Public Rivalry (The Billionaire's Successor, #1)

by Rebecca Kinkade

“Bitch, he ghosted you so hard you could be the star of a tv special called ‘A Haunting in Manhattan.’”

Truth be told, Mark’s just not my type. For one, he’s a surgeon—otherwise known as the bona fide jocks of the medical profession. For another, he ordered a beer at a wine bar. He may as well have pissed on the Coliseum and gone on a big game hunt in Africa—that’s how abhorrent I think his decision is.

I’m just a half step behind her, the perfect distance to confirm that this magical dress also hugs her ass in all the right places. Fuck, I want her to dress like that for me, not these pathetic boys that she’s been dating.

“And what if I winked at you because I was glad that you winked at me?”

“I winked at you so that I could do this.” I close the space between our mouths and press my lips to hers.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my life and I know that it’s a great one. My father is a billionaire, I’ve gone to the best schools, traveled the world, and have an incredibly successful career—all before turning thirty. If someone had told me that the greatest night of my life would be the night that I sucked Corinne Tyler’s breasts in public on a rainy Thursday in New York, I would have thought they were insane. But here I am. Here she is. The same woman who I watched trounce men in law school classrooms and blow opponents out of the water in every business school case competition she entered. The same woman from whom I once considered stealing a laptop in college, because I was so sure that she was going to beat me for valedictorian. Here she is. And I can’t get enough of her.

The way she moves her body, I just know she fucks like she does everything else—next level. Top tier. Without comparison.

“You love this,” I go on. “Look at you, fucking my hand out here. You know exactly what you want.”

“Corinne, you’ve always been my girl,” he replies without hesitation. “It’s just taken you a while to accept it.”

“Gray, I hate you,” I tell him, wishing he didn’t have this uncanny ability to touch me in all the right places. “It terrifies me that you can make me feel so good when deep down, I just want to clock you in that perfect, handsome face of yours.”

“Oh, fuck off, Charlie,” Gray interjects suddenly.

“So, you’re not interested in sleeping with Corinne? That’s surprising to me, actually. Because even right now, the only thing I can think about is sleeping with Corinne, which I got very close to doing last week, by the way. So, if your intentions are anywhere along those lines, I’m going to have to encourage you to try a lot harder than these Obama-era pickup lines. Because it’s one thing to get Corinne to sleep with you, and a whole different thing to get her to sleep with you after I’ve raised the bar so damn high for her.”

“Tell me, Corinne. Why would you want to get a call or a text from someone you hate? Is it because I did things to you that you just can’t stop thinking about?”

“I need to kiss you,” he whispers into my ear. “I literally came straight from JFK to do that. Can I kiss you, Corinne?”

“There we go,” he murmurs. “Are your nipples always hard for me? I love that, Corinne. I fucking love it.”

“Are you sure? Because I mean it. I’ll get you anything you want, Corinne.”

If I call him, there’s a 1% chance I’ll have a bad orgasm and a 99% percent chance of a mind-blowing one that can fully make up for the one I was robbed of earlier this evening. If I don’t call him, there’s a 100% chance of no orgasm at all—or at least one that doesn’t involve Gray. Now, if I do call Gray, regardless of the quality of the orgasm, there’s a 50/50 chance that he’s going to break my heart. If I don’t call Gray, there’s a 100% chance he won’t break my heart. So really, it all comes down to how highly I value a mind-blowing orgasm versus the risk of a broken heart… I don’t think I’ve ever called someone so quickly in my entire life.

He’s wearing a white t-shirt that fits him better than any t-shirt has ever fit anyone in the history of t-shirts.

I have nude pictures of Corinne Tyler—that’s something I never thought I could say. But something about it feels right. For some reason, the only thing that I can find wrong about it is that I haven’t bought her any diamonds to wear when she takes nude photos. Yet.

“So, there’s a man standing by my desk who is so hot that I’m literally thinking about kidnapping him and locking him in my bedroom for all eternity.”

“And can I let him in? He says he needs to speak with you. And yes, I probably should have told him that he doesn’t have anything on your calendar, but I was just looking at his face and was like, ‘How is it literally possible for anyone to look like that and not be modeling for Hugo Boss?’ and got very distracted.”

“I mean, I super don’t want to. Like, unless he’s a loan shark or your stalker or something, there’s truly no reason w...

As soon as the door closes, Gray walks around my desk where I’m seated and gets on his knees. “I’m sorry,” he says as he puts a hand on each of my thighs and buries his head in my lap. “I’m just incredibly sorry about this.”

“Are you an angel?” Melanie mutters. “Me?” Gray questions. “I’m far from angelic.” She’s shaking her head as she looks him up and down. “Bravo to your mother and father,” Melanie goes on. “Please let them know that they do excellent work.”

Silently, I swear that I will do anything for her. Sell the company, change my name, move to the middle of nowhere—anything she asks of me, I’ll do it.

I love this part—the stretch. I love it when I think a guy is going to be too big, and then after a few seconds my body just seems to…invite him in.

“Look at you,” Gray is saying as he pounds me relentlessly. “Bent over for me in a car, moaning like you’ll die if I don’t make you come. Do you want it?”

I pull his face towards mine and I bring him into a full, claiming kiss. I don’t want him to touch anyone else but me. I want his hands to be mine and nobody else’s. His magnificent body. His cock. I want all of it.

“Every time I think that you’re perfect for me, you do something to make me realize that I’m not wrong—but I might never fully understand just how perfect you are for me,”

I’m sitting next to Gray’s mother and I’m wearing a butt plug. And just to make things even more absurd, I’m also sitting across from the Davenport-Ridgeway Chairman of the Board, who is also a billionaire. And I’m wearing a butt plug.

His hair is askew and his top button is undone. I love seeing him like this—so unlike the Gregory Davenport VI that everyone else sees. And somehow, this is how I’ve always seen him. As a regular boy. A regular man. Someone who was smart and ambitious—but not much more than I was. To others he borders on otherworldly, born with a silver spoon and gilded wings. To me, he’s just Gray.

“I want you to watch us,” he whispers as he moves behind me, getting into position. “Right there in that mirror. I want you to watch what I do to you.”

“Tell me you love me,” he manages to say, his voice drunk with lust. “I need to hear you say it again.” “I love you,” I say, responding before he has even finished speaking. “I love you, Gray.”

Because Gray was always wrong about one thing. I don’t just think of him on rainy days like today. Or when I think about Halloween. Or Batman (which was of course playing on tv last week). Or when I look in the mirror. I think about him all the time. Because at some point—maybe it was two months or twenty-four years ago—Gray became the only person I wanted to impress. He became the only person whose opinion mattered to me.

I study her as she sits on my bed. It’s the same bed where I stayed up late using my laptop as a teenager, going through her MySpace pictures and wondering if I should comment. Some days it’s still surreal to me that we’re together. Other days—most days—it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Corinne Tyler, I’ve loved you for my entire life. I was made for you, and you were made for me. And I really believe that—that there’s nobody else as perfect for us as each other. Marry me.”