Private Lives

Mimi Francis

Description

Living in Hollywood, Chris Chandler has just about everything that he could ever dream of: a People’s Choice Award, lead actor in an acclaimed television series, anything and everything money could buy.


Most people would be happy with all of that, but not Chris. As Hollywood’s most eligible bachelor, it is difficult to find the one person he wants to spend the rest of his life with, especially living under the constant scrutiny of the paparazzi. Every relationship he’s had with a woman--from friends only to dating to semi-serious--gets dissected until there’s nothing left. What he needs now, what he wants, is something with no strings attached.


Sofia Larson is not your typical escort. She works for Private Lives, a company where the women they employ and the men that seek their company sign contracts, swearing themselves to silence and secrecy. What happens with each encounter is up to Sofia; while companionship is a guarantee, sex is not. Having an obscene amount of bills to pay, Sofia is only in it for the money. Her motto is "Don’t get involved, don’t get emotional, and don’t bring the job home." And then she meets Chris Chandler.

Sujets

• Romance
• Romance contemporaine
• Fiction
• contemporary
• Billionaires

Informations

• Publié par: 4 Horsemen Publications, Inc.
• Date de parution: 15 avril 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781644505908
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Table o f Contents
C hapter One
C hapter Two
Cha pter Three
Ch apter Four
Ch apter Five
C hapter Six
Cha pter Seven
Cha pter Eight
Ch apter Nine
C hapter Ten
Chap ter Eleven
Chap ter Twelve
Chapte r Thirteen
Chapte r Fourteen
Chapt er Fifteen
Chapt er Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapte r Eighteen
Chapte r Nineteen
Chap ter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Tw enty-Three
Chapter T wenty-Four
Chapter T wenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Tw enty-Seven
Chapter Tw enty-Eight
About the Author





Priva te Lives
Copyright © 2021 Mimi Francis. All rights re served.


4 Horsemen Publication s, Inc.
1497 Main St. S uite 169
Dunedin, FL 34698
4horsemenpublicat ions.com
info@4horsemenpublicat ions.com
Edited by JM Paquette
All rights to the work within are reserved to the author and publisher. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 International Copyright Act, without prior written permission except in brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Please contact either the Publisher or Author to gain per mission.
This is book is meant as a reference guide. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All brands, quotes, and cited work respectfully belongs to the original rights holders and bear no affiliation to the authors or pu blisher.
Library of Congress Control Number: 20 21935820
Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-644 50-591-5
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-644 50-687-5
Audiobook ISBN-13: 978-1-644 50-229-7
Ebook ISBN-13: 978-1-644 50-590-8


C hapter One
Chris
T he fight was epic .
Unfortunately, it was also public, inside a little coffee shop, and across the street from Lillian’s apartment.
The café was crowded with people seated inside and out. Chris suspected that was Lillian’s intention. Witnesses. Someone recorded it—recorded them , making him look like the bad guy, losing his temper and letting loose on poor, innocen t Lillian.
Not that Lillian was innocent, not even a little, but she’d kept her calm, sitting with a smile on her face, completely cool while she explained to Chris that she had been seeing someone else, not cheating on him—no way she would ever admit to that—but she had found someone else and as far as she was concerned, she and Chris were finished. His feelings were hurt, crushed if he was honest with himself, but how could they not be? So he’d lashed out, chewing her out, his voice getting louder as her smil e widened.
He felt like a fool and that had fueled his anger, pushing him over the edge until he screamed at Lillian, calling her every name he could think of, desperate to hurt her as she’d hurt him. Instead, she’d risen to her feet, thrown her purse over her shoulder, and walked away while he was in the middle of his tirade. Two hours later, the fight had been all over the internet. His publicist was piss ed. Again.
His pissed off publicist, Wendy, was the reason he was sitting in a downtown Los Angeles high rise, his hands folded in his lap, being chastised like a child who had stolen from the cookie jar. He picked at the seam of his jeans, his hat pulled down low on his head so she couldn’t see his eyes. He didn’t want to be sitting here being told how he would ruin his career if he wasn’t careful, blah, blah, blah, for the hundredth time. He wanted to go home, lock his door, and hide for a week, mourning the loss of yet another relationship he thought might be the real deal.
“—your therapist, Chris?” We ndy asked.
“I’m sor ry. What?”
“I asked if you’ve called your therapist?” she repeated.
“I don’t want to call her.” God, he even sounded like a petulant child. No wonder Wendy was treating him like one.
“I think you should,” Wendy said. “Call her, talk to her, and get over Lillian so you can go back to work.”
“You make it sound so easy.” He sighed.
“It is.” Wendy shrugged. “You’ll be fine.” She picked up a pen and scribbled something on a scrap of paper. “I talked to Jack and Paul. They agree that you need a few days to recover. So, Paul called Juan and told him you needed a couple of days off. He okayed it. You are due back to work on Tuesday. Take advantage of the time off.”
Chris pushed himself to his feet, shoved his sunglasses on his face, and stalked from the office. An hour and forty-five minutes later, after an impossible drive through Los Angeles rush hour traffic, he pulled through the gate at the bottom of the hill, following the winding road up past the other million-dollar homes, finally parking in his attached garage. He killed the engine and sat in his car, staring out t he window.
An overwhelming sense of loss was descending over him again, that feeling that something was missing in his life moving to the forefront of his mind. The voices in his head, the ones that told him he wasn’t good enough, that he didn’t deserve his career, his fame, his money, were screaming, drowning out everything else. He contemplated turning on his car and letting the engine run, allowing the carbon monoxide to fill the enclosed garage. He could lean his head back against the soft leather, close his eyes, and fall asleep. He could finally be at peace, finally quiet the voices once an d for all.
A loud, sharp bark caught his attention, yanking him back int o reality.
Chris released a heavy sigh, shoved open the car door, then stepped out. As soon as he opened the door between the garage and the kitchen, a fifty-pound bundle of black and white fur pounc ed on him.
“Oof,” he exhaled, catching his rescue mutt, Oliver—Ollie—in his arms. He succumbed to the face licking from Ollie’s slobbery tongue before setting the dog on the floor. “You hungr y, buddy?”
Ollie stared up at him with an adoring look that melted Chris’s heart. He spent the next few minutes feeding Ollie and refilling his water dish before looking through the refrigerator. Unable to find anything he wanted to eat, he grabbed a beer and made his way through the house to the living room, his furry friend right on his heels. He dropped to the couch, his feet on the coffee table and remote in his hand. He didn’t turn the TV on right away, just sat staring out the window at the lights of Los Angeles, wondering when everything in his life had gotten so off track. Before long, he dozed off.

Chris heard himself screaming, losing his temper, the eruption playing in his head while his therapist, Ingrid, watched the video fo r herself.
When it was over, she shut her laptop, folded her hands atop her desk, and stared at him. “That was quite a blowup, Chr istopher.”
Ingrid always used his full name, something that drove him crazy; every time she said it, she sounded so damn condescending. He’d asked her numerous times to please call him Chris, but she refused, saying it blurred the doctor and patient line too much if she used what she called “n icknames.”
“Yeah , it was.”
She said nothing, staring at him with that intense look she had, the one that made him squirm. After what felt like forever, she spoke. “Is that all you hav e to say?”
“Apparently,” Chris muttered, his arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrowed. He hated it when she did this; he felt like a child waiting for his mother to dole out punishment for some slight. He hadn’t wanted to come at all, but Wendy insisted, demanding he make an appointment with Dr. Walton before he went back to work. She’d left no room for argument.
The whole reason he’d sought counseling in the first place was to quiet the constant noise and chatter in his brain, to quell the crippling anxiety and stress that seemed to be a constant in his life. Since the breakup with Lillian, he’d barely been able to leave the house. He was only here because he was afraid of losin g his job.
“Are you purposely being an ass?” sh e snapped.
He blinked, his mouth involuntarily falling open, guilt making his stomach churn. Ingrid had a very calm demeanor, rarely losing her composure. Her outburst was u nexpected.
“I’m not trying to be difficult.” He sighed.
“But you are being difficult.” Ingrid leaned back in her chair, her pen tapping incessantly on the desk until Chris wanted to scream. “All right, I’ll come right out and say it then. What happened? I thought things were good with you and Lillian?”
“So did I. But I was wrong, wasn’t I?”
“Christopher , please.”
“Okay, okay,” he mumbled. He pinched the bridge of his nose, hoping to stave off the headache he felt coming on. “She broke up with me. She was seeing some one else.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“Really? How do you think it makes me feel?” Chris scoffed. “It makes me feel like shit. And you know what’s worse? I was completely clueless. I thought things were good, that we were going somewhere. She’d just gotten a part in some new TV series, a part I helped her get, I might add. If it weren’t for me, she never would have gotten the audition. She gets the part and breaks up with me a week later. She used me. They all use me, Ingrid, every one of them. That makes me feel l ike shit.”
Ingrid fell silent for a heartbeat. She shifted uneasily in her seat and set her pen on the desk. “I’m sorry, Christopher, I really am. I had no idea you felt that way. You’ve never mentioned it before. It’s no wonder your anxiety is out of control. I’ll offer again, for what is probably the hundredth time: I can prescribe