The Billionaire Date

by Leigh Michaels

  “Really? Do you think he wants you to lose your bet that badly? You know, Kitty, you could just tell him the bet’s off and you’ll sleep with him no matter what.”

  “Funny,” Kit muttered. “That’s exactly what he said. And no, I’m not idiot enough to do it. Thanks for the suggestion, anyway.”

  “Then you’re not serious about him?”

  “What’s to be serious about? The man’s a Don Juan, Sue, and they always want what they can’t have—right up till the moment after they get it, when they suddenly don’t want it anymore.”

  Susannah’s face lightened. “I was worried about you getting hurt. But as long as you see through him—”

  “Don’t fret about that. I promise once this is over I’ll be celebrating Jarrett’s departure from my life—not mourning it.”

  And the more deeply she engraved that truth on her heart, Kit reminded, the better off she’d be.

  Susannah gave up on her logo and departed for a client meeting. With the cover finally finished, Kit gathered the refuse from the project and her lunch and went downstairs to her office. She’d make a few more calls and then run over to the printer’s headquarters and get the program under way.

  It’s all going to fit together, she told herself. Before she knew it, the auction would have come and gone, the funds she’d promised would be doing good for Chicago’s battered women, and she’d be free of Jarrett forever. And she was glad.

  So why, she wondered as she pushed open her office door, was she having to persuade herself?

  “Hello,” Jarrett said lazily. “I was beginning to think you’d run away.”

  Well, that explains my confusion, Kit thought. I was having a premonition, that’s all.

  She stood in the doorway, eyeing him. He was stretched out on her chaise, his jacket draped over a nearby chair, his tie loose and the top button of his shirt undone. Frankly, she was amazed he hadn’t kicked off his shoes. The calico cat was curled up at the foot of the chaise, her chin propped on Jarrett’s silk-clad ankle. Kit couldn’t quite decide which of them looked the more comfortable.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “It’s only the middle of the afternoon.”

  “I know, but I forgot to ask you about tonight. I’d hate to get here at seven and find you’d made another date in the meantime.”

  Kit tried not to smile. What a perfect excuse, and he’d handed it to her on a platter. “As a matter of fact...”

  Jarrett interrupted. “So I checked your calendar, and to my relief, it’s empty. I thought perhaps we’d go to the theater tonight for a change.”

  “Because there’s always such a nice social mix at intermission, and you can introduce me to a whole lot of eligible bachelors?”

  “Well, I can’t guarantee how many will be seeing a fresh-from-Broadway extravaganza on a Monday night, but—”

  “I didn’t think so.” She dumped the remains of her lunch in the wastebasket beside her desk and laid the finished program cover on the blotter, right next to her calendar and atop the list of bachelors who’d committed to offering dream dates.

  The all-important bachelor list—which she’d carelessly left lying there, open to view. It seemed undisturbed, but Jarrett couldn’t have missed it. In fact, he’d probably found it just as exciting a read as the best-sellers he’d talked of last night over dinner.

  She wondered if that was why he seemed so relaxed. Or perhaps he’d still been studying it when he heard her step outside the office and he’d flung himself on the chaise to pretend an ease he didn’t feet.

  The question wasn’t whether he’d read it, that was sure. It was what, if anything, he intended to do with the information. Would he call everyone on her list and suggest that they didn’t want to be involved in the auction, after all?

  She’d find out soon enough, Kit supposed. If her dream dates began to collapse like falling dominoes... Well, she’d deal with that when and if it happened.

  “Who let you in, anyway?” she asked. “Nobody’s supposed to be in any of the offices without a partner present.”

  “Nobody,” he admitted. “I just waved at Rita, because she was on the telephone, and came on up. You know, Kitten, I’ve been thinking about it, and you’re right.”

  The man was like quicksilver, she thought warily. She could think of a half dozen subjects he might be referring to, and the only thing she was certain of was—whatever the subject—he was up to no good. “I’m right about what?”

  “Needing volunteers. So here I am.” He sat up, arms outstretched as if to embrace the job. “I’ve told my secretary not to count on me being in the office for the rest of the week so I can devote myself to you.”

  “Oh, joy,” Kit said faintly.

  Jarrett grinned. “I knew you’d be thrilled. I’ve already started, in fact.”

  Kit wasn’t sure she wanted to know what he meant, but she asked anyway. “With what?”

  “Rita put a call through a few minutes ago, and—”

  “Rita let you talk to one of my clients?”

  Jarrett shook his head sadly. “There’s no need to shout, Kitten. And you don’t have to go storming downstairs and fire her, either. Of course she didn’t let me talk to a client.”

  Kit’s heart started to beat again. “Then who?”

  “It was only the concierge person at the Englin Hotel. The one you were talking to at the banquet that night.”

  “Carl? What did he want?”

  “He was phoning to tell you they’ve had a cancellation the night of the auction. Something about a wedding coming apart at the seams.”

  “What’s that got to do with the auction?”

  “He wondered if we’d like to have the ballroom instead, since it’s available now. I told him we would.”

  We, Kit thought, almost amused. He’d gone from volunteer to decision maker in record time. Then the importance of what he’d said hit her like a rock slide.

  “Jarrett—” Her voice was little more than a squeak, and she had to stop and clear her throat. “You’ve been in that ballroom. You know perfectly well it holds two thousand people. The Westmoreland Room holds two hundred, tops.”

  “Yes. That’s the beauty of it. We’ll be able to make twenty times as much money on the tickets alone.”

  “But only if we sell twenty times the tickets. If we don’t, the place will look like a ghost town.”

  He shook his head sadly. “I worry about you sometimes, Kitten. Such a lack of self-confidence.”

  “Can’t you see I’m just being realistic? Two hundred people in the Westmoreland Room will be seen as an overwhelming success. Put the same two hundred in that enormous ballroom, and everyone in town will be talking about what a shame it is the auction fell flat. Dammit, Jarrett—” She paused. Talking to him was going to get her nowhere. She reached for the telephone.

  “But I thought you were certain of success. You did say ticket sales were running ahead of what you’d hoped, didn’t you?”

  “Not that far ahead.”

  “Who are you calling, by the way?”

  “Carl, so I can tell him the auction will be in the Westmoreland Room as originally planned.”

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you?”

  The faux innocence in his voice made Kit consider hitting him over the head with the phone. “Tell me what?”

  “The main reason he called to ask about shifting the auction. Somebody else wants to rent the Westmoreland Room that night.”

  Kit put the phone down and slowly sank into her chair.

  “Good,” Jarrett said. “I’m glad you’re finally relaxing. It’s no easier to seduce you sitting than standing, you know—you’re perfectly safe to sit down in my presence.”

  This is not relaxing, she thought. This is a state of total nervous collapse.

  But admitting that he’d so neatly boxed her into a corner would only gratify him, and she’d be darned if she’d give him any extra reason to feel triumphant.

  “With two tho
usand people,” she said grimly, “we’ll need a lot more hors d’oeuvres. Which means, as soon as you finish the list of nearby grocers and food distributors, you can start on the suburban supermarkets and ask them to donate, too.”

  Though it was the best shot in her armory at the moment, she wasn’t surprised when Jarrett shrugged it off. “Toss me the phone book. And by the way, I brought you something.”

  “Another gift? I’m sorry, but I only have one dartboard.”

  “Oh, it’s not the swimsuit photo. That will take another week, at least.” He reached behind the chaise and handled her a flat rectangular box, about the size that would hold a dress, wrapped in heavy paper that looked exactly like the brocade draperies in the windows of Milady Lingerie.

  Which was a dead giveaway of where it had come from, Kit thought with a touch of foreboding.

  She kept her voice deliberately casual. There was no sense in overreacting. The fact that he gave her something certainly didn’t mean she had to wear it. “This is the white lace something, I suppose?” She tugged the cream-colored ribbons loose and slid a fingernail under the strip of tape that held the paper tight.

  Jarrett frowned. “I thought you’d decided on black. In any case, no, it’s not that.”

  Kit’s hand slipped. Oh, great, she thought. Now what’s he come up with? “You mean you haven’t finished it? What kind of a designer are you, anyway, taking all this time?”

  “Oh, my part’s finished. But I had to special order flesh-colored tissue paper so you could stuff it properly, and that hasn’t arrived yet.”

  She picked up the closest object, a glass paperweight that Alison had given her last Christmas, and threw it at him.

  He fielded it expertly. “Nice pitch, Deevers. You can join my baseball team anytime you want.”

  Kit warily lifted the lid off the box, as if the contents were hissing. Inside, wrapped in more satiny paper, she could see a gleam of sapphire blue.

  “I should warn you, it didn’t come from Milady. I only had it wrapped there.”

  “Why doesn’t that comfort me?” Kit muttered. She pulled the paper loose to reveal the chiffon harem outfit she’d modeled at the debs’ fashion show—the ensemble she’d been wearing when she first saw him.

  “Just a little remembrance of a special occasion,” he said modestly. “Besides, it’s exactly the color of your eyes.”

  “If you try to tell me that you noticed that at the fashion show—”

  “But I did,” he protested. “Right along with your magnificent shoulder blades.”

  “You enjoyed that display, didn’t you?” She put the lid on the box. “And now the costume’s all mine, so I can do as I like with it—right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. I’ll make sure to pass it on to whichever lady bids highest for you.”

  He thoughtfully rubbed his jaw. “So that whenever I look at her, I’ll think of you? Kitten, I had no idea you possessed such a romantic soul!”

  “The next thing I throw at you,” she warned, “will be heavier and harder to catch.”

  “Yourself?”

  She picked up her dictionary and hefted it experimentally.

  “Excuse me,” Jarrett said quickly, “but I really do have work to do. Where’s that list of grocers?”

  He reached for the telephone book. Then he pulled the stool away from her drawing board and toward the corner of her desk, setting it right next to her chair.

  Another deliberate maneuver. Kit told herself, which will be best ignored.

  Dismissing him from her mind was easier said than done, however. Her senses were atingle with his nearness. A hint of his cologne wafted through the air to tickle her nose, the warmth of his body seemed to reach out to her, the soft rustle of his shirt was almost a whisper in her ear. From the corner of her eye, she could see the way his soft, dark hair curved around his ear, and the fine pores of his skin.

  “You know, Kitten,” he said suddenly.

  Kit jumped as if an ice cube had been slipped down her back.

  “What you said a little while ago about throwing yourself at me—”

  Automatically, she defended herself. “I didn’t say anything like that. You jumped to conclusions.”

  He said plaintively, “You are the most contrary woman I’ve ever met.”

  “I thought that’s what you liked about me.”

  “Oh, it is. Nevertheless—”

  “So maybe,” Kit said thoughtfully, “if my main attraction for you is that I don’t want to sleep with you—”

  “I wouldn’t go quite that far,” he mused. “But do go on. You were saying?”

  “Then if I pretend to be eager, you’ll lose interest?”

  Jarrett’s eyes brightened. “I don’t know. Shall we try it and find out?”

  “How about if I think it over and let you know?”

  “Cold feet, Kitten?” he chided. “I never thought you’d be afraid to take a risk.”

  He went back to his list, and Kit stared at her desk blotter.

  The trouble was, she realized, he was right. She was afraid. Not of him, but of herself. If she let down her guard for an instant, the attraction she couldn’t deny feeling for him would overwhelm her like a tsunami.

  And if that happened, she was terrified that the pleasure he offered—the fun he had promised an affair with him would be—might just seem worth the risk.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SHE WAS CRAZY even to consider the possibility of having an affair with him, and Kit knew it. But recognizing the insanity didn’t make it go away.

  She had honestly had no idea, until that moment of realization, how deeply she had let herself become mired in thinking about and reacting to Jarrett.

  The attraction she felt was perfectly understandable, of course. Jarrett was a force to be reckoned with, a masculine presence any woman was apt to find as heady as the best vintage of the century. And since Kit had been thrown into closer contact with him than most women had the opportunity to experience, it was no wonder she was feeling the effects.

  Now that she’d paused to think it over, Kit could see exactly where she’d made her mistake. She’d taken a wrong turn clear back at the beginning. She’d assumed that because her first encounters with him had given her a bad reaction, she would continue to be immune to his charm.

  But it hadn’t worked out that way. The vaccination hadn’t taken, and now she was suffering the consequences—which were threatening to be as messy and inconvenient as a flu virus.

  She wanted to put her head on her desk blotter and cry in frustration. Instead, she sat up straighter and tried to ignore him.

  The only sound she could hear was the scratch of Jarrett’s fountain pen against the fibers of the notepad on which he was writing some kind of list. From the very corner of her eye, she couldn’t read the words, but each was neat and almost elegant, laid out by a fine gold nib in coal-black ink against the yellow paper.

  His pen resembled green marble, but he held it not like cold stone but as if it was a warm and living extension of his hand. He wielded the instrument with easy grace, almost as if it was a sensual pleasure—with just enough pressure to achieve the desired result. Just as he no doubt would caress a lover’s skin...

  Great job you’re doing of ignoring him, Deevers, she told herself tartly. Why not just go hang yourself right now and have it over with?

  “Kitty!” Susannah’s panicked voice echoed down the stairs. “Are you down there? The computer ate my logo! Please come and make the damned thing give it back!”

  Jarrett lifted the nib of his pen from the paper and gave Kit a quizzical look.

  She shrugged. “Alison’s the practical one, Susannah’s the visionary, I’m the technician. When the computer needs discipline, they both scream for me.”

  His voice was full of lazy humor. “And Kitten rides to the rescue?”

  Not quite, Kit wanted to say. In this case, it’s Susannah who’s doing the rescuing.

&nb
sp; The air that stirred in the hallway as Kit passed through felt cool against her face. She hadn’t realized how warm her office was. Apparently, another of Jarrett’s talents was being able to raise room temperature faster than a half dozen halogen lamps.

  Susannah was standing beside the computer station, staring unbelievingly at an absolutely black screen. Not a good sign, Kit thought, but she tried to keep her voice light. “I haven’t seen a monitor that looks like that one since they invented screen savers. And even then it was in a museum.”

  Susannah closed her eyes and put both hands to her temples.

  “I’m sure you’ve already tried all the obvious fixes?”

  Susannah nodded. “At least three times each,” she said drearily. “With no results. What did I do? Crash the whole thing?”

  “Oh, no. The monitor may have blown, but the computer sounds fine, so all your data is probably still there. It’s just that without being able to see what we’re doing... You did save it, didn’t you?”

  “Only the first version. Not the changes I’d just made.”

  Kit sighed. “Well, I’m afraid they’re history.” A half dozen keystrokes later, she leaned back in her chair. “Hey, Sue. You can open your eyes now.”

  Cautiously, Susannah did, and sighed in relief when she saw her logo once again displayed. “Then I didn’t blow it up?”

  “You didn’t even lose your most recent work.”

  “Kit, you darling—I owe you anything you want. Name it.”

  “I’ll remember that. But I didn’t do much, really.”

  “I don’t care—it feels like plenty.” Susannah sat at the keyboard again, and Kit went downstairs.

  The break had served, like a fresh breeze, to clear her head and restore her sense of balance. She’d be all right now.

  The whole experience of finding herself actually attracted to the man had probably been fortunate, she told herself. Shocking as the realization had been, it was better to know what was going on than to continue naively down a path that would lead only to trouble. She was lucky to see the truth while there was still time to draw back.

  Now that she knew what she was dealing with, she was no longer in any real danger of falling for the man. She’d treat this incredible crush on him just as she would a head cold—an unpleasant but not life-threatening condition that would soon run its course and be nothing but memory.