My eyes bugged out. I’d forgotten all about it.
That would have been a disaster.
And quite possibly still would be a disaster.
“It was… with your clothes,” he said apologetically.
“Thank you,” I said. And then I stuck out my hand.
He smiled even broader and shook my hand through the window. “I’ll see you around.”
We both knew that wasn’t true. But I let it go.
“Bye,” I whispered, and went around to the back of the car.
I was steeling myself, preparing for the ‘It was great, babe, see ya’ speech I was sure was coming. A last kiss on the sidewalk, and then me walking back alone to my apartment.
Instead, I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw Connor there holding a bunch of fancy paper shopping bags stuffed with clothes. Over his right arm hung my work clothes, encased in plastic wrap.
“Can you get the trunk? My hands are kind of full,” he said.
I stared at him, then at the clothes.
They were the designer stuff that had been hanging on the rack – 90% of which I hadn’t even worn.
“I can’t take those!” I cried out.
“Why not? I can’t wear them.”
“You can return them!”
“Whatever,” he said, and rolled his eyes. “Get the trunk and come on. The button’s down there by the latch, on the inside.”
I pushed the button and the trunk whirred closed on its own. I was annoyed by how non-mushy he was being until he turned around and stepped up onto the sidewalk with the bags.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
He turned back around. “You live here, right?”
“Yyyeah…”
“I’m walking you to your apartment.”
My heart did a somersault in my chest, and lots of mixed emotions coursed through me.
Joy that he wasn’t dumping me out there on the sidewalk…
Hope that maybe this wasn’t the very end…
And embarrassment – because billionaire Connor Templeton was about to see my grungy little apartment.
“Um… okay… just know that it’s not as fancy as what you’re used to…”
“It’s normal, right?” he grinned. “This is Normal Day.”
“You’re going native, huh?”
“Damn straight. All the way.”
I smiled in spite of myself, and led him up to the gate of my apartment building.
35
And then I realized I didn’t have a key.
“Ohhh, man…”
I went over to the call box with a silent prayer for my roomie to be home. There was no reason she wouldn’t be – despite the Friday clubbing, Anh was more of a homebody. Quiet, dependable, even-keeled.
She probably would have said the same about me just a couple of days ago.
She answered the intercom cautiously. “Hello?”
“Hey Anh, it’s me. I’m here with… my friend…”
I saw Connor’s smirk out of the corner of my eye.
“…and I don’t have my key. Can you let us in?”
“Sure!”
BZZZZT. I opened the gate and led the way.
Anh met me at the door, eyes wide with curiosity. “Hey!”
“Hey,” I said, and gave her a little hug.
And then Connor walked up behind me, carrying the bags.
Anh’s face went from happy and curious to dumbfounded.
I knew why. With his wind-tousled locks and glowing tan, and his gorgeous face and ripped muscles, Connor looked like a movie star out of one of our romantic comedy DVDs.
He didn’t belong in our dumpy little two-bedroom apartment.
And yet, here he was.
“Hi, you must be Anh,” he smiled, correctly pronouncing her name ‘On.’
I was surprised. I’d talked about her a few times over the last couple of days, but I usually called her ‘my roommate.’ I think I had only mentioned her name a couple of times – but he’d been listening.
“H-hi,” she stuttered. Connor set down a couple of bags and moved to shake her hand.
As she took it, I could see the stars in her eyes.
I turned back to look at him.
Yup, he was giving her the panty-dropping smile.
“Lily’s told me a lot about you,” he said.
“Oh… th-that’s nice,” she managed.
I looked around at the apartment, and saw the place I lived with new eyes. It wasn’t ugly, and our furniture wasn’t any worse than that of most other twenty-somethings just starting out in their first jobs… but after a weekend in the glitziest hotel in Los Angeles, I was struck by how drab it was.
How ordinary.
How normal.
“I’m… did you have fun?” Anh asked, turning her attention to me because she was too shy to say anything else to Connor.
“Very nice. We’re just gonna go to my room for a minute.”
“Okay,” she said with a stunned nod.
“Nice meeting you,” Connor said as he picked up the bags and walked past her.
“You too.”
“Where’s your room?” Connor asked me.
“Down the hall and on the right.”
As he stepped out of sight, I turned back to look at Anh.
She stood there in shock until he disappeared, and then she put on a face like AAAAAAAHHH! and silently mouthed, OH MY GOD!
I put a finger up to my mouth in a silent Shhhh, and she gestured me along like Go, go! with a huge, goofy smile on her face.
36
He walked into my bedroom and switched on the light, and I immediately felt self-conscious: what did he think of it? Was it too plain?
Duh, he was a billionaire. Of course it was too plain.
There wasn’t much in the room – a bed, a cheap IKEA desk with my laptop, a wall mirror, another IKEA nightstand, and piles of unwashed clothes everywhere. The bed was a single, with a pink comforter with roses on it and pale pink sheets underneath. I hadn’t made it when I left for work on Friday, so everything looked extra slovenly.
Great.
“Uh… please ignore the mess,” I said as I kicked clothes over into the corner.
I didn’t touch the bed, though. I was afraid that doing so might be seen as some sort of… invitation, I guess.
And I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about that.
He put the bags on the floor and looked around. “Nice.”
“It’s very sweet of you to lie,” I said with an obviously fake smile.
He laughed. “It’s very… normal.”
“Greaaaaat.”
He moved over to the desk and picked up a framed picture of me at graduation with my brother and parents. “Is this your family?”
“Yeah.”
“You look… happy. Like you love each other.”
It was such a strange thing for him to say…
I frowned, perplexed. “We do.”
“That’s good,” he nodded, and replaced the picture.
There was an open bank register on the desk with several checks still in the pack. He looked down at them for a second, then tapped them. “Don’t forget to pay your rent.”
“Ha! You don’t have to remind me of that.”
He smiled and stood there, silent and gorgeous, taking in the room.
I stood there, shy and miserable, with my arms wrapped around me, shielding myself from the pain I knew was coming.
I wanted it to end quick. I could feel the sadness rising up in me, and I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be able to stay in control.
And yet, on the other hand… I wanted him to stay there with me forever.
He looked at me. There was several feet between us.
“Lily,” he said softly.
I gazed into his blue eyes, and my heart started to break as I realized this might be the last time I ever got to look into them.
No, not ‘might be.’
This was th
e last time.
“I had a wonderful, wonderful time,” I said, with a smile that was right on the verge of tears.
“I did, too,” he said, and stood there looking at me.
I waited for him to bridge the gap between us – to come over and hug me, or give me one last kiss, or something – but he just stood there.
“Well…” I said, hoping he would pick up from there and say something. Not only was this horribly sad, it was awkward and uncomfortable and downright excruciating.
I looked over at the bed. Maybe he wanted to sleep with me one last time, but didn’t want to seem cheap or tacky about it.
I didn’t want to… not fully, because it would be too heartbreaking…
…but I couldn’t let him go. Didn’t want to.
To hell with it.
I drifted over to my bed and let my fingers brush over the tangled sheets. Again, I hoped he would just pick it up from there. Step forward and seduce me, if we were going to do it –
“I want you to quit your job,” he suddenly blurted out.
My eyes got wide.
Not what I’d been expecting.
“W… what?” I asked, leaning forward as though I hadn’t quite heard him correctly.
For the first time the entire weekend, he looked uncomfortable. Like a regular guy who wanted to say something, but was agonizing about saying it.
The man who would mock anyone, anytime, and say whatever the hell he wanted… who was as smooth as they came… was acting like a teenage boy who wanted talk to a girl but didn’t know how.
“I… I’ve had a fantastic time this weekend,” he finally said.
My heart soared. “Me too.”
“And… I don’t really want it to end.”
My heart went higher, and the mistiness in my eyes edged over from sadness to joy. “Me neither.”
“I… look, quit your job and come with me for awhile. I’ll pay you $20,000.”
A bucket of cold water dumped over me.
I stood there in shock.
Numb, cold, disbelieving shock.
“Um… I’m not an escort.”
I tried to sound insulted – which I was – but it came out more incredulous. Which I was, too.
He smiled. “I know you’re not, but – ”
“But?!” I said. The shock was wearing off now. “BUT?!”
He looked at me like Cut it out. “Look, I was just saying that because I want you to quit your job, and I know you need money to live – ”
“Why do you have to pay me?! Why can’t I just keep my job, and we just, I don’t know, see each other like normal people?” Now I was getting angry. “Isn’t that what you liked about today – that it was normal?”
He obviously didn’t like my tone – and I’ll bet he didn’t like being told ‘no’ in any way, shape, or form – because his face darkened. “I live in New York City. And, oh, by the way, I have to go to Europe later this week for business. God knows how long I’m going to be gone. So, when are you going to pop over for the night, huh?”
I faltered a bit. “Well… I don’t have to quit my job… I can just see you on the weekends when you get back.”
“That’s not what I want.”
A sick feeling was creeping through my belly. “Oh? What do you want?”
“I want you to come with me. Tonight.”
The sick feeling went away, and hope started to bloom. “For how long?”
He shrugged defensively, like I was asking some sort of unreasonable ‘chick’ question, and all my hope withered on the vine. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I could get a couple days off, maybe – ”
“First off, no you can’t, not from your asshole boss. Second, I don’t want a couple of days, I want you to be there with me, not worrying about your job, or when you have to go back – ”
“That job is how I survive.”
“Which is why I offered you the money,” he snapped, then put his hand to his forehead. “Look, I didn’t want it to be like this – ”
“Like what?” I asked, ice in my voice. “Like you were offering money to a whore?”
He dropped his hand and looked at me in shock. “That is not what it was like at all – ”
“Well, that’s what it felt like,” I said, and wrapped my arms around me again, trying to shut out the hurt feelings.
“I just want – ”
“You said you wanted me to come with you, but what does that mean? For how long?”
“I don’t know how long – ”
“Well, give me something – a day? A week? A month?”
“I don’t know!” he barked. “We’ll see how it goes!”
The ice was growing inside me now, the crystals branching off like the limbs of a tree, filling me slowly. “Oh… I see. I’m just supposed to be convenient, until you get tired of me.”
He was really angry now. “I don’t know how long – I just know that, right now, I don’t want ‘forever,’ okay?”
If my heart was frozen before, it shattered into pieces when he said that.
He must have seen it on my face, because I heard desperation creep into his voice. “That didn’t come out right.”
“I think it came out exactly the way you meant it.”
“All I’m saying is…”
He breathed out hard, then regrouped.
“You knew what I was asking Friday night! I said, ‘come with me this weekend.’ Not ‘let’s get married,’ not ‘let’s move in together’ – come with me for this weekend.”
“I know that.”
Yes, I’d known that at the time. It had bothered me, but I had accepted it.
There was just one problem: over the course of the last two days, all our time together had come to mean a whole lot more to me.
But it apparently didn’t mean the same to him.
He stepped over to me and put his hands on my arms, and looked deep into my eyes. “All I’m saying differently this time is, come with me for a little while longer.”
I felt like crying – but I didn’t want to let him see it.
And the only way I could do that was if I let my anger out instead. “I’m not a prostitute.”
He flinched, and his hands dropped away from my arms. “I never said you were! I never even implied it!”
“No, you just offered me money to extend my ‘weekend contract.’”
He closed his eyes and grimaced like he was in pain. Then he opened them again and stared at me. “Look… I handled that badly. But I only said it because you’re not going to quit that goddamn job of yours where you’re wasting yourself – ”
“I need the money!”
“Which is why I offered it to you, dammit!” he roared.
He scared me. I pulled away and wouldn’t look at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice. “I shouldn’t have shouted at you – I’m sorry.”
I hugged my arms tight across my chest as I stared at the wall. I was hurting so badly, all I wanted to do was lash out.
So I did.
“I heard you don’t pay a prostitute to sleep with you, you just pay her to go away. Is that what this is?”
“You’re just not going to let that go, are you?” he asked bitterly.
“Is it so when you get tired of me, you can just toss me away and not have to feel guilty, because, hey, you already paid me?”
“Fuck you,” he said coldly.
I turned around and looked him dead in the eyes.
“No thanks,” I sneered. “Not for the price you’re offering, anyway.”
He glared at me.
And then… I saw it.
The pain, deep down inside his eyes. The vulnerability he hated to show.
He softened his voice as he said, “Please… I’m sorry. Let’s not do this. It was so wonderful up till now.”
I wanted to cry. I was doing a pretty good job of keeping a lid on it, but I still had to wipe away a tear as I whispered, “Yeah, it
was… but I’m not for sale.”
“I never said you were.”
I flashed back to what he’d said about the redheaded maitre d’ at the restaurant:
It’s amazing how cheaply some people can be bought… and $300 was her price.
I was bound and determined that he would never be able to afford my price.
Not with money, anyway.
“But you tried to buy me,” I said. “I think you buy a lot of people… but I’m not one of them.”
“I won’t deny that you’re right – about other people. But I know that money is an issue for you, and I wanted you not to have to worry about it.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“Then what do you want?”
I stared him straight in the eyes. “I want you.”
“You can have me – and not have to worry about a job for a few months!” he exclaimed, like Why can’t you see this is a win/win for everybody?!
“No, I don’t just want sex, or another week in bed, or at the hotel, or whatever.”
“You said you wanted me – ”
“I want all of you.”
There. I’d said it.
I’d been honest… if not exactly, 100% clear.
Up until that point, I hadn’t admitted it, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to say it out loud…
…but I had fallen in love with him.
He didn’t react the way I wanted him to, though.
He looked worried and wounded and brokenhearted. “That’s the one thing I can’t give you,” he whispered.
A sob escaped my throat, and my whole body trembled. “Well, no amount of money’s going to make up for that.”
He put his hands over his face and turned away, walked over into the corner.
I sat down on the bed, trying so hard not to cry. Not yet.
Just hold out a little while longer.
“Look,” he said, his voice weary and worn down, “regardless of what just happened here between us, do me a favor.”
“What,” I said, barely hanging on.
“Don’t go into work tomorrow.”
I froze, and everything came flooding back in one nightmare flood:
Klaus.
The report I hadn’t done.
My phone and wallet at the office.
The doubtless dozens of furious texts and voice messages that would be on my cell tomorrow morning.
All That He Demands (The Billionaire's Seduction Part 3) Page 12
