Candy King

by Christine d'Abo

  God, she’d fucked that up in record time. He’d been right there in front of her, talking to her face-to-face, and she didn’t ask him the question she’d waited all that time to ask. She’d failed miserably, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Reaching into her purse, she snagged her cell phone and called the one person she knew would understand. “Kayla?”

  “What’s up?” Kayla’s voice was as smooth and confident as her friend was. “You sound awful.”

  “I was on a story, and I fucked up.” She looked up at the sky and swallowed down a tear. “God, I’m shitty at this.”

  “Are you kidding me? You’re one of the best, if not the best, local reporters this city has.” She could practically hear Kayla’s eye roll. “Your research is impeccable, and you have a way with people that can convince just about anyone to do anything. You’re smart and capable, and if you think you have a story, then there’s a story. Don’t let one minor setback ruin everything.”

  Right. It was only a minor setback that the subject of her investigation caught her checking up on him and called her out on it. It wasn’t an issue that she was trying to uncover a secret identity of his with the purpose of doing a story on him and because of her clumsiness he was more likely to ignore her.

  No, no problem at all.

  And yet, she knew Kayla was right, that despite the way he tried to dismiss her, she had no doubt in her mind that Dylan Williams was the Candy King. What she really needed to do was to get the right angle for approaching him again. She needed to make it worth his while to let her in.

  “I can hear your brain churning all the way through the phone.” Kayla chuckled. “I take it you’re good now.”

  Simone turned to see Williams come out of the restaurant with his group, turn, and shake their hands. He was a businessman, and a powerful one at that. What she needed to do was present him with an offer he couldn’t refuse. “Yeah, I think I am.”

  “Good. Keep me posted, and let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  Simone was only vaguely aware of disconnecting the call, as all her attention was locked hard onto Williams. He was typing something on his phone, probably calling his car service or whatever the hell rich people had these days. In a matter of moments, her best opportunity to get this scoop would be gone and, with it, her best chance at taking the next step in her career.

  Screw that.

  Simone straightened up, took a breath, and then marched over to Williams. He was looking down the street and only saw her coming when she got to within a few feet. Yup, totally waiting on a car to get him.

  Too late to save you from me, dude.

  “Mr. Williams, could I have a moment?” She smiled, as she stuck out her hand. “Simone Leblanc. I’m a reporter with the Toronto Record, and I was hoping to speak with you.”

  Williams took her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze that sent a shiver through her body. His gaze was locked onto hers, so it was easy to see his amusement. “How’s the purse, Sugar?”

  She shuddered and blushed at his nickname for her. “How did you know it was me?”

  He chuckled. “Believe it or not, I don’t normally have multiple reporters digging into my life in the space of a few days. When you told me you were a reporter in there, I put two and two together. Besides, I got the impression you don’t give up easily.”

  “My purse is probably ruined. Which is on me. I haven’t quite mastered the art of surveillance.” She forced herself to look him in the eye, reminded of the intensity of his gaze in the yearbook photo. “How long did it take for you to realize I was watching you?”

  He shrugged, letting her hand go. “Five minutes.”

  “Damn.” She really was going to have to get better at that if she wanted to make a go of being an investigative reporter. “I’d hoped it had been a bit longer than that.”

  “You have the small problem of being an incredibly attractive woman. Men will notice you far sooner than you’d like.”

  There wasn’t anything off-putting about the comment, nor did it feel as though he was trying to come on to her. Still, she felt a blush cover her face and had to fight not to look away from him. “Thank you. But that won’t distract me from my reason for being here. I was hoping I could sit down with you and talk about one of your business ventures.”

  Williams narrowed his gaze and lowered his chin and his voice. “I thought I’d asked for time to consider your option?”

  Okay, here we go. She smiled, nodded once, and let out a little huff. “You did. And honestly, I wasn’t planning on talking to you tonight. Shit, I wasn’t even a hundred percent certain you were the right person until just now. But I was curious and needed to figure out if you were, in fact, the person I thought you were, and I’m really sorry that I spilled my drink and made an ass of myself. I hope it didn’t ruin your meeting.”

  “They thought I was kind to help you out.” He looked around at the traffic, the muscle in his jaw jumping. “What do you want now?”

  What did she want? They weren’t exactly strangers, despite never having met before. But she wasn’t sure if she could completely trust him. Absent the safety of the Internet, Simone wasn’t naïve enough not to realize that Dylan could be capable of anything.

  She could walk away right now. It was probably the smart thing to do.

  Or she could take a risk and see where the story took her.

  “Well?” He cocked his eyebrow.

  Hefting her purse strap up, she met his gaze and smiled. “I want to know everything there is about the Candy King.”

  Chapter 6

  Dylan’s stomach bottomed out on him. There was no way in hell she should have been able to track him down, let alone show up at a place he hadn’t planned on being three hours earlier. He’d been beyond careful to ensure that his name wasn’t listed anywhere online, and he’d set up a holding company as the owner. But somehow this woman had been able to figure it out, to draw a line between him and millionairesugardaddy.com. As much as they’d texted over the past month, he knew for a fact he hadn’t shared anything about himself that would have given anything away.

  Had he?

  Apparently, given that she was standing right in front of him, a twinkle in her eyes that seemed to give her entire body a shine. She bit down on her bottom lip as she cocked her head to the side. “If you want, I’ll walk away. Like I said, I never had any intention of ruining you or your life. I just wanted to do a profile on the Candy King persona, on the site, and on the entire sugar daddy phenomenon in Toronto. I wanted to know what made your site so special. That was all.”

  She was more beautiful than he’d ever imagined she’d be.

  He’d fantasized about her more than once since they’d started their little back-and-forth online. Her voice was deeper than he’d imagined, and every time she spoke, it sent a pulse of desire through him, straight to his cock. Now knowing what she looked like, Dylan was going to have more than a few new fantasies to deal with.

  But despite everything, he couldn’t afford to take the chance that she’d reveal his identity to the world. That bombshell would cause more problems, both professionally and personally, than he was willing to deal with.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think I can help you.” His limo turned the corner, and Dylan was able to breathe a bit easier. “I wish you luck with your story.”

  He stepped toward the curb, mentally counting down the moments until his ride arrived. Simone’s fingers wrapped around his forearm, and she gently tugged at him. “I know this is the last thing you want, and that I’d promised you space and time to consider. Is there anything I can do to convince you that I’m not out to cause you problems? I’m really just trying to make a name for myself.”

  Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…“I don’t think you can appreciate the position you’ve put me in here. If I say yes, I run the risk of you learnin
g too much about me, things that I don’t necessarily want to be shared with the general public. If I say no, you have my identity and could easily go public with whatever story you want to put out there, regardless of what I ask you to do.”

  “I would never…though I guess you don’t know who I am, so you wouldn’t really be able to trust that.” She crossed her arms and cocked her head to the side. “Though in all fairness, you now know who I am as well. And you have copies of all our texts. I’m sure if you wanted to take this information to my boss, there wouldn’t be anything I could do to stop you.”

  Dylan turned and stared at her. Of course, it was his site, and he had full control of the database and the user information. Even where she’d used an alias, it wouldn’t take much for him to pull all the data and fire it off to wherever it was she worked. “I guess we’re both stuck.”

  “Only if we allow ourselves to be. I’m a reporter, and I try to be as honest and up front about my interviews as I can be. We can establish parameters, questions or subjects you don’t want to go anywhere near, and I promise to back off. This is a huge phenomenon in Toronto, and I think it’s something that the public has an interest in.”

  Shit, he knew this was a horrible fucking idea, even as his mind churned through various topics he’d be willing to discuss with her. He knew exactly what would happen to his reputation and that of his family if his little side project ever came to light. While his views on relationships and marriage were liberal, many of his family members didn’t share them. In their eyes, to be single, rich, and good-looking pretty much sealed the fact that you had no choice but to get married. What was the point of having it all if you didn’t have a family as well?

  Fuck that.

  He’d never wanted one. The idea of kids was something that, in equal parts, freaked him out and pissed him off. There were more than enough people in the world that he didn’t need to fire his sperm off all over the place in the interests of procreation. There were better, far less selfish people out there who would make better parents than he would be.

  Maybe Simone here.

  She too was looking at the approaching limo, no doubt gauging how much time she had left for talking. “Look, you started this site for a reason, and it’s incredibly successful. People would want to know that, and it would be great for your business. Bringing it into the light would lend it an air of legitimacy.”

  “It is legitimate.” Unconventional, sure. But legal and providing a safe way for people of like minds to connect.

  Simone nodded. “But despite that, it’s still relegated to the fringes. Maybe having a feature done on you and the site would be a way to pull everything into the mainstream.”

  “Maybe I like having my business on the fringes. No matter how good a reporter you are, sugar daddy sites aren’t something that the mainstream world is going to welcome with open arms.”

  The car pulled up, and Dylan yanked open the back door. He had two choices: he could ignore her and pray that everything would go away, or he could give her a few minutes and figure out exactly what she was hoping to get from all this. Either option had consequences that he wasn’t sure he liked. At least with the second option, he would have a bit of a heads-up.

  He looked up at the sky and sighed. “You’re killing me, Sugar Tart.”

  “I promise, you’ll enjoy it.” Her entire body positively glowed from her excitement. “Come on, it will be awesome. And you can get a preview of the article, so you’ll know exactly what’s going to print.”

  Dylan knew that this story was going to happen, with or without his approval. He’d seen what had happened when people didn’t participate in stories done on them, and he didn’t want to risk any misinformation coming out about him or the site. And having to spend some time with the woman who’d haunted his dreams for weeks now wasn’t exactly going to be a hardship.

  “Well, Ms. Leblanc, you have a choice. You can get into the limo and drive with me until I get home. I’ll have my driver drop you off wherever you want after that. Or you can drop this and never talk to me again.”

  That took the wind out of her sails a bit. “You want me to come with you to your house?”

  He closed his eyes and counted to three in his head. His cock went hard at the thought of her stretched out on his bed. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all. “No. I’m offering the twenty minutes it will take for my driver to take me home for your interview. That’s it. Take it or leave it.”

  Even the time he was offering her was more than he should be doing. Nothing good would come of him talking to a reporter, no matter how cute and vibrant she was. But he’d been in the business game long enough to know that she wasn’t going to let this go now that she’d caught the scent. Better to make the offer, so that if she didn’t take it, she couldn’t claim that he hadn’t given her a chance.

  She crossed her arms and cocked her head to the side, her stained purse bouncing off her leg. “That’s not exactly ideal.”

  It really wasn’t fair of him, inviting a woman into the back of a car who didn’t know who he was or what he might do to her. In this day and age, he knew everyone had to be smart about their safety. “No, I suppose not.”

  She seemed to weigh her options before reaching into her purse. She pulled something out along with her cell phone. “I’m going to text a friend of mine and tell her where I’m going and who I’m with. Then I’ll get in the car with you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Mace.” She held it up for him to see. “And yes, I know how to use this. If you try anything, I’ll blind you long enough to get your driver to pull over so I can get out.”

  Despite everything, he was quickly growing to like this woman. Not just the fantasy he’d mentally created, but the flesh-and-blood spitfire who stood before him. “Deal.” Holding out his hand, he cocked his eyebrow and gave her a smirk. “Well?”

  With a snort, she took his hand and climbed into the back seat, sliding over as far as she could before turning toward him, meanwhile shifting the can of Mace to her lap. Dylan wanted to laugh, but that wasn’t going to set her at ease. He slid into the seat beside her and closed the door. The limo pulled away from the curb. “The clock’s ticking. How did you uncover my name? I’ve been careful over the years to make sure that my identity isn’t out there.”

  “Wait, this is supposed to be my interview.” She narrowed her gaze, leaning forward. “And you gave me bits and pieces to go on during our texts.” She blushed and looked away for a moment. There were some other things they’d done, and it was good to see that she’d been as impacted as he’d been.

  “Like what? I need to make sure that I’m more careful next time I’m talking to a potential suitor.”

  Her back straightened, and she snapped her gaze back to him. “Age, height, weight, hair color. I made the leap that Candy King was a nickname, and with your vitals on hand, I went looking at local universities. I had a whole plan of where to check next, but I happened to get lucky when I ran into someone who knew you at U of T.”

  “Who?” Most of his friends were still in the city, but he couldn’t imagine that any of them would rat him out to a reporter.

  “A Professor McKenna. He said he played rugby with you and showed me a yearbook that used your nickname.” She leaned in and grinned. “Something about your sweet moves with the ladies.”

  “I did all right with them.” He hadn’t bothered to get the yearbooks when he was at university. It wasn’t something he cared that much about.

  “I bet you did.” Her blush hadn’t let up. She leaned back against the seat and looked out the window.

  Dylan’s chest tightened, and it was suddenly difficult for him to sit still. “Okay. You wanted to do a story on me, made contact to get information—”

  “Actually, I asked you directly if you wanted to meet. Remember? I was going to tell you that I was a reporter th
en.”

  He sighed. “Then when I didn’t bite, you took what you knew and went on the search for my identity based on my screen name.”

  God, she actually looked proud. “Honestly, I wasn’t certain that it was even a nickname. Just like ninety percent certain. Maybe ninety-three percent. Because, yeah, it’s a silly name, and lots of people have silly nicknames in university or college. I mean, my friends used to call me Boober—you know, the smart Fraggle from Fraggle Rock? I had a roommate who called me that when I did her laundry and organized all her books because I couldn’t handle the chaos in our room. She was an animation student and into all things focused on kids, so she knew all the Fraggle names and stuff, so I became Boober.” With a snap, she closed her mouth and shrugged. “I liked it when you called me Lois Lane, though.”

  Dylan wasn’t generally charmed by women. Lusted after, admired, or impressed by—yes. But never charmed. There was something about Simone that relaxed him, something so genuine that he knew every word she’d just said was correct. She was one of those people who had a light to them, one that appeared to shine through every pore of her skin, through her eyes and out through her voice. He’d only met one other person like that, and she’d gone on to become his second stepmom.

  Nope, not going there.

  Simone rubbed her hands along her thighs, sneaking glances at him. “I need to be up front about our texts. I’d never intended for them to get…out of hand. I, ah, yeah. The whole, ah, bathroom thing wasn’t planned.”

  Dylan had wondered if she’d actually done what she’d claimed she’d been doing while at work. The thought of her masturbating in the bathroom had made him so hard, there’d been no way he’d have been able to focus until he’d gotten some relief as well. Being the boss meant there were some perks, and having his own private bathroom was one of them.

  Simone clearly didn’t have that option.

  Dylan sat on his hands to keep himself from acting on the impulse to reach out and pull her in for a kiss. “I’m glad to hear that it wasn’t some way to entrap me.”