How To Propose Accidentally (Book Two): How To Propose Accidentally, #2

By Layla Valentine

This is the second book in the How To Propose Accidentally series from Layla Valentine.

I'm a business titan, a legend around New York City, and I always get what I want.

With my latest venture – mining priceless lithium out of the ground - I'm bound to make a killing. But there's a catch: the curmudgeonly owner of the land won't budge and refuses to sell to me, no matter what I offer, and no matter what underhanded schemes I think of.

That is, until I learned this man has a hot-as-all-hell daughter, and she's the perfect person to help me get what I want—the land, the mine, and hell, maybe I can have some fun along the way.

I offered her the job of a lifetime at my company, turned on the charm, and made her want me. She'll be putty in my hands.

The snag in my plan was finding myself on one knee, with a ring in my hand. I sure didn't expect to end up accidentally proposing to her, but what if this is the sweetener my scheme needs?

After all the lies, deceit, the manipulation, will she accept my offer? Or scorn me, and dash the only hope I had at my dream business deal?

And what if… what if this all goes badly wrong?

What if I fall in love with her?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Layla Valentine
• Release date: May 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781393300106

Book preview

HOW TO PROPOSE ACCIDENTALLY

Book Two

LAYLA VALENTINE

Copyright © 2022 by Layla Valentine

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

CONTENTS

1. Oliver

2. Oliver

3. Oliver

4. Oliver

5. Rachel

6. Rachel

7. Rachel

8. Oliver

9. Oliver

CHAPTER 1

OLIVER

When I first awoke, I couldn’t remember where the hell I was—or why. I wasn’t in my own apartment. I knew that much.

To begin with, I would never have allowed sheets of this low a thread count on my bed, and this most certainly wasn’t my pillow under my head.

That said, though, I felt… satisfied in a way that wasn’t entirely familiar. Deeply sated, and incredibly happy, like I’d slept better than I had in months. Years, even.

Then, I started remembering things. The bar. All that whiskey. And the girl—Rachel. The girl with the fire-red hair and the even more fiery personality. Those dancing green eyes. Those dancing, expressive lips.

The things she’d done with those lips when we got back to her hotel room.

Mmm, I moaned, remembering something more important—like the way her body had reacted when I’d used my own lips on her.

God, the woman had been a living flame in my arms. All fire without any of the ice that usually balanced it. All want and unabashed need and heat and…

And when I opened my eyes, she was right there in front of me, still wrapped up in my arms and the sheets, and mine for the taking. I stared at her for a long moment, taking advantage of my brain still being too asleep to offer me all the reasons I shouldn’t.

Holy fuck, she was beautiful. Her hair was wilder in the morning, I saw with a smile—the curls more riotous, the little bit of order they’d had last night complete gone. She was still sleeping, her mouth relaxed for now and those sparkling eyes closed. Her cheeks were rosy with warmth, the lines of her body slack with satisfaction.

And just there, on her neck, a bite mark. On her shoulder, another.

Those were mine, I thought with a smile. And she’d be covered in them. I hadn’t been able to keep my mouth off her—or any other part of me, for that matter. Hell, I hadn’t been able to go thirty seconds without touching her, not once I had her clothes off. Even before that, I’d been hard pressed to keep my hands off of her.

My eyes went back to that first bite mark and I thought again, Mine. Mine. My eyes flew to her eyes—still closed—and my heart actually stopped.

Mine. I couldn’t stop the feeling that she was. The feeling that I’d possessed her… and didn’t want to let her go. No, there was absolutely no reason for that sort of behavior. I hardly knew this girl, didn’t even know her last name.

But I couldn’t deny that she’d touched something inside me last night. She’d talked to me like I was a regular human being rather than one of the most important businessmen in the city. She’d reacted to me as a man rather than a name or a bank account. Or a fucking corporation. And she’d given me everything of herself—without even knowing who I was or what I could offer her.

It was more than any other woman had given me in years.

And it went deeper even than that, to some primal part of me that had reacted to her the way I hadn’t reacted to a woman since…

Well. Since a time I didn’t care to remember. Since a time when I’d opened myself up to something like this and been hurt. Deeply.

It was the reason I’d sworn off women entirely in the last ten years. Sworn off dating.

But there was something about this girl that was calling to me—had called to me from the moment I first saw her in Indian Lake, as nothing more than a camper at a campground I was trying to buy—and I was finding that I was having trouble refusing that call. Having trouble nailing it down, certainly. I couldn’t figure out what it was about her, exactly. But… I also didn’t know how to refuse it.

Which was trouble.

I reached up and brushed my fingertip down her nose, and then over her cheek. Not trying to wake her up—not yet—but just reminding myself that she was real. That this was all actually happening.

Her skin was soft as rose petals, and twice as rosy, and I smiled gently at her. No, I didn’t know what it was about this woman. But it was something special.

And I didn’t even know her last name. Didn’t know why she was here in the city except that she’d come for some sort of business. Hell, didn’t even know what she did for a