If You Want Me: The Magister Series Book 1: A Billionaire Romance

by July Hall

  “Yes, yes,” Charles said irritably. “I’ll call you.” And to his immense gratitude, Stephen departed.

  Charles rubbed his hands over his face, and then looked up at the ceiling. He’s your nephew, he reminded himself, the family heir, your fucking flesh and blood. And she is off limits.

  Besides, he hardly knew the girl. He’d seen her in her underwear, sat next to her at dinner, and talked to her in private for ten minutes. This was absurd. So she was lovely, so what? New York—the world—was full of beautiful women. And Stephen was right, many of them would jump at the chance to stand at Charles’s side, or share his bed if that’s what he was after.

  So long. It had been so long. Jesus Christ, he hadn’t touched a woman in three years. He’d tried a few times since Eleanor’s death. There had been one semi-serious relationship he’d ended. His other encounters usually took place on business trips. He’d discreetly invite a suitable woman to dinner, and then spend the evening with her in a hotel. But none of them had truly satisfied him, not beyond one night’s relief, and he’d only ended up cursing his own weakness.

  He closed his eyes. It would be the same with Sandra Dane. Worse, because he wanted her more. The crash would be even harder. As always, Magister Enterprises was a much better outlet for his energy and time. He would not be mastered by his base desires.

  “What if they mastered me instead?” she whispered.

  Charles groaned. Oh, no. Here it was again.

  The scenario unfolded before his mind’s eye as it had dozens of times since Friday, and he watched as if helpless to stop it. Today, Miss Dane stood before him in his office, wearing her silver dress. Her hair fell down in ruddy waves.

  She slinked toward his desk, and he ached at her grace. “Forget about the company,” she said. “Forget about your family.”

  “No,” Charles said, his mouth dry. “I can’t.”

  “I’m here now. You can have me.”

  “I can’t,” Charles repeated, but the moment she was close enough, he lunged forward and seized her, pinning her to his desk. Then he looked down at her while she smiled serenely up at him.

  “Damn you,” he whispered. “How are you doing this?”

  Her blue eyes blinked slowly at him, her red hair fanned out all over his desk. “That lingerie you like?” she said. “I’m not wearing it. I’m not wearing anything under this.” She slid her hands down her body to her thighs, where she began to ease the hem of her skirt up inch by inch. “I’m ready for anything. For any man who wants me.”

  “No!” The thought was unbearable. He knocked her hands away from her skirt and cupped her face, trying to look at everything all at once: her blue eyes, her rosy lips, her turned-up nose. She wanted perfection in her life? Didn’t she own a mirror? “They can’t touch you. I won’t allow it. I won’t—”

  “You can touch me,” she breathed, sliding her arms around his neck, her eyes hot with promise. “You can do anything you want to me.” She pressed a gentle kiss to one side of his mouth. “Hold me down. Tie me up. Keep me all for yourself.”

  “Oh, Christ,” Charles gasped.

  “I’ll love it.” She kissed the other side of his mouth, tender and slow. “I’ll beg you for it.”

  She didn’t want a gentleman. Charles dug his fingers into her hair, captured her mouth, and kissed her as hard as he could. Her taste was so sweet, but he didn’t dare pause to savor it. He would lose himself beyond recall. “I’ll fucking wreck you,” he snarled, turning to her throat. “I’ll make you mine.”

  He sank his teeth into her flesh and began to suckle, knowing he would leave a mark. His mark. “Yes,” she said, her voice finally breaking with desire as she arched up into him. “Oh yes, please!”

  “What the hell have you done to me?” He shoved her skirt up to find a beautiful thatch of red curls, sticky and damp for him. His mouth watered. Oh God, something else he’d missed.

  “I want it,” she moaned, spreading her legs wide and showing him everything, every slick, pink fold. “I want it so much. I want you. Please fuck me, please, I can’t wait—”

  “You’re going to wait.” He went to his knees. Her scent intoxicated him. She made him weaker than he’d ever been. “Goddamn you, you’re going to do anything I say.”

  “Please do it!” she begged, rolling her hips. His mouth opened to taste her. “Do it better than anyone ever has!”

  Better than anyone. How many men had she had? A beauty like her, they must fall at her feet. She would only have to look at them with those blue eyes, give them that soft smile, and they’d be fools for her, just like him.

  Just like him. He was no different. He meant nothing to her.

  Smacked right out of his own fantasy, Charles opened his eyes with a hiss, rigid with frustration. Blood pounded at his temples. His hands had fisted into his trouser legs, mere inches from his aching erection.

  His office was private. There were no cameras and no one would dare intrude. Relief could be only moments away. He could. He could.

  And he wouldn’t.

  Charles inhaled, and then exhaled one long, shaking breath. He thought of dead things, unpleasant sounds and smells, disappointments and losses. He’d had enough of the latter two. He didn’t need any more.

  No more loss. He couldn’t lose her if he never tried to win her. It was that simple.

  After a few more agonizing moments, his arousal began to subside, and he strove once again to think clearly. Before Friday night, he’d never found this to be particularly difficult.

  Hell, and he’d just hired her to redecorate the family home. It was too late to take it back. But he might as well accustom himself to it, the notion of Miss Dane in Magister territory but not in his arms. He’d get used to having her around—in fact, he’d likely kill Bradley if the boy let her escape—and he’d forget this insanity.

  He scrambled for something else to think about. What could…ah, yes. Speaking of insanity, Bradley had mentioned his father. So Robert had run out of money again. Charles wondered if it was booze, gambling, or women. Probably all three.

  Once more, he had to decide how much he was willing to part with to keep a toxic influence away from his family. He was displeased indeed that Robert was in contact with Bradley again. That had been one of the terms of their agreement last time.

  Miss Dane had told him that her idea of perfection was having everything in its right place. No messes, she’d said. Maybe she’d been on to something after all.

  Charles leaned forward and rested his forehead in his hands with a faint groan. Everything would be settled; he simply had to do the right thing. Doing the right thing meant mastering one’s natural impulses, a talent he had cultivated for decades.

  Might as well cultivate some more right now. To hide from a weakness only made it worse. He pressed his intercom button. “Violet.”

  After a brief pause, she replied, “Yes, sir?”

  “Check my schedule and then call Arnaud Diallo’s studio. I need to find a brief window of time tomorrow to consult with Miss Dane about the house.”

  He forced back an entirely inappropriate surge of anticipation. No more of that. He was done with that.

  “Of course. How brief?”

  Good question. “Find out how long an initial consultation generally takes, then cut it in half.”

  “No problem. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s arranged.”

  “Thank you.” He took his finger from the button. So much for that. He’d face her tomorrow and find that it wasn’t so difficult after all. Now he had real work to do, Magister work.

  Everything in its right place.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Maybe he’s just trying to be nice,” Mom suggested.

  Sandra rolled her eyes. She’d tried to call her parents last night, but they’d been out at some function for a nonprofit. She could have used her mom’s optimism before she went to sleep. This morning, it just seemed badly misplaced.

  “I don’t think Mr.
Magister does ‘nice,’” she said, looking out of the taxi window. They were stopped at a light, and every passing second made her antsier. Was she going to be late?

  “Then what do you suppose it’s about?” her dad asked. “Surely it must speak well of you, sweetheart. It can’t be a bad thing.”

  Sandra bit her lip. “No, I guess not. I just don’t know what to think about him. He’s very controlling.”

  Understatement of the year. She’d told Mr. Magister that she wasn’t in awe of him, that she wouldn’t defer to him. As Bradley’s girlfriend, she didn’t have to. As a contracted employee, she would. That must have crossed his mind.

  “Well, I’m sure you can handle him, honey,” Mom said. “Just don’t let him walk all over you. Don’t let that family intimidate you.”

  “I won’t. I don’t.”

  “I don’t know,” Mom said. “I’ve watched you learn how to stick up for yourself over the years. It’s made me so proud, but Bradley seems to take the fight out of you somehow.”

  “Mom!”

  “I’m just saying. I know you can deal with it. Just don’t let his uncle do the same thing, okay?”

  Sandra clenched her phone tighter. “I have plenty of fight. I—I don’t let Bradley walk all over me.”

  “Cathy, this isn’t the time,” her dad said to her mother. “Sandra, you can handle this guy, and any other guy. We know you can.”

  “Thanks,” Sandra said bitterly.

  “Baby, I’m sorry,” her mom sighed. “You know we love you. Let us know how it goes, okay?”

  “Sure thing.” Sandra tapped her foot against the floor of the taxi. Was that light ever going to change?

  “When are you coming back for a visit?” her dad added. “Think you can make it up sometime before Thanksgiving?”

  “Dad, that’s only, like, a month away.”

  “A month and a half!” her mom said. “You could use a nice, quiet weekend at home, don’t you think? You and your sister. Scott would love to see you too.”

  Her younger brother was a senior in high school. Sandra was pretty sure he wasn’t interested in spending nice, quiet weekends with his sisters. “Kristen and I can talk about it,” she said. “Oh, whoops, look, I’m almost there. I better go.”

  “Good luck, honey!” Mom said.

  “Knock him dead,” Dad added.

  “Don’t tempt me,” Sandra said, laughing in spite of herself. “Bye.”

  As she hung up, the light finally changed, and the cab crawled forward through the intersection. There must be roadwork up ahead. She’d left the office extra early, but it looked like she’d be lucky to arrive on time. Her stomach knotted. Mr. Magister didn’t seem like the type to appreciate tardiness.

  Bradley would probably be in the building too. She’d thought about arranging to meet him for lunch. She hadn’t. She hadn’t told him about her new assignment or anything. It was just so weird, and she needed to figure out for herself what Mr. Magister’s game was. Still—Bradley might be angry if—

  Sandra took a deep breath. Don’t let him take the fight out of you.

  Were her parents right? Did she let Bradley do that to her? True, she gave him lots of leeway. She tried to be understanding when he was late or was unwilling to do something she was interested in. But wasn’t compromise a part of serious relationships?

  Mr. Magister was different. She wasn’t going to roll over for him, no matter what he did. The more she thought about her new “job,” the more pissed off she became. How blatantly manipulative could you get?

  She longed to tell him where to go and exactly how to get there, but Arnaud would never forgive her. He’d probably fire her. This was by far the biggest contract the studio had ever gotten—it would propel Arnaud from a prestigious designer to a household name. She couldn’t let him down. But that didn’t mean she had to grin and bear everything Mr. Magister felt like dishing out, either.

  She’d make that clear as soon as she could. She already knew where to start.

  Sandra looked at the Cartier box in her lap and sighed.

  This sucked. She didn’t really want to give the barrette back. In a moment of weakness last night, she’d put it on and gasped at how beautiful it looked. She didn’t wear yellow gold often; white gold just seemed so elegant and pure, less showy. But the yellow gold had popped against her red hair, with the dark green emeralds providing the perfect contrast.

  It didn’t matter. She couldn’t keep it. She hoped Mr. Magister would take it well, even if he was a huge control freak. He talked about family all the time, surely he’d understand why he shouldn’t undermine his own nephew.

  The cab stopped. “Here we are,” the driver said, and Sandra twitched out of her reverie. How much time had just passed? Was she late?

  She checked her watch. No, not yet. Barely. “Thanks,” she said, paid her fare, and hurried out of the cab to the tune of honking horns.

  She crossed through the revolving doors, and then the lobby of the Magister skyscraper rose huge and airy around her. She’d expected something more old-fashioned and stodgy. Maybe a throwback to the nineteenth century. But it was the same as any other Manhattan skyscraper, with endless columns of tinted windows and lots of ultra modern touches like transparent glass lobby elevators.

  It all seemed really cold to her. Corporate design wasn’t supposed to be an expression of anyone’s quirky personality, but still, this space was made to remind you that you were a worker bee in a hive. It didn’t exactly stir the soul.

  Sandra risked a few minutes to hurry into the ladies’ room in the lobby. She checked her hair and makeup, reapplying her clear lip gloss. She’d gone easy on the cosmetics this morning, not wanting Mr. Magister to recall the girl who’d worn a more glamorous look on Friday night. Today was about being fresh, clean, and professional.

  Clean, she told herself in the mirror, trying to slow her racing heart. The key word here is clean.

  She sure didn’t feel clean. She’d dreamed about him again last night. It had been even filthier and less inhibited than before. She’d debased herself and loved it, pleading for things she couldn’t bear to think of now. She’d…she’d begged to suck him. The memory made her press her hands to her burning cheeks. She’d never really liked doing that to her boyfriends, but somehow—in the dream—

  And she still hadn’t gotten off. He’d be lucky if she didn’t march into his office and punch him in the face.

  The security desk called up to Mr. Magister’s office, asked for Sandra’s driver’s license, and then gave her a visitor pass. She clutched the pass in one hand and her tote bag with the other as she rode the glass elevator all the way up to the top floor, watching the lobby getting smaller and smaller below. The elevator stopped a couple of times to let other passengers on and off, all of them wearing suits, carrying briefcases, and looking harried. Worker bees who seemed to take no notice of her.

  But by the time she reached the top floor, there were no other passengers. The last guy—who’d seen the lit button and realized she was going all the way up—gave her a look that conveyed both awe and sympathy.

  The elevator stopped on the thirty-third floor, and Sandra exited to find herself in a hallway with…another elevator. A uniformed security guard stood next to it. She looked up and down the hallway. To the right was another elevator door that didn’t seem connected to the rest of the network. A private lift for executive use only? Must be nice.

  “Sandra Dane?” the guard asked.

  Sandra gulped and held up her visitor pass. He nodded and turned to a panel of numbered buttons, where he entered a keycode she couldn’t see. The elevator doors opened, and he gave her a polite smile. “Just press the button,” he said. “It only services one floor.”

  She pushed the button with a shaking hand, and managed a smile for the guard as the doors closed. This elevator wasn’t made of glass. The walls were paneled with white marble. A sign by the door informed her that the marble came from a quarry in Greece.
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br />   Floor thirty-four. Sandra exited the elevator into another, smaller lobby. Much smaller. In fact, there seemed to be only two offices, plus a secretary at her desk.

  The office doors were made of heavy, dark wood: much more what she’d been expecting when she arrived, even if they seemed out of sync with the rest of the building. One of the doors had Stephen Magister’s name engraved on a plaque next to it.

  On the other side of the lobby, the second office was guarded by a set of double doors. They didn’t need a plaque.

  The secretary rose to her feet. She looked to be in her mid- or maybe late fifties, and was so elegantly dressed that if she hadn’t been behind the desk, Sandra would have thought she was a vice president or something. “Sandra Dane?” she said, and Sandra recognized the voice she’d spoken to on the phone.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said. “Are you Violet?”

  The secretary gave her a bland smile. “Yes, that’s right.” Then she bent over the intercom on her desk and pushed a button. “Mr. Magister? Miss Dane has arrived.”

  “Thank you, Violet. Have her wait.”

  The sound of his voice—even slightly blurred with static—made Sandra tremble. Then his words caught up with her. Wait? After she’d stressed so much about getting here on time?

  She glared down at her watch. It was ten-thirty on the dot, exactly when she was supposed to be here. And they didn’t have much time carved out. She’d told Violet that an initial consultation could take anywhere between one and three hours, depending on how much detail the client wanted to go into, and that they were usually conducted on the actual premises.

  “Thirty minutes, his office,” Violet had said flatly, and that was all.

  Now Sandra told Violet, “Excuse me. I have to be back at work by eleven-thirty.”

  “You are at work,” Violet said. Sandra’s face warmed. “I’ll take your coat. May I get you some bottled water or coffee?”

  She’d already gone to the bathroom five times this morning from sheer nerves. “No, thanks.”

  “How about juice?” Violet asked as she helped Sandra out of her best coat, the burgundy wool one trimmed with rabbit fur.