He’d bet it was the latter.
“You thought I was a hooker,” she said, her top lip curling.
Tag chuckled. “I did not.”
“You did! I said Oliver was a regular, and you thought I meant one of my tricks.” She did air quotes and everything.
His chuckle turned into a belly laugh and he had to put a hand on his stomach to catch his breath. “No, sweetheart, I thought you meant you were one of his regular girls. Girlfriends. Not that you curled his toes for money.”
Busted, she blushed, and that made him happy. Definitely she was not doing Oliver. His day was looking up.
“I hadn’t ruled out you slept with him for perks, because he’s a wealthy dude and I’m sure he sees a lot of that kind of attention, but I didn’t think you were a working woman.” He smirked.
“It’s not funny.” She’d folded her arms, which had the side effect of pushing her tits together, creating enough cleavage that he nearly lost the thread of their conversation.
He pulled himself together by looking at her boots. Patent leather, shiny, pointy-toed.
“What were you trying to prove by gussying yourself up?” He gestured at her body, but he couldn’t dismiss her. She rocked that dress, even though he’d bet it was a size smaller than what she was used to wearing. Maybe it belonged to one of her friends. Rachel had amazing curves, and they were testing the limits of her outfit…and Tag’s ability to stay on point. “What were you planning to do, anyway? Were you coming up here to seduce me?”
A not at all unpleasant idea…
“You wish.” She snorted—an honest to God snort. “I’m not the least bit attracted to…” She shrugged, which was cute. “What you have going on.”
“No?” He felt his eyebrows lift. “Because this”—he gestured to his body—“has worked for plenty of women.”
“What women? Women who want to help you brush your hair? Women who are into the whole you-Tarzan, me-Jane scenario?”
Damn. And she was funny.
“I’m not opposed to role-playing,” he teased with a grin. She flinched, and he let the comment hang. He couldn’t remember a woman ever brushing his hair, save for his mom when he was a kid, but he’d let Rachel keep poking him. Tag knew women, and this one seemed like she had no idea what she wanted. Maybe she’d known at one point, but now…now she wasn’t sure.
“Rachel Foster,” she introduced, shooting a hand out for him to shake.
A handshake? Who was this woman? He took her hand and she answered that question, too.
“Oliver is a regular at the bar where I work. He found out I was saving money to move out of my roommates’ apartment and offered me a gig house-slash-dog sitting for him.”
So, completely professional acquaintance. He should have guessed. He’d always suspected Oliver was gay. He’d never seen him with a woman. Then again, he’d never seen him with a man, either, Tag thought with a mouth shrug.
“And you are?” she asked.
Was she playing him, or did she really not know? Her eyebrows were slightly raised in an expression of genuine curiosity.
“Tag,” he answered, letting go of her hand.
“Tag? As in you’re it?”
Tag as in Taggart, but he’d die before she found out he was named after his great-great-grandfather Crane.
“Yeah. As in you’re it.” They shared a not uncomfortable silence, eyes on each other. He could swear the air between them thickened. He opened his mouth to ask if she was going to give chase when Adonis’s bark killed the opportunity.
She gestured at the floor, beneath which was her apartment and a very unhappy pup. “What am I going to do about him? I work second shift, so it’s not like I can be home with him in the evening. I take him out five times, day and night, snow or sunshine.”
“He has separation anxiety,” Tag said over another of Adonis’s mournful howls. “The internet suggested a few things.”
“You…you researched it?” She looked confused and a little grateful, and now that he knew she wasn’t Oliver’s girlfriend, a whole lot tempting.
“Yeah.” After he’d spoken with Fi, he’d pulled up a few websites on his phone. “I didn’t want to file a noise complaint.”
“Thanks,” she muttered quietly, followed by an even quieter, “I need this job.”
A bartender who needed a side job. This smacked of a woman who was trying to take a bite out of success in the big city and the city bit back. He wondered what her story was.
“What’d it say?” she asked.
“What did what say?”
She frowned. “The internet.”
Right. He really needed to keep his thoughts on track when she was around, or she’d assume he was some idiot with a trust fund who was living in a penthouse because he was spoiled. She wouldn’t be the first person who’d underestimated him. When he was younger, being underestimated was his shtick, but then he grew up and opted to tell the truth. He was intelligent, he’d made his own millions, though his portfolio upgraded his title to billionaire by the time he was twenty-six, and he preferred the term blessed over spoiled. He refused to apologize for living the good life.
He crooked a finger and beckoned Rachel deeper into the house. She came, which gave him an immense sense of satisfaction. She closed the front door behind her and wobbled a little in her high, high boots, and he bit back a smile. He must have burrowed under her skin if she’d gone to the trouble of putting as much of her body on display as possible in clothes that weren’t hers. When she’d stumbled into him in Oliver’s doorway the other morning, she’d slammed into him about chest high. With the boots, she was almost to his chin. He tried not to think about where else they might line up, but the images came.
Hot, sweaty, panting images.
“Front desk didn’t tell me you were on your way up, or I’d have met you at the door with this.” He picked up a large brown bag from Pup Paradise, a place on the Magnificent Mile where he’d purchased anything and everything to help with Adonis’s issue.
“The front desk was supposed to tell you when I arrived?”
Shit. Now he sounded like a stalker.
“I didn’t want to miss you.”
“Oh.” Her full lips pursed to a tempting degree.
“There are treats, toys, and something called a Kong. You’re supposed to fill it with peanut butter.”
She took the other handle of the bag and dug through the contents with him. Soft skin brushed the back of his hand and made him wonder if she was that soft everywhere. “Peanut butter?”
“You’re supposed to help him look forward to being alone,” Tag said, clearing his throat and his mind of his lecherous thoughts. “He probably thinks Oliver left him for good.”
“Adonis has had sitters before.” She pulled out a squirrel toy and squeaked it. Then traded it for a book on dog behavior and gave him a dubious look. “Really?”
“He doesn’t know you. Maybe you two should bond.”
“He sleeps in bed with me.” She dropped the book into the bag. “We’ve bonded.”
“Sounds cozy.” Forcefully, he pulled his gaze from her mouth. A mouth he’d bet tasted like candy.
“Shut up.” She snatched the bag, but there was a teasing glint in her eye. She turned for the door and he kept his eyes on her ass, realizing belatedly she’d turned around. He rerouted his gaze to her frowning face. “Thanks, I guess.”
“You’re welcome, I suppose.”
She glared at him.
He grinned.
She opened and shut the door and he jogged to the peephole and watched as she waited for the elevator. She pulled out an oversized stuffed ball and sent another unsure gaze at the door.
“God, she smelled good,” he said to himself. The elevator doors opened and she stepped inside. “And she likes you.”
Kind of liked him.
Or else she wouldn’t have come up here to put him in his place. Plus that electric zap that hummed in the air hadn’t only radiat
ed from him.
He had a feeling she was fighting attraction he knew she’d felt. If she was fighting, he was willing to pull on his gloves and climb in the ring with her.
Suddenly, he was really glad he was having an issue with his downstairs neighbor.
Game on.
Chapter 4
How’s Shaun doing?” Rachel’s mom asked.
Rachel stopped stirring the canned soup she was heating on the stove while Adonis stared a hole into the side of her head. “I fed you. Go eat,” she told him. He looked forlornly at the dish of kibble, then back at the stove.
“Dear, who are you talking to? I hope not Shaun,” Keri Foster said with real concern.
Rachel froze mid-stir, phone to her ear, and realized she was going to have to take Oliver’s advice and tell her parents what was going on. They didn’t know that (a) Rachel no longer was dating Shaun, (b) Rachel was no longer working in the marketing department at Global Coast, and (c) that Rachel was temporarily living with a dog roughly the size of a mule.
“Uh…” She stalled, trying to think of what to say. “I’m dog sitting, actually.”
“You are? How fun! Is it Shaun’s sister with the schnauzer puppy? What was her name? The puppy, not the sister.”
“Yes. Her name is uh…” What was that dog’s damn name? “Adonis.” No sense in snaring herself in another lie. The Dane’s head tipped in interest and he licked his chops. He chuffed, and Rachel shushed him. Her mother couldn’t see him, but if she heard him, she’d know Rachel was not sharing a house with a small dog.
“Adonis. Not very feminine.” Clattering came from the background as her mother dug out what sounded like a metal pot. It was rare Rachel had a day off to make calls at dinnertime, but she’d made an effort to keep up the ruse that she worked nine to five. “Did Shaun get the promotion he was angling for?”
Her mom had been asking for a few months. Rachel had put her off by saying things were “on hold for another month.” Then another.
“Weren’t the two of you going to look for a new apartment soon? Your lease is up next month, isn’t it?” Another clang and bang sounded as her mom went for more cooking implements. “I ask”—a chopping sound followed by Keri crunching a bite of whatever she’d chopped—“because I heard in Chicago, the best view is—”
“Mom, stop.” She couldn’t do this. Not any longer. It’d been crushing her to keep the lies spinning like plates on poles. Rachel was an adult, and it was past time to take her medicine.
“What is it, dear?”
The line fell silent and the words clogged Rachel’s throat. Well. Take part of her medicine. She wasn’t quite ready to tell her mom the whole truth.
“Shaun and I…split up.”
A gasp.
“It’s fine. It was amicable,” Rachel was quick to add to keep her mother from worrying unnecessarily. The truth was it wasn’t fine, nor was it amicable, but Rachel had the benefit of eight weeks to absorb it and her mother had only had about eight seconds.
“What happened?” Her mother’s tone was alarmed. “I thought you two were so happy.”
We were until he betrayed me like the punk ass he turned out to be.
“Sometimes…things don’t work out,” she hedged, pulling the soup off the burner to cool.
“Is there someone else?”
For Rachel there wasn’t. She hadn’t been ready to jump into the dating pool after things went south with Shaun. Not after said pool tested positive for pond scum.
“Two years is such an investment. I can’t imagine,” her mother was muttering.
It was an investment. A big one for Rachel. She’d loved him and had assumed they’d get married. Until Shaun’s familiar nighttime ritual “love you, Rach,” stopped and “G’night” replaced it.
She wondered when he’d stopped loving her. Had someone else grabbed his attention, or was it because of the guilt that he’d accepted the boss’s praise/promotion combo? A preemptive strike before Rachel found out he’d betrayed her?
After moving in with Bree and seeing firsthand what she and Dean had, Rachel started wondering if Shaun had ever loved her at all.
“…thought the two of you might even get married.”
She tuned in her mom mid-litany about how sad it was to lose a future son-in-law.
“I’m sorry,” her mom cut herself off to say. “I did not mean to say that. Honey, I’m so sorry. Where are you living? Is working with him every day weird?”
“I’m dog sitting for a…friend who’s letting me stay in hi—uh, her place.” Yeah, saying she was living in another man’s house would not sound innocent, even though it was. “I’ll be here for the month and find my own place after.”
Surely she’d make enough money on this gig to put down the first month’s rent and deposit elsewhere. From there, she would have to secure a job that paid more than cash tips in exchange for working until three in the morning.
“And work?”
“Work’s good, Mom.” Finally, the truth. “Busy.” Also true. “I have to go. Adonis needs to go out.”
He woofed.
“Goodness, she sounds like a large schnauzer.”
“He’s a Great Dane. Like Marmaduke. Except prettier.” She scrubbed Adonis’s head, admiring his white-with-black splotched coat. He smiled, tongue lolling. “We’re bonding.”
“Well, sounds like he’s a great fill-in while nursing your broken heart.”
At her mother’s statement a pang speared the center of her chest. Rachel had been brokenhearted and had gone through it alone. Rather than share too much with Bree, Rachel had stayed busy. With work, moving, and getting used to her new bartending gig, it wasn’t hard to distract herself. Now, in Oliver’s silent apartment with only Adonis for company, she was feeling that uncertainty and pain from the breakup anew.
“You call me every evening, okay? I want to make sure you’re safe.”
“Mom. No.” She was not doing the check-in thing.
“I’ll worry.”
“Don’t worry.”
“I will.”
“I love you,” Rachel said.
“I could worry myself literally sick and then how bad would you feel?” asked Keri Foster, master of manipulation.
“Tell Dad hi.”
“Love you too,” her mother said, giving up. “Can I downgrade my call to a text?”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Fine.” A sigh.
“Good night.”
Rachel pocketed her phone with a smile. She loved her parents. They were the reason she was doing what she was doing. Her mom bragged to everyone who would listen about her daughter who was “making it” in the big city. In the small Ohio town where Rachel grew up, Chicago was big time. So big, her parents had only ventured out her way twice in the two and a half years since she’d moved here.
She didn’t want to disappoint them, and while they may not be disappointed in her job as a bartender, they would definitely be more concerned and possibly offer to send her money, which she would flat-out refuse to take.
If only they knew what her life was really like.
Two days ago she’d put on a ridiculously tight dress and boots, hell-bent on teaching her upstairs neighbor a lesson. Tag had seen right through her, and after she’d clopped back into Oliver’s apartment, she realized she was not surprised.
She’d felt more self-conscious than sexy wearing that getup, and she’d witnessed how confounded Tag had been. He’d backed away as she stepped forward. Not exactly the actions of a man who was interested. Not that she was interested, she thought, chewing on the side of her cheek.
Maybe her mother had uncovered the crux of Rachel’s bizarre behavior when she mentioned Shaun and heartbreak. Rachel didn’t feel like herself and had never, ever done something as bold as slink into a man’s apartment wearing six-inch-heeled boots.
It was nice of Tag to buy Adonis all of those toys, though. She took her mug of soup and a sleeve of crackers into t
he living room and placed them on the coffee table. She reached into the shopping bag, pulled out the stuffed squirrel, and squeaked it. Adonis’s head cocked to one side and she threw the toy down the hallway.
Adonis turned his head but refocused his attention on the crackers.
“These taste about the same as what’s in your bowl,” she said, giving up and handing over a Ritz. Then she ate one. Heaven. Buttery, salty heaven. “Well, maybe not.”
She finished her soup, sharing more crackers with Adonis, her mind on Tag and the way he’d looked at her when she suggested that women liked to brush his hair. It made her laugh when she remembered it right afterward, and it made her laugh now as she washed the mug and spoon and put them into the dishwasher.
Tag was ridiculously outside of her playing field, though, right? He was massive, both wide and tall, had a thick but well-groomed beard, and longer hair than she’d ever seen on anyone—male or female. She hadn’t been far off with the Tarzan zinger, either. He looked like a trail guide in a jungle, or maybe a wrestler on television, grimacing and flexing until the veins in his neck popped out.
She laughed aloud but it paired with her fanning her face. Because imagining Tag oiled up and shirtless…or sweat-covered in a safari outfit… Those were warming thoughts indeed.
Two months wasn’t that long to be without someone, but it was longer if she counted back to the last time she and Shaun had sex. She had done the math once, and the halting of “love you, Rach” and the death of their sex life coincided. They also coincided with the hiring of a cute girl in the design department who had purple streaks in her hair.
That chest-crushing feeling returned. Rachel had trusted him. With her heart, and as a friend. Shaun taking credit for her hard work was reason enough for her to end things. But there was a sting of embarrassment when she thought about how clueless she’d been for so long. How much she’d trusted him—how well she thought she knew him.
Never could she have guessed underneath that neatly buttoned shirt and penchant for double espressos was a man who would step on her head as he climbed the ladder instead of lifting her alongside him.
The Billionaire Next Door Page 4
