It’s going to take a strategic attack from more than a couple brilliant minds to win her affection, but luckily, I know exactly where to find the right guys for the job…

The Billionaire Book Club, an all-new hilarious romantic comedy from New York Times bestselling author Max Monroe, is available now!

Cap Errands officially run and work and Hell-ary’s margs with the girls out of my fucking head, I settle into poker night with the guys. This, right here, is exactly what I needed. Just the guys, smoking cigars, and playing poker. Smoke swirls above the green felt of the table as Thatcher Kelly knocks the ashy end off his cigar, puts it back in his mouth, and deals a round of cards. I catch them under my hand as he throws them, placing them one by one into the palm of my other hand and studying what luck has dealt me. This hand gives me a queen, a king, and a trio of shitty other random cards, but in my actual life, it’s a whole lot of really good shit. I’m a happy guy with a job he loves, friends he can count on, and more money than I’ll ever know what to do with. I don’t have to worry about making the mortgage every month, I don’t have a sordid past with demons to conquer and wounds to heal, and I get more pussy than the SPCA. There are occasionally stressful situations that come with being the top corporate lawyer for nearly every muckety-muck in the country, but I thrive off the pressure. It feeds my need for adrenaline and puts a nice layer of padding on an already swollen ego. Which is, frankly, just how I like it. Confidence keeps my life balanced. If I weren’t confident in my abilities at work, I’d be spending this time poring over files instead of enjoying a game of poker with my rarely available, pussy-whipped friends. But I know myself, I know my tenacity, I know my willingness to work an all-nighter, and most importantly, I know a little free time for pleasure does the business part of my mind a whole lot of good. Kline Brooks, Thatcher Kelly, Wes Lancaster, Milo Ives, Trent Turner, and Harrison Hughes sit around the table in front of me, arranging their cards and smoking their cigars in comfortable silence. Quincy Black and Theo Cruz couldn’t make it tonight—something about a baby and a new hip nightclub respectively—but as I understand it, they have a standing invitation to poker night as well. When the last card is dealt, Thatcher Kelly, a numbers genius, friend, fellow billionaire, and client of mine, places his cigar in an ashtray and shoves back in his chair to make his massive frame look even bigger. Frankly, I’m the only one in this group of guys who even comes close to his size, but I’m still not a giant like him. At six foot three and just over two hundred pounds, I’m leaner, but I can still pretty much guarantee I’m the stronger of the two of us. “Welcome, motherfluffers…to the official Thatcher Kelly Poker Night, trademark.” I roll my eyes at his theatrics, and trust me, I’m not the only one. Thatch has been trying to get a poker night going for our group for months, and now that it’s finally happening, I’m not even a little surprised he’s treating it like the first night of the Olympics. “What happens here, stays here, locked away from the women, the men, the children in your lives. This is a sacred table, a sacred ritual, a sacred game, and you will respect it.” “Jesus,” Kline Brooks, another client of mine, CEO of the popular dating app TapNext, and Thatch’s best friend in the whole world, mutters. Thatch carries on, unaffected. “I know you have other things in your lives, and I’ll allow it, but from here forward, this biweekly game is to become your priority.” “No,” Wes Lancaster, owner of the New York Mavericks and another one of Thatch’s best friends, remarks. “I’ll be here when and if I have time. Fuck your sanctity. And, for the sake of everyone’s sanity, let’s keep your text reminders of poker night down to one in the future.” “You’re disrespectful and disappointing, Whitney. You should be happy I allowed you, a woman, to participate.” Thatch smirks. “This is supposed to be boys only.” Wes holds up his middle finger and takes a puff on his cigar, and I jump in as a colorful referee. “Relax, guys. I think what Thatch is trying to say is that he misses you guys. You’re all so busy with your pussy—” “Hey!” “Yo!” “What the fuck?” “I’d tread lightly…” The chorus of responses is loud and overwhelming, but I shush them with a hand and continue. “That we never really get to hang out anymore. This is a chance to bond like men. To talk about things you can’t talk about at home. To relax and play poker and not give a fuck about anything else.” “I’m pretty fucking relaxed at home,” Milo interjects, and unfortunately, the rest of the band of misfits nods in agreement. “Well, fuck you guys very much,” I say with a sour laugh. “Do it for me, then.” “Technically, they’re doing it for me,” Thatch corrects. “And I’d keep your voice down. If Cassie hears you say some of this shit, I’m not gonna hold her back for you.” “Your wife is here?” I question with a groan. “I thought this was about the guys. A sacred ritual locked away from the women and children in your lives—” “It is, it is,” Thatch interrupts with a sigh. “But Cassie wouldn’t let me come into the city to have poker night at our Manhattan apartment and leave her with the kids at the New Jersey house, so she got a sitter, and the girls are having a meeting in their space, all the way on the other side of the apartment. Don’t worry. This is the guys’ space. They know that.” Manhattan apartment. New Jersey house. Talk about first world problems. Thatcher Kelly has more houses and apartments than he has members of his family. Not that I can’t say the same for myself, but that’s minor details. I roll my eyes at his pathetic words. Cassie Kelly wouldn’t follow a directive given by her husband if it literally saved her life. She wears the pants in their relationship, and Thatch usually doesn’t deny it. Instead, he just presents her tits as evidence. They’re great tits, I’ll give him that, but I play with my fair share of great fucking tits, and I do it without having someone holding my balls hostage in exchange. “So, we should expect her to pop in within the next ten minutes, then,” I remark, and even Kline, the most adult of the entire group, snickers behind a hand. “She’s not gonna pop in, okay?” Thatch booms. “Fluffing hell. It’s like you don’t trust—” “Yoo-hoo!” his wife interrupts appropriately, peeking her head around the door of the smoky room. “You guys hungry, or are you too busy punching one another in the dick?” Thatch sighs and closes his eyes as I give him a hard glare. The rest of the group breaks out in smiles. Thatch places his cards on the table and turns to look over his shoulder so he can meet his wife’s startlingly blue eyes. “Honey, I thought we talked about this. Poker night needs separation from ladies’ night. Like church and fluffing state.” “Well, excuse me,” Cassie replies pseudoangrily, opening the door fully to step inside, “for fluffing checking on the status of your big, ogre stomach. From here on out, I’ll let you starve.” I bite my lip and lower my cards to the table before letting my head drop back as Thatch jumps up so they can bicker in closer proximity. “Christ, woman! Did you get your annual exam today, or are you just raging for no reason?” “Your exams are gonna be reduced down to annual if you don’t cool your fluffing jets.” “My jets are cool!” Thatch shouts, and the rest of us groan as Cassie lunges forward and punches him…right in the dick. Ah hell. As annoyed as I am at him, my crotch throbs sympathetically. Cassie storms off, and Thatch, hunched over in a ball of agony, turns back to the table. “I’ll be right back.” Still almost fetal, he waddles through the opening at a surprisingly brisk pace. As the door closes behind him, the other guys start to chatter. “The rest of our lives, guys. It will be this way for the rest of our lives,” Kline mutters, and Wes laughs. “Not if we cut him out of the friendship circle.” Kline smirks but simultaneously rolls his eyes. “Like that’s possible. Try to cut that fucker out, and he’ll end up shadowing you during your colonoscopy.” “I’m not scheduled for a colonoscopy,” Wes refutes with a laugh. Kline clucks. “Ah, but you will be. That’s how ridiculous his power is. You won’t even know how it happened until he’s snapping on latex gloves and suiting up.” Harrison Hughes, a longtime employee of my father’s media company HawCom and friend of ours, laughs. He’s a little older than I am, but I’ve known him long enough that it doesn’t feel like there was a time when we weren’t friends. He also played rugby with Wes, Kline, and Thatch for a while, and he still throws his old, dilapidated ass into a game in the park every now and then. But, as the only single guy left other than Theo and me, I’m fairly certain he does it all just so he has a way to impress the ladies. “Wait. He’s the doctor now? What the fuck?” Kline shrugs and chuckles. “Trust me. After this many years of friendship, I don’t put anything past that guy.” Wes nods begrudgingly. “He’s surprisingly adept at making just about anything possible. That’s how Lexi ended up interning for fucking Hugo Clouse. She’s a teenager, and he’s basically the Wolf of fucking Wall Street, without the cocaine and hookers.” I laugh. “Geez. Where’s the fun in that?” They all ignore me. “How’s she liking it?” Kline asks. “All those numbers?” Wes questions with a laugh. “She loves it. Pretty sure she’s going to be managing my hedge fund by the time she’s twenty.” Kline smiles. “Win’s feeling the blues, though. Says her baby is growing up too fast.” Milo smiles, even though I’m not sure he’s ever met Wes’s stepdaughter, and I don’t miss the pathetic fucking longing that goes with it. The bastard’s been a fucking goner since he got involved with his best friend Evan’s little sister. Now, he’s engaged to be married and apparently ready to add some mini-Milos into the mix. Wait a minute… “Oh God,” I groan at him, throwing my head back dramatically. “Don’t tell me Maybe is pregnant already.” “Is she?” Trent asks, his inflection going noticeably upward at the end. Because, unlike me, he’s excited. Love-sick fools. The whole lot of ’em. “No,” Milo says with a little smile. “I’m just thinking about the day she will be.” “Ugh,” I groan, miming sticking a finger down my throat. “First of all, you just got en-fucking-gaged, you bastard. And secondly, are we really talking about women and babies during poker night? And not, like, the good part of women, like how well their pretty mouths can wrap around our cocks. But how lovely they are?” Trent laughs. “Yeah, Cap. If you stopped sleeping your way through the entire city, you might find out why.” I scoff. “Fuck that. I’m not like you guys. I like a plethora of pussy, and I like it often. I’m not gonna tie myself to one chick for the sake of…what? Insanity?” Trent shakes his head, while Milo smiles behind his drink, the fucker. They’re absolutely convinced I’ll be just like them one day, twiddling my dick while some high-class chick shops with my money. But they don’t know me like they think they do. I like my life the way it is. Full of freedom and fucking and anything else I want to do. My time is my own, and my body, a free agent. I get to sample the best of the best, over and over if I want or just take a taste. I have my cake, and I eat it too, and fuck anyone who thinks just because it’s the way of the world, I need to change my ways. In fact, after today, there’s a new pussy on the horizon, new fun to be had. The pretty blonde with the hot body at the library who apparently likes to listen to audiobooks that are reminiscent of some of sixteen-year-old Cap’s favorite pornos. Goddamn, she was something. A petite little bombshell whose choice in listening pleasure has me more than intrigued. She didn’t give me her name, but it doesn’t matter. I am a man who thrives off a good challenge, and I already know my future romp with her will be a better time than any of these fuckers has ever had. And hell, who doesn’t love a good naughty librarian fantasy? Certainly not me. That pretty little librarian doesn’t know it yet, but she’s the new chase. My new mission. And I won’t stop until I’ve tasted her and fucked these guys and their monogamy right out of my damn head.