All That He Loves (Volume 2 The Billionaires Seduction)

by Thorne, Olivia

  “Sure,” I said, eternally grateful I wasn’t being kicked out. I walked over to the corner and watched as famous people I’d seen in US Magazine stared at me openly, like I was an exotic animal on display.

  One of them, some blonde lady on some Real Housewives program, looked like she was on the verge of breaking out of line and coming over to talk to me.

  Please don’t, please don’t I silently begged her as I averted my eyes.

  No good, here she came –

  And then the door behind me opened and Johnny burst through in a killer suit and tie.

  As soon as he saw me, his eyes bugged out.

  “Whoa – Lily?!”

  “Hey, Johnny,” I laughed.

  “You look amazing!” he said as he took me by the arm and guided me through the door, nodding briefly to Mr. iPad.

  “Thanks,” I blushed. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Awesome to see you, too!”

  “I, uh…”

  The cat got my tongue, though, as we entered another world.

  31

  A magnificent ballroom with thirty-foot ceilings stretched all around us. It had the basic color design of the rest of the Dubai – black and white marble, with modest gold trimming – but it was done up in some sort of 1400’s Venice meets the richest of the Middle East kind of motif. It was jaw-dropping.

  Even more spectacular were all the famous faces standing around, holding glasses of champagne, chatting and laughing. The limo line and the lobby had just been a freaking warm-up. I swear I saw every star of every major blockbuster from the last three years, all within shouting distance of one another.

  And Johnny was leading me through them, winding our way through a lineup of men I’d had crushes on since I was a teenager. I tried to keep my cool – but it was a little hard when most of them were obviously checking me out.

  Half of the women were checking me out, too, I noticed. The other half were glaring at me like they hope I died a painful death.

  I just kept my head down and followed Johnny through the crush of bodies.

  This was so WEIRD.

  And not just because of the Who’s Who checking out my ass. Being back with Johnny like this was freaking me out.

  How much did he know? Was he privy to Sebastian’s whole plan? He had to have been in on some of it, at least – after all, he’d been expecting me. Or at least known to show up when security called about a woman in a red dress.

  But I didn’t know exactly how to broach the whole Yeah, I’m here to try to seduce your boss thing.

  So I tried to make small talk instead.

  “Do you know the Templetons and Miranda are here?” I asked.

  He grimaced. “Yeah. I wanted to have them thrown out, but that’s what Connor says they want: a scene. So we’re not letting them in – they can hang out in the lobby all night – but we’re not booting them out, either.”

  There were a couple of seconds of uncomfortable silence, so I tried again.

  “This is kind of an embarrassing question, but… what’s your last name?” I asked as he led me through a dense thicket of businessmen I didn’t recognize.

  “Inaba.”

  That’s what the bald guard with the iPad had said, and that’s what Connor’s father had called him back in Las Vegas – but being here in the Dubai triggered another, older memory…

  “When we first met, didn’t you say your last name was something like ‘Shoot’?”

  “Shuto. Good memory. It’s a joke – it’s Japanese for ‘knife.’ Connor calls me that… like ‘Mac the Knife.’ Johnny Shuto.”

  “Oh,” I nodded. “That’s cool…”

  He grinned at me. “You’re pretty nervous, aren’t you?”

  I breathed out heavily. “Y-yeah.”

  “It’s going to go great.”

  “Soooo… you do know all about this, then?”

  He shot me a Come ON look. “Lily, I was the one who suggested the dress. Good choice on my part,” he said with a wink and a friendly smile.

  I blushed.

  “It’s going to be fine,” he said soothingly.

  “He hasn’t called me in two months, Johnny.”

  “And he’s been fucking miserable the entire time.”

  Everybody kept saying that. But –

  “Then why didn’t he call?”

  “Connor doesn’t get dumped by a woman and then go chase her.”

  I came abruptly to a stop. Johnny’s hand slipped off my arm, and he looked back in surprise.

  “I didn’t dump him!” I protested.

  Johnny shrugged. “Well, he’s sure acting like you did.”

  “I didn’t! I left because he said ‘I love you’ and then he got all freaked out and weird about it!”

  Johnny looked uncomfortable. “That’s probably a little bit more than I should know.”

  “Too bad. Does he say I dumped him?”

  “He doesn’t talk about it at all. He just drinks… and stares at his phone… and basically is insufferable to be around, that’s all.”

  My heart was hammering even harder. It had never occurred to me that Connor thought I dumped him. After all, he’d been the one who wanted space… the one who had been avoiding me… the one who couldn’t tell me ‘I love you’ after he’d already said it…

  “Lily, I’ve got to get back to him,” Johnny urged me. “I left him with the other security guys, but…”

  “Yeah, okay…” I said, my face blank.

  Johnny pointed in the direction we’d been heading. “He’s just past that group. There’s sort of a receiving line. Just… walk up to him.”

  “Is he… does he know I’m here?”

  Johnny shook his head. “No.”

  God, I wanted to pace and flap my hands.

  Johnny touched my arm and gave me a warm smile. “It’s going to be okay.”

  I nodded. “…thanks.”

  “Knock ‘im dead,” Johnny said, and took off – then turned as he walked away and pointed at me in mock seriousness. “Not literally dead, mind you.”

  I gave him a smile, and watched him disappear into the crowd.

  And then I was utterly and completely alone in a sea of a thousand famous faces.

  32

  I stood there trying to psyche myself up.

  This was the reason I was here. This was the reason I’d gotten all dolled up. This was what I had told Sebastian I wanted more than anything else in the world.

  And I was terrified.

  A thousand terrible ‘what-ifs’ floated through my mind. What if he got angry? What if he cold-shouldered me? What if he was mean? What if he laughed at me?

  What if he didn’t even care?

  I told myself that was bullshit. Sebastian and Johnny had both told me he had been miserable for the last month; only an idiot would think it had nothing to do with me. He had cared enough to make Sebastian call Scott Shaw and get him to give me a shot.

  He just didn’t care enough to call YOU, the evil little voice in my head reminded me.

  But then the good angel whispered, So what?

  So what if he hadn’t called? Maybe he thought I should have called him. Seeing as I’d never bothered to call to thank him for the job advice and referral, maybe he thought I was the one being cold and aloof. Maybe he was waiting for me to accept him for everything he was, without preconditions, even if he couldn’t tell me he loved me… yet.

  I struggled to remember everything Sebastian had told me earlier.

  Go and claim your man.

  You’re mine, I’m yours, let’s cut the crap.

  Radiate it. Exude it.

  Be flirtatious! Be playful! Be whatever you were when you seduced him in the first place!

  You go in, you take your man, you MAKE yourself irresistible.

  Do NOT hold back. Forget all the bad things that have happened in the last two months, and use all the good feelings you have for him to power you through.

  My feet were lead. M
y legs were stone. And I felt like I might throw up at any second.

  And yet… the thrill of being able to see him again… the knowledge that I could reach out and touch him for the first time in months… and the possibility that maybe, just maybe, something amazing could come out of this…

  …those were the things that made me take that first step.

  Fake it till you make it, I thought, and broke through the crowd to the rear of the ballroom.

  33

  My first sight of him took my breath away.

  He had haunted my dreams and most of my waking moments over the last two months, so to see him in the flesh again kind of threw me for a loop.

  He was tall and good-looking as ever. He was wearing a tuxedo, a simple black affair that was beautifully tailored to show off his broad shoulders, muscular arms, and powerful chest. He wore it better than Daniel Craig or even Sean Connery at his peak – and both of those Bonds can rock a tuxedo.

  But he looked drained. Tired. Even though he was still stunningly handsome, there were circles under his eyes, as though he hadn’t slept well in quite a while. What remained of his tan might have fooled others, but I could see his skin lacked its usual vibrancy and color. The slight crinkles around his mouth and eyes were still there, but they were devoid of the laughter and mischief that usually animated them. His eyes were flat and listless, and his smile seemed forced. In fact, he would smile at someone and then almost immediately drop it, as though it took too much effort for him to sustain. He looked like a man who was trying valiantly, but who wanted to be anywhere other than here.

  He was talking to an older man, someone famous I couldn’t quite place. British or Australian accent. There was a line of people behind the old guy – faces I knew from the Oscars, faces I didn’t who were probably each worth the GDP of a small country.

  Burly men in suits stood in the background, all of them watching the crowd, relentlessly scanning, occasionally putting a finger up to an earpiece or speaking into a hidden microphone.

  Right beside Connor was Johnny. As soon as he saw me he winked, then went back to scanning the crowd.

  I wanted to run away… but I forced one foot in front of the other and made my way across the ballroom.

  Connor saw me out of the corner of his eye. Rather, he probably saw movement out of the corner of his eye – a flash of red – and turned to it as a distraction from the conversation. His eyes glanced over my body first, then traveled up to my face –

  But they were blank.

  There was no sign he knew who I was.

  At least, any sign was hidden beneath his poker face.

  Shit – shit, Shit, SHIT –

  I wanted to stop, turn around, and run off into the crowd, to disappear.

  But I forced myself to keep walking. Forced myself to smile at him. Forced myself to keep going.

  And then something happened.

  I had mistaken the blankness of his eyes for cool detachment, for feigned indifference.

  It wasn’t. He just literally didn’t recognize me at first.

  Because as I got closer to him, his eyebrows raised, and for the first time, I saw a light spark in his eyes.

  The closer I got, the more that spark turned into a flame.

  Color surged back into his face, and his lips parted in shock.

  He looked like a man dying of thirst in a desert who had just seen a cold mountain stream.

  “…Lily?!” he said, his voice hoarse and amazed.

  That was all I needed to hear.

  Joy filled every inch of me.

  “Hello, Connor,” I beamed.

  The Australian billionaire looked back and forth between us in amazement. Connor was acting like the old guy wasn’t even there.

  “I… my God… you look amazing…” Connor said, and a smile trembled at the corners of his mouth.

  There was no poker mask; he wasn’t even trying to conceal how he felt.

  “And you look incredibly handsome, as always,” I smiled, my eyes misting up a little.

  We just stood there, our eyes locked, and everything around us ceased to exist. All the noise faded away, all the laughter and whispers and chatter. We were connected in that one golden moment, just the two of us in a spotlight, and the rest of the stage was dark.

  And then he spoke, and everything faded back up – the noise, the people, the world.

  “I… how have you… how have you been?” he asked, his voice faltering – but his eyes never strayed from mine.

  “Busy. I wanted to thank you for everything you did, that call to Scott Shaw.”

  A part of me stood off to the side and marveled how smoothly I was handling this, and how less-than-slick Connor was – as though he was overwhelmed. I had never, ever heard him be as tentative as he was now, like an overcome teenage boy. I silently thanked Javier and Abby for weaving their magic.

  “I… yeah… Sebastian’s kept me updated… it was nothing, it was the least…”

  “It wasn’t nothing,” I said sincerely. “It was a lot. It meant a lot to me.”

  He paused, then smiled. “I’m proud of you, Lily. He says you’re doing amazingly well.”

  “I am. Thanks to you.”

  Connor just stood there, staring at me, as though he were afraid to take his eyes off me for fear I might disappear in a puff of smoke.

  And then the damn old man ruined it.

  “Is this a bad time?” he asked in his gruff Australian accent, as though he were offended.

  Connor glanced over at him as though broken out of a spell – then looked back at me. “Uh… no… it’s just…”

  The Connor I knew would have told the old guy to shove it. But apparently there was something going on I wasn’t aware of.

  Like maybe I was just an ex he’d seen unexpectedly… and nothing more.

  “I should let you get back to business,” I said with a sad smile. “Maybe we can talk later – ”

  “NO, don’t go,” he said forcefully, in the old commanding voice I knew so well – and with a hint of desperation, too, that warmed my heart.

  He looked back at the old guy, indecision in his face, and then looked back at me. “It’s just… all these people came here to see me… I’d leave if I could – ”

  “So leave!” a sprightly, very gay voice erupted.

  We all turned to see Sebastian bounding over, all six foot five and platinum blond mop of hair atop his crisp white shirt and exquisitely tailored tux. He horned his way in between Connor and the old guy. “Go on, I’ll hold down the fort.”

  Connor looked at him in disbelief. “But you said last night that – ”

  “I know what I said, but what’s the good of being a billionaire if you can’t be eccentric once in awhile?” Sebastian said, and shooed him away with his hands. “Go on, go on, I’ll keep Rupert company. Hellooooo, Rupert!” he said to the now supremely shocked old guy. “Now, about Fox News – ”

  Connor looked like a man on death row who had just been given a reprieve. He put his arm around my bare shoulders – his touch filled me with a rush of knee-weakening warmth, affection, and desire – and pulled me away from the receiving line as quickly as he could.

  34

  Connor guided me over to an isolated corner and turned his back to the crowd. I had his complete and uninterrupted attention.

  I lowered my eyes demurely as he stared at me. His gaze was overpowering: longing, tender, absolutely ravenous – but he wasn’t saying anything. Just staring at me, drinking me in.

  “I – ” he finally started, just as I spoke, too.

  “I didn’t mean – ”

  We both stopped, then smiled awkwardly.

  “You look… astounding.” He looked like a little boy on Christmas morning seeing his presents for the first time.

  He was also having a hard time keeping his eyes off my chest, I noticed. My bra – and Abby’s makeup – were having the desired effect.

  That alone gave me the boldness to say what
came next.

  “Thank you. You remember the dress?” I asked, my eyebrow lifting as I smiled seductively. “I wore it for you.”

  His mouth dropped open. His lips tried to form words, but never quite got there.

  I just stared deeply into his eyes.

  His gaze actually grew a little disconcerting – it was so overpowering, so longing – that I eventually had to look away. I thought about saying something, anything to break the sexual tension. I considered bringing up his parents’ presence in the hotel, but I knew that would kill the mood. Plus, I would have to bring up Miranda, too, and, well – fuck that.

  “Lily,” he finally said, his voice husky.

  I looked up at him, waiting for him to continue.

  “…I’m sorry,” he finally finished, his voice in pain.

  I felt about a dozen different emotions.

  You should be! part of me wanted to shout.

  Why couldn’t you call?! another part wanted to wail.

  I’m sorry, too, the sympathetic part of me thought, about a half-step away from crumpling into his arms.

  But then the voice of my Fairy Godmother echoed in my head:

  Be seductive about it… and classy. Don’t throw yourself at him until he throws himself at you first.

  Connor wasn’t exactly throwing himself at me yet.

  So instead, I reached up my hand and every so lightly caressed his smooth, freshly shaved cheek.

  “I’m just so happy to see you,” I whispered – and it was true.

  The effect on him was astounding. As soon as I touched him, his eyes closed and a look of relief and rapture spread across his face, like a man with a scorching fever touching his forehead against cool metal. He reached up, took my hand, and pressed my skin against his cheek, then his lips. He kissed my palm, then my fingers, never once opening his eyes.

  It was so fervent, so erotic, so intimate, so longing, that it made me dizzy with desire – and peace. For the first time in two months, I felt like the ragged wound across my heart had closed, and a healing balm had soothed the pain.