Beauty in the Billionaire's Bed

by Louise Fuller

  What was surprising, though, was how untidy it was.

  There were books everywhere. But not neatly stacked vertically on shelves, like in the library. Some were on shelves, but they were wedged in haphazardly. Elsewhere they rose in towering piles like stalagmites or huddled against pieces of furniture like snowdrifts.

  Frowning, she glanced down at the paper-strewn desk. She’d expected someone like Arlo to be one of those ‘tidy mind, tidy home’ types, who thought a pile of letters demonstrated an inability to take command of a situation.

  Remembering how he’d barked orders at her earlier, she curled her lip. He certainly liked telling people what to do, and it was hard to imagine him losing control.

  Well, not that hard, she thought, her face growing hot and her lips tingling at the memory of how he’d pulled her against his body...

  Quickly blanking her mind, she looked down at the chaos of paper, her gaze snagging on a notebook lying open. From this angle it was difficult to tell, but it looked like a sketch of a bird...a gull, maybe. Curious, she walked around the desk and sat down on the battered leather swivel chair.

  It was just an outline—a few pencil marks, really—dated and annotated: Pagodroma Nivea. Juvenile. Then what looked like a map reference. Turning the page, she discovered more sketches and, her heart suddenly beating very hard, flicked through them.

  They were good. Obviously drawn from life and by Arlo. Only she couldn’t imagine him taking that moment of care and concentration to sketch anything. He was so vehement, so fierce. Surely his mere presence would make any self-respecting bird take flight...

  This is lovely!

  She touched a sketch of a seal pup. It was so lifelike she half expected to feel the fur beneath her fingertips.

  Her eyes dropped to the notes beneath it. The handwriting was cramped and unfamiliar, and yet it felt familiar, comforting... Curling her feet up under her thighs, she started to read.

  She recycled her plastics and tried not to use taxis when she could walk—but, truthfully, the environment had always been just another of those unfathomable, slightly intimidating big-concept words like ‘the economy’.

  But as she deciphered Arlo’s notes she found herself not just curious but engaged. He wrote simply but eloquently, balancing the necessary use of scientific terms with obvious, unapologetic passion, so that she could almost see the frosted fields of ice with their exquisite lace of cracks and crystals. And Arlo, his grey eyes narrowed against the polar winds, his mouth—

  His mouth... What about his mouth?

  Pushing the notebook away, she picked up the snow globe instead, balancing it in her hands as she leaned back in the chair.

  Her heart was still beating fast and out of time, as if she’d been caught in the act of doing something wrong. Which, in a way, she had, she thought, her brain tracking back to what had happened in the drawing room.

  Only it hadn’t felt wrong. Quite the opposite.

  She tipped the snow globe upside down, watching the flakes swirl. Back in London, she had thought work, or rather too much work, was her problem, so she had come up here to relax and get some perspective.

  Instead, she had nearly drowned, and then she had kissed Arlo, and now her head was even more overloaded.

  Her chest tightened. It was stupid that he affected her this way. What she needed was to keep busy...

  Her eyes flickered to the notebook, and she remembered what he’d said last night about writing up his lectures.

  Could she work for him?

  Her whole body stiffened in outrage at the question.

  Absolutely not. Who in their right mind would want to work with Arlo?

  He was rude and arrogant and high-handed. It would be like working for a dictator.

  But, then again, it would be more a favour than actual employment...and only for a day or so. It would give her something else to think about other than his mouth... Plus, it would mean that he’d have to take her a little bit more seriously. Stop treating her like a cross between a disobedient child and some poor relation who had turned up uninvited for dinner.

  And he had saved her life...

  Pushing away from the desk, she let the chair swing slowly round in a slow circle until she was back where she started.

  ‘Having fun?’

  Her chin jerked up. Arlo was standing in the doorway, his mouth a thin line of contempt, Nero at his side.

  She felt her stomach flip over.

  He was scowling, and his dark hair looked as if he had run his hand through it too many times. A laptop dangled open from his hand.

  ‘I was just—’

  ‘Just what?’ he snapped. His dark gaze swept around the room like a searchlight. ‘You shouldn’t be in here.’

  ‘The phone was ringing.’ She tried to smile. ‘I came in here to answer it...’

  She had been trying to do him a favour. Honestly, she wasn’t sure why she’d bothered. But, then again, it probably did look as if she was snooping... Likely because she had been, she thought, a flush of heat creeping up to her ears.

  ‘So who was it?’

  ‘I don’t know. They rang off just as I picked up.’

  ‘How convenient,’ he said coolly.

  She glowered at him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means I don’t think the phone was ringing. I think you wanted to have a nose around. Perhaps I can help? Were you looking for anything in particular?’ The derision in his voice contorted his features. ‘Something of value, maybe?’

  Oh, that was low.

  Her fingers curled around the snow globe. ‘You know, it wouldn’t hurt for you to be nice occasionally,’ she said coldly.

  He was staring at her as if she had suggested he might like to eat the contents of a wheelie bin.

  ‘It wouldn’t hurt for you to do what you’re told.’

  Her hands were gripping the snow globe so tightly she thought it might shatter. ‘Who are you to tell me what to do?’

  His dark grey eyes were like the slits in a castle wall. She half expected to see the tip of an arrow pointing out of each of them.

  ‘Who am I? I’m your worst nightmare, Ms Fox.’

  He stared at her, his hard, angular face dragging her gaze upwards.

  ‘I’m a man who’s immune to your charms. So I suggest you stop batting your eyelashes at me and go back to your room. And make sure you stay there. Otherwise, next time, I won’t be feeling so generous.’

  She stood up so suddenly that the chair spun backwards. As it bounced off the shelves behind her, a pile of papers fluttered to the floor.

  ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word, generous,’ she snarled. A beat of fury and frustration was pulsing over her skin. Her fists curling by her sides, she shook her head. ‘You know, I can’t believe I was actually going to offer to help you.’

  Now he was staring at her as if she had grown horns or an extra head. ‘You? Help me?’

  Trying to remember why she had thought it was a good idea, she glared at him. ‘With writing up your lectures.’

  He gave a bark of laughter. ‘Why? So you can engineer a repeat performance of what happened downstairs?’ Now he was shaking his head incredulously. ‘I don’t think so.’

  She drew herself up to her full height. ‘I didn’t engineer anything.’

  His flint-coloured eyes were cold. ‘You kissed a perfect stranger. I would have thought that required a little forethought—unless, of course, you do that with every man you meet.’

  Her hands were trembling, and she was nearly breathless with anger. No, actually, she didn’t. As a matter of fact, she’d only kissed a handful of men—and none with the unthinking urgency with which she had kissed him.

  Lifting her chin, she glared at him. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr Milburn, but you’re a long way fro
m my idea of perfect.’

  The skin on his face stretched taut, like a drum, and she felt the air grow charged, as if the storm had moved inside.

  ‘As you are mine. I mean, aside from the quite obvious fact that you lack the discipline and diligence I would expect from anyone who works for me, I’m not sure you have the specialist knowledge I need. I mean, what exactly do you know about ice anyway?’

  The curl of his lip made her want to throw the snow globe at his head.

  ‘Other than crushing it for frozen margaritas at a “fun girls’ night just for you”?’

  His words sounded familiar.

  Her jaw started to tremble. That was because they were her words—from the blog she had posted last summer. She breathed out shakily. The idea of Arlo reading her blog made the anger leak out of her like air from a burst balloon.

  Her heart thudded heavily in her chest. She felt stupid and shallow and superfluous. But then that was what she was. It was just that in the heat of their argument she had momentarily forgotten.

  * * *

  Arlo saw her stiffen and swore under his breath.

  Finding her in his office, curled up in his chair, had caught him off balance more than he’d ever be willing to admit.

  She had been pinching her lip—a habit she seemed to have when she was thinking—and, watching her press her fingers into that cushion of flesh, he had felt a rush of too-predictable heat tighten his muscles.

  It had been a shock to discover than he could still be so weak, so hungry for what was so obviously wrong for him, and he’d felt angry and frustrated with himself. Angry, too, with her, for exposing this weakness in him.

  Maybe he had been a little brutal, but it wasn’t as if he was going to take her up on her offer. The idea was ludicrous.

  Or was it?

  Gazing over at Frankie, he pondered the question.

  Perhaps, in a way, her working for him wasn’t such a bad idea, given the facts—which were that he had no idea how long the storm would take to blow itself out, and that Frankie would be here in the house with him until it did. Giving her a job would not just keep her out of mischief, it would put their relationship on a more formal footing and provide clear boundaries.

  ‘What did you mean by help?’ he asked slowly.

  She stared at him mutely, then said, ‘If that’s your version of an apology you might want to do a little work on it.’

  His eyes locked with hers. Apologise for what? She was in his office, uninvited—

  With effort, he reined in his temper. Right now, there was enough turmoil outside—he didn’t need to add to it.

  Unlocking his jaw, he took a breath. ‘I’m sorry for what I said.’

  He waited as she shifted from one foot to the other, her expression guarded.

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ she said finally. ‘I shouldn’t have come into your office without asking. I wouldn’t have done, but your phone was ringing, and I thought it might be important.’

  Her apology surprised him almost as much as her offer of help, and for a moment he wondered if he’d misjudged her. But it wasn’t easy to get his head around the idea that he might have been wrong—partly because he still thought she was inherently self-serving, and partly because it reminded him that he’d been so wrong about Harriet and was supposed to have learned and moved on from the experience.

  Pushing that thought away, he nodded. ‘If the offer is still there, I’d like to take you up on it. You’d be doing me a favour,’ he added, when she didn’t reply.

  ‘I would have been, yes.’

  ‘You still could,’ he said carefully.

  Her eyes widened. ‘So you can laugh at me again?’

  ‘I wouldn’t laugh—’

  Glancing away, she shook her head again. ‘I’d be no use to you. Like you said, I’m only interested in the kind of ice that comes in a glass. I don’t know the first thing about vertical migration or hydrofracture.’

  Vertical migration... Hydrofracture...

  Arlo frowned. How the hell did she know about those? Unless—

  ‘You read my notebook.’

  She gazed back at him, her chin jutting forward.

  ‘So what if I did? I’m not going to share it with my followers, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

  ‘No, I mean you can read my writing.’

  She looked at him, confusion warring with curiosity, then shrugged. ‘My father was a doctor.’

  Her tone told him that she was not entirely sure why she was telling him that fact.

  ‘Everyone thought his writing was illegible, but I grew up with it so...’

  ‘Is that why you offered to help me?’

  She shrugged again. ‘I don’t know. It felt like the least I could do. I mean, you did save my life.’ She glanced away. ‘And I’m not working at the moment.’

  What did that mean? He knew almost nothing about the mechanics of social media, but what little he did know suggested that it was a twenty-four-seven, three-hundred-and-sixty-five-days-a-year kind of gig.

  Not that it was any of his business... And yet he found himself wondering what it was she wasn’t telling him.

  Watching her pinch her lip again, he tamped down the urge to reach over and pull her hand away and then cover her mouth with his.

  His jaw clenched, and suddenly he needed her to agree. ‘Look, Frankie, I know we got off on the wrong foot, but this storm is going to be kicking around for a couple of days and that means we’re going to be—’

  ‘Stuck with each other?’ Her eyes met his. ‘Not if I stay in my room, like you told me to.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have said that either. I was just—’

  Just scared. Scared of what would happen if they came within touching distance of one another. Scared that he would give in to that same desperate, urgent desire that had swept him away as effortlessly as one of those towering grey waves outside.

  ‘Just being a boorish oaf.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Is it just transcribing?’ she asked.

  He felt a jolt of surprise. ‘You’ve done this before?’

  Her eyes slid away from his, and he had that same feeling as before—as if she was holding back.

  ‘My older brother and sister both did dissertations. They paid me to type them up.’

  He nodded. ‘Okay, well, there’s a bit of an overlap between my notes on the web and the ones I had to write by hand, but I can talk you through that. It would help, too, if you could answer the phone. Take messages if I’m on the other line.’

  There was a pause. He could almost see her working through the pros and cons.

  She sighed. ‘Okay. I’ll do it. But just so we’re clear, I’m working with you, not for you.’ Lifting her chin, she let her hair fell back from her face so that he could see the curve of her jawline. ‘I’m not having you bark orders at me—’

  He held up his hands in appeasement.

  ‘There will be no barking. Although I can’t speak for Nero.’

  A reluctant smile pulled at the corners of her mouth, softening her face, and suddenly it was difficult to find enough breath to fill his lungs. If she kept smiling like that then maybe the dog kennel might be the safest place for him.

  ‘Good. That’s sorted. Take a seat.’ He gestured towards the other desk. ‘And we can get started.’

  * * *

  The morning passed with almost hallucinatory speed. One moment Frankie was walking across the room to the other desk, and the next Arlo was pushing back his chair and telling her it was lunchtime.

  Gazing round the beautiful dining room, with its cream panelling, carved wood fireplace and oil paintings, she felt her heartbeat accelerate. Mostly, if she was at home, lunch would be a sandwich eaten at her desk—and then only if she could be bothered to make one. More often than n
ot it was just a bowl of cereal.

  This, though, was a sit-down three-course meal, with cutlery and napkins and side plates...

  ‘Everything okay?’

  Arlo was staring at her, his face arranged in one of those unreadable expressions.

  ‘Everything’s fine.’ She glanced down at her starter: a tartlet of smoked roe, tomato, and marjoram.

  ‘It’s just that when you said, “Let’s grab some lunch”, I was expecting something a little more basic.’

  ‘What did you think? That we’d be gnawing on reindeer bones—’

  She smiled faintly. ‘Something like that.’

  Reaching for his knife and fork, he shrugged. ‘I’ve spent the last few months eating polar pâté three times a day with a spork. When I get home, I like to eat real food at a table.’ His eyes rested on her face steadily. ‘It’s one of my rules.’

  Her brain picked over his words. One of his rules. What were the others?

  Picking up her glass, she took a sip of water. Earlier, she’d asked herself who would want to work with him. The answer, surprisingly, was pretty much anyone and everyone, judging by the number of calls she’d answered in the hour before lunch. The phone had rung almost non-stop.

  The Smithsonian Institution, the Royal Geographical Society, and Stanford University had all asked him to speak, and after just sixty minutes in his company it was not hard to see why. Listening to him talk, it had become clear to her that Arlo knew his stuff. More importantly—and, she was guessing, more unusually in a scientist—he was both concise and eloquent.

  She liked the sound of his voice, the strength of it, and the measured, precise way he chose his words. And he spoke Russian fluently.

  Of course, she didn’t speak Russian, so she had no idea what he’d been talking about when he’d spoken it on the phone, but it had sounded almost like poetry.

  He looked like a poet too. Or maybe a cross between a poet and pirate, with his scowl and his messy hair and that complicated mouth.

  Although it hadn’t felt that complicated when they were kissing...

  As if he’d heard her thoughts, Arlo looked over at her, his grey eyes boring into hers. She put down her glass and over the sudden, rapid beat of her heart said quickly, ‘I can imagine.’