Romancing the Billionaire

by Jessica Clare

  After all, thirteen steps underneath pretty much led right into the water. Violet gazed at the quacking ducks, who were eager for a handout.

  Then, she shrugged and sat on the grassy bank, undoing the buckles on the ankle of her high heels. After her disorienting wake-up, she’d “armored” herself in her schoolteacher attire. In a knee-length wool skirt, a demure long-sleeved cardigan, and low, strappy heels, she felt like her normal self, her controlled, careful self. That was the woman she was now, she told herself. Not the girl who’d fallen in love with an intense, soulful-eyed college boy so long ago.

  The fleet of ducks quacked and streamed away from Violet, and she looked up to see Jonathan returning, two coffees and a small brown bag in hand. He frowned down at her as she removed her first shoe. “What are you doing, Violet?”

  “Getting ready to go into the water.”

  Nearby, a goose honked.

  He gazed down at her, his expression intent. “It’s cold. I should be the one doing it.”

  “It is cold,” Violet agreed, her hands moving to her other shoe and working on the straps. “But, it’s also my father who sent us on this chase, so I’m the one going in.”

  He was silent for a long moment, no doubt formulating a new argument, Violet figured. She was surprised when he capitulated. “Very well,” Jonathan said. “Just be careful.”

  “I will,” she told him, and tossed her other shoe on the bank. “You’ll have to feed the ducks and keep them away from me,” she said, and glanced up at him.

  Her breath escaped her throat.

  Jonathan’s intense gaze had moved from her face to her legs, and his hands were clutching the coffees so tightly she could see the whites of his knuckles. The expression in his eyes was pure lust as he regarded her stocking-clad legs, which she’d thoughtlessly sprawled on the embankment. There was a prominent bulge in the crotch of his jeans.

  Oh.

  Violet turned away, her cheeks reddening, and she picked up a shoe and pretended to fiddle with one of the dainty buckles. Jonathan was aroused by the sight of her stripping off her shoes on the riverbank. She should be appalled. She really should be.

  Instead, she felt an old, familiar ache start between her legs. Her breathing quickened, and she put the shoe down and did the worst thing imaginable.

  She hitched up her nice, sweet, demure skirt to the tops of her thighs and began to slowly roll one thigh-high down her leg with great care. He wanted to watch, did he? She’d give him something to see.

  Funny how the thought of him watching her undress made her breath catch.

  Ever so slowly, she rolled the stocking down her thigh. Her fingers brushed her knee and she bit her lip, hesitated, and then continued downward, gently tugging the stocking down her calf. She arched her foot and pointed her toes as she lifted her leg into the air and carefully pulled the stocking off. “You don’t mind if I’m the one who goes into the water, do you?” she asked him in a sultry voice, placing the stocking into the grass.

  When he didn’t answer, she looked over.

  Jonathan’s jaw was set, the lines of his mouth hard and flat. He might have looked angry if it weren’t for the dark, smoky look in his eyes that she’d seen so many times before.

  He was incredibly aroused.

  And suddenly, Violet felt as if she were playing with fire. What was she doing? Why did she care if Jonathan was aroused by the sight of her stripping her stockings off? Jesus, was she insane? Violet suddenly wanted to kick herself. This was not the way to keep him in the friend zone. This was just her torturing him with what he couldn’t have.

  It was rather classless of her.

  One of the geese honked again, as if to agree.

  Angry with herself, Violet jerked at her other stocking, shoving it down her leg as unsexily as possible. When both of her legs were bare, she got to her feet and paused on the bank. She’d originally planned on taking off her cardigan so she could see how Jonathan reacted to her wearing nothing but a skimpy camisole underneath, but that suddenly seemed like an incredibly stupid idea. What was she thinking? Violet frowned to herself and buttoned her cardigan up higher. “Just hold my coffee until I get done, all right?”

  “Of course,” he said in that low, ardent voice.

  Shivers rippled through her. She ignored them, ignored him. Brushing off her skirt, she headed to the edge of the water. “Thirteen steps in, right?”

  “Thirteen,” he agreed tensely. “Be careful.”

  “I’ll be just fine,” Violet assured him, glad for the distraction. She tiptoed to the edge. It was hard to tell how deep the water was from the bank, but there was a bridge, so that meant deep, right? Violet swung one foot over and dipped the other in, trying to determine how deep it was.

  To her surprise, it only came up to her calf. “Wow. It’s not all that deep. Maybe the river’s low at the moment.” She took another step in and let her hitched-up skirt drop, since it was clear that it wasn’t going to get wet. Another step in and she turned around, glancing back at Jonathan. “Do you think that it’s thirteen steps from the bridge, or thirteen steps into the water?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Well,” Violet said, and put her hands on her hips. “Nothing to do but wander around and hope I hit something with my feet, then.”

  “Be my guest,” Jonathan said. “I’ll just be here on shore with coffee and muffins.”

  “Beast,” she teased, feeling a bit more at ease. It didn’t sound like he was holding her little striptease against her, which was good. “If you break out those muffins, watch for the ducks. They’ll chew off your arm to get to that bread, I suspect.” Even now, they were hovering near him, ignoring her.

  “I’ll save my muffins for you,” he said, and the amusement was back in his voice. Good. She was relieved to hear that.

  Violet trudged along the muddy bottom of the river, moving slowly and feeling around with her toes. The water was cold but shallow, and she took her time, not wanting to step over something and miss it. It got deeper as she moved farther in, and she ended up hitching up her skirt a bit more. There was a little graveyard and a church across the river, and she wondered if she was starting from the wrong side. Did that have meaning? Was Shelley buried there and they were looking in the wrong place? Now that they were here, the clue seemed awfully vague.

  “How’s it going?” Jonathan called after a time.

  “Nothing,” she said, turning around and moving a step or two over, then heading back the way she came, toward the bank. She looked over at him with his coffee, sipping it as he watched her. “I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have been so quick to volunteer. That coffee looks rather good.”

  “It is rather good,” Jonathan said. “But I promise not to relish it an unfair amount.”

  She shook her head, grinning. “Do you suppose there’s a box of some kind buried here? What if it got picked up by the current and went downstream? What do we do then?”

  “Don’t know,” Jonathan said. “It might take us a few weeks to find it.”

  “That’s a rather dismal thought.”

  “Is it?” He didn’t sound as if he disliked the idea at all.

  And that made her wonder. She kept her wondering to herself, though, and continued to trudge, up and down the riverbank. She tried thirteen steps out from the shore. She tried thirteen steps out from the base of the bridge. She tried small steps. She tried large steps. But all that was under her feet was silty river mud. She went back and forth over every inch of riverbank that the bridge covered, and when that all turned up nothing, she looked over at Jonathan again.

  “I’m not getting anything,” she told him. “There’s nothing but mud. Should we try the opposite bank?”

  “We can,” he said, getting to his feet. “Want to go across the bridge?”

  “Actually I’m pretty s
ure it’s shallow enough,” she began, heading toward the middle of the river, “for me to wade through—”

  Her foot didn’t connect, and her entire body went under the water.

  For a brief, frightening second, Violet’s world was nothing but water. She heard a male voice shout her name, the sound murky. Then her feet touched the ground, just a bit of a step down, and she pushed back up, gasping for breath.

  Her head broke the surface and she pushed streaming water out of her eyes, spluttering in outrage.

  A moment later, two strong hands grabbed her and she was hauled against a large male form. “Violet! Are you all right?”

  She blinked river water out of her eyes, surprised to see Jonathan right in front of her. He’d waded right in to rescue her, his jeans were wet up to the knee, and she was pretty sure he was still wearing his shoes. “I . . . I think I’m okay,” she said weakly. “Just surprised.”

  “Christ, you scared the shit out of me,” he said in a ragged voice, his fingers tight on her arms. It was like he was trying to squeeze some of the water out of her sweater just by touching her. The mental image of that made her giggle. “It’s not funny,” Jonathan snapped.

  “It’s a little funny,” she admitted, still giggling. She had to laugh at herself. It was funny. “Watch that next step. It’s a doozy.”

  He snorted. “What did you trip on? Is it a lockbox?”

  “It’s nothing. I just stepped into a hole, that’s all. Lost my footing and went under.” Even now, she felt silly. The river wasn’t all that deep, and she’d somehow managed to dunk herself. Great going, Violet. “No lockbox, unfortunately.”

  “Well, whatever it was, we’re done looking for now.” He hauled her against him, his arms going protectively around her as he began to pull her to the shore.

  Though he was being a bit heavy-handed with things, Violet wasn’t complaining. Her clothes were clinging to her body and now the morning had gone from slightly chilly to wickedly cold, and the only thing warm was Jonathan’s big body pressed against hers. She ignored the wet adhesion of the fabric to her breasts. “I can walk on my own.”

  “Clearly, you can’t.”

  “Jonathan—”

  “Violet, don’t make me carry you back to the shore,” he warned.

  “Oh, please. You couldn’t if you tried.”

  He looked down at her and gave her a challenging look. “Is that a dare?”

  “Just calling it like I see it.”

  Without a word, Jonathan leaned over and grabbed her behind her knees, hauling her into his arms. She gave a squeal of fright and clung to his shoulders as he pushed through the water. “We’re going to fall!”

  “I’m not going to drop you,” he told her. “Stop wiggling.”

  She was streaming water everywhere, and she was terrified Jonathan would drop her. She wasn’t a dainty teenager any longer. She was solid now, with an adult’s curves and an adult’s addiction to Ben & Jerry’s. But he wasn’t putting her down, so she squeezed her eyes shut and hoped for the best.

  A few moments later, she felt his steps change, and when she looked down, Jonathan had made it onto the bank. Water was sluicing down from his jeans and his sneakers squished with every step. He paused and gently set her feet down on the pavement, giving her a smug look. “You’re not heavy, you know.”

  She just rolled her eyes. “You’re not Prince Charming, you know.”

  The teasing look faded from his face, replaced by an expression of pain, quickly masked with politeness.

  She felt like an ass. She’d meant the “Prince Charming” comment in a teasing way, referring to the way he’d carried her like a princess in need of her fainting couch. He’d apparently taken it the wrong way. So she just crossed her arms over her chest to hide her breasts and shivered on the bank. “What do we do now? Want to try the other side?”

  “Take my jacket,” he told her, stripping it off.

  “You’re not cold?”

  “I’m fine,” he said brusquely, pushing the blazer over her shoulders before she could protest.

  He wasn’t fine. That wasn’t the tone of voice of a man who was “fine” but she didn’t want to argue with him. She slipped her arms through the sleeves of his jacket, grateful she’d at least be able to hide her too-perky nipples. “Thanks.”

  “Let’s go across the bridge and try the other side. This time I’ll do the exploring.”

  She made a face at him but didn’t protest. She hadn’t been able to find anything herself. Maybe he’d have better luck than she did.

  She gathered up her shoes and stockings and followed him. They picked up their coffee cups—the contents had spilled when Jonathan had plunged into the river after her—and Violet sniffed hers mournfully. The ducks had attacked the paper bag as soon as it had hit the ground, and there was nothing left of it but shreds and crumbs. “So much for breakfast,” she said in a light voice, hoping to restore their easy mood from earlier.

  Jonathan didn’t reply, just put a hand at the small of her back and steered her toward the bridge.

  Violet sighed to herself and let him guide her.

  They had just stepped onto the footpath-designated area of the bridge when Jonathan stiffened at her side.

  “What is it?” she asked him, curious.

  He looked down at her, his eyes gleaming in a way that made her pulse race. “The letter said thirteen steps underneath, right?”

  “It did.”

  “What if there was a comma?”

  “A comma,” she echoed, not following. She was too distracted by that roguish look in his eyes. Oh, God, did that look give her memories. It was the same one he’d given her just before he’d gone down on her. That wait till you get a load of this look that always promised—and delivered—such good things.

  She really, really needed to stop thinking about sex around him.

  “Thirteen steps,” Jonathan said, “comma, underneath.”

  Realization dawned. Thirteen steps, underneath. She looked behind them at the start of the suspension bridge. “Thirteen steps from there, do you think?”

  Jonathan was already racing back, and she watched him turn, and then began to count aloud. He passed her and paused. “Thirteen.” Then, he dropped to his knees and stuck his head over the side of the bridge. A moment later, he leaned in and his entire torso moved over the edge.

  “Jonathan, be careful,” she warned as he twisted his body farther over the side, reaching for something she couldn’t see.

  “Got it,” he called up, and then held an envelope aloft a few moments later.

  Violet squealed and danced in place; she couldn’t help herself. “You did! You found it! Jonathan, you’re a genius!”

  He sat back on his haunches, just grinning up at her like he’d won an award, and Violet had to clench her fists to keep from going over and planting a big happy kiss on his face. She should have been grumpy that he was able to find it so easily, but she was simply excited that he’d found it. It felt like they were a team.

  She sat down next to him on the walkway, ignoring the people who had to maneuver around them, and peered over his shoulder as he flipped the envelope in his hands. It was larger than she thought it would be, and sealed entirely in a thin layer of plastic. The exterior was plain, but she could see her name and Jonathan’s written on the front in her father’s handwriting.

  The sight of it sent a pang of emotion through her. What was her father thinking when he placed it here? What was his goal? She stared down at the sealed envelope, wishing she’d understood her father just a little bit. But even in death, he was inscrutable to her.

  Jonathan offered the envelope to her. “Do you want to do the honors?”

  She shook her head. “You found it. You open it. It only seems fair.”

  He flashed her a grin and then tore at the plastic cov
ering the envelope. He tugged it free and slipped a finger under the wax seal, and then reached inside.

  EIGHT

  Jonathan pulled out two familiar yellowed envelopes from the plastic covering, each one with its own seal. One had Violet’s name on it, and the other, Jonathan’s. He held the envelope with her name out to her, and when she hesitated, said gently, “Why don’t you open yours first?”

  She nodded and took a deep breath. This was just another clue. There was no reason to be nervous. It was just more of her father’s games that would lead to yet another unsatisfying clue, and eventually an unsatisfying prize. Violet plucked the envelope from Jonathan’s hand and tore open the wax seal, then pulled out the letter inside. She scanned the lines of text, and then began to read aloud.

  “Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud;

  Turn thy wild wheel thro’ sunshine, storm, and cloud;

  Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

  Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown;

  With that wild wheel we go not up or down;

  Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.

  Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands;

  Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands;

  For man is man and master of his fate.

  Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd;

  Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud;

  Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.”

  Violet finished reading and frowned. “What is this obsession with poetry?”

  “You loved poetry once. I remember that well. Maybe that’s why he’s been selecting poems for your messages.”

  True, she’d loved poetry . . . once upon a time, maybe. Back when she’d been romantic and silly. She’d lost all interest in it when reality had slapped her in the face. Ignoring Jonathan’s astute comment, she scanned the letter again, looking for hints. “I don’t see a clue like before. There must be a message in the meaning of the poem itself. Either that, or yours has the message and mine is just fluff.” She looked over at him. “Do you recognize this poem?”