The Billionaire's Touch

By Mimi Wells

After quitting her first “real” job, Janine Pike takes off for Europe, saving an excursion to the famed Isola del Sole for last. But when her travel-mates sail off with her backpack, phone, and passport after a night of partying, she’s left only with the euros in her pocket and the faint hope that her estranged half-sister, who works at the renowned Hotel Dei Fiori Isola del Sole, might help her.

Shel Myerson, amateur racecar driver and wildly successful TV mogul, oozes wealth and prestige. What he doesn’t have much of is privacy, thanks to a recent and ugly public breakup. What he doesn’t expect is to be mistaken as an employee by a very pretty—and very broke—Janine, the one person in Europe who also doesn’t have any idea who he is.

Shel and Janine discover their chemistry is combustible—but will their budding relationship survive the heat once the press catches on?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tule Publishing
• Release date: Aug 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781943963072

Book preview

Author

Dedication

For Eve Gaddy, Katherine Garbera, Kathleen O’Brien, and Nancy Robards Thompson—live or on the page, I’d road trip with you ladies anywhere!

Dear Reader,

Have you ever wondered what life would be like if you had to start over from scratch? Janine Pike, the heroine of The Billionaire’s Deception, gets to find out when everything she owns sails away with the wrong group of friends. Shel Myerson, the hero, chooses to remake himself once he meets Janine and discovers that creating a new persona comes with its own thrills—and consequences.

As a drama student, I spent hours in the theater playing what if? in order to make a role come to life. As a writer, I find that what if? is the best way to find out what my characters are thinking and how they’ll react even in the most outrageous situations. And being from Florida, I certainly appreciate how a trip to the beach provides ample opportunities for fun, adventure, and love!

I’ve had a ball playing what if with Shel, Janine, and the four fabulous women who have joined me to create these romantic, passionate idylls on the Amalfi Coast’s beautiful (but, alas, fictional!) Isola del Sole. I hope you feel the same.

Happy reading!

Mimi Wells

Chapter One

Signorina.

Hmm? Janine Pike didn’t want to open her eyes.

The buttery smooth voice could have been conjured out of the decadent dream she’d been having. Something involving champagne, of course.

Signorina.

Silk lingerie. Candlelight. Chocolate. A Hemsworth giving her a foot massage.

"Signorina." The voice was insistent now.

She shaded her eyes, cracked one open just a slit, and instantly regretted it. Apparently she’d had a lot more limoncello to drink last night than she’d thought.

What is it? she asked.

A slim, Italian man, dressed in a finely-cut linen suit with an open-collar shirt, peered down at her, his expensive calfskin loafers wildly out of place on this stretch of beach. Your friends—

She cut him off with a careless wave. They’re getting something off the boat.

There is no boat, signorina.

Of course there’s a boat, Janine huffed, sitting up and frowning. "The À Bientôt. It’s right over..."

Her voice trailed off as she took in the scene around her. Plastic cups and empty bottles littered the sand near the ashes of a makeshift fire pit. A silver hoop earring glinted, half-buried, beneath an abandoned hot pink bikini top. Not hers—Simone’s. But Simone, her boyfriend Christophe, and their gaggle of hot young European friends Janine had been partying with last night on the beach were nowhere to be seen. Neither was the boat. Or, to her horror, her backpack containing her entire wardrobe, her European journals, and her passport.

Panicked, she scrabbled in her pocket for her phone and came up with only a crumpled €20 note and some lint.

Oh, God. Her phone. Sometime last night she’d gotten up to charge it and—yep. It was probably exactly where she left it, plugged into one of the outlets in the galley of Christophe’s cruiser, which was God-knew-where in the iridescent waters off the Amalfi Coast by now.

À Bientôt, indeed. So long, sucker.

This is not happening, she murmured, trying to quell her rising panic.

She’d been in Europe for three months. Three months with no huge problems. When she’d stepped on the plane at Hartsfield International airport in Atlanta back in April, her mother had hugged her tight and made her swear to be cautious, to be safe, to come back in one piece. And Janine had promised. Up until now, it had been an easy promise to keep.

Signorina, there is one more thing—

What? she barked, hating the panicky sound in her voice. This wasn’t her.

There is the small matter of the bill.

She gulped. There’d been a lot of drinking last night. More than the pile of bottles here indicated. Definitely more than twenty euros’ worth, for sure.

My friend left his credit card with the bartender, she explained, pointing toward the marina’s upscale rooftop bar.

The man pursed his reddish lips, his disdain clear. The card has been declined.

Damn Cristophe and his expensive tastes. And his enthusiasm. Last night was the first time she’d let herself get really looped. Even at home, she wasn’t a big drinker, and with the constant threat of some lunatic with a pocket full of roofies, as her roommate Hannah warned, Janine was more likely to order one drink and nurse it, keep it close, than she was to indulge.

But not last night. Last night had been a beer (only one), limoncello (dangerously delicious), and grappa (kill me now)-fueled blur. Simone—blonde, giggling Simone—had kept pace with Janine, Christophe, and the trio of Italian layabouts they’d picked up in Portofino and seemed none the worse for wear. Typical. Simone’s capacity had been campus legend at the small college they’d attended together. Ginormous linemen couldn’t keep up with her. Janine was a fool to have tried. But she was nearing the end of her trip, so she’d gone for it.

Man, had that been a mistake. The departure date on her ticket—oh, God, the ticket!—was looming ever closer. She only had a few days left. Only a few days to indulge. Only a few days to soak in the culture she wouldn’t be able to afford to visit again for years.

Only a few days to find her.

Janine had saved the Isola del Sole until last. Not just because it was famous for its turquoise seas, its flowers, its history. But because she lived here. Stéphanie, her sister.

Half sister, she mentally corrected. Half. They shared a charming father and nothing else. Janine hadn’t even known Stéphanie existed until the day her letter arrived.

Dear Miss Pike, it began formally, We have never met, but we have something very important in common. Someone, to be exact...

In all the years Janine had spent in the tidy, suburban bungalow she shared with her family, she’d never really wondered about her biological father. She’d never missed out on love or attention, never wished he’d sweep her into a princess fantasy better suited to a Disney movie. Her mother, Emily, never talked about him. Once Emily met Steve Pike, and Steve had fallen as hard for Janine as he had for Emily, that was it. Steve adopted Emily’s seven-year-old daughter the day of their courthouse wedding, and he was the only father Janine had ever needed. Wanted.

The monogrammed envelope bearing the exotic foreign postmark had the same impact as a grenade. Stéphanie Harlan’s letter did what twenty years of questions hadn’t—pried open her mother’s secretive lips. The man who made her, the one who never called or wrote, wasn’t a wayward college student, a spoiled, trust fund brat, a long-haul trucker, or a regrettable one-night stand—scenarios Janine had conjured over the years in response to Emily’s silence.

Nope. Her father was French. Famous. A household name, if you happened to adore food as much as you loved a legendary story.

She still had a hard time believing that Valéry Harlan, the dashing, bad boy chef whose Mange Bien! TV series made him a household name, was the man responsible for her temper and her tenacious cowlick. And probably the uncharacteristic urge that goaded her into quitting her first real job and flying to Europe on this trip. As far as Janine knew, keeping her surprise daughter was the only impulsive thing her organized, no-nonsense mother had ever done in her life.

Linen Suit coughed pointedly and pulled out a silk handkerchief. Judging from the cut of his jacket and quality of the fabric, this man was no ordinary desk clerk. He was probably management, and probably beyond irritated at the irresponsible American with the wastrel friends.

I’m sure we can get this straightened out, she finally stammered as he dabbed at the beads of sweat forming along his hairline.

Nothing to be done. She had one card to play, and she hoped like hell Stéphanie Harlan wouldn’t resent her for playing it.

She stood up and brushed the sand off the back of her shorts, located her shoes, and trudged up the beach behind him toward the cream stucco of the Hotel dei Fiori Isola del Sole.

Strange how things came full circle whether you planned them or not, she thought as they crossed into the cool shade of the stone tunnel leading from the beach to the lush front gardens of the hotel property. Valéry Harlan’s career had been launched from this place, his passionate and creative approach to traditional French and Italian cuisine earning him fame in foodie circles and a river of lire to boot. His first cookbook swaggered to the top of the bestseller lists, and his Gallic good looks catapulted him out of the kitchen and onto television. The cookbook that followed, Riez Souvent, its title taken from the television show’s closing toast, sent him on a worldwide tour of destination food cities and probably the bedrooms of a slew of enchanted women. Or book publicists, in Emily’s case. The affair had lasted a week. The souvenir was currently twenty-four, jobless, and regretting she’d trusted someone like Simone’s Eurotrash boyfriend with all of her possessions.

They emerged into a sunlit garden, ablaze in color and redolent with scent. Stately cypress trees encircled the space and gave it a cloistered feel despite being framed by the long curve of the hotel’s driveway. Roses bloomed in multicolored profusion. Bright geraniums poked their cheerful heads from planters and urns set along the walkways.

Janine followed Linen Suit through the arch of blazing, pink bougainvillea that marked the end of the garden and across a cobbled portico dotted with luxury cars. A quartet of smiling doormen swept open the massive carved doors to usher them into the lobby. She let out a low whistle at the opulence that greeted her everywhere she looked—silk sheers at the windows, embroidered pillows on the chairs, even gold leaf on the figured plaster ceiling. The hotel’s signature floral arrangements cascaded from urns, vases, and baskets, sending dizzying spirals of lush scent into the air. Jazz music sparkled from a grand piano tucked into one curve of the wide double stairway to the second floor mezzanine. Janine hunched her shoulders, feeling conspicuous at how shabby and out of place she must look in her travel-worn shorts and fading shirt. All around her, impossibly chic, slim women glided by in crisp resort wear and expensive sandals.

A harried porter pushed past her, toting a fortune in Louis Vuitton luggage. Janine thought ruefully of her now-missing backpack, its web of scars from being dropped, dragged, and shoved into compartments all over Europe. That backpack had been her home, really, for months now. It held everything—her few changes of clothes, the one cute dress she’d packed for slightly more formal occasions, a dried thistle from the Highlands of Scotland, a vintage scarf discovered at a flea market in Paris, flat pebbles she’d scooped out of