Hard Impact: An Alpha Billionaire Romance Novel Read online

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  CONTENTS

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  TITLE PAGE

  BOOK DESCRIPTION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  EPILOGUE

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  MORE BY HELEN GREY

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER

  BOOK DESCRIPTION

  Excited to be taken seriously as a journalist, Misty Rankin accepts her first official writing assignment. She’s to ‘get the dirt’ on sexy billionaire Blake Masters. He’s the owner of Hard Impact, an extremely popular and growing outdoor adventure company. Within seconds of meeting him, Misty knows she’s in serious trouble. She can’t deny the instant attraction, but she might just be in over her head.

  Blake Masters guards his privacy above anything and detests having a journalist prying into his life. Especially his past — that terrible time he doesn’t want to remember. With each question she asks him, he wants to hate her. But can’t.

  Thrown together by circumstances, Blake takes Misty on the adventure of her life. Neither are what, or who, the other expects. After spending a few days together in the wilderness, they’re both forced to confront some harsh truths about themselves. And about each other. If the past doesn’t rip them apart.

  CHAPTER 1

  Misty

  “You’re serious? You’re giving this to me?” I exclaimed, staring at my boss in dismay. I barely resisted the urge to turn around to make sure no one was standing behind me. I can’t believe those words came out of my mouth.

  Angela Girard frowned. “Excuse me?”

  Seeing the look on my boss’ face, I muttered a quick apology. “I’m sorry, that just came out…” Mortified, I stared down at the large manila envelope clasped between my trembling fingers. I’d been informed that it contained a brief biography and photo of the ‘target’ as Angela called the interviewee. While I’d been looking forward to this opportunity for some time, this wasn’t exactly how I’d planned it.

  “If you’re not up for this, Misty, I expect you to tell me,” Angela said, the toe of her shoe tapping a staccato beat on the floor. “Now.”

  I glanced up at my boss, noticed that the frown was gone, replaced by the haughty expression of editor-in-chief on her features. My heart skipped a beat.

  “No… no, I can do it,” I insisted. While trying to maintain a sense of calm on the outside, my insides felt like gelatin.

  “Very well,” Angela replied with a stiff nod. “I expect a polished rough draft on my desk within the next couple of weeks. I expect an in-depth interview containing information that no one else knows. I expect substantiation.”

  Substantiation of what?

  In spite of my current circumstances, I was curious. Exactly who was I interviewing? I didn’t dare open the envelope just yet.

  Angela shuffled some papers, causing the salt-and-pepper bangs and harsh shoulder-length blunt cut of the middle-aged editor to swirl around her strong features, and not in a complimentary way.

  “I do want the rumors mentioned and why they have been hovering over this man for so many years, but I don’t want just supposition. Our readers want to know if these rumors and innuendo are based on fact. And I don’t want the same old, same old that has been rehashed by the gossip rags time and time again. Within limits, you can focus on those rumors, but I want to be the magazine that clarifies this matter once and for all. We’re not into slandering here. If it’s printed, it better be factual, but I want you to get to the bottom of it. Have I made myself clear?”

  Not really, I thought. The bottom of what? Nevertheless, I nodded and glanced down at the envelope in my hand. Innuendo? Rumors? I barely held back a grin. Something juicy perhaps.

  I glanced once more at Angela, saw that I’d been summarily dismissed, and headed out of the office. Closing the door softly behind me, I glanced at Angela’s secretary, offered a wan smile, and then quickly went to the elevator a few steps down the hall. Stabbing a thumb at the down arrow, I waited for the soft ding as the car arrived.

  Just minutes ago, I’d been sitting at my desk working on the second draft of an article I wrote about a Hollywood star. Not an A-list movie star, not even B-list, but potentially C-list, whatever that meant. All I’d done since my arrival at the magazine was co-write gossip articles. Disappointing.

  I’d been part surprised part terrified when I received the call from the editor’s secretary stating that Angela wanted to have a word with me. I’d only worked at the magazine for the past six months, mainly on fillers and sidebars. I had yet to write a serious article with a byline, let alone a regular feature. I’d been itching to be given an assignment of my own, to test my mettle, to strut my stuff, to… what could I possibly have done to warrant a visit to the editor’s office?

  At twenty-four years of age, working as a freelance writer for a popular magazine was a dream come true for me. When opportunity had knocked, I didn’t think twice. Didn’t think twice about relocating from North Dallas to San Francisco. Didn’t think twice about whether the experience I had under my belt working for a small, regional magazine in my hometown would give me the skills and the confidence I needed to work for a national magazine.

  Sweet Success was not exactly Time magazine, not even Vanity Fair or Entrepreneur, but more like a blend of People and Fortune… focusing mainly on how, where, and why some of the richest people in the US and abroad had amassed their fortunes. And packed with gossip as well. Lots of quotes, lots of drama, less on the business aspects of some of the wealthiest people in the world and the decisions they’d made to earn their millions and billions of dollars.

  Some of the stories were rather salacious, some less than flattering to the individuals they profiled, but as Angela said, everything printed in their magazine could be backed up by fact. Just because a person was filthy rich didn’t mean they were nice; quite the contrary. While I believed the magazine was only a step above common gossip magazines, and it wasn’t exactly my dream job, it was nevertheless a step in the right direction.

  Sweet Success had written about the downfall of several notables like Robert Murdoch. Everyone knew him. The magazine had done pieces on Steven Cohen, who had pled guilty to insider trading violations. I had thoroughly enjoyed the write-up of Jacqueline Mars — of Mars candy fame — and her purported worth of over twenty billion. The article profiled the seventy-four-year-old and her involvement in a car accident that caused the death of a passenger in another vehicle. She had been charged with reckless driving and pled guilty to misdemeanor charges. Mars claimed she had fallen asleep behind the wheel.

  I’d admired the detail in the article, even down to mentioning that one of my favorite candies, M&Ms, manufactured by Mars, had started production in 1941 and sold exclusively to the military during the Second World War. Go figure.

  So basically, the magazine did profile the rich and famous, but also tried to get beneath the surface to dig up dirt, but only dirt that could be verified by fact.
While this kind of investigative reporting wasn’t what I was looking for to further my career aspirations, I also realized that I had to pay my dues before I could move on to more serious publications. Until then, I would use Sweet Success for experience, a stepping stone to get to where I eventually wanted to be.

  Despite my lack of experience in the field, I liked to think of myself as a Barbara Walters or a Diane Sawyer… a woman willing to go places and do things that I’d never dreamed of to talk to some of the most influential people in the world.

  Of course, I hadn’t yet done anything like that and wondered if I ever would. Still, I could imagine myself in some of the oddest, and most dangerous places on the planet, reporting on current events, life and death situations, serious stuff.

  I was still considered a new hire. Most people around the office knew me as the “newbie.” And while this wasn’t exactly the type of magazine where one could say with a bland expression that one was a “serious journalist,” I knew I needed the experience. For that, if nothing else, I was grateful to be here.

  More than anything, I wanted to be taken seriously. I wanted to promote change, to get people thinking, to learn and hone my skills and ability to get beneath the surface, not just reporting about events, but why. What made people behave the way they did? Since I’d been at the magazine, the supposition was that the downfall or scandals involving most of the people we’d profiled — the men at least — happened because of their vices: gambling, drinking, sex, drugs. I knew that not all rich people behaved like that. I didn’t know any of them, but I could guarantee that not every wealthy man in the world was a stuck up bastard who didn’t think of anyone but himself.

  My friend Melanie, whose desk butted up against mine in the ‘bullpen’ as we called it, had made a sour face when I’d been called to see the editor. No one really liked the woman. She was often overbearing, rude, demanding, and sometimes quite crass. It seemed to me that she purposely modeled herself after the female character played by Meryl Streep in the movie, The Devil Wears Prada. She was no Meryl Streep, in looks or class.

  I’d once heard her cursing, and to say that she cursed better than a sailor was probably an understatement. Nevertheless, there was something about Angela Girard that I admired. She was a go-getter. She had risen to the top of her field in a career that, at the time, had been male-oriented.

  I’d seen Angela smile once or twice, and even though the woman was a strict taskmaster, she wasn’t purposely cruel. She was fair — mostly. She didn’t demand anything of her employees that she didn’t demand of herself, which happened to be excellence and perfection.

  The elevator doors swished open and I stepped through. The moment they closed, I reached a shaking finger toward the panel and pushed the button for my floor. Leaning against the side of the wall, I grinned.

  This was my chance and I knew it. This was my chance to show the editor what I could do. I quickly stepped off the elevator, but instead of heading for my desk, I made an immediate right and headed toward the ladies’ room, clutching the envelope in my hand. I resisted the urge to open it just yet. I knew it was important or I wouldn’t have been called up to the boss’ office.

  As I entered the restroom, my excitement waned and doubts began to creep in. Why were they sending me? There were a number of excellent writers with more experience. Oh Lord, for all my bluster and bravado, this was my first major assignment for the magazine. Yes, I was tired of working on projects that I considered busy-work, and while I did have confidence in my skills as an interviewer, I’d never, not once in my life, interviewed someone like… like who? I glanced down at the manila envelope still clutched in my fingers. My brain screamed for me to open it, but not in the bathroom. I would wait until I got back to my desk and Melanie and I would look at it together.

  My face felt flushed. Looking in the mirror, I realized my cheeks and neck were red, typical when I was excited or emotional. I stuck the envelope between my knees, turned on the tap, and splashed my face with cold water. Much better. I repeated the process several times, then gently patted my face dry with the towels I’d grabbed from the rack. I gave myself an assessing gaze in the mirror.

  Today, my auburn hair was pulled into a short ponytail, except for the few stray strands clinging to my damp forehead and cheekbones. Thick but finely arched and plucked eyebrows had taken me years to train to perfection. I stared into the hazel eyes that were my best feature. The green flecks often initiated compliments from occasional dates, but none that went anywhere serious.

  Tilting my head, I frowned at my reflection. I couldn’t help it. Normally, when I looked in the mirror, I felt kind of satisfied with what I saw. Unfortunately, I didn’t exactly ooze confidence when it came to meeting someone for the first time or for that matter, interviewing someone big enough to get their name in a magazine.

  Giving myself a body check, I gave myself credit for full, perky boobs. Then I scowled at my waistline, which was a bit on the thick side before flaring into ample hips. So I was a little rounded, voluptuous as a college friend had once told me. Stocky was the term my mother lovingly used. So, I had a little bit of a muffin top going, but nothing extreme. It wasn’t like I was a hundred pounds overweight or anything. I was just… well, call it what you will; stacked, well-built, solid. Sure, I could stand to lose a few pounds, but nothing too serious. I’d always been a little on the ‘thick’ side. Not fat, but not exactly svelte either.

  As I looked at myself, I noticed my tremblings hands. I always got the jitters before meeting clients, always a bit concerned by their reaction. Did I look older or younger than they imagined? Prettier or downright plain? Regardless, would they take me seriously? I looked like a typical Midwestern girl, but was that a problem? In this business, looks were everything, at least for some of the most popular journalists.

  Oh well, what you see is what you get.

  If someone wanted to judge me for my looks, there was nothing I could do about it. Gazing back at my reflection, I realized I was damned proud of myself and the person I’d become. I had to let go of any lingering uncertainties, the feelings that I would never be good enough, pretty enough, or whatever enough to attract the man of my dreams.

  And just who was the man of my dreams? I had no idea. When I thought of the “perfect man” my mind went to the cerebral more than the physical. Sure, physical looks were nice, but I certainly wasn’t going to judge a guy by how good he looked, how hard his body was, or how long his… that didn’t matter to me nearly as much as who he was. I wanted to know what was in his brain. His heart. And I expected the same courtesy. In this day and age, I realized it sounded a bit on the corny side, but as far as I was concerned, I wanted something that looked just as good on the inside as on the outside.

  The squeak of the bathroom door jolted me out of my musings. I smiled at the woman who walked in. I didn’t know her name but recognized her as the lady who worked the advertising desk on the other side of the room. The woman ignored me and disappeared into a stall, banging the door shut without as much as a glance my way.

  Friendly.

  Shaking my head, I had to remember I wasn’t in my small ‘everybody knows everybody’ hometown. Since moving to San Francisco, I’d met very few people and hadn’t gone out on a date at all. It wasn’t like I had much extra time on my hands either. First, a mad scramble to find an apartment I could afford. Rentals in San Francisco were outrageous. If I’d known before accepting the job at the magazine, I wondered if I’d been brave enough to make the move.

  I did manage to find an old Victorian with rooms to let. Although I paid as much for one month’s rent here for a tiny one-bedroom and a shared bathroom at the end of the hallway as I did for a six hundred square foot apartment in North Dallas, I counted my blessings.

  The old Victorian was within walking distance of the magazine, so I didn’t have to worry about transportation, taking the bus or the cable cars, although I admit that I indulged in riding the cable cars like a tourist
for the first week after my arrival. Wasn’t that what everyone did when they came to San Francisco? Before I started work, I did everything a tourist did when coming to this city. I visited Fisherman’s Wharf, took the boat to Alcatraz and reveled in the ghost stories the tour guide told so well. I visited Chinatown, rode the elevator to the top of the Transamerica building, and of course, visited Golden Gate Park and even walked across the Golden Gate Bridge.

  After that first week as a transplant in a new city, I started work and had been busy ever since. Mostly with editing, working on fillers, sidebar content, and co-writing the brief articles on lesser-known individuals up-and-coming in the financial world. Including the actor I’d just profiled, who, for a sideline to buttress his budding acting career, displayed a bit of an inventive streak and had just sold a patent for a new kind of juicer of some sort. The prototype was under development and he was looking to make millions from it.

  Profiling such up-and-coming entrepreneurs was nothing new for Sweet Success, but I knew that these were not top-of-the-line assignments. As I dried my hands and tucked the envelope under my arm before throwing the towel in the trash receptacle, I could only think that having received the assignment from the editor-in-chief herself, the person I would be profiling was someone well-known by the American public, or at least soon would be.

  I left the restroom and wove my way between the desks cluttering the main room of the office space toward my desk. Staff from the magazine took up nearly the entire floor, divided into a number of cubicles along one side of the room. The other half was filled with fax machines, copiers, and flat-screen televisions hanging on the walls, sound muted. It didn’t exactly look like a newsroom, but close. People came and went in all states of emotion from calm and collected to agitated and frazzled, probably depending on their deadlines, potential revisions, and of course, keeping on the editor’s good side.