The Billionaire Playboy's Regret (Lark and Max)

Lark and Max entered the small office space in the hotel room and waited for Oona to arrive. "What was your dad telling you off for?" Lark asked him quietly.

"For breaking the bed. Housekeeping complained we broke the headboard in the room." "Max, you yanked the handcuffs through the wooden bar," she mocked him.

"I needed to touch." He whispered back, "you felt incredible."

"Shut up! My father is right outside the door."

"Yeah, well he's probably being told by my father it was you who handcuffed me to the bed."

Her face turned fuchsia at Max's words. "Wait, you told him what we were doing?"

"I told him you handcuffed me to the bed and were being naughty and I needed to get free any way possible, so I yanked my arms through the cheap ass bed he allowed his hotel manager to stock the rooms with."

"You told your father I handcuffed you to the bed?" she hissed out furiously. "You told him we were having s*x?"

"Nope!" Grady was starting to walk into the room and paused as he heard her whispered question, "this stops now or you're on your own dealing with this crazy lady."

"Sorry Dad," Lark looked up apologetically to her father.

"I am not a prude, and neither am I stupid enough to think you're some innocent waif saving herself for marriage, but I do not ever want to hear the particulars of what is happening in your bedroom. Am I clear?" he shifted his eyes between them.

"Yes sir," Max was struggling not to laugh as Lark groaned and buried her face in her hands. "I was only telling her why Dad was angry."

"I don't need to know why Olivier is angry."

"They broke the bed with Lark's handcuffs," Olivier walked in and smacked Grady on the shoulder as the man tried to leave the room. "If I had to know, so did you. Next time you decide to get freaky do it in a hotel I don't own, please?"

Heriberto poked his head in, "sounds like I'm coming in right at the correct timing."

"No." Grady shook his head. "This is the worst timing."

Heriberto read the room and laughed, "oh god, did you get noise complaints or something?"

"Broke a bed." Max held the man's gaze.

Heriberto winked at Lark, "I knew you'd be the wild one. It's always the innocent looking ones." "Enough!" Grady griped as he fell into a chair. "Are we set up for this?"

Heriberto laughed, "yes. Max, make sure you her to set her phone on this spot on the table." He taped a device under the table. "It will clone her phone. Once the device is cloned, I will get the video and any other evidence she has. Then the state police Santiago engaged will arrest her for extortion." "Max, you need to get her to confess she took this video without your consent."

"Because the texts weren't enough?" he questioned Lark.

"Because she didn't explicitly say in the texts you didn't know."

Heriberto looked at his phone, "she's here. I'm in the next room. Her phone needs to sit here, Max."

"I got it!" he snapped at the man and Heriberto slapped his shoulder.

"I know you're angry. I would be too. She is going to get hers. I know you want to tell her to piss off and release the video, but your mother has gone through enough," Olivier said quietly. "She's one scandal away from leaving us all and living the rest of her life on the island and not allowing any of us there with her. We arrest this woman, and we do everything by the book, for your mother."

"I'd rather release the video and make sure the audio is included. My performance was great, hers not so much."

"Max," Lark smacked him shaking her head at his arrogance.

"I'm just saying."

Heriberto and Olivier left the room to go into the next one where they were watching with Santiago and the agents were watching through a small camera in the corner of the room.

Oona was escorted into the room by the hotel reception staff and then her footsteps faltered when she saw Grady and Lark. "What is this?"

"My lawyers, Grady, and Lark Hoffman. Did you think I would meet with you without legal representation Oona?" Max didn't even bother to get up from his seat even though Grady did.

"Why is she here?" Oona lifted her chin. "She's a b***h and I don't want her here."

"You took a recording of us f*****g without my consent and she's the b***h?" Max scoffed. "Good one." "Better to ask forgiveness than permission, Max," Oona said sweetly.

"You admit then you took it without my permission?"

"Yes."

"Which means you set me up. We chatted for nearly six weeks and your goal the entire time was to extort me?"

"No. This was insurance Max." Oona flung into the seat Grady held out for her.

"I want to see the video," Max said bluntly. "All of it."

"I'm not letting you touch my phone. You'll probably try to erase it."

"Set it right here," Max tapped the table in front of him.

Lark almost laughed as the girl did it. This was almost too easy. The other woman hit play and both she and Grady cringed at the sound of the woman's screaming in the video.

"God turn it down. It's almost as fake as her nose."

"Miss Hoffman," Grady shot her a sideways glare and a quiet reprimand.

"Why is she here?" Oona asked again. "She's really your lawyer?"

"They are my legal team, yes," Max wasn't even looking at the video as it played, and Grady reached out and paused it.

"Miss Offerman," Grady spoke briskly, "what is it you're asking my client to hand over in exchange for all copies of this video?"

"My father entrusted me to ensure Max's support for his company. Max has been known to invest in tech companies and my father needs the backing after a rough fourth quarter last year."

"You're telling me your father told you to get into bed with Max, record you having s*x and then blackmail him in a bid to get the financial backing he needs?"

"No. My father actually told me not to get mixed up with Max. His words were to the effect Max was a billionaire many times over and I'm good enough to marry a millionaire if I'm lucky, but he was out of my league. My mother was my father's second wife, and he only married her because she was pregnant with me. He's never appreciated me for who I am. He thinks I'm not good enough. He was furious when Max and I went on a couple of dates because according to him, I don't have what it takes to keep a man like Max satisfied and I would screw everything up."

"He wasn't wrong." Max snorted at her. "The video speaks for itself. The s*x was lackluster. It was why I wasn't keen on repeating the experience. Then you showed up in my office to blow me and I knew you were up to no good. God it was so bad I was even texting my sister in the middle of it. I thought you were going to try to bug my office on behalf of your father. He must be quite proud of you."

"I told him we didn't work out when you stopped answering his calls. He cut me off, Max. You're going to give him the twenty-five million he needs for his company and you're going to give me the other twenty- five million."

"In exchange you will hand over all copies of the video."

"Yes."

"Who has it? Who has seen it? Has your boyfriend, the security guard your father hired for you seen it?" She blanched, "are you kidding? I don't want him to see it."

"You're bluffing on the release then." Lark lifted an eyebrow.

"No. I would play victim. I didn't know Max was taking the video."

"He didn't," Lark argued angrily. "You prepared your hotel room ahead of your date with Max. You set it up to record you having s*x. You violated him, Oona."

"Oh stop. A man like him. Do you know how many dates he goes on in a year? He's known for being a slut. When I was coming in here, the girls at the reception desk were giggling over the fact he f****d a girl so good last night he broke the bed into pieces. They said there is a hole in the wall and the bed frame and headboard is broken. I bet it's not the first time he's been recorded. I bet he even sets up videos for his conquests."

Grady gave a furious glare at both of them as Max snickered and Lark rubbed her forehead and avoided her father's gaze. "I have never, not even once, condoned or agreed to a video which depicted me having s*x, Oona. It's disgusting." "Well, too late now. I want the money Max. So, get your lawyers, even the bitchy one, to draft up an agreement. I'll give you the sim cards from the two cameras I set up in the room and we'll be done."

"I want all the copies."

"Ugh, fine, Max. I won't need them anyway. If you reach out to my Dad, I want him to think you agreed to help him out of the goodness of your heart. He doesn't need to know."

"Fine. Send me the money to this bank account," she dug into her bag and slid a folded piece of paper across the desk. Max picked up the paper and looked to Grady and Lark. "Deal. I want the sim cards before you leave here."

"I have them right here. I'm leaving here to go to Europe. I know you're a man of your word Max but I'm going to sit here and wait for you to transfer the money to me and my dad."

"It was too easy." Max whispered to himself as the movement on the other side of the wall made them look up.

"I told you she was stupid." Lark made a face as Grady sighed.

The door burst open, and the two officers entered the room.

"Oona Offerman, you're under arrest for invasive video recording and first-degree extortion."

Her handbag was grabbed from her, and the phone was taken, and she began screaming angrily as the agents cuffed her and began dragging her out.

"You tried to blackmail the wrong person, Oona." Max laughed in her face. "I don't care if the video gets released but I do care about my money. I'd rather see the video all over the internet than pay you a penny. Out of deference to my parents, I opted not to let them see my d**k plastered all over the world wide web.

"You are a lying prick!" Oona kicked and screamed as she hauled away.

"Wait for it," Max snickered as Ollie's favorite paparazzi started taking photographs. "Now let's see who gets internet famous for the wrong reasons." Grady pulled him into the other room where his father and the Laredo brothers waited.

Lark waved to Ollie and Gracie sitting in the lounge where they waited for them to come out and she snorted and made her way to them. She ignored the photographer who took a few photos of the girls too as they headed into the lounge.

She hopped up onto a stool between the two women and groaned, "I know it's only noon but surely it's five o'clock somewhere."

"I'll buy the drinks if you tell me why the entire hotel is talking about you and Max breaking a bed and why your father is looking grey," Ollie snickered as she nudged her.

As the two women began their cajoling, Lark wondered if a woman could have too many sisters.