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Blackmailed by the Billionaire Brewer

A Passion Creek Novel

Entangled Publishing, LLC

She was real ...

Matt DeLeo, ex-IT entrepreneur and billionaire microbrewer, clutched a paper bag of groceries to his chest as he jogged along Periwinkle Avenue, Sanibel. The early morning Florida sunshine was warm on his face and a grin spread across his lips.

No doubt about it: he was wide awake and his dream woman really did exist. The flame-haired goddess he'd left sleeping in his bed fifteen minutes earlier had soft curves, fragrant skin, and a cinnamon-sweet mouth. Even her name sent shivers of pleasure up his spine. Piper ... Piper Reilly, the supple shell collector he'd watched from a distance over the last six days, was a revelation. When she'd finally stepped into the Parrot Bar last night and asked for a Long Slow Comfortable Screw Up Against a Cold Hard Wall with a Kiss, it was as if an atomic sex bomb had exploded in the room. She had stolen his breath and now, after a night of passion he would never forget, he was just a few yards away from breaking one of his own rules of engagement with women.

He was going to make the green-eyed siren breakfast.

He knew little about Piper Reilly, but he did know she didn't drink beer and she hated the color pink. No problem, he could fix that. Living in Florida, she'd clearly never tasted any of his Colorado microbrewery's beer.

Today, he felt great. This was the life, the reason why he'd made his millions in IT, quit working for other people, and started his own business. Three years of twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week had taken its toll, and he deserved his reward. And the best things had been worth waiting for: freedom, philanthropy, and now, the perfect woman. He'd been imagining her for so long and now she had walked into his life.

He'd done the right thing coming south to scout new opportunities for his brewery business. Life was good here, the sun shone, and people drank a lot of beer. He only had to finish the big spring beer launch back in Colorado and then he'd start Project Florida. And Project Piper. He'd come back in a few weeks and they could pick up where they'd left off.

Except he didn't want to leave her for more than fifteen minutes. He had to go back to Passion Creek, because he had commitments and jobs to secure in Colorado before he moved on. There was no way around that unless she went with him. He bit down on his bottom lip. "Now why would a girl I've only just met want to do something as crazy as that?" He realized he was talking out loud and clamped his jaw shut.

He'd offer her the trip of a lifetime, all expenses paid, and tempt her back to Colorado with him. She'd laughed in his face the previous night when he'd told her he was a retired computer tycoon who tended bar from time to time just for fun. He hadn't wanted anyone to know he was checking out the Sanibel bar scene undercover. He'd tell her the truth over breakfast.

She was self-employed, so if she came to Colorado with him, he'd introduce her to more business contacts than she could ever dream of getting on her own. And, God, she was gorgeous. Stunning enough to be a top model ...

"Holy crap." Matt's feet left the ground as he punched the air. He could see it now as clear as day; she'd be the perfect woman to advertise his new beer.

Passion Creek Brewery discovers America's favorite poster girl ... you're still a genius, man!

Why would she turn down an all-expenses-paid trip to Colorado that promised fame and fortune? She wouldn't, he knew it.

"Have I got a surprise for you, Miss Reilly," he murmured as he reached the back steps of his rented condo.

Breakfast in bed and an offer you can't refuse.

Matt hitched the groceries against his ribs and let himself into the small condo. Silence. The bag crackled annoyingly in the narrow kitchenette, and the coffee machine was making loud noises. His heart beat faster as he peered around the doorframe toward the living area with the fold-down bed. Cold air swept down over his brow. The bed was empty. The bathroom door was wide open to show that it, too, was empty. There was no note, just the faintest trace of her melon scent.

Blood pounded in his ears as a cold, rational voice in his head chimed that one-night stands were like that. People just got up and left sometimes, and he should know because he'd done it enough times himself. Why would this be any different? Except it was different. It wasn't him who'd walked out the door. Karma had sneaked up behind him and bitten him right on the ass.

He slid his hand into his back pocket and the corner of a business card pricked the tip of his middle finger. Phew. It was still there. All he needed to track her down.

And he would. What was the point of being rich if you couldn't find the one woman you needed?

* * *

Sanibel Island seemed a world away already.

Piper Reilly cringed as her key ground in the lock of her apartment's front door. She'd been meaning to rub some oil into the workings for weeks, but something always seemed to happen to distract her.

The cold air of Passion Creek, Colorado, didn't help matters. Her hometown had been too cold for months for Piper to want to leave the door wide open just to oil the lock.

She nudged the door open with her knee and was hit by a blast of warm air and TV audience laughter. Her sister Sophie had it turned up loud.

Piper took a deep breath of foul air, burned popcorn, and soiled cat litter. Sophie hadn't been too hot on the housekeeping while she'd been away. "It stinks in here."

"Hi Piper!" The voice from within was cheerful, but Sophie didn't bother to move off the sofa before saying, "It's the litter box, hun, massive disease risk. The doc says not to touch it on account of being pregnant."

Piper bit back a sarcastic reply and squeezed her eyes shut. Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. If the doc could see the sink full of dirty dishes she just glimpsed, he'd probably conclude Sophie's immune system could handle anything. "I'll deal with it in a sec. Where is that cat anyway?" On cue, a blur of silver shot out from behind the sofa and threaded its sleek, velvety body around her calves like a furry eel. "Still here, huh? Did

Sophie let you out at all?"

"Lazy thing doesn't want to leave," Sophie said. "I opened the front door a few times, but she ran and hid under the bed. Looks like she's chosen you as her new owner, big sis."

"Or you?"

"No, she tries to scratch me every time I pet her. That savage beast is all yours."

"You're not a beast, are you?" Piper bent down and picked the cat up. "Maybe one of those phone messages is your real owner who's seen the found notices I stuck up all over Passion Creek."

"Or the cops warning you about littering." Sophie chuckled.

"That would be just my luck." She ran the palm of her hand over the cat's middle and sighed. "And she is pregnant, isn't she?"

Sophie nodded sadly. "Yep, no doubt about it. You've got two homeless hussies on your hands."

She was dirty, tired, jetlagged, hung over, and, she realized after glancing at the email that had just come in on her cell phone, had just thirteen hours to scrape together an office outfit before starting a new temp job in the morning. She'd been dying for a good night's sleep, but if she didn't clear up the airborne toxins, it would probably mean none of them would actually wake up in the morning. Her throat felt dry.

"Can you put some coffee on, Soph?" Piper's stomach clenched as she dragged in her suitcase. Last night should not have happened, for so many reasons. A one-night stand with a complete stranger? What was she thinking? "Got work in the morning and I feel like crap."

"So don't go." Sophie bounced up from the sofa with a grin, her pink, sweater-clad pregnancy bump looking a gigantic marshmallow.

"I have to go." Piper wished for once that she didn't have to be the sensible, reliable sister. It had been fun to let it rip in Florida, but now it was over. "We have no other regular income right now, remember?"

Sophie's freckled nose twitched and her blue eyes grew wide. "Business slow?"

"It's doing fine, sweetheart, but silvering pretty shells for a living only works for one person, not two with a baby due any day. Still, I just got an email to say I have a temp gig in a finance department tomorrow."

She pushed the three unanswered texts on her phone from the one night stand boy, Matt DeLeo, to the back of her mind. And then remembered the two unanswered calls she'd let go to voicemail. The unknown number was probably him as well. What would be the point of further contact? They lived thousands of miles apart and he was a self-confessed bum. A bum with a body like a Renaissance marble statue. She shook her head to dislodge the memory and winced. She didn't remember giving him her cell phone number ...

"I guess your money problems are my fault for turning up here on New Year's Eve with a bun in the oven and nowhere to go?" Sophie said.

Piper almost laughed at the drama her little sister injected into her words. Four years younger than Piper, Sophie had always been a pro at turning on the waterworks. "I would never turn you away, and you know it. This arrangement is only temporary, right?"

Sophie sniffed and picked at a spot of pink fluff on her tummy. "I couldn't go back to Alessandro, you do know that? And Mom and Dad are still angry I hooked up with him in the first place. I don't think they'd have me back even if I begged."

"You could try. They'll come around when the baby's here, trust me. Why don't you give them a call and try to make up?" Piper yanked open a kitchen drawer. "You may even change your mind about letting Alessandro back into your life, but somebody has to pay the bills in this place while you sort your life out."

"You were the only one I could turn to."

"I know. It's okay," Piper said gently, "but I could really use some help around the place from time to time. Cat poop excluded."

Sophie smiled gratefully. "You could always ask the old man for a loan."

Piper slammed the drawer shut hard, a roll of trash bags gripped in her hand. "Are you crazy? Mom sold Aunt Jean's bead collection to get me through college as it is. I can look after things myself just fine. And you, lady, can do your own dirty work and ask Dad for money."

"I'll bet you're too proud to even let them pay for your wedding when your turn comes."

"Wedding? Jeez, everything about this town has to do with love, weddings, happily ever afters, and pink. So much sickly, disgusting pink. One more wedding commission will probably make me sick, but I need all the money I can get. Correction, we need all the money I can get."

"Aw, you sourpuss. That'll change when Mr. Right comes knocking at your door, just you wait."

"No way. I'm a realist and you should be too, in your position. Do you realize I've fallen a little behind on the mortgage? This is getting serious."

Sophie looked genuinely uncomfortable, enough to make Piper qualify her harsh statement. "Where's all the love after the heart-shaped gold sequins are swept away, tell me that? Divorce stats are ridiculous, sweetheart. They come here to Passion Creek, marry, leave, fight, and then split up. It's a joke."

"Not all of them. I'm sure some couples make it."

"I guess you're right, but even so, the only way I'll marry is if I love someone so much I'd die without him. And he'd have to ask me obviously, not the other way around."

"I guess."

Piper tore off a garbage bag and frowned. "Sorry, I forgot. About you, him, the baby, and everything."

"Yeah, it's a freaking mess."

"And you can't even drink to forget."

"I can eat."

Piper winced as she slid empty cans into the bag. "Good idea, what should I get? Unless, of course, the fridge is stocked?"

"There's milk and cookies."

Piper grinned. "I'll dump the cat poop and then we'll order in. Tacos? Pizza?"

"Fish and chips." Sophie tossed over a takeout flyer. "There's a brewhouse that delivers. Never heard of them — think they're new — but it sounds good and they're way cheap."

Piper looked at the menu and laughed. "Well, what do you know? The Railway Tavern, right next door to where I'm working tomorrow, the Passion Creek Brewery accounts payable department. Okay, let's go for it, and if it's foul, I'll take it back there in the morning."

Forty minutes later, Sophie tore a piece of crispy batter off her fish and closed her eyes as she crunched down on it. "This is good."

Piper grinned at the dribble of malt vinegar that trickled onto her sister's sweater and offered a piece of fish to the cat that had snuggled up against her thigh. "Yep, sure is."

Sophie picked up a french fry. "Oh, I forgot to say. There's been a whole load of calls on the landline today, so I guess the shell trade must be picking up. Hopefully you won't have to be a wage-slave temp for too much longer if Silver Bells starts raking in the dollars."

Piper's hands stilled over her plate. "Take any names or details?"

Sophie shook her head as if her big sister was crazy. "No way, I have no idea what to say to people about your business, so I didn't pick up." She took a big swallow of soda and smiled. "Which reminds me, I did some internet shopping for baby stuff today, and it looks like your business email inbox is crammed too."

"Must be the people who didn't get through on the phone." Piper quashed a sudden sense of foreboding and put it down to irrational paranoia and hangover. "Any clues as to what's been coming in?"

"I'd never read another person's emails!" Sophie wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Honestly, what do you think I'm like?"

"Holy crap." Piper stared with horror at the computer printout her supervisor had slapped onto her desk, and then flinched as she accidentally knocked a stack of Passion Creek Brewery beer coasters onto the floor. "Please tell me this is a first-day-in-the-office joke. You do this to all the new temps, right? It's not for real?"

"Sorry, kiddo, this is all too real. You've been here three hours and have somehow managed to pay every supplier we owe in Japanese yen instead of dollars." The older woman adjusted the box of reindeer-shaped bottle openers she was carrying. "And our biggest hops supplier has been yelling down the phone at the boss already."

"No ..." Piper had been preoccupied by all the phone messages and emails she'd discovered from Matt DeLeo the night before, and it was seriously looking like she'd had a one-night stand with a stalker. He hadn't been threatening, but he'd said he needed to speak with her about something important, something that had to be done face-to-face. He said the same thing over and over again via every method of communication. It was a matter of urgency, apparently.

"Yup. And it gets worse. The boss is here. Just got back from a research trip and he's furious. The big guy wants you in his office now."

"Perhaps it would be better if I just got my coat and left?"

The supervisor, known affectionately in the office as Super, shook her head. "Try that and he'll set the security dogs on you. He can't stand cowards."

"I'm no coward!"

"Great. Then get up to the boardroom PDQ and take what's coming."

"PDQ?"

"Pretty darned quick."

"We meet again. Piper Reilly. Hard to believe we've been living in the same city for the last few years." His eyes were penetrating, his smile deadly, and her blood ran cold. "Welcome to my team."

Matt DeLeo.

"For fuck's sake." Her immediate instinct was to walk straight out, but she still needed this job and, like it or not, he was now her employer. Piper held her breath. This couldn't be happening, it was too bizarre. Matt DeLeo was an itinerant barman in Florida with tycoon fantasies, not the boss of a Colorado brewery in a designer suit. She must be hallucinating. He looked seriously angry, and those brown eyes were darker than she remembered. He also looked seriously sexy, all shaven and smart.

"That should be my line," he said, and ran a hand through the black silk of his hair. "Do you know how much your currency screw-up is going to cost me?"

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Excerpted from Blackmailed by the Billionaire Brewer by Rachel Lyndhurst, Kate Fall, Alethea Spiridon Hopson. Copyright © 2014 Rachel Lyndhurst. Excerpted by permission of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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