Queen for a Day (BBW Billionaire Romance) Read online

  About Queen...

  Growing up biracial with a museum curator for a dad and a famous model for a mother, plus-size Nadine Hopkins never felt like she belonged in either world. Pushing thirty, she has finally made peace (more or less) with all her curves and wants to launch a line of cosmetics, clothing and jewelry that combines her deep knowledge of ancient Egypt with her fashionista sensibilities. She has rave reviews, a factory on stand-by and purchase orders from the priciest boutiques.

  What she doesn't have is funding to start production.

  Enter Silvio Parisi -- Mr. Deep Pockets. An international playboy, he is accustomed to his women naked and on their knees, which is exactly the position he has in mind for Nadine when he summons her to his private Italian island to negotiate terms.

  ********************

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  Queen for a Day

  "There, bella, that is where we are taking you."

  Franco Bassani joined me at the rail of his father's boat, his muscular, golden brown arm extended toward a blurry point on the horizon. At the edge of my vision, I saw his shoulder flex and knew that one of his sculpted pecs had just winked at me. They had been winking at me from the moment I boarded the boat, which coincided precisely with Franco deciding the day was already too hot to keep his shirt on.

  "So that is Isola di Parisi?" I asked, edging toward my right to keep a little distance between our bodies.

  Bumping into Benito, the equally shirtless but much larger brother of Franco, I froze. The two men had been subtly crowding me since my arrival at the Venice airport. While they had made no overt physical transgression, their gazes boldly touched wherever their hands were forbidden to graze.

  Muscular, golden-skinned, with ruggedly handsome faces weathered by the sea, their attention would have been flattering had I been in Italy on vacation. But I wasn't on vacation. I was trying to save my business from dying before I could even officially launch it. I didn't have the bandwidth to be flattered. I also couldn't afford to meet Silvio Parisi, my potential investor, with a pussy hot and dripping with need. My limited exposure to the man was more than enough to know I didn't want to be around him with my body already primed for sex.

  "Sì," Franco answered before his brother's low, melodic voice interrupted.

  "Isola di Paradiso, bella."

  I looked at Franco for an explanation. Not that I couldn't understand the word "paradise" rendered in Italian, but I definitely had the feeling I was missing out on a private joke -- one I likely wouldn't find amusing given Benito's speculative tone.

  "Signore Parisi owns the most beautiful of the islands in the lagoon," Franco shrugged. "Nothing less than paradise can describe it. The gardens are perfection. The grotto will steal your breath. And the beach is so magnificent that it hosts only the most beautiful of birds."

  Benito, who Franco claimed spoke almost no English, chuckled as his brother finished, and then he added something long and lilting in Italian. Whatever Benito had said, it brought a pink flush to Franco's sun-kissed skin.

  "What was that?" I asked.

  My fingers pulled nervously on the ankh I wore on a chain around my neck. The men didn't frighten me. My body's favorable reaction to their obvious flirting was the sole cause of my anxiety. I was deep into a very long, very dry spell when it came to the more intimate aspects of being in a man's presence. For over two years, my mother's failing health, and then the handling of her estate, had demanded almost all my time. After that, I had been too busy with the business sparked by our renewed relationship to even notice that a man had taken an interest in me.

  Sandwiched between two hot blooded, mouthwatering Italian males, my body was achingly awake to their suggestive looks and sly conversation.

  "The figs," Franco explained, briefly reaching around me to slap at his brother. "He said the figs on Signore Parisi's island are so good, they melt on your tongue like sugar and honey."

  "Really," I asked, incredulous that Franco had chastised his brother for complimenting Silvio Parisi's fruit.

  Franco's mouth pursed in a delicious manner before he answered. "I can only say that I have spent all day licking at their insides and still wanted more -- always more."

  Franco's accent thickened and his gaze took on a sensual haze that threatened to make my panties grow even wetter. Before I could do something embarrassing, like whimper or moan, their father tapped his pipe against the window and pointed toward the bow.

  Grateful for the distraction, I turned and looked. We were almost to the island. Not only could I clearly see the dock, with two of its three slips filled with bigger boats, but I spotted a gray-haired male in a heavy black suit standing near the third slip, his grip resting on the handle of a small cart.

  "That is Signore Anders," Franco said with a nod. "He is the...uh...maggiordomo?"

  "Butler," Benito offered, proving he knew at least one English word, even if it sounded like he had added more than one T in his pronunciation.

  "I spoke with him on the phone," I volunteered. "He introduced himself as the estate manager."

  "Butler," Benito repeated, sliding by me a little slower than necessary as he headed toward the back of the boat.

  "Time to practice my knots, bella," Franco sighed then took a graceful, almost gentlemanly, bow that contrasted comically with all the carnal looks he had given me on the short ride.

  I stayed at the rails watching them work until the boat was tied off and they had handed my suitcases up to Mr. Anders. On my way to the stern, I stopped briefly at the wheelhouse.

  "Grazie Capitano Bassani." I dipped my head, hoping I hadn't mangled the pronunciation and that he wouldn't give a reply so complicated it exhausted my exceedingly minimal understanding of the language.

  I needn't have worried. The old man waved his pipe in reply and smiled, his slightly crooked grin reminding me of his sons.

  Turning, I found that Benito had climbed onto the pier, his massive, bull-like body bent at the waist and knees and his arms held out in my direction. Before I realized the men's intent, Franco wrapped his hands around my hips and heaved me up into his brother's embrace.

  For several long seconds, my feet dangled as I stared straight at Benito's face. As tall as he was, I hadn't managed a really good look until then. I drank in the dark chocolate eyes and generously thick lips before a flicker of gold at the end of his nose captured my attention. My gaze trying to remain focused as the Italian giant spun me around, I saw a metal ring threaded through his columella, that narrow strip of flesh between each nostril.

  "Miss Hopkins is not a suitcase," the estate manager clucked in a very British accent as my feet touched the dock.

  "Scusami, Signore Anders," Franco murmured from where he remained on the boat. "The brow is broken. We only wanted to ensure Signorina Hopkins would not injure herself."

  His posture already impossibly stiff, Anders stood a little taller and wagged a finger at Franco. "See that it is fixed before Miss Hopkins' departure on the morrow."

  "Sì, signore."

  Franco's grin told me the gangplank would be just as broken when they returned to pick me up -- or the brothers would find another not-so-innocent excuse to place their hands on my body before the next ride was finished.

  Deftly hopping from the dock back into the boat, Benito turned and smiled at me with a dark sparkle in his gaze that matched his brothers. My cheeks flushed hot. I wasn't sure whether I was pleased or angry. Certainly, their blatant appreciation wasn't helping my image as a serious businesswoman, even if it was only the finger w
agging majordomo and not his boss bearing witness.

  But their hot looks were also warming my thighs enough that dangerous thoughts stroked inside my head. I knew that, no matter the outcome of my trip, I would never act on my attraction. But I was equally certain that, as soon as I was back home, safely locked inside my apartment with the lights off and a blanket pulled up to my chin, I would bury two toys inside me and think of these beautiful men.

  "A presto, bella," Franco called.

  "A presto," I repeated, naively translating his good-bye to mean that he would see me tomorrow on the return to the airport.

  ********************

  Anders escorted me to an opulent bedroom and bid me rest for a few hours. Too much was at stake for me to follow his advice. I paced the room for the first thirty minutes, my mind oblivious to the open curtains and magnificent view of the enclosed bay the locals quaintly referred to as a lagoon. When my legs started to feel like I had finished the first half of a marathon, I sat down and opened the rolling wardrobe trunk I had brought.

  The contents gave the impression I was on an extended trip. In truth, I would be returning home the next day. The trunk was filled with product samples. I had packed the makeup, jewelry, and clothing -- all of it Egyptian themed but with a modern twist, at Mr. Parisi's request despite the earlier material I had mailed to him.

  I glanced through the case, making sure I knew where each piece was located so I could find it quickly. I didn't linger over any particular piece, intentionally fighting the urge to do so. Everything I had brought possessed value that could never be matched by money. I hadn't scoured the Internet for the supplier of the vibrant blue silk or any of the other materials to build a business, hadn't spent hours threading beads or mixing compounds so that a stranger could walk into some upscale store half a world away and buy it. Everything I had done had been motivated at first by the need to make my dying mother feel beautiful again.

  Anders came sooner than he had promised then led me through a maze of halls to deposit me in front of a heavy door. When I knocked, a voice that could melt stone answered.

  "Un attimo, per favore."

  I exhaled slowly. It wasn't my first time hearing Parisi's voice. We had spoken at length on the phone at hours that were early evening for me and halfway on to the next morning for him. I'd never heard a voice so sexy, especially when the appeal never faded even as we discussed something as deathly boring as supply chain management.

  The door swung open and Silvio Parisi slowly came into view against the backdrop of a dimly lit room. A tailored silk suit in dark gray flowed the length of his body, the tailoring darting inward to accentuate the narrow waist and lean hips. I had seen pictures of him online, the photos usually taken at some extreme sporting event in which he had participated. Dressed in a suit or muddy and sweating, he always looked stunning -- like stop and stare then find a clean pair of panties stunning.

  He had grown his hair some since the last picture had surfaced on the Internet. Pushed back, the thick waves fell just above his shoulders, the dark brown strands almost black in the room's feeble light. Eyes that looked pitch black at that moment but I knew to be olive green glittered as he greeted me with a smile.

  The flash of teeth drew my attention to the bottom half of his face. He hadn't shaved in days or weeks except along his cheeks, leaving them smooth. A stubbly mustache covered the broad heart of his mouth. Centered below the bottom lip, he sported one of those little patches that I found so irritating on every other male I had ever witnessed but on him just served as further proof of his perfect features. More rough stubble curved sensually at the very bottom edge of his chin.

  He pivoted slightly, his arm sweeping toward the center of the room in invitation as he switched to English lightly seasoned by his accent.

  "Please come in, Nadine."

  Murmuring my thanks, I moved forward. As I began to pass, his fingers brushed my hand and I relinquished my hold on the trunk.

  "This," he said, admiring the old caramel-colored leather and brass finishing, "is a genuine Hartmann, yes?"

  I nodded, hoping the trunk would serve as a natural icebreaker without being something that stole his interest away from the negotiations. I had already lost one potential investor in a similar manner on a different topic.

  "Are you a collector?" I asked.

  "Yes." Squatting, he unlatched the trunk and opened it. "Anders swears I only ever leave the island so I can use one of the pieces from my collection."

  As he talked, his fingertips explored the interior with all the careful precision of a surgeon. "It's condition is flawless. Where did you find it?"

  I forced a smile to my face while my stomach sank with dread. Not only was our meeting swerving dangerously in the direction of focusing solely on a piece of luggage, but I didn't want us turning any other corners that would lead to different but equally unacceptable conversation. Parisi was my eighth potential investor, the others either entirely uninterested or only willing to invest on terms I would not accept. If I didn't convince him to invest, it would be a long time -- if ever -- before my idea moved beyond starting up my own boutique.

  "My mother found it at a flea market almost forty years ago," I answered truthfully but without elaborating on why she had been looking for a piece that would hold so much. "Picked it up for ten dollars."

  "I have one that is a near match, a little more worn. I wouldn't value this one at less than six thousand euros." Parisi opened the drawers, his attention finally shifting to the contents and not their case. Pulling out an embroidered swing dress in a sunflower gold, he frowned.

  "You brought more than runway sizes, I hope," he said.

  I hesitated before answering. I intended the clothing line to be available in all sizes and had packed a wider selection on my first three meetings. I lost investor one and two on other reasons, at least according to the minuscule amount of feedback they had offered after the pitch. The third investor had coldly informed me that the business would fail as a high end line if I included anything over a size twelve, maybe even over a size ten. So I had kept my samples at eight and below for all the subsequent meetings.

  Rising to his full height, Parisi turned and looked at me. His frown bordered on becoming a scowl. "If you haven't, then tell me," he warned. "I don't get into bed with partners who hold back."

  Every joint in my body went loose at his words. Swallowing hard, I told myself he was talking solely about business -- that English wasn't his native language and no matter how fluently he spoke it from his time at the London School of Economics, there would always be an idiom that got a little mangled.

  "I brought a few pieces for personal use," I answered. "In case I wanted to change on the trip."

  My body went from lightly swaying to locked up tight as I thought about my answer only after it had passed my lips. I had wrestled hard with myself over whether I should bring any pieces for my own use. Certainly I knew it was dangerous to wear them during the meeting given the reaction of investor number three, but I also fretted over whether I could safely wear them before the ink was dry on any agreement.

  "Excellent," Parisi said, his long legs quickly taking him over to his desk where he jabbed an intercom button and barked out an order for Anders to bring my other luggage to the office.

  An objection gnawed at my lips but I kept it locked within me. Aside from the possibility that Parisi was devoutly religious and would object to my birth control pills, there wasn't anything inside the bag Anders was fetching that was inherently embarrassing. But the lack of objects that might make me blush didn't give Parisi the right to so blithely order the retrieval of my travel bag -- neither did his money grant him that power.

  "Here," he said, returning to the trunk and pulling out the cosmetics. "You can start with a demonstration of the makeup."

  My enthusiasm returned as quickly as it had fled. Even the interested investors had stopped me before any in depth discussion on the samples.

 
"Everything is natural," I began as I reached for the case. "I'm really proud of the illuminators--"

  "Si, si, si," he interrupted. "Your customers want to know that, their men don't."

  His hand found the hollow of my back, the spot just above my tailbone. His palm filled the space as he steered me across the cavernous office to where a changing screen of dense copper lace had been set up in front of a large window. Stepping behind the screen, he created a gap of about two feet between the heavy drapes that were blocking what remained of the early evening light.

  "Let's keep the magic going and save the tutorials for the website," he suggested and gestured for me to step behind the screen.

  I would have rather worked under proper lighting, but I complied as a muted growl thrashed inside my chest. So long as he didn't turn on any of the other lamps I had noticed in the room, I could apply enough of the cosmetics to make a good impression without looking like a circus clown. All bets were off the second the lighting changed.

  I worked quickly, not slowing down even when Anders entered the room and I heard Parisi unzip my bag and sort through the clothes. I chewed ruthlessly at my bottom lip as I dabbed on the top layer, coloring in my brows to symmetrical perfection, contouring in bronze and gold and silver-gold.

  Exiting from behind the screen just as Anders closed the office door behind him, I saw Parisi holding the twin to the beige-gold swing dress I had brought and matching sandals. The bag he had taken them from rested on an end table at his side. The newly sewn lace panties and bra poked up past the rim of the suitcase as if they were attempting to crawl into the jacket pocket of his expensive silk suit.

  I walked toward him, a far off bell tolling the hour. The sound distracted me, made me take a few extra seconds to realize what was wrong with the scene. Parisi wasn't inspecting anything. Instead, he held them much as a valet would.

  A ridiculous possibility flashed through my head but I immediately rejected it.

  "The screen should shield you sufficiently." He squeezed the words through pursed lips, his gaze unreadable in the room's dim light.