The Billionaire’s Big Bold Woman: A Single Father Instalove Romance (The Billionaires’ Club)

‘I don’t want Princess Jenna to leave!’ Bella cries, crossing her arms and hitting me with a pout that breaks my heart. Tears well in her eyes, threatening to spill down her little cheeks.

Isla isn’t any happier. She’s clinging to Jenna’s hand like if she just holds it hard enough, she can keep her here. I feel the same way. After having her in my bed last night, I don’t know how the fuck I’m supposed to let her go back to Nashville today.

‘My sweet girls,’ Jenna croons, wrapping her arms around both of my girls. ‘I have to go now. But I won’t be gone forever. And when I come back, I’m going to take you to a real castle. Doesn’t that sound fun?’

‘A real castle?’ Bella asks.

‘A real castle,’ Jenna confirms. ‘With a real queen and knights. They even ride on horses and battle each other.’

‘They fight?’ Bella asks, her pout slipping as her eyes grow wide.

‘They do,’ Jenna says. ‘It’s called a tournament. It’s how they decide which knight is the bravest and the strongest. At the end of the tournament, that knight becomes the queen’s new guard. He protects her and the kingdom.’

‘Cool,’ Bella whispers.

‘What do you think, Princess Isla? Would you like to go?’

‘Can we, daddy?’ Isla asks, looking up at me with hopeful eyes.

‘We can,’ I say. ‘But only if the two of you behave this week.’

Bella pouts again, clearly not thrilled with this plan. Then again, she’s never thrilled about behaving. It’s too much work in her opinion. The world trembled the day she was born. It’ll tremble again the day she turns eighteen. Bella wasn’t made of sugar and spice and all things nice. She was made of spirit and sass and a whole lot of brass.

‘Can we have a sleepover with Princess Jenna too?’ she asks.

Jenna looks to me for guidance on this one.

‘Princess Jenna can sleepover anytime she wants,’ I say, meeting her gaze.

Heat flares in her eyes, and I know she’s thinking about last night. I couldn’t keep my hands off her. We made love and fucked and then did it all over again until the wee hours of the morning. I’m sore in places I didn’t know could be sore, so I know damn well that she’s probably in pain. She doesn’t show it though.

In fact, she was the instigator for more than half of what we did last night. I kept trying to give her a break. And then she’d get her hands or her mouth on me, and all my good intentions died a quick, painless death. She’s a wicked little princess, exactly as defiant as I knew she would be.

She’ll never be tame, that spirit never broken. And thank God for that. I don’t want to change a single thing about her. I just want to love her. And when the sun goes down, I want to fuck her on her knees until she’s begging for mercy.

‘Yay!’ Bella cheers, her tantrum forgotten. She dances around on her toes, beyond thrilled that Princess Jenna will be sleeping over next weekend. She’s going to be a little pissed at me when she realizes that Jenna will be sleeping in my bed with me instead of with her and Isla.

‘Promise you’re going to come back?’ Isla asks, holding her pinky up.

‘I promise, sweet girl,’ Jenna says, hooking her pinky through Isla’s to seal the promise. She hugs both of the girls tight and then reluctantly climbs to her feet to head outside. She keeps her head up, but I see the tears swimming in her eyes and the way she bites her bottom lip to keep it from quivering. She doesn’t let the girls see it though.

‘You two wait here,’ I order the girls, needing a minute alone with my woman before she leaves us. ‘I need to talk to Princess Jenna.’

‘Okay, daddy,’ Isla says.

‘But I want to hug her again,’ Bella says, frowning at me.

‘In a minute, poppet.’

She huffs at me but stops at the door with her sister while I escort Jenna out to her car. We went and picked it up from the hotel before I went to get the girls. They don’t know she stayed the night here last night. I’m not about to tell them either. Bella will give me ten kinds of hell all week about having a sleepover with Jenna without her and Isla.

‘I’m going to miss them so much this week,’ Jenna says once they’re out of earshot. ‘Promise me that you’ll let them FaceTime me?’

‘I promise, baby girl. You can call us anytime.’ I pull her into my arms, hugging her tight. Half of my heart is leaving with her. I never knew it was possible to fall so hard and so fast, but I did. How could I not? She loves my girls, she’s feisty, and she looks like a goddess. Anyone would have fallen.

I’m just glad no one else ever caught her attention. My girls already have one parent in prison. The last thing they need is for me to land myself there for killing some motherfucker for thinking Jenna was his.

‘I love you,’ she whispers, hugging me like she’s trying to fuse us into one being.

‘More than you know, princess,’ I murmur, pressing my lips to her forehead. I breathe her in, letting her sweet scent settle in my lungs.

‘Daddy!’ Bella yells. ‘Is it my turn yet?’

I chuckle and reluctantly release Jenna.

‘You can do this, brave girl,’ I say, swiping my hands under her eyes to erase her tears before the girls see them and get all worked up again. ‘It’s only five days.’

‘It feels longer,’ she says, pouting.

God, don’t I know it.

‘It’s your turn now, poppet,’ I tell Bella.

She and Isla shoot off the porch like two little bullets. Jenna crouches down to catch them, hugging them both tight.

‘Remember to behave,’ she tells them. ‘But don’t be too good. We need to keep your daddy on his toes.’

Bella giggles. Isla cracks a smile.

Jenna hugs them again and then climbs to her feet and into her car.

My girls wrap their little arms around my legs, both dejected and sad. They weren’t even this down when Marion was arrested. They were confused and frightened, but they never cried because she wasn’t there. They missed the idea of her more than her. It’s not hard to see why. After seeing Jenna interact with them, it’s impossible to ignore just how fucked up Marion was as a mother.

‘Bye, Princess Isla. Bye, Princess Bella,’ Jenna says, waving at the girls. Her voice wobbles. ‘Bye, Mac.’

‘See you soon, princess,’ I whisper, my own throat tight.

The girls cling to me as she drives away.

‘This sucks,’ Bella announces.

She’s not wrong.

‘Daddy.’

I glance up from the stove to see Isla and Bella standing beside the fridge, their arms linked together. They’re wearing matching looks of determination. Which never bodes well for me. They’ve been quiet since Jenna left a few hours ago, far quieter than normal.

When I checked on them a little while ago, they were in Isla’s room, whispering back and forth. They both fell silent when they saw me in the doorway. I had a feeling they were up to something. It looks like I was right.

‘Yes, Bella?’

‘We think you should marry Princess Jenna,’ she says.

‘Oh?’ I cock a brow, eager to hear how they reached this conclusion.

‘Uh-huh,’ she says.

Isla nods.

‘She makes your heart happy like Aunt Holly makes Unka Ian’s heart happy,’ Bella says. ‘And I think you make her heart happy too. If you marry her, she won’t have to leave anymore. She wasn’t very happy about leaving.’

I turn the stove off and move the pan to the opposite side.

‘Come on,’ I say, holding out my hands for them.

They look at each other and then slip their hands into mine, letting me lead them to the living room. I sit them both on the couch and then sit on the coffee table in front of them. They both look at me, waiting patiently for me to say whatever it is I want to say to them.

‘I like Princess Jenna,’ I say. ‘A lot.’

‘Me too,’ Bella says.

‘Me too,’ Isla echoes.

‘I want Jenna to live here with us and be part of our family, but before that can happen, we have to make sure the two of you are going to be okay with it,’ I explain. ‘If I marry Jenna, she’ll be your stepmom.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s like a bonus mom. Marion will always be your first mom, but Jenna would be your second mom. She would help me take care of the two of you and sleep in my bed with me.’

‘Oh.’

‘Would she still play with us?’

‘Of course she would,’ I say. ‘She loves you girls. It would break her heart if she couldn’t play with you anymore. It would also make her heart sad if she moved in and it hurt your feelings. Jenna is a good princess. She wants to do what makes the two of you happiest and so do I. So I need a little help here, girls.’

‘With what?’

‘How would you feel if Jenna moved in here?’

‘Could we call her mommy?’ Isla asks, her voice soft.

‘You can call her mommy if you want to call her mommy, but that’s up to you, sweetheart.’ I don’t even have to ask Jenna to know how much she would love that. I also know she wouldn’t push them to do it if it wasn’t what they wanted.

‘Would she get mean like our other mommy?’

‘Never,’ I vow. Jenna and Marion are nothing alike, but I get why the girls are worried about it. The only standard of measure they have is Marion. To them, that’s what a mommy does. She yells and ignores. The only memories they have of her are the bad ones. ‘You know how Aunt Holly is with Finn? That’s how Jenna would be with you. She would never want to hurt either of you.’

‘Jenna would be a good mommy,’ Bella says.

‘She would be the best mommy,’ I agree.

‘If she moves in, can we stay up later?’

‘No.’

‘Can she cook for us?’ Bella asks.

Isla bites her lip to hide a smile.

‘Maybe,’ I say, narrowing my eyes on the two of them. ‘But not all the time. That wouldn’t be fair to her.’

‘Well, can we eat hamburgers when she doesn’t feel like cooking then?’ Bella asks, giving me an adorable pleading face.

‘My cooking is not that bad.’

‘It is, daddy,’ Isla says, reaching out to pat my hand.

‘Really bad,’ Bella agrees.

I shake my head, chuckling at them. My girls are savages, but at least they’re cute little savages. They’re not wrong though. My cooking is shit. I do not have the magic touch with spices. It’s always either too much or too little. And fuck baking. It never ends well. I was born and raised in the south, but the spirits of my ancestors do not whisper to me when I’m in the kitchen. I think they’re too busy pointing and laughing to help a man out.

‘Can we have a brother?’

‘Maybe,’ I say, smiling when Bella and Isla both go wide-eyed.

‘Can she move in now?’ Bella asks.

‘Maybe soon, poppet. She has a lot of things she has to do so she can move in.’

‘Like what?’

‘She has a job and an apartment she would need to pack up.’

‘Can’t she get a new job?’ Bella asks, not impressed with this obstacle.

‘We can help her pack,’ Isla offers.

‘You two really want her to move in here, huh?’ I ask, though I’m not surprised. It was obvious yesterday that they were head over heels for her. My girls may be a handful, but they’re full of love and excellent judges of character.

‘Yes!’ Bella shouts.

‘Yes,’ Isla says more quietly.

‘Then I have a plan,’ I say.

‘Is it an evil plan?’ Bella asks.

I throw my head back and laugh. Of course she wants to know if it’s an evil plan. ‘Maybe not an evil plan,’ I say, immediately making her frown. ‘But it is a sneaky plan.’

‘Yay!’ she cheers.

Isla smiles, letting me know she’s on board too.

Thank God. Because Jenna’s only been gone a few hours, and I already miss the hell out of her. There’s no way I’m going to survive a whole week without her. So I’m not even going to try. We’re claiming our queen and bringing her home where she belongs.