Loves Billionaires and Dogs: A Feel Good Romance Read online

  "Good. On my count, we'll make a break for that store there." He pointed. "Let's get you out of that dress and into something unidentifiable before you're recognized."

  "I—"

  "I know. You worried your purchases will be traced if you use a credit card." He winked. "I'm a big spy novel geek, too. Your disguise is on me."

  I opened my mouth to protest.

  He waved it away. "I just won big at the tables. I have cash to blow. Let me have my fun. Just be glad we don't have time to cut and color your hair. On three…one, two, three." He took my hand and raced the puppy and me through the lobby and into the store.

  I was breathing hard and laughing by the time we were safely in. Escaping with him was actually fun. Even so, I couldn't completely stifle my sense of panic.

  "They won't let you on a plane barefoot. Let's get you some shoes and something more comfortable for a flight home." He grabbed a saleswoman. "This woman stubbed her toe and needs a bandage. Would you take care of that and charge whatever she wants to my room?"

  "Yes, sir." She hustled to the counter for first-aid supplies.

  He turned to me and grabbed a pair of dark, big-lensed sunglasses off a rack. He displayed them for me in his hand like a salesman offering me an expensive piece of jewelry. "May I recommend these, madam?"

  "Those are ridiculously large."

  "Some things can't be too large." There was that wicked grin again. "I don't see any fake mustaches. These will have to do. Get yourself anything you need to go incognito in. I'll meet you back here with the puppy food." He pulled a blingy hot-pink baseball cap off a rack and handed it to me with the sunglasses. "This is nice." He winked.

  It said bitch in white rhinestones.

  I actually smiled. "I'll only be a few minutes."

  "I saw a dog carrier purse in the store next door. I'll buy it and a new collar if I can find one. Take her bow off. She needs to be in disguise, too." He nodded and headed out.

  I raced through the store and grabbed a T-shirt, shorts, hoodie, the bitch cap, sunglasses, and slip-on tennis shoes for myself.

  The saleslady brought me antibiotic spray and a bandage for my toe. I performed first aid on myself and changed in the changing room. I told the saleswoman I wanted to wear my new clothes out. She cut the tags off for me.

  I left that awful wedding gown on the dressing room floor. The woman didn't comment. I wouldn't have been surprised if it ended up on eBay.

  By the time I was dressed, he was waiting for me. "You got the cap."

  "Someone told me it would look good on me."

  He laughed. "Hand me the puppy and put the glasses on."

  He took my sweet little thing and removed her bow and collar. He replaced the collar with a studded black leather one that looked like it belonged on a tough bulldog. He pulled a handful of puppy chow from a shopping bag and gently coaxed her to eat.

  I was amazed at the way she took to him. He was a dog whisperer, in my opinion. The puppy was putty in his hands.

  "She needs to drink, too," he said. "Poor, frightened baby. You'll be all right."

  The saleslady handed him a paper cup full of water. I watched my puppy drinking and eating from his hands.

  Under different circumstances, I could have been putty, too. I cursed fate. This man was miraculous. Charming. Kind. Hotter than the Vegas sun.

  I nervously eyed the lobby. Finding me here would be like finding a needle in a haystack, but I couldn't lose my deep sense of foreboding.

  He handed me my puppy and took out his phone. "Your ride is four minutes away." He pulled a puppy purse out of a shopping bag. "Let's get her in this. You can take her food and water with you."

  Together we managed to get the tiny, wriggling pup in.

  He looked at his phone again. "Two minutes away. We'd better go to the curb." He did the survey-the-lobby-with-the-phone trick again. "Take another look around."

  "I don't see him."

  "Good." He took my elbow. "Your ride is arriving any second."

  We raced through the lobby.

  A limo pulled to a stop in front of the lobby doors. My hero pulled me through the automatic hotel doors. A driver got out of the limo and opened the door.

  I was confused. "For me?"

  "Only the best for a runaway bride. The limo is paid for." As he helped me in, he stuffed a wad of bills into the pocket of my purse. "Get yourself something to eat at the airport."

  "Thank you." I paused. "Who are you? What's your name? When I get home, I want to repay you—"

  He smiled that devastating smile. "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." He closed the limo door and tapped on it to tell the driver to get going.

  I curled into the plush seat with the puppy squirming happily.

  Loves dogs, I thought like a schoolgirl with a new crush. Any man I marry has to love dogs. How he treats his dog is how he'll treat me, his children, and people in general.

  As the limo pulled away, I turned back over my shoulder. I caught a final glimpse of my hero as he turned toward the automatic doors. Those broad shoulders. That confident, sexy strut and swagger. He tossed a coin in the air, caught it, looked at it, and stuffed it in his pocket before disappearing. What was that about? Weighing the odds we'd meet again?

  My heart raced. Fifty-fifty odds weren't bad.

  And then it hit me. The corners of my mouth turned up. I had to hold down a smile. I'm free! I've escaped.

  But…I really wanted to get to know that guy. I was heartbroken over lost opportunity, not over ditching my groom. Fate was toying with me again. Like she loved to do. If he'd been the one by my side at the wedding chapel, would I have run? I'd never know.

  As my puppy yawned and settled into her purse, I pulled out the bills he'd stuffed into my purse. Good thing that, along with my taste in men, my counting skills had improved with my sobriety. There were a lot of bills. Twenty-three, twenty-four. Twenty-five crisp hundred-dollar bills.

  Whoa.

  Chapter One

  Heart-shaped Box

  Two Years Later

  Shelby Hudson (High-in-demand wedding hand letterer, well, formerly so. Maybe? Cold-feet comforter. Caller-offer of a wedding to a supposedly great guy. Breaker of same guy's heart. Imposter phenomenon sufferer. Proud dog mama.)

  West Seattle, WA

  Love is patient. Love is kind. Love never fails.

  Love falters. Love stumbles. Love fizzles completely O_U_T.

  That O-U-T looked way too angry and blocky. Like a peeved engineer had taken over my project with block engineering printing that belonged on green grid paper. Not on luxurious one-hundred-pound cotton bond in pearl that was so soft you just wanted to caress it. I added a scrolling flourish to the top of the T.

  But my emotions got the better of me. My red brush pen trailed away from the flourished T and right off the page in a hard line of frustration. The way it bled off the page, it looked like someone had bumped my arm. Or grabbed me and taken me hostage while I struggled to keep pen to paper. I almost wished they had.

  Because that line was pure frustration expressed in red ink, and pain, lots of pain. Why? Why, oh, why was red the color of romance? Right now it felt more like the color of blood and crimes against love. The representation of failing and going deep into debt. Red ink in a ledger. My romance account balance was so deep in negative territory that it was approaching the scale of the national debt. Business wouldn't be far behind. Rumors were already flying. Brides cancelling.

  That damn video of me running out of the wedding boutique into the street in my wedding dress in the middle of the final fitting. They're calling me a runaway bride.

  Which was blatantly unfair. Running out of a dress fitting is not running out on a groom at the altar. Ask me how I know.

  I took a deep, calming breath. If it ever got out that I really had run out on my own wedding two years ago?

  I shuddered. I'd never live down being a serial runaway bride.

  Get your head together. Damage
control, Shel.

  I stared at the bright red flourish I'd scribbled. If only my love had died. But fizzled pretty accurately described it.

  People understand love dying. They understand fights and blowups and breaking up. About finding your fiancé in bed with another woman and furiously throwing his ring back at him. That has drama. That has flair. That has motivation. That wins major sympathy points.

  Fizzled? No.

  "He's a nice guy but I'm just not feeling the love" doesn't have pizzazz. It doesn't have sex appeal. Hyperventilating during my final dress fitting? With both moms, three grandmas, and all my bridesmaids watching? That came close. It had drama, but no apparent motivation. And I lost sympathy points later, when Mitch showed up and I called things off.

  Well-meaning people tried to repair the damage. Tamp down my doubts. "Everyone gets cold feet, sweetie. You're so good together. Give him a chance. You can make this work." And "A good marriage starts with friendship. You two can build off this. You're great friends."

  From the more practical, those on my side, "I love you, Shel, but you couldn't have realized this more than two weeks before the wedding? Now I'm stuck with a bridesmaid dress I'll never wear."

  To which I wanted to say, "But I paid for it. Give it away for all I care."

  From complete strangers in the comments of a video that had gone viral, you got "bitch."

  If you worked in the wedding industry, like I did, you became a pariah. A bad-luck charm. As if your bad wedding juju was going to rub off.

  I'm known for the emotion I put into my hand-lettering wedding projects. This has given me more success than I ever could have imagined. People flock to me to see their unique love personalities captured in the lettering art of my work. Is their love funky and cute? Adorable? Passionate? Deep? Playful? I somehow see it.

  To be completely honest, my ability is both a gift and a curse.

  There have been a few times, not many, fortunately, when I haven't gotten a good vibe from a client couple. I've had to dig deep to find that something special about their love that isn't "this marriage is headed for divorce court." Not my place to judge. Like a photographer, it's only my place to capture the most flattering view of it at a particular moment in time.

  Except—I was lettering the vows for my own wedding when I saw very clearly on the page what my conscious mind had been trying to block out and my subconscious mind and heart had been screaming at me. I don't love Mitch. Not in the marrying kind of way.

  No one, no one, knew about my real runaway bride adventure. Except for two men I'd never see again. Yes, I was confident of that. It had been two years, after all. And what were the odds?

  Yeah, no one else, none of my clients or colleagues, could find out about that. Pair that with me jilting Mitch two weeks before our wedding and I'd need an exorcism to get rid of the stench of bad luck on me.

  I slumped as I sat at my art table in my home design studio. I was supposed to be creating an invitation for the upcoming wedding of a couple so adorably cute that they belonged on the top of their own cake. So gooey-eyed in love and perfect together you just wanted to put them on the cover of a bridal magazine—

  And rip it to shreds.

  I gasped. Where did that evil thought come from, Shel? Their joy and happiness should inspire you to higher creative heights, and you know it. You're being pissy today. Shake it off.

  My talent, my joy, really is capturing a couple's love for their big day and beyond. Creating something they'll treasure for the rest of their lives. Something to remember their big day and the love that brought them together.

  When I get it right, clients tell me they feel the love wafting off the page of my art and vibrating in the air. That looking at the work I do for them reminds them of why they belong together.

  I'm Seattle's wedding and bridal hand-lettering queen, I reminded myself.

  My big problem right now was that I wasn't feeling the love. Not just the adorable couple's, any love. There was only a heart-shaped box where my heart used to be.

  I slumped over my drawing table and beat my forehead against it. Thunk. Thunk. Head thunk.

  I threw my arms out dramatically, completely defeated.

  Feeling better, Shel?

  Not really. Love sucks. Put that on a tea towel and wipe your dirty hands on it.

  Wow. You really need to work on your snarky putdowns. Your image as upbeat and sweet has completely wiped out your evil mojo. Too much time in the wedding industry around all those gushy-in-love people. Ever thought about getting a job in a more cynical industry? You could use some real-life jading and exposure to salty language.

  Print it on a doormat and wipe your muddy feet on it?

  My evil self rolled her eyes. Marginally better.

  These conversations with myself were getting out of hand.

  The alarm reminder on my phone went off. I had a lunch meeting in the city at noon with my friend, and almost-bridesmaid, Courtney. We'd been friends forever and bridesmaids together too many times to count.

  She was one of the people who was sticking by me. One of the brides-to-be who wasn't cancelling on me. I was doing the lettering and signage for her wedding. Mercifully, she'd let me out of being a bridesmaid. You know, given the circumstances. It was nice of her. And we both knew, and left it unspoken, that she didn't want the bad wedding mojo too near the ceremony and her vows.

  Time to get ready to go.

  "Bella?" I looked around for my Corgi. She was nowhere in sight. She'd been temperamental since she'd gone into heat.

  I'd been so absorbed that I hadn't noticed she'd left my side. She'd been clingy lately, following me around like my shadow with her tail held close to her body.

  Her vet had joked that holding her tail close was like a woman keeping her legs together. She was sending a message for the male dogs to keep their distance. Until she was ready. Good for her.

  I had my fingers crossed that the mood would hit her by tomorrow. We had an appointment in the morning with a stud. He was a sleek hottie purebred Corgi with immaculate pedigree. A highly decorated champion show dog. Very fine physique and extremely hard to get an appointment with.

  I liked to imagine Bella wouldn't mind losing her virginity to such a stud muffin. And, obviously, being a true stud-for-hire, he was an experienced lover. Had to be. I just hoped she didn't reject him. That she wasn't the kind to turn tail and run, like I had a habit of doing.

  My vet had tried to dispel my romantic notions about dogs. "Dogs mate by instinct. Love and attraction has nothing to do with it."

  I still wanted her first, and hopefully only, sexual experience to be pleasant and something to remember. I was committed to one adorable litter of Corgi puppies and then having Bella spayed.

  This morning Bella wasn't holding her tail quite so tight to herself. The vet had said to look for that. It was a sign she was ready to be mated. I was hopeful. Of the two of us, she was the only one right now who was receptive to male attention at all.

  She'd probably had to go out to pee. She'd been having to go a lot lately. Also another sign.

  I had a high-tech doggie door in my kitchen wall so Bella could go in and out at her leisure. The door opened into my heavily fenced—some would call it fortressed—backyard. I had everything but a moat around the place to keep unwanted dog suitors away. I'd made good and sure my backyard was completely dog-proof before Bella had had her first cycle. Overprotective doggie mom? You bet.

  I got out of my chair. "Bella? Bella!" I clapped my hands and whistled for her. Nothing.

  I went looking for her. When she wasn't in the living room, kitchen, or bedroom, I went into the backyard. "Bella? Where are you, girl? Bella?"

  She usually came running. Where could she—

  My heart stopped. The back gate was open.

  I had visions of someone carting my adorable little girl away. She was so pretty and friendly. Such a flirt. She always went to the fence when people walked by. She loved attention. Peopl
e couldn't resist her. Corgis are in such high demand that they're impossible to get. I felt sick.

  "Bella!" I ran out of the yard and down the sidewalk, calling and looking around wildly, heart racing. "Bella! Here, girl." I whistled for her.

  Nothing. No pitter-patter and panting. No adorable pup running toward me on stubby legs. No happy barking. No little dog trying to herd me back into my place.

  Please, please, don't let someone have dognapped her.

  On instinct, I ran to the neighborhood park just a few blocks away. It was downhill toward the water. Down the sloping old sidewalks, past bungalows and craftsmen homes.

  Bella loved the park. It was our happy place. If no one had taken her, I hoped that was where she'd headed. I was on the lookout for her cute little waggling butt. That dog knew how to shake her booty. And that was exactly the second thing I was afraid of. The vet's warning rang in my ears. "Male dogs can smell a bitch in heat from miles away."

  Great. And me without a fire hose on me.

  Bella's favorite spot was a path at the edge of the park. For unknown reasons, she went completely frenetic there every time. Every time. As if there was anise, the catnip of dogs, in the bushes. She'd run around randomly, looking at me like she expected me to follow her lead. She'd herd and boss anything she could find to exert her will over. Including me. I'd had to learn how to be alpha dog in obedience school.

  A rustling in the nearby bushes grabbed my attention. My mouth went dry. I would have recognized that sassy little doggy butt poking out of the bushes anywhere. It was the cutest little momo around. What wasn't so familiar, or welcome, was the sleek, tall, handsome Australian shepherd who was butt to butt with it, joined at the…um, you know.

  Noooo! I was an inexperienced breeder, as in I had no experience at all. But it didn't take a sex ed class to realize what this meant. They were tied.

  As the breeder had explained the process of birds and bees as it relates to dogs to me, first there's humping from behind. Yeah, I knew about that. Then the stud's…um…member…swells and gets stuck in the dam. That's called a tie. Very romantic. Not.