The Billionaire & the Princess

by Katherine E Hunt

  The ground floor is an open plan living area. Dining room, kitchen and living room all in one, just like my apartment. The back of the house is one long set of glass doors, leading out to the garden and pool. It’s beautifully finished.

  “Come on through, I have something amazing to show you.”

  I look down at my high heels. The floor is littered with paint pots, tools and all other kinds of necessary house doing-up type things. “Uh, maybe I should have changed my shoes.” It isn’t that I’m too girly, quite the opposite, I’ve already tripped and slipped several times today. I miss my flat shoes. This place is a veritable minefield that I will not make across in one piece.

  “I got you.” Two strong arms wrap their way, very delicately, around my legs and body and he pulls me to his chest. That aftershave again. Good god, man, a woman can only resist so much. I close my eyes and try to stop my nether regions from holding a thanksgiving parade. My nipples betray me in a way that nipples only can when a man’s hands are on my body. Thank God for heavy-duty, push-up bras.

  He steps over everything and carries me right to the back of the house. Behind the kitchen a small hallway leads to another room. He puts me down, gently, but my damned heels and flustered body fail me. I stumble back against the window, narrowly missing a large pot of wood varnish.

  Once again his arms are around me, holding me in a sweeping embrace. “You okay?” Our faces only inches apart, we freeze, staring into each other’s eyes, contemplating. Kissing this man would be very, very, wrong. He is my boss.

  And yet, in that very second, we both abandon any illusion of platonic feelings. This is exactly how it happened on the plane. A touch of turbulence had sent my drunken body reeling into his. And the rest is history.

  Without hesitation, our lips come together. He kisses me, and I kiss him. A mutual impulse that neither of us can deny. It is delicious. Warm, sweet bourbon for the soul. As if destiny is absolutely insisting we find each other and continuously throws me into his arms until we get it right.

  He pulls away and stares at me. Does he remember? He is confused, his brows furrowed. We’d kissed that night on the plane, but it wasn’t sweet and romantic like this. That had been wanton, lust-filled, drunken making-out. The type of kiss you have to wipe off of your face when you’ve finished.

  “I am so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” I have no excuse, except an entirely warranted desire to fuck this beautiful man. But I am supposed to be a grown-up. And then there’s the whole he’s my boss thing. Remember that Caitlyn? Plus Hank is Mr. Wrong, the naked cowboy from the plane. The perfect example of the type of man I should not be kissing. He doesn’t even remember that he’d nearly fucked me.

  “No, it’s me who should be apologizing. I’m obviously drunker than I thought. That was totally inappropriate.” He looks seriously panicked. His parents finding out he’s snogged the new editor would make a frosty situation downright chilly.

  “How about we just forget this ever happened? I’m jetlagged, you’re a little tipsy. Let’s put it down to unfortunate circumstances and never mention it again.”

  The list of things that we are never mentioning again grows daily. I’m going to have to fill in a post-it note and stick it somewhere so I remember exactly what I can and can’t discuss with the man.

  I know me. I know I will cogitate, re-think and analyze this for eternity. Plus, I am already having some serious fantasies about this man’s fingers on my pussy, under the sheets, with no clothes on. But he doesn’t need to know that.

  “Sure, yeah. Cool.” He steps back, opens the door. “I wanted to show you the uh, the master bedroom.” A bedroom? He really isn’t helping the situation whatsoever.

  “It looks amazing.” It does. The back wall is covered in fitted bookshelves, filled entirely with books. If his kisses don’t finish me off this certainly will. A man after my own heart.

  “You read. A lot.” The number of books on those shelves fills my heart with joy. I almost forget he is there for a second. I want to read all of them, but where to begin?

  “Yeah, I spend most of my time in half-finished houses with no electricity and before that I used to travel, so I’d often found myself alone in my hotel room.” If this man is trying to stop my juices from flowing, he is going about it very much the wrong way. Books, literature. That’s my passion. When I’m not reading, I’m writing.

  “I love it, I really do. I gave all my books away before moving here.” I walk over to the shelves and peruse his collection. “I might have to borrow a few of these.” Who am I kidding, I’m moving in. I’m giving him no choice in the matter. He can have the apartment with the tiny library. This right here is my new home.

  “Be my guest. Anyway, this is what I actually wanted to show you, the pièce de résistance.” He’s not going to get this dick out again, is he? Why did that thought enter my mind? Probably because I can still taste him on my lips. Ugh, the struggle is real.

  He presses a button on the wall and two panels on the ceiling recede to reveal a large window. “It’s to watch the stars.” He bites his lip and waits for my reaction, fidgeting with nervous excitement.

  I suddenly see Hank. Not the drunk hunk from the plane, the guy trying to please his parents to keep the cash flowing or even the irresistibly handsome man in a suit. The person in front of me is doing what we all do at some point in our lives. Seeking validation.

  Like a kid who shoves their artwork under their parents’ noses, ‘Mum, look, I drew this’, Hank is showing me his handiwork. Is it possible that nobody else had seen this house, this room? Fuck. That sucked.

  “I love it.” I walk over to the bed. I can imagine lying in bed with someone looking up at the stars at night. You’d have to be a bit of a romantic to create that. I look at Hank, yeah, I can see it. “May I?”

  “Yes.”

  I plump up a pillow and sit down, patting the space next to me. “Come. Sit. Tell me about your plans for this place.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sure I want to talk, or sure I’m not going to jump you?” I can’t guarantee it. One whiff of his aftershave and I might lose it. His face is priceless. “I’m kidding. I think we’ve established that we can behave like grown-ups if we really try, right? Come on.”

  He sits, talks. I listen. Nobody jumps anybody.

  Ever so slowly, the stars appear above us.

  There are moments in your life which you look back upon and can pinpoint as ‘the moment when’. Without a single doubt, that night was the moment when I fell in love with Enrico Baresi.

  Chapter Eight

  Hank

  Monday morning. Normally I have to drag myself out of bed with the promise of coffee and a shower, but I’ve been awake for an hour, just staring at the sky.

  I tap the pillow next to me. It still smells like Caitlyn. She’d stayed until late Saturday. Just listening, chatting, trying to remember the constellations.

  That kiss. Shit. I haven’t stopped re-living it since her perfect lips landed on mine. I mean, yeah, she’s right, we can’t go there. But fuck, it was good. She tasted like cotton candy. That dress, the way her body felt in my arms. It was almost as if … it sounds wild, but as if she knew exactly how I like to be kissed.

  My loins stir. I’m seriously having trouble keeping this guy down at the moment.

  I grab my cock as if to chastise it. I have to stop thinking about her in that way. A quick shower and then off to my first day of work. Eyes on the goal, Hank. Eyes on the goal.

  “Caitlyn?” I try not to look like she hasn’t left my mind since the last time I saw her.

  “Good Morning,” she sings, popping up from under the kitchen counter. “I was looking for biscuits. Cookies. Digestives?”

  “Digestives? I don’t know…”

  “No matter. I made coffee. It took a YouTube tutorial and three attempts, but it no longer looks like dishwater and it smells divine. It’s all in the tapping down. I don’t know if that’s the technical
term.” The words are spilling out of her mouth again. “How do you like it?” She’s wearing a dress again; this one is less formal than yesterday’s, more summery. I’ve never noticed someone’s clothing so much. I’m so distracted by her I don’t even listen to what she’s saying; in fact, I have no idea what she just said. She holds up a coffee mug. Ah.

  “Black, no sugar.”

  “Cool. Okay. That I can do.” She hands me a mug and throws me another wide grin. She’s chirpy for 8am.

  “So what’s the plan for today?” Journalism 101? How to convince your parents and your one very talented employee that you know what the fuck you’re doing?

  “I made a list of everything I need to know. Then I made a list of everybody I want to interview or visit, in the case of local businesses. If you don’t mind I’d like you to see if you can make me a list of events, mark them on the calendar.” She grabs her own coffee and walks over to a wall of whiteboards. “Calendars are here, I’ll write where we both are every day here, just so you know, at a glance where you’re supposed to be on any given day.”

  “Okay.” The whiteboards are covered in lists and post-its and calendars. Perfectly organized. I need one of these on-site, the number of times I’ve forgotten about a delivery or a contractor. I’m not someone you can count on to remember a birthday or an anniversary. A year of Business College taught me that I’m no good at presenting projects within a specific timeline or anything that involves the least bit of organization on my part. You want me to calculate how many tiles you need for your bathroom or your kitchen? I can do that in my head. How much paint are you going to need to re-do your living room, I’ve worked that out in a second. If we arranged to go out two weeks ago though, I’m going to need you to send me a reminder by text, if I can still find my phone.

  “I know this should probably all need to be digital or something but I have to visualize these things so they enter my brain. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah. I get it.” Caitlyn reads real books, she takes photos, she writes lists and pins up post-it notes. I can understand that. We’re standing in a room I’ve rebuilt, on a floor I’ve laid. We are people who need things, real actual things, to help us function. I find myself smiling at her as she talks, understanding how her mind works.

  “Mornings are going to be dedicated to interviews and visits, afternoons to writing. I plan to launch the website beginning of July, paper version in September, at the end of the season.”

  “Perfect. What do you need from me?” Please let it be filing. I can do filing. Or making coffee, because I’m smiling, but this is like tar in a mug.

  “I’m going to need you in the office on the mornings when I’m out, and I’ll need you to accompany me to events, until I get to know who’s who. Otherwise, you’re free every afternoon …” she hesitates, “… to do what makes you happy.” She flashes me a conspiratorial smile.

  How have I gotten so fucking lucky? This woman has traveled across continents to work for me. She’s seen me at my very worst and brushed it off as a joke. She accepts my passion, sees me for who I really am. Are all Brits like this, or have I just stumbled across the most perfect woman in all of England?

  “What kinds of events do you need to know about? While that’s not really my thing, I know just the person to help you.” Mama. At sixty-five years old, my Mama has lived a lifetime of socializing. She had moved to New York when they were married and they’d bought their first Hamptons house just before Enzo was born. Papa grew up over here, Mama in Italy. There are very few social events that she doesn’t know about. She has a circle of friends that includes some of the most exclusive families on the island.

  “Could you fix us up a meeting with them?”

  “I can do better; we’ll go have lunch with her. I’ll give her a call, we’ll start making our way through your lists and then we’ll go see my Mama.”

  Caitlyn gulps, loudly. “Your Mama?”

  “Don’t worry, she’s a sweetheart. And don’t tell the rest of my family, but I’m her favorite.” It’s hardly a secret. The surprise sixth baby. I’ve broken my poor mother’s heart a million times, but she always forgives me.

  Mama waited for us at the door. Beautiful as always. Her long black hair pinned up in a neat bun almost hiding that striking streak of gray, which is about the only thing that gives away her age.

  “Is your Mother a model?”

  “Mama? She was an actress, in Italy; she met my father when she was working in New York.”

  She welcomes us, arms wide open, “Enrico, il mio figlio. Sei molto magro, you are too thin, you don’t eat.” This again. My father insisted that my siblings and I were brought up by nannies. It is what it is when you’re rich. He showed her the world and we would stay at home, under the watchful eye of our fair-weather caregivers. So when Mama was there, she insisted we eat pasta for lunch, pasta for dinner. Feeding us is her way of showing us she loves us and she loves us a lot.

  “I do nothing but eat, trust me.” I try to pinch an inch of fat, but she has a point, I’ve been working on my renovation night and day recently and I may have skipped a meal or two. “Mama, this is Caitlyn, my new colleague.”

  “Si, si, benvenuto, welcome to our home.”

  “Piacere di conoscerti, Mrs. Baresi, I hope I said that right.”

  “You speak Italian?” asks my mother. Caitlyn spoke Italian? What? I try to hide my surprise. I really should have read her CV when they’d hired her. I feel like there’s a lot to know about Caitlyn that I have yet to learn.

  “Solo un po.” Caitlyn does the international, pinched-finger hand-signal for only a little.

  “You call me Mama, everyone calls me Mama.” Caitlyn nods.

  “Mama, these are for you.” She hands over a simple bouquet that she had insisted on buying on the way over.

  Mama’s hand taps her chest with delight. “Dolce bambino, you bring me flowers. In Italy we give flowers, it is traditional; nobody visits without giving flowers. Here in America they don’t give flowers, they give you macaroni cheese, but it is not macaroni it is poison.” Mama throws her hands up in disgust, then smells her bouquet and smiles at her guest.

  Caitlyn turns and winks at me. So that’s why we had to buy flowers.

  “Shall we eat, I’m starving,” I say. My mother leads us through the house to the garden.

  “Is this where you grew up?” Caitlyn is like a wide-eyed tourist in the Sistine Chapel. My parent’s house is wildly ornate. As far as I can recall a lot of the decoration has been copied from Italian renaissance homes. There is enough marble to recreate the Taj Mahal. It is not to my taste, but my childhood memories were formed within these walls and I love it.

  “Only in the summer and on weekends, otherwise we lived in New York.”

  “This is your holiday cottage?”

  “I guess so.” My friends tease me about being well-traveled. They see those three years that I spent abroad as being one long party with a bit of surfing and sex in between. They aren’t far from the truth in many respects, but I’ve seen things they haven’t seen. How the other ninety-nine percent lives. And it marked me.

  I turn to Caitlyn and look into her eyes, wondering if I should share how I really feel about this place. I know she gets me, somehow, more than my closest friends, but I don’t want to come off as pretentious. “I couldn’t ever live in a house like this again, or drive a car that cost a million dollars. I love my friends and family and I’m not about to shun them because of who they are, but you can’t live in a tent in the Tunisian desert for three months, drinking goats milk and learning how to live on virtually nothing and then come back and act like this is normal.”

  There’s nothing philanthropic about it, I’m not planning to sponsor a hospital wing or save the whales. I just want to flip my houses and live my life.

  “You did that? Amazing. You’ll have to dig out some pictures and we’ll stick it online sometime. Travels with Enrico. I can see it now.” The sincerity in her re
ply confirms my belief that I had nothing to worry about. She gets me.

  As usual, my mother can’t help herself. The table on the terrace is laid for a three-course meal. I’d said just a sandwich and a salad would do, but Mama Baresi can never resist filling up my ‘skinny’ stomach every time she sees me.

  “Sit, sit. Tell me all about you Tesoro. Where are you from?”

  “I grew up in London, living with my grandmother. My mother died when I was twelve ...”

  “I didn’t know that,” I say interrupting her and then catching myself and sitting back encouraging her to finish.

  She flashes a reassuring smile. “You weren’t to know. It was a long time ago.” Fifteen years if my calculation is correct. Around the same time that I lost my Poppa and that still hurt to this day. I couldn’t imagine if it was my own mother.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss.” She places her hand on Caitlyn’s. “Did you know my husband’s mother lives with us? Nonna is ninety years old. She helped raise all of our children.”

  “Oh goodness, what a blessing to still have her around.” She goes to say something else but bites her tongue. The more I learn about Caitlyn, the more I think she is not just some girl from London. I think back to when I met Caitlyn, how quickly the air had turned blue. I can hardly believe she’s the same woman, sitting next to me in a sweet little summer dress, exclaiming so politely. Goodness and Gosh.

  “Nonna surprises everyone, that woman will outlive us all,” replies my mother, with a tinge of insincerity. Nobody can argue that my grandmother is a sweet old woman; she has a fiery character and a loud bark, of which my mother is normally on the receiving end.

  “Where is she?” I ask.

  “She’s out dancing, well, of course, she doesn’t dance as much these days she just likes to go and beat everybody else at Canasta.” Nonna has been the belle of the ball most of her life, and an important figure in Hamptons society. If I live even half the life she has I won’t complain.