Page 81 of Under Her Skin

A Billionaire’s Luck

An Alpha Billionaire Romance

Blake Chandler- 22 years old. Has won five lotteries the previous year as he traveled across the country to spread his parent’s ashes and purchased lottery tickets with money they left him and instructions to do. He won twenty billion, but after taxes he’s down to a mere ten billion and is looking for financialadvice.

Rachelle Stone- 20 years old, but turns 21 in the first book- In college at UCLA, in L.A. in the Culinary Arts Program. Her mother doesn’t know who her father is and has little to do with her. When she was three her mother placed her in a children’s home. (The same one Max Lane was in, he was fifteen at the time) Her grandparents live in Round Rock, Texas and that’s her only real family. She has abandonmentissues.

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Part 1 LuckyStars

Blake

Pinks and oranges fill the sky as the sun sets behind my parent’s home. The mailbox has become my enemy, but I check it anyway. The last letter from the IRS took millions from me. I close my eyes and hope there’s nothing else from them in the box shaped like a large mouthbass.

My father was a novice fisherman, but you wouldn’t know that by the amount of fishing paraphernalia he had accumulated in his lifetime. My mother was not a very good cook, but she had enough cookbooks to stock an aisle in Barnes andNobles.

They passed away last year, together, right in the house I still live in. I was away at college, thankfully, or I’d be where they are now. A gas leak in the house took them as they slept onenight.

I should sell the place and move, especially since I lucked out on the road trip they had me make. In their will they left me three thousand dollars, and I had to use every penny of that money to play the lotteries through every state I went through on my journey to spread theirashes.

Dad was spread in the Atlantic Ocean and Mom in the Pacific. The crazy thing is that I won seven of the lotteries and each jackpot was larger than the next. I ended that week abillionaire.

Thanks, Mom andDad!

Every timeI tell that story I have to thank them. Between them and God is the only way I got that money. I don’t think I’ve ever been thislucky.

Well, the luck is running out as the IRS is finding way after way to get themoney.

“Hey, what ya doin’ out here at the ol’ fish box?” my neighbor, Josh asks me as he strides out of his house nextdoor.

He moved here a couple of years ago and we hang out now and then, he’s a bit older than I am. I’m a kid to most at twenty-one, so I get left out of a lot of the block parties the older people have. Josh is a pretty good guy though and a greatneighbor.

“Just checking to see if there are any more letters from the evil government, trying to take my money,” I gripe as I close the fish’s mouth and am happy to see there are no letters from my archnemesis.

“About your money,” he says. “It’s none of my business and I love having you as a neighbor, but why the hell are you still here in the two-bedroom house you grew up in? Get a mansion like all the other billionaires,dude!”

With a shrug of my shoulders, I say, “It’s not the right time yet. I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t want to leave the old house behind just yet. I’ll get out of it someday, but not just yet. My parents’ things are all in it and I’d have to pack them up if I move. Frankly, I kind of act like they’re on vacation and will be home anytime. It makes me keep the house cleanedup.”

He chuckles and pats me on theback.

“You should come over and eat dinner with us tonight. The wife madespaghetti.”

“Thanks, but I have a frozen dinner cooking in the oven and I’d hate to let it go to waste. Maybe another night.” I stroll back up the walkway to the old home my parents bought when they had me. It’s looking a little worse for wear and I make a mental note to at least get new siding on it. I’m a freaking billionaire afterall.

“Hey,”Josh calls out, stopping my retreat. “Did you say the IRS took a lot of yourmoney?”

I nod and whine, “Yeah, I have no idea what to do aboutit.”

He jogs up tome.

“My brother-in-law happens to be a man in yourposition.”

“What position is that, a top player in Halo? Cause hook me up, I love a challenge,” I say as that can be all he means. I do little else since I won themoney.

“No,” he says with a laugh. “He’s rich too. Filthy, stinkin’ just like you. He lives in Houston. I could set up a meeting so he could help you figure out your finances and how to keep most of yourmoney.”

“Really!” My heart speeds up with the first good news I’ve heard in a while. “That would be awesome,dude!”