by Maya Rodale
“For you, Sweater Set,” he said with a half smile. “But I don’t own a tie.”
“Really?”
“Really. I’m off. We have a dinner thing at eight tonight. I’ll come back and pick you up. Stay out of trouble.”
“Isn’t that what I should say to you?”
Later
$(“.tie”).remove();
“Well don’t you look pretty,” Duke murmured when he arrived back at the room at quarter to eight.
“Just for you,” I replied. “And for whomever we are trying to impress at dinner tonight.” Duke had given me no indication of what to expect at this dinner—fancy? Casual? Big dinner party? Small, intimate gathering? Given our conversation this morning, I figured those fashion distinctions would be lost upon him so I wore a black shift dress, nude patent pumps, pearl stud earrings and a whisper-thin black cashmere cardigan. I spent an hour blowing out my hair.
“Oh, and I bought you something,” I said. He looked up at me from his iPhone, intrigued. I handed him the long, flat box. “Just a little thing from the gift shop.”
I had also gotten myself a something: a hefty princess cut engagement ring, made of the finest cubic zirconia Duke’s money could buy.
“Oh, Jane,” he said with a laugh when he opened the box and saw. “A tie?”
“You said you wanted to be respectable,” I protested.
“Yeah, but startup guys don’t wear ties.”
I rolled my eyes. I bit back thoughts of how handsome Sam looked when he dressed up in a suit. I could still recall the scent of wool and starched shirt. For our fifth anniversary, I’d gotten him silver cufflinks in the shape of books.
“Actually, do you know what we use ties for?” Duke asked in a slow, sexy manner that sent a tremor racing along my spine.
“No, and I’m not sure I want to,” I said. “We have to go to dinner.”
“Oh, I think you do,” he murmured, smiling and letting the grey silk fall through his hands. “C’mon here.”
I had a clue from the wicked gleam in his eye.
“We have to go to dinner in ten minutes.”
“We can be late.”
“I think that kind of attitude is what got you in trouble in the first place.”
“So what’s a little more? Besides, I thought we agreed that you didn’t get in enough trouble.”
“I don’t know how you get away with this kind of stuff,” I remarked. But I was intrigued. Tempted.
“Me neither,” he said with a laugh. “Close your eyes.”
I did. Oh, I did. I felt the silk cover my eyes and I felt him tie it in a knot at the back of my head. The world turned black and there was nothing but a heightened awareness of Duke’s nearness. I inhaled, breathing in the scent of him. I could feel the warmth of him oh so close. My nerves started waking up and wanting to feel his skin against mine.
Duke started with a kiss where my neck curved to my shoulder while he possessively held my waist and pulled me close. Kisses, higher, my lips parted, wanting, until finally his mouth crashed against mine.
His phone pinged. A tweet or text or whatever.
He ignored it and unzipped my dress, sliding his hands across the bare skin of my back. Would he take it off? Did I want him to? Yes. God, yes. His hands kept roaming, his touch kept in check by the dress, clinging haphazardly but still on. Even though he couldn’t see it, I was totally glad I had taken Roxanna’s advice and packed sexy underwear, just in case.
I reached out for him, fumbling and feeling the soft cotton of his T-shirt as I pushed it aside, needing to really feel him.
“I think I might tie you up later,” he murmured.
“We’ll see about that . . .” I whispered. And then I forgot about that when Duke’s palm closed over my breast and I gasped. The things he did . . . Bunching up my dress, his hand slid up to between my thighs, finding exactly the right spot and teasing me like crazy with slow, deliberate circles.
I unbuttoned his jeans. He sucked in his breath.
His phone started to ring. We ignored it. We kissed. We got a bit carried away.
Whoever called left a voicemail and then called again. Duke only pulled me closer and kissed me harder. Both of us, breathless. Both of us in ridiculous states of not-quite-undress.
Now the phone in the room started to ring.
“Sounds like someone wants to talk to you,” I whispered.
“I’m busy,” he murmured. Oh, I knew.
But the spell was broken.
“And I’m supposed to be making you respectable. And just look at me!”
“Oh, I am,” he replied with a lingering, heated glance that took in my wrinkled dress and messed up hair.
I tugged off the tie and tossed it to him. “Wear this tonight. It’s your turn.”
“If that’s how you want to play it, Jane . . .”
Chapter Seven
* * *
Word count: 10,251
Twitter followers: 621
Thoughts of Sam: 7
Thoughts of silk tie and . . . : 103
ONE HUNDRED AND fifty million dollars on the line. One hundred and fifty million dollars of investment could propel one of the fastest growing startups into one of the biggest companies ever created. As long as Duke didn’t fuck it up as he had in the past.
As we took the elevator down to the hotel restaurant I smoothed out my dress and thought about the money. I had learned, thanks to some Googling, that almost all the other VC’s had passed. It seemed the success of Project-TK was reliant on a successful monetization strategy of their huge user base. Success was also a little too reliant on Duke’s brilliant coding and magnetic personality. Unfortunately, he was notoriously unreliable.
I was here to help Duke convince the renowned venture capitalist, Augustus Grey, to pony up one hundred and fifty million dollars and to make Duke retained control of his precious company.
I was not here to indulge in tie-me-up, make-me-late-for-dinner sex. Already, this farce was off to a bad start. We were late to dinner.
The elevator doors pinged and opened.
“What are you doing?” I asked. He was fixated on his phone again.
“I’m checking in,” he replied.
“Should I do that?”
“Go for it.”
“Oh, look we get extra points for checking in together!” I exclaimed. I had no idea what the points were for, but I had extra!
“Shhh,” Duke said, rolling his eyes. “You’re supposed to know that since you’ve been on Foursquare for months and we’ve checked in a million times together.”
“Right,” I said, adjusting my dress, my cardigan, my hair . . . oh God, my hair. My blow-out hadn’t quite survived our make-out.
As we approached the restaurant, we were directed to a private room where a bunch of guys like Duke milled about, drinks in hand. Not one of them wore a tie.
“So this might not be the intimate deal-closing dinner I had expected,” Duke murmured to me as we crossed the lobby to the restaurant. “It looks like we have competition. Grey loves nothing more than to pit people against each other.”
“I’m a librarian. Not an actress.”
“No, you’re a writer. Tonight you just have to compose your lines on the fly.”
I smiled as we strolled up to the legendary VC, Augustus Grey. He was a distinguished guy probably in his forties with greying hair. His eyes were his most striking feature: blue, keen, intelligent and sharp. They missed nothing, those eyes. Nervously, I reached for Duke’s hand. I didn’t think we’d be able to pull this off. Beside him stood a young, handsome man. Duke whispered that he was Ethan Parks, the CFO of Project-TK.
“Duke Austen deigns to grace us with his presence. I am so honored,” Augustus said dryly. Not a good start.
“I fancied some extra spending money so I thought I’d drop by,” Duke said and I gasped audibly. I glanced up and saw him grinning. Ethan smiled tightly.
“As impertinent as ever. How predictable
. How dull,” Augustus replied.
“My sincerest apologies,” Duke said. “I forget we are all here for the amusement of an ornery old investor.”
“You’ll do well to remember it, Duke. I might be the only investor you’ve got,” Augustus replied with a pointed look. I couldn’t believe the way these two spoke to each other. No wonder Duke had the reputation he did. If Duke secured the funding, it would be because of some criteria and formula that I’d never discern—and not because of his manners or respect for authority.
And then, all eyes shifted to me.
“This is my fiancé, Jane Sparks.” Duke smiled and pulled me close as he performed the introductions—August looked skeptical and Ethan devolved into a sudden coughing fit.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Grey,” I said.
“Are you really?”
For a moment I was taken aback by his abruptness.
“Yes,” I said smiling. “I’m also very nervous.” That brought a reluctant smile to his face.
“I suppose he warned you about this dinner,” Augustus said. “Lots business and tech talk. I hope you’re not too bored.”
“I’m sure it can’t be any worse than a blind date,” I replied nervously.
“Ah, but you’re not dating any more. You’ve snared this . . . gentleman,” Augustus said in a manner suggesting that he used the term “gentleman” loosely.
“He’s alright,” I said smiling, “But it wouldn’t hurt if he cleaned up a bit.”
I was rewarded with a faint smile and gruff nod of approval.
“While I am just delighted you two are getting so well, I think Jane would like to meet the other guests,” Duke said, taking my hand in his.
“I can’t imagine she would,” Augustus said. “They’re a giant lot of boorish fortune hunters.”
Said batch of boorish fortune hunters had the decency to shift awkwardly, glance down at their drinks and seem dismayed by the pronouncement. But it was the truth: funding from Augustus Grey could be the key to their success. Duke and I were no different.
Dinner was a disaster.
If only the dinner conversation consisted of business and tech talk. Boredom would have been welcomed. Instead, Augustus and the others had questions about Duke and me.
We all took seats around a long, sleek wooden table. Chandeliers with Edison bulbs hung overhead. Each place setting contained fine, handmade porcelain plates, silver cutlery and delicate glasses. The restaurant was homemade, rustic chic that served farm-to-table fare.
Duke and I found ourselves sitting on either side of Augustus. Was it a mark of favor—or was he suspicious about our engagement?
“Welcome to dinner,” Augustus began, raising his glass. “I know you all are ruthlessly competing for funding. If you are at this table, it’s because I think your startup has promise. But I’ll probably only decide to fund one of your companies.”
“What criteria are you looking for?” asked a youngish guy with thick, black-framed glasses.
“I choose the winner based on criteria I will not disclose.” His reply was followed by the sound of disgruntled murmurs up and down the table. “It is non-negotiable,” Augustus said firmly. “If you do not think this fair, take to Twitter and see if anyone cares. Remember that you are free to leave at any time. Nor was your presence here required. In fact some of your presences were not even requested,” Augustus said with a pointed look at Duke, who adopted an expression of utter innocence and said, “Fortunately, we have corrected that appalling oversight.”
My mouth dropped open. We hadn’t even been invited to this dinner?
Across the table, Duke just winked at me.
“You’re lucky you’re charming, Duke,” Augustus said dryly. “Otherwise I don’t know how your fiancé abides you.”
“She has the patience of a saint,” Duke answered. “And she likes her chardonnay. A lot.”
“It’s the only way to tolerate him,” I replied dryly, with a dark look across the table at my “fiancé.”
But Augustus’s lips quirked into an approving smile.
“Indeed,” Augustus said “Fortunately you’ve enough sense to settle down with a woman of wit and intelligent, though I have to question her judgment if she’s marrying you. Now what was I saying?”
“That we are all competitors for funding and you will decide based on top secret criteria. Any complaints can be addressed to Twitter,” Duke summed up.
“Well done,” Augustus said plainly. “All your boozing and drugs haven’t fried your brain after all.”
“Why don’t you just declare him and his fiancé the winners and let us all go home?” one of the other startup guys asked, not quite able to disguise the anger in his voice.
“After everyone has traveled all this way?” Augustus asked. “Duke and his fiancé could still screw up.
“To building the future,” Augustus said, raising his glass. Everyone else raised their glasses as well. I nervously plucked my glass of white wine, but aware of skeptical and accusatory eyes on me, my hand shook and I dropped the wine glass. It shattered.
Across the table, Duke gave me A Look I couldn’t quite read. Dinner had only just begun and already I had screwed up.
After the appetizers had been cleared, disaster struck again. A guy named Jack asked what would have been considered a polite and innocuous question under any other circumstances.
“So how did you two meet?”
“The news that Duke was engaged was one hell of a surprise,” added another guy—I think his name was Justin. “Never thought he’d be the marrying kind.”
My smile tightened and my stomach started to ache.
I looked to Duke, hoping the alarm I felt wasn’t apparent in my expression. We had made up some tweets about our first date, but we hadn’t concocted a story—especially one that we could tell in the cute couple-finishes-each-other’s-sentences kind of way.
I thought of our flight from NYC to SF. I wrote and he slept when we should have been getting this stuff straight.
Duke just lifted his brow. I know—I was the writer. The romance writer. I should come up with this on the spot. But my mind went blank.
Apparently, his did, too.
“It was really romantic,” I said, buying a little more time. And then I blurted out the first thing I thought of: “We met in the gazebo in Central Park. During a rain storm.”
Of course I said this at the same time Duke said, “We met at a party.”
“I didn’t know Duke was the kind to take long walks in the park,” Jack remarked, apparently not having heard Duke, thank goodness.
“I was on my home from a party. Couldn’t get a cab in the rain,” Duke explained. This tested the imagination of no one. It was a good save. But I knew why everyone was questioning us and it wasn’t to hear a happy little love story.
If Duke and I could be exposed as frauds, we wouldn’t get the funding, which would up their odds of getting it. One hundred and fifty million dollars. I could not forget that.
There was also the fact that Duke and I were so different and were an unexpected pair: He was gorgeous, magnetic, and all kinds of trouble who was known to have a preference for tall, leggy, skinny blonde models. I was the librarian in a prim shift dress and pearls who had made him wear a tie. In what world did a guy like him and a girl like me meet, let alone fall in love and promise each other forever?
“After your chance encounter in Central Park, did you propose immediately, Duke, or did you tweet about it first?” Augustus asked dryly.
“Did you guys date at all?” Justin asked. “Was there a whole relationship that went unrecorded on social media?”
“Check the tweets. And the Facebook updates. And Instagram,” Duke said, grinning. I knew he was thinking about the triumph of the hacking that night and that he’d anticipated these questions. “When a man knows he’s found the woman for him, why should he wait?” Duke mused.
A romantic sentiment? My heart thudded at the thought.
Or evading the question?
Definitely the latter.
“And how are the wedding plans progressing? Did you set a date yet?” Augustus asked.
“We haven’t set a date. But I have everything planned on Pinterest,” I said, and everyone laughed. Then I reached for my wine glass and made sure to flash my giant, cubic zirconia engagement ring.
From there, the conversation finally turned to and business talk, most of which I could not follow, like UX, API’s and metadata. But every once in a while, Duke would catch my eye for a smoldering gaze across the table that made me shift in my chair. I was thinking of what would happen after dinner.
One king-sized bed.
One grey silk tie.
One bad boy billionaire.
One girl who’d been too good for too long.
I’d never been great at math but even I could easily tell what that added up to. Roxanna was right. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I needed to have fun and not waste a moment.
Duke was twisting that grey silk tie around his wrists and giving me A Look. I shifted in my chair, crossing one leg over the other. I might have sipped my wine, which did nothing to cool the surge of heat as I thought about my turn to wear the tie.
Later
$(“.janesDress”).remove();
Duke started loosening the tie in the elevator. It was going to happen. Me, him, that tie. There was no pretending otherwise. Part of me was ready to rip off my dress and his T-shirt—to hell with the security cameras. The part of me that was all feeling and no thoughts. But I took a deep breath, willing my pulse to slow and my nerves to settle.
It was just sex. I’d done it before. A lot. But not in a while, and not ever with anyone other than Sam. And never with a tie or any other toy. And definitely not with a guy like Duke, who by all accounts, had a thing for models and the prettiest girls.
So pardon me if I was nervous like it was my first time.
