Undoing the Playboy: A Small Town Off Limits Enemies to Lovers Romance

I went from having it all — money, power, women — to losing everything.

But none of that matters.

The only thing I can’t live without now is her.

Two days after a social media scandal, my billionaire father cut the cord and sent me packing.

I was dropped smack dab in the middle of Nowheresville, miles from my new hideout at our company vineyard.

Landing myself on the hood of Mia Manning’s car managed to crush the remainder of my pride.

Besides clearly trying to kill me, this woman was full of fire, with a side of contempt for my privileged ways.

I had to have her.

One night of mind-blowing passion was all it took to feel her burning under my skin, consuming every part of me.

The problem? She’s my new “boss”, and has no idea I’m the heir to the company.

And Mia only plays by the rules. No fraternizing.

We try to pretend that night never happened, but the tension between us is set to explode.

Because after feeling her body wrapped around mine, all I want is her.

I will do whatever it takes to claim her – mind, body & soul...




⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "This is such a good story. Two polar opposites meet and fall in love - add a bit of tension and a mystery, and the book has it all. I read it in one day - the characters are believable and the story flows beautifully. I can't recommend this book highly enough!" La F., Amazon Reviewer



Continue reading Undoing the Playboy if you like:

❤️ Billionaires with Heart
❤️ Witty Banter
❤️ Enemies to Lovers

"Is it syphilis? Gonorrhea? Click on the link to find the exclusive news."

“Don’t tell me I need TMZ to find out my brother has an STD,” my sister Amy said, waving her phone at me.

I shot up from my chair to grab the phone from Amy’s outstretched hand, ignoring her protests as I scrolled through the page.

My heart sank when I saw the picture. I knew the exact moment it had been taken. It was last month, when Ella and I were out at the Plaza for a romantic and intimate date night.

Only it wasn’t actually intimate at all.

As we exited the hotel, we found ourselves instantly swarmed by local paparazzi. The only thing I really remembered from that night were a blur of flashing lights and yelling reporters, rather than time with my girlfriend.
Not that this was unusual in my dating life; I knew I had gained a reputation over the years, and had been photographed before with countless other women. But this evening had felt very much staged.

And it was also my tipping point.

I clicked on the link below the photo, despite myself. Of course, it pulled me down through the rabbit hole and into yet another clickbait article related to me, though not as recent. This time it was a shot of me on skis in Aspen, back when Ella and I had first started dating almost a year ago.
Instead of being relieved over a seemingly harmless photo, it just set me more on edge.

I turned away from the phone, looking over at Amy. “Does Dad know yet?”

“If he doesn’t yet, he will; I’m sure at least five news channels will be lining up for comments.” She smiled wryly, reaching out to snatch her phone back.

As if on cue, my phone dinged next to me with multiple text notifications from my father, in rapid succession.

Dad: You and Ella broke up?
Dad: Wait, You have herpes???!!
Well, there was one more STD to add to my cap.
Me: Yes.
Dad: We need to get you tested. Tell Ross; he’ll drive you right down to our private clinic.
Me: No, I meant I broke up with Ella. The second part is not true.

This was already turning out to be the worst day I’d had in a long time, and it wasn’t even nine yet.

I wasn’t surprised to already be on the receiving end of my father’s barrage of texts this morning. Despite the fact that my life was rapidly spiraling, Dad always insisted on texting, no matter the circumstance. And he was not one for getting caught up in emotions.

When Amy’s cat died, he sent her a quick condolence text—along with fifty grand, deposited into her bank account. Neat and tidy transactions, that was my father.

Unfortunately, I had not inherited his talent for discipline and brevity. I preferred it that way—the more I avoided turning into my father, the better.

This time, however, I felt like that might be the lesser of the two evils.

I raked a hand through my hair in frustration. “Jesus, this is a nightmare.”

“No, Ella was the nightmare,” Amy reminded me.

I glared at her. “I know you never liked her, but now isn’t the time for ‘I told you so’. This is a fucking PR disaster.”

No, correction, it was a catastrophe. We were just about to launch our newest wine, Fuller Spirit Pinot Gris, to the market in just over a month. Which was the main reason Ella and I were being followed in the news so much.
A few days back, we had hosted a joint tasting, including an exclusive group of Ella’s influencer friends and a handful of industry insiders. Everybody agreed that the wine was incredible, and that Ella and I made an adorable couple.
Not so ‘adorable’ now.

I looked at my phone. Dad had gone silent, which always made me uneasy. I braced myself for what I knew was just the calm before the storm.

“Twitter isn’t a fan of you right now,” Amy remarked, scrolling through her phone. “Oh well, any publicity, good or bad, works in favor of the product. So, maybe this all isn’t so bad.”

I knew my sister wasn’t trying to show me the positive side. From the slight smirk on her face, it was clear how much fun she was having.

“Stop that,” I grumbled.

“What?” she said, pretending not to know what I was talking about. “Dad asked you to brainstorm ideas for the new campaign. Well, there you have it. And hey, it didn’t even cost us a dime.”

“Not when people think I’m teeming with multiple STDs,” I sighed, slumping lower in my chair. “This is costing me plenty. Where did they even get that news?”

“It looks like Ella went into a clinic yesterday. A source inside said she was there to get tested.” Amy glanced over at me. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“Why would I?” I lied. “We broke up two weeks ago.”

“And you’ve had no contact with her since then?”

“More or less,” I shrugged. I omitted the part where Ella had been blowing up my phone with texts and calls. Well, until last night. The fact that the STD story had just been leaked was both inconvenient and highly suspicious.
Did you see the STD story? I texted her. Ella didn’t reply. I knew she was pissed, clearly ready to take digs at me while releasing multiple dirty stories to gain sympathy and followers.

There was a knock at the door of my penthouse apartment. I had been renting in the trendy Belltown neighborhood of Seattle for years. Ella had been more or less a permanent guest until I had asked her to move out two weeks ago, along with all of her baggage. As I expected, she wasn’t happy about it—and we argued for a good hour until she left in a huff.

I should have known better than to think she’d walk away from all of this quietly.

I walked up to the door with a sigh, wrenching it open. On the other side stood my father, Ethan Fuller.

My father was a legend and a veritable force in the business world. He had struck gold back in the seventies when he built the vineyard town of Wishing from scratch, more than doubling profits in his first year. He had just received a small inheritance from his grandfather, which he turned around to invest entirely in the struggling vineyard.
While people had mocked his decision then, he used it as fuel, working his ass off to create literal magic. From that first vineyard he grew a small empire, expanding to include twelve additional properties across Northern California and the Pacific Northwest.

But the man facing me now was not thinking about anything resembling magic. His face burned red, white hair sticking to his scalp in disarray.

“We need to fix this,” he announced, barging past me into the apartment. His PR secretary, giving me a disapproving look, kept pace right behind him.

“It’s great to see you, too,” I said, shutting the door.

He ignored my comment. “That woman is on a mission,” he said, thrusting his phone at me. “She reposted the TMZ article to her story.”

“And…?”

“She added a clown emoji to it, practically confirming the rumor,” Amy piped in.

“Exactly.” Dad frowned. “My partners have been calling me all morning, asking for an explanation. What am I supposed to tell them?”

“Listen, I don’t know what Ella’s playing at,” I replied, raking my fingers through my hair for the eightieth time that morning. “But I wasn’t going to keep dating her for the sake of the company.”

“Well, you better figure out how to make peace with her real soon, because she has over two million followers on social media. And she has been doing extensive campaigning for most of our new catalog for the past few months,” Dad sighed, taking a seat. “The last thing we need is her shit-talking about us before the big Fuller Spirit launch.”

“I think she has better sense than that.” Honestly, I didn’t know if that was entirely true. She could be pretty vengeful when she wanted to be.

“What should our plan of action be, Alan?” Dad asked, turning to his secretary.

“We need to issue an official statement ASAP, before she or her team does” Alan replied, consulting his iPad. “We will clarify that Lucas and Ella separated on mutual terms, and that there’s no ill will between them.”

Technically, that wasn’t true at all. The breakup was far from amicable.

“That’s correct… right, Lucas?” Dad turned back to me. The look on his face made it clear that any other answer was unacceptable.

“Um, yeah.”

Alan looked at me skeptically. “Alright. I’m going to have the team get going on this imme-“

“…um, I think it’s too late for that,” Amy interrupted, holding her phone up again.

Dad scrunched his nose as he moved closer to the screen. “What am I looking at?”

Amy’s gaze flickered towards me, the look on her face instantly causing my stomach to sink.

Well, shit.

***

I had no idea who Olivia Rodrigo was until Ella’s TikTok featured her smashing over twenty bottles of our soon-to-be-launched Fuller Spirit on screen, while the song Good4U played in the background.

“How many times have you watched that?” Amy chastised me as she adjusted her mirror. She had offered to drive me to the airport, even though it was a last-minute plan.

My father had officially banished me from Seattle for the foreseeable future. He thought sending me off to the middle of nowhere would give me ‘fresh perspective and do me some good’. In reality, he was chasing me out of the city (which also happened to be Fuller Wines company headquarters) so that he could put out the fire I had started.

I didn’t respond to my sister. I had developed an obsession with the video, which was currently at five million likes and climbing. I couldn’t recall the number of times I had watched it already—maybe dozens? And the video looked like it was shot professionally, as if Ella had taken her sweet time building the stage that would destroy me for good. The comments were hell-fire, most wishing that I had just died from the multiple STDs I had allegedly contracted.

A small group of women, however, seemed to be defending me in the comments. And for some strange reason, they were also sending me private screenshots of them doing just that—along with their phone numbers. I sighed.

“You need to stop watching that,” Amy said, snatching the phone away from me while keeping her other hand on the steering wheel. “I told you—no good ever comes from dating influencers…”

“I know, I know…” I shielded my hand over my eyes to block out everything, including my current reality.

“…not only that, she pretty much confirmed that you cheated on her, and that’s why she broke up with you,” Amy continued.

“Yeah… well, that’s not how it happened,” I muttered under my breath.

“How did it happen, exactly?” She glanced at me. “You’ve been tight-lipped about this entire situation.”
I took the phone back from her. “Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it? I’m being kicked out of my own home.”

“Yeah, and you’re headed for one of our most profit-making vineyards. Remember how much we loved it out there when we were kids? Not exactly a bad deal, bro. So stop whining like he’s sending you to freaking Alcatraz.”

“It may as well be. Because it’s not Seattle.” I loved the city. It’s where I grew up and started learning the ropes from my father. My sister had no interest in the family business. After a certain point, even Dad had stopped trying. “Plus, I’m flying economy.”

“Poor little rich boy. There’s always a first time for everything,” she reassured me, pulling up to the airport gate. “Here you go.”

I turned to face my sister. “I’m going to miss you, Ames.”
“Yes, you will,” she joked, but then leaned in to hug me. “I love you, Lucas. I think this will be a really good thing for you.”

“Easy for you to say.” I yanked my luggage from the trunk, then let out a deep exhale. “But how the hell is taking a job at the vineyard with no prior job experience a good thing? They’re obviously going to hate me.”

It was partly Dad’s idea. He wanted to ensure my identity remained under wraps until the scandal died down. And there was no way anybody would recognize me in Wishing—I hadn’t been there in over ten years. The town itself was neatly tucked away in the Willamette Valley, Oregon with a population of less than twenty thousand.

It may as well be Alcatraz.

“You’re a quick learner. I’m sure you’ll catch up soon.” Amy grinned. “Besides you know all about our wines already, right?”

“Right,” I said.

“See? You’ll be fine,” she said, waving as she walked back towards her open car door. “And hey, write to me! Since, you know, there won’t be a reasonable network connection to call or text.”

“I’ll get right on that.” I turned to give her a scowl before she disappeared into her vehicle, then slowly pulled away from the curb with two quick honks of the car horn, flashing me a quick peace sign as she drove off.

I was officially on my own.

***

A fifty-minute flight brought me as far as Portland. The vineyard itself was a two-hour drive away, nestled in the arms of the valley. Somebody was supposed to have been hired to drive to the airport to pick me up.
That was almost two hours ago.
I checked my watch for the umpteenth time and decided I had had enough. I scrolled through my phone, looking up nearby car rental options, finding one just outside the airport. I dragged my suitcases behind me as I set off.

“Sorry, we are all out of inventory,” the man at the counter informed me.

I glanced at the board behind him. “How can you just ‘run out’? You’re a 24/7 car rental service.”

The man gave me a look that he obviously reserved for privileged pricks. “Look man, there’s a bus depot down that way,” he said, gesturing vaguely behind me. “I’m sure you’ll find one to take you to your destination. Good luck with that.” It was obvious from his tone that he wasn’t wishing me any real luck.

A few minutes later, I dragged my bags up to the depot ticket counter. “I need a ticket to Wishing, please.”

A bored twenty-something, chewing a wad of gum, replied without turning his gaze from his phone screen.

“There are no direct buses to Wishing, but there’s one that goes through it.”

“But going through means—” I massaged my temples and sighed. I didn’t have the energy. “Never mind. One ticket, please.”

Fifteen minutes later, I was seated on a public bus for the first time in my adult life. The seats were stiff; the windows so smudged with dirt and fingerprints that it was impossible to see much of anything outside.

Not that I cared to see whatever was out there anyway. This entire trip felt like a giant fucking funeral march.

An hour down the road, I texted Amy and Dad to let them know where I was.

No signal.

I sighed. How the hell had I gotten myself into this mess?

I couldn’t believe I was being exiled from my life, and the only place I had called home for the entirety of it. All because of one stupid mistake.

Could I really call my relationship with Ella a mistake, though? We had been together for an entire year, nearly a record for me, after a series of casual one-month flings. I was nearing thirty, and had finally decided—after some nudging from my father, no less—that perhaps I should start getting serious about settling down. He reminded me that the future of our company rested on my shoulders, that I needed to take this obligation to our shareholders seriously.

Apparently, a wife would signal ‘responsibility and longevity’—neither of which I had been known for in recent years. Or maybe ever.

Dad’s suggestion of finding someone suitable to marry had seemed hypocritical, considering that my mother had walked out on all of us after I turned ten. My father had never gotten over it, or even attempted to find someone else. He just threw himself into business more than ever, often leaving Amy and I to our own devices. It’s no wonder that we had turned out the way we did.

And then one night, like fate, I met Ella at a dinner party thrown by a mutual friend. We hit it off almost immediately; she was smart, beautiful and actually made me laugh, unlike the many vapid women I had grown tired of at these events.

We spent hours absorbed in conversation with one another, each of us interested in learning everything we could about the other. I told her about my childhood, my love of travel, and the ideas I had for how to make an impact at my family’s company. At one point, she casually shared that she was working hard to grow her influencer brand, and suggested that perhaps she could feature Fuller Wines on a social post… in exchange for a drink?

Fifteen minutes later, we were in my car, on our way back to my penthouse.
Twenty minutes after that, we were in my bed.
And exactly two weeks later, she had all but moved in.

It was a dizzying whirlwind I allowed myself to get swept up in—and for the first time, I actually started wondering if I had found ‘the one’.

It took months before I could focus clearly again. To see Ella for who she truly was, beyond the public facade she had crafted to fool everyone, even me. The fun and charismatic image she presented to the world was in fact concealing a master manipulator; calculating in her desire to acquire prestige and wealth at any cost. My name and bank account were merely the vehicles to get her there. And my heart was just collateral damage.

It took me nearly a year to fully see the light through the cracks; but once I had, I knew we were done.

Temporary blindness. That was my mistake. But, never again.

I let out another long exhale, resting my head against the back of my seat, trying not to think about how filthy it was.

Two long-ass hours later, the bus jerked to a stop.

“Wishing,” the driver called out from the front of the bus. The remaining passengers stared at me as I fumbled towards the exit with my bags. As soon as I made my way out into the fresh air, I got a good look at my surroundings. Rolling hills for miles and a rundown 7-11—that was it.

“But wait, this isn’t—” I began, as the driver shut the door in my face and sped away. It followed the road until the fork, veering left before disappearing around the bend.
I was alone.

I stood there for a moment, panic building in my chest. And then I noticed the sign.

Wishing - 12 Miles.

“No, no, no, this isn’t happening.” It was one of the rare days in the Pacific Northwest when the sun was as harsh as it could possibly be.

I looked down at my phone. Still no signal.

Of-fucking-course.

Sweat trickled down the back of my neck as I yanked my luggage and walked across to the 7-11. It was closed.

Just then, a car whizzed past. I ran after it, yelling. “Hey!”

Nothing.

A few minutes later, another car went past me but didn’t stop. I wondered how I must look, wearing a designer suit on a dirty gravel road in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

Just then, I spotted another car coming down the road. I waved my hands from the shoulder, feeling like an idiot. The car showed no signs of slowing down, so I did the most logical thing I could think of—I jumped into the middle of the road.

The blue Prius gunned towards me. I froze, watching it draw closer. All of the shitty decisions I had made throughout my life flashed before me, headlined by the moment I had decided to date Ella Matthews.

The driver slammed on the brakes. The car jolted forward as it slowed down, defying momentum.

But the brakes didn’t engage quickly enough. As if in slow motion, I felt the car’s bumper hit me in the shins, knocking me flat onto the hood as it jerked to a stop.