Looking For Trouble

Looking For Trouble Chicago Billionaires Alexis Winter Edited by Kimberly Stripling Copyright © 2022 by Alexis Winter - All rights reserved. In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved. Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher. Thank You! A wonderful thank you to my amazing readers for continuing to support my dream of bringing sexy, naughty, delicious little morsels of fun in the form of romance novels. A special thank you to my amazing editors Kimberly Stripling and Michele Davine without whom I would be COMPLETELY lost! Thank you to my fantastic cover designer Sarah Kil who always brings my visions to life in the most outstanding ways. And lastly, to my ARC team and beta readers, you are wonderful and I couldn’t do this without you. XoXo, Alexis “Most of the time, when I tell someone to do something, they obey me, Presley. Maybe you need a gentle reminder?” You know what they say about trouble…if you go looking for it, you’ll probably find it. But I wasn’t looking—at least that’s what I told myself when I met him. Wrapped in a bespoke suit and twenty years older than me—Cyrus Gates, the heartless billionaire of Chicago and my new professor. I should have known from that first meeting, when his lips curled into a devious grin, his dark eyes raking their way slowly over my body as my stomach flipped. I’m merely the innocent little prey to his insatiable predator. When I moved to Chicago for college, I promised myself I’d let loose, but here I am in my last semester of grad school and I’m still the same good girl. Inside, there’s still a woman who wants to explore the world on her own terms, dying to break free, dying to know what’s behind those dark eyes. With a reputation like his: cold, calculated and every bit the domineering powerhouse the world makes him out to be, Cyrus is the kind of man I should run from. The kind of man that gets off on conquering anything and anyone. But he comes to me with an offer I can’t refuse—a publicist job at the most prestigious public relations firm in Chicago tasked with cleaning up his image. The catch…he’s the client. No matter how much I try to stand up to him, no matter how much I try to fight my desire, he can see straight through me. Something inside me ignites, knowing a man this powerful wants me and has no shame expressing it. But this isn’t just an innocent game of cat and mouse—it’s a lesson you learn the hard way. He’s risking losing a multibillionaire dollar deal of a lifetime and I’m risking my entire future. Just when I think there’s a happily ever after in our sights, he pulls the rug out from under me and I’m left with a target on my back from his enemies. He warned me—he isn’t the kind of man you just walk away from unscathed, but I didn’t listen. Instead, I dove in head first with a heart of glass, falling for a man who doesn’t have a heart at all. Contents 1. Cyrus 2. Presley 3. Cyrus 4. Presley 5. Cyrus 6. Presley 7. Cyrus 8. Presley 9. Cyrus 10. Presley 11. Cyrus 12. Presley 13. Cyrus 14. Presley 15. Cyrus 16. Presley 17. Cyrus 18. Presley 19. Cyrus 20. Presley 21. Cyrus 22. Presley 23. Cyrus 24. Presley 25. Cyrus 26. Presley 27. Cyrus 28. Presley 29. Cyrus 30. Presley I never thought getting fired from my dream job would change my life. 31. Chapter 1 32. Chapter 2 You know that feeling—the one where you tell yourself it’s a terrible idea but you’re going to do it anyway? 33. Chapter 1 34. Chapter 2 Read the rest of The Chicago Billionaires Series About the Author Also by Alexis Winter Chapter 1 Cyrus “They’re backing out of the deal.” I drop the paper in my hand and look up at my CFO, Nelson, a panicked expression across his weathered face as he barges into my office. “What the fuck do you mean they’re backing out?” “Exactly what it sounds like.” He shuts my door and steps further into my office. “I told you, Cyrus. I told you your reputation would get the best of you someday and it has, goddammit!” His cheeks grow red with frustration as he narrows his gaze at me over his glasses, sweat beading at his temples. “That can’t happen, so either tell them it’s back on or get my lawyer Terry on the phone to find a legal loophole.” “There is no loophole this time, Cyrus. They made sure of it in their morality clause in the contract.” He wags his finger at me. I stare at him, his chest heaving. I reach for the intercom button on my phone. “Abigail, get Terry Wetzler on the phone for me, please, and let him know I want to see him standing in my office within the next twenty minutes or he can find a new big whale for his firm.” Nelson rolls his eyes at me, something that irks me in the moment, but I ignore it. “I don’t pay him two grand an hour to allow deals like this to slip through the cracks. We’ve been in talks with Meridian Telecom for over two years to secure this deal and I’ll be damned if they suddenly grew a set of balls and think I’m too immoral.” “It’s the shareholders and the board, Cyrus; you know that. Meridian doesn’t just own the largest newspaper and two of the largest television networks in the world; they own several family-friendly networks along with a massive children’s movie company. They