Before Her Billionaires by Julia Kent Read Free Book Online Page A

or—
    Lie about being married.
    No. Men in dreams were all about you. The way life should be, right? As Laura dragged herself across her small apartment and set up the coffee machine, she yawned, stretching her tired arms to the ceiling, standing on tiptoe, body pulled like taffy toward the sky.
    “Meow.” Snuggles registered the latest complaint from The Feline Brigade.
    “You’re next,” Laura insisted, reaching for the cat food in the cupboard next to the sink. “As if you don’t know you’re my real bosses,” she added.
    Snuggles appeared to smile.
    “I’m talking to my cats,” Laura muttered. “Even if I ever find Mr. Right, he’ll think I’m crazy, because I talk to my cats. Hell—I am crazy. Crazy to think I’ll ever find a guy like...” She sighed.
    Like him.
    Which him?
    Laura laughed as she walked back into her bedroom and grabbed her bra and panties. Looking in her closet, she paused. What to wear? Her business wardrobe was about what you’d expect for a twentysomething financial analyst, which meant staid. Boring. Suits and shells and skirts with hose, modest heels. A look cultivated to be invisible but trustworthy.
    She loved her job. Liked the sameness of it. How she could walk into the office carrying her cup of coffee, sit at her desk, log in to email and feel like she was important. Like what she did mattered, even if it was answering emails, completing a technical specifications document, or finding an error in a business process. Even meetings made her feel like she was productive.
    Well, most meetings. Definitely not the ones scheduled for 8:30 a.m. on a Monday, though.
    Hopping into the shower, she took a quick one, knowing Josie would be here soon. Though parts of her body hummed and twitched, they weren’t getting any attention from her right now. Five minutes later she jumped out, dried off, and was dressed, combing out her hair and braiding it absent-mindedly.
    Bzzz.
    Josie was here.
    “You!” her friend shouted as she stormed through the door, headed stra i ght for the kitchen. “You had better have caffeine!”
    “How in the hell do you drink caffeine at the end of a work shift?” Laura asked, knowing the answer.
    “With my mouth.”
    Laura sat at the table with her cup of coffee while Josie prepared hers. The two women were about as different as could be. Where Laura was light and fair, Josie was darker, with pale skin and sharp eyes. Curves and softness abounded in Laura, whose long, curly blonde hair and bright green eyes radiated a gentle Barbie look. Josie, meanwhile, was rail thin, with a slightly pinched look that came from a general distrust of the world.
    Both were fiercely loyal to each other, though, and as Josie sat down and sipped carefully, Laura was surprised to find herself deeply relieved to have company that wasn’t feline.
    “You look like a bus hit you in your dreams,” Josie declared.
    “Something like that,” Laura muttered, drinking so she wouldn’t have to talk.
    “You want to talk about it?”
    Laura waved her hand dismissively. “Same old same old. No boyfriend, unlucky in love, who would ever want me, might as well become a cat lady.” She looked pointedly at Josie. “You know the drill.”
    A long, sad sigh poured out of Josie. “Yeah, I know. My own cats are at home eating anything they can out of sheer starvation. I had to work twelve hours. If I stay here much longer, they’ll break into my nightstand and start eating my lube.”
    “That’s disgusting.”
    “I know, right? Cat hair in your lube.” Josie shuddered.
    “That’s not what I meant,” Laura said flatly. “ And eww...you have the most bizarre mind. I’m sitting here worried about living the next six decades of my life without love, and you’re worried about your cats drinking your A s troglide? You’re so...romantic.”
    “Practical.”
    “Weird.”
    Josie lifted her half-full mug in a toast. As L au ra banged her mug against her friend’s, Josie said, “To