The Hotshot Chef: A Billionaire Holiday Romance (International Bad Boys Set Book 3) Read online

  The Hotshot Chef

  Book 3 - International Bad Boys

  JA Low

  JA Low Books

  Copyright © 2020 by JA Low

  All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. JA low is in no way affiliated with any brands, songs, musicians, or artists mentioned in this book.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Cover Design by Outlined with Love

  Editor by Swish Design & Editing

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  1. Quinn

  2. Quinn

  3. Sebastien

  4. Quinn

  5. Sebastien

  6. Quinn

  7. Sebastien

  8. Quinn

  9. Sebastien

  10. Quinn

  11. Sebastien

  12. Quinn

  13. Sebastien

  14. Quinn

  15. Sebastien

  16. Sebastien

  17. Quinn

  18. Quinn

  19. Sebastien

  20. Quinn

  21. Sebastien

  22. Quinn

  23. Sebastien

  24. Quinn

  25. Quinn

  26. Quinn

  27. Quinn

  28. Sebastien

  29. Quinn

  30. Sebastien

  31. Quinn

  32. Quinn

  33. Quinn

  34. Sebastien

  35. Quinn

  36. Sebastien

  37. Sebastien

  38. Quinn

  39. Quinn

  40. Sebastien

  41. Quinn

  42. Quinn

  43. Quinn

  44. Quinn

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  About the Author

  Interconnecting Series

  Also by JA Low

  Also by JA Low

  Also by JA Low

  Also by JA Low

  Also by JA Low

  Also by JA Low

  Also by JA Low

  Interconnecting series

  Also by JA Low

  1

  Quinn

  “I think we should take a time out,” Chad tells me as he gets into the car that’s waiting for us at the airport to drive us to a meeting we’re having with the network. We’ve just flown in from Texas to Los Angeles to talk about the new season of Farmhouse Reno, the television show Chad and I started.

  “Excuse me?”

  Did I hear him correctly?

  Did he just ask me for a time out?

  My stomach rolls at the thought.

  “I think we want different things in our lives. We’re on different paths.” He explains it as if he’s talking about the damn weather. “I think we have outgrown each other.”

  Outgrown each other? We’ve been dating for eight years. We’ve built up this sizable brand together around my interior design and his laboring skills. We have boutique vacation homes, a café, a farm, and we have a multi-million-dollar television show based around us—as a couple—a happy, loving couple.

  “I don’t understand?” Looking over at the only man I have ever loved, he is still as handsome as I remember after all these years. Now, though, he has some extra crinkles around his eyes, he’s a little more sun-kissed, his hair is blonder, and he works out a lot more than he used to.

  Chad turns and reaches out taking my hands in his. “I still love you, Quinn. But…” There’s a but? “… I think after all these years, we are on different paths. I want to take the show in one direction, and you want to keep it the same.”

  This time out is about the negotiation of our new season?

  “You want to take time out because I don’t agree over where you want to take the brand?” Feeling blindsided by this turn of events, I pull my hands away from his, his blue eyes crinkling at my gesture. The man who I thought I was madly in love with not five minutes earlier seems like a total stranger now.

  “It’s a business decision, Quinn. You, of all people, should understand this.” His tone is curt. What the hell?

  “Understand that we should break up because we can’t agree on how to do a fucking television show.”

  Chad’s eyes widen at my use of language. I rarely cuss because he doesn’t like it or think it’s very becoming of a lady. The whole Southern gentleman that I thought was sweet is now fucking annoying.

  “I wasn’t expecting you to be so emotional about this, Quinn,” he chastises me.

  “Emotional? Five minutes ago, I thought I was happily in a partnership, and now…” I look him up in down in disgust, “… it seems I was wrong.” Anger prickles my skin. My throat closes up as I try oh so hard not to shed any tears, but it’s becoming harder and harder to keep my emotions at bay. The first dreaded tear falls down my cheek.

  “Oh, come on, Quinn, you can’t tell me you are surprised by all this. We haven’t been in a great spot for years.”

  What? I thought we’d been great, busy, but great. I was happy. I never once thought about breaking up with him.

  “I am,” I tell him. “I had no idea you were so…” trying to piece together my thoughts, I continue, “… so, over this.” Waving my hand between us, the tears fall quickly down my cheeks.

  Hold it together, Quinn.

  “Sweetheart.” Chad’s face softens as he reaches out and wipes away my tears. “I’m sorry.” He sounds almost caring. “There hasn’t been a good time to tell you how I’ve been feeling.”

  But on the way to the network meeting is?

  “How long have you been feeling like this?” I sniffle back the tears.

  “Over a year now.”

  Wait, what? A year. He’s been over us as a couple for a year. He’s had ample time to tell me his feelings. I pull away and wrap my arms around myself in a protective measure.

  “But we had to finish the season.”

  “Is there someone else?” My stomach sinks. My heart aches at the thought that he’s met someone else. It has to be the only reason he’s doing this.

  His right eye twitches, which is a tell for when he’s about to lie.

  “No. Of course not.”

  Liar! I scream in my head as he tries to reassure me.

  “I would never do that to you, Quinn.” Liar... liar... liar. “We’ve been together since we were eighteen. Since high school. I think being together for that long, we have grown apart or are beginning to grow along different paths.”

  I would have said no, that isn’t us before stepping into this car, but now? I don’t know what the hell to think.

  “I’m sorry to spring this on you just before going into the network meeting, but I couldn’t hold it in a
ny longer.”

  Fucking chicken shit! That’s what he is.

  He’s always smiled that megawatt smile, fluttered his eyelashes, and popped those killer dimples whenever he needed to, and he’s always been able to get anyone to do anything for him, even forgive him. And the bastard is doing that right now to me.

  “Please, stop talking.” Holding my hand up, I need a moment of silence to collect myself. My mind is racing and swirling, and I feel out of control over everything.

  We sit in silence for the rest of the drive to the network.

  2

  Quinn

  That motherfucking asswipe.

  We were growing along different paths. Yeah, his being the money-hungry path. I never thought all the fame and fortune would ever go to Chad’s head, but I was clearly wrong again. Hollywood has indeed changed him. Changed us, it seems. He wants different things now, like his own show, Executive Producer rights, and branding deals of his own.

  It’s all about him, him, him.

  I walked into that meeting and was sucker-punched for the second time today. I was the last to know that we were separating because the network praised us for being all Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin with our conscious uncoupling and coming to this meeting to decide our show’s future.

  “Oh my God, Quinn. I’ve just heard.” Lettie lets me into her Hollywood Hills home. She wraps her arms around my body and pulls me tightly against her. I need a friendly face right now. “If I’d have known what was going down, I would have been there.” She hugs me again.

  “I don’t know what the hell just happened. I arrived in Los Angeles as one person, and now I’m going to be leaving as another.”

  I’ve known Lettie for years. She’s the entire reason Chad and I had our own show. She discovered us on YouTube. Lettie thought we would be perfect for her network and pitched us to the executives—that was almost five years ago. She was the producer for the first two seasons. We became tight growing up on the job, and now she’s Head of Lifestyle for the network.

  “Chad is a fucking douchebag.” Lettie walks over to her alcohol cabinet and pulls out a bottle of tequila and shakes it in front of me.

  “Hell, yeah, I need something. I feel like I’m awake in a nightmare that won’t quit, and I don’t know how to wake up to make it stop.”

  Lettie pours us both a large glass and hands me the crystal tumbler.

  “To new beginnings, Quinn.” She cheers, giving me a solemn smile, then takes a sip. “Now, tell me what the hell went down today in that board room meeting.” She ushers me into her sunken living room with its gorgeous views of Los Angeles’ twinkling city lights, a vast difference to our ranch in Texas where the only think twinkling is the stars above. I slump against the sofa and take a big sip of the tequila, feeling the comforting burn down my throat.

  So, I tell her the entire sordid tale.

  How Chad made a presentation about him taking over the Farmhouse Reno brand. How he pitched everything to the willing crowd, and I just sat there dumbfounded as I watched everything I had built to become something else, something I was no longer a part of with him.

  Chad talked about what he wanted, his dreams for the brand, and he spoke about multi-million-dollar brand endorsement deals. The executives had dollar signs in their eyes over what he was saying and promising to them.

  He had planned all this.

  He knew telling me in the car on the way to this meeting would stun me silent.

  That I’m a good girl who wouldn’t rock the boat and embarrass him.

  I’m utterly ashamed of myself as that’s precisely what I did. I nodded and smiled in all the right places, while internally, I wanted to murder him.

  In the end, I walked out of that meeting with nothing, and Chad got everything.

  “Oh, babe, I’m so sorry.” Lettie reaches out and takes my hand in hers. “What a fuckface.” As she takes another sip of her tequila, both of us now have rosy red cheeks. “I can’t believe he did this to you.”

  “My whole life has disappeared overnight… actually, not even overnight, my life blew up in one single day.” For some reason, I drunkenly chuckle at my misfortune.

  “Fuck him. How dare he just waltz in there and take everything you have built away from you. I can’t believe those fuckers sat there and let him railroad you into Chad’s master plan. I can cancel his contract if you want me to?” Lettie grins over her tumbler.

  “Aw… you’d do that for me?” With a smile, I hold my hand over my heart.

  “Damn right, I would. Fuck the patriarchy.” She raises her glass in the air as she shouts it out, making me laugh.

  “As much as I would love for you to cancel him.”

  Oh, how I wish I could see his face when he was delivered the news that his show has been canceled, that he did all of this for nothing, I can’t. I love my show even if it’s going to be nothing like it used to be. Plus, I highly doubt the network is going to want to lose their golden goose.

  “Let’s be serious… it wouldn’t happen.”

  Lettie gives me a sad smile as she wraps her arms around my shoulders. “Alas, this is true. The show makes the network loads of coin.” She lets out a long sigh. “You’re still under contract, you know.”

  Huh, am I? I assumed if I were kicked off my show, that would be it for me.

  “What do you mean?” I question.

  Lettie lets go of me and jumps up to stand in front of me, her chocolate-colored eyes glowing with excitement. “It means you have a chance to take Chad down with a show of your own.” Huh. What? “He thinks the show is a success because of him. Because of all the thirsty women who lust over his chiseled features and hot body.”

  The amount of over-the-top DM’s he’s gotten over the years is a little out of control. Of course, I see the sexual appeal. I mean we played into it on the show. Chad works in the sun without a shirt, there are even some scenes where he wets himself down with a hose. I thought that was borderline eye-roll worthy, but the viewers loved it.

  “And let’s be serious… most of the demographic who watches Lifestyle is female.”

  This is true. But I have an equal number of female followers on my Instagram regarding my designs, and I don’t need to resort to a bikini to increase my followers.

  “But … you, Quinn Miller…” Lettie looks me up and down. “You have this gorgeous apple pie, Daisy Duke wearing the wholesome country look going on, and men find that entirely fuckable.”

  Yeah, I think the tequila has gone to her head.

  “I’m not fuckable.”

  Lettie shakes her head and reaches for her cell, then she taps away and turns it around to me. She thrusts it into my face. The screen is a little blurry after my second glass of tequila. Lettie takes it away from me before I even get a chance to focus in on whatever is on display.

  “Let me read it to you.” She clears her throat. “Quinn Miller is the girl you take home to Mom.” Aw, that’s sweet. “Then blows you in your childhood bed. I’m down for that.” Um… what the hell? “I don’t know how Chad lets Quinn walk around in those cut-off shorts that mold to her perfect ass and not want to throat punch any of the contractors who look at her.” Lettie raises a brow.

  “Our contractors are lovely. They wouldn’t have done that.” Shaking my head, I try to get that horrid visual out of my head.

  Lettie continues, “Quinn Miller has the best rack on TV,” she reads out with a chuckle. “I think I would staple gun my hand to some wood if Quinn Miller walked past me in those denim cut-offs, and I don’t even think I would feel it or care.” This comment makes her laugh out loud.

  “Not sure what this is proving.” I’m now questioning the sanity of my friend.

  “It’s proving that you have a very happy male following.” Lettie waves her cell at me.

  “No. That just proves I have a heap of online creepers.” Taking a sip of tequila, I try and erase those words from my mind.

  “Creepers who watch your show probably
jerk off to you wearing your shorts.”

  Eww. That whole thought makes me want to gag.

  I throw a cushion at Lettie, who bursts out laughing as she catches it.

  “All I’m saying is Chad has competition. He just doesn’t realize it.” Lettie’s words percolate in my mind for a couple of moments. “You’re a star, too, Quinn,” Lettie tells me.

  “I don’t know if I want to be one anymore, though.” Looking up at her over the rim of my glass, I continue, “I never wanted all this,” I state, waving my hand around her gorgeous home. “Give me my farm. My horses. The stars. I’m happy.”

  “I know,” Lettie tells me. “But you are still under contract with the network. You have a year left, and they are going to want their pound of flesh from you,” she explains.

  “Really?” She nods wildly. “What the hell am I going to do?” Panic fills me because not only has my life imploded, but now I’m going to be forced to work on something I don’t want to because I signed a damn contract.

  “Don’t worry, you have me.” Lettie gives me a reassuring smile. “We have all night to come up with something, and I can assure you it’s going to blow Chad Bailey’s stupid show out of the water.”