Beauty and the BOSS (Billionaire's Obsession Book 1)

by R. S. Elliot

“I’m sure,” I said, already sliding over from my seat into the driver’s side. The steering wheel was still warm from Sonia’s tight grip, and the keys were already in the ignition waiting for me. My heart was pounding, but the adrenaline of needing to resolve a crisis overshadowed my anxiety about being behind the wheel again. We were only a few minutes away from the airport. Luke needed me to be there for him right now. I could do this.

  Luke leaned forward between the seats and kissed me, then disappeared back into the backseat to jot down the address of the hospital from his sister. Moments later, he hung up and was searching for airline tickets on his phone, locating ones that would get us back to the Big Apple the fastest. A few stern phone calls to airlines later and we were booked for a business class flight leaving in fifty minutes.

  “Are you sure we can make it?” I worried aloud. My hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles were white. I strained to hear my GPS spout directions over the noise of the road.

  “Without bags to check? Absolutely. I’ll get us where we need to go, I promise. Thank you for driving.”

  I tried to smile at him in the rearview mirror, then squealed when a car swerved too close to me.

  “Eyes on the road,” he said encouragingly, and in a few more minutes we were parked haphazardly in the airport drop-off lane. Luke was out of the car before me and opened the door for me, offering his hand. I took it and let him pull me gently out of the driver’s seat onto shaking legs. He spared an extra moment to hug me tightly to his chest, then began to pull me through the bustling airport where we had just been that morning. We were supposed to spend the night in San Francisco and fly back tomorrow afternoon. But plans had changed. In a few hours, the world had changed, and now the press knew all about Luke and I and his father was dying in some hospital bed 3,000 miles away. It seemed like a dream.

  As soon as my feet hit solid ground, I let Luke take over. I sagged against him as he returned rental keys, checked us in, helped me slip out of my jacket in the TSA line, located our gate, and led me up the gangplank into our plane. His arm rarely left its secure spot around me, and I was grateful for his fortifying closeness. Some people stared at us and snapped pictures with their camera phones, but neither of us could be bothered to care. It had been a hell of a day already, and it wasn’t over, but at least we had each other.

  Luke was quiet most of the flight home, lacing and unlacing his fingers as he stared out the window or at his phone, eyebrows pulled together in perpetual dismay. I didn’t know enough about the situation to talk him through it, but I did see another way to give him comfort, so I leaned my head against his shoulder and wound my fingers through his. A few days ago, I wouldn’t have dreamed that he would allow this closeness and familiarity, but now he kissed the top of my head tenderly and murmured into my hair.

  “If he dies, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.”

  “I know. But you didn’t do this, Luke. And you’re going to him now. You’re doing everything you can do.”

  He nodded, still looking a little haunted, but he squeezed my hand to show that he understood. He rested his head against mine and sighed deeply.

  “Thank you, Emily. Thank you for being here.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Luke

  Most of that day passed in a blur. I only dimly remember landing in LaGuardia and ushering Emily off the plane. I remember that she insisted on coming with me to the hospital instead of going home to sleep off her day at home. I wanted to insist she get some rest, and under normal circumstances, I would never allow her to involve herself in my family’s problems. But she had been through so much already because of me, and I knew she didn’t want to be alone. And if I was perfectly honest, going into that hospital and facing the news that my father could be dying, or worse, already dead, made me want to have her by my side. Let the press talk. Let Sarah wonder and let my deadbeat brother-in-law stare. I didn’t care. Emily and I needed each other, and I would not deny us that.

  Sarah kept me as up-to-date as possible with regular texts, and I was relieved to get off the plane to a flood of messages confirming that my father was unconscious but stable. By the time Emily and I pulled up to the hospital in a taxi, Sarah was texting me my father’s room number, letting me know not to expect him to be awake. I told her I brought a friend with me and left it at that. My sister and I might not see eye to eye on many things, but she knew how to leave well enough alone, and she knew I only introduced her to women when I felt ready.

  The hospital was no different than any other I had ever set foot in; cold, sterile, and smelling faintly of antiseptics and death. Sarah had already tried to brighten up my father’s room with a thin bouquet of cellophane-wrapped flowers bought in from one of the hospital shops, but it didn’t do much to improve the atmosphere. My father lay in bed, ashen and motionless and hooked up to machines. A cold feeling settled in my stomach when I realized that I might never see him conscious again, but I put the thought out of my head as quickly as I could.

  “It came on so fast,” Sarah said. She rushed out to meet us when we arrived and folded both Emily and me into her arms, no questions asked. That was just her way, and I was grateful. “We didn’t realize what it was until he started having shortness of breath.”

  “God,” I said. My voice dropped to match her quiet tone as we stood in the room together. We knew my father couldn’t hear us, but it seemed right to keep our voices down. “Who caught it?”

  “Eric, if you can believe it. He dropped everything and rushed Dad out here right away, no questions asked. I left Ryan with the nanny and came as soon as I could.”

  I glanced over at Emily. She lingered close by my side, our shoulders touching.

  “Eric?” Something inside me gave way, and I sighed heavily. I had spent so many years determined to hate him that I hadn’t been able to see the ways he might be good for my family. And now he had done everything he could to save my father’s life. I looked over to where Eric was sitting next to my father’s bed, looking almost as ashen as he was. Wordlessly, I walked over and pulled him up out of the chair into a tight, one-armed hug. This was the most we had ever touched outside of a perfunctory handshake.

  “Thank you,” I said, voice thick.

  Eric just nodded. He was wiped out from the day, but I knew he understood. We were going to be alright.

  The hospital kept my father under close observation for the rest of the day and into the evening. Sarah, Eric and I lingered nearby, sipping cheap hospital coffee and nibbling on Saltines and cookies from the cafeteria, but it was like watching paint dry. Hours passed with no change in status; nurses came and went to check vital signs and pronounce that nothing had gotten better or worse. Soon we were all hungry, tired, and irritable. Emily, in particular, looked like she was going to drop at any moment, so I pulled her out into the hallway for a quiet conversation.

  “I appreciate you coming out here with me, but you don’t have to stay. You should go home and get some sleep.”

  Emily wrung her hands, glancing down the narrow, dark hospital hallway. It felt so strange to send her home after our whirlwind day together, but I had a lot to process. Everything had changed around me without warning, and I had no idea how I would go into work on Monday dealing with my father’s health, without worrying that there would be questions about the pictures currently circling the Internet. I hadn’t looked at my phone since getting to the hospital. I didn’t have the stomach for it.

  “I’m alright, Luke. Really. If you want me here with you, I’ll stay.”

  My shoulders sagged. Emily had no experience dealing with the press. This was the first day she had probably ever seen the paparazzi up close, much less been pursued by them. She could insist that she was fine all she wanted, but I had seen the terror in her eyes, the confusion, and the shame. The closer she got to me, the more likely the world was going to tear her apart. It would be fun, for a day or two, dating a local celebrity. But I knew that she had been seen t
oo much with me already. If cameras caught us leaving the hospital after my father’s heart attack, her world would be irrevocably changed, and not for the better.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed.

  “That’s very sweet of you, but I… have a lot to think about right now. I’m probably going to go home soon myself and try to sleep.”

  Part of me wanted to invite her along, to fall asleep in my own bed, holding her body against mine. I wanted to smooth her hair and kiss her gently and feel the rise and fall of her chest, breathing against mine. But that would complicate matters further. I had taken up enough of her time, and she had left enough of a mark on my life for one day.

  “Alright,” she said softly.

  I turned away from her, but she caught my hand and pulled me back in, close to her. Her perfume had faded almost entirely from our insane day, but there was still the faintest hint of vanilla clinging stubbornly to her hair. This nearly broke me. After a brutally long day, I wanted to lose myself in her, to sag into her and thread my fingers through all that hair and breathe her in.

  “Luke, can we talk, please?”

  “We are talking,” I said, eyes searching her face. I felt a substantial conversation coming on, one I wanted to have with her, but my head was pounding from stress and lack of sleep. I needed water and to lie down. It was so hard to think straight with her right in front of me. I didn’t even know what time it was, what day it was. I wasn’t able to make any decision right now.

  “I know you don’t need this right now, but over the last couple of weeks… Listen, I know this is all very sudden but we’ve been through a lot together, and I think it’s alright for me to say that I care about you so much. I have feelings for you Luke, I think I might be falling in love with you and I just… don’t know what’s going on between us.”

  I felt lightheaded. She had just laid all her cards out on the table in front of me, and I was coming up short of anything to say. I might have felt the same, but I didn’t know because there had been no time to think or examine my feelings. I felt like I had passed through the last 24 hours on instinct alone, and this was no time to make big decisions, especially not with my father dying one room away. And not with my reputation potentially in shambles because of a picture with Emily. I didn’t even want to think about how this would affect her, or what her school would say to her about the photographs.

  “Emily, we’ve been through a lot together. Emotions have been running high, and I do like you a lot, and I care about your well-being, but I just… don’t have the bandwidth to consider anything else right now. You know me. You know my schedule, you know I don’t have time for anything committed—”

  “That’s alright,” she said, but her voice was papery and hollow. She had pulled her hands out of mine and put a few inches of distance between us, like a chilly invisible wall. “Thank you for letting me know. I don’t know what I was… It’s fine. You’re right. I should go home.”

  My heart was heavy as lead in my chest. This was never how I wanted anything to go. I was never supposed to be standing in a dingy hospital hallway in the middle of the night telling the most wonderful woman I had ever met that I didn’t have time for her, that I wanted her to leave me alone. But I didn’t know what else to do. My father’s heart attack drove home the point in painfully real time: life was short. I had a mountain of things I hadn’t done yet that I was desperate to accomplish, and I didn’t know if there was space in there for a dalliance with my intern, especially when it was threatening to become something more, something all-consuming.

  “Alright,” I said swallowing. “But Emily, I—”

  “Luke?” Sarah asked. She had poked her head out of the hospital room into the dimly lit hallway. Her eyes shined eerily, partially from barely restrained tears, and partly from the fluorescent overhead lighting.

  “Hey,” I said, glancing over my shoulder. Emily clutched one of her arms, looking down at the floor and nudging at the tile with her shoe. She looked like she wanted to dissolve back into the atmosphere, to be absorbed by the dingy grey walls of the hospital.

  “I didn’t know where you went,” Sarah said quietly. Sheepishly. She was looking at Emily like she didn’t know what to do with her, and Emily was folding in on herself. I knew that my sister was a welcoming and warm woman who wouldn’t judge Emily or be angry with me for bringing her around, but it had been a long and tiring day. Bringing her along to my father’s sickbed had been an impulse decision for my comfort, and now I regretted it. Sarah deserved to grieve in private. Now that the exhaustion caught up with all of us, I could see the desperation in my sister’s eyes. She needed comfort. She needed me.

  “Is everything alright?” I asked.

  “He’s still out like a light. It sounded like he was having trouble breathing there for a minute, but everything seems fine now.” Sarah moved out into the hallway with us, wringing her hands. “Eric went out to get some more coffee.”

  “Sarah,” I sighed. “It’s late. No more coffee, okay? I want you to be able to get some sleep tonight.”

  “I just can’t sleep seeing him like that.”

  “I know.”

  I heard a little noise behind me and turned to see Emily shouldering her purse and shuffling a few steps away. I put a hand out to her but stopped myself before I took her hand and drew her back to me.

  “Emily, are you—”

  “I really should be getting home. Sarah, it was nice to meet you. I’m so sorry about your father, and I hope I haven’t been too much of a bother.”

  “Oh Emily,” Sarah said softly, her eyes searching Emily’s face. She was disoriented and exhausted, but I could still tell that my sister’s nurturing instincts were still active, driving her to comfort this strange young girl who had been swept into my life. I felt torn between the two of them, wanting to support both of them in every way I could but not having the energy for either of them. “It’s alright; you don’t have to—”

  “I’ve got work on Monday,” Emily said, her eyes pleading to be let go. “I should really go.”

  “I’ll call you a cab,” I said weakly.

  “Thank you,” she said, almost inaudibly. A few minutes later, her cab was idling outside, and I was watching her walk away, shoes clacking against the floor as she shouldered her purse and camera bag. She didn’t look back.

  Sarah wandered out of the hospital room and put her hand on my shoulder, looking into my face.

  “Luke,” she asked gently. “What’s going on?”

  I turned to look at her. She looked so delicate in the dim light of the hospital at night, like touching her too hard might bruise her.

  “Nothing,” I said, voice thick. “Nothing is going on.”

  Without another word, I enfolded her in my arms and hugged her tightly.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Emily

  I wasn’t sure if Luke was going to show up to work on Monday. He hadn’t texted or called for the rest of the weekend, which I mainly spent sleeping off the San Francisco trip, holed up in my room, and watching Netflix with my roommates. Every minute that passed felt surreal, somehow more surreal than the dreamlike hours I had spent wrapped up in Luke’s arms. Nothing resonated with me the way it should, not my roommates asking to hear about my trip, or the food I begrudgingly fed myself, or the too-hot emptiness of my bed. I hoped to clear my head and get some things done before heading back to work on Monday, but that just wasn’t happening. All I seemed to be good for was moping around, or gnawing anxiously at my fingernails worrying about what I had done or losing myself to heated daydreams of Luke’s mouth on my neck. Each of these activities only exacerbated the other two, and soon, I was caught in a miserable loop of regret, heartsickness, and lust.

  I tried to flip through the pictures I took on Sunday afternoon to identify some good candidates for marketing materials, but I couldn’t do it. One flash of Luke’s smiling face up there in front of all those people had me feeling sick to my stomach, so I p
owered down my camera and stuffed it deep in my bag. I would deal with the pictures, with work, with everything, when I got back into the office on Monday.

  I hadn’t heard from Sonia since we parted ways in California, but when I arrived at my desk the next morning, I saw my carry-on and makeup bag stacked up neatly next to my desk with a hot pink sticky note attached to them.

  You’re such a trooper! Sonia had written in a friendly, curling hand that made me want to cry. And then, below it in smaller letters, congrats on tapping that fine billionaire ass.

  At least Sonia wasn’t angry with me or scandalized by my behavior. The rest of the office… who knew? I trusted Olivia not to say anything to anyone in the office, and Sonia had been there and surely realized how much damage a little gossip could cause, but I knew those pictures were circulating the internet. All it would take was for someone to stumble across them and identify me. My face was mostly blocked by Luke’s in the few shots I saw. The photos were grainy, tabloid quality, but I still had an awful lot of identifiable red hair.

  I managed to make it through about an hour of my workday uninterrupted before Sonia drifted over to my desk, looking guilty, but still runway ready in her white fitted dress with a high Mandarin collar.

  “Hey,” she said softly. “How are you holding up?”

  “Oh, I’m alright,” I said and knew I sounded exhausted. Sonia seated herself lightly on the edge of my desk.

  “Did you end up going to the hospital with him?” She kept her voice low, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that the person in the cubicle next to me wasn’t eavesdropping.

  “Yeah. His dad… wasn’t in good shape. We were there for hours, but we still don’t know if he’s going to pull through or not.”

  “I was afraid of that. I haven’t seen him all morning. He’s holed up in his office and won’t talk to anyone. He had Olivia cancel all his appointments for the day, I think.”