Diego had done a lot of stupid in his life but having sex with Penny out in the open last night was beyond crazy. She tempted him. And worse, it hadn’t felt stupid.

But as his watch beeped, he knew he needed to get going.

He rolled away from her naked body. They were in his cabin. It had been closer than hers. They’d hastily cleaned up the campfire, and doused the embers of the fire, before stoking their own sexual fire again.

He showered and dressed quickly, putting on his suit and a clean shirt and tie.

He was late as it was. The Billionaire Breakfast Club was going to be annoyed with him. But as he looked back at the wood nymph lying in his bed, he couldn’t be sorry.

He closed the door on last night and headed back to Boston.

He had been planning to miss this month’s get-together because of the retreat, but D’Andre had set up an interview to plug the next iteration of his safety helmet, and the magazine wanted a photo op of all seven of them. So Zin had found a heliport nearby. He planned to buzz into Boston for breakfast and the interview, and be back at the camp after lunch.

Diego rubbed his cleanly shaved jaw. After two days of scruff, his smooth skin felt weird, like he didn’t quite fit in that image anymore.

He strode into the diner. All the guys were already here. They were an unlikely bunch. D’Andre Smith, former Stanford linebacker, former pro-football player, and now CEO of his own company.

Jason Hollingsworth the Fourth—Jay—always looked like he was headed out for cocktails, even at nine a.m. on a Sunday. Except he’d become Diego’s partner and friend. Who would have ever thought a second-generation Puerto Rican guy from Dot and a guy whose family came to America on the Mayflower and practically created the social register would be besties?

Peter Nguyen was their resident nerd, except these days he worked out and that skinny, socially awkward kid he’d met fourteen years ago was gone. Peter had been the first to hit billionaire status.

Duke, surfer dude and social activist, still looked like he spent his nights sleeping on the beach and his days surfing. His blond hair was on the edge of stringy and his face tanned and healthy.

The girls weren’t here yet.

“Nice of you to make it.” D’Andre mock jabbed at him.

“I was in the Berkshires,” he said mildly. He was trying to hold onto that relaxed, sated happy from last night so he refused to fight with the guy. D wasn’t really even mad. He just had an excess of aggression since he’d retired from the NFL last year.

Jay lifted a blond brow. “Someone got laid.”

“Hey, that’s great.” Peter Nguyen, his face broke into a huge smile. “Me too!”

“Jesus, Nguyen. TMI.” Duke shook his head.

“Didn’t you have your high school reunion last night?” D’Andre and Peter had become fast friends. The kid who barely passed and the kid with a perfect SAT score had bonded immediately over the curse of high school stereotypes.

“Yes.” Pete flushed.

D’Andre high-fived Pete.

Tracy, princess of high society and Jay’s childhood friend, and Courtney, their resident gamer girl—another unlikely friendship—burst into the diner, arm in arm.

Courtney’s hardware was prominently displayed, and she was totally gothed out.

Jay frowned at her. “Is that appropriate interview attire?”

Courtney stuck out her pierced tongue at him and shot back, “Is that a silver spoon up your butt?”

Diego sighed. Jay and Courtney were the only ones who barely tolerated each other. Weirdly, their little band of misfits had become just what Peter Nguyen had predicted all those years ago. After they’d escaped from the Harvard Young Entrepreneurs symposium and Diego had crashed their impromptu meetup, they’d traded ideas and talked business strategy for hours. Everyone in the odd group had shared what they wanted to accomplish and what they thought they needed to do to get there.

Just like in The Breakfast Club movie, they had formed a strange connection.

Except their pact had not only survived, but thrived. They’d been there for each other’s successes and the failures, continuing to encourage each other through both the good and the bad.

The BBC had ended up being his sounding board. They consulted each other. It helped that none of their businesses overlapped. But they’d never steered him wrong.

“What’s wrong?” Tracy asked.

“What do you mean?” Nothing was wrong. Except he’d had the short helicopter ride to think about last night. And what he’d figured out was he didn’t want to give Penny up.

But there was more at stake than just him.

“C’mon. It’s corporate retreat weekend, right?”

“Yes.”

“How’s it going?”

Diego considered the weekend but business had taken a back seat to Penny. She was all he could think about. “I reviewed the numbers on Thursday and they look good.”

Tracy put her hand on his forearm. “Numbers aren’t the only component to a successful merger.”

Easy for her to say. Her social media company was going IPO next month, and the preliminary scuttlebutt was they were going to blow it out of the water.

“Does this have anything to do with the woman?” D’Andre prodded, finding another way to jab at Diego.

Like a predator scenting weakness Tracy narrowed in for the kill. “Woman? What woman?”

One drunken weekend years ago, he’d shared his original story with the breakfast club. How that moment in the parking lot with Penny had changed him. They all had their own versions of “Turn that failure into a success” but his had been the most dramatic. Except possibly for Jay’s.

“It was her.” Diego had so many conflicting emotions from that memory. Except now Penny was all grown up and that long-ago remorse had been replaced by an inconvenient lust.

Tracy jerked back. “The little girl? The one who pretty much started your obsession with success?”

“Obsession.” Diego laughed. “That’s a little harsh.”

Except no one else was laughing.

Diego glanced around the table. He was the odd man out. He was the only one of them who didn’t go to college, even though D’Andre had only gone one year before going into the draft and Jay had dropped out as a giant fuck-you to his father. Diego was the only one who had never even considered it. But he had street knowledge.

“Let’s face it,” Peter said. “You’ve always felt like you had more to prove than the rest of us.”

Diego blinked, stunned. He couldn’t wrap his brain around what they were saying.

“Yeah, man.” D’Andre shook his head. “You took that damn name so literally.”

Billionaire Breakfast Club.

“Yeah, we’re all going to make it.” Courtney tugged on her cartilage ring. “Or some version of it, but—”

“Money isn’t everything,” Jay interrupted her.

She shot him an annoyed frown.

“Easy for you to say, you’ve always had it.” Now he was starting to get a little fucking defensive.

“Dude, it’s mostly just a way to keep score,” Duke said.

“Or do something good with. No one person can use that much money,” Pete continued.

But Diego was spinning, feeling lost like when Jay had convinced him to go sailing. He was a “feet firmly on the ground” kind of guy, and didn’t mind boating on a lake, but when they’d been bouncing on the waves with the shore barely in sight, the ocean had felt too vast.

Now he was floundering as his world view shifted.

Jay nudged him. “So what happened?”

What had happened? And why couldn’t he clear out the noise?

“Let’s get back to the personal.” Tracy rubbed her hands together like an evil genius about to wreak havoc on the world.

“Tell us more about this chick.” Of all of them Courtney was the most protective. For all her tough exterior, she had a marshmallow center.

“Maybe he doesn’t want to talk about the personal,” Jason said, coming to his rescue.

Except maybe he did want to share.

“We, ah,” Diego hesitated.

“Wait this is like, romantic?” Tracy grabbed his hand and clutched his fingers in hers. “Oh my gosh!”

“They had sex. That doesn’t necessarily translate to romantic.” Jay flattened his palms on the Formica tabletop.

“We all know your views on that,” Courtney said flatly.

Some tension simmered between Jay and Courtney. Worse than usual. Diego wondered what was up with them.

“So, what next?” Duke leaned back into the booth, his arms crossed.

“I don’t know. She’s amazing.” Diego couldn’t help but smile. She made him happy. “But there’s a history with Jeffrey London.”

“Oh, ugh,” Tracy made a horrified face. “Jerky Jeffrey, the creeper? Every single woman at the country club stays far away from him.”

D’Andre asked, “She works for him?”

“No. She’s a farmer.”

“A farmer?”

“Right? And she’s at the camp this weekend pitching her new non-profit. She’s trying to convince companies to plant small gardens for employees to work in as stress relief.”

D’Andre perked up.

Diego recited a quick overview of Penny’s idea.

Duke said, “I’m in love with this girl already.”

“That’s…a brilliant idea.” Jay cocked his head to the side clearly thinking about Penny’s mission.

“Yeah.” He thought about this weekend. His mouth curved into a smile. Could he attribute his calm and reduced stress from being in nature and working with the garden project? Or was Penny the better influence?

“You really like her.”

“Maybe I just like the idea.” He wasn’t sure how he felt about Penny. All he knew was the depth of feeling was too new, too tenuous, too crazy. Too impulsive. He didn’t do impulsive. “But London hates her.”

“So, London Automotive isn’t working out?” Jay asked.

“On paper, it looks great.” Diego finally acknowledged that while the general business merger made sense, he and London were radically different in their management styles.

Jay was nodding. “If you recall, I was hesitant to broker the original meet.”

“Yeah.” Diego had ignored his friend’s reservations because he’d really wanted to take Ramos Classic Auto Restoration to the next level.

“Oh goody.” Courtney tapped her fingers on the tabletop, her rings clinking. “Let’s strategize.”

Diego needed to focus on business but he didn’t really need strategizing. They’d already done that. “About the merger?”

“You’ve totally already made up your mind.” Tracy let go of his hand.

She was right. He had.

Diego blinked. He had. Wow. “Then what are we strategizing about?”

“About the girl.” Courtney grinned, her lip ring catching the light.

“But…she isn’t business.”

“The BBC is past that.” Tracy was always the romantic. “This is more important. It’s life.”