over the company, but the board bylaws do require an official vote. Liam has been working in the capacity of CEO since before our father died, not only keeping the company on-track, but also overseeing the opening of three stores and the ground-breaking of two. Statisticians predicted our sales numbers would drop after our father’s death, but instead, they held steady and even rose slightly despite the announcement of the new Pets!Pets!Pets! franchise.”

  While Xander continued to highlight Liam’s accomplishments, Liam could hardly hear him through the ringing in his ears and the distinct feeling that something had clamped onto his chest, squeezing him so tightly he could hardly get in a breath.

  His brother’s words became a drone in the background as he struggled to get air through the tiny stir-straw that had become his windpipe. He gripped the edge of the table, blinking rapidly to clear his eyes. Distantly, he saw hands rise, and he caught Felicia’s worried stare.

  I’m okay, he wanted to say, but instead he inhaled in a long, loud gasp. He tried to breathe again, with the same result. He couldn’t get any air in. He couldn’t breathe. Panic squeezed his chest even tighter. Xander rushed around the room to his side, his every movement a blur of slow motion. Felicia also left her seat and came toward him, yelling something to someone else.

  Everything receded while Liam focused breathing through a throat getting progressively smaller and smaller.

  “Is he having an allergic reaction?” Xander asked as the edges of the room started to turn black. Liam went to sit, but his chair wasn’t where he expected and he fell to the ground. There he curled his fingers into the tightly woven carpet, his body slick with cold sweat.

  “Does he have asthma?” Felicia asked, kneeling beside him, her comforting hand on his forehead.

  I don’t, he wanted to say, but he couldn’t get the words out past his struggled breathing, past the panic squeezing him, past the knowledge that if he didn’t get more air, he was going to die.

  “Is an ambulance coming?” Xander shouted, sounding nearly as panicked as Liam felt, but Liam never heard the answer before his body gave in to the suffocation and encroaching darkness.

  ✽✽✽

  Felicia and Xander stood by Liam’s hospital bed, frowning. He’d been hooked up to an IV and was feeling more relaxed and at ease than he had in ages. Perhaps it was the medication the doctors had given him when he’d arrived by ambulance. Something that relaxed every limb and sent him into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  “What time is it?” he asked with a scratchy voice. Xander handed him a plastic cup of ice water, and he swallowed it down, reveling in the cold feeling against his throat.

  “Nearly seven o’clock,” Xander said. “You’ve been asleep for about six hours.”

  “Whatever they gave me knocked me out.” As if to punctuate his exhaustion, he yawned long and loud. It felt so good to have his lungs full of oxygen that he almost hoped he’d yawn again. After a series of tests right after he’d arrived, he’d fallen asleep before the doctor could tell him what was going on with him.

  He was still wearing his suit from earlier, though his coat was tossed over the back of a chair in the corner, along with his tie and belt, and the first few buttons of his shirt had been loosened. There was a light rap on the door, and it opened to a man wearing a white doctor’s coat over a checkered button-up shirt and dark brown slacks, a stethoscope slung around his neck. Liam scanned his memory for the doctor’s name. Dr. Wright.

  “How are you feeling?” Dr. Wright asked. Xander and Felicia mov
ed away from the bed to let Dr. Wright come closer.

  “Good,” Liam said. “Did the test results come back with anything?”

  “Your heart is good,” the doctor told him, “and your lungs are strong.” He glanced at his tablet, clicking through a few pages. “You need to get more sleep, your blood sugar was low, and you were dehydrated, so we’ve hooked you up with some fluids and electrolytes. Once the bag is empty, you are free to leave, but you need to take it easy.”

  “What happened?” Xander asked. “It was like he couldn’t breathe.”

  Liam took a closer look at his brother, who looked as ragged as Liam had felt earlier. He tried to imagine what it would be like to see his brother collapse like that, but he couldn’t. Didn’t want to. Xander was all he had.

  When the doctor hesitated, Liam shifted nervously in his bed. He’d given the doctor permission earlier, when he’d first arrived, to share his medical details with Felicia and Xander, so he knew that wasn’t why the doctor was hesitating.

  “It was a panic attack,” he finally said.

  “A panic attack?” Liam shook his head. “No. It couldn’t have been. I couldn’t breathe. I passed out. It was like my entire body was shutting down.”

  The doctor powered down his tablet. “Is this the first time it’s happened to you?”

  “Yes,” Liam started to say, but then stopped and remembered all the times in the last couple of months that his chest had felt extra tight, or where his hands had shaken almost beyond his control. He’d even had a handful of times where his breathing had felt a little wheezy, but he’d chalked it up to exhaustion or working too hard.

  “I want you to follow up with your primary care doctor when you leave, and you need to consider seeing a therapist to help you manage your anxiety.”

  A therapist? Liam Nichols was one of the richest people in the world. He had a great brother, a great team, a great life. What in the world did he have to feel anxious or need to see a therapist about?

  The doctor left and a nurse came in with some papers for him to sign and to remove his IV. He swung his feet around the side of the bed, still groggy from the meds. Anxiety? He was just tired and overworked.

  “I think you need to come to Eureka Springs.” Xander brought over Liam’s shoes, while Felicia held his tie and suit coat.

  “I’ll take care of everything while you’re gone,” Felicia assured him.

  “I can’t go to Eureka Springs in the middle of the fourth quarter,” Liam argued.

  “You have a house there you’ve never even been to,” Xander pointed out. It was true. He had a house built right next to Xander’s, but he’d been to busy to fly out to see it since it had been finished.

  “There’s something else.” Felicia handed him his coat and tie. “Someone leaked the footage of the meeting to the press. Your … panic attack is all over the news.”

  Liam fumbled through his pocket for his phone and searched his name. Sure enough, the first hit to come up was a video of him at the meeting, sweating and visibly shaking and then collapsing. Is the Pets and More CEO on drugs? read one headline. Does He Have What it Takes to Fill His Dad’s Shoes? read another.

  He closed his eyes. This was going to be a nightmare to work around. Like a hydra, one incident had sprouted so many stories—none of them true.

  “I’ve got Jordyn and Mark on it,” Felicia said, referring to their heads of PR. “We need to be open and tell them you had a panic attack. Change the narrative before it gets out of hand.”

  Liam nodded, numb.

  “Go to Eureka Springs,” she urged. “I’ll handle everything here.” He knew she could, so it wasn’t leaving the company that worried him, but not taking care of things himself. Felicia must have known his thoughts, because she continued, “Take care of you, Mr. CEO. Pets and More will still be waiting for you when you return.” The vote. He hadn’t seen the final results before passing out. They must have voted him in.

  The television in the corner cut from a game show to a newscaster standing outside the hospital he was in, several other reporters silhouetted in the background with the setting sun. The station showed a brief clip of him collapsing before cutting to the reporter again. “Pets and More CEO is being hospitalized after dropping unconscious at a board meeting. Could America’s favorite billionaire heartthrob be hiding a dark secret? Tune in tonight at ten for the full story.”

  Xander turned off the television and raised an eyebrow. Maybe Liam did need to get away from all of this. It was telling that the best sleep he’d had in almost a year was in a hospital bed.

  “Find a back door for a car to meet us at,” he said grimly, looking back and forth between Xander and Felicia. “It looks like I’m going to Eureka Springs.”

  Chapter 2

  Viola Nightingdale grinned as she signed her name to the contract, guaranteeing restoration work for several years to come. The owner of Fletcher Real Estate, Mr. Ross Fletcher, sat across from her, his grin also wide. He wore a large, worn cowboy hat to go along with his roughed-up boots.

  “We have big plans for downtown, restoring it to its original beauty,” he said. “And we’re glad you’re willing to partner with us.”

  He stood and held out his hand, which she took in a firm handshake.

  “I’m excited too.” She had consistent jobs, mostly though the city, as a historical building restoration expert. Though she restored all facets of the building—inside and out—with historical integrity in ascetic and materials, her favorite part was was painting. Specifically, she couldn’t wait to get her hands on the faded, hand-painted sign work on the outer brick walls of many of these buildings.

  “We’re looking at starting in January,” he said, his thick, southern accent making everything he said sound relaxed.

  “Perfect.” They’d already discussed having her start with the old Miller building on Spring Street, a building that was part residential, part retail. A January start would give her time to get paint samples and research what it had looked like in its glory days.

  He tipped his hat in goodbye and left her office. She sat back in her chair and spun it around happily. She had never wanted for work here in Eureka Springs, but to have a contractor who was so dedicated to authentic historical restoration—and had the funds to cover it—was rare.

  She glanced at her watch and hopped out of her chair in a rush. She only had fifteen minutes to make it to town hall to meet with the mayor. They met often, usually about new projects he wanted to consult Viola about or hire her for. They were already planning the Eureka Springs beautification event for next spring—just starting to outline what projects they could do—but Mayor Tweed was definitely swamped with the Eureka Springs fall events, arguably the busiest tourist season of the year—and he didn’t like to miss a single event. Between the barefoot ball, the zombie crawl, and the ghost hunters that came into town near Halloween, Eureka Springs’ commerce saw a huge boom in the fall. These events brought in more people to appreciate the town Viola loved, which made her extra happy.

  She walked into Mayor Tweed’s office, the secretary sending her straight back. Mayor Tweed looked up from his laptop as Viola knocked lightly on the open door.

  “Come in,” he boomed, indicating the open chair in front of his desk. “I’ll get straight to the point, since I know we’re both busy.” Viola had to smile. She’d known Mayor Tweed since he taught her science class at the junior high ages ago, and even then, despite claiming to want to “get straight to the point,” he never managed to do so.

  “But first,” he began, leaning forward to rest his arms on his desk. “I’d love your thoughts on the zombie crawl this year. I spotted you in full zombie suit.”

  They spoke for a while about how well the last few town events had gone, despite some unexpected circumstances at some. From there, they drifted into talking about his new wife and a trip they had planned.

  “You know, I remember you from my class,” he said. He brought up being her science teac
her every time she saw him. “You were a tiny little thing. Only one friend back then, right? Callie Irving—Nichols now. You’ve really blossomed. I’m proud of you.”

  As much as she’d always hated the word “blossomed,” her heart warmed at his praise.

  The secretary popped her head into the room. “Your next appointment is waiting.”

  “Oh,” Mayor Tweed said, startled. “Well, we’ll get straight to the point, then.”

  Viola hid her smile behind her hand.

  Mayor Tweed stood and walked around the desk to sit beside her. “I’ve got great news to give you.”

  “What news?” Viola sat at the edge of her seat. “Did the city council agree to additional funding for the beautification project?”

  He grimaced. “I’m still working on that one. There are a few tightwads on there.” He shook his head, but then smiled again. “The city council, with my sincere approval, has voted to give you the Eureka Springs Citizenship Award this year. We’ll present it at the Winter Festival Gala, if you can make it.”

  The Gala was a by-invitation only event, and she’d always wanted to go. Plus the Citizenship Award? She never imagined an honor like that happening to her. Excitement raced through her, and she tried to contain it but couldn’t quite manage it. “Yes! I’ll be there.”

  “Good.” Mr. Tweed nodded in satisfaction. “The gala is a formal, and the entire city council and select special guests will be in attendance. You are allowed one personal guest.”

  “That sounds amazing,” she gushed. “Thank you.”

  “No, thank you for all you do. You are an asset to Eureka Springs, and we’re lucky to have you.”

  Viola left the office in a daze. Could her morning get any better? She went back to her office, a tiny room in a building she shared with an insurance salesman, a therapist, and a law firm.

  She pulled out her cell phone to call her grandma. The phone rang once before going to voice mail. A moment later she got a prerecorded text. At yoga. Namaste.