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Introduction

ELLE

He’s everything I never wanted.

Sullivan Marks, third generation master distiller for Kentucky’s largest bourbon manufacturer and overall dickhead to most.

He’s everything I despise. Old money mixed with new all swirled together in a life of luxury. He doesn’t know what a hard day’s work is if it bit him on his perfectly round ass.

Or so I thought.

He’s also everything I crave. Devilishly handsome with southern charm and charisma, I find I can’t resist him. He carries himself with an air of confidence that borders on arrogant.

The harder I fight my attraction, the more he seems to be right here tempting me.

This is what happens when a billionaire works his way into my working class life.

Prologue

SULLIVAN

B ourbon boys, it has served the Marks’ family well. Grandpa Vance’s voice booms over the family table. With a raise of his glass, everyone follows suit and toasts the business.

The plantation style mansion is overbearing, much like the twelve-person table we sit at. All of it firmly in place with the man who runs it, Vance Marks. My grandfather who took the family hooch business from the illegal to the legal side after prohibition ended. The legacy of the Marks brand of bourbon grows with each passing year. The old money earned from the trunk runs in his old beat up truck has become a real company. The history of the family recipe is now being put to use in the legit money made today.

As a teen boy, I don’t really care about the family business other than sneaking a shot or two of the amber liquid when I can. I have more important things to give my attention to like exams and getting in Susie’s pants.

In my family though, business is everything, no matter how old we are. From the moment we could understand money and the importance of it, we have been prepped to eventually work at the distillery. My brother and I have been molded to carry on the legacy.

Nothing matters beyond that.

Donovan nudges me to turn my attention to his latest conquest, the new maid. I don’t understand him at all. My brother, aging me by only two years has a thing for older women, especially the help. It started with his piano instructor when he hit puberty and has only gotten wilder the more he realizes he has a dick and likes it to get wet.

Southern manners have me turning the other way. What he does is his business, but Grandpa Vance would not like to hear his oldest grandson was having sex with the help. While we have been raised to have grace, compassion, and present ourselves appropriately for the situations, we have never been held back from associating with those who work for our family. As I’ve grown older, I realize that’s more about our mother trying to instill humility in us to not be above anyone, whereas, the rest of my family only speaks to our caretakers when necessary. While we may not get in trouble for being friendly, I seriously doubt good old grandpa would like to know he was paying the girl for more than her ability to shine the floors.

We need to find you a woman. Not one of those groupie girls from prep school with those plaid skirts, but a woman who can roll her hips and teach you what a woman wants. My brother whispers to me and I fight not to choke on my water.

He smirks, knowing he’s got me on edge with the family here. Donovan is a dick. He always wants to push the limits. Me, I just want to do what’s expected of me and if I’m lucky enough have some time out on the lake to fish then that’s a good day. I don’t get caught up in defying the rules like he does. I don’t necessarily agree with all of them, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to go out and break them just for the hell of it.

To me, it’s just not worth the argument with my parents if I get caught or the punishment I’m sure they’ll give me.

One day, I’ll be out from all of the pomp and circumstance my grandfather’s business has brought on us. One day, I’ll get to be the country boy hunting, fishing, and having the love of a good woman beside me.

Sixteen-year-old dreams seem so easy … until life slaps you in the face.

Elle

Shimmy, shimmy. Click my boots, three times, heel-toe, heel-toe and turn. In my head, I go over each step as I make up my own words to the song playing throughout the dive. This is my night … every night, except Sunday nights because we are closed. In my mind, I change the words to the country tune blaring in the space around me as I do the choreographed dance on the bar top.

Work, work, work, all day long,

Pretending to love all these songs,

Shimmy, shimmy,

Wink at ol’ Jimmy,

Toss my hair,

Cuz baby, I don’t care,

Swish my hips,

To the right with a pop,

Pout my lips,

To the left with a pop,

And then pray like hell,

So the tips will tell.

I’m a hard working girl!

I continue to dance on the bar top to my own shitty song lyrics making sure to side step the rough patches in the wood. Sticky shit makes my boots heavy as I lift them and continue the dance. Another day, another dollar, the life of a college graduate. If dear old gramps were still alive, he’d yank my daisy duke covered tail right off this old wooden bar.

The Run Down is by all means run down. The dive bar in the heart of bourbon country that is a run down version of Coyote Ugly. Night in and night out, I don my corset top, short as sin denim shorts, and cowgirl boots. With a little glitter bronzer to accent my cleavage, some floral perfume, and Texas big hair, I doll up to dance and serve.

All in the name of the almighty dollar.

This is what college has gotten me. Years of gramps and granny raising me, taking me from one dance class to another, all for my partial scholarship to the University of Kentucky. Go blue! Freshman year, gramps had a heart attack and was gone before I could even find my footing in life. He was the only family I had left after granny passed in high school from cancer, and then suddenly he was no more.

My mom had the spirit of a gypsy, gramps would say. She left me with them as a toddler and never looked back. The last time we heard anything she was traveling with a circus. Seriously, my mother traveling from town to town like a roadie for the clowns seems crazy, but that’s the last update we had from her when I was ten years old. The thought alone makes me laugh, that’s my luck. As for my father, who knows his name because it sure as shit isn’t me. She didn’t list anyone on my birth certificate and when it came to Granny and Gramps adopting me she remained tight lipped. No one has ever sought me out as their daughter, so I’m simply fatherless. I’ve come to terms with it, everything that is, and life hates me so this is me. The Queen of the Lonely and Damned.

SL, those little letters on my budget that make me cringe every month. Student loans—stuck for life, that’s what they are. Unfortunately, that was my only way to finish what I started. The last thing I would do was fail when gramps had pushed me so hard to make it.

I’m a college educated, bar serving, can’t keep my head above water twenty-four-year-old woman. Sometimes I think I should go back to school just to defer the payments and get a break. Except, I don’t have the extra time in a day to take classes between my jobs. Yes, jobs because this bartending gig is only one of two sources of income. One day I won’t have this hustle. One day I will have a full-time job that covers my bills and leaves me a savings, too. One day I won’t break my back working like this.

I got the idea to defer my payments by going back to school because I have a roommate who has become a professional student in life just to keep from paying back the loans. It’s cheaper to stay in school and defer, then drown in the moment. She swears one day she’ll be in a better financial situation and be able to pay it all back, but right now this is the only way she can make it.

I can see her point.

On the flip side, I see it as a lot more debt. I have enough to last what feels like my lifetime right now so no need to pile more on top of it.

Double edged sword, that’s my story day in and day out. If I could get a job using my MBA, then I could pay back my debts and not be in a room share or working two jobs. For now, I’m living on a prayer that the right job will come along sooner rather than later.

I’m on my way though, I have a day job with Marks Beverage Distillery. The largest bourbon distribution company in the state; hell, I dare say the country. This job has potential.

Sure, currently I am only a mail clerk, equipped with a cart and all, but I have my foot in the door. It took months of applying multiple times to even be seen, four interviews, a drug screening, and aptitude test later, I earned my badge. Yes, it’s an ID card with a magnetic strip that opens the doors and even gets the elevators to make it up to the executive offices for me to push my cart with their mail to