Baby Love: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance

by Vaughn, Vesper

Her green eyes were glimmering in the mood lighting. Her cinnamon freckles were inches away from my lips. I had to restrain myself from licking her cheek. “Alright,” she replied. “You want the truth?” She didn’t let go of my hand. “When we walked in here an hour ago I felt badly eating in here with Michael outside having his ham and cheese picnic lunch.”

  I laughed. “Knowing him, his ‘picnic’ is less sandwich and more stuffed quail eggs and caviar.”

  Rachel laughed and nodded. “Alright. Now I’m doubly jealous. Because at least he’s getting some calories.”

  I guffawed loudly and squeezed her hand. “This fucking place is so goddamn pretentious.”

  She nodded in relief, pulling her hair back to one side. “The flavor is incredible, it’s artwork, honestly. But where is the rest of it? I’ve been eating nonstop for an hour and somehow I’m still hungry.”

  “You want to get out of here?” I asked her.

  “McDonald’s. A hot dog from a cart. Honestly? Anything. Please. I’m about to pass out; not from heat but from starvation.”

  I stood up and offered her my hand. She rose out of her seat and grabbed her sweater. I took it from her and shimmied off my suit jacket. “Wear this,” I said, wrapping the bespoke suit jacket around her delicate shoulders. My fingers swept across her collarbone. It felt like silk. I put my arm around her and lead her out of the restaurant. I bent down to whisper in her ear. “Please burn that fucking sweater at the first opportunity.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  RACHEL

  When we made it back to the car, Michael was just finishing up a spread that was nearly identical to what Zane had said it would be.

  “Enjoy your dinner? That was quick,” he said, wrapping up a hunk of crusty boule and several gourmet cheeses.

  “Is this the part where I tell you that you were right?” Zane asked him. I didn’t know what that meant. Michael only smiled in response. “Millenium Park. You can drop us off there and head home.”

  Michael nodded. The sun was finally beginning to leak out of the night sky, the skyscrapers lighting up around us. Zane put his hand on my thigh and a jolt of electricity shot through my body. I didn’t push him away.

  I knew it was wrong; we were business partners. But God, he was so hot. I couldn’t resist him.

  Michael dropped us off at Millenium Park. I left my sweater behind in the car and Zane swapped his suit jacket and tie for a ball cap that was hiding under the seat. He pulled it over his curly hair and I realized with a start that I was about to walk out, in public, with Zane Reid. “Fuck, I haven’t been here in years,” Zane said, looking at the summer crowds milling around us.

  I smelled onions and relish and nearly ran in the direction of the hot dog stand. Zane caught up with me, wrapping his arm around my waist. I felt shivers unrelated to the cooling night air. He looked boyish in the hat. “People are staring at you,” he whispered to me.

  “I don’t care. As long as I get my hot dog.” Somehow I felt less naked in the open air than I had dressed like this in the restaurant. The silky fabric kissed the top of my thighs and the neckline was plunging. But it fit me perfectly, just like Zane’s arm around my waist.

  “Two Chicago dogs and two Cokes. And two potato chips,” Zane said, pulling out a hundred-dollar bill from his pocket and handing it to the middle-aged guy behind the stand. “And we’ll take a brownie as well.”

  The guy looked at him, irritated. “I can’t break a hundred.”

  Zane pursed his lips. “I don’t have anything smaller.”

  I turned my back on the hot dog man and pressed my stomach against Zane’s body. He looked down at me appreciatively. “Relax, I just need you for cover,” I replied. I reached into my bra where I’d hidden two five dollar bills, including the one that I’d flashed at Zane earlier to make my point. I had found them unexpectedly in an old wallet earlier that day. I turned back to the hot dog guy and handed him the money. “We’ll just take the one hot dog and the Coke, then.”

  The guy nodded and set to work. When he handed Zane the wax-paper-wrapped warm food, he did a double take. “Wait a second,” the guy said. “You’re Zane Reid!”

  Zane’s face turned stony. The people in line behind us started whispering. Zane pulled his hat down further on his head. “I get that all the time,” he replied easily. I grabbed the soda and Zane practically pushed me into the park near the skating ribbon. Kids and teenagers were rollerblading across the concrete track, laughing into the night air. We sat on a wooden bench overlooking the merry crowd.

  “I’m guessing that’s why you don’t really leave your penthouse?” I asked him after I took a few grateful bites of our shared repast.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Leads to weird questions.”

  The food was emboldening me. Zane’s thigh pushing into mine on the bench also helped goad me forward. “Questions like why the hell you left behind the most promising football career of all time?”

  Zane shifted uncomfortable and smiled at me, his blue eyes and dimples radiating in the reflected light from the skating area. “Something like that.”

  He’d barely taken two bites of the hot dog before handing it to me. “Finish it off. You’re hungrier than I am.”

  I didn’t argue, shoving the rest of the food down my throat gratefully. I’d been too nervous to eat lunch earlier that day and the vegetable crisp snack had done little other than sit in my stomach like a rock during the culinary gastronomy buffet. I sipped my soda and leaned back, resting my head on Zane’s arm. “This is weird but I feel like I’ve known you forever,” I said boldly.

  Zane grinned at me, looking down at my face. Then he leaned forward, his lips coming right to my mouth. I nearly jerked away, but he moved to the right and kissed my cheek, his warm tongue caressing my skin before pulling away. My heart was pounding so loudly I felt like it was making the bench shake underneath us. He licked his lips. “You had mustard on your cheek. And we forgot to grab napkins.”

  My face was on fire and I knew he could tell the effect he was having on me. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill, handing it to me.

  “This is instead of a thank you for dinner,” he quipped.

  I sat fully upright, pulling away from his arm. “You gave me fifty million dollars today. You don’t need to give me a hundred more.”

  “It’s ninety more, actually, since ten of it is paying you back for our shared dinner.”

  I shook my head. “Keep it. It’s fine.” It wasn’t actually fine; that ten dollars had been the last of my cash. But he didn’t need to know that.

  He reached down, his fingertips caressing the tops of my breasts, and slipped the crisp, folded bill into my bra without a word.

  I nearly fell over.

  Zane was enjoying teasing me, I could tell. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close into his chest. “Jesus, isn’t it weird to think about Scott Fucking Friendly selling you a hot dog?”

  “He probably owns that cart we just went to in one way or another,” I replied, trying to keep my shaking voice steady. I was still recovering from him nearly grabbing my breast. It was thrilling, all these people around, this slinky, silky dress and the underwear that was just for him hiding secretly underneath it. I felt the heady mix of hormones urging me forward. “You want to head back to your place?”

  Zane bent down and kissed my head. My entire body felt like it was a raw bundle of live wires. It was like there was magnets pulling us toward each other. “Not tonight,” he replied. “Let me take you home.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  RACHEL

  “Good morning,” Callie murmured from behind her coffee cup. “You were home late.”

  I grunted a hello, my bedhead hair sticking up at all angles. I poured myself a bowl of organic cornflakes. “Not late enough for my taste,” I replied.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Sex was on the table?”

  “I wanted sex on the table. And in the car. And on the subway home. And on y
our front porch. And on the sculptures in Millenium Park…” I drifted off in my mind.

  Callie laughed. “Sexual frustration is a strange look on you,” she said.

  Patrick walked into the kitchen wearing his bathrobe. “Who’s sexually frustrated?”

  “Rachel,” Callie replied for me.

  Patrick looked at me, surprised.

  I shifted uncomfortably. There was an unspoken tension in the room. Patrick and I had dated before he went out with Callie. Callie didn’t know that. “Now that we’ve thoroughly discussed my vagina, maybe a subject change is at hand?”

  Patrick opened the fridge door forcefully. Was he upset?

  “What’s up your behind?” Callie asked.

  “Hangover,” he said simply, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

  She raised her eyebrows in light judgment. “Tequila shots with the boys again?”

  “Something like that,” Patrick said shortly. “I’ll be in my office.” He left the kitchen without another word.

  I crunched my cornflakes nervously, hoping Callie didn’t press any more theories about Patrick’s mood upon me. She mercifully switched back to the Zane topic. “So it was a good date? Other than the lack of sex?”

  I sighed and collapsed onto the barstool. “We sizzle,” I said to her honestly. “It’s…electric. That’s all I can say.”

  Callie was beaming. “I never thought I’d live to see the day,” she said in her Georgia dialect. “Rachel Cobb is actually interested in chemistry with a man over, well, actual chemistry.”

  I chewed my flakes. “He’s kind of a dick, though, to the people who work for him.”

  Callie shrugged. “Who cares? He a sexy billionaire sending you lacy lingerie. He can yell at the wait staff as much as he wants as long as he’s channeling that rage somewhere else when the night ends.” She put her mug down. “Why didn’t he want to have sex with you?”

  I shrugged and pushed my glasses up my nose. “I asked him. He said not tonight.”

  Callie nearly spit out her coffee. “You asked him?”

  I nodded. “What’s the big deal?” But I blushed at the memory. It was like someone else had taken over my body.

  Callie laughed and shook her head. “You’re the most awkward person I know, that’s all.”

  “Gee, thanks, Call,” I replied sarcastically.

  “It’s just the truth, science geek.”

  “He did say something weird, though. He said he wanted to add another condition to our contract next week. I have a meeting with him and his people on Monday. I’m kind of nervous.”

  Callie wiggled her eyebrows. “Maybe he wants you to be his Anastasia to his Christian Grey.”

  “Who?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I keep forgetting you’ve been trapped in a science lab the better part of the last five years. It’s from – never mind. Maybe he’s going to make you sign a BDSM contract. You get to be his sex slave in return for his offering you millions.”

  I inhaled a cornflake and choked; thankfully the purple from the lack of oxygen hid my blushing.

  ***

  I wore my borrowed suit skirt and silk blouse on Monday morning, eager to see Zane again. I couldn’t help it. All I could think about was him licking that mustard off of my cheek. I felt like a horny teenager again. It was hard for me to think about the details of the official deal we were going to sign in the context of my sexual attraction to him. He hadn’t contacted me all weekend. I’d love to lie and say I hadn’t waited by the phone. But I had.

  And I only kind of hated myself for it. I’d also been so bleary-eyed after several restless nights with minimal, sex-dream-filled sleep that I couldn’t manage to put in my contact lenses. I’d dropped my last pair down the drain. It would have to be my horn-rimmed glasses from here on out, at least until I got my first paycheck.

  Callie had cleared her schedule to come with me as my legal representation.

  “Mr. Reid will be in with the rest of his advisory team in a few minutes,” said the buxom secretary. She eyed me up and down. I’d actually put on makeup today; I was hoping I hadn’t overdone the effect. I wasn’t used to wearing anything aside from lip balm. “You can go inside and sit down.”

  The board room smelled like pricy cologne.

  I looked over the city below me. This had to be the best view in Chicago. Callie was unimpressed by the view; her firm had one nearly as good. She set her Gucci purse down. I pulled out a seat near the head of the table. There were pens and legal pads waiting at only three of the thirty seats. I found myself worrying absurdly that there was assigned seating and I was going to mess it up. I tapped the pen nervously against the paper pad.

  A short, bald man walked in first and nodded at both of us. He reached out his hand. “I’m Bob Sanderson,” he said. “Mr. Reid’s primary attorney.”

  “Lovely to meet you,” I said, extending a clammy hand toward him.

  “Callie Conrad,” Callie said cordially.

  He nodded curtly. “Mr. Reid will be in later. For now, he wanted me to go over the partnership, particularly the five D’s.”

  “Five D’s?” I asked, panicking. I was remembering Callie’s sex slave joke from earlier.

  “Death, divorce, disagreement, disability, and debt,” he explained.

  “It’s detailing what happens to the partnership in the event that either partner ends up in any of those situations,” Callie explained further. She was in her element. “The sixth, of course, would be dissolution. If either one of you decides to end the professional relationship.”

  I nodded, listening as intently as I could as both Callie and Mr. Sanderson negotiated. “Mr. Reid is insisting on a two hundred-thousand-dollar annual salary to be paid out biweekly for Ms. Cobb,” Mr. Sanderson said.

  I nearly choked. “That’s too much,” I said. “Way too much.”

  Mr. Sanderson smiled. “Well, I have to say that’s a first; someone asking for less money. But he insists on it. You can take it up with him. It’s easy enough to change later.”

  I was following most of the legal speak until I saw Zane across the office. He was standing by his secretary’s desk in full view of the conference room. He leaned down and said something to her. She laughed at the joke he’d told, flipping her perfect brown hair over her shoulder flirtatiously.

  I felt jealousy burning through me. I adjusted my glasses, going red from embarrassment. I was basically a child. Why would he want me?

  “Rachel?” Callie’s voice finally bored through my brain. I saw that both of them were staring at me. I wondered how many times they’d tried to get my attention.

  “Sorry,” I said. “What’s that?”

  “We’re done. We just need you to sign on the bottom line and the main part of the contract is done,” Mr. Sanderson explained, handing me his Mont Blanc pen.

  I scribbled my name nervously at the bottom, determinedly avoiding looking at Zane again. Mr. Sanderson flipped the thick stack of papers shut and put them in a folio. “I’ll have my secretary send you copies.”

  Callie handed him her business card. “Perfect,” she said.

  “There is one more thing,” Mr. Sanderson said. “There’s an addendum to the contract that Mr. Reid wanted to go over with Ms. Cobb here alone.”

  Callie glanced at me suspiciously. “I’d prefer, as her lawyer, that she sign nothing without my presence.”

  Mr. Sanderson folded his hands. “He was quite insistent that this remain confidential between him and Ms. Cobb.”

  My stomach was instantly filled with butterflies. I glanced back at the secretary’s desk but saw Zane was gone. Then I heard his voice. “Rachel,” Zane said, sending electricity down my spine.

  He was standing in the doorway, a steely look on his face. This wasn’t the boyish guy I’d seen in the park. He was back to business Zane.

  “Mr. Reid,” Callie said, standing up to shake his hand. He ignored her. I saw that Callie had pushed her breasts out to show them off. I felt a bitter
surge of satisfaction that he wasn’t tempted in the slightest by her slim figure. Callie always outshone me. But not now. Zane only had eyes for me.

  “Come to my office, Rachel. I’m assuming you’re done here?”

  I communicated a look of It’s fine to Callie before following him out of the room. I knew she was pissed. I could feel it like a sixth sense. We marched through the office, everyone staring at me. I tried not to be bothered. Finally, we reached double wooden doors that Zane held open for me. “After you,” he said, smoldering at me.

  My breath caught in my chest as I made eye contact with him. I wanted to crawl inside his stare and live there for the rest of my life. He was fire.

  His office was surprisingly traditional; dark wood-paneled walls lining three sides of the room. The fourth had a view of Lake Michigan, unobstructed. The teal waters glimmered in the late morning sunlight. Zane sat down at his enormous desk and put his feet up. “Have a seat, Rachel.”

  I perched on the edge of a plush red chair in front of his desk. I crossed my ankles, thinking about how my mom would insist on me doing that if she were here. “Mr. Reid,” I said.

  Zane laughed. “You don’t need to call me that here either,” he insisted.

  I brushed a lock of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail back over my ear. “I feel like establishing these clear boundaries is good for both of us.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You’re implying that we’ll have occasion to meet each other in a non-business setting again?”

  I opened my mouth and closed it, pink creeping up my cheeks. “I wasn’t- I –“

  Zane put his feet down and leaned forward across his desk. “I like the glasses.”

  The pink on my cheeks was now a four-alarm fire. “Thank you,” I replied. “I lost my last pair of contacts down the drain.”

  “You should keep the glasses,” he said. “They’re fucking sexy.”

  I cleared my throat but couldn’t come up with anything to say. I tapped my leg on the carpet.

  “I think Bob told you there was something I wanted to discuss with you one on one.”