Hot as Sin: A Billionaire Hometown Romance (Billionaire Elements Book 1) Read online

  Hot as Sin

  Billionaire Elements

  Molly Sloan

  © Copyright 2019 - All rights reserved.

  It is not legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental.

  Also by Molly Sloan

  Beloved by You

  Beguiled by You

  Betrothed to You

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  Table of Contents

  Also by Molly Sloan

  Prologue

  Chapter One: The Big Reveal

  Chapter Two: Rainy Days and Mondays

  Chapter Three: Havana Homecoming

  Chapter Four: Amigas y Mas

  Chapter Five: Like Father, Like Son

  Chapter Six: Havana’s Got Talent

  Chapter Seven: The Flamingo’s Dance

  Chapter Eight: Dark and Tan and Young and Lovely

  Chapter Nine: Call Waiting

  Chapter Ten: Fire in the Hole

  Chapter Eleven: The Talk

  Chapter Twelve: Flowers in the Rain

  Chapter Thirteen: Dinner in the Day

  Chapter Fourteen: Que Sera, Sera

  Chapter Fifteen: Mamma Mia

  Chapter Sixteen: Lunch Break

  Chapter Seventeen: Love Will Find a Way

  Chapter Eighteen: Cuba Libre

  Chapter Nineteen: Sleeping Dogs Never Lie

  Chapter Twenty: Girls Night In

  Chapter Twenty-One: So Many Women, So Little Time

  Chapter Twenty-Two: It’s All Fun and Games

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Mother and Son Reunion

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Where There’s Smoke

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Fire and Ice

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Escape

  Epilogue

  Also by Molly Sloan

  About the Author

  Prologue

  “If you are watching this, it means I am dead.” The video paused, and Gordon Elliot’s face was frozen on the screen.

  The three brothers - Caleb, Alex, and Eden - looked at their mother as she fiddled with the DVD player. No one could believe he was really gone - especially with his face right there on the huge TV screen.

  “Mom, I think you accidentally hit the pause button.” Caleb, the oldest of the sons said as he got up and went over to help. “Push this one.”

  “Thank you, Caleb.” Susie’s eyes were red and puffy from crying. “Normally I can figure this stuff out. I’m just a little out of it.”

  “We all are, Mom.” Alex made room for his mother on the couch.

  Pushing “play”, the video resumed, and Gordon’s voice filled the room.

  “The reason I made this video is because, well, there are some things you ought to know.” He paused dramatically. “Things your mother and I wanted to wait to tell you.”

  The men all looked at Susie quizzically, but she kept her eyes focused on the screen.

  “First of all, let me start by saying that I was always proud to be your dad.” His eyes teared up at this, but he continued. “You three boys made me proud in a lot of ways. Which makes what I’m about to tell you somewhat of a bombshell, I’m sure.

  You see, the thing is, when your mom and I were first married, we decided to start a family right away. We wanted to have a big family… with at least six kids.” Chuckling, he continued “Now, it doesn’t take a mathematician to see that there are only three of you.

  The reason for this is that soon after we started trying, we found out, your mom and I, that we couldn’t actually have kids. There’s no need to get into the technical part of it, but it’s enough to say that we weren’t going to be able to have a baby of our own.”

  The brothers blinked in stunned silence as they looked at each other.

  “This means, of course, that you are all adopted.”

  The room erupted in accusations and incriminations. “Mom! How could you have kept this from us?” “I can’t believe you lied to us all these years!” “Adopted? You mean you’re not my real mother?”

  Susie just sat there stoically, wiping the tears as they streamed down her face.

  Gordon’s voice resumed. “Now, all of you calm down. I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering why we never told you.”

  The men fell silent.

  “It was a tough decision, for sure, and your mother and I talked long and hard about it. In the end, we decided it was best for our family to wait until now to tell you.

  But, there is more. I need for you to listen very carefully to this next part of what I’m going to tell you.

  As you know, your mother and I started Elliot Enterprises just before we got married. In that time, it grew from a small business in our living room, to a multibillion-dollar company that has locations on almost every continent on the planet. We have done very, very well, and you boys all had a good life as a result. You’ve wanted for nothing.”

  The brothers nodded reluctantly.

  “But there comes a time when a man has to become his own man. At the time of this recording, your mother’s and my shares of Elliott Enterprises are worth 6.3 billion dollars. We set up a family trust, and you’ll all be receiving paperwork in a few days. But I want to tell you what the stipulations are.

  First, your mother is to receive 50% of the value of our stock, or $3.15 billion, whichever is greater. Susie, this is what we agreed on.

  Second, each one of you boys has the OPPORTUNITY to receive 1 billion dollars in stock options. Note that I said “opportunity.”

  Susie, give the boys their packets now.”

  Susie got up and went over to the file cabinet, where she withdrew three thick manila envelopes. Each one was labeled with the name of one son. She distributed a packet to each man.

  Gordon paused long enough for Susie to hand out the packets and then continued. “In each packet is some brief information surrounding your adoption. You were each adopted, one year apart, from different countries.”

  The brothers started to open their envelopes, but their father stopped them.

  “Wait. Don’t open it yet. I want to tell you the rest of the stipulation. I’d said that you boys made us proud in a lot of ways. But there are a lot of ways in which you fell short. And you know what I am talking about.”

  The men looked at each other sheepishly.

  “There were many instances where you showed yourselves to be immature, selfish, short-sighted and materialistic.

  In order for you to receive your billion dollar share of our family business, you need to prove that you are capable of using the money to do something good for the world, and not just buy expensive toys and vacations.

  So, here’s how it’s going to work. Caleb, Alex, Eden... when each of you turns twenty-five years old, you will be given a large package with more comprehensive information regarding the circumstances of your adoption. You will have one year to create a plan for your share of the money that benefits your home country in some way.

  Caleb, you’re the oldest, so you’ll go first. Then, Alex, and Eden, you w
ill each take your turn in the following years.

  There is one last thing. At the end of your year, you’ll present your accomplishments to the board of directors, and upon approval, your share of the company will be signed over to you after that.

  I hope this makes sense to everyone. If you have questions, our family attorney Howard Simpson can help explain things.

  So, that’s it. I want you boys to know how much we love you. It has been an honor and a privilege to be your dad. You take care of your mama, now, you hear?” And with tears in his eyes, Gordon Elliott leaned forward and turned off the camera.

  Chapter One: The Big Reveal

  About a month after Caleb Elliot and his brothers watched the bombshell video, he received a box in the mail from his parents’ attorney. He wasn’t ready to deal with it, so he stuck the box on top of his bookshelf, and tried to forget about it.

  “Did you receive the box?” his mother had asked when she called.

  “Yeah, Mom. I haven’t opened it yet. I’ve been really busy.” Caleb felt a pang of guilt at telling his mother this, as the only “busy” he’d been was playing Call of Duty with his gaming pals. But the guilt turned to justification when he remembered how she and his dad had lied to him for his whole life.

  The box just sat there on the shelf.

  A couple of weeks later, Caleb’s mother asked again. “Have you opened the box?”

  “Not yet, Mom. I had that thing at work and was pulling a lot of overtime.” There was no “thing at work.” Well, he was migrating his company’s database to the cloud, but there wasn’t any overtime involved.

  “This is important, Caleb,” his mother admonished.

  “I know, Mom. I’ll get to it soon.” But, the box just sat there on the shelf.

  One night, a week or so later, Caleb had a strange dream. Caleb was a child and was sleeping in a room that had blue walls with a yellow racing stripe all across the walls and ceiling. It was a warm and humid night, and Caleb began crying for his mother, but it came out in Spanish.

  “Mamá te necesito.” I need you.

  A woman came in the room, but it wasn’t Susie. She had dark hair and eyes, and long, soft brown hair. She picked him up to comfort him. She smelled like summer fruit. She softly sang something in Spanish, softly as she rocked him. Caleb started to feel very sleepy. His mother put him down in his bed, and walked over to the shelf on the wall, grabbed a box that had been sitting there, and walked back and handed it to him. “Abra la caja. mijo.” Open the box, son.

  Then the dream shifted, as dreams often do. There was a fire, and his parents Gordon and Susie were trying to escape their house. Caleb and his brothers were there, trying to put the fire out with tiny teacups. Finally, they all just gave up and walked away.

  Caleb awoke with a start from the bizarre dream with a start. He was drenched in sweat and his heart was pounding. Who was the woman? Why did he and his brothers just give up on their parents? What did it mean?

  “That’s a weird dream, dude.” Caleb’s best friend Gina was typing on the computer at work while they were talking. “I do know one thing, though.”

  “What’s that?” Caleb was shaving his face and talking to her on speakerphone.

  “You need to open the damn box.”

  Three days later, Gina came over for moral support while Caleb opened the box. Cracking open a couple of beers, she handed him one and then sat down ceremoniously on his couch.

  “How come you’ve lagged on this for so long? You’ve had this thing for, like, a month.”

  Caleb grabbed the box and held it like it was filled with anthrax. Bringing it over to the couch, he tried to answer as best he could. “I don’t know. I’m mad, I guess.”

  “Yeah. It’s like as long as everything is in the box, nothing has changed. Susie and Gordon are your parents, your brothers are still your full brothers, and your biggest problem is how you’re going to beat me on Call of Duty. But as soon as you open it, everything changes.”

  “I don’t want anything to change. I don’t want this. I don’t want to have been adopted, I don’t want my dad to have died and I don’t want to know what’s in this box.”

  Gina took the box to inspect the writing on it. “I would want to know. I mean, what if George Clooney is your biological dad? Or John Elway or something? You could have a famous father!”

  Taking the box from her and setting it on the table, with the knife poised to slice open the top, Caleb inhaled and said, “I don’t want a famous father. I want Gordon Elliot.”

  Gina was silently trying to peer over the folds of the box to see in as Caleb unpacked it. There was a letter, a sealed envelope, and a DVD, much like the one his mother had played. The DVD had a sticky note on it that said, “Play me first.”

  Inserting the disk into the DVD drive of his laptop, Caleb’s mother came on screen.

  “Hi, Caleb. It’s me. Your mother.”

  Gina laughed at this. “As opposed to the actress who played her in the movie of your life?”

  Grinning at her, Caleb said, “Shhh…”

  “So, as you know by now, your father and I have put our financial assets in a trust, and in order for you receive your portion of them, we want you to do a humanitarian project.”

  She held up the envelope and the letter. “In this envelope is your original birth certificate. This is a letter from your biological mother, explaining the circumstances of your adoption. I don’t want to be the one to tell you, so read the letter, look at the birth certificate, and then I want you to travel to the country of your birth to do the humanitarian project there. I’m sure you remember those dark years, right after college, when you got into trouble with the law. We just want to make sure you are responsible enough to handle the significant wealth that you’re about to inherit. That’s why we are doing this, instead of just giving you the money.”

  “Besides,” Susie’s eyes teared up, “your father and I were so incredibly happy to have adopted you. You made our lives complete. We’d wanted children for so long, and then you came along and made us parents. We just want to give back to the country that was responsible for bringing us so much joy.”

  Gina sniffed and was clearly holding back tears, too.

  “We love you, son. Go make us proud.” The recording ended.

  They sat there in silence for a moment, absorbing the information they’d just learned. Then, to break the somber mood, Gina elbowed Caleb. “Maybe you’re from Jamaica. You should open a weed farm. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, right, mon?”

  “I don’t think that’s what my mother had in mind, Gina.”

  “Well, are you going to read the letter, or not? It’s time to meet your birth mother!”

  The letter was not sealed in an envelope. It was on lined paper; the kind you use in grade school. The handwriting was a little shaky, as if its author were nervous. She probably was. Caleb read the letter aloud, so that Gina could hear.

  “My dearest Ramon.”

  Gina stopped him. “Ramon? Your birth name is Ramon? You look nothing like a Ramon.”

  Caleb had to agree. While he did have dark hair and eyes, his light skin color gave no indication of being Hispanic or Latino or whatever he apparently was. He started to read again.

  “My dearest Ramon.

  My name is Gabriella Garcia de Diaz, and I am your birth mother. Your father, Ramon Diaz, and I were married in Havana, Cuba, where you were born. Your birth name is Ramon Diaz Garcia. You may not know that Cuban naming custom gives the father’s name before the mother’s maiden name.

  At the time of your birth, there was a lot of trouble in Havana. In the 1990s many people have been leaving Havana for the United States. Those people were exiled and looking for political asylum. But your papa is a firefighter and has a good reputation in the eyes of the local government.

  We wanted you to have a better life than to be raised under the oppressive rule of Fidel Castro. Because your father has connections, he was able to arra
nge for us to legally immigrate to Miami. It could only be the two of us, you and me. My beloved husband stayed in Havana, and you and I left for America. It was the saddest day of my entire life. Well, the second saddest day…”

  Caleb had to stop. Emotion choked his throat as he imagined a young mother, clutching an infant boy, leaving the husband she loved so much. All so that her child could have a better life. All so that he could have a better life. She gave up all of that for him.

  He looked at Gina who had tears streaming down her face. “Keep reading. I need to know how you ended up adopted away after all this.”

  Wiping his tears, he continued reading. “You and I, Ramon, we came to Miami with only two suitcases and very little money. American culture was so foreign to me. The cars looked strange. The television shows were unfamiliar. It was if we had landed on another planet.

  I did not speak English and had no real skills. I was able to get work as a housekeeper for a hotel in downtown Miami, but the work was at night. There was no one to take care of you. I had no family and no friends.

  You and I shared a room in an apartment with five other people from Havana. It was crowded but also felt a little like home. We shared the cooking and played our music. Some of the men even had cigars, which reminded me of your papa.

  I begged one of the other women to watch after you at night when I was working, but after a few weeks she moved out. Some other people moved into the apartment, and they started using drugs. It became very bad.