CHAPTER 1: JASON.

The morning sun was enough to blind his eyes from the mess he woke up to.

Jason Creed forced one eye open, immediately regretted it, and closed it once more. His head pounded like the bass beats from the previous night at the club.  His mouth tasted like whiskey, and a little citrus, probably some wine the girls had been drinking the past night.

He tried to remember how many they were he’d brought home from the club.

Four? Five? He'd lost count somewhere between the second bottle of Don Julio and the moment Tiffany, or was it Tanya? suggested they move from the pool to the bedroom.

“Hmm," he grunted, rolling over.

His hand landed on the warm skin of the curly brunette – probably Tania.

She was still asleep, "That's better…” he whispered.

He wasn’t ready yet for the usual promises to call that he'd never keep. That was the thing about women, they always wanted more.

And Jason had nothing left to give. Not to these girls, not since that night Monterrey, Mexico witnessed a heavy downpour, the same night his parents drove home and he'd been too busy with two strippers in a club to obey the instructions in his mother's call.

"Mijo, please come home. Your father wants to see you."

"Later, Mama. I'm busy."

But, there was never a later.

The door to his masters suite swung open.

Jason didn't need to look to know who stood before the not so decent scene.

He knew to whom the sound of those clicking heels belonged, and the flame about to be unleashed.

"Good morning, Abuela," He greeted his grandmother drowsily.

Helena Creed, ‘the Baroness,’ as the world respectfully called her, stood in his doorway like a general studying a battleground.

Her silver hair was pinned in a tight smooth bun perfectly. Her black dress, which cost more than most people's cars, highlighted the aura of power she carried wherever she went, and her eyes, the same dark brown as his father's, glanced across the entire room with an unmistakable disgust.

Four drunk, naked women laying across all sides of his bed like a scene from an erotic movie.  "Get up," she said.

Jason didn't move. "It's not what it looks like Wela." He said in the playful manner he’d normally addressed her when he was wrong as a kid.

"It's exactly what it looks like, Jason. Which is why I'm disappointed. But I can't say I am surprised."

He sat up slowly, the bedsheet gathering around his waist.

His grandmother had  walked in on worse. 

Once, three years ago, she'd found him with identical twins, both – p**n stars and somehow managed to look more disappointed than angry.

That was her gift. Making him feel like a child caught stealing cookies, even though he was thirty-four, a billionaire, and the most powerful CEO of the entire Creed business Empire.

"The list I approved…" she began.

"Bores me." Jason cut in.

"The women on that list come from reputable families who understand discretion and privacy. 

They understand that when you’re a Creed, one photo in the wrong hands costs millions of dollars, unnecessary board meetings with the PR executives and…"

"And It is high time I discarded that damn list!" Jason protested. His voice, slightly waking one of the women, who murmured something silly and adjusted herself back to sleep. 

“I don't want anything to do with them, Abuela. They're delusional… predictable, and all want the same thing."

"And what's that?"

"A damn ring. A family business relationship… You should know this, They all want a piece of Creed."

Helena's frown deepened. "And the women you bring home instead? The low-lifes? The dancers? The waywards??" She practically barked the last word. "What do they want?"

"One good night, and some money."

“It has gotten to a point where you draw the line, Mr!”

Jason stood, naked and unashamed. He'd learned long ago that shame required caring what people thought, and he'd stopped caring for a whole lot of things, the day they lowered his parents into the ground.

"If I embarrass you so badly," he said. "Then, better still! Take the company back…Give it to…"

"Don't!" She ordered. 

"Don't you dare say his name in this house."

His uncle whose name his grandmother would always hate. The man who should have been CEO. The man she had passed the leadership of Creed over because she claimed he was "mentally unstable," "overbearing" and "not fit to lead."

Jason had never asked for more details why she’d thought that. He didn't want them. He never connected with him anyway.

"Get dressed," Helena said. "We're having breakfast at Sheldon's…And Jason?"

He paused, about to step into his closet space.

"There's a new official guard starting tomorrow. I expect you to behave."

"A new guard? Eight is more than enough Wela...What the…." He stopped himself.

"This one is...different."

She left the room before he could ask what that meant. 

Jason stared at the door for a long moment, then turned back to the bed. The four women still passed out. One of them was drooling on his recently purchased five-thousand-dollar pillowcase.

He needed a drink.

He was reaching for the bourbon decanter in the mini bar of his suite when the bedroom door opened again.

“Morning Jason. The baroness said I could come up," a feminine voice spoke behind him. 

He looked back to find a familiar pretty face standing at the door, looking way different from the women in his bed but she dared not make her disappointment known.

She was dressed like she was about to step on the runway.

The number 1 on Grandmother's approved list, Jason realized. 

She had drafted a list of what she termed an approved list for his pleasure, and named each: Number 1, Number 2, and Number 3,  He'd slept with all of them before. 

They were alright, but never exciting enough. It always seemed they tried their best to maintain the clean, spotless image they possessed out there in the public…on his bed as well,  meanwhile the so-called ‘low-life’s’ got as freaky and exciting as he wanted.

"Champagne?" Number 1, or was it Number 2, now he’d taken a longer look at her, asked.

She smiled like a pure actress, and held up a bottle of champagne.

Jason looked at the drooling woman once more in his bed, looked at his new arrival, and thought for a moment, about the new bodyguard his grandmother had mentioned.

‘Different.’

He stressed about how. Helena was one to make the most dogged plans, that was one trait that had made the company the powerhouse it was today, and he knew this time she was up to no good.

He exhaled, clearly over it.

"Pour me a glass" 

---

The problem with being Jason Creed was that nothing easily fazed him anymore.

Women threw themselves at him wherever he went. Business rivals crumbled when they heard the name ‘Creed’ 

The world said yes to everything he wanted, and the few things he said no to, his lawyers made happen in a second.

So when his grandmother's agent, Kai, texted him a photo of the new bodyguard the next morning, Jason nearly choked on his coffee.

He stared at the image.

Short blonde hair, her muscular arms crossed over her chest.

Her face, not ugly, but not at all trying to be pretty either. This woman looked like she could lift him up a wall and suffocate the life out of him.

He corrected his thought of calling her a woman. She was rather a tomboy, not a woman to him.

"Her name is Jenna Smith," Kai's message read. "She starts at noon today. 

Try not to scare her off."

Jason laughed, for it was funny what Kai implied.

"Scare her?" he typed back. "I fear I may not pay that much attention."