Fierce (Not Quite a Billionaire)

by Rosalind James

  I’d contented myself with her telephone number, obtained through a series of emails. First from me.

  Napoleon. 7:30 Sunday. And by the way—we’ll be arranging for a lovely woman to stay with your sister while you’re in Paris. I’ll be giving you the details.

  Then from her. Is that a trade?

  From me. No. That’s information.

  Several hours during which I heard nothing, and did my best not to notice that, or let it affect me. Then, at last, Do you want to see the shoes?

  I may have risen from my chair at that one, have had to take a turn in front of the windows to cope with relief that was more than a bit alarming. I sat down with an irresistible image of her feet in those shoes propped against the rear window of the car while I pushed her narrow skirt slowly up her slim thighs, and the whole thing lost me several precious minutes of concentration on the Italian acquisition I’d been working on for months.

  Yes, I managed to type back. Wear the shoes. Phone number please.

  I gave her mine, too, which was something I never did. If a woman needed to get in touch with me, she rang Josh. But if Hope heard from Josh, this would be over before it began, and I needed it to begin. For that to happen, I had to pretend that this was a date. Even though I didn’t do dates.

  It was a long weekend. I could’ve called somebody to drop by and give me what I needed to ease the ache, but I didn’t. Instead, I rang my trainer and put in two grueling hours with him on Saturday night in my home gym.

  “You’re all over the place tonight,” Eugene told me as I stepped back from pounding the heavy bag. “Focus.”

  “I’m focused.” And breathing harder than normal, sweating more than normal. Focused, and frustrated, too.

  He released his hold on the bag and stepped aside. “No. You’re not. You got the energy, but you’re not directing it right. Whoever she is, let her go.”

  I glared at him. “I don’t focus on women.”

  “Man, everybody focuses on women. What’s she like?”

  Eugene was the only person I allowed to talk to me like this. It could have been his seamed, weathered brown face, the battered, sinewy body that made up in toughness what he lacked in height, or the total lack of deference he showed me. From the start, he’d reminded me of one of the uncles, taking me aside in the marae for a word, insisting that I could do better. As much as I’d tried to put New Zealand and my disastrous family life behind me, there were some parts of your upbringing you couldn’t leave behind, and respect for the elders was one of them.

  I said, surprising myself, “Blonde. Tiny. Bloody aggravating.”

  “Mm-hmm. She won’t sleep with you.”

  I shot a hard look at him, and he grinned, showing off a couple of missing teeth. He could’ve had them replaced, but when I’d offered, he’d said, “Nah. That’s my street cred.”

  “We going to work out?” I growled. “Or hang about having a gabfest?”

  “Hey. I’m not the one without my mind on the job. Sometimes the little ones are the toughest. And sometimes you need a woman to push you where you need to go.”

  “She’s not that tough.” I got a flash of big eyes, a soft mouth, and my hands around her ankles. “And I can get where I need to go by myself.”

  “You say so, man. That don’t mean she’ll go there with you.” He sighed and shook his head. “You going to have a hard head like that—going to have to learn the hard way, too.” He braced himself against the bag again. “Put it right here. Focus. Go.”

  Not my most satisfactory Saturday night, but at least I’d worked off a bit of the physical tension. Until I saw her again the following evening, and it all came flooding straight back.

  I was sitting in one corner of the bar sipping a glass of sparkling water when she walked in. The bloke next to me muttered, “Hel-lo, baby,” and I turned my head.

  She was wearing a blue cocktail dress with a sleeveless bodice of sheer chiffon. A few silver beads punctuated the mesh over her collarbones and upper chest, then coalesced to trace the shape of her small breasts and dip down to her waist in the most delicious silver heart shape a man could hope to see. A short, full chiffon skirt made of layers of delicate fabric swayed around her pale thighs. Exactly the kind of skirt I most enjoyed flipping up.

  It must have been a petite size, too, because the length was right. Just short enough. Just perfect.

  It wasn’t the right dress, of course. It was a cheap knockoff of last year’s style, and she should’ve been wearing silver sandals with it, not the pumps I’d bought her. She was holding an everyday jacket in one hand that wasn’t a bit right, either.

  And yet I wasn’t complaining. I was moving to the door as she hesitated, her gaze sweeping the crowded room and trying to penetrate the three-deep crowd at the bar, with far too many male eyes on her.

  “You know,” I said in her ear, “if you’d let me collect you, you wouldn’t have had to walk in alone.”

  “Oh!” She jumped and put a fluttering hand to her breast. “You startled me.” She smiled, wide and glorious, and I realized I hadn’t seen her smile like that nearly enough. “You’re lucky I came at all. I’ve been going back and forth all weekend about it.”

  It wasn’t how most women said hello to me, and I had to smile a little myself. “You’re right. I am.”

  “You are what?” She was looking a bit distracted now. My hand rested lightly on her upper back, and I was still standing close in the noisy, crowded bar. As I looked down at her, I could see that beaded bodice rising and falling.

  I smiled a bit more. “Lucky.”

  I nodded to the maître d’, and he stepped out from behind his podium and said, “If Madame et Monsieur will come this way…”

  Hope turned and followed the man, the chiffon skirt swaying. Her hair was pulled up, and the delicate skin of her neck, glimpsed between the blonde tendrils that danced around it, gleamed in the soft lighting. Her hips swung in an irresistible rhythm as she ascended the staircase behind the maître d’, and she put a light hand out to the banister. A hand with no rings. In fact, she wore no jewelry at all other than a pair of slim white-gold hoops in her small ears.

  She should have jewels. She’d been made to be adorned. And adored, my mind whispered, startling me, and I shoved the thought straight back again. I didn’t adore. That would have to be some other bloke.

  No other bloke. Nobody but you. Not a whisper. A shout. The fierce voice of my ancestors telling me to hold hard to what was mine.

  This time, I was more than startled. I was rocked.

  The maître d’ opened a door and nodded her into the small room beyond, and she checked just inside and turned.

  “I thought…” I could see the slim column of her throat working as she swallowed. “That we were eating in a restaurant.”

  “And we are.”

  “I mean—” The flush was mounting on her pale cheeks. “In a public area of a restaurant.”

  “Louis will be with you immediately,” the maître d’ murmured, taking his hasty leave.

  “Louis will be with us,” I told Hope as she continued to hesitate. “And I prefer privacy.”

  I stood still and waited. I was better at waiting than most people. I was also blocking the door, but then, I said I’d thought about playing fair. I hadn’t said I’d do it.

  She hesitated a moment longer, her eyes searching my face. I put out a hand and said, “May I take your coat?”

  “Oh!” She jumped again. “Oh.” She handed it over, glanced at the smaller table that had replaced the normal seating for eight in the private dining room. The walls were paneled with wood, the overhead lighting was soft, tall white candles burned on the table, and classical music played lightly in the background. There was even a gas fireplace in one corner. Unnecessary on this warm September evening, but lit all the same.

  “It’s dinner,” I told her, placing her coat on one of the hangers provided on a rack near the door. “It’s private, but it’s still dinner. A
nd you’re very beautiful.”

  She glanced from beneath her lashes at me. “Tell me you haven’t priced my dress.”

  That made me smile again.

  “And don’t tell me the shoes are wrong. I know they’re wrong. You said you wanted to see them.”

  “I did.” I glanced down at them. Gleaming and elegant, pleasing my eye as the dress couldn’t.

  She cocked a hip, rose onto a toe, and turned, looking back over her shoulder. “Pretty, huh?”

  “Yeh,” I said, the Kiwi in me coming out under the influence of her smile. “Bloody pretty.”

  “You aren’t looking at my shoes.”

  “No. I’m not. I’m looking at you.”

  Not a Butterfly

  What I’d told Hemi was true. I nearly hadn’t come. I’d been half-convinced he’d appear to pick me up despite what I’d said. Nothing easier for him than to get my address, and I knew it. I’d told myself that if he did, that would be it. It would be over before it started. I didn’t need a man who wouldn’t respect my wishes.

  And even though I’d known deep down that Hemi was exactly that man, I’d kissed Karen goodbye and taken the subway into Manhattan to meet him for dinner, feeling like a butterfly caught in a spider’s web. Knowing he was advancing slowly, steadily, coming ever closer, watching as I struggled against my bonds, his eyes filled with dark satisfaction as I tried to free myself.

  A troubling image, and an uncomfortably exciting one.

  You are not a butterfly. The choice is yours.

  Now, he gestured toward the red leather banquette along one wall. “Please,” he said, nothing but politeness in his tone. He certainly hadn’t pounced. Despite his earlier words, clearly uttered for shock value, he wasn’t a tiger, or a spider, either. He was a civilized, successful business executive living in New York City, and this was a fashionable restaurant, not any kind of trap.

  And all the same, when he’d come to greet me at the door, his big hand had felt as if it were burning right through the fragile mesh of my dress. I’d had a vision of him turning me, my back to his front, of him holding my shoulder firmly with one hand while he unzipped the dress with the other, until it fell at his feet to reveal my strapless pale-blue lace bra and matching thong. And, of course, the gorgeous shoes he’d bought me. However he felt about my last-year’s discount dress, I had a feeling he wouldn’t have had one single complaint about that picture.

  Which wasn’t going to happen, especially not in a restaurant. As long as I stayed out of his car, I was all good.

  Why was I going out with him? I shook my head to try to clear it, and as he slid into the chair opposite me, he asked, “What?”

  I looked up at him, startled, and he said, “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m asking myself,” I found myself saying, “why I’m going out with you, if I’m scared of you.”

  The liquid brown eyes sharpened, focused hard on my face. I couldn’t help the shiver that ran through my body, and I could tell he saw it.

  “Could be that what you’re frightened of,” he said, “is your reaction to me. Could be you’re wondering what you might do. What I might ask you to do.”

  The shiver was harder this time. To distract myself, I took a drink of water, and Hemi sat and watched me do it, his impassive face giving nothing away.

  That was when the waiter appeared, and I realized belatedly that there was a menu in front of me that I’d never opened.

  “Would Madame et Monsieur care for an aperitif?” the man asked, and Hemi looked at me, his brows raised.

  “A cocktail?” he asked. “Or straight to the wine?”

  “Wine would be good,” I said, barely knowing what I was saying.

  Hemi turned to the waiter. “Send the sommelier in, please.”

  The man nodded and left, and Hemi was looking at me again. He reached for my left hand, which I realized was clutching the edge of the white tablecloth, and took it in his own.

  “Hope,” he said gently. “It’s all good.”

  I swallowed. “I—” I had to stop, breathe, and start again. His tenderness was more devastating than anything he’d showed me yet. “I don’t know how to—handle you.”

  “Ah.” It was a soft exhalation. “No. But you see, you don’t have to handle me.”

  “Maybe I think,” I said, emboldened, “that you want to handle me.”

  “And you’d be exactly right. But only because you want me to.”

  My heart was rocketing a mile a minute, and he still had my hand. “Your pulse is racing,” he said as I sat transfixed. “Your pupils are so open, they’re covering nearly all that gorgeous color. And the rest of you is just that open. Just that aroused. Just that stimulated. Every time I touch you, it’s more intense. Because you want me as much as I want you.”

  I couldn’t answer. I wrenched my hand from his in a convulsive movement and rose, my napkin falling from my lap onto the floor. I headed toward the door. A few steps, and gathering speed.

  He was standing, too. “Hope. No.”

  I turned. “Too much,” I told him, hearing the unevenness of my breath. “Too fast.”

  He didn’t touch me. Instead, he sighed and shook his head, running a hand over the back of his close-cropped head. “Start again,” he muttered to himself. “I don’t know how to do a first date, and that’s the truth.”

  I couldn’t help a shocked little laugh. It was the most human he’d ever sounded. “You don’t?”

  “No.” His gaze was rueful now. “Please sit down and have dinner with me.”

  I wasn’t moving yet, though. “Only if you’ll promise to slow down. And only if you’ll tell me why.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why you don’t know how to do a first date.”

  “You don’t ask much, do you?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think I do. So will you?”

  He sighed again. “Do my best.”

  I came back, still moving warily, and sat down feeling a bit better. Not a butterfly. Not a deer. A grown woman.

  A distinguished gray-haired man in a dinner jacket appeared after a discreet cough at the door, and I was confused for a moment. Was somebody else joining us? Then he came into the room, Hemi picked up a huge leather-bound menu, and I realized the man was the wine steward.

  Oh, man. I was so out of my depth.

  Hemi shifted his considerable attention to the wine list, glanced at me, and asked, “Red or white? Or rather, what do you fancy to eat?”

  “Um…fish?” Don’t add the question mark. “Fish,” I said with more decision.

  “The salmon, perhaps?” the wine steward suggested. “The chef is preparing it tonight with a light buerre blanc. A popular choice with many ladies.”

  “Perfect,” I said.

  “May I suggest a Chardonnay, then, sir?”

  More conferring, and Hemi made his selection, adding, “and bring the lady a clean serviette, please.”

  “Of course,” the man said, taking his leave, and I thought about how often I said “of course” in a single workday. How different Hemi’s life was from mine.

  “Salmon, then,” the man himself was saying. “And a salad to start, eh.”

  I couldn’t imagine how I’d be able to eat, but I said, “Fine.”

  He nodded, and when the waiter appeared, Hemi gave him both our orders. It should have bothered me, but it didn’t. Maybe because he’d asked me first.

  Another visit by the wine steward, more stylized gestures of offering the label for inspection, opening the bottle, Hemi swirling and sipping. An approving nod from the dark head, and the man was wrapping a linen napkin around the bottle and filling first my glass, then Hemi’s, finally placing the bottle carefully into a pewter ice bucket and making his soft-footed way from the room.

  “Well, if the wine’s as impressive as the ceremony,” I said, “I’ll be blown away.”

  Hemi’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and he held up his glass and asked, “Shall we find ou
t?”

  He touched the rim of his glass lightly to mine, caught me in his gaze again, but merely said, “Cheers,” leaving me a bit disappointed.

  I forgot that, though, in the next second, because the liquid I was sipping was as unlike anything I’d experienced before as the shoes on my feet were different from the ones in the closet at home. It didn’t even taste like the same beverage. As we drank in silence, the golden liquid sent its heavy, fragrant tendrils curling through me, making me melt a bit. Or maybe that was the music, the candles, the dark wooden walls, the light of the fire. Or, of course, the man opposite me.

  “Your face gives everything away,” he said.

  “Oh, really?” This time, I smiled at him, and could see him sitting up just a bit straighter. “Whereas yours gives away nothing. What am I saying now?”

  “That you’re loving your wine. That it’s lingering on your tongue, sliding down your throat, humming in your veins. Making you relax in spite of yourself, because you’re letting go, surrendering to what you feel.”

  I eyed him suspiciously. “I thought you were starting again. Not going to be pushing me.”

  “What?” He took a sip of his own wine, but his gaze didn’t waver.

  “That was totally pushing,” I informed him. “As if you didn’t know.”

  He smiled a little at that. “Can’t help it, it seems.”

  “We’re a pair, aren’t we?” I said with a sigh. “Neither of us is that good at dating. But I suspect our reasons are different.”

  “I wouldn’t say you aren’t good at it,” he said. “If we’re measuring by effect, you’re going well.”

  “Uh-uh. You first. You promised.” I was loving this. Flirting, I could deal with.

  “Ah. Me.”

  “You.”

  “Right.” He sighed. “Bad idea, and I know it. But I’ll tell you. I’m rubbish at dates because I don’t do them. I don’t date. I don’t court. I don’t have relationships. I don’t have time or energy for them, and they’re pointless anyway. I have…arrangements.”

  “Arrangements.” A little trickle of ice water was making its freezing way down my back now, displacing the warm glow the wine had given me.