The Billionaire's Ex-Wife
The Billionaire’s Ex-Wife
Jameson Brothers Book One
Leslie North
Contents
Jameson Brothers
The Billionaire’s Ex-wife
Mailing List
About Leslie
Blurb
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
End of The Billionaire’s Ex-Wife
Thank you!
Want More?
Sneak Peek
Jameson Brothers
The Billionaire’s Ex-Wife
The Billionaire’s Pregnant Fling
The Billionaire’s Sexy Rival
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
RELAY PUBLISHING EDITION, OCTOBER 2017
Copyright © 2017 Relay Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved. Published in the United Kingdom by Relay Publishing. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design by LJ Anderson of Mayhem Cover Creations.
www.relaypub.com
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(Jameson Brothers Book One)
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About Leslie
Leslie North is the USA Today Bestselling pen name for a critically-acclaimed author of women's contemporary romance and fiction. The anonymity gives her the perfect opportunity to paint with her full artistic palette, especially in the romance and erotic fantasy genres.
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Blurb
Sam Jameson always gets what he wants and what he wants is his ex-wife.
Sam views the world in black and white—a strong attitude that’s earned him billions in the business world and an ex-wife in the real world. What Sam wants is to choose his own future, but to do this he must pass a test set out by his older brother, and CEO: onboard his wayward brother, Eddie. Sam accepts the challenge but isn’t sure what to think when he learns that the woman he’d love and left is part of the test too.
Trinity Jameson is a fixer. It doesn’t matter if it’s ugly furniture or an ornery employee, Trinity has the touch and she’s spent most of her life helping others achieve their best potential. But when her ex-husband comes back to town to prove he’s got a heart, Trinity makes a decision: She’s not going to fix his problems for him—no matter what his smoldering blue eyes ask of her, she’s going to say “No.” She’s determined that he’ll fix his own mess this time.
Before Sam landed in New York, his goal was to leave the city just as fast. But when Trinity saunters into the room looking better than ever, his desire begins to shift. He realizes that what he really wants is what he can no longer have: Trinity. Sam has no trouble stoking their physical fire, but hot sex isn’t going to be enough to heal the hurt he’d caused long ago. Sam isn’t going to be dissuaded by her new found emotional wall. He helped her build it, and now he’s going to knock it down.
Chapter One
Sam
His favorite suit was wrinkled. It didn't matter if there was only one: the wrinkle was there, leering up at him like a lopsided, mocking smile.
Sam Jameson shook out his sleeve, but the minor imperfection remained. Minor, he thought to himself in consolation. A wrinkle that wouldn't smooth was the least of his problems today; still, it lingered in the back of his mind as much as it lingered on the otherwise crisp fabric of his suit.
Sam distracted himself by gazing about the familiar waiting room of the New York office. He missed the East Coast more than he could express, and he wasn't an expressive man by nature—but even he could appreciate the familiar, sanitized smell of the office, the classic wooden furnishings, and the precision of the New York City skyline just outside the high window. The L.A. office always smelled like someone was secretly giving manicures in the staff kitchen, and the West Coast skyline was…quirky. Slipshod. Obscured by a permanent haze and decidedly not up to code.
L.A. was to blame for Sam's current predicament, of that he had no doubt. Who the hell lodged a complaint about "annoying perfectionism" and took their business elsewhere? Apparently L.A. clients did. Sam blamed the strange holistic culture that had seized the West Coast—the culture of "mistakes are successes that haven't happened yet," or whatever inane philosophy Californians liked to paste on the bumpers of their hybrid cars—but his older brother William didn't see things the way he did. That was partly why William was CEO, and Sam was COO, of Jameson Advertising Agency: it wasn't just a matter of age, but perspective…or so their father had once explained it.
If only Sam could give William a momentary demotion and make him see things from his point of view. This move to onboard Eddie was a mistake. More than that, it was far below Sam's paygrade—but even he wasn't so callous as to say as much out loud. He had learned early on that when it came to family, talking in strictly business terms wasn't exactly smiled upon.
But surely even William could see, from his lofty vantage as CEO, that bringing Eddie any closer in the family business was a mistake. Their father had certainly thought so. The youngest Jameson simply wasn't cut out for more than wining and dining clients.
Inviting the family screw-up back into the fold didn't seem like a wise move to Sam—but who was he to protest it? He would get in, do the job to a more than acceptable degree, and get out, the same as he always did. William wouldn't be able to argue with the results, and then Sam could get the hell back to L.A. and move onto better things.
The door opened and Sam rose, applying one last swipe to the wrinkle. He raised his gaze, expecting to find Eddie's lopsided grin and ridiculous eyebrows waggling a greeting.
Instead, it was his own ex-wife he found staring back at him.
"Trinity." He hated how out of practice he suddenly sounded saying her name out loud. Not a day had passed since their separation that it didn't enter his head on a repeating loop, always in threes: Trinity. Trinity. Trinity. "What are you doing here?"
His ex-wife blinked her gorgeous doe eyes like he had her caught in a crosshairs. Obviously his presence in the room wasn't a surprise to her, but maybe seeing an estranged spouse in the flesh shook her as much as it shook him. His eyes dropped at once to take in the form-fitting pencil skirt and matching blazer. Only Trinity could make such an uninspired shade of gray look borderline sultry. Not a wrinkle in sight. He noticed she was parting her hair differently; the line combed into her scalp was off-center, and her honey-brown hair spilled in one thick wave down the left side of her face. The asymmetry should have bothered him more than it did, but all Sam could think in that moment was how strikingly well-suited she was to the style. The elegant curl hugged her cheekbone while exposing the other one, making them appe
ar even more pronounced than usual.
"Where's Eddie?" He hadn't expected himself to be the one to break the silence. Trinity blinked again, and shook her head to dispel whatever thought it was that had frozen her in the first place.
"Hello, Samson. Your brother asked me to meet with you. Not Eddie," she qualified. "William."
"I see."
"He wants me to assist you in onboarding Eddie. William, that is. But I guess you knew which of your brothers I was referring to that time."
Sam nodded. Trinity's sudden appearance had thrown him into turmoil on the inside, but he was used to masking pressure indicators in high-stress situations. There was a reason his coworkers all called him a machine. "Where is Eddie these days?" he asked her.
"Barbados. Last I heard." Trinity swept her clipboard toward the conference hallway, and Sam rose at her invitation. He followed behind her, despite knowing the way, and watched her graceful balancing act. If she wore silk stockings with her heels, Sam couldn't perceive them at this distance. Only running a hand up one of those elegant calves would reveal the truth to him….
"In here." Trinity waved him on into one of the rooms. Her face looked a little flushed, and Sam wondered how loudly he had been broadcasting his thoughts…then again, maybe they were simply on the same wavelength, as they had so often been when they were married.
In those first years, anyway.
He would never show it, but Sam was still reeling from the divorce. It had been almost a year since he signed the papers Trinity wordlessly pushed across his desk, and he still didn't know what the hell had happened between the two of them. Hadn't they always shared ambitions? Work ethic? Not to mention great, great sex? He knew from all the divorce studies he had read that he should have at least started entertaining the idea of dating other women by now, but he couldn't even bring himself to set up a simple online dating profile…and the Millennials at the L.A. office had certainly volunteered to help.
Sam took a seat at the head of the table out of habit. He pulled out the chair beside him, and Trinity's mouth quirked a little in wry amusement. She bypassed Sam's offered chair to pull out her own. She sat down, and began to array her files as Sam studied her. Maybe having Trinity around to assist with the onboarding would be a good thing…professionally-speaking, of course. Surely he had no better ally in all this than his own ex-wife, who knew his preferred method of running things. Trinity was familiar with every nuance of his personality—hell, she was one of the few who would vouch for him even having one.
Right?
Trinity was the people-person. She understood the needs of others in a way Sam could never wrap his head around outside of the business boardroom. Corporations were straightforward, and most of them desired the same thing: damn good advertising. That he and his brothers could deliver. He had been raised to understand the cold, calculating terms of business minutiae; not the far less black-and-white terms of the people who stood behind the businesses.
"I figured we'd just take a few minutes to go over everything," Trinity said. "Sort of a pre-meeting meeting. Nothing about our approach needs to be set in stone just yet. In fact, I think we should leave ourselves plenty of room to be flexible throughout this entire process. Eddie's a special case."
"He certainly is," Sam allowed. He tried to ignore her use of the word "flexible". In business, he absolutely loathed the term—but when confronted with memories of his ex-wife's uncommon talents in the bedroom, it was even more distracting.
"I mean that he's not nearly as underqualified as you or your brother like to think," Trinity said sharply. "He may have made mistakes in the past, but Eddie's a good kid."
"He's only two years younger than you are," Sam pointed out, "so your use of the word 'kid' is revealing. Eddie's twenty-eight, Trinity —like it or not, he isn't a kid anymore. What he is is an immature adult who, when he isn't off partying on an island somewhere, likes to sleep around with high-powered clients' daughters."
"One daughter. So far as I'm aware." Sam thought even Trinity looked unconvinced of this, but she pressed her lips together to stifle anything else she might say on the matter. "Anyway, I know Eddie and I would both appreciate it if the past didn't come up in tomorrow's meeting. I'd like to focus on the future—his future with the company—if it's all the same to you."
"You have my word."
He'd only broken one vow in his life, and only because the woman sitting across from him had asked him to.
"Good." Trinity pushed a copy of the first meeting itinerary his way. "Like I said, nothing about the agenda for tomorrow is set in stone. I'd prefer to look at this sheet as more of a working checklist. If you have any idea of how you would like to begin…."
"Well, I can start by getting him up to speed on all the company directives he's been ignoring," Sam said.
Trinity nodded. "Good idea. I can handle the soft-skills stuff in the meantime. Shouldn't be that difficult, considering Eddie is Eddie…and not you, for example."
Sam took the jab in stride. He leaned back in his leather chair, and tried to suppress the smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he watched her. He couldn't remember the last time he had smiled—an admission he doubted would come as a surprise to anyone—but seeing Trinity thawed his heart. It always did. He wondered if William had orchestrated their project partnership with that goal in mind, and found that he simply didn't care. He could watch the way her sensuous lips shaped every corporate word all day long.
"Look, Sam." Trinity interrupted herself suddenly and sat back, crossing her arms. She always did that when she was about to shoot straight with him. "You've had one too many write-ups for being cold and distant with your division heads," she stated. Sam winced. He thought he detected an unvoiced accusation in her tone, but she carried on before he could unpack it. "Our H.R. department is at their wit's end. Onboarding your own brother isn't only good optics for the company, but it shouldn't be that hard for you to muster up a little familial warmth in the process. Everyone wins."
"And I'm back in L.A. in time for a work thing," he agreed. "Everyone wins."
He had meant to sound casual—calling an advertising launch party a "work thing" was something he would never dream of doing outside of Trinity's presence. But he could see immediately that it had been a mistake. The animation in her eyes, the light, went abruptly dark; her energized posture stiffened. Too late, he recalled what he had said to her on the night of their five year anniversary, after he had sent his secretary in his stead to explain his absence from dinner. The night—and his failed marriage, it had turned out—imploded as soon as he got back to the apartment, and uttered those dismissive, fatal words:
I had a work thing.
He wondered if she would throw the memory back in his face now. It was the least he deserved for being careless. He had been caught up in the moment—caught up in the feeling of being partners again, and working together toward a solution. Instead, Trinity offered a smile as matte as a magazine ad. She gathered all her documents back together and straightened them briskly. "Wonderful. William will be delighted to know we're on the same page. Thanks for meeting with me today, Samson. I'll be seeing you at our official first meeting with Eddie tomorrow. Same time, same room."
When she rose, Sam reached for her out of habit. He was a creature of order, not routine, but somehow in the five years they had been married he had managed to develop a compulsion. He liked to hold onto Trinity, just a moment more, before they broke to pursue their separate tasks.
His fingers encircled her wrist, and she didn't pull away immediately. Sam felt encouraged. He stood and took a step nearer to her, letting his fingers slide from the delicate bones of her wrist to her open palm. They were almost holding hands.
"Trinity." He kept his voice low, almost afraid they would be overheard. "It's good to see you again. I've…missed you." He took another chance. He squeezed her hand. He thought he felt the faintest reciprocating pressure, and forged on quickly. "When are you off tonight? W
e should grab a drink and catch up."
Trinity yanked her hand from his suddenly as if he'd scalded her. "I have a date tonight." The words tumbled from her lips; Sam couldn't decide if they were improvised or rehearsed. If it was a lie, he couldn't read it in her face. He had always been able to in the past. "And I think…the onboarding process is what's most important right now. Getting Eddie situated in his role is my number one priority. I consider anything else a distraction that neither of us can afford."
Trinity turned and walked briskly from the room. As she passed back by the conference room window, Sam could clearly see the stormy look on her face: her eyebrows were furrowed in anger, and her eyes sparked like there was lightning behind them just waiting to be unbottled.
"Shit," Sam swore below his breath. What the hell had possessed him? He took a moment to compose himself. He straightened his cuffs. He tried to smooth the persistent wrinkle from his sleeve and came away with half a dozen more.
"Shit," he said again.
Chapter Two
Trinity
The infuriatingly gorgeous face at the head of the table looked gorgeously infuriated, and Trinity was loving every second of it.
She rearranged her space at the conference room table for the third time in the past twenty minutes, and politely pretended not to notice when Sam lurched out of his chair to take another turn around the room. He paced like a Siberian tiger, his blue eyes flashing, but Trinity found herself more amused than afraid of his display. It was good to see that the Ice King's patience could still steam away on occasion.