Billionaire's Holiday Bride: A Bad Boy Christmas Romance

by Serena Vale

  She wanted to speak, but somehow she knew that any words that escaped her mouth would only be incoherent stutters. It was better to remain silent, at least for the moment.

  “While I am in here, you’re free to pursue any ambitions that you like,” he went on. “There’s no telling how long I may hide myself away in here. I may be in for a quarter hour… I may be in all day… there really is no telling. I will of course notify you when I emerge and then it’s back to business. But please remember, no disturbances, not while I am in here.”

  All she could do was nod. “Yes… sir, uh… yes, Ian.”

  He gave her an appreciative nod, “Very good.” He straightened his business jacket. “Well, come then. I still have much more to show you.”

  Chapter 5

  The next two weeks were over before she even had time to realize it. Ian had not been shortchanging her when he told her that things moved apace here. Her life had turned into something resembling the inner workings of a clock. Her day started at the same time and ended at a different time every other day. But the official end of her day only ever came when Ian decreed it so.

  Twice now he had told her to cancel or reschedule his appointments by noon and advised her that the rest of the day was her own. Several times he’d had her working well past the point of midnight only to free her to sleep for four hours before summoning her again. She felt ragged at such times, having very little time to shower or to eat anything, but she managed to carry on until Ian slipped inside his sanctuary, providing her a chance to tend to her appearance.

  As a result she had become a master of a three-minute shower and a five-minute lunch break, which came in handy on days where Ian was focused on one task or another. She understood why the advertisement had said that this was a fast-paced job, considering that she lived her life in small increments between calls or meetings.

  As the days had passed she fell into a routine all of her own. Her private cook had fallen into the habit of preparing meals for her that were waiting a ready when she woke so that she could at least swallow a mouthful or two before speeding off to Ian’s summons. The food too could be kept warm until she had time to return to her room and eat it completely. She made a mental note to find a suitable gift for her cook for the foresight.

  Lanie also got into the habit of preparing the clothes that she would wear for the next few days in advance while she had time and laid them out on chairs or hung them on hooks so that she could slip into them when chance came. It also happened that there was a laundry service within the building that cleaned and hung her clothes for her as she didn’t have time to tend to their cleanliness herself. This had come as a shock when her laundry hamper had been filled and she returned home one night to find all of her clothes cleaned, folded or hung, in her room. A surprise, but a welcome one, as it saved her the trouble of having to do laundry. She made a second note to find a way to thank the laundry service that kept her clothes fresh and crisp.

  But as the days rolled by one after the other she found a comfortable equilibrium with her job. There were times when she felt like she had no time to herself at all and then there were times when it felt like she should be climbing the walls looking for something to do. The peaks and valleys in her activities took some getting used to, but she managed to endure them well enough.

  And then finally came the Friday when she was supposed to have her dinner with Ian. After everything that the first two weeks had taught her about the job and the demands that it required she found that she was more nervous about this dinner than she had been about anything else.

  Ian had given her the authority to make million-dollar deals without any issues. She had overseen new projects begging for funding from Madison Tech. and okayed them with minimal oversight from Ian. She’d had new security measures implemented that affected the whole tower, yet Ian had allowed the changes with nothing more than a nod of the head or a wink of the eye.

  In other businesses she would have thought that her actions would merit some kind of a punishment or reprimand for overstepping her bounds. Such had never been the case where Ian was concerned.

  “Your actions have merit because they are borne by intelligence,” he had said. “I trust your judgement, Lanie.”

  And that had been that. There was no small amount of comfort in knowing that Ian had that much faith in her abilities. Here she was, the right hand of the largest corporation in the world, and she felt like a kid who had just been given the keys to the family car and that she was trusted to do so.

  It was nothing short of miraculous in her eyes.

  She was busy inspecting herself before the mirror when Mercy’s voice spoke to her over the room’s speakers.

  “Lanie?”

  “Yes, Mercy?” she replied, not looking away from her image in the highly polished glass.

  “Just a reminder, your dinner with Mr. Madison begins in five minutes.”

  “Thank you, Mercy,” she said gratefully, though she was very well aware of the time. Their impending dinner had been on her mind all day she found herself curiously anxious to be in Ian’s presence in a less formal kind of way.

  She looked herself over, measuring her appearance. She had chosen to wear one of her white dresses, made from some kind of crushed crystal that had been spun into sparkling fibers so that it glistened on her skin like newly fallen snow. Though her figure was rounded she felt that the dress hugged her body in just the right way and in all of the right places.

  Is it enough to catch Ian’s eye?

  She pondered at the voice in her mind. Was the dress really enough to catch the attentions of her employer? Maybe… but a greater question was: why did she want to?

  Ian was a man of substance and known throughout the world. She didn’t have any doubts that he could have any woman he wanted. She recalled an article where some foreign minister’s daughter had been offered to him in marriage for the sake of business. The girl had not been unattractive, Lanie had thought. But for reasons that no one had been able to comprehend, Ian had turned the proposal – the business deal come to that – down.

  But still, the throngs of women who would have happily had him did not diminish. If there was one thing that jabbed at her about her job it was the continuously growing list of social appointments that Ian kept being petitioned with. Models… actresses… daughters of the CEO’s or rival companies… athletes… authors… scientists… there was no limit to it all. But being his aide she was thankful for the opportunity to shut them all down once she had run their names past Ian.

  “I’m not interested,” is all he would say.

  She had found that interesting considering that some of these women were of shapes, wealth, and status that men all over the world would sell various organs on the black market to possess. And Ian had dismissed them all like magazines that he didn’t care to look at.

  Sure, Ian was handsome, mysterious, and rich: a perfect trifecta. He was everything that most women dreamed of having in their men… yet she only worked for him. And here she was, dressing like a woman intent on impressing a man on a first date.

  Hoping things will become a little more animalistic between you and the new boss, are we?

  She felt a small surge of heat course through her at such a thought. Maybe this ‘something extra’ that Ian had mentioned involved becoming a little more intimate. Maybe she was hoping that that was exactly the case.

  “Time to find out,” she said, slipping her shoes on and heading for the elevator.

  Chapter 6

  Ian’s private dining area was something right out of the history books, Lanie thought. Like the rest of the top floors it had a definitive old-world feeling to it. Thick carpets, paintings of souls long past hanging on the walls, and antique furniture. The center piece of which was the table that they presently sat at.

  The room, by and large, looked to have been modeled after the dining chambers of some bygone age where kings and queens sat to a golden-trimmed banquet table. The roo
m was at least twenty meters to a side and the entire east wall was made up entirely of glass windows that stretched from the floor to the high ceiling, allowing for a sweeping view of the city below where pinpoints of light dotted the landscape. Seeing this, Lanie again felt like a goddess, being so high up that she was looking down on the stars and the mortals so far beneath that.

  It was an incredible feeling.

  Ian sat directly opposite her, dressed in a tuxedo that she found to be nothing short of delightful. She often admired the classical look of men in the old suits. Some of the newer fashions were not all that bad either, but there was something about the old looks that simply could not be denied as appealing.

  “You look lovely tonight, Lanie,” he said as he carved off a piece of the roast pheasant that she had decided should be their evening meal.

  “Thank you,” she said with a gentle blush. “You look very handsome as well.”

  He showed his appreciating by visibly blushing. The look on his was positively adorable.

  “So how do you feel after these last couple of weeks? Settling in alright?”

  “I believe I am,” she said, sipping her wine. “It was a bit much at the beginning but I think I’ve managed to find a good balancing point.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it. And what about the work? Are you managing well enough?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. I’ve noticed a decided upswing in productivity these last two weeks. Some of my more important projects are up in productivity by about sixteen percent, and all of it from suggestions and changes that you’ve made. I will say that I’m impressed, Lanie. Very much so.”

  It was her turn to blush. “Thank you, Ian.”

  He rested his elbows on the table and folded his hands in the same manner that she had come to know as his contemplative manner. The way he looked at her over his hands was meticulous somehow, as if he were trying to discern something that she was not willing to share.

  “Tell me, Lanie, what do you know of our deep space exploration project?”

  It was a question that seemed to fall from nowhere but it had the ring of inquisitiveness to it and she knew it was best to answer as quickly and as fully as she could. “It’s the twenty-seventh item on your most-interesting list,” she began, “delving into theories and technology that could be utilized in the exploration and colonization of other planets. It’s headed up by a Dr. Luke Eisner, and he’s presently working on… what was it called… planetary optics, I believe it was. Developing new telescopes that can survey a planet for habitability from Earth without the need of physical space exploration?”

  Ian nodded. “Very good. And what do you know of their time table?”

  She combed her memory. “The first of these new telescopes that they’re designing hasn’t made it past designing stages, but they’re on track with the math of it all and they hope to have their first prototype within… six years?”

  “Seven,” he corrected. “But yes, that is essentially correct.” He didn’t lower his gaze from her and leaned in. “What if I told you that they had another agenda?”

  She listened. “Such as?”

  “Well… you’ve seen the movies, I’m sure. Space is a pretty big place… what if we weren’t the only ones in it?”

  She saw where this was heading. “You mean extra-terrestrials?”

  He only sat in silence watching her. She could tell right off that it was his turn to watch her work things through in her mind and allow her to come to her own suppositions.

  She reached a conclusion after only a few seconds and it sent an icy tingle down her spine. “Wait… you mean…?”

  He gave a nearly imperceptible nod.

  She felt a second chill. “It’s not possible… is it?”

  “That depends,” he said, picking up his wine and taking a short sip. “There are an incalculable number of stars in the galaxy with an untold number of planets surrounding them. It’s mathematically feasible to believe that ours is not the only one with sentient life upon it. It’s also highly improbable to think that ours is the most technologically advanced.”

  She was silent, uncertain as to what to say next.

  “Did you know that the Aztec pyramids at Teotiuacán were built to mirror the planets in our solar system… quite a long time before humans discovered that the sun was the center of our solar system and not the Earth? Have you ever looked at some of the relief carved in Mesoamerican tombs that depict men in some kind of spacecraft? Did you know that the Nazca lines in Peru went completely unnoticed by most until someone with an airplane flew over them and noticed those geoglyphs?”

  She was quiet. She had never heard these things before but she could sense where Ian was going with these things. “You mean… we’ve been visited before?”

  Ian gave a very clear nod this time. “The scientific community dismisses these ideas as folly… superstition… some even use it as an idea to ridicule those that truly believe such things. But me? Well, I know otherwise.”

  It felt as if some invisible fist had just punched her in the chest. He said it so simply, like he was describing the color of his tuxedo but Lanie could not help but feel the pressure of the remark behind her chest. “You know otherwise?”

  He smirked. “Yes.” He stood up from his chair. “Come with me, Lanie. I want to show you something.”

  Chapter 7

  They left his private dining area and she walked closely beside him almost trotting to keep up as they went, listening to everything that he had to say.

  “Tell me, Lanie, honestly… do you believe that we are alone in the galaxy?” he asked.

  She licked her lips, feeling that there was both a right and a very wrong answer to give here. There was no middle ground and she needed to be careful with how she spun her words. “I’ve never really wondered, to be honest. Sometimes I think if there is any intelligent life out there, they’re pretty smart to ignore us.”

  He chuckled. “You don’t believe in the power of otherworldly beings? Like those that you see in the movies? That they might swoop in upon us without warning and with advanced technology? And that they might harvest our bodies for the water in our blood or some other such nonsense?”

  She chuckled a little. “Well… the movies are pretty entertaining. I have to give them that. But last time I heard we don’t have any kind of global defense system or an army that can withstand an alien invasion. But I’ve always thought that if there are aliens out there and they’re superior in intelligence and technology, then why haven’t they done it yet? I can only imagine that they have a good reason. There are nine billion people on the planet now. That’s a lot of water that’s pretty defenseless. Anyone that really wanted to could just come in and take it.”

  He laughed at her explanation. “Indeed. There are some people on the outskirts of the scientific community who believe that the pyramids… the Nazca lines… and every other semi-unexplained wonder of our world were left here intentionally by a superior intelligence.”

  “As proof that we had been visited by aliens?” she guessed.

  “That’s one explanation. But no, not in this case, it’s more like… they were left as warning signs to other aliens.”

  “Warning signs?” she asked, curiously. Of all of the strange explanations for all of the man-made wonders of the world, she had never thought to give such a thing any consideration at all.

  “Yes… the equivalent of “No Trespassing” signs if you’d like to call it that. Or perhaps it’s more akin to one country planting their flag on some unknown shore, warning others to stay away… or to show others what’s been claimed that they have no right to take.”

  There was something ominous in that statement that she could feel building a question in her mind. She had no gift for military strategy, but her basic understanding of politics and the development of any nation state was able to fill in the blanks for her. “In order to show others what they can’t take, there would have to be a system of protecti
on in place. There would have to be an army… an armada… a fort… something like that.”

  “Highest marks,” he said with an approving nod. “And it would have to be a formidable one, whatever its shape and purpose. But like the old nuclear weapons of a century or so ago, such things should only be available to a select few… or one.”

  She followed him, trying to keep pace and trying to dissect his words for their hidden meaning. The answer struck her midstride and she almost fell over but managed to keep her feet.

  “Wait a minute… you mean, you’ve found something?”

  There was a winning look upon his face.

  “Some kind of alien tech?” she asked imperiously, a thousand other questions bursting into her mind and each warring within her thoughts to be spoken aloud first. None of them managed to do so by the time they reached the end of their short journey.

  He brought her to his sanctuary doors and though he didn’t say anything the answer couldn’t have been plainer as to why he’d brought her here. There could only have been one reason why those doors were closed to everyone but him and why only he was allowed inside. Part of her began to suspect that that was also a reason why only she and few others were allowed here on these top floors.

  “Lanie… I want to show you what’s inside these doors,” Ian said plainly and so calmly that she felt a second shiver down her back. But again the air around him seemed to radiate with a heat that she could not localize and his voice remained as hypnotic as ever… she could feel his words and not just hear them.

  “But if I do that,” Ian continued, “there’s no forgetting about it. This isn’t one of those films where there’s a blinding flash of light and I eradicate your memories so that you can live peacefully… nor will I have you murdered… or sent to some remote part of the world where you can have no contact with anyone… no, that is not the way I choose to do things. That is why I waited this long to share this secret with you.