Taming the Bad Boy Billionaire Bundle

by Sierra Rose

  For a while, we both stared out the windows.

  Keeping perfectly silent. Carefully avoiding eye contact.

  Then, when I felt like I could manage it, I smoothed down my hair, cleared my throat—in a vague attempt at professionalism—and turned to look at Nick.

  “So, uh...good thing nobody panicked.”

  His eyes twinkled, and he pursed his lips to restrain a smile.

  “Good thing nobody panicked.”

  Chapter 10

  AFTER CIRCLING THE city a few times (giving my flushing face a chance to cool down, and giving Nick a chance to call up Barneys and pay for my dress over the phone), the town car pulled up in front of Nick’s building. A crowd was gathered in front of it, like usual, and an automatic knot tightened in the pit of my stomach.

  “I really don’t know how you do it,” I said quietly. Nick looked over in surprise, as I gazed dismally out the window. “I really don’t.”

  His face softened thoughtfully as he followed my gaze.

  “You surround yourself with good people. You learn the exits. You get through it.”

  You get through it.

  “Right.”

  I gritted my teeth with determination and reached for the door. Things might have gotten away from me a little bit back at Barneys, but I wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice. I was going to march out there, damnit—head held high.

  Even if it was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. Even though it felt like I was having a heart attack every time I got caught in one of those flashing lights—

  There was a sudden movement in the car, and a cool hand shot out to stop me. I glanced up curiously to see that Nick was leaning all the way over—his fingers clamped protectively over mine upon the handle.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked automatically. “I thought—”

  “It’s an adjustment, Abby.” He smiled gently and swept my hair back away from my face. “You shouldn’t have to get thrown right in.”

  I shook my head with a frown.

  “What does that mean—”

  “Stay here,” he instructed. “I’ll get out, they’ll see that I’m alone and disperse. Bobby will take you around the block once or twice in the meantime.”

  He started to get out, but I put a hesitant hand on his sleeve.

  “Are you sure?” I asked quietly, feeling a little embarrassed. “I mean, the whole point of this thing is so that we’re seen together as many times as possible, right?”

  Without a second’s pause, he reached back and caught my hand in his own. He bent his head with a soft smile, and kissed it. “The whole point of this is to survive my father, while simultaneously making things as tolerable as possible.” He glanced out at the waiting horde. “No need to throw you to the sharks every time.”

  He was out of the car the next instant, waving with a fixed smile at the crowd. He did, however, leave me with one final thought.

  “Besides,” he glanced back with a wink, “I need you to keep up your strength.”

  The door slammed shut behind him, and he strode forth confidently into the crowd. Just a second later, Bobby and I eased away into traffic.

  I felt the man’s eyes on me the entire time we circled the block. Judging. Teasing. Trying to catch my attention. When it finally got to be too much, I punched the button for the partition.

  “He meant for the party tomorrow,” I called, as the wall came up between us. “That I needed to keep up my strength for the party.”

  The last thing I saw before the thing snapped shut was Bobby’s twinkling smile.

  “Uh-huh.”

  NICK’S PLAN WORKED like a charm. By the time we’d circled the block a few times, the crowd had dissipated enough that I was able to slip inside without anyone giving me even a second glance. It was a precious moment of anonymity, but even as it happened, I knew that it couldn’t possibly last. Come tomorrow, anyone who didn’t already know my face from the papers, was going to see it plastered up in every newsstand from here to Queens.

  I wonder how long that will take to fade, I thought as I rode the elevator all the way up to the top floor. I wonder how long after the two of us ‘go our separate ways’ before I can walk down the street to get a cup of coffee, without being assaulted by a cameraman.

  The thought didn’t sit well with me. Possibly because the media had a hell of a long memory, so I didn’t really want to know the answer. Possibly because I was growing increasingly distressed with the idea of ‘going our separate ways.’

  Just try to get a grip, Abby. Yes, Nick really cares about you and you really care about him—but you’ve seen him do ‘relationships’ before. Short answer? He doesn’t. This isn’t going to be any different. When this is all over, the most we can hope for is to part as friends.

  The doors dinged open and I breezed out into the penthouse. Nick had already brewed a fresh pot of coffee and was lounging on a couch in the living room. The very same couch where the two of us had utterly mind-blowing sex just a day before.

  It was a thought I could tell was running through his mind.

  “Well fancy meeting you here.” He pushed a steaming mug of coffee my direction, and patted the cushion beside him on the couch. “You survived the little detour?”

  For whatever reason, the words made me blush. He was being nice about it, so nice about it, but I couldn’t just let it go.

  “Nick, I’m really, really sorry for freezing up back at the store.” I bowed my head, unable to look him in the eyes. “Seeing that ring just caught me off-guard, and—”

  “Hey!” He leapt to his feet with a reassuring frown. “You have absolutely nothing to apologize for—do you hear me? At any rate, the fault was mine. I should never have ambushed you like that with the ring.”

  A pair of warm fingers tilted up my chin. A pair of twinkling eyes coaxed a smile.

  “Forgive me?”

  All the stress and anxiety rushed out of me in one breathless laugh.

  “Forgive you?” I repeated. “Well I still maintain that I acted like an idiot, but yes—if that’s what you want to hear. I forgive you.”

  He flashed me a bright smile, and picked me up right where we stood. I caught my breath with a little gasp as he locked his wrists around my lower back and we continued the conversation with one of us in the air.

  At this point—I should hardly have been surprised.

  The man was as impulsive as they come. He did what he wanted, when he wanted. No thought to conformity. He was all action, with none of the consequences.

  “That’s very good to hear.” He kissed me squarely on the lips, pulling back with his signature grin. “And you weren’t an idiot. I thought you were adorable.”

  “Adorable? Really?” I asked sarcastically, as he kissed me again. Was I ever going to get used to it? These casual displays of affection? “Because I thought that you were about ready to throw me over your shoulder and make a run for it—right there in the store.”

  He chuckled softly. “Well, I’m always ready to do that...” he let me hang for a moment, “...just for slightly different reasons.”

  My heart skipped a beat, as I wrapped my arms around his neck and started playing with the back of his hair. “Oh yeah—and what might those reasons be?”

  An almost competitive glint flashed through his eyes, as he rose automatically to the challenge. But as quickly as it came, it took a backseat to a more immediate craving.

  “You are insatiable,” he said appreciatively. Then he set me down. “But I’m starving.”

  I laughed aloud and followed him to the kitchen. The second he said the word, I realized how hungry I was myself. All my normal routines and schedules had been thrown to high hell since I moved in. And I’d never exactly gotten to eat on my catastrophic lunch break.

  He pulled open the refrigerator, and the two of us stared bleakly inside. A second later, his eyes flickered to me self-consciously, and he closed it shut.

  “I have a confession.”
>
  “You always order in?” I guessed.

  “I always order in.”

  I giggled and pushed past him, opening the door once more. “Really? I would think that you could probably do a lot with that solitary lemon pushed all the way in the corner...”

  He grinned, closing it up again, “I rarely have company.”

  I rolled my eyes sarcastically and hopped up onto the counter.

  “Somehow, I highly doubt that...”

  Wisely choosing to ignore this, he pulled a stack of take-out menus from a drawer by the sink. They were well-worn, and he scanned through the briefly, before setting them back down.

  “Why don’t I just order in some groceries and cook for you?”

  My eyebrows rose. In two years I didn’t think I’d ever heard a more ridiculous thing come out of his mouth. And that was really saying something.

  “Cook for me?” I echoed incredulously, wondering suddenly if the penthouse was insured for things like fire damage. “Are you insane? Hasn’t the day been bad enough?”

  He laughed loudly, but started pulling things out of the cabinets—already set on the idea.

  “Come on—let me cook you dinner.”

  I followed his progress around the kitchen with wide eyes.

  “You don’t know how to cook,” I retorted.

  “Of course I do,” he replied easily, pulling out his laptop to order groceries online. “You know I spent that summer at the culinary academy in Nice.”

  “Yeah, but I thought you only did that to sleep with Jean Renuoit’s daughter.”

  “I did,” he explained patiently, fingers blurring over the keys. “But after she fell asleep each night, I went downstairs to train with the masters.”

  He sent off the order and turned back to me with a triumphant grin. A grin I returned with an exasperated smile, shaking my head as I looked him up and down.

  “You went downstairs to train with the masters. Of course you did.”

  “Do you want to see me cook?” he asked. “I promise to blow you away.”

  “Okay. As long as you promise to cook naked.”

  “You don’t think I will?”

  I laughed. “With you, I never know.”

  He softly patted my ass. “Now go on. Get out of here. I must cook you something wonderful.”

  I smiled.

  JUST TWO HOURS LATER, I wandered downstairs in a loose dress and slippers. Nick had insisted that I go upstairs and take a bath so as not to disturb his ‘process,’ and by the time I made it back down—the table was set, the wine was poured, and some of the most delicious smells I could imagine were wafting invitingly from the kitchen.

  Of course, when I rounded the corner, Nick wasn’t wearing any pants.

  ...for fuck’s sake, Hunter.

  The man never listened to me!

  I stopped dead in my tracks, clamping a hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t laugh out loud. He was facing away from me, stirring something delicious on the stove, so for a moment, I was able to just stand there and unabashedly stare.

  All he was wearing was an apron over boxers. The rest of his clothes were in a pile on the floor—it was fucking adorable.

  He had a spoon in one hand. A glass of wine in the other. And every now and then, he would set one of them down to sprinkle another dash of spice to the sauce sizzling on the stove.

  I was smitten. Absolutely smitten.

  “Is that how the masters did it?”

  He jumped in his skin, then turned around with a wry smile.

  “I’m under no obligation to give away their secrets. You’ll have to go to France yourself if you want to find out for sure.”

  I padded up behind him as he turned back to the stove, and wrapped my arms around his waist—planting a soft kiss in the center of his back.

  “Maybe I will...”

  He stiffened almost imperceptibly, then made a conscious effort to move past it.

  Was I crazy? Or was someone as thrown by these casual displays of affection as me?

  “Wine?” he offered.

  “Please.”

  I made to release him as he reached for the bottle, but he didn’t let me. One hand held my wrists against his stomach, as the other effortlessly poured me a crystal goblet.

  “That feels nice,” he murmured.

  It took me a second to realize that he meant the feeling of being wrapped in my arms.

  It was strange, no? Surely he’d been in that position half a million times before?

  He leaned back without seeming to think about it, closing his eyes ever so briefly to savor the sensation. Then he released my wrists to hand me the glass of wine.

  “You like cassoulet?”

  I peeked over his shoulder, my face wafting up with the steam.

  “I’ve never tried it.”

  With a little grin, he scooped up a spoonful and held it to my lips. Trying to be as lady-like as possible, I stretched up on my tiptoes and took a little sip. A second later, I took a much larger sip. I second after that—I grabbed the spoon myself and dipped it back in for more.

  “Holy hell!” I exclaimed. “Nick—that’s incredible!”

  His lips curved up in a smug little grin as he stepped around behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. A matching smile flitted across both of our faces at the same time, as he bent down and rested his chin lightly on my shoulder.

  “Well you’re in luck, that’s only the first course...”

  Chapter 11

  AS MANY DINNERS AS Nick and I had shared over the last two years, there had never been one quite like this. And I don’t just mean the taste—although I was sure I’d never tried anything so unspeakably delicious in my entire life. I don’t just mean the circumstances—the two of us had broken bread in most every country, in most every situation you could imagine.

  It was so much more than that...

  To start, we ate it barefoot in his living room—our legs entwining shyly beneath the table as we passed things back and forth. Two, thick candles had been pulled out of a drawer and lit for the occasion. Candles that were tall when we started the meal, and pools of melted wax by the time we finished. We shared only a single bottle of wine. Hardly enough to get anything more than a mild buzz—just a natural pairing with the flavors of French cuisine.

  It was a natural conversational lubricant too—not that we needed it. From the second we took those first few bites—it was off to the races.

  No subject was too random or obscure for an in-depth analysis. No topic was off-limits for an increasingly lively debate. Every detail was picked apart and hilariously digressed. Stories were tossed back and forth—the characters growing wilder with each pass. The dialogue growing more and more unbelievable.

  Five hours later, there had yet to be a single pause.

  “Well,” I finally leaned back in my chair, watching as Nick put out a small table fire sparked by the last of the candles, “I take it back. You can cook after all.”

  He chuckled softly, waving a lazy hand to waft the spiraling trails of smoke away from the detector on the ceiling. “I told you. That summer in France wasn’t for nothing.”

  An image of him dancing around a kitchen in nothing but an apron, flashed through my mind. In the background, I now added a trio of exasperated, white-haired Frenchmen.

  “I’m sure they loved you.”

  He shrugged casually.

  “They asked me back...”

  Yeah. And that probably had nothing to do with the fact, that if he and just a few friends pooled their money, they could probably buy France. Or the fact that he had a standing tennis date with the current president.

  But there was so much more to him than that. So much more than even I had known, and I’d spent the last two years chasing him around the four corners of the globe.

  The man liked to cook. He did so looking glorious in his underwear. He knew the name of the homeless man who lived in the park across the street—each weekend, the two of them would share
a baguette and debate eastern philosophy. He padded around his house, barefoot, humming old Sinatra songs under his breath. He cuddled with pillows in his sleep.

  “What are you thinking?”

  I looked up to see Nick watching me intently, as if he could pry loose my secrets using nothing but his eyes. The two of us stared for a moment, before a feeling of overwhelming affection welled up inside me—warming my cheeks, before settling in my eyes.

  “I was thinking about how you said this was only the first course...”

  Without another word, he pushed back his chair and circled around the table. A second later, he’d scooped me up in his arms, and was carrying me gracefully up the stairs.

  The two of us made love that night. We didn’t fuck. We didn’t challenge, torment, or tease each other with the wiles of our bodies. We made love.

  It was tender. It was soft. And it was unbelievably sweet.

  This is what I want, I thought, as I curled up sleepily in his arms. His eyes were closed, and judging by the slow rise and fall of his chest, he’d already drifted away. Not the world’s wealthiest bachelor. Not the international sex symbol and celebrity. This. Right here.

  I want the man who hums Sinatra and carries me up to bed...

  Chapter 12

  WHEN I OPENED MY EYES the next morning, Nick was already gone. I wasn’t surprised. He had missed his run the previous morning, and the man got restless when he wasn’t in a state of constant activity. At this point, I was surprised he didn’t walk around in his sleep.

  It was the day of the engagement party—a party we needed to arrive at no later than noon. And yet, despite the insane amount of stress that came with such an event, despite the overwhelming pressure—every moment of which was sure to be documented by the press—I felt a strange sense of calm.

  Maybe it was the fact that in my sleep, I’d curled around Nick’s pillow. Maybe it was the fact that I knew he was going to be by my side every step of the way. Maybe it was just the fact that I was planning on gorging myself on leftover cassoulet for breakfast.