by Gem Frost
BILLIONAIRE’S VALENTINE
By Gem Frost
BILLIONAIRE’S VALENTINE published by Gem Frost. Copyright 2018, Gem Frost. Cover design copyright 2018 by Fantasia Frog Designs.
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, Gem Frost.
Chapter One
Val
Being summoned into the boss’s office was terrifying.
I’d only been working for Blade Enterprises for a little over a month when I got a short email from Mr. Harrington’s assistant, informing me that the CEO of the company would speak with me in his office at 2:00.
That was it—no explanation, no details. There was no good reason why the CEO of a multinational company would want to speak with me, an intern who’d just graduated from the University of Virginia. I was Mr. Insignificant, as far as this company was concerned—a single tiny ant in a huge and bustling anthill.
And yet there was the email, glaring ominously at me.
I’ve done something wrong, I thought frantically, staring at the perplexing message on my screen. I fucked up somehow.
But what? My main job at Blade Enterprises so far was scanning endless piles of old paperwork into the computer. I was, for all intents and purposes, a modern-day file clerk. What could I have possibly fucked up enough to make the CEO, the big man himself, need to speak to me?
Maybe he just wants to tell me what a great job I’ve been doing, I thought, but I knew that was stupid, too. I imagined that conversation: You did exceptional work in scanning that last box of ten-year-old job orders, Val. Congratulations on a job well done.
Yeah. No. That couldn’t be it, either.
So why the fuck…?
I looked at my computer and squawked with alarm—squawked in the most professional way possible, I mean. I’d been away from my computer till now, sorting through endless dusty boxes and determining what needed scanning and what could be discarded, and I’d gotten the email barely in time. It was 1:55. I leapt to my feet and sprinted toward the elevator.
I’d never been to the CEO’s offices, but everyone knew they were on the top floor. I rode upward in the plushly carpeted, mahogany-paneled elevator, nervously checking my tie in the mirror. I’d been working on tying a decent Windsor knot for the past month, but despite all my efforts it was still a sad and lopsided affair. I tried to straighten it out, with limited success.
When the doors slid open, I steeled myself, squared my shoulders, and stepped out of the elevator.
The floor that housed the executive offices was luxurious and beautiful. I’d spent the last month (when I wasn’t in a dusty file room) trapped like a laboratory rat in a maze of cubicles, bent over a cheap particle-board desk as I slaved away at scanning documents. This, though—this was like a whole different building. The navy-blue carpeting was soft beneath my shoes, the walls were paneled richly with some dark wood, fine watercolor paintings hung everywhere, and the receptionist had a desk that was easily five times bigger than the one I worked at.
I sucked in a deep breath and walked toward the reception area.
“Hi,” I said to the older woman behind the desk, who looked at me suspiciously through thick lenses. I guess I didn’t look like I belonged. Must be my crappy Windsor knot. Or maybe just the fact that I was only twenty-two, and clearly not old enough to be an executive. “I’m Val Wilson, here to see Mr. Harrington.”
She looked more suspicious than before. “Do you have an appointment?”
No, ma’am, I almost retorted, I just figured I’d come up here and shoot the breeze with the CEO for the hell of it. But I stifled the snarky words before they could fly out of my mouth.
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied instead. “I have a two o’clock appointment. He’s expecting me.”
She looked dubious, but pointed me down a long hall lined with doors. Obediently, I headed down it rapidly. Some of the doors were open, and I couldn’t help glancing inside, glimpsing enormous offices with huge cherrywood desks, and harried-looking executives behind them. All the male executives, I noticed, wore expensive-looking silk ties with exquisitely perfect Windsor knots.
Damn it.
At the end of the hallway, I found myself at yet another reception area. The woman behind the desk here was much younger and much friendlier. She offered me a warm smile.
“Mr. Wilson?”
My throat was too tight to allow me to answer, so I just nodded.
“Right on time. Excellent. Go on in—Mr. Harrington is expecting you.”
I headed for the double doors, opened the one on the right, and went in, feeling like a defenseless sheep stepping into a growling lion’s den.
I was relieved to discover that the man behind the desk wasn’t quite as terrifying as I had expected. I’d seen him from afar, and I knew he was tall, with dark hair. I’d read enough about the company to know he was only thirty, and yet somehow I had formed the mental image of an intimidatingly older man—someone like Sean Connery, maybe. Or Harrison Ford. A powerful, graying man who could intimidate with a mere glance.
But as Mr. Harrington rose to his feet, I saw that he was in fact young… and absolutely breathtaking.
That was, I realized almost instantly, not a helpful thought. Yes, Blade Harrington looked like he belonged on the cover of GQ. He was devastatingly handsome, with high cheekbones, a square jaw, and a slightly curved nose. And he was dressed so perfectly I instantly felt foolish in my cheap suit and lopsided tie. But my unfortunate awareness of his male beauty made my cock twitch in my pants, and that was bad. Very bad.
Because the last thing I wanted, when meeting the CEO of the company I interned for, was a hard-on.
“Mr. Wilson,” he said, striding toward me and offering a hand warmly, like I was a crucially important business partner instead of an intern. “Valentine, isn’t it?”
I could barely stop myself from cringing at the name. My mother named me after my grandfather, who was very dear to her, and I guess that was sweet, kind of. But I endured epic levels of teasing about it all through school. In my opinion, Valentine is a word that should be applied to cards with pink hearts and roses on them, not boys and men.
“Val,” I answered, clasping his hand with as strong a grip as I dared. His palm felt warm and smooth against mine—an observation which was also not helpful. “I prefer to be called Val.”
“Val, then.” He shook my hand once, then let go. My hand felt oddly empty without the heat of his. “You can call me Blade.”
I gaped at him, because he couldn’t be serious. The world-famous billionaire Blade Harrington had just asked me—me!—to call him by his first name.
For the first time, I gave serious consideration to the idea that this all might be a dream.
“Um…uh… B-b-b—” Oh, hell, I couldn’t do it. I could not call this tall, handsome, powerful man by his first name. It was simply impossible. I tried a different tack. “Sir, may I ask why you wanted to speak with me?”
“Welllll…” He dragged out the word and ran a hand through his hair. The corners of his mouth turned up in a small smile, and the softening of his expression made him more beautiful than ever. My heart’s rhythm kicked up a notch. “It’s complicated.”
That wasn’t in the least reassuring. In fact it was downright alarming, and I felt my knees wobble beneath me. He mus
t have read the deepening alarm in my expression, because he immediately gestured to the chrome chairs grouped near his desk and spoke in a reassuring voice. “Please sit down, Val.”
I staggered over to one and practically fell into it. He seated himself, much more gracefully, next to me. When I looked up I was only a foot away from that face. His eyes, I saw, were golden, and along with the curved nose, it gave him the look of a raptor—alert, predatory, and perhaps a little cruel.
“I have a somewhat peculiar request,” he said. His voice was a low baritone, and it brushed gently over my nerves like fingers brushing over guitar strings. I could practically feel myself vibrating in response. The subtle scent of his cologne—the fragrance of pine trees in winter—rose to my nostrils, and I almost fell over a second time.
I had to gulp in air. Somehow it didn’t feel like there was enough oxygen in the room. “I—I—okay. What is it?” I added belatedly, “Sir.”
“I have to attend a Valentine’s ball next week. And I need… a date.”
I blinked at him in confusion. There were a few pretty female interns I’d been working with, and I wondered if he wanted me to try to talk them into going with him. But that seemed silly. He was rich and gorgeous, and surely any single woman would be willing to go out with him at least once. And he hadn’t gotten to be CEO of a huge company because he was shy. Why wouldn’t he just ask them himself?
“Specifically,” he said, looking into my eyes, “I would like you to be my date.”
The world spun, and only by a desperate act of will did I stop myself from falling over, right onto the carpet.
Yes, I decided dizzily. This had to be a dream.
Chapter Two
Blade
Valentine Wilson was perfect.
I don’t mean perfect physically—though God knows he was as close to perfect as mortal man can come. He was tall, only two inches shorter than I am, and slender but well-muscled. His golden-brown hair was perpetually tousled, probably because he got it cut at Hair Cuttery or a similar low-budget place, but the artless scruffiness of it suited him, and made me want to run my fingers through it. His face was as sweet as an angel in a Renaissance painting, glowing with innocence and purity, and his eyes were a bright and brilliant blue that called to mind summer skies and tropical seas, a blue that spoke of warmth and freshness and joy.
I’d seen him from afar, the first day he started his internship with Harrington Enterprises, and since that day I hadn’t been able to get him out of my mind.
But the honest truth was that I hadn’t decided to ask him to the Valentine’s Ball because I found him irresistibly attractive. On the contrary, the reason was because his innocent face and his fresh beauty were bound to drive my ex absolutely wild with envy.
Roger and I had broken up six months before. He was a world-famous concert pianist, adored by society (only slightly less than he adored himself), and the two of us had been dating for three years before our breakup. Roger was five years older than I was, deeply conscious of the cold hand of time that was already etching lines in his face and frosting his coffee-brown hair with gray, and utterly obsessed with youth. At thirty, I wasn’t old, but I suppose when I hit the big 3-0, it was an uncomfortable reminder of the passage of time, and of his own aging.
So naturally, he’d dumped me for a younger, flashier model… on my birthday. I’d found him on the balcony of my mansion at my own birthday party, buried deep inside a pretty young thing’s ass.
We’d broken up that very night, of course, but from that evening onward I’d nursed a grievance against Roger, which had eventually flowered into a full-throated lust for revenge. I wanted—no, needed—to make Roger see that he hadn’t hurt me, that I was better off now than I’d been with him. For that, I needed a young and spectacularly gorgeous boyfriend.
The moment I’d seen Val Wilson, I’d known he was the one.
And given his name, how could anyone possibly be a more appropriate date for a Valentine’s ball?
He was gaping at me now, looking like I’d kicked him in the stomach. “Uh,” he managed at last. “Uh, I don’t—”
“It’s just for the night,” I said, as persuasively as I could manage. “It’s a society party, and I have to be there. And I can’t be there without a date, not for a Valentine’s Day party.”
“But… uh… with a guy?”
I couldn’t help laughing softly at his concern. “Everyone knows I’m gay, Val.”
“And they’re… okay with it?”
I sighed, feeling my smile fade a bit. The upper rungs of society are of course crowded with old people, and it was unsurprising that some of them—perhaps many of them—were homophobes. But for the most part, I was rich enough and handsome enough that most of them were willing to overlook a little thing like my sexual orientation, as long as I spent lavishly on their favorite charities and pet projects. They might gossip about me behind my back, but no one dared cut me to my face.
“They’re okay with it,” I assured him. “No one’s going to stone you, Val. Don’t worry about it.”
“I just… I, uh…”
“You are gay, aren’t you? Haven’t you come out yet?”
His gaze flickered away from mine. He looked at the floor, and so help me, he blushed, his cheeks turning a vivid pink.
“It’s not something I talk about a lot,” he mumbled.
“It’ll be worth the risk,” I told him. “I’ll provide the tux, and I’ll pick you up in a Rolls. It’ll be a night to remember, I can assure you. I’ll make certain you feel like Cinderella by the time the night is through.”
He reached up a hand and brushed his overgrown golden-brown hair out of his eyes. “Cinderella ran away by the night’s end,” he reminded me.
I chuckled. “You won’t want to run away, Val. Believe me.”
He still looked dubious, so I did the only thing I could think of to convince him.
I bent forward and kissed him.
I won’t say that I’d been thinking about kissing him ever since that day I caught a glimpse of him. But… well, he was a remarkably beautiful young man. Any sensible gay man (and probably a good many straight ones) would have wanted to kiss him.
And yeah, maybe I had been thinking about him for the past month. Who could blame me?
His lips were soft with surprise beneath mine, soft and yielding. I heard his soft gasp as I brushed his lips with mine, exploring the contours of his mouth, the sweetness of it.
For an instant he froze, and then he leaned into it, kissing me back shyly. He was all innocence and gentle sweetness, and I wondered if this was his first kiss. Surely not. Surely a young man who looked like this must have been with dozens of lovers by now. How old was he? Twenty-two?
I couldn’t be his first kiss… could I?
I drew back, more affected than I had intended to be, and looked into his eyes. His dumbfounded expression suggested he’d just been hit by a freight train.
“Was that your first kiss?” I asked softly.
He blinked, like a man coming out of a dream, and his cheeks instantly turned bright pink again. “Of course not! I—I—” His high-pitched denials cut off abruptly. He drew in a deep breath, looking deeply ashamed, like he’d committed a sin by lying, and spoke in a low voice. “Yes,” he admitted. “It was.”
I shook my head, bewildered. The thought that I’d just given him his first kiss made something heat up inside my chest. When I’d hatched this plan, I hadn’t realized he was quite that innocent.
“You didn’t have a boyfriend in high school? Or even in college?”
He shook his head, looking embarrassed. “I lived with my mom all the way through college,” he admitted. “She was… well, old-fashioned. She never would’ve let me—I mean, she would’ve had a fit if she’d known. So… well, I just didn’t date.”
My heart ached for him. College was a time to live a little, to discover who you were, to find people you could connect with. It sounded like this young
man hadn’t had that opportunity, and that was unfortunate.
“You don’t live with her any longer, do you?”
He shook his head again. “When I graduated and got this job, I found an apartment here in the city I could afford to sublet for the summer. I couldn’t stand living with her anymore. It’s not that I hate her, it’s just that… well, I want to be who I am, not who she wants me to be. You know?”
“I know.” I felt a kinship to Val. My own father had been much the same. He had believed himself to be “tolerant” of gay people, but it was different when he found out his own son and heir was gay. It had taken five years for us to get back on speaking terms, and that only because he’d been dying, and I’d felt I had to forgive him.
“But the thing is, Mom still doesn’t know.”
“So if she finds out…”
He sighed, and put his head into his hands. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice muffled. “I mean, it shouldn’t matter. I’m an adult, and I can be with whoever I want to be. It’s just that…”
“I understand,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “This ball will be covered in the local papers, Val. It might even wind up on the evening news the next day. So if you really don’t want her to know, then maybe you shouldn’t go.”
“No,” he burst out, lifting his head. Something almost like rebellion lit in those blue eyes. “I want to. I mean… why shouldn’t I? It sounds… fun.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t been aware I was holding, and smiled.
“So you’ll go to the ball, Cinderella?”
He looked at me for a long moment, his eyes still burning with determination. And then he grinned.
“Yes, Prince Charming. I’ll go to the ball.”
Chapter Three
Val
Cinderella never looked this good.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror, preening a little. I’m not ordinarily a vain guy—well, not too much, anyway—but I couldn’t help liking what I saw. Mr. Harrington—Blade, I mean—had sent over a tux this afternoon. The label read Kiton, and it was a classic black wool affair that fit me like it had been tailored for me. The shirt was a snowy white, the tie and cummerbund a deep red, which I supposed was only fitting for a Valentine’s Day ball. I’d done my best with the tie, and it was only slightly lopsided.
