The Charmer’s Gambit Read online

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author

  The Business Proposal

  Political Aspirations

  Coffee with Cream & Sugar

  Familiar Ringtones

  French Flirtation

  Cursing in Bed

  A Done Deal

  Convoluted Conversations

  North Carolina

  Playing Doctor

  A Fresh Dynamic

  A Taste of Luxury

  Pruning

  Soothing, Sexy & Seductive

  This Ends Now

  Taking It Slow

  Breakfast Banana

  Flying First Class

  Airplane Shenanigans

  Oriental Lilies

  Courage to Tell All

  Fashion Show

  Sweet Freedom

  Conflict of Interest

  Fighting for a Future

  Making a Point

  Unknown Number

  All the Feels

  Mark Kincaid

  From My Family to Yours

  A Mershano Family Reunion

  The Relationship Proposal

  Bonus Scene

  Coming 2019

  Evan Mershano

  1. Bogus Interviews

  2. And So It Begins

  The Prince’s Game

  The Devil’s Denial

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Lexi C. Foss

  The Charmer’s Gambit

  A Mershano Empire Novel

  Lexi C. Foss

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used factiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  The Charmer’s Gambit

  Copyright © 2017 Lexi C. Foss

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This book may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

  Content Editing by: Twitching Pen Editing

  Line/Copy Editing by: Bethany Pennypacker

  Cover Photography: RLS Model Images Photography

  Cover Model: Nathaniel Bell

  Cover Design: HWCC Author Services

  Published by: Ninja Newt Publishing, LLC

  Digital Edition

  ISBN: 978-0-9993709-1-9

  This one is for my readers… I’m humbled beyond words by your support and kindness. Thank you so much for allowing me to entertain you with the voices in my head.

  I hope you enjoy Rachel & Will <3

  Contents

  A Note from the Author

  Prologue

  1. The Business Proposal

  2. Political Aspirations

  3. Coffee with Cream & Sugar

  4. Familiar Ringtones

  5. French Flirtation

  6. Cursing in Bed

  7. A Done Deal

  8. Convoluted Conversations

  9. North Carolina

  10. Playing Doctor

  11. A Fresh Dynamic

  12. A Taste of Luxury

  13. Pruning

  14. Soothing, Sexy & Seductive

  15. This Ends Now

  16. Taking It Slow

  17. Breakfast Banana

  18. Flying First Class

  19. Airplane Shenanigans

  20. Oriental Lilies

  21. Courage to Tell All

  22. Fashion Show

  23. Sweet Freedom

  24. Conflict of Interest

  25. Fighting for a Future

  26. Making a Point

  27. Unknown Number

  28. All the Feels

  29. Mark Kincaid

  30. From My Family to Yours

  31. A Mershano Family Reunion

  32. The Relationship Proposal

  Epilogue

  Bonus Scene

  Coming 2019

  Evan Mershano

  1. Bogus Interviews

  2. And So It Begins

  The Prince’s Game

  The Devil’s Denial

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Lexi C. Foss

  A Note from the Author

  The Charmer’s Gambit is the second book in the Mershano Empire Series, however, it is a standalone novel with a complete ending. You do not need to read The Prince’s Game to follow this story.

  Thank you for reading!

  Cheers,

  -Lexi C. Foss

  Prologue

  A little over four months ago . . .

  My best friend had lost her mind.

  A contract.

  To stay on a reality dating show that she never wanted to be part of anyway.

  For money.

  I still couldn’t believe it.

  Oh, the terms were straightforward: pretend to date “The Prince of New Orleans” and refuse his proposal during the last episode, and then he would fund her private marketing firm. An easy bargain, sure, except it required her to give up her job and livelihood for a man she hardly knew on the promise that he would follow through in the end.

  Okay, so the agreement his attorney drafted was solid, but a billionaire like Evan Mershano could easily find a way out of it. And then my best friend would be left picking up the pieces of a broken life, while he walked away unscathed.

  And what was worse, Sarah Summers’s involvement with said billionaire had introduced me to his overconfident, sexy-as-sin cousin, who refused to leave my apartment.

  “You.” I pointed a finger at Will Mershano and narrowed my gaze. “Get off my bed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He planted his feet on the floor and stood to his six-foot-whatever height and flashed me an amused look. “I can’t say that’s ever happened to me before.”

  “Happy to be your first.” I cringed. That was the second time tonight I had said that to him. The damn man had followed me home from the office after showing up unannounced with a Mershano-stamped legal contract. One Sarah had requested I personally review. As her best friend, and the only attorney she knew, I was the obvious choice. Much to my chagrin.

  “Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, be leaving? There is a Mershano Suites a few blocks over.” And his cousin, the same one propositioning Sarah, owned it.

  “There is, but it’s much easier to stay here.” He moved past me to the kitchen, where he started going through my wine collection.

  “You’re not staying here.” If he found out, there’d be hell to pay, and I really didn’t need to give him a reason to bother me. Not now. Not ever.

  Will pulled a bottle from my fridge and eyed the label. “Not a bad brand.” He found the corkscrew in a drawer and started opening it without permission.

  “Did you not hear a word I just said?”

  He opened a cabinet to pull out two wine glasses. How he found them on his first try was anybody’s guess, but it seemed to fit his personality perfectly. He expertly served the wine while I stared at him in shock.

  Who is this man, and why is he in my personal space?

  Oh, right. My best friend sent him to me.

  I picked up my phone and started typing an angry message, when a generous pour of red wine appeared in my peripheral vision.

  “Hint of apple. Nice,” Will murmured after a sip from his glass. “I prefer my personal reserve, but this will do for the evening.” He padded barefoot over to my couch and made himself at
home.

  “Are you hard of hearing?” I asked. Because that would be lovely. He needed some sort of flaw to detract from his thick blond hair, perfect jaw structure, high cheekbones, and muscular stature.

  He kicked his feet up onto the cushion as he rotated to face me. “So what contract amendments does Sarah want you to make?”

  I folded my arms. “Is that why you’re still here? Because I think your supervising my work all day was quite enough, don’t you?”

  “I promised Evan I would oversee this entire exchange personally.” His chocolate gaze danced appreciatively over my blouse, pencil skirt, and stockings. “And I take my job very seriously.”

  My tongue hurt from biting it so hard. Less than twelve hours of knowing this overconfident, sexy-as-sin billionaire, and I wanted to kill him. He ruined an otherwise perfect day by showing up unannounced, and then he followed me home like I couldn’t be trusted. “I already signed the nondisclosure agreement.”

  He shrugged. “That means little to me. You could still violate it.”

  “And risk my job in the process? No, thanks.” This might be a personal favor for a friend, but it could still hurt my career if I violated any of the terms Evan’s private legal team drafted. Garrett Wilkinson was not an attorney I wanted to piss off. “I don’t require a babysitter, Mister Mershano.”

  He eyed me over the rim of his glass. “Oh, I’m well aware of what you require, Miss Dawson.”

  I snagged the crystal stem from the counter and took a healthy sip of wine. It felt like heaven against my throat and helped calm some of my nerves. “You’re not going to leave, are you?”

  “Not until we’re done,” he confirmed. “As I said, I take my job seriously.”

  “I bet you do,” I muttered, rolling my eyes as I snuggled into the oversized chair beside the couch with my laptop and wine. If he was hell-bent on finishing this contract tonight, then I’d stay up as late as he wanted, so long as it meant he’d leave sooner.

  “You know, Mershano Vineyards is in the market for a corporate attorney to help with some international acquisitions. It’d be a big job, I think, and would require overseeing a legal team.”

  “That’s nice,” I replied as I pulled up the legal document Garrett sent over an hour ago to review the edits I requested earlier this afternoon.

  “Someone with your skill set might be a good fit,” he continued.

  “You’d need someone with a lot more experience than my four years, Mister Mershano.” My experience qualified me to join the team, maybe, but not lead it.

  “I think that’s for me to decide,” he murmured. “And I think you’d be a good fit, darlin’. We should work together.”

  I couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of me. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Ever.”

  He cocked his head to the side and rubbed a thumb over his bottom lip as he considered me in a manner that sent a shiver down my spine. Oh, that look is trouble . . .

  Challenge oozed from him, thickening the air around us. “Hmm, we’ll see, Miss Dawson, won’t we?”

  1

  The Business Proposal

  “Didn’t we just do this?” I asked, studying all the boxes in my guest room. All of them were marked “Sarah Summers,” just like last time.

  “Yep.” Sarah made a popping sound on the p and flashed me a brilliant smile. “But we don’t have to carry them this time.”

  “Thank God for that.” Moving my best friend in last month had been a bit of a nightmare. We lugged everything from the third floor of her building to the ninth floor of mine. A truck helped us out for part of the journey, but everything else was a generous balance between the stairs and elevator. “I love you, but I never want to do that again.”

  She scrunched up her nose. “Yeah, that sucked.”

  The wince that followed wasn’t so much a result of the move as the reason behind it. My best friend had lost everything after her idiot twin sister, Abby, auditioned for a reality show under Sarah’s name as a prank. Instead of suing her idiotic sister for fraud, she chose to go on the show and then struck up a ridiculous contract with the show’s “prince.” Their agreement didn’t go according to plan, but somehow they worked everything out in the end, despite a few misconceptions along the way.

  Still . . . “I’ll kick his ass if he screws this up again.”

  “Duly noted, Miss Dawson.” The murmur came from Evan Mershano, also known as “The Prince of New Orleans.” He had his shoulder braced against the doorjamb, his dark eyes on Sarah. The adoration in his gaze placated me a little.

  “Rachel,” I corrected. Only my clients called me Miss Dawson.

  He grinned. “Rachel.”

  We met last week for the first time in person, and his love for my best friend showed in every move he made. The fact that he supported her career raised him a peg in my book, and he didn’t seem to be a scoundrel. Still, he had money—a lot of it—and in my experience, powerful men like that could not be trusted. To be unsupportive would be an insult to Sarah’s intelligence, so I kept my mouth shut and silently vowed to be here if she needed me.

  “Right, I think that’s everything.” Sarah wiped her hands on her jeans after taping the last box, and Evan added it to the growing pile. His fitted white T-shirt stretched over his biceps as he moved, hinting at what lay beneath his clothes. Yeah, I could admit, he was a fine specimen of a man. My girl had chosen well. The curl of her full lips said she agreed.

  “Does that mean it’s time for La Rosas?” That was the payment I requested for helping today.

  “Oh yeah.” Sarah loved the cute little Italian place more than I did. “Did we decide on getting takeout, or are we eating there?”

  “Don’t look at me,” Evan replied. “You know I’m always up for a challenge, Miss Summers.”

  “You just want to get caught, Mister Mershano,” she accused, grinning. The reality show they starred in two months ago was about to air, which meant they couldn’t be seen in public together.

  He shrugged. “It would make things easier.”

  She trailed her fingers up his shirt as he grabbed her hips. “For you.”

  “For both of us.” He bent to nuzzle his nose against hers, making me roll my eyes. I was all for budding romance, but these two needed to get their own room. Outside of my apartment.

  “I vote we eat there. Otherwise, you two might come up with some kinky food games in my living room.” I left their resulting laughs behind me as I went to change for dinner. My rumbling stomach kept me from worrying too much about my appearance. I threw on a pair of jeans and a tank top and pulled my blonde hair up into a messy bun. It was a stark contrast to my usual lawyer garb, but I didn’t have any clients to impress tonight.

  Sarah and Evan met me in the foyer, both dressed similarly in jeans and wearing matching grins. “You two are starting to look like each other,” I observed. “Evan just needs a better tan and some curves.”

  “I rather like his lack of curves,” Sarah murmured, pinching his ass.

  “Yeah, yeah, let’s go.” I shooed them out the door and into the elevator. The walk to La Rosas was quick but hot, thanks to the Chicago humidity. Mother Nature wanted everyone aware that June was here. I picked at my tank top, hating the way it clung to my clammy skin, as we entered the restaurant.

  “Air-conditioning is . . .” I trailed off as my eyes landed on the casually dressed man waiting by the hostess stand. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me right now!” I spun around and glared at the grinning couple. “I hate both of you.”

  The warm chuckle behind me made my stomach flip. It always did that in his presence, against my better judgment. Seduction seemed to ooze from Will Mershano, wrapping everyone in the room in his alluring web. Including me. And I despised it. I had my doctorate in turning down men, yet this one maneuvered around each of my denials with the skill of a professional athlete. And his sport of choice was flirting.

  “Hello, Rachel,” he murmured.

  I
ignored the shiver traversing my spine and further narrowed my gaze at Sarah. “This was not what I had in mind for dinner.”

  “He insisted,” was her excuse.

  “Oh, I just bet he did,” I snapped.

  The millionaire playboy redefined the meaning of the word persistent.

  I turned to meet his dark eyes, so similar to Evan’s, but with a hint of deviousness. Their familial relation showed in their height and broad shoulders, but Will’s nose had a slight bend to it and his jaw was dusted with fine blond hairs as opposed to dark ones. Both men possessed an aristocratic air, screaming wealth and superiority, but there was a playfulness to Will that Evan seemed to lack. Carefree seemed to be Will’s persona of choice.

  “No,” I said in greeting. A word I seemed to say a lot in his presence. Of course, he never listened—just took it as a challenge to change my mind. We’d been playing this game for months, ever since he first showed up in my office with that damn contract that Sarah requested I review on her behalf.

  “No?” He cocked a dark blond brow. “But you haven’t even heard today’s proposal yet.”

  “I don’t need to.” There was no way in hell I would work for him. First, it required leaving Chicago and living in North Carolina. Which, right there, was a deal breaker. Not because of my love for the city, but because of something, or rather, someone, who would never let me leave. And second, it meant joining Will’s staff. Not necessarily a negative, except I would report directly to him. My hormones could not handle short bouts of time with the man, let alone a long tenure of employment.