by Mandy Rosko
Well, she was already on it, so no worries there, but the condom thing made her feel better.
The interesting thing, however, was that this was the part of the contract that he was apparently allowing to be up for debate. If there was something she wanted to do that wasn’t listed, she could bring it to his attention and he would consider it. The fact that cunnilingus was already listed on what he did want to do to her meant he would be considering her pleasure at least a little bit.
So it wasn’t entirely bad.
She signed that page as well, then got to the signature page itself. She dated it, signed her name, printed it, and then she was done. She was actually kind of shocked that she didn’t have to prick her finger and put a drop of blood on the paper just to seal the deal with her soul or something.
Part of her hated this, the rest of her liked how thorough the contract was. The number of days Arturo had to sign the papers that would transfer ownership of Baciami Boutique was even listed. Within ten days after all of this was finished, he had to have the ball rolling to give her family’s company back. It might even come to her before that if she decided to annoy him enough.
Despite that, as she stood, her knees got a tiny wobble in them.
She’d signed the papers, but she hadn’t handed them in yet, and the little voice in her head was screaming at her to rip them up and be done with it. The other voice in her head was whispering sweetly about how close she was to her goal. So close. She just had to walk over to Sylvia, ask to see him again, and she could hand in the papers.
Time to be a big girl. There was nothing wrong with this. This was an agreement between two willing adults, so she needed to just suck it up and do it already.
She walked over to Sylvia’s desk. The woman looked up and smiled pleasantly at her, as though she were just another guest or a business associate. She was still trying to figure her out, but her heart beating like someone was taking a drumstick to it was taking up top-priority with her at the moment.
“I’d like to speak with Arturo again, please.”
She wasn’t about to call him Mr. Calendri. Not if she was going to have sex with him.
In fact, that seemed to calm her the most, just thinking about this as though it could be any other date or fling, something that could be fun for the both of them. All she needed to do was relax.
Sylvia pressed down on her tablet. “Miss King is coming back in, sir.”
“Send her in,” he replied.
She supposed it made sense that the man wouldn’t ask if she’d signed the papers, not over that little microphone.
“You may go inside,” Sylvia said, still smiling.
Maybe the social structure had changed slightly now that the papers were signed.
She went to the doors and only opened one to let herself inside.
He was sitting at his desk, his feet up on the polished wood as he leaned back in his chair. He looked a lot more presentable than he had when she’d first come in here. The jogging clothes were gone, and he was no longer sweaty and panting. Had he taken a shower? She should’ve expected it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for a billionaire to have a shower somewhere up here. He probably had the sort of bathroom that made high-end spas jealous.
It should have looked out of place, Arturo Calendri with his feet up like that while wearing a perfectly cut black suit and tie, but he pulled it off. How was he doing that? “You’re a whole ten minutes early this time. Did you even read it?”
“I read fast,” she explained. “I’ve signed them. It’s done.”
His brows went up. Had he really been expecting something different?
“Bring them to me.” He held out his hand.
She went to him, but she didn’t stand in front of his desk and hand the papers over. She went around the massive desk, her eyes locked onto his the entire time.
There was amusement in those dark orbs, as though he knew this was her way of striking even some small amount of independence from him. She wasn’t about to stand, or sit, in front of his desk like she was an employee. Out of the damned question.
“Here you go,” she said.
He took the papers, using both hands, his movements slow, and he made for damned sure his fingers brushed her hand.
She didn’t mean for it to happen, but her body tensed and she shivered.
There was no way he hadn’t noticed that. Fuck.
He leaned back, the movement of his body so obviously strong and graceful, even as he did something so simple in his leather chair.
Those dark eyes remained on her as he did so, before finally turning to the pages of his contract. He went through every page, making sure her initials were on all of them, her guarantee that she’d read those pages.
Then he moved on to the second to the last page. The page with the list of sexual things he could do to her if he really wanted to. Hell, he would do them. He could order her to get on her knees right now before leaving here, undo his pants, and put his cock in her mouth, and she wouldn’t be able to say no.
She trembled just thinking about it, but not in the way she would have expected.
Having a belief in the way sex should be treated between two adults and carrying that out herself, were two completely different things. She expected to feel nervous. She expected to have her doubts, but she also knew she wanted to do this.
What she didn’t expect was the moist heat that pooled between her legs. That was the last thing she’d seen coming. It definitely shouldn’t have happened.
Why? Why was this turning her on? Because he now had control of her? She found that sexy? Really?
The things a person learned about themselves if they really looked was always amazing. Isla had thought she’d learned everything there was to know about herself. Figuring out she may have a thing for being controlled or dominated in the bedroom was definitely new.
Not that she was going to get ready to be someone’s sub when this was over. She could say with a 100 percent certainty that she had no interest in going that far with any of this.
He checked the last page after thoroughly checking his list of do’s and don’ts. She didn’t know what he was studying so closely. Checking to make sure she hadn’t tampered with it, maybe?
He finally turned the page and looked over her signature. A slow smile spread across his mouth, and it somehow managed to accent his strong jaw. There was a dark shadow coming in that she hadn’t noticed an hour ago when she’d been in here, begging to be able to sign the damned contract.
Guys who had that shadow, or even a little bit of stubble, always turned her on. There was nothing sexier than that, especially on a man who was already beyond good looking.
“You signed it,” he said. He was not asking a question.
She didn’t get it. “What else was I supposed to do?”
He shrugged, and then he tapped the pages on his desk, as if they still needed straightening up.
She was pretty sure she understood. “Wait a minute, I was allowed to negotiate that?”
“It’s a contract. All contracts are up for negotiation.”
Son of a bitch.
“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway, I was fine with what you put down, and you said I could negotiate with you what happened in… in the bedroom,” she said. She’d tried to save face by making it out as though this new information hadn’t bothered her, but the way her throat got caught when she’d tried to speak had nearly been her undoing.
He smiled at her. “Are you shy?”
“No!” she snapped.
His eyes remained on her, oddly serious in that moment. The smirk left his mouth in exchange for a grim line. “Are you a virgin?”
“No,” she said, managing to keep her voice calmer this time.
He stared at her as though he didn’t quite believe her. She considered lying to him, telling him she was a virgin, if the idea made him so damned uncomfortable. It would serve him right, and then she might not have to have sex with him.
>
Actually, considering what she now knew about Arturo Calendri, she would still wind up in bed with him. He’d probably get over any icky feelings he had on the subject really quickly and do what every red-blooded male needed to do from time to time if they wanted to keep from getting a case of blue balls without taking the problem into their own hands. That, and it would just get her in trouble with the contract. She wasn’t allowed to lie about anything to get out of sex or appearing at an event with him. So she couldn’t say she was on her period or something.
If he found out she’d lied about being a virgin to make him uncomfortable, then there was no telling what would happen.
“I’m not a virgin. I’ve been with five guys in my life. I’ll give you first names if you want them, but not last names and no phone numbers.”
“Are any of them on your social media?”
She blinked, having not expected that question. “Two of them are. We still keep in touch and are kind of friends.”
“Delete them. The rest of your friends are fine, but you’re not going to be talking to ex-boyfriends while you’re with me.”
“That’s not in the contract,” she protested.
“It is now.” The look on his face meant he wouldn’t be accepting any arguments from her.
8
“Oh no, sweetie, tell me you didn’t,” Jane said.
The girl looked as sad and heartbroken as if she had told her she had plans for moving across the globe and never coming back, or regularly thought about suicide, or killed a person. Jane really did look that horrified.
Isla shrugged, as if she hadn’t had this conversation with herself already a thousand times since pizza and beer last night, and was still feeling totally confident with herself. “I thought it through and decided this was the way to go. We’re both adults, and I have a healthy sexual appetite. Why not let this happen?”
“He’s using you,” Jane said. Her arms crossed as she stopped being the sad and sympathetic friend and turned into the super pissed-off friend. Even as Jane glared, she knew all that anger was directed at one very handsome, black-haired man who had a great set of abs, a chest most people would kill for, and a wicked-looking five o’clock shadow.
"I know, but technically, I'm using him, too."
"And he's making you get rid of your friends on Facebook. What's next, you can't call or text me without him seeing what you're sending?"
She lifted a brow. "That's a little melodramatic. I don't think it's that bad."
"You don't know that."
Isla didn't know that, but to be fair, the only way she could know for sure was if she was a mind reader, which she was most definitely not.
"I think it's going to be fine. He just doesn't want me talking to ex-boyfriends while we're together. That's it. I can talk to them again after this is all done. I hardly ever message them anyway."
And the messages she did send were usually group messages, birthday and Christmas messages, or links to funny videos. Sometimes she would like a comment or make a genuine post to ask how they were doing, but that was it.
There was no danger in her deleting those contacts because, even though she liked those people, they hardly ever spoke.
Not enough for it to be noticeable in just one month.
"I'll add them back on when the month is over and I get the family company back."
Jane was still shaking her head. She ran her fingers through her hair enough to make some of the strands stick up. Biting on her bottom lip, she stared at her with a pitying expression, looking fearful.
"You really are scared for me, aren't you?" Isla asked.
"Of course I am. This isn't normal. This is the kind of thing you see or read in some erotic fantasy novel. You're going to be In The Arms of The Billionaire Boss or whatever."
She liked that and couldn't help but smile. “You pulled that title out of your ass pretty quick. Are you writing something and not telling me?"
"Shut up! This is serious!"
But she couldn't take it seriously. She laughed.
It was only because her emotions were going up and down, but now that the papers were signed and she gave herself over to Arturo, she'd never felt freer. There was no stress, not really, now that she had to go through with the contract. She had a light flutter of butterflies in her stomach, but that was about it. Knowing she was saving her grandfather and her entire family's future created a sense of calming relief inside of her that was like the best drug.
Not that she did drugs, but the analogy seemed to fit. She hadn't felt this mellow in two years.
Seeing Jane flip out was having the strangest calming effect on her, instead of making her react in a similar fashion.
"Look, I was nervous, too. I almost didn't sign it."
"Until he tricked you into thinking you had to do it and had to sign in that instant."
"I had an hour," she said, only a little defensive about that part.
It was true, though, and she'd realized it the second she'd walked out of Calendri Corp.
He had created a false sense of emergency in her, a sense that she needed to sign those papers and sign them right then and there, otherwise there would be no deal.
And she'd totally fallen for it. He'd dug his trap right in front of her, and she hadn't seen the obvious coming.
Whatever. She was brushing it off. She'd signed the papers, and she was going to save her family now; that was all she needed.
"I can put up with his bullshit for four weeks, and you're acting like he's going to rape me or something."
"That's basically what this is," Jane said, crossing her arms.
"No, it's not, and I know you kind of have a point, maybe, on the rest of it, but this one I will genuinely fight you on. That's not what this is. He's good looking and I want to have sex with him. He's a billionaire and has girls hanging on him all the time because they want him to buy them pretty things. I've had my fair share of boyfriends who wanted to use me to get to whatever money they thought I had."
Which wasn't as much as some people thought, considering the work ethic of her family.
"But—"
"No buts, just listen. We're coming into this with an agreement that we’re using each other. I've been thinking about this a lot, and even if he says he’s doing this just because I told him to fuck off, there has to be another reason behind it. He wants a respectable girl on his arm for some reason I can't figure out."
"You just said he was a billionaire. What could he possibly want from you that he can't get from someone else? He's not going to ask you to make a necklace or a bracelet for him. He can buy plenty of those from other people."
"I haven't figured it out yet, but I started thinking about this because of what was in the contract. He's not planning on doing anything gross to me, and there was nothing in that contract that said he was into hardcore pain or peeing on me."
Jane squeezed her eyes shut and made a face as she leaned away from her. "Okay, that's really gross. I really wish I didn't know about that."
"But do you at least see my point?" Isla asked. She wasn't about to let this go, not yet. "I think there's more to this, and even if I'm wrong, I still walk away with Baciami Boutique. I can go back to work making good money selling my jewelry. My mom can make money managing the books again instead of looking for another job." And her grandfather would be happy again. He wouldn't be wasting away like he was, thinking about what he lost and having his family constantly hitting him up for loans.
Jane bit her bottom lip. When she shook her head, Isla thought for sure she still hadn't managed to get through to her.
Then Jane sighed. "All right, if this is what you want. Tell me more about this contract he made you sign. I want details so I know if the son of a bitch tries to hurt you."
She was more than all right with that. "Then will you help me pack?"
Jane narrowed her eyes at her. "You owe me so bad for this."
"I know."
"Owe me like, if yo
u end up marrying the asshole, you'll have to transfer ten million into my account."
"We'll see," Isla said, and then proceeded to tell Jane about the contract.*****He stared out at the city. It started to glow with lights as the sun sank deeper and deeper, creating a sky of pinks and purples, followed by highlighted orange clouds and dark blues just over yonder.He had her now. This was going to irritate the hell out of that son of a bitch. Arturo absolutely could not wait to rub this in that smug prick's face. There was no amount of money that could buy him this kind of satisfaction.He couldn't wait to get home tonight so he could take her for a test drive.
9
A limo came to retrieve Isla shortly after she and Jane finished packing up all the essentials.
She expected to be able to come back and grab whatever she needed if she later realized she had forgotten something, but just in case Arturo turned into an asshole about that as well, she decided to grab what she could.
For a start, her iPad, her kindle, and one of her jewelry making kits with some of the projects she was still working on half-finished inside. That was definitely important and could not be left behind. She also brought a couple changes of clothes, shoes, and toiletries, but she was stumped on what to bring as far as lingerie went.
While working at Baciami Boutique, one of the main perks—aside from making jewelry that her grandfather allowed her to sell in the store as part of the brand—she also got deeply discounted bras, panties, and even some teddies.
She didn't get them free, not with her family's work ethic, but the discount had been better than what the regular employees received.
For that reason, she had a ton of lingerie. Everything from sassy and cute, to sexy and naughty, in all styles and colors.
She brought seven pairs of panties and seven matching bras. For the bras, some were the lacy kind, the rest were push-ups. For the panties, none of them were cotton, but some were in the shapes of boy briefs, while the rest were thongs with lace trimming around her hips.
