All That He Demands (The Billionaire's Seduction Part 3)

by Olivia Thorne

  Connor pointed at him. “You know who you should talk to? Javier.”

  “The hairdresser,” Lewis Vonder said glumly. He now realized beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was the butt of the joke, didn’t like being the butt of the joke, but was willing to put up with it for the sake of $400 million in financing.

  “Yes, just give Javier the details and he’ll pass them on to me. Maybe after that we can ask him to do our hair.”

  Connor looked up at Lewis’s bald head.

  “…well… my hair. Nice to meet you, Lewis,” Connor smiled, and then he walked through a doorway, his shoulder right next to the doorframe, forcing Lewis into the wall. Sort of like in action movies where two cars are racing side by side towards a tunnel, and one edges the other one out, and it explodes against the concrete wall.

  Exactly like that.

  But with a short, bald producer instead of a sports car.

  We continued into the next room as poor Lewis Vonder looked on from the hallway.

  “Well played, sir,” I whispered. Ordinarily, I might have felt sorry for the producer if he weren’t so… ugh.

  “Thank you.”

  “Is it like that everywhere you go?”

  “You have no idea. Energy industry, finance, tech, entertainment, it doesn’t matter… they’re all a bunch of sharks, and I’m the chum in the water.”

  “You’re not the least bit interested, though?”

  “What, in playing a Hollywood big shot? So I can foot the bill and Lewis Vonder can skim $30 million off the top in fees for ‘arranging the financing,’ then tell me we never made any profits when we gross half a billion in theaters? And that’s if we don’t flop? No thanks. Do you know that Hollywood is the only major industry in America where the accounting isn’t regulated by federal law?”

  “I did not know that.”

  “They keep four sets of accounting ledgers – one for the IRS, one to show the investors, one that ‘proves’ the movie is still in the red in case you’re the writer or any other poor bastard who agreed to backend profits instead of upfront money… and then the real books, which they keep locked in a safe and which never see the light of day.”

  “Sounds like you’ve done your homework.”

  “I have. I thought about getting into it as a hobby a few years back.”

  “A hobby,” I said with equal parts disbelief and amusement.

  He shrugged. “I don’t play golf.”

  “I guess the answer was no, huh?”

  “If I wanted to get into a business where you try to fuck everybody else for a buck, I’d go into porn.”

  “What about creating something artistic?”

  “I wouldn’t be creating anything artistic, I’d be footing the bill.”

  “Well, you could still be part of making something people love.”

  He stared off into the distance as though seriously pondering that – and then shook his head like Naaah. “I’d still go into porn.”

  I leaned in close. “You’d be good at it.”

  He chuckled, and his hand slipped down to my rear end. “You could be my costar.”

  I slapped it away playfully. “You’re not in porn, remember.”

  “Not yet… but we could get a camera, and go back to the hotel, and – ”

  “NO.”

  He laughed and hugged me closer.

  28

  We entered another room where two bartenders were mixing drinks at a full bar. I suppose Connor had just been playing the odds when he made the crack about being there for the food, but there was indeed a spread that would have made the Dubai Hotel jealous. Mildly, anyway. Displays of exotic fruits and tiny pastries, more decadent desserts than I had ever seen in my life, and a small army of waiters walking around offering people bacon-wrapped scallops, chunks of seared ahi, bits of filet mignon, and the usual hors d’oeuvres and canapés.

  “You were right about the free food,” I marveled. “We should have skipped dinner and eaten here.”

  “I liked eating with the person I had dinner with.” While I beamed, Conner turned around. I followed his gaze to the corner of the room, where Lewis Vonder smiled widely and toasted us with a glass of champagne. Connor gave a fake smile back and muttered between his teeth, “Here, not so much.”

  “You afraid it’s like fairyland?”

  He looked over at me. “Huh?”

  I realized I’d been thinking out loud. “Never mind, that was just… never mind.”

  “No, what?”

  “Well, in fairytales, if you went into fairyland and ate or drank something, you got trapped there.”

  “Whereas here, you wind up having dinner with a greedy troll and having to hear about his three-picture deal,” Connor said. He scanned the room. “Hold on, I see somebody I should say hello to. I’ll be right back.”

  I felt a combination of emotions – fear that he was leaving me, suspicion why he wasn’t taking me along, and embarrassment that maybe he didn’t want to introduce me to anyone he knew.

  Connor must have read my mind, because he smirked at me. “I’m trying to save you from listening to the tribe of trolls surrounding him.”

  I blushed, and tried to cover it up. “I’d like to meet your friends.”

  “They’re not my friends. He barely qualifies – he just gave me some good advice about getting into the motion picture industry.”

  “Which was…?”

  “Stay far, far away.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Over there,” Connor said, and pointed to a thin guy in a suit surrounded by a bunch of not-very-attractive men who were all sipping glasses of amber liquid and laughing. “Entertainment lawyers at his firm. Nobody famous, all pretty boring.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  He sighed. “You don’t realize what I’m doing, do you?”

  “No, what?”

  “You’re my ‘out.’ If they start hounding me about investing or boring me to tears, I’m pointing over at you and saying, ‘Excuse me, gentlemen, but I have to get back to my date.’”

  Date.

  I was his date.

  I guess it was silly, but it made me to feel happy to hear him say it.

  “Okay, then. As long as I can be your escape pod.”

  “I’ll ask him if he knows anybody famous he can introduce you to.” Connor gave me a wink, then ambled off across the room.

  I stood there and watched as Connor went over, broke in suavely, and shook the guy’s hand.

  The skinny guy apparently introduced Connor by name, because all the lawyers’ mouths dropped open.

  Then the glad-handing started.

  Connor was dead-on about the feeding frenzy: they were the sharks, and he was the chum in the water.

  I got bored watching them scramble over each other to kiss his heinie, so I started looking around the room.

  There were half a dozen famous people in here, too, all surrounded by adoring circles. Either the famous people were talking and everybody else was hanging on their every word, or the famous person looked bored and annoyed as some pushy person tried to monopolize the conversation and impress them.

  My geeky mind went into overdrive, and I started thinking about all the little groups as solar systems, with a star at the center and a bunch of orbiters circling around, smiling and laughing. Or, in the case of the annoying blabbermouths, annoying little dwarf stars trying to compete against a supernova.

  And the room became the universe, with all these little solar systems going happily on their way…

  …and here I was, alone, out in the middle of space, a comet that didn’t belong anywhere.

  My entire life, I’ve never felt like I’ve belonged. Big whoop – everybody feels like that at one point or another, right? But it was true. I’d never had many friends growing up, just one or two close ones, and I somehow managed to lose them as elementary turned into junior high turned into high school turned into college. All except Anh… thank God for her.

>   But I never really fit into any cliques in high school. I wasn’t an athlete, or a cheerleader, or a rich kid, or an artist, or a brain, or a stoner. I was just… Lily. I had a boyfriend in high school, which was nice, but it was something I kind of fell into. Not something I chose because I really wanted it, but because it was better than the alternative, which was weekends alone. He asked me out, it was an awkward first date, he asked me out again, it was slightly less awkward the second time, we kissed, it was okay, and I gradually got used to him. A nice guy, but…

  When college came and we went to different schools, I can’t say I was all that sad. Maybe a day or two, and then I got over it. I would have felt guilty about my lack of feelings for him, except he was probably even less sad than I was. His jackhole buddies talked all senior year about how easy girls were in college, and if you were in a frat, you got laid with a different chick every weekend. He ended up pledging his first semester, though I was secretly glad when a mutual acquaintance told me he could only make it into the nerd fraternity.

  Sorry. TMI.

  I guess I’m saying all this because, in that Hollywood Hills mansion, I’d never felt like more of an outsider. Here most of them were beautiful people – and if they weren’t, then they were at least rich and powerful. I suppose there are tens of thousands of people in Hollywood without a dollar in their pocket who talk a big game as they desperately try to claw their way up, but this wasn’t that kind of a party. To walk through that door, you had to have already arrived, at least at a certain level. The only reason I’d gotten in was because of Connor.

  I so didn’t belong here.

  “And who are you?” a woman’s voice asked.

  I whirled around to see a gorgeous blonde, probably about my age, with upswept hair and a shimmering red dress that showed off her rather large boobs. If they were fake, her surgeon had done an incredibly good job at disguising it.

  “Um… Lily Ross,” I said shyly. I felt like a little girl, and she was a va-va-voom Woman.

  I was glad Connor wasn’t here to see her.

  She was holding a champagne glass in the air, and she cocked her head slightly to the side as she looked me up and down. “And what do you do?”

  “I’m a… a secretary.”

  “Oh.”

  Her voice was full of polite disdain. Besides being threatened by her, I started to actively dislike her.

  “Why, what do you do?” I asked, more out of social habit than anything else.

  One hand fluttered to her cleavage, and she looked soooo happy I’d asked. “I’m an award-winning photographer, but I just co-wrote a screenplay with a good friend of mine who writes for TV. His agent at CAA is taking it out next weekend. He thinks it could go for seven figures. It’s an a-maaaaazing romantic thriller, perfect for somebody like Reese Witherspoon or Natalie Portman. He says there might even be a bidding war. I’ve already started on my next one – what I really want to do is direct. Kathryn Bigelow was such an inspiration when she won for The Hurt Locker, don’t you think?”

  “Uh huh,” I said, and hated her – her and her big boobs, thin arms, movie-star face, weirdo lingo, and big-whoop screenplay – a little bit more.

  “Whose secretary are you?”

  “Nobody you’d know.”

  She smiled smugly. “Try me.”

  Okaaaaay…

  “Klaus Zimmerman.”

  Her forehead puckered the tiniest bit. “Zimmerman, Zimmerman… is he an independent producer, or is he at a studio?”

  “He’s in executive comp at Exerton Consulting.”

  “Oh.” The polite dropped out, leaving just the disdain. “You’re not even in the industry.”

  The Industry. Like there was only one.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Well… I’m sure it’s very interesting.” Her eyes drifted away from my face, settled on something or someone else, and she floated past me. “Nice meeting you.”

  I didn’t say anything to that, because if I had, it might have come out as Yeah, right, bitch.

  And at this party, she was a nobody. ‘Award-winning photographer’? What did that mean, she’d won third prize in a community college photo fair?

  Ooooh, she was a screenwriter. Throw a stick in Hollywood, you’ll hit ten of them. And they’ll all ask if you’re a producer’s or movie star’s assistant, and can you hook them up?

  Stop it, Lily.

  I hugged my arms around me and scolded myself in my head. I only hated her because she made me feel small, and unattractive by comparison, and like a loser with nothing going on in my life.

  If she’s a Nobody… then what does that make YOU?

  A comet, out in space, cold and alone, not belonging anywhere.

  And then the sun came back out.

  I felt his hand, warm on my shoulder, before I heard his voice. “Hey, my little escape pod.”

  I looked around at him and gave him a smile, not just of happiness, but of relief.

  “Almost got stuck in fairyland?”

  “They would not shut up about this producer who had a deal wherever, or that studio guy they could introduce me to,” he groaned. Then he took a closer look at me. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. I just…”

  I looked around the room.

  “…I don’t really fit in here.”

  Connor smiled. “Neither do I.”

  “Oh my GOD, you so fit in here.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “You saying I’m a money-obsessed, shallow, opportunistic narcissist who’s only interested in what he can get out of other people?”

  I knew it was a joke, and tried to play along.

  “Well, when you put it like that, it sounds bad.”

  It didn’t quite come out as funny as I wanted, so I just tried honesty instead. “I just meant they’re the ‘Beautiful People.’ That’s how you fit in.”

  He moved in close and put his arms around my waist – in full view of everyone in the room.

  My heart beat faster.

  “Well, you’re beautiful, so you should fit right in, too,” he smiled.

  My heart beat even faster.

  “That’s not what I meant,” I protested mildly.

  “Oh… you just wanted to keep up the pity parade for a little bit?”

  I glared at him, then deflated a little. “…kind of.”

  “Well, since neither of us fits in, you want to have a little fun?”

  Now my heart was racing, but not in a good way. In a terrified way. “What do you mean?”

  “You wanted to meet some famous people, right? Let’s go crash some conversations.” He turned around and scouted the room. “Who do you want to talk to first?”

  I knew he would do it, too.

  The thought of barging in on a movie star’s conversation was freaking me out – but if there was anyone who could pull it off, it was Connor. And he wouldn’t even have to drop his last name.

  But really, that wasn’t what I wanted.

  “I just want to go back to the hotel,” I whispered. “…and be with you.”

  He looked back at me and smiled. A big smile.

  “That’s what I want, too.” He jerked his head slightly. “C’mon, let’s get outta this dump.”

  I giggled lightly, and he pulled me to his side as we walked towards the door.

  “You knooow…” he whispered seductively, “we could totally make our own film…”

  “No.”

  He put one hand up in the air like he was framing a shot. “‘Lights – camera – action!’

  “NO.”

  He laughed again.

  Johnny suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Connor nodded at him, Johnny made a face like Thank GOD, then turned around and preceded us as we walked towards the door.

  I was expecting Mr. Lewis Vonder to come running up and exclaim about leaving too early, but I guess he was off talking up somebody else about financing his movies.

  The one excellent thing that happened as we
walked out was I saw the woman in the red dress again. There were a couple of people partly obscuring my view of her, so I don't think she saw me at first – but she sure as hell saw Connor. I knew this because her whole face lit up and her body language changed, from stiff and bored to Hello, Sailor! She lifted her champagne glass up a little, oh-so-elegantly, and I could see the wheels turning as she planned her opening salvo.

  Then we passed the edge of the group, and she saw me on Connor’s arm.

  I wish I’d had a picture of the surprise on her face. I would have kept it on my phone for whenever I needed a lift.

  “Kiss me,” I whispered to Connor.

  “What?”

  “Kiss me, and make it good.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  He turned to me, put one arm around my waist, let the other hand cradle the back of my neck, and laid one on me right there in the middle of the giant hallway.

  My head tipped back slightly and I felt his body press into me as he locked onto my lips and his tongue found mine.

  After about 20 seconds of breathtaking bliss, he pulled away and looked into my eyes. “How was that?”

  I opened my eyes dreamily. “That… was awesome.”

  He grinned, took my arm again, and escorted me towards the door.

  I take it back – I didn’t want a picture of the blonde woman’s picture from before, I wanted it after the kiss.

  She looked like all her notions of what constituted Reality had been ripped away in one fell swoop.

  And her mouth was hanging open even more than mine when I first walked into the party.

  I gave her a smug smile as we passed by.

  Take that, bitch.

  Yes, the whole thing was petty.

  Yes, it was childish.

  Yes, I knew it ultimately came from a lack of self-confidence on my part.

  But DAMN it felt good.

  29

  We arrived safe back at the hotel, much to Johnny’s relief. He made us promise not to leave the room without telling him, then said goodnight and went into his room across the way.

  “It’s early, only ten o’clock,” Connor said. “What do you want to do?”

  “Dessert.”