Billionaire on Board

by Dasha G. Logan

  "Of course, but you know exactly what happens if you let him."

  "I'll get emotionally involved?"

  "Yes, you will."

  "I'll get hurt?"

  "Yes, you will."

  I ground my teeth. "Come on, Tina, he's leaving on monday, it's only fun and games and honestly, I really don't think he means business, I'm just his entertainment programme."

  Tina rolled her eyes.

  "Since when does male entertainment NOT include sex?"

  I said nothing.

  "Alright then, go on, let him fuck you. But don't come crying to me!"

  "You're getting this wrong, we're only practising to make it look more natural tomorrow."

  "Yeah. Right."

  "Why would a man like that want to sleep with a girl like me? He usually dates supermodels!"

  "Because you're the sexiest piece of ass on this planet and you know it. If I were a man I'd chain you to the radiator."

  "Why would you chain her to the radiator?"

  Ryan had returned carrying a tray with three cups and two mountainous chunks of chocolate cake.

  "I said if I were a man, I'd chain her to the radiator, because she's such a sexy little SOB."

  He nudged me. "I won't chain you to the radiator."

  "I'm happy to hear it."

  Secretly I had hoped he would in some way confirm Tina's statement about my amount of sexiness.

  "You're welcome. Tell me, Tina, what do you do for a living…?"

  Tina was sharp as hell but Ryan's conversational skills were right up there; he was parrying her blows with shocking savoir-faire. After an hour Tina announced it was time for her to get back home because she had to finish a presentation. When she departed she threateningly waved her index finger at me.

  I was alone with Ryan again and he was hungry. I was not - thanks to the cake and his presence - but we moved to a restaurant in the next street owned by a famous German TV chef. I confess, I wanted to impress him with my knowledge of such things.

  After lunch he called the driver who took us to the big lake.

  My imaginary boyfriend had asked me what else a couple would do on a sunny day like this, so I had claimed we would stroll around the lake.

  We stopped for another coffee at a boathouse bar along the way.

  "Do you have any more brothers or sisters?" I wanted to know.

  "You mean apart from Laetitia? Yes, there's Camille. She's three years younger than me."

  "I see, you're the firstborn."

  "Yes. I used to have a brother. But he died."

  "Oh,"

  I was immediately flustered and unsure what to say. There are people who always know how to react in such situations. I am not one of them.

  "I— I'm sorry."

  "Happened a long time ago," he said dismissively.

  "How old was he?"

  "Fourteen."

  I took a sharp breath. "What happened?"

  "Premature death by Lamborghini. He stole it from our basement garage and made it exactly one mile and a half until he wrapped the car around a tree. He was still on our land."

  "Oh my God."

  "Yes. I was at Harvard then, so I wasn't there when it happened, only for the funeral. He was eight years younger than me and we didn't have much of a connection. It was worse for Titia, they had been very close."

  I was right away overcome by a bad conscience for having told on her. You know, rugby, dope…

  "That must've been terrible."

  Five second silence.

  "Why were you sent to board, anyway? It sounds to me as if your parents wouldn't have minded keeping you at home."

  At first I did not understand what he was after.

  "Oh, you mean St. Cecil's? No, I wanted to go there."

  "You wanted to leave home? I certainly didn't, but I was never asked."

  "Yes, it was a way for me to get my A-Levels much earlier. Even by skipping two classes in Germany I would still have been seventeen, in Britain I was done with it at sixteen. Actually, I only took my final two years in the UK."

  "Ah yes, because of the wunderkind thing."

  "Hmm. Anyway, that's how I sold it to my mother. The true reason was Harry Potter."

  "What?"

  "Yes, Hogwarts. I wanted to go to a school with houses, and uniforms, and tutors, and—"

  "Especially French tutors."

  "Oh come on, I was really in love with Michel. He was cute! — No, seriously! I wanted to wear a school uniform and walk through wooden archways… School in Germany's not like that. It's all modern buildings and neon lights."

  "Did we live up to your expectations?"

  "You as in 'The British'? My mother is a Brit, as you know. I have a large English family. You 'British' were nothing new to me."

  "Ah, but you're just a half-breed. A muggle."

  "So are you!"

  "Yes, but the fire of Argentina runs in my veins. I have the entire Falklands war right in here!" He patted his stomach. "Gosh, I think I'm starting to get hungry again. What should we do about dinner? What would we usually do?"

  "We'd go shopping and cook."

  "Great, I can cook and I get to see your flat."

  Tina and Lilly appeared before my inner eye, waving at me with their index fingers.

  "Sure, why not?"

  "Would we go to a supermarket?"

  "What else?"

  "Great, I love supermarkets. I hardly ever get the chance."

  It was the first time I drove up to my local supermarket in a Maybach.

  Ryan was pushing the cart through the rows with a look of pure concentration on his face and when I observed him, gazing rapturously at the cheese counter, my heart began to play an extremely gooey rock ballad. No, it was not my heart, it was the store radio. Oh please!

  He was utterly focused, silently reading out the cheeses' names to himself.

  "Who usually does your shopping?" I asked after watching him for some time.

  "Hm?"

  "Who usually does your shopping when you're at home? Your housekeeper?"

  He picked up a piece of Gorgonzola, wrapped in a see-through plastic foil and put it down again.

  "I hate Gorgonzola."

  "Yes, me too. Hey, I asked you a question. Who does your shopping when you're at home?"

  "Oh." He looked up at me with those dark eyes and absentmindedly brushed a streak of hair from my face.

  "Mainly the Ocean."

  Yes, dear readers, I felt exactly like you just did.

  Seven

  In the end Ryan bought nearly half the supermarket, claiming his intent to produce what he called a "Caribbean Sushi".

  The Maybach drove the one hundred and twenty yards to my flat in exactly twenty-three seconds. The amount of goods my imaginary lover had purchased made a pedestrian transfer outright impossible.

  "Who's going to eat all this?"

  "You can be happy somebody's filling up your fridge."

  "Yes. My fridge will be full with one tenth of what you bought, what do I say, the entire kitchen will be stuffed to the ceiling. I'll have to ask everybody in the building to take in a family of mangoes."

  "Stop exaggerating. Your store's really well stocked, by the way."

  "Yes."

  Once we were inside, Ryan started on a sightseeing tour which was a short affair, since there was only one sitting room, one tiny bedroom, one balcony, one bathroom and one kitchen.

  "I like it," was his verdict. "Warm and amply furnished. Just like its tenant."

  "Owner." I somehow thought pointing it out was important.

  "It is a pretty small kitchen," Ryan admitted when he shoved the grocery bags inside.

  "You can't say I didn't warn you."

  "Okay, why don't you hop into something more comfortable while I start the chopping. I'm sure I'll find whatever I need. It's not as if there were too many places to look for things."

  "Right. I think it's better if I don't watch this anyway."


  I walked into my bedroom and closed the door. I fell onto my knees and bit into the mattress to muffle the shriek building itself up inside of me ever since Ryan had first kissed me on board of the Heidi.

  "Okay, good. Perfect." I stood up and opened the wardrobe.

  I was certainly aware something more comfortable was the Hollywood euphemism for a transparent negligee but I decided to take him by his word and pulled on the largest hooded sweater I could find and combined it with equally large track pants.

  I returned to the kitchen and leaned against the door frame with my arms crossed.

  He looked up from whatever he was chopping.

  "Looks very comfortable indeed."

  "It is."

  "Now, Buttercup, normally we'd pick up a movie, right? But we haven't been to the rental place."

  "I have on-demand TV."

  "Cool. So what should we watch? From your predilection for the French cinéma I'd suggest something from Claude Chabrol. What's your favourite movie?"

  "Hmmm…"

  This was not the moment to say "Love… Actually" because if he asked why, I would have had to confess it was mostly for Rodrigo Santoro being naked, which would hint to another predilection of mine… for a certain type of man. You know, tall, dark, lithe… not unlike a certain person currently slicing garlic in my kitchen.

  "I don't know really… I watch a lot of movies."

  "Artsy stuff, I'm sure."

  "No," I protested, blushing a bit. "Mostly action movies and thrillers. Sci-fi…"

  "Like Iron Man?"

  "Yes, like Iron Man, in fact I love Iron Man no matter what anybody says."

  "Yes!" He made a striking movement, knife in hand, causing me to dive out of the kitchen. "Let's watch Iron Man!"

  In different circumstances I would have ravished the Caribbean Sushi and I valiantly fought down a large enough amount of the delicious stuff, but the question whether Ryan Corvera-Fabergé was actually planning to ravish me and - if so - what my reaction to a ravishing attempt should be, was decidedly weakening my appetite.

  But why on earth should I deny myself what would probably be the best sex I was ever going to get with the best looking man I was ever going to meet?

  So far it looked more and more unlikely anyway.

  He had neither kissed, nor touched me or in any way done anything evidential since our last smooch at the Coffee Factory.

  I was a little surprised when Robert Downey Jr. stopped transforming from human genius to combat machine and the credits started rolling. I had been so caught up in my own conundrum.

  I stood up.

  "I'll do the dishes."

  "Okay," Ryan said without taking his eyes off the screen.

  I swayed into the kitchen where I hyperventilated for a minute or two. After I had accomplished that, I set out to tidy up. He had fortunately created far less of a chaos than I had expected.

  I started by filling the plates into the dishwasher and continued by wiping the surfaces. My large IKEA wineglasses did not fit into the machine and I ran hot water into the sink. Then I looked up and saw him standing in the doorframe, silently watching me.

  "Are you leaving?" I asked, hoping my voice did not betray my anxiety.

  "Do I have to?"

  Images of skyscraper high index fingers waving from left to right crept up in front of me. All the voices in my head were screaming in unison. YEEEEES!!!

  "No." I bowed over the sink again.

  He came up behind me. Very closely.

  "Good," he breathed into my hair.

  One of his hands slid under my sweatshirt and rested on my stomach. He brushed my braid aside and his warm mouth came down on my neck.

  "Because I want you…", the first hand was joined by the second, but this one went slightly higher, stopping just underneath my breasts, "…rather badly."

  I turned around. "Good."

  Without another word he lifted me up and sat me down on the edge of the sink. My legs came apart and he pulled me closer.

  "This doesn't feel like practise," I murmured into his ear.

  "This is strictly off the record."

  "I see, don't you think we should—"

  "Hush—" he looked at me sternly. "We've talked enough for the day."

  Strangely, from the moment our mouths connected, I underwent a weird kind of personality splitting.

  On one side there was I, experiencing what was going on, while on the other side there was another me, commentating the event like a football match.

  "Now he's carrying you into the bedroom, now he's laying you down on the bed. Now you're taking his shirt off, now you're admiring his body. Now he's taking your sweatshirt off, and your t-shirt, and your bra and your track pants. Now you're kneeling in front of him while he's kissing you really, really deep, ooh. Now you're opening the top button of his jeans, and the second, and the third, and the fourth, and the last. Now you're pushing his jeans down. Now he's pushing you back onto the bed. Now your hands are sliding into his boxers and onto his butt. Now he's biting into your shoulder. Now you're pulling his boxers down. Now he's pulling your panties down. Now he's naked, now you're naked. Hail, here comes the rubber. Now he's pushing your legs apart, now you're wrapping them around him." Then he thrust into me, deep and hard and fulfilling, and forced all thought from my mind.

  Eight

  An hour later I was lying face down on my bed, revelling in those little shivers still gently roaming through my body in the aftermath of lovemaking.

  Ryan was stirring next to me and shortly afterwards I felt his breath between my shoulder blades.

  He kissed the nape of my neck.

  "Now I know how your cello must have felt," he murmured.

  "How?" My voice was somewhat muffled by the pillow.

  "Happy." His mouth went downwards. "Stirred."

  I chuckled and moved to rest on my cheek. "You know, you were right."

  "About what?"

  "You are a far less talkative partner when you're doing something you're thoroughly dedicated to."

  I felt him smile against my skin. "I think we managed excessively well despite my limited vocabulary. What was there to say, really?"

  "You mean except 'harder' and 'faster'?"

  "You said that." He had arrived at my lower back.

  "Okay, what about 'turn around' and 'fuck, you taste good'?"

  "I said that," he conceded and his teeth dug gently into my behind. "Actually, I'll be saying it again, right now."

  "What?"

  His hands grabbed my hips. "Turn around."

  I did as I was told.

  His tongue travelled to my navel and onto my tummy. Then he went further down.

  "Fuck, you taste good."

  I wrought my fingers into his hair and closed my eyes, ready for him to drive me over the edge again.

  Drive…

  Something was nagging at the back of my mind.

  "Drive!" I cried and sat bolt upright.

  "What? Hold still."

  "Ryan! The driver! He must still be waiting outside to take you back!"

  "No."

  "No?"

  "I told him I didn't need him anymore." He went back to his task.

  "When?!"

  "I texted him while you were changing," he murmured against me. It caused a very interesting effect.

  "Of all the premeditated—? Were you so sure I'd let you stay over?"

  He hummed.

  I fell back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering how to feel about this revelation.

  His tongue hit an especially sensitive spot.

  "Ooh!" I growled, lifted my hips and wisely decided not to think about it anymore.

  Nine

  Yet another hour later I sat on top of him, eating ice-cream from a little bowl. He had, among a million other things, also bought a bucket full of chocolate and strawberry fudge.

  "Why have you decided to take a Ph.d.? Do you want to go into teaching?"

  "I do
n't know why, to be honest." I licked my spoon suggestively. "It's something I always wanted to do."

  "Yes, but what for?"

  "I don't know. I guess to accomplish something."

  "And when it's finished?" He kissed a chocolate chip away from the corner of my mouth.

  "Maybe teaching, maybe writing. Maybe a combination of both."

  "What do you intend to write?"

  "Historical fiction. Knights and maidens, beggars and kings… Kick Ken Follett of his throne"

  "But why do you bother with the thesis? Why don't you start writing directly. Is it so important to be Dr. Poppy Jude?"

  "It is to me. I love the research too. I hope my thesis can contribute to science."

  "What's it about?"

  "Symbolism in 11th century numismatics in Europe, Byzantium and the Orient. Worthy images of power. A comparative approach"

  He pulled a face. "Good God."

  "Yes, he figures eminently in it."

  "All right and what's your big aim in all this? What's the greater scheme?"

  "Well, if I really must tell you, the truth is, I want to write a bestseller one day. One that's really acclaimed, you know? Then I'd be able to buy a chalet in Zermatt and spend the entire winter skiing."

  "I believe I own about twenty chalets in Zermatt. I give you one for free as long as you remain in this position for a little longer." He came up and took one of my nipples into his mouth.

  "No, I wouldn't like it. It's not the same."

  "The result's the same."

  "No, it's not. It's like you and Myrtle. Aren't you proud of disembowelling her with your own bare hands? Of turning her into what she's now, without anybody's help?"

  "Sure. Yes. I see your point."

  "Fine."

  "Another question. Ready for round two?"

  I set the bowl down on my bedside table. "Yes."

  "Great."

  This time, he had me up against the wall.

  Ten