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Mr. CEO: An Instalove Possessive Alpha Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 160)




  CONTENTS

  Mr. CEO

  NEWSLETTER

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  NEWSLETTER

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS

  BRATVA BEAR SHIFTERS

  LAIRDS & LADIES

  RUSSIAN UNDERWORLD

  IRISH WOLF SHIFTERS

  MR. CEO

  AN OLDER MAN YOUNGER WOMAN ROMANCE

  _______________________

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS, 160

  FLORA FERRARI

  Copyright © 2020 by Flora Ferrari

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers.

  Created with Vellum

  MR. CEO

  I’m so ready to handle this billionaire CEO’s primal passion.

  From the first time he locks eyes on me, staring through the window of his oh-so-alpha sport’s car, he gets possessive and jealous, stopping at nothing until he claims me.

  I interview at his company, but his carnal obsession goes so far beyond the workplace. I might just be an inexperienced younger woman, but he wants to become my protector and this older man does not take no for an answer.

  But can I balance my career and the boss’s advances, or will my past catch up with me and make him realize he might’ve picked the wrong naïve orphan?

  I’ve been lied to before, and I’m vulnerable and just a little ditsy. But I’ve got some sass, too, and this hunky silver fox wants to draw it out of me.

  But can I take his high-flying lifestyle…or am I destined to crash and burn? Will this obsessed CEO make me his?

  *MR. CEO is an insta-everything standalone instalove romance with a HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.

  NEWSLETTER

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Santiago

  I guide the Ferrari through the city, relishing the rumble of the engine. As the billionaire owner of the largest media conglomerate in the world, having a car custom-made to be twice as powerful as the market model was not a difficult feat.

  I grip the steering wheel hard, my muscled forearms bulging through the steel-blue fabric of my business suit, as I listen to Delaney rant on and on in the conference call.

  Weak men do that, thinking it makes them strong. They speak too much and believe that raising their voices makes them powerful. They’re dead-wrong. Real power comes from knowing when to sit back, to wait, to stalk like a lion across the savannah and strike when the moment is right.

  “Santiago,” he whines after a while. “You can’t do this.”

  I smirk under my breath. What a goddamn fool this man is. I can’t do it, he says. I feel a wave of liquid anger flow around my body, infusing my taut, well-trained muscles.

  “They were corrupt reporters,” I snarl, revving my engine as the light turns green. I glide through the city, the sun rising and bathing the high-rises in light. This is my playground, this exclusive sector of the metropolitan, all shiny glass and men in business suits and women in pencil suits, like a great mass of ambition rolling down the sidewalk. “Delaney, I can do anything I damn well please. And if that means making sure they face justice, that’s what they goddamn deserve.”

  “Corrupt,” Delaney snorts. I imagine him sitting in his oversized office chair, a man given to comforts and personal indulgences, probably with some empty-headed secretary there nodding at his every word. “What does that mean in our business? Corrupt or honorable, it doesn’t matter. It’s all about the bottom line—”

  “It means they broke the rules,” I bark. “They lied, Delaney. And even if that’s acceptable in your company that’s your problem, it’s not acceptable in mine. We tell the truth. Good or bad, pretty or ugly, that’s what we stand for.”

  “You’re giving us all a bad name, though.”

  I’m almost certain I can hear the man pouting, and it drives a stake of fury deep into my chest. A man should not pout. He should act. I’d prefer Delaney to rage and yell and tell me he wants to fight me, anything other than this groveling.

  “Reporters are a dying breed as it is. We can’t have them running scared.”

  I turn the corner to the Sasso Communications high-rise, my building. It stands apart from the surrounding buildings. I had it renovated not too long ago, and now it’s the shiniest place in the whole city, all slick steel, reflecting the sun like a beacon. It’s gorgeous and it’s a sign – to Delaney and weak men like him – that the way I do business pays. And pays well.

  “You handle your business,” I snap. “And I’ll handle mine.”

  I turn the corner toward my private parking entrance, waiting as a few pedestrians file past. Then, when I push the pedal and hear the answering snarl of the Ferrari, I head toward the entrance.

  The woman isn’t looking where she’s going. She just walks out in front of me.

  And I stare.

  She stops, shocked at almost being bumped by the hood of my car. But that isn’t why I can’t take my eyes off her.

  In all my forty-two years, I’ve never seen a woman so, damn…so womanly.

  With her white shirt and suit jacket hugging her shapely form, I thank fate for putting her into my path, her full-figured beauty putting savage notions into my mind. Her skirt clings tightly to her ample thighs, the thin fabric unable to hide her curvaceous shape. I imagine tearing it like wet paper with my teeth, revealing the supple flesh beneath, nibbling, watching as goosebumps appear on her precious skin.

  She gaps at me, a strand of auburn hair falling loose from her ponytail. Even from here, I can see a hint of nervousness in the glinting of her emerald-green eyes, as though she’s not sure whether to say sorry or just keep walking. That’s so refreshing, because most women who look at me are all gushing supplication, shamelessly offering themselves with their too-eager eyes.

  But not this woman.

  “Santiago?” Delaney says. His tone of voice tells me it’s not the first time he’s said my name. “Are you there?”

  I press the end call button and just keep starting at the woman, a smirk on my face, as I eye her and she eyes me.

  She shrugs her office bag, causing her life-giving breasts to bounce in the imprisoning white shirt. I can vaguely make out the patterned pinkness of her bra, and it makes me want to discover if her nipples are just as pink. I wonder if she’ll look just as unsure as I suck on them, as I palm her fertile flesh with my hands.

  But then she’s gone, walking down the street.
>
  The moment passes and all I can do is watch the way her lavish ass sways with the motion of her hips. Child-bearing hips is a damn understatement. I feel like I’m looking at Eve herself, the most feminine form a human being has ever taken, her ponytail jostling around as though begging me to fist it and guide her parting lips to my throbbing manhood.

  I drive into the parking lot, knowing that I have to find that woman and make her mine. In all my years, climbing my way up to become a billionaire, I’ve never troubled myself with thinking about a wife or a family.

  But now that I’ve seen her, I know how foolish I was.

  I etch her face into my mind, remembering every detail. I’ll check the security footage…I have to fucking find her.

  I think I’ll go crazy if I don’t get to hear her voice, don’t get to look into those leaf-colored eyes without the Ferrari front window between us.

  As I make my way across the office toward the security room, a blonde, rail-thin intern comes skipping over to me. She’s wearing a dress that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination…unlike my goddess, the woman who doesn’t need to flash her assets to get my attention. Not that this waif would ever get my attention.

  “Hello, Mr. Sasso,” she says.

  I turn to her. We’re standing alone in the hallway leading to the security room and I don’t appreciate the way she’s looking at me, as though, if I snapped my fingers, I could have her in any way and as many times as I wanted.

  She’s nothing compared to the nameless seraph fate just threw into my path.

  “Yes?” I say.

  She bats her eyelashes. She nods down toward her skirt, as though trying to get me to look. But I just stare coldly at her. “I just wanted to introduce myself. My name’s Casey and, well, I think you’re really, really hot.” She giggles, as if she just said something funny. Which she didn’t. “I know that it’s a bit forward, but, you know…nobody’s around.”

  I clench my jaws, regarding her with zero interest. I even feel a minor tremor of revulsion infusing my chest, spreading like sickness to the back of my throat, at the idea of taking her up on her too-forward offer.

  I shake my head and turn away, not answering her, and then pace down the hallway.

  My thoughts are captive to the princess with the stray wisp of oak-colored hair. I don’t just want to screw her, no damn way, that’s not good enough for her. I want to drive my throbbing spear inside of her and fire my life-giving elixir, and hold myself there like that, watching as spasms of pleasure move across her face.

  Then my seed will settle deep inside of her.

  I always thought I’d never find a woman good enough to be the mother of my children. But now I have…I just don’t know her name.

  In the security room, a high-tech place with a capable man standing with a military bearing named Simmons at the front desk, I learn that the future mother of my children was not caught on camera.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Simmons says, running a hand awkwardly through his ginger crewcut. “But it’s a blind spot.”

  “A blind spot,” I snarl, voice trembling. “Fuck.”

  I turn away, fists clenched. I’ve been in the most heated, consequential business meetings in the world. I’ve stared down billionaires and become one myself. But I’ve always kept cold, even emotionless.

  But now Hades-like fury scours my chest, making me feel hollow except for the heat of my desire.

  I have to find my queen. I have to learn her name.

  If I don’t, I’m not sure any of this will be worth it. I ride my executive elevator up to my penthouse office, and as I walk across the marble floor and under the shadow of million-dollar art, I just want to tear it all to insignificant pieces.

  Without my well-formed Madonna, the sexiest damn woman I’ve ever laid my eyes on – the only woman I can dream of being with – it’s all a waste.

  I glance down at my desk when the intercom button light blinks red. “Yes?” I say, pressing the answering button.

  “We have the interviews today at eleven,” my secretary tells me. “Would you like me to rearrange the Underwood call? I know how you like to sit in on the interviews, sir.”

  “Yes,” I say, turning it off, hardly listening.

  Woman of my dreams, where are you?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Scarlett

  My heart is still pounding like some kind of internal earthquake as I walk down the street, in the shadow of the glittering Sasso Communications building, and then cross the road and head for the café. Since I live on the ultra-far other end of the city, I got up at four AM this morning to make my eleven o’clock interview. But now it’s only half past nine.

  Oh well. Better early than late, right?

  I order a cappuccino and wait at the counter as the machine hisses loudly and business-type people chatter all around me.

  My near run-in with the Ferrari plays over and over in my mind. But it’s not the car I remember with a vivid viciousness.

  It’s him.

  Unless my sleepy mind deceived me, I’m certain that that was Santiago Sasso, billionaire owner and CEO of Sasso Communications, the company I’m interviewing at this morning. At only eighteen years old and without a college education, it’s a long shot, but Mr. Sasso’s company is a rare combination of moral and success, so it’s my number-one choice.

  I wonder what Lexi, my old friend at the orphanage, would say if she could see me now. But she went out west as soon as she turned eighteen to pursue the showbiz life, whatever the heck that means. I don’t have a mom or a dad to be proud of me for going for this job, but I feel a surge of pride for myself, anyway, as I carry my coffee outside and sit on a bench across the street.

  I’m not going to let my feelings of inadequacy act like a rope around my wrists, trapping me. No, I’ll charge out into the world and try, at least.

  I close my eyes, waiting for my coffee to cool, as I remember the way Mr. Sasso looked at me. With his silver hair swept to the side and his masculine jaws clenched tight, I could tell just how furious he was that I’d walked out in front of him. His fjord-blue eyes regarded me icily, as though I was just an inconvenience. I wondered if he’s had a difficult morning, because his big hands were clenching the steering wheel hard, causing his jacket sleeves to twitch and bulge with the pressure of his immense muscles.

  For the briefest of moments, I allowed my mind to gallop toward ridiculous territory. I imagined that all the tightness in his get-lost-kid expression was because he was attracted to me…which is the silliest thing in the universe.

  Just because I’ve crushed on Santiago Sasso for a heck of a long time, watching all his interviews and reading his books on business, free speech, and communication, it doesn’t mean this celebrity billionaire CEO would ever look at me twice.

  And, anyway, even if I was the socialite type he’s probably normally used to, I’m not the right shape for him, no freaking way. Even if society – thank God – is slowly starting to realize that plus-size doesn’t mean wrong, it just means different, I’m pretty sure skinny girls still have the biggest advantages going.

  I sigh, bringing my coffee cup to my lips.

  Bang.

  I flinch, turning at the noise, suddenly sure something terrible has happened. Then I see that two drivers are arguing, one of them leaning out of the window. One of them rear-ended the other.

  Then I happen to glance down and see the coffee-colored stain blooming on the pristine white of my shirt.

  Crud.

  The last thing I need when interviewing at the company of my dreams is a stain like this making me look slovenly and, let’s face it, unemployable.

  I go into the café but the lady behind the counter tells me the restrooms are out of order.

  Cursing under my breath and hurrying from the café, I basically run across the street. Suddenly, the time I have left until the interview doesn’t seem so long. I make sure not to get nearly hit by any cars this time, as I race into the lobby and to
the restroom.

  I squirt soap into my hand and rub it into the shirt, but that only makes it worse, off-white mixing with the cameral stain. My heartbeat is like a stampede in my chest now, racing ahead at a gazillion miles per hour, as the prospect of working in any capacity for this company falls rapidly from the mirage of my future.

  I try and try for what feels like hours, but it doesn’t work. The stain is set deeply and is no way going to come off.

  I bite down so hard my teeth throb, and then turn swiftly and make for the exit. The only thing I can do is try and find somewhere I can buy another shirt. Maybe if I cut across the street, I’ll be able to find a clothes store.

  I’m so lost in my thoughts I don’t even realize I’m walking straight into another person. Well, at least it’s not a car this time, but it’s still not the best idea. As I try to skirt around them, I suddenly stop, and now my heart pounds like a whole army of horses.

  I bite down, confused emotions dancing across my suddenly sensitive skin.

  Santiago Sasso stands right in front of me, all six foot five inches of him causing me to look up at him as though he’s Hercules fallen to earth. His smirk plays with his clean-shaven jaw, and the deep iron in his hair makes him look confident and powerful. Every inch of him declares primal strength, his muscles threatening to escape his tight-fitting suit. A silver watch wrapped casually around his wrist.

  “Uh, hello,” I whisper.

  “That’s the second time you almost run into me today.” He bares his teeth like an alpha wolf, not quite a smile.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, as fierce crimson embarrassment invades my cheeks. “I didn’t mean to. I was just so tired, because the public transport times mean I either get here really early, or too late, so…”

  I trail off, realizing I’m ranting.

  Mr. Sasso’s gaze flits up and down my body. I resist the urge to run away, because that would be so embarrassing and silly. But it’s difficult. I just know he’s judging me for the coffee stain, and all too late I realize it’s drawing attention to my boobs.