The Billionaire Series Collection

by Lila Monroe

  “Well, well, well. So you’re the girl making an honest man of Grant Devlin.”

  I jumped, saw her face in the mirror as she suddenly stepped out from behind me, and jumped again. Holy mother of horror movies, Batman! She was lucky she hadn’t sent me into the stratosphere.

  “Oh dear, did I startle you?” she drawled coldly, her tone making it obvious that when it came to caring whether she had startled me, she fell somewhere on the continuum between ‘completely indifferent’ and ‘maliciously amused.’

  She wore a silver slip of a dress. Her grey hair marked her as being in her late fifties, but she was incredibly well-preserved—plastic surgery had tightened her pale, blue-veined skin and made her look even more like a literal ice queen, sharp-nosed, hatchet-chinned, eyebrows that could cut diamonds. Eyes like blue lasers cutting right into me.

  “Uh, uh, yeah,” I said. “Grant Devlin. Me. Making a—honest, yeah. We’re going out! We are. That’s what we’re doing. Him and me.”

  I was not exactly going to sweep the Oscars with this performance, but I feel like even Katherine Hepburn would’ve gotten thrown by the Snow Queen doing a Jack-in-the-box act over her shoulder.

  “‘Going out,’” she repeated, drawing out my words incredulously as though I’d said ‘snorting cocaine’ or ‘making a snuff film,’ or ‘selling my panties to Japanese business to finance my dream of opening my own fried chicken franchise.’ “How…interesting.”

  She managed to infuse the word ‘interesting’ with an entire epic saga’s worth of doubts, suspicions, and general disdain.

  “Lacey,” I said, belatedly remembering that humans introduced themselves to people they hadn’t meet. “My name. I’m Lacey Newman. Nice to meet you, Ms., uh…”

  “Dalton,” she said with a sniff. “Portia Dalton. Grant’s godmother.”

  “Oh wow,” I said. “I had no idea you were going to be here! I’m sure you must have some great stories about Grant growing up—”

  “Oh yes, where to begin!” she interrupted, the biggest fake smile ever cracking her face like an earthquake fault line. “Perhaps with that time he seduced the youngest daughter of a Swedish client his grandfather was desperately trying to land, or the time he brought a drunk supermodel to his high school graduation party, or the fifth college he flunked out of because they didn’t offer a major in his preferred field of fucking the highest class whores he could find—really, I don’t know where to begin, all the many and varied incidents with sluts in various states of undress do tend to blur together.”

  She looked me up and down and gave a short, cutting laugh.

  “I don’t think I’ll forget you, though, you are so incredibly…far outside of his normal type. I don’t know what he’s playing at with you.”

  My head was spinning under the verbal assault, filled with whirling pictures of a young and even more devil-may-care Grant going through women like tissue paper.

  She leaned closer and gave me a smile, all friendly, like she was actually on my side.

  “Darling, I’m sure all those self-help books and women’s magazines are telling you to be strong and confident and love your body because it’s yours and it’s beautiful, but you really must face facts: they’re only saying that because they’re selling something.”

  And with a dismissive sneer on her face, she swept past me before I could think of a single thing to say.

  I don’t know how long I stumbled around the party, but I think I pulled myself together before any of the bigwigs we’d been networking with saw me.

  I hope I did, anyway.

  Once it hit me how bad I could screw everything up if people saw me getting all weepy and red-eyed when I was supposed to be vibrant and happy and over-the-moon in love, I beat a hasty retreat to the coat check, where I hid behind a rack of furs that could have clothed a thousand minks if they hadn’t been desperately needed by the upper crust to look as fabulous as possible.

  I took deep breaths until my heart was thudding along at something resembling a normal speed, and I pulled out my compact to wipe my eyes and fix my makeup. Thank Heaven for waterproof mascara.

  Most of all, I repeated this mantra to myself: It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care.

  This was all an act. It didn’t matter what people thought, what Portia said, just as long as it got Jennings on our team and helped save the company.

  Eventually, I got myself to the point where I believed it. I started to step out from behind the coat rack—and then I saw Portia.

  I practically dove back into the safety of the sable and fox fur forest. Fingers trembling, I pulled my cell phone out of my clutch purse and hit the speed dial for the one person I could always count on to be in my corner.

  “Laaaaaaaaaacey!” Kate shrieked the second she picked up the phone, only halfway through the first ring. “How’s it going? Tell me how it’s going! Is it going great? Or is it terrible? Tell me all the terrible things he’s done! Are they a little bit hilarious or really really hilarious? How does he look in a tuxedo? Does he look good enough to eat in a tuxedo? Lacey, tell me all the things! Why aren’t you telling me all the things?”

  “I will if you stop for breath!” I said, laughing in spite of myself. “Um, it’s—well, he looks great, of course he fucking looks great, and he’s been just great all night and it’s actually really weird and this thing just happened that—that—”

  And then, like the calm and mature professional that I am, I burst into fucking tears.

  “Lacey! Lacey! Lacey!” Kate said, sounding more alarmed each time she said my name. “Are you okay? What’s wrong? Was he a dick? Did he hurt you? Do you want me to pick you up? I will get in my car and pick you up right this second if you say to.”

  “No, no, nothing like that, don’t worry about that,” I said. I took a handful of blue-dyed bear fur in my hand and steadied myself against the rack. “He’s been a perfect gentleman. He’s…he’s been beyond great. But there are all these other people here, and they all know so much and they have so much more than me going for them …” I stopped, hearing myself whine. “Ugh, forget it. It’s okay, Katie, I’m okay—”

  “No you are fucking not,” she interrupted. “You are fucking awesome. You are my best friend in the whole damn world. You give more of a fuck about the real stuff than anyone else in this fuck-head city, and you’re on fucking fire, and I bet that scares the shit out of them. So what you are going to do—” and her voice went firm and sure as granite, brooking no argument—“is get out there and show them that nobody, not nobody, can make you feel like you deserve any less than the best.”

  I took a deep breath. She was right. Fuck Portia. Fuck them all.

  “Kate…have I ever told you you’re a genius?”

  “Don’t tell me, girl,” she said. “Show me.”

  So I squared my shoulders, put on my best game face, and marched back out into the battle.

  “Ah Lacey, there you are, I’ve been looking for you,” Grant said pleasantly as I came up to his side. “Drink?”

  Possibly I drained that glass of liquid courage a little too hastily, because he frowned slightly at me. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” I said. “Absolutely fine.”

  “Are you certain?” he asked. “If this is beginning to be a bit much for you, we could leave early. Everyone would understand.”

  “Oh, I bet they would,” I muttered under my breath. Out loud I said: “Look, the sooner the night is over the better, but until then we have a job to do, so let’s just go out there and do it, okay?”

  Grant surveyed me closely, his eyes picking at the cracks in my armor. “You’ve been crying.”

  “What do you care?” I snapped. It wasn’t actually in the lovey-dovey script, but dammit, this had been a trying night and a girl could only make nice for so long.

  Even with a gorgeous man staring right at her, deep into her soul, concern brimming and threatening to overflow his cobalt-blue eyes…<
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  Concern for his company, not me. I had to remember that.

  “Come with me,” he said, and started pulling me towards the staircase leading to the exit.

  Wait, were we leaving after all? He was just making that decision unilaterally? I—okay, I was fine with that. It had been a hell of a night—and a heaven of a night, at least in the beginning, though in the end that only made everything more confusing.

  And then, when we were halfway up the stairs, he gave my arm a yank, pulling me into his embrace, crushing me against his side. He buried his face in my hair for a second, his hot breath stirring my locks and making tingles race across my skin.

  “Please believe me,” he whispered. “I have nothing less than compassion for whatever has happened tonight. But the show must go on.”

  And then he lifted his head, spun me around, and with a gesture of his hand, cut short all the music and brought the low-level chatter of the entire room to an abrupt halt.

  Trust me, he mouthed, catching my look of utter confusion.

  That was one hell of thing to ask, but with the eyes of at least two hundred people on us, I didn’t have much of a choice. Everyone was staring at Grant, waiting. Including me.

  Damn, I really hoped my make-up was okay right now. Strange, the little things that pop into your mind.

  “Lacey,” he said, in a voice that rang out across the room. But he wasn’t looking at me. He was facing me, but his eyes were just over my shoulder, gauging the reaction of his audience. “It’s true that we’ve only known each other for a short time. But in that short time I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t take long to know the truth, and the truth is that I need you. More than air, more than food, more than life itself. You are the beat of my song, you are the fire in my blood, you are the sparkle in my eye. You give me a reason to get out of bed in the morning—and a reason to get back into it at night.”

  He actually paused for a laugh, the bastard. My head spun. What the hell was he doing?

  “You give me a reason to go through the day trying to be the best man I can be,” he said, and he said it looking at me, and so softly that there was a murmur of discontent from the crowd, deprived of that sentence of his speech. “Because you deserve nothing less than the best.”

  His hands were cupped loosely around mine, and his eyes were looking so gently into mine, so hopeful and pleading, and I was clinging to him for dear life, dizzy and about to faint, if he was saying what I thought he was saying…

  And then a shutter went down in his eyes, and he was looking over my shoulder again, the mask firmly in place.

  No, not the mask—this was his real self. I was a fool to think that his show of concern was anything other than that—a show. I was a fool to think that he was about to—

  “Lacey, when I first met you, I knew you were special, but I didn’t realize how special you were, how special you would become to me,” he went on, his voice loud enough again to project to the back of the hall. “I can’t let you go, I can’t let this moment pass without showing you how much I care, how I can’t live without you. Life simply isn’t worth living without you, my life, my love, my dearest, and so I ask you—”

  Oh no. Oh no. He wasn’t. He wasn’t about to—

  Was he?

  “Marry me!”

  He pulled out a small black box from his pocket, and popped it open to reveal an engagement ring with a diamond the size of a robin’s egg.

  My heart stopped. The crowd went wild.

  I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. I stood there like a deer in headlights, the flashbulbs of paparazzi going off around me, the shrieks and whoops of delight rising like a wave that was going to crash down around me and drown me.

  “I think I’m going to faint,” I said, but it was drowned out by all the applause.

  Grant raised his hand, and somehow, it all went silent again.

  “Wait,” he said, “We haven’t actually heard her answer yet.” He turned to me. “Well, Lacey? Will you make me the happiest man alive?”

  He actually had the nerve to smile at me. Like we were in this together. Like this proposal was all just a game.

  Because of course it was. A man like him would never willingly propose to a girl like me. Not unless there was a hundred million dollars on the line.

  I was mortified.

  I was furious.

  I smiled as sickly sweet as I could, stood on my tiptoes and hissed into Grant’s ear, “Are you completely fucking insane?”

  “I play to win,” he murmured without moving his lips. “Besides, this is your idea, my dear. I’m just following your plan.”

  “You are purposefully misunderstanding my plan—” I whispered angrily.

  “It’s only temporary,” Grant pointed out, pretending to kiss me on the cheek. “And it’ll be worth your while. You’ll be able to accomplish so much in such a short time—haven’t you been saying all along what you’d do with the company if you had the clout? Well, now you will. Besides—” His eyes cut to the side, indicating the crowd. “Are you really going to let all these nice people down? They live such boring, stilted lives of spreadsheets and financial quarters—let them have a little romance.”

  I could care less about giving some vicarious thrills to a bunch of desk jockeys, but the company…All those jobs, everyone counting on us, counting on me…

  I made the mistake of looking out at the crowd. Their eyes were wide as dinner plates, their shoulders tense as they waited with bated breath.

  They were waiting for me.

  I looked back at Grant, his dark blue eyes so open, so vulnerable.

  So fake.

  But we did make a good team.

  I smiled sweetly and mouthed You’re a bastard at him. Alarm flashed in his eyes, but before he could do a single thing I turned to the crowd, gave the biggest, most genuine smile I could muster—

  And cried, “Yes!”

  If I’d thought the applause was loud before, it deafened me now, breaking over my ears like a falling wall.

  Flashbulbs went off like lighting, and the two of us were engulfed in a crowd of well-wishers, hugging and thumping backs and planting loud smacking kisses on our cheeks. It was a whirlwind—hell, it was a tornado—and I felt like I was going to be swept away in the undertow.

  I would have been swept away in the undertow, if it hadn’t been for Grant’s strong arm around my shoulders, and the gentle way his hand stroked my arm, calming me. Once, the press of people became so great that I almost tripped, and he caught me, sliding the engagement ring onto my finger.

  The diamond glittered under the lights, and seeing it there suddenly made this real.

  I was engaged. To Grant Devlin.

  What the hell just happened? Did I just make the biggest mistake of my life?

  Or the best?

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  13

  Okay, I admit it: when I was in seventh grade, I made a wedding scrapbook.

  It was pink. It was lacy. It featured carefully cut out and pasted wedding dresses, shoes, and bouquets from the wedding magazines of every grocery store, hairdresser, library, and newsstand within a twenty-block radius of my house. Next to those pictures were the kind of lovingly detailed and copious notes of a complexity usually only seen in medieval Biblical commentaries, though with significantly more use of hearts for periods, the bottom half of exclamation points, and the dots of the I’s.

  I had worked out the wedding location: Paris, London, or worst case scenario, that really nice church with the phoenix stained glass window on Main Street. I had worked out the identities of the maid of honor (there was never any real choice besides Kate, whose bubbly lettering occasionally appeared beside mine in this notebook to add choice commentary such as “sexy beast!” or “super hott!” to select dresses), and the groom, or should I say the grooms? Because, you see, there were so many options. Justin Timberlake might spy me at a concert and know instantly that I was the one. Leonardo DeCapr
io might be swinging through town on the way from a movie premiere and stop at the same fro-yo place as me and know that we shared a deep connection. Tommy from fifth period might finally notice me and dump his bitchy girlfriend for someone who understood the importance of classic British spy-fi television shows.

  Justin, or Leo, or Tommy, would of course propose to me in the most romantic fashion possible. Maybe under a beautiful full moon glowing with the promise of our future lives together, a band softly playing sweet Caribbean melodies in the distance, lilac scenting the air as he—whichever one he ended up being—whirled me gracefully in a waltz across the green and flowered expanse of the park where we had had our first date. He would stroke my hair with infinite tenderness, gaze deeply into my eyes, and whisper in my ear, so softly that at first I would think I had imagined it: My love, will you marry me?

  For better or worse, though, my current love life was not being scripted by my seventh-grade self.

  And somehow, my thirteen-year-old self had never quite imagined a scenario with a marriage proposal coming from the full pouty lips of a man I couldn't even stand—and that I’d say yes to those lips. I mean, that man. Who I can’t stand. And whose lips are irrelevant to the current conversation, no matter how good they are at kissing my lips. Or at kissing their way up my thigh to my—yes, completely irrelevant. I’ll just stop talking about them right now. Yep.

  Oh, if I knew then what I knew now.

  But I didn’t, and so here I was, older but not feeling much wiser, applause and congratulations breaking over me like a tidal wave as what felt like the entire population of planet Earth—with possibly a few extra visitors from outer space—surrounded me to let me know how pleased they were with my impending marriage to Grant Devlin.

  …impending marriage to Grant Devlin. Holy shit.