The Billionaire's Secret: A BWWM Romance Mystery (4 page)

 
I watched him, open mouthed and
breathless from his touch, as he turned and walked out the door of the shop. He
paused, turned back. "And wear layers," he called as the door closed.

Chapter Seven

Kit made several strangled sounds in
his throat. Like he was at war with himself. I was glad I had waited until
close to tell him about my date tonight. The less time I gave him to grill me,
the easier it would be to slip away.

"I know, I know," I told
him. "But I believe him when he says he isn't a cheater." I tried to
put more decisiveness into my tone, but it sounded hollow in my ears.

"Well then, tell me
all
about it tomorrow, lover," Kit
replied in his wary sing-song.

I sighed. "Of course."
Maybe that's it? Maybe I'm in the clear?
 

And then, almost as if it were an
afterthought, he piped up innocently, "Does Jazzy know you're seeing
him?"

This time it was me that was making
the strangled sounds.

"Aha," Kit said smugly.
"And what would she say if I called her and told her right now?" he
asked, turning in the swivel chair.

I lunged for his phone on the desk.
"Don't you dare!"

"Mmhmm." He folded his arms
over his beefy chest. "One chance, lover," he held up an index finger
the size of a sausage. "That's all I'm giving him. If he so much as looks
at you the wrong way, I'm coming down on him with the full force of my wrath.
Which, I'll have you know, is totally terrible."

I huffed. "You told me to do
him, I'll have you recall?"

He shook his head emphatically.
"He seduced me with those eyes. I have since come to my senses and am back
to calm, rational self."

I crossed my arms. "Uh huh.
That's you all right." I scoffed. "Whatever happened to your life's
mission? Getting me laid?"

His eyes softened. "I revised
the mission statement. Now it reads, 'Seeing Shay happy.'"

I blinked back the sudden tears. Not
know what else to say, I hugged him fiercely. "I'll be okay," I told
him. Then seeing my opportunity, "And if you so much as breathe a word to
Jazz before I do, I'll tell Mom to take away your cookie privileges. She'll
listen to me too. You know she likes me better than you."

He feigned shock. "You absolute
bitch. Get out of my store."

I laughed and did just that, wrapping
my scarf up around my mouth and stepping out under the awning. I was still in
my work slacks and white blouse. In an effort to convince myself of how not
excited I was to go on this date, I had refused to pack a change of clothing
this morning. I was regretting this decision right about now.

A sleek black car rolled up to the
curb. A driver stepped out and smartly stepped up onto the sidewalk and opened
the rear door.

"Shay! Come inside before you
freeze," Liam called.

I slid into the backseat, trying in
vain to act like this was a completely normal thing for me. I knew Liam was
rich, that much was obvious. But to be confronted with the riches, head on like
this, well that was another thing entirely. I perched nervously at the edge of
my seat, feeling out of my element, while Liam settled himself comfortably next
to me.

The driver was a light-skinned Black
man, wearing dark tinted aviators in spite of the darkness outside. "Can
he see in those?" I whispered nervously.

Liam looked confused for a moment.
"Darius? Oh, he always wears shades. It's his thing," he grinned and
shot an affectionate look at the man who stared impassively forward. "I'm
honestly not sure I've ever seen his eyes, the whole time I've known him."

"How long have you known
him?"

"All my life," he replied
simply.

I looked again at the man. There was
something familiar about him, though I was sure I had never seen him before.
"Who is he?"

"Darius."

"But what does he do?"

Liam spread his hands. "He's my driver,
my assistant, my bodyguard, my confidante. I hate the word butler, because he's
more than that."

If Darius heard any of this, he
wasn't letting on. We turned down the snowy streets, past the glimmering lights
of Rittenhouse Square. We were headed north on 16th and my curiosity was
growing. "How did you two meet?" I asked.

"Honestly I couldn't tell you.
He's been around forever. Even when I was a kid, Darius was there. He looks out
for me."

I looked at Liam, all six foot two,
powerfully built intensity. "You don't seem like you'd need anyone looking
out for you," I teased.

His dimple flashed mischievously.
"Maybe not now, but I got into some shit when I was young."

"Yeah? Tell me about this
shit."

"Boy stuff, you know the drill.
Stupid risks and rebellion." His mouth twisted oddly. "Dahlia nipped
that
in the bud."

"Dahlia?"

"My mother. She never let me
call her Mommy or Mom or anything. Even when I was a toddler, she was always
Dahlia. I tried calling her Mama once and she didn't speak to me the rest of
the day." He shivered. "Felt like the end of the world. I learned not
to make that mistake again."

A chill hung in the air, heavy with
questions I didn't feel right asking. "Maybe she never thought of herself
as being a mother and when it happened it was a hard transition?"

His mouth tightened. "Yeah
that's probably it," he said shortly. Then he abruptly looked out of the
window and brightened. "We're here!"

I pressed my nose against the tinted
glass. Above us rose the impressive marble structure of the Franklin Institute.
"You're taking me to a museum?" I asked. Then I looked again. The
floodlights lit it, hitting the falling snow so that it sparkled like confetti
as it fell silently to earth, but otherwise there was no motion. "It looks
closed," I observed dumbly.

"Huh." Liam wore this
secret, proud grin that made no sense. Hadn't he thought to check the opening
times?

Darius opened the door, allowing the
rush of icy air into the warm interior of the car. I slid awkwardly to the
side, my foot catching a bit of ice. I would have slipped but for Darius's grip
on my arm as strong as the branch of an oak tree. "Thanks," I gasped.

"No problem," he rumbled.
There really was something familiar about his face. The way it was put
together, the way the bones moved under his skin. I was staring at him as he
stared impassively forward. I shook my head and turned to Liam.

"It's definitely closed," I
observed again. "I guess we'll have to go somewhere else?"

"No, let's go see," he
urged.

"Um," I followed him up the
steps. There was a white sign hanging across the huge wooden doors.
"Closed for a Private Event," it read. "See there?" I
pointed. "It's closed."

Liam's gray eyes caught the glow of
the yellow streetlamp and glinted with proud mischief. "Why don't we go
in, before we freeze to death?"

I gaped at him as he swung open the
door. "Liam!" I whispered, afraid of getting caught. "It's a
private event!"

"I know," he smiled.
"We're the private event, Shay."

I stumbled and stood rooted to the
spot. "We?"

"Yeah. I called in a favor.
There's something I wanted to do for you."

For me?
With
no other idea but to follow him and see how this all played out, I tiptoed into
the eerily quiet museum. All the displays lurked in shadowy corners, giving the
main floor of the place a definite horror movie vibe. I had been here as a
child and remembered my terror at some of the exhibits, and that terror nipped
at the backs of my heels as I darted past the saber-toothed tiger exhibit. I
swear their dull, flat eyes followed us as we passed by.

Definitely not how I imagined my
first date.

Liam's long legs pulled him ahead of
me, and he stopped at the bottom of the marble staircase that swooped its way
down from the upper level. "Up here," he beckoned, reaching for my
hand.

It was the first time his bare skin
had touched mine since he kissed me. It was a friendly touch, an easy touch.
Just a nice, good looking guy helping me to climb the huge staircase. But
somehow that made it worse.

When he kissed me without asking, I
could dismiss him as being a pushy asshole. But when he held my hand, I
couldn't help but think he might be something more.

The sound of footfall behind us made
me jump. "There's someone here!" I gasped.

"It's Darius," Liam said
lightly, squeezing my hand. "He parked the car."

"He stays with us?"

"He stays around," Liam
said, but this time the lightness felt more forced. "You get used to him
being there. He fades into the background."

I looked down the stairs. Darius's
huge form was completely in shadow. He stood near the door, arms crossed over
his chest, protective and alert.

"Up through here," Liam
encouraged me, and I wrenched my eyes away from the bodyguard and to where he
was pointing. And then I finally understood.

"The butterflies?" I
gasped.

He pushed open the door to the
solarium and the intense lights hit us with the full force of the sun. All
around color bloomed and the air was filled with the swirling, fluttering
bodies of the butterflies as they flitted from flower to flower, oblivious to
the cold that reigned outside.

"Ooh," I gasped as the heat
tingled on my skin. Immediately, I unraveled my scarf and shrugged off my coat.
Liam silently swooped behind me, catching my coat up as I rolled up my
shirtsleeves and let the warm air hit the bare skin of my arms. "Oh my
gosh, it feels so good to be warm!"

The hot, moist air kissed my dried
out skin, and the colors awakened my winter-deadened eyes. I laughed out loud
and rushed towards the flowers, gasping as a Monarch alighted on my arm.
"Oh my gosh," I squeaked, watching the delicately veined wings rise
and fall like baby's breath before it lifted off, as light as a feather. I
watched it swirl upward until it vanished into the tornado of color all around
us.

"Oh my gosh," I repeated,
struck dumb.

"You like it?" Liam asked,
moving next to me.

I turned to him. He had shrugged off
his coat as well and stood next to me in a dove grey pullover that exactly
matched his eyes. It was the first time I could see his true form without the added
bulk of winter coats and what I saw made me bite my lip momentarily.

He had the long, rangey build of a
swimmer, strong and sure and erect. The sweater was a fine as silk, stretching
over his pecs and biceps lovingly. It looked so touchably soft, and he looked
so warm underneath with his impossibly burnished skin for the dead of winter.
Even my dark skin was ashy and gray after the month brutal cold, but he had a
bronzed glow of health that seemed to come from within.

My hands moved, fluttering like the
butterflies against my sides and I finally contented myself with clasping his
hand. "Thank you. This is exactly what I needed."

Chapter
Eight

Kiki looked so happy she seemed ready
to pass out. "And then what happened?!" she demanded, the scoop of
ice cream poised against her lips.

We were spread out on Jasmine's floor
in a cocoon of blankets. Kiki had shown up after work with three pints of Ben
and Jerry's and a burning desire to rehash my date with Liam.

"Ice cream in the dead of
January?" Jasmine had shaken her head and turned to her cabinets.
"There's only one way this will make sense."

I took another sip of that sense now,
letting the whiskey-laced hot chocolate warm me after the bite of ice-cream.
"And then we walked," I said.

"That's it?" Keysha
squealed. "You just...walked?"

"You have no idea how good it
felt to be warm." I protested. "We walked around the exhibit like
fifty times, just...talking."

"And then what?" her eyes
twinkled. I knew what she wanted, but I couldn't lie.

"Nothing." I couldn't hide
my grimace and Jasmine shot me a look over the rim of her hot chocolate mug.

"Nothing?" Kiki repeated.

I leaned back against the sofa with a
sigh and rearranged my blankets. "I told him I needed time," I
laughed lightly. "Maybe...that was a bad idea?"

Kiki nodded feverishly, but Jasmine
held up her hand. "No, it wasn't."

Jazzy had been silent all through my
story, so when she finally spoke up, we both looked expectantly at her.
"Granny's got something on her mind," I teased. "Speak to us, oh
wise woman. Impart your wisdom upon us."

Jasmine shot me a look. "Well,
my child," she intoned in a grand, dramatic voice, then switched over to
her normal tone. "I think moving slowly is exactly the right move, Shay.
You always look for meaning in things, deeper meanings." Kiki nodded in
emphatic agreement. "And sometimes," Jasmine went on, "that
means you miss what's right in front of your nose." She leaned back and
cupped her drink with both hands, fixing me with her professor's stare. "People
tell you exactly who they are, Shay. You just have to listen to them."

The silence stretched out, long and
painful. I knew what she was saying. Tre was a cheater, I always knew that
about him. He cheated on girls before me, why did I think he wouldn't do the
same to me? Other than my desire to believe he meant something more when he
said he wouldn't do that again.

Kiki squirmed under the heavy
silence. "What I want to know," she piped up, "is who this Darius
guy is, he sounds like some kind of action hero."

I perked up. "He acted like it.
All mysterious, only speaking in two word sentences, lurking in the shadows
like that."

"Mysterious Darius,"
Jasmine piped up immediately. "Shadow in the night."

"Guarding you from danger,"
Kiki picked up the thread.

"Ooh, he needs a theme
song."

"Dun dun DUN dun, DARIUS!
Mysterious DARIUS!" Kiki rapped out a rhythm on her thighs.

 
I shook my head. "You two are
completely nuts. I mean, maybe it's a rich person thing to have people around
you like that?"

"Maybe," Kiki was eager to
agree.

"I sure wouldn't know,"
Jasmine piped up.

"Me either," I laughed.
"But why would he need a bodyguard like that?"

"Dun dun DUN dun, DARIUS!!"
Kiki blurted, then fell out laughing.

Jasmine snorted, then pressed her
finger to her bottom lip for a moment and I could practically see the wheels
turning in her brain. "What I'm more interested in," she announced,
"is who the special flowers were for."

I felt my stomach twist. In the magic
of the evening, I had managed to shove aside the mystery of the meaningful
bouquet and who it was for. He had told me I had the wrong idea about them, but
so far, he hadn't told me which idea was the right one.

"I guess I'll have to go on
another date with him to find out?" I asked hopefully.

Jasmine heard my tone immediately.
"Are you asking my permission, Shay Turner?"

I winced. It was still odd to hear my
maiden name back in rotation. "Should I?"

"Probably," Kiki piped up.
"Maybe mine too?"

"Ladies?" I folded my hands
in supplication. "I formally request permission to go on another date with
the hot, rich white guy who takes me on spectacular dates and makes my panties
catch fire."

Kiki giggled as Jasmine extended her
hand in a regal blessing. "By the power invested in me...by you," she
giggled and I could tell the whiskey was kicking in. "I hereby grant you
permission for
one
more date."
She stifled a laugh behind your hand. "But on the condition you bring this
with you." She popped up from the floor and went to the kitchen.

"What's that for?" I asked,
as she handed me the fire extinguisher.

"Your panties," she
deadpanned. "Keep your head on straight, Shay."