King's Passion Read online

  KING’S PASSION

  KING’S PASSION

  ESSENCE BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  ADRIANNE BYRD

  To Alice: Forever my inspiration

  ACKNOWLEDGMENT

  To my family and friends, thanks for all the support

  and love that you’ve given me.

  To my editor, Evette Porter, for helping me through one crazy year. To my wonderful fans and readers, thank you for allowing me to do what I do. It’s always a pleasure to entertain you.

  I wish you all the best of love.

  The House of Kings series

  Many of you have followed the Unforgettable series, which morphed into the Hinton Brothers series. Now I’m introducing you to the Hintons’ playboy bachelor cousins—the Kings.

  Eamon, Xavier and Jeremy along with their infamous cousin Quentin Hinton are business partners in a gentlemen’s club franchise called The Doll House. One of their most popular and lucrative specialties is their bachelor party services. And with clubs in Atlanta, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, the brothers are determined to make sure their clients’ last night of bachelorhood is one that they’ll never forget.

  In King’s Passion, Eamon, the eldest brother, books a high-end client, Marcus Henderson, for an over-the-top, bachelor-party extravaganza. According to the best man, there’s to be no expense spared for this wild night. Even Eamon gets caught up in the excitement. But things take a detour when the groom-to-be gets so plastered that he ends up marrying one of the hired strippers. When the dust clears and the alcohol wears off, Eamon has another headache to contend with—the angry ex-bride-to-be, Victoria Gregory.

  Next month, look for the second title in the House of Kings series, King’s Promise, featuring Eamon’s brother Xavier King. And in August, read the final book in the trilogy, King’s Pleasure, featuring Jeremy King.

  Remember, in love, never bet against a King.…

  Adrianne

  Contents

  Prologue

  The Reluctant King

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Who’s Afraid of Victoria Gregory?

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Omission vs. Truth

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Then There Were Three

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Quentin Dewayne Hinton was at a crossroads. Actually, he’d been there for quite some time. The hard part had been admitting it. Once upon a time, his father had told him that “pride was the bane of all men.” If anyone knew that, it would be his father. Roger Hinton was a proud man who ran his family like a corporation. His God was the Dow Jones, and his heart and soul belonged to the numbers in his bank account.

  Chuckling at his analogy, Q climbed out of his black Mercedes and gave the parking deck a casual glance from behind his Oliver Peoples sunglasses. He slid his hand into the pants pocket of his gray, tailored Italian suit while he opened the glass door to the high-rise building with his other hand. Though he was nervous about this meeting, one would never know it by his confident stride through the Peachtree Tower. Inside the massive, ornate lobby, Quentin kept his focus straight ahead toward the brass elevator doors.

  As luck would have it, a very tall and very beautiful woman stepped into the compartment behind him as he pushed the button for the thirty-third floor. As usual, he started his inspection from the feet up. Pretty toes, nice ankles, firm calves. So far, everything had his imaginary dog tail wagging. Amazing legs, slim waist—by the time he made it to the woman’s long neck, he was turning toward her ready to spit his best pick-up line.

  But then the image of Alyssa Hinton’s face smiled.

  Quentin jumped back.

  “You know it never would have worked between us,” she said.

  “What?” He blinked and then snatched off his shades.

  “Are you okay?” the beautiful woman who was not Alyssa asked, frowning at him.

  Quentin quickly glanced around the small compartment and saw that they were the only two people in the elevator.

  “Sir?” The woman’s brows dipped in concern and suspicion. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

  “I…uh.” He straightened his shoulders and cleared his throat. “I guess I was awed by your beauty.”

  The woman’s expression clearly reflected that she wasn’t buying his answer and she inched closer to the corner of the elevator car.

  Q didn’t blame her. He rubbed his eyes and slid his sunglasses back on just as the elevator arrived on his floor. He tossed the woman another quick smile but then rushed out of the small compartment.

  Pull yourself together, man.

  He squared his shoulders again and marched toward suite thirty-three hundred. Once in the quiet office, he felt another wave of relief to see the lobby was empty.

  “May I help you?” the receptionist asked from behind the counter.

  Q approached the girl-next-door ebony cutie with a smile. “Yes. I’m here to see Dr. Turner.”

  “Name?”

  “Quentin Hinton.”

  The woman looked down and ran her finger over a column of names in her appointment book. “Ah. Here you are. If you can just sign in for me here.” She handed over a clipboard.

  Quentin took it and the pen and scrawled his name. When he looked up to hand the clipboard back to the receptionist, Alyssa smiled.

  “The doctor will be with you in a second.”

  Q blinked and then snatched his shades off again.

  The receptionist frowned. “Are you all right?”

  You mean other than my seeing things? “Yes. I’m fine. Thanks.” He quickly turned toward the waiting area and commanded himself to pull it together. He sat down and slipped his sunglasses in the inside breast pocket of his coat jacket. A second later an office door to his right opened.

  A tall, older dark-skinned brother in an Armani suit crossed the threshold while still shaking hands with an attractive, red-bone sister who was needlessly hiding her curves in a black, shapeless skirt-suit.

  “Thank you, doctor,” Mr. Armani said, cheesing at her as he released her hand.

  “I’ll see you next week,” Dr. Turner replied, smiling before turning her soft brown eyes toward Quentin.

  “Mr. Hinton?”

  “Yes.” He stood up, feeling his nerves twist.

  “Hello. I’m Dr. Julianne Turner. Won’t you come in and have a seat?”

  Q forced a smile and strolled into the office. He hesitated for a second before he took his seat in the chair in the psychiatrist’s office. He shifted a bit, trying to make himself comfortable, but that wasn’t possible on the first visit.

  “You look uneasy,” the doctor said, removing her golden pen from her breast-pocket.

  “Nah. Nah,” Quentin said, shifting some more. “I’m good.”

  “Uh-huh.” Dr. Turner clicked the back of the pen and started writing.

  Q frowned. What the hell had he done to warrant her writing something down already? He leaned forward to read her handwriting on the yellow tablet, but before he could make out the words, the doctor looked up with a knowing smile.

  “So what brings you here today…do you mind if I ca
ll you Quentin?” she asked.

  “No. Please do.” This should’ve been the one question that Quentin was prepared for. But instead his brain zoned out, leaving him staring at the doctor as if he was waiting for an answer.

  “Please don’t tell her that you think you’re still in love with me,” Alyssa said from across the room. She was wearing those wonderful tight blue jeans and the white top that she’d worn the day they had gone horseback riding together and the first time he’d kissed her under an oak tree.

  “Mr. Hinton?” Dr. Turner interrupted.

  He paused for a couple more seconds and then said, “Love.”

  Dr. Turner’s brows arched upward at the answer.

  Across the room, Alyssa groaned.

  “Are you in love, Quentin?”

  Q’s head turned toward Alyssa, but she was gone. “I thought I was.”

  “But you’re not sure?”

  Silence.

  “Quentin?” she pressed.

  He faced her again. “Let’s just say that I don’t understand love. How it magically appears, puts you in a spell and then poof! After that, you question whether it was ever there at all.” Sensing that he wasn’t making any sense, Q cleared his throat. “Maybe I should lie down.”

  “If you like,” Dr. Turner said as she scribbled away on her notepad.

  Q assumed the position on the doctor’s leather chaise and leaned back on the arm. “You know, my brothers have been telling me for years that I needed to see a shrink.”

  “Are you here at their urging?”

  “No.”

  “So you wanted to come?”

  Pause. “More like I needed to come.”

  Scribbling. “And why is that?”

  Quentin lowered his gaze from the ceiling to stare at the floor-to-ceiling glass window to see an image of Alyssa in her white wedding gown, checking out her reflection. “I’m afraid that I missed my one chance.”

  “At love?” Dr. Turner asked.

  Alyssa spun around and shook her head at Quentin. “You don’t love me.”

  “Quentin?”

  “Yes,” he said simply. “The woman I thought was for me married my brother two years ago. I went to the wedding, stood in line with the other groomsmen and watched Sterling marry the woman of my dreams—then I left and haven’t seen them since.”

  “So you’re estranged from your brother?”

  “With Sterling—yes.” Q shrugged. “I still talk to my other brother Jonas from time to time. But it’s not the same. He’s happily married with children and…everything has changed. Everyone has changed. Everyone is falling in love,” Q chuckled. “Who knows, maybe something is wrong with me.”

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?” she asked.

  Alyssa shook her head at him.

  “I don’t know what I believe. Once I lost Alyssa, I swore off love and renewed my vow to be a bachelor for life. And why not? There are more than enough women out there who’d love the pleasure of my company. You know what I mean?” He turned his head and caught a glimpse of the doctor’s long legs. Nice.

  Dr. Turner cleared her throat.

  “Sorry.” Quentin smiled and turned back around.

  Alyssa rolled her eyes.

  “Anyway,” Q said, “like I was saying, bachelorhood is for me. So I figured that birds of feather flock together, right?”

  Scribbling. “You tell me.”

  This is like talking to myself.

  “It beats talking to a woman that’s not really here,” Alyssa said, twirling around in her dress.

  Quentin rolled his eyes but had to concede her point. “Well, I considered my business partners and cousins Xavier, Jeremy and Eamon a part of my flock. Well, maybe not Eamon so much—but definitely Xavier and Jeremy. They all loved women as much as I did. None of them wanted to settle down with just one, which actually made them the perfect partners in The Dollhouse.”

  “What’s The Dollhouse?”

  “Only the hottest gentlemen’s clubs in the country, of course I’m a little biased.” A smile eased across Quentin’s face as his chest expanded with pride. “We’re in Atlanta, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. But the big moneymaker is our side business called Bachelor Adventures—where we host the wildest bachelor parties ever. The women have their day, the men have their night. You know what I mean?”

  Scribbling. “So you and your cousins provide a service for men to enjoy their last night of bachelorhood?”

  “That was the plan.”

  “Until?”

  Q drew a deep breath. “Until love showed up. What else? Then they started to fall one by one. Take Eamon for example…”

  The Reluctant King

  Chapter 1

  “Welcome to The Dollhouse, Las Vegas,” Eamon King shouted above the crowd, raising his glass to toast the raucous bachelor party as fifty or so guys entered the V.I.P. section of his exclusive Vegas nightclub. Most of them whooped and hollered, and fist-pumped over the loud, pulsing music—a clear sign that they were married men who’d planned to go buck wild on this rare night away from their wives. A few of their eyes were already bulging at the sexy-looking women who worked at The Dollhouse.

  “Now, which one of you is Marcus Henderson?” Eamon asked, his gaze combing the crowd.

  “Right here,” they shouted and then pushed a six-foot, pencil-thin nerdy-looking brother in black-rimmed glasses.

  Eamon ignored his private thoughts about the guy looking like a stereotypical paper pusher and hooked one of his muscled arms around the man’s neck. “All right, Mr. Henderson,” he boasted. “As one of the owners of this establishment, I want to personally guarantee you that tonight will definitely be a night that you will never forget!”

  “Whooo-hoooo!” Henderson’s party shouted.

  “Last night of freedom,” Marcus joked shyly.

  “Plenty of time for you to change your mind,” someone shouted from the crowd.

  Although there was a smile on Marcus’s face, Eamon detected a note of uncertainty in his voice. He gave Henderson another casual glance and thought to himself that if this man had found a woman—any woman—to say yes, then maybe he’d better get on his knees, say his prayers and seal the deal as fast as he could.

  “Ladies! Please come on up here,” Eamon shouted.

  On cue, Shawn, Brittani and Cassie strolled into the V.I.P. room smiling from ear-to-ear in their metallic gold Daisy Dukes and matching bikini tops. In their hands each one carried a golden ice bucket with a bottle of Cristal.

  All the men’s eyes grew even wider and their mouths sagged to the floor.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” the beauties greeted in sync.

  “Oh sweet baby Jesus,” Marc mumbled.

  Eamon reached over and nudged Marc’s chin so that he’d close his mouth before he started to drool. “Now gentlemen, these three ladies will be your hostesses for the evening. If there is anything that you need, your hostess will take care of you. But first…” Eamon walked to the back of the V.I.P. room and stepped onto the stage and grabbed the microphone lying on the lone chair next to a stripper pole. “I need the man of the evening to come on up here.”

  The men clapped and shoved Marc forward.

  It was clear that he wasn’t used to the spotlight as he seemed to tuck his head down and had trouble making eye contact as he made his way up to the stage.

  Amused, Eamon shook his head and then swung his arm around Marc’s shoulder and directed him to face forward. “Now. We at The Dollhouse have something special for you, my man.”

  One side of Marc’s lips curled upward as he asked in a quivering voice, “Really?”

  “Ooooh yes. I have a special girl in mind for you. “He tossed him a wink and then signaled to the DJ. The music quickly transitioned into Li’l Wayne’s “Lollipop.” To the crowd Eamon said, “Gentlemen, won’t you welcome to the stage DELICIOUS!”

  A gold-and-silver disco ball descended from the ceiling. The men gave enthusiastic barks and
shouts as The Dollhouse’s number-one moneymaker, Delicious, stepped onto the stage, working her hips like a figure eight and rolling her chest so that the small tassels on the ends of her gold pasties spun like mini-helicopters.

  The crowd went wild while Marc stood like a deer in headlights and Eamon exited the stage and handed off the mic to one of the hostesses. Delicious knew how to work a crowd and within seconds, she had them all eating out of the palm of her hand.

  As Eamon worked his way to the back of the V.I.P. room, he spotted his brothers, Xavier and Jeremy, with their arms folded and leaning against the back wall. The three of them were similar in build and coloring: tall, milk-chocolate brown with solid, sculpted muscles. Of the three, Eamon sported a pencil-thin goatee, a slightly squarer jaw, with eyes that were slanted like Tyson Beckford’s. While Eamon and Xavier stood at an even six-four, Jeremy, the pip-squeak, came in at six-three and three quarters. It was hardly noticed by others, but it made for endless teasing by his older brothers.

  They were all pretty laid-back. They were very close having grown up in a family that didn’t have a lot of money, but plenty of love. Their parents had taught them the value of hard work and didn’t accept any excuses. The three put themselves through college and then went into business together. They weren’t as rich as their cousins, the Hintons, but they each had a couple of million in the bank.

  “What are you guys doing here?” Eamon asked, suspiciously.

  “Damn. What? No hug or ‘how in the hell are you’?” Xavier shouted above the music, smiling.

  Eamon lifted a brow. His brother was showing a little too much teeth with that smile. “I’ll hook you up at the next family reunion.” His gaze then shifted to Jeremy who was acting like he’d never seen Delicious perform before. Playing along, Eamon folded his arms and turned back toward the stage.