Five Minutes Late: A Billionaire Romance (14 page)

“Might I hope that I also have a magical power that will make you leap into my bed?”

“Don’t push it, big guy. And while you’re being mildly rational for two seconds, can I get one more promise out of you?”

“I promise with all my heart to treat you to the most amazing sex you will ever experience.”

“Nice try, but actually I need you to promise that if you ever again find yourself in a tall place like this and in a mood like the one you were in a minute ago, you’ll call me – deal?”

Something dark flickered through his eyes for an instant. I might have imagined it, though, because then his face lit up in a wolfish smile that let me know I was in serious trouble.

“So in addition to the one free promise I’ve already given you this morning, I am now expected to tender another one? Ashley, do you truly think I became whatever it is that I am today by casually handing out free promises to any and all who ask for them?”

“So I have to give you something in exchange for a perfectly reasonable promise? You won’t do it just to be a nice guy, or to convince me you might be more or less sane?”

“Yes, no, and no. I did not amass those 58.6 billion dollars of mine by being nice or sane – instead, I did it by exercising superior negotiation skills. So if you wish to draw another promise out of me today, you’ll have to decide just how badly you want it. What are you willing to give up in exchange for this promise, Ashley?”

“Meaning there’s something you want from me, and you’re willing to use my concern for your welfare as leverage to help you get it?”

“When it comes to what I want, I am utterly without shame.”

“Look, if you think I’m going to trade sex for a lousy little promise to make a phone call, you are six kinds of crazy.”

He sighed like a drama queen, and then grinned like a fiend.

“How sad for us both – I must say, I’ve never met a woman so determined to avoid what she wants. So, if you’re insisting on withholding sex from me for just a little bit longer, how about dinner instead? Tonight?”

“Just dinner? As in a sit-down meal at a nice, normal restaurant? What’s the catch?”

“My, aren’t you the suspicious one? But yes, a conventional meal at a conventional restaurant of my choosing – do we have a deal?”

“Let’s hear that promise first.”

There was that strange dark flicker in his eyes again … but he did promise.

“I promise that in exchange for the pleasure of her company at dinner, I will make a phone call to Ms. Ashley Daniels the next time I find myself in a high place while entertaining dark thoughts of a sudden descent to a much lower place.”

“Then I would be pleased to accompany you to dinner tonight, Mr. Devon Killane.”

“Excellent – I look forward to a night of stimulating conversation about why you refuse to have sex with me.”

8. Rocking the Evening

A few hours after we walked off the bridge arm in arm, just like a real couple – as opposed to whatever we actually were, which I hadn’t even begun to figure out yet – Mr. Killane concluded the Radford Systems deal in the hotel’s main conference room, signing the official documents to the accompaniment of polite applause from the gathered business faithful.

In the hallway outside the conference room, he informed me that the Radford acquisition had tacked another 200 million dollars or so onto his net worth; he delivered this news with the same mild pleasure you or I might express at finding a quarter on the sidewalk.

I’d hoped for some alone time to get my head ready for dinner, seeing as how dinner with Devon Killane promised to be an exercise in weirdness more than an actual meal, but no such luck. Instead, the boss decided that I should be displayed to the restaurant’s other patrons in a dress worthy of what he called my ‘delectable figure,’ and he insisted on squiring me to the private establishment of San Francisco’s leading fashion designer.

There I was measured, poked, and prodded from every angle. Fabric was stitched, seams altered, the hemline raised and the neckline lowered, and at the end of it all I turned slowly in front of a mirror, staring at the reflection of a me who was somehow wearing an extremely flattering crimson cocktail dress. It hugged my curves without strangling them, made my rear look intriguing rather than enormous, and while it didn’t quite aggressively thrust my breasts at the general public, it made damn sure they would be the center of attention.

From there, it was on to a jewelry store that was far too upscale to bother with putting actual prices on their gleaming offerings – although I did get the general impression that the amounts being asked ranged from ‘down payment on a house’ to ‘down payment on an ocean liner.’

The staff’s serene disinterest in mere customers made it clear this place was way out of any normal person’s league. I tried to persuade my boss that dinner would be just as stimulating without a fortune in diamonds and whatever around my neck – but since he was nothing like a normal person, he insisted on a necklace featuring interlacing strands of diamonds supporting a single scarily huge ruby that nestled against my skin just above my fashion-enhanced breasts.

Once we were out the door, I made the mistake of saying that the necklace was way too much for one night out; Mr. K responded by marching us back inside the store to get earrings to match the necklace.

Back at the hotel, I had to take a minute to sit on the edge of my rented bed and think this thing over.

A designer dress that flattered my curves instead of hiding them, that made me look like an elegant sex machine instead of an overstuffed sausage, and that accomplished all this to the tune of about a year’s worth of rent money?

Jewelry that glowed with wealth as it accented my cleavage, jewelry that would have gone into giggling fits at the mere mention of my rent money?

Why would even a crazy guy go to such lengths to doll me up for public display? One of the dressier business outfits I’d picked up on our first day in town would have served perfectly well for an evening at even a four-star restaurant, so what was the deal with draping me in an explosion of high-end fashion?

“Ashley, are you quite all right? Or are you perhaps entertaining the thought of going to dinner naked? I personally wouldn’t mind that at all, but I rather imagine even restaurants here in the wild west expect at least a minimal amount of your lovely glowing skin to be covered, if only to keep jealousy from spoiling the digestion of the other diners.”

I looked up to see Mr. Killane standing in the open doorway of my bedroom, leaning against the doorframe as he cocked his head to one side and questioned me with a single raised eyebrow.

“This is all just a bit much for me to take in on short notice, Mr. K – I mean, I barely know you.”

“We may only have been acquainted for a few days, but you already know me better than 99.9 percent of everyone else on the planet, Ashley. Indeed, you understand me far better than people who’ve known me for years.”

It didn’t make any sense, but it was true, somehow. Just how lonely could this man be, to feel that from someone he’d first spoken to less than a week ago?

“And besides, my lovely and uncertain Ashley, how short a time we’ve known each other isn’t the real issue, is it? It’s something else, something I can’t quite put my finger on, that’s making you huddle in here by yourself. What is it?”

I looked over at the dress, laid out next to me on the bed and gleaming in the light from the hallway. I ran my hand over the rich fabric, and I thought about how rarely I went out on actual dinner dates, even when I was still with my last boyfriend, all those months ago.

Sure, my head knew I was as worthy of a splashy dinner at a high-end restaurant as any other girl – but between what my toxic ex-boyfriend and years of being the lonely big girl had done to my self-esteem, my heart wasn’t convinced.

“I guess I doubt myself, big guy – I mean, the last time I went out on an actual dinner date was about seven months ago, when my asshole ex took me to a sports bar and ended up watching the game and yapping with his buddies instead of paying any attention to me.”

“What a rancid excuse for a human being – I trust you showed him the door after that?”

I shrugged. “He dumped me a month later. One night I asked him why we usually just ended up hanging out at his place instead of going somewhere, and he said I was so fat, he was embarrassed to be seen with me. Then he said we might as well be through, he kicked me out, and I haven’t seen him since. I haven’t seen anybody since, actually – Mom keeps bugging me to start dating again, but I just can’t seem to get back on the horse. Pretty pathetic, huh?”

Wow, way to sound like a needy loser, Ashley – if the hot rich dude is turned on by big whiny babies, you’re set.

Mr. Killane stared at me, his eyes drilling into me. What was going through his head? Had I said the wrong thing, yet again?

The room was quiet. The suite was quiet too. Hell, the whole world seemed to be hesitating, just for a moment.

When my boss spoke, his voice was calm, clipped, and maybe a degree or two above absolute zero.

“Please give me this person’s name.”

“Don’t worry about that idiot, he –”

“Ashley, I must insist. What is this individual’s full name?”

“Um, Greg Carpenter – but you do know it’s illegal to just flat out kill him, right?”

“I imagine so, but there are other measures that can be taken. Where does he work?”

“Well, if he’s still at the same place, he works at Elmhurst Beverages, supervising the guys who drive the delivery trucks. He might have moved on, though – I got the impression he had a reputation as a domineering, micromanaging jerk, and I know he got his tires slashed more than once while his car was sitting in the employee parking lot.”

“His fellow employees are obviously men and women of taste and excellent judgment. Now if you will excuse me, I have a few phone calls to make.”

He disappeared back down the hallway and I was left sitting there alone.

I looked over at the dress again, glanced at the jewelry box sitting on the nightstand, and then picked up my phone, which claimed there was less than an hour to go until the appointed time for our dinner.

Well, now it was just up to me and my badass new dress to rock the evening, wasn’t it? And hey, maybe a properly attired curvy girl could turn heads in a classy restaurant – after all, weirder things and then some had already happened in the last few days.

“So where are the security guys?”

We were a few minutes away from the restaurant, and I’d pulled myself together enough to notice that Mr. Dugspur and his crew of quietly threatening bodyguards weren’t with us – not up front with the limo’s driver, not in the back with us, and so far as I could tell, not trailing behind us in an unobtrusive, anonymous sedan.

“I gave them the night off.”

Mr. Killane said this in his patented no-further-explanation-needed tone, as he leaned back in the broad seat that stretched across the width of the limousine. He extended his arms along the top of the seat in either direction, propped his right ankle atop his left knee, and seemed utterly calm and unconcerned about the absence of the security team, our upcoming dinner, or anything at all.

He did peer out the window as we rounded the last corner before the restaurant, though, and he saw something that pleased him: his lips creased in a small, careful smile, and his eyes drifted half-shut as he sighed with pleasure.

I turned to look out my own window, and noticed a certain amount of confusion as the restaurant came in view – a crowd of people on the sidewalk, lights way brighter than seemed necessary, two doormen in immaculate black suits trying to keep the entrance clear, and were those photographers jockeying for position?

“Um, boss, it looks like we’ve got a little bit of a mob scene going on out there – care to reveal to me why you didn’t want the security guys on hand tonight? Aren’t situations like this part of what they’re for?”

The limousine swept up to the curb. As it rolled to a distinguished stop, the sound from the crowd outside was obvious even through the vehicle’s vast metallic bulk and bulletproof tinted windows. I heard the limo driver’s door thump shut behind him as he emerged and walked around to open the curbside passenger door for us – apparently, rich people are way too good to be bothered with getting themselves out of a car all on their own.

I aimed a pleading glance at Mr. Killane – was he going to tell me what was up or not?

He beamed a pleased smile at the scene outside, and then turned to me.

“I gave the security team the night off because their presence tends to drive away the paparazzi.”

I glanced at the camera-laden rowdies outside, who were crowding as close to the limousine as they dared. “Isn’t keeping away rude assholes with cameras one of the main reasons to have security in the first place? And how did they even know we’d be here, anyway?”

“Because I called them.”

“What the –”

The rest of my stunned response was cut off by the wave of sound that erupted when the limousine’s passenger door opened and Mr. Killane stepped out. He turned in a slow half-circle, smiling as he displayed himself to the mob like a veteran runway model. He even favored them with a regal half-wave as I sat frozen in place, staring at his back.