The Carrero Effect - Falling for the Boss (Billionaire CEO) novel Chapter 297

“Questionable.” Leila threw him a look. He didn’t need to see more to know she meant Marissa and almost grimaced at the memory. Everyone could make mistakes, even hellish ones like that. “But you’ve improved a lot.” She then smiled at him concealing nothing. A big hearty, winky type of smile and he felt that hint of warmth knowing she meant Emma. Leila wasn’t so dumb after all and maybe it was her he should offload to rather than Hunter. Get a female perspective.

“Leave her out of this,” Jake warned, squeezing Emma a little more tightly. He may have liked the way Leila was thinking, but he had to make sure none of them got the wrong idea for her sake. He also wasn’t exactly too enamored with the way Marissa seemed to be honed right in, staring at them both and giving him her best fuck-me-now eyes. He regretted picking a place in her line of sight to stand.

“You know when you know, right?” Vincent smirked Jake’s way knowingly, and in that second, he really wanted to throat punch him. Like a performing fucking circus, the other two men joined him in knowing looks and all three winked his way slyly. He glanced to see if Emma noticed anything untoward, but she was busy resting her head into him innocently.

Assholes.

“Daniel certainly seems to think so.” Jake made kissing noises at Hunter in a bid to cover the moment of complete awkwardness, letting go of Emma to haul Daniel into a headlock and plaster his cheek with wet, noisy kisses. Fucker could take that for initiating all this in the first place.

“Fuck off, you creep.” Daniel fought as everyone laughed. Everyone lightening up from the all too serious turn in conversation much to his relief and he could see even Emma was smiling. Jake came back to put his arm back around her possessively and ignored Marissa once again hitting him with a sexual pout.

Piss off, for the love of God.

“Admit it, you’ve been planning the Hunter-Carrero wedding since you were just a little girl. It’s kind of sweet, really.” Jake prodded Daniel with his beer bottle and received two fingers on one hand and one on the other as a response. It was an attempt to keep his focus off what Marissa was now doing with her tongue in the bottle she was holding, he had never had the urge to push it down her throat this badly before.

“You’re riding dangerously close to a Hunter free existence. Then we’ll see which dude is crying into his Haagen Dazs. We all know that Mr. Smooth Carrero has the biggest man crush on me.” Daniel picked up a beer, mock threw his hair back like a woman, and fluttered his eyelashes.

“In your dreams, pretty boy. I’m hoping for a threesome with the twins.” Jake winked at Vincent and Richard who threw on matching “EWWWW” faces. Everyone laughed, even Marissa this time which meant she had to stop blowing off the bottle and giving him orgasm looks. He felt that draw for a moment of a guy who definitely had not had enough sex of late and watched for a mere second as she bit on her lip suggestively, memory serving him right about what she used to do with that mouth before sense got the better of him. Emma laying her soft head against his heart almost made him feel guilty even pondering it for a second.

Jake adjusted his hold, so he could pull her closer and rest his arm further around her. She was the only girl who belonged near his heart, whether she wanted it or not. He switched his beer bottle to his left hand, so it hung in front of her and gently took her empty cocktail glass and laid it down, glancing at her happy face for a moment and being reassured that bringing her on this trip was the best thing. He had never seen her so chilled or smiley in all the time he’d known her and even being grossly manhandled by him tonight hadn’t brought out one PA telling off. Maybe she was warming to him after all.

Daniel started rehashing another trip last year, another summer vacation a group of them had gone on. There had been sixteen of them that time and of course Marissa, she had tried to get into his bed on more than one occasion, and he had even woken up with her writhing on top of him naked, trying to get him hard. He had considered it for all of ten seconds before shoving her ungracefully to the floor and then proceeded to fuck every girl she’d brought with her over that next couple of days just to piss her off.

Marissa looked his way devilishly, obviously remembering his little backlash, and he felt smug for a moment. He maybe had no feelings for the girl anymore but getting some sick payback for what she had done to him always got a reaction. They seemed to keep doing this; going around in circles year after year until he had met Emma … Now it no longer interested him at all and he had no intentions of trying to beat her at any more games of seduction ever again.

The waitress came with a tray and laid another round of drinks on the canopied table. Jake handed Emma a fresh cocktail with his free hand, his mouth lingering close to her temple a little longer than necessary as he smelled her, weird and probably a tad obsessive but she always smelled edible. Tropical fruits and slightly sexual in a way and he liked to just do it because he was fucking weird when it came to her. He had long ago stopped even questioning the shit he did around her.