Shopping for a Billionaire's Fiancee

by Julia Kent

  I stand my ground, planting my hands on my hips and making sure my junk is right there.

  “My house. My junk. Don’t like it? Too bad.”

  “AAAAIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE,” Shannon continues, diving behind the kitchen counter and managing to grab her trench coat at the same time. Her little red heels skitter on the marble tile like cockroaches fleeing the light.

  I know I should pay attention to her but if I look at her my junk will respond. And if my junk responds, Andrew will have yet more fodder for making fun of me, and given a choice between responding to Shannon’s naked form and giving Andrew rope to hang me with, I—

  Wait a minute.

  What the hell am I doing?

  “Now I know why Dad picked me to be CEO,” Andrew says with a snicker as he rubs his eyes and stares at my—

  “Hey!” Shannon shouts, stopping her screaming. “James isn’t that shallow.”

  Andrew and I just snort.

  “Well, okay,” she backpedals. “But quit with the penith wars.”

  “Besides,” Andrew says, standing and reaching for his belt buckle. His voice is a bit slurred. “Shannon can’t really judge who’s got the bigger one until she sees—”

  “DUCK!” I shout at Shannon, who maddeningly just stands there, snorting, eyes on Andrew.

  “Let the better man win,” Andrew continues.

  “Keep your pants on, bro,” I say in a deadly voice. If he goes there, he’ll leave me no choice. “And you,” I say to Shannon. “Didn’t you hear me? Duck!”

  “Quack quack,” she says, eyes on Andrew’s hands as he unbuckles and unbuttons.

  “Shannon!”

  She shrugs. In that moment, she looks exactly like her mother.

  She gives me no choice. He doesn’t, either, because now I see his Calvin Klein-like form as he pulls his pants down and—

  I tackle my own brother.

  “Your junk is touching me!” he squeals. We’re wrestling on the ground now, the button of his jeans scraping against my arm. I grab at his belt buckle to pull his pants up.

  “That’s what she said,” Shannon mumbles.

  Andrew stops cold.

  “No. Just....no. Can we put that joke to bed?”

  “We need to put you to bed,” I growl.

  “That’s not some kinky offer for a threesome, is it? Because, dude, I’m not into that—”

  I jump off him and go into the kitchen for a beer or a cyanide tablet. Whichever I find first.

  “Of all the times not to have a spray bottle,” she says. “You two are being ridiculous.”

  “Andrew’s being drunk,” I declare, pouring myself a double shot of pisco and giving it a quick death down my throat.

  “I’m not drunk,” Andrew shouts as he grabs the television remote and tries to swipe the buttons. “Hey! What happened to my phone? It’s broken. I need to get a ride home.”

  Shannon stands and pulls a phone out of her boobs. It’s like watching a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat, because she’s naked and wearing only a trenchcoat.

  “Which driver is it tonight?” She knows how our limo service works.

  “Gerald.”

  “Calling now. He needs to leave.” She holds up a finger as the call goes through and within twenty seconds Gerald’s on his way. “And,” she adds, “So do I.” She reaches into her trenchcoat and grasps her car keys.

  No.

  NO.

  “If we’re riding in the same limo,” Andrew says as he struggles to button up, “do you mind if we stop at that twenty-four hour Greek place? I’m starving. And my head feels like someone dropped a forklift on it.”

  He slumps down on the couch and is snoring in seconds.

  Shannon looks at him with a pained expression as she clutches her coat closed. Her phone has magically disappeared. Her eyes turn to me, slowly cataloguing the landscape of my body. I don’t mind. This is the first chance we’ve had to talk since Andrew so rudely interrupted us, and as she looks at me, taking in my legs, then hips, then the part that reacts to all this attention (that would be my heart, you gutter-minded naughty beast...), I remember that she started this second act of our night with the phrase “Let’s make up.”

  “You came over to—” I almost say “apologize” but realize that would be a catastrophic mistake.

  “To try to mend things,” she replies in a quiet voice. Distracted. She’s really watching me. I have no self-confidence issues, no self-consciousness being naked around her. Around anyone, really. You play enough sports at a prep school and in college and you get used to being nude around other people. It’s a kind of armor. Being shy gives people the impression that you have something to hide. Something to be ashamed of. Something to pick on.

  I look down at my own body, eyes crawling over the same flesh she’s observing.

  Nothing to be ashamed of here.

  From the look on Shannon’s face, she seems to agree.

  “I’m sorry,” I say with a slow sigh, realizing I’m the one who has to cross the gap. After all, she snuck into my apartment in the dead of night wearing nothing but a coat and high heels.

  That’s the male equivalent of the best apology ever. She doesn’t need words.

  Her eyes don’t meet mine. They’re stuck somewhere on my hips, looking at my ass.

  I tighten it.

  Her eyes widen, pupils dilating.

  Hold on.

  I thought women weren’t aroused sexually from visual cues. Has Men’s Health been lying to me all these years? Esquire, too? All those magazines I’ve been stuck reading in doctor’s offices or international business lounges with crappy Wifi say the same thing: women are slower to warm up. Women aren’t aroused by images and videos. Men are programmed to be turned on by what they see, women by what they feel emotionally.

  A lovely red flush covers Shannon’s face and chest as she finally drags her eyes to meet mine.

  I’m about to marry an outlier.

  Attagirl.

  Then: Bzzzzz.

  Shannon’s breasts vibrate. She reaches in and grabs her phone, holding up the screen.

  “Gerald’s here.”

  “Please stay,” I beg as Gerald knocks on the door.

  Panic fills her face. “Shouldn’t you put on a robe?” She reaches into her coat and buttons something, then tightens the sash around her waist.

  Now she looks like any other business woman on the street in the Financial district. Except for the sexy shoes.

  I look down at my body. “Why? Gerald’s seen it.” To prove a point, I go to the front door and open it. Gerald’s standing there, face impassive.

  “Evening, Mr. McCormick,” he says, looking past me. “Is your brother ready?”

  Gerald doesn’t even twitch at my nakedness.

  Shannon, however, grabs my arm and drags me into my bedroom.

  “You can’t do that to people!” she hisses, rifling through my bathroom and coming out with a blue robe she gave me for Christmas.

  “Do what?”

  “Be naked in front of them.”

  “You don’t like it when I’m naked in front of you?”

  “Not me. Andrew. Gerald.”

  “Andrew came over last night, ate period food, got drunk and cried about Amanda half the night, passed out on my couch and suggested a threesome. I can do whatever the hell I want to do in front of Andrew, Shannon.”

  “But poor Gerald!” Her eyes narrow. “Wait. Period food? Cried about Amanda?”

  I ignore that part. “Poor Gerald is a sculptor when he’s not driving a limo. I’ve been a model for him before.”

  “Quit making stuff up!”

  “I’m not. I don’t lie, Shannon.” We’re veering into very explosive territory now.

  “I didn’t say you were lying. It’s just...unnerving. How you feel like you own the world.”

  Ah. That’s what this is about. A flash of our very first dinner together courses through me, turning from image and memory to blood and bone.
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  “You’re upset with me because I feel like I have the right to have my own opinions and to be confident in them.” I don’t phrase it as a question.

  “Sometimes you don’t think about how other people will feel when you—”

  “Because I don’t.”

  “You don’t care?”

  “I don’t think about other people when I’m doing or saying something that is true to myself.”

  Confusion clouds her face. “That’s so...”

  I reach for her hands, my warmth in stark contrast to her chilly fingers. Maybe I can transfer some certainty along with a little heat. “It’s not that I don’t care about other people’s feelings. It’s that I don’t think about other people when I’m making a decision about who I am.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  Her question hangs in the air between us.

  “Mr. McCormick?” Gerald calls out. “I have your brother ready to go. Is Ms. Jacoby coming as well?”

  My eyes burn, matched by her intensity as we look at each other.

  “Please stay,” I ask, turning away and walking out to where Gerald has Andrew drinking a cup of coffee, leaning against the wall in front of the main door.

  He grunts a hello and stares at his cup.

  “You need help?” I ask Gerald, eying Andrew with skepticism. He’s got more muscle on him than you’d think, and when it’s deadweight...

  “No, he’s fine.” I hear Shannon’s shoes click clack on my floor behind me. Gerald eyes me in my robe, then looks at Shannon. He’s smarter than he looks, but that’s because he looks like a pile of lightly-baked bread dough shoved together to form a human being. You’d never guess a guy that big and burly has the heart of an artist in him.

  “I don’t need a ride home,” Shannon says quietly, her hand pressing into my shoulder, rubbing in circles over the terrycloth robe.

  I relax.

  Gerald’s face changes into what passes for a smile. He looks like bread that’s split down the center and baked. “As long as you’re fine, then. And Mr. McCormick?”

  Andrew and I both answer, “Yes?”

  Gerald eyes Andrew up and down. “I meant Declan.” He looks at me. “We’re starting a new session for nudes next month. If you’re not traveling too much, the class would really appreciate having you model again.”

  “Again?” Shannon says, clearing her throat pointedly.

  Andrew’s just staring at his cup of coffee like it’s the Oracle of Delphi.

  “Sure,” I answer. “Just call Grace and set it up for me.”

  “Will do.” And with that, Andrew and Gerald are gone and I’m blissfully alone with a woman who is looking at me like she just caught me with lipstick on my collar and a blow up doll with painted lips.

  “You’re a nude model for art classes?”

  “In my spare time.” I try disarming her with my most charming smile.

  I fail. “I am supposed to be your spare time. You barely have time for dinner most weeks, but you can prance around naked in front of a bunch of women and women who use their hands to recreate your ass—” She continues her nagging, but that’s all I really needed to hear.

  Ah, jealousy.

  It cures so many ills.

  Women hate jealousy in their men. Oh, they want a touch of it—just enough to feel wanted. Special. Craved.

  Men, on the other hand, love it when their women get jealous.

  It means we get more sex.

  Makes no sense, but there it is. As Shannon’s heated rebuke continues I try to hide my self-satisfied (she would call it smug) smile, but I fail.

  “Don’t laugh at me!”

  I grab the sash of her coat and yank it open, pulling wide the two sides of the coat with a snap that sends her buttons flying.

  “Dec! What are you doing?”

  Oh, I think it’s clear what I’m doing.

  I pull her coat off, drop my robe, and pick her up in my arms.

  “Hey! Put me down! We’re talking! I have more to say—”

  I cut her off with a kiss, then throw her on the bed.

  “You can’t just—”

  Another kiss. She moans, that kitten-like little sound so sexy in the back of her throat. She starts to kick her heels off and I break away.

  “Leave them on. Consider it my birthday gift.”

  “But I have a birthday present for you!”

  “This is all I need.” And it’s true. She knows I don’t like making a big deal out of birthdays. The fact that she accepts that and doesn’t force it is part of why we’re such a good fit.

  She kisses me this time, then pauses as if she’s thought of something.

  “What?” I ask, my fingers fully engaged in brilliant make up sex. The rest of my body is about to follow.

  “I’m, um....you know. It’s the end of that time of the month.”

  “Never stopped me before.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Shannon, there is nothing about your body that I mind.”

  And then I show her how true that is.

  * * *

  “You could model with me,” I inform her in the morning as we wake up with bed head and hot abs. The slopes and valleys of her body deserve to be permanently preserved for antiquity. For future generations to gasp and admire. She’s warm and soft and best of all—mine.

  She snorts. “I’m about as likely to do that as I am to learn how to ski.”

  “You don’t know how to ski?”

  “I like having intact knees and living without a traumatic brain injury. I’m weird that way.”

  “Marie and Jason never took you?”

  She gets quiet, a lazy finger making trails over my chest. “It’s expensive. Amy was on the school ski club, but no. Not me. We didn’t have the money back then. I tried once, with Steve. I’m still in therapy to get over it,” she jokes.

  Steve. The Ex. Just who I want to have mentioned while we’re naked in bed.

  “Besides, I’m a natural klutz.”

  “You’re really not,” I stress. “No one who can use a tongue, lips, two hands, a nipple and a toe like you did last night all at the same time can be accused of having poor coordination of any kind whatsoever.” Her comment about money makes me resolve to have Grace book us for a series of ski weekends in Stowe at a place with good lessons, an oversized hot tub, a giant stone fireplace and room service. Shannon might even make it to the slopes for an hour a day.

  She slaps my chest and tweaks my nipple before she’s off, ass all I can see, and then she’s gone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Making coffee.”

  It’s like I’ve been handed someone else’s good karma.

  I slide my arms behind my head and stare at the ceiling fan, running through the day’s events. Tonight is it. Greg’s supposed to have set everything up, and we go to Le Portmanteau, but Shannon hasn’t said a word. As soon as she heads out for work I’ll give him a call.

  Carrying two mugs full of steaming coffee, Shannon comes back into the room with a funny look on her face.

  “So, about tonight. Are you free?”

  This is taking an interesting turn.

  I sit up and take the cup she offers me. Propping a bunch of pillows against the headboard, I pat the empty space next to me. She nestles in and we sit like an old married couple, starting the day with a leisurely cup of coffee and an awkwardly uncomfortable conversation about—

  “—and Greg needs me to do that mystery shop.”

  Our future.

  “He what?” I ask, pretending to be angry. She brought this up the other day, the same day our dads decided to turn into pro wrestlers, but I feign ignorance.

  “I know,” she soothes. “I know he promised and I promised I wouldn’t do any more mystery shops for him, but this is the one I mentioned earlier. Le Portmanteau.”

  “I had children pee on me so I could get that promise,” I remind her. Last Christmas Shannon stepped in to cover for h
er sister, Carol, as a mall Santa’s elf. Greg had an emergency and roped me into playing Santa for an hour and a half. I’m still having flashbacks after having Shannon’s cat, Chuckles, claw my thighs while wearing a reindeer costume and getting into a fistfight with a Russian mobster.

  Yeah. It was as weird as it sounds.

  Worst of all, I still get #HOTSANTA messages on Twitter and a steady stream of pictures sent to me of various people in elf costumes.

  Most of which involve candy canes in places you do not want to see.

  “I know you did,” she says, contrite. “But Greg already set it up.”

  “Have fun,” I say, taking a deliberate sip of my coffee.

  “Oh, um...I thought you’d go with me.”

  “Why would I want to do that? You need help counting the level of paint discoloration on the doorjambs of the coat room?” Mystery shoppers actually do this kind of crap. I only know because Shannon’s explained it to me a thousand times.

  “I need help eating a delicious meal!”

  A meal I’m paying for.

  With my life.

  I sigh, a sound of frustration that appears to be convincing enough to make her look at me with such earnest persuasion. “Please? It’ll be fun. And for once, I’ll be the one treating you to an outrageously overpriced meal. Greg says we can get two bottles of wine off the menu and they have to be priced over $100 each!”

  Greg is a dead man.

  I need to talk to Andrew about having Anterdec just acquire Consolidated Eval-shop so we can stop dealing with all of this mystery shop bullshit. Make him an offer he can’t refuse.

  “Declan?” Shannon’s wide, warm eyes catch mine and I sink into them, her body lush and all mine. She has no idea that tonight is a set up. That I have all the food planned down to the flavored mint toothpicks. That a piece of tiramisu will be delivered with my mom’s ring resting at the bottom of a glass of Champagne.

  And that by this time tomorrow morning she will be the confirmed future Mrs. Declan McCormick.

  I can’t keep up the charade.

  “Okay. Fine,” I say, pretending to concede. “But this is it. No more mystery shops.”

  “Agreed!”

  “And I need another cup of coffee,” I mutter. Might as well milk this for all it’s worth.