The Billionaire Bachelor (Billionaire Bad Boys Book 1) (5 page)

“It’ll be in your name as a settlement of the divorce. What you do with it—keep it or return it to your parents—is up to you.” His gaze stuck to her like superglue. “Everyone wins.”

She was completely speechless. Not only would she salvage everyone’s jobs and retain the integrity of the VH, but she’d also get to own it? It was…well, it was insane is what it was.

Wasn’t it?

“Are you seeing anyone?” His voice dipped, slicing her hectic thoughts into more pieces. The energy between them intensified.

There was a charge there. A spark in the air when he was this close to her. She thought it’d been a by-product of her rage when she’d huffed into his office last week. But no. It was real. Which made his proposition a million times more volatile. Because she did
not
like him—not even a little—yet that hadn’t quelled the physical attraction, which was problematic.

“I didn’t say yes,” she reminded both of them.

“If you are,” he continued, ignoring her, “you’ll have to break it off. Tomorrow at the latest. Tonight, if possible.”

Her jaw softened, her mouth falling open. She wasn’t seeing anyone, but what if she was? He expected her to make a phone call in the wee hours to announce they were through? She would have been offended for her boyfriend if there were one.

She thought of the man who delivered fresh, organic produce to the hotel. Miles. He’d asked her out for coffee a few days ago. He was cute in a pair of black-framed glasses and his hipster-wear. She guessed him to be a few years younger than her twenty-nine and probably the only thing they had in common was that they both drank coffee, but he had a nice smile and she’d been flattered. So she’d said yes. If she agreed to do what Crane was asking…well, there was no way she could explore anything with Miles.

With anyone.

“Merina.”

“What?” Her eyebrows crashed together.

“Are you dating anyone right now?” he asked. Slowly.

She was having a problem processing his offer. His
proposal
. So she deflected.

“Are
you
?”

He gave her a “you’ve got to be kidding me” frown.

“Oh, right. Like a million somebodies. Tell me why you’re allergic to seeing a woman more than once. Is it because they find out how lousy you are in bed and then run for the hills?”

At her blatant insult, he didn’t balk. “It’s because I never call them again and instruct my secretary to send flowers stating as much.”

Her head jerked on her neck. Was he serious? With him sitting there in his suit and tie, hands folded in front of him, she shouldn’t find it surprising he handled his dates much like a corporate takeover. There was absolutely no way she could marry a man—even for show—with that much ice in his veins.

“What about the woman I saw leaving your office?” she asked before she’d meant to. “She didn’t look like a typical businesswoman.” Unless her business was escorting the rich and famous for a hefty fee.

“She left her necklace on the hotel nightstand and came to pick it up.”

“Surely the Crane has a lost-and-found box,” she said with a snort.

“My nightstand,” he clarified.

Oh.

She felt her face go red. Of course he’d slept with that woman.

“Everything will be handled by my team. The wedding will be two weeks from now,” he said, moving them forward yet again.

“I didn’t say yes yet,” she murmured. She had to murmur, because her lips were numb. And her fingers. All of her. “Two weeks?”

“The sooner the better.” Reese kept plowing through. “It will be a simple affair at my house. My brother and father will be there, a justice of the peace, and a few members of the Crane Holdings board. Keep your invitations essential. Your parents, a best friend, a few close family members. We need to keep this small. You can’t tell your family you’re marrying for show. There is too big of a chance the truth will come out. I’ll have a photographer there who will feed a few pictures to the media for publicity purposes.”

Publicity. He really had all of this worked out. And her parents. God. What would her parents say when she announced she was engaged to Satan Crane? Especially since she couldn’t tell them the truth. Her hands were again wrapped around her mug, but despite the warmth from the cup, a chill swept through her. Was she actually considering this?

She thought of her parents and how much they loved the Van Heusen. She thought of herself and how she’d grown up in this cherished building. She thought of Arnold out front, who loved coming to work each day.

She didn’t want to work anywhere else, let alone for one of Crane’s übermodern hotels. And after they parted ways, she’d own the Van Heusen. As offers went, they didn’t come packaged prettier.

Still, what Crane was proposing—as he’d put it, a literal proposal—was preposterous.

“It has to appear real, so I’ve handed the details over to my PR specialist,” he said. “I’ve spoken with her about it already. A few public appearances and you’ll move into my Lake Shore Drive mansion. She assures me she can easily spin this as a whirlwind romance to the press.”

Her mouth fell open.

He met her expression with a dubious one of his own. “I know. Whirlwind romance. Ridiculous.” He pulled in a deep breath, one that expanded his chest, and checked the face of his watch. Why, she didn’t know. It was two in the morning. Where else could he possibly have to be? Unless she was one in a line of many women to whom he was making this offer. It alarmed her how not surprising that idea was.

“Call whomever you’re dating and let him down easy. We don’t need him using your breakup as media fodder. Since the timeline is tight, I’ll need to know your answer by the end of the week. Six months, Merina, and you’ll get everything you want.”

He said her name with warmth, his tone rough and soft at the same time. She met his eyes. Navy. The inside of her sank even as her heart kicked against her rib cage. It was everything she wanted. Her future and her past in her control.

“If you and whoever you’re seeing are meant to be,” he said, the warmth vanishing from his voice, “I’m sure he’ll take you back when you and I don’t work out.”

“I’m not seeing anyone.” Unable to sit any longer, she rose from the table, her hands flattening on the surface. His eyes went to her shirt like they did the day she stomped into his hotel. He really had a boob fetish, didn’t he?

Slowly, he raised his eyes to her face. “That makes this easier, then.”

Easier. Sure. Just allow herself to be bought off by the misogynistic billionaire who was trying to control every particle of her life for six months. Just marry him. Easy-peasy.

“I…I can’t do this right now.” That was the most honest thing she’d said since he arrived. She couldn’t categorize what he was asking. She couldn’t fathom it. She couldn’t picture it. Her dating Reese was outrageous. Her living with him? Insane. But marriage…God. He was crazy.

“I understand.” Unaffected by her reaction, Reese stood with her. “You have my private cell now. Call that number and let me know your decision by Friday.” With a curt nod, he turned and started out of the dining room.

“I have until Friday?” she couldn’t help asking.

“Yes.” He plunged his hands into his pockets and waited for her to say more. So she did.

“You booked everything already?”

“Yes.” He canted his head to one side and regarded her. He looked handsome and she tried to see him differently than she had when he’d walked in. As a husband. A man she would live with. The man she would hold hands with and kiss in public for the world to see. It was like she’d fallen down the rabbit hole and was having tea with the Mad Hatter.

Reese started for the exit.

“And if I say no,” she called after him, her voice hollow, “do you have a plan B?”

This earned her a slight smile over his shoulder, the edges of his lips tipping. “Believe it or not, my list of potential brides with real estate I can hold over their heads is relatively short. I’ve thought this through. It’s the best course of action for both of us.”

He turned on the heel of his expensive leather shoes and exited the Van Heusen, leaving Merina with a million thoughts—one of which she really shouldn’t entertain.

She looked into her tepid tea, decided it wasn’t strong enough, and went behind the bar for a shot of the scotch she’d refused to serve him.

Y
ou threw Reese Crane’s thousand-dollar suit jacket into a mud puddle? That’s brilliant.” Lorelei’s deep brown eyes crinkled around the edges and she threw her head back and laughed.

“I don’t know how brilliant it was since I walked back freezing and soaked to the bone.” Merina yawned, then drank the coffee she needed more than her next breath. It’d been a sleepless, stressful couple of nights. On a good night, she slept a few hours. This week she was lucky if she’d accumulated a few hours’ sleep since Monday.

Lorelei swiped moisture from her inky lashes—and not inky because they were coated in mascara. Inky because they were naturally coal black, like her smoothed-to-perfection shoulder-length hair.

“You look amazing,” Merina blurted. Because her best friend did, in fact, look amazing. Her cocoa skin was glowing, her cheeks highlighted with a dab of bronzer, her eyes bright and sparkling. Merina, on the other hand, looked like a hobo brought in to be given a hot meal. “Oh my God,” she said, her lazy synapses finally firing. “Did you get laid last night? Are you and Malcolm back togeth—”

“What? No! Neither of those things.” Lorelei turned her chin down to examine the printed papers in front of her. “And we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you, future
Mrs. Crane
.”

Since Merina’s parents were at the hotel, she’d taken advantage of the rare bit of privacy at home to have Lorelei over. They sat at the breakfast nook, baked-from-a-box blueberry muffins on a plate between them. Merina had filled Lorelei in on the phone at six this morning, which was about two minutes after Reese e-mailed her a prenuptial agreement, from his personal e-mail no less, that stated,
Need your answer by tomorrow. This is a draft and not finalized.

“Romantic, right?” Merina grumbled into her coffee.

The night he’d stopped by the VH, she’d slept fitfully, grabbing twenty minutes here, five minutes there. She’d stumbled through the next few days on autopilot trying to figure out a way around what Reese was asking. He’d told her she couldn’t tell anyone, but the prenup’s arrival in her inbox required a lawyer’s expertise. Her lawyer also happened to be her very best friend. She’d debated for about thirty seconds before giving in and calling her lawyer bestie.

Lorelei had promised to read over the document and arrive at Merina’s house within the hour. Now she flipped through the pages casually while Merina waited and watched her facial expressions for any clue as to what she might say.

“So?” Merina prompted. “How badly am I getting screwed here?” Obviously, Reese Crane had more to gain or he never would have come up with the plan. There was something she wasn’t seeing; she was sure of it.

“Honestly?” Lorelei straightened the papers, then folded her hands neatly on top of the stack. “I think you’re sitting pretty if you take the deal.”

Knife hovering over the butter dish, Merina blinked at her friend. She abandoned the utensil, muffin forgotten. “I’m sorry, I swore I thought I heard you imply this is a good idea?”

Lorelei picked a hunk off the edge of her muffin and popped it into her mouth, then gestured around Merina’s living quarters. “Beautiful as your parents’ house is, I know you’re ready to leave.”

Merina sighed. She was past ready. Whenever she and Lorelei had lunch or drinks—sadly, it wasn’t that often since Lorelei had made partner at her firm—Merina moaned and complained about living with her parents. At age twenty-nine, it wasn’t exactly charming to be shacked up with Mom and Dad. She’d made due because the three-story house had a completely private upstairs, and save for the kitchen, she was able to feel as if she were in her own apartment. She now knew (after her mother’s reluctant revelation about their finances) that the rent Merina insisted on paying and grocery trips she made every other week had been helping.

Over the last few years, she’d spent so much time at work, she couldn’t see the point in moving out until she had a reason. And then she found one. A beautiful apartment close to the Van Heusen in an artsy building near the museum. She’d put down a deposit, intending to move after the holidays, but by last Thanksgiving her father’s heart attack had happened and her parents needed her more than ever. Also, the three of them were home together
more than ever
.

“I can move out without Reese Crane,” Merina grunted, buttering the muffin after all.

“This is true.” Lorelei nodded as she polished off the end of her muffin. “But if you
with this ring, I thee wed
, you can move out sooner, keep the Van Heusen, and you’ll be in charge of everyone’s jobs, including your own. This arrangement takes care of all your problems. Plus”—she dusted her hands, sending crumbs onto the napkin in front of her—“this would be a great test run for getting back on the horse.”

Merina’s entire face screwed to the side. “I think I’m about to be offended.”

“I’m your best friend,” Lore stated, resting a comforting palm over Merina’s hand. “I know you’ve been avoiding getting serious since Corbin. Reese Crane isn’t Corbin.”

Corbin
. At the mention of her ex-boyfriend, Merina closed her eyes. Lorelei’s reassuring touch wasn’t reassuring at all. Corbin marked the one time in Merina’s life she wished she could rewind, erase, then fast-forward back to today.

She’d met him at a mixer at the Van Heusen’s former assistant manager’s house. She went to Liza’s because she was invited and she wanted to be friendly. She had no idea it was a setup until Liza shoved her brother, Corbin, in Merina’s face and left them suspiciously alone on the back porch. To her surprise, she liked him. A lot. He was fun and carefree…seemed less high-strung than the business sorts she’d dated in the past. Not that the list was long. It was mainly comprised of a few longish-term boyfriends during her college years, and then Corbin. Six years of semi-serious dating that had not resulted in marriage or even living together and had tied up what she now recalled fondly as her best dating years.

The evening at Liza’s led to exchanged phone numbers and from there turned into a few fun dates at Liza’s apartment where Corbin lived as her couch-crashing roommate. The third date ended in Merina’s bedroom, and she was grateful she had parents who were modern enough not to pry when she had a man over.

The beginning of the end came when Liza announced she was moving to Colorado to care for hers and Corbin’s aging mother. Corbin asked to stay with Merina for the short-term and she hesitantly said yes. When a few weeks turned into a few months, Merina started paying extra on her rent and saying it was from Corbin. It wasn’t. He was unemployed, and she quickly learned that his lifestyle was so “carefree” because he essentially mooched off whomever was handy.

Six months later, she came home from work one night to find her parents on the sofa and a note on her bed from Corbin that read, “Sorry, babe.” She learned the next morning her bank accounts had been drained.

In the quiet of the wee hours, sometimes she regretted not pressing charges, but she’d been too embarrassed to tell anyone else the truth: that Liza had effectively unloaded her loser brother onto Merina and bolted.

Merina opened her eyes and met Lorelei’s sweet, concerned gaze. “I don’t know if that’s a good argument, Lore. Maybe the lesson I’m to learn is don’t trust a man who needs something from me.”

Lorelei patted Merina’s arm, then pulled her hand away. “Not like Reese is going to clean out your bank account, babe.”

“Good point.” She’d put that in Crane’s plus column.

“I mean, come on. The last date you went on was with who?”

Her lips flattened. She wasn’t answering that question. But Lore knew the answer.

“Big teeth martini guy.”

Merina laughed, glad for the reprieve. “He didn’t have big teeth!”

“They were really, really white, though. Which against his complexion made them look big.”

“Yech.” Merina couldn’t help that reaction. In the blue lights of the bar, Daniel had been attractive and confident. Once back in his apartment, he was a little slimy. She’d had second thoughts, but then she’d been trying to get past Corbin, so she went through with it. “Well, getting on
that
horse wasn’t beneficial.”

“Should have been perfect,” Lorelei said thoughtfully. “With his horse teeth and all.”

Merina laughed so hard she had to hold her stomach. Lorelei joined her. Once they sobered, Merina sniffed and sighed and admitted the part about Crane’s offer that was eating at her.

“It’s not the way I saw myself getting married for the first time.”

Not that she’d always dreamed of a poufy gown with bridesmaids and groomsmen flanking her on either side. She had been fairly certain marriage would come as a natural part of a long-lasting relationship. The
right
long-lasting relationship. Certainly not part of a business agreement. She wrinkled her nose.

“That’s fair,” Lorelei admitted.

“Marriage is supposed to be forever. Engagements are supposed to be overly romantic. Like State Street in the snow around Christmastime,” she said of her parents’ engagement.

“I hear you. My dad took my mom up in a hot air balloon.”

Merina smiled. “And your mom is terrified of heights.” She’d heard the story from Lore’s parents before. It was always a boisterous story filled with laughter. “But shouldn’t it be like that? Uniquely us?”

“Honey, getting married to a billionaire to win your family’s hotel back is as unique as it gets. Not everyone has drop-dead romantic weddings. Look at me.” Lorelei, ever the pragmatist, shrugged. “Vegas and Malcolm McDowell,” she said of her ex-husband. “Life is a series of events. We’re never sure which opportunities are going to come our way.”

“I’ve told myself the same thing. It’s only six months, right?”

“Six short months. Malcolm and I lasted six
years
. Try explaining that breakup to everyone.” She shouldered her purse, a sign she didn’t have the time or the desire to talk about her own closet-dwelling skeletons. “I have to meet a client at Starbucks. Another coffee for me. Hopefully I can maintain rather than behave like a hyperactive squirrel.”

“Your blood type is caffeine. I’m not concerned.” Merina’s smile faded. “Thank you for coming by. You can bill me.”

“Fine.” Lorelei pulled open the front door. “You owe me a dirty martini with extra blue-cheese-stuffed olives.” She winked and stepped out into the crisp morning air, then added, “Take the deal, Mer. He’s being fair and there is nothing in there about consummation.” She shrugged a petite shoulder. “Unless you want there to be.”

At her best friend’s sly smirk, Merina shook her head adamantly. “I wouldn’t sleep with that jerk.”

“Well, if I were you, I’d negotiate some jewelry and nice outfits out of it. You will probably have to succumb to a few public kisses, but then you’re off the hook and the Van Heusen is yours in the divorce.”

“Jewelry,” Merina said drily as she leaned on the doorjamb. Because she was not going to admit she’d just pictured Reese Crane’s firm mouth surrounded by stubble and wondered how good his lips would feel on hers.

It’d been a while since she’d dated anyone. A longer while since she’d had a good kiss. What was that guy’s name who met her for drinks a few months back? Darryl? Dylan? Well, whoever he was, he hadn’t been a good kisser.

“Oh, and get some shoes out of it too.” Lorelei kissed her hand and waved good-bye. As her Mercedes pulled away from the curb, Merina considered the very real opportunity she’d been handed. Maybe this was her chance to do like her best friend said. Win back the VH, keep their staff intact, and move out of her parents’ house with a clean break.

By fall, she could be sitting pretty, the entire debacle a part of her past.

At the kitchen table, she shoved half the muffin into her mouth and swept the prenup into a stack while she chewed. She cradled it to her chest and finished off her coffee.

“Okay, Mer,” she said as she watched the wind blow the budding trees outside, “you can do this.” But as she looked down at her cell phone, she imagined it’d grown teeth. What was she supposed to do? Call?

Text him?

She didn’t owe him an answer until tomorrow, but she wasn’t putting off this decision another minute. She’d already spent more time fretting and less time sleeping than she could afford.

If the options were lose the VH—watching her parents be forced into retirement and their staff file for unemployment—or marry Reese Crane, Merina would marry the man.

So. Maybe the best way to handle this was the most succinct way.

She opened the old text message from Reese and punched in one word. Then she stared at it for the count of three, took a deep breath, and hit
SEND
.

Fine.

Reese narrowed his eyes at the one word sitting on his phone’s screen.

Fine? He assumed that was Merina’s way of saying yes. Not the most heartfelt acceptance of his offer, but then he hadn’t presented the proposal in a heartfelt way.

Reese was still pursing his lips in thought when Bobbie cut in. “Mr. Crane?”

“Yes,” he said, dropping the phone on his desk and meeting her eyes. She’d come in here to review his schedule for next week and probably thought he was ignoring her. But he’d heard every word. And now Merina’s message had changed a few things. “Next week’s meeting times work, but I need you to reschedule my lunch appointment tomorrow and arrange a meeting with Merina Van Heusen and Penelope Brand instead.”

Bobbie’s eyebrows shot up, but she didn’t argue. “Very well. Here in your office?”

“Yes. No,” he amended quickly. “We’ll use the conference room. And have my lawyer swing by later this afternoon. I have a contract that needs his immediate attention.” He wanted that prenup finalized. The fewer delays the better.

“Yes, sir.” Bobbie left his office and Reese leaned back in his leather high-back and propped his elbow on the arm of the chair.

Merina was going to marry him. Looked like she was on board, and that gave him a sense of satisfaction. He knew she’d see things his way.

“Reese’s Rocket,” Tag announced, barging through Reese’s office door. His grin was shit-eating, his beard neatly trimmed for a change, and his clothes just what Reese had come to expect.