Sleeping with a Billionaire - Complete Series (An Alpha Billionaire Romance Love Story)

by Nella Tyler

  I knew I shouldn’t have let Zeke kiss me the first time. I definitely shouldn’t have let him kiss me a second time; and maybe most importantly, I shouldn’t have let him get Brady involved in any of our dates. I had gotten personal with a client, and now I was going to have to deal with it myself. I had kept all of those details from Katie in my reports—and now I felt guiltier than ever. I had to wonder: should I go to her and ask to be taken off of the assignment? I thought that I could manage my feelings, but I had already let things get too far with Zeke. My heart beat faster in my chest and I tried to think of what the best solution would be. Of course, the first halfway decent guy I meet happens to be a client. Of course he is. I sighed and pushed the idea of Zeke out of my mind, telling myself I could handle the situation.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Zeke

  I sat in my living room, staring at my TV, pretending that I was watching the show flashing across the screen but actually thinking. I had asked six women out since Katie had called me to give me permission to start “homework dating,” and every single one of them had turned me down. I probably should have at least been grateful for the fact that none of them had laughed in my face or told me I was an asshole, but it didn’t make it any easier to know that of the six women I had asked out, none of them had wanted to give me a chance.

  I had had enough pride not to push the point and keep myself from asking why they didn’t want to date me, but as I sat in my apartment, feeling more than a little sorry for myself, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something fundamentally wrong with me. Even after the coaching I’d gotten from Natalie, even after the assurance that I was ready for dating, none of the women I’d gone after as practice dates on my own had wanted me.

  I checked the time; it was nine o’clock at night—not exactly late, especially not for a Friday, but an awkward time for calling anyone who might commiserate with me. I closed my eyes, resisting the urge to text my friend Jim; he’d be out at a bar, chatting a bunch of women up—probably getting shot down just as much as I had been, but because he did it all the time, he wouldn’t care. I wasn’t about to disturb his night out with my pity party.

  You could talk to Natalie. You’re paying for a dating coach; she should be able to at least give you some tips on how to get a better response. I dismissed the idea almost as quickly as I’d thought of it. Natalie was my coach: that didn’t mean that I could call or text her whenever I wanted. She had a life of her own and a kid to take care of. But Brady—at three years old—was probably already in bed or very close to it. How much harm could it really do? If she’s busy, she won’t answer your text. The temptation was too real. I groaned, scrubbing at my face with my hands. I felt pathetic. Just send a quick text to see if she’s free, and if she doesn’t answer, give up on it for the night. I took a deep breath and picked up my phone off of the coffee table where I’d left it.

  I typed and deleted, typed and deleted, typed and deleted until I finally had a message I thought would be short enough without being demanding or sounding pathetic. How’s Friday night treating you? I tapped send before I could think about it too much and put my phone aside, standing and walking into the kitchen to give myself something to do. I didn’t want a beer; I definitely didn’t want anything harder than a beer—the idea of drinking my sorrows away, all alone in my apartment, seemed even more pathetic than contacting Natalie had been. I settled for a glass of water and a bowl of popcorn, telling myself that waiting for the popcorn to finish would at least kill three minutes’ worth of time.

  By the time I sat back down on the couch with my bowl of popcorn, Natalie had replied. Relaxing and watching a movie that isn’t a cartoon or a sing-along! My Friday night is terribly exciting. You? I considered bluffing, but there was no point in it. I bit the bullet and replied honestly. Or at least mostly honestly.

  I’m wallowing in self-pity—I asked four women out this week and not a single one of them said yes. I could use a pep talk if you’re not enjoying your relaxation too much to offer it. I put the phone aside so I wouldn’t be tempted to stare at the screen waiting for a reply and flipped through the channels for a while, eating popcorn. When I heard the chirp that told me that there was a new text message, I made myself count to twenty before I looked at it.

  Only four? If you promise you’re not drunk, you can call me if you want. I laughed in spite of myself. I set aside my popcorn, took a sip of water to get rid of the salty, buttery taste in my mouth, and took a deep breath before tapping the icon to call her.

  The other end of the line rang twice. “Hey, Zeke,” Natalie said; in the background I could faintly hear dialogue from something on the TV—not clearly enough to make out what was being said, just that it was between two women. “So, you’re getting rejected?”

  “Ouch,” I said, smiling wryly. “When you say it that way, it hurts that much more.” She laughed softly.

  “Sorry, I should have been more delicate,” she said. The warmth in her voice, the friendly bantering quality was so soothing in a weird way I couldn’t define. “Four women?”

  “Six, actually,” I admitted. “I was trying to salvage the little bit of pride I had left to me.”

  “Six isn’t bad,” she said. I thought I heard her moving around somehow—though I couldn’t say just how.

  “Six women decided they didn’t want to even grab coffee or a drink with me,” I pointed out. “Six women in three days.”

  “There are a couple of points I’d like to make before we get to the pep talk portion of this conversation,” Natalie told me.

  “You have the floor,” I said.

  “First: you’ve only asked on average three women a day. That tells me that you’re being at least a little selective in who you’re asking—which, believe it or not, is kind of an advanced trait compared to some of the guys I’ve worked with.”

  “I shudder to think that three women a day is a small number of date requests,” I said, shaking my head.

  “One of the guys I coached about six months ago, once he got the go-ahead, asked ten women out in one day—and predictably, he got turned down ten times.”

  I laughed, trying to picture a man running up to every woman he saw around him to ask her out. “Point taken.”

  “So you’re being selective in who you’re asking out—that’s good. The second point I’d like to make is that you’re at least asking women out at all.”

  “Of course, I am. That’s the whole point of this,” I countered.

  “Again: you’d think it’d be obvious, but I had another guy that I coached that when he got clearance to start asking women out, he couldn’t pluck up the courage to do it.”

  “This isn’t the part of the conversation that’s the pep talk?” I took another sip of my water, smiling—and feeling better—in spite of myself.

  “No,” Natalie said, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “This is that part: dating is a numbers game in a very real way.”

  “But the guy who asked out ten women…” I let the end of the sentence trail off unfinished.

  “He took it to an extreme,” she told me. “No matter how hot you are, no matter how wealthy or stylish or great, you’re not going to be a match for every woman on the planet. I guarantee you that even when he was famous—before he was married—Brad Pitt got turned down at least a dozen times for dates. Johnny Depp has been shot down. Prince probably got shot down, too—though I’m not convinced that he wasn’t some kind of alien from a race that existed solely for the purposes of having sex.” I laughed.

  “I take that point,” I said, laughing again. “Okay, fine. Everyone gets rejected sometimes.”

  “You have to ask a lot of women out to get a yes, and women have to ask a lot of guys to get a yes, too.” I imagined Natalie shrugging. “That’s why when you get to the actual matchmaking part of your contract, it’s not like you’re only going to be set up with one person.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said. “How many chances am I
going to get?”

  Natalie snorted. “Usually Katie or someone else compiles a list of at least five or six women who would be a decent match for a client, based on reports and interviews and profiles. So with them, you won’t have to worry about getting turned down—they’re already going to have interests that go along with yours, and they’re going to be interested in going on a date with you.” I considered that.

  “I’m trying to decide if it’s more pathetic that I can’t get dates with women I just ask out of the blue, or if it’s just practical to go with women who have been pre-screened for me,” I said after a moment.

  “It’s practical,” Natalie told me. “If I weren’t working for the company, I’d use them.”

  “Maybe you’d have ended up one of my matches,” I suggested playfully.

  She chuckled. “Maybe! But who knows? Maybe whoever coached me to be a better date wouldn’t be done with me until after you’d already found your Ms. Right. Or vice versa.”

  “That’d be a shame,” I said, shaking my head. “What are you watching?”

  “Just a dumb comedy,” she said. “You? I can hear the TV on your end.”

  “I have no idea,” I admitted. “I’ve just been flipping through the channels. We’re both such thrilling, exciting people.”

  “Very much so,” Natalie agreed, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Why aren’t you out at a bar asking women out there? You’d have great success.”

  “I don’t want to ask a bunch of drunk women for their phone numbers,” I told her. “I’d rather be able to tell myself that women who are sober and fully aware are interested in me.” I paused for a moment; an idea tickled the back of my mind, a temptation so great I couldn’t resist it any more than I’d been able to resist the urge to reach out to Natalie in the first place. “Would I be totally out of base if I suggested that since we’re both not doing anything exciting on a Friday night, we could do nothing but watch TV together?”

  “Over the phone? Or Skype?” I pressed my lips together. She’ll either go for it or she’ll fire you as a client.

  “In person,” I replied.

  “I don’t know,” she said, sounding flustered. “Brady’s in bed, and I can’t go anywhere.”

  “I could come over—if you don’t mind,” I told her. “And, it wouldn’t be a big deal; we’d just sit around watching TV, maybe have a glass of wine. Celebrate being adults who can stay up past nine.” There was a long silence on the other end and I thought at first that maybe the call had dropped. After I confirmed that wasn’t the case, I thought that Natalie would tell me off as soon as she got over her shock at my stupid, horrible proposition.

  “I guess it wouldn’t be a problem,” she said finally. “As long as you’re okay with my house being a mess of toys and the fact that I look like a slob—not professional at all. I’m not putting on makeup for you.”

  I laughed. “It’s not a real date,” I pointed out. “We’ll just be hanging out, watching TV, reveling in how exciting our lives are.” There was another long pause and I cringed. I could definitely see why the women I’d asked out in the past few days had turned me down.

  “Okay,” Natalie said. “You can come over. I’ll text you my address.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Natalie

  I had no idea what made me tell Zeke it was okay for him to come over; it was a complete and total violation of the professional code I’d agreed to. But I was bored and—I had to admit—feeling a little lonely, sitting on my couch watching TV with Brady asleep in his room. As soon as I sent Zeke my address, I rushed into my bedroom; I wasn’t about to put makeup on or get fully dressed the way I would for one of our practice dates, but I also wasn’t about to let him see me in an oversized tee shirt and panties, either.

  I pulled on a pair of jeans that I’d worn earlier in the day, slipped on a bra, and threw a tank top over that. I brushed my hair and managed to pull it back into a messy bun and decided that I didn’t look completely terrible. By the time Zeke knocked quietly on my front door, I was almost vibrating with the nervousness of what it would mean for me to let him into my apartment, even if it was just a social visit, even if nothing at all happened between us. I took a deep breath and unlocked the door, opening it to reveal Zeke on the other side; he had a bottle of wine in his hand, and for a second, just the sight of him—even in a simple pair of jeans and a black tank top—was enough to make my heart stutter in my chest.

  “Hi,” I said shyly. Why am I being shy? I already know him. I know who he is, what he’s like. I tried to push the feeling away and stepped back from the door, gesturing for him to enter. “I told you my house is a mess,” I added, smiling nervously.

  “This is what you consider a mess?” Zeke stepped through the door and kicked off his shoes without me having to ask him, pushing them against the wall where they’d be out of the way. Somehow the fact that he was wearing black socks—not white—was appealing to me. Woman, if you’re examining a guy’s sock choices, you have real problems, I thought firmly. “You didn’t sneak-clean while you were waiting for me to get here, did you?” I laughed and shook my head, closing and locking the door behind him.

  “Hell, no,” I told him—it was honest enough. “I changed into real clothes, but only because I thought it would strain our professional relationship to be seen in pajamas.”

  “You could have just told me to come in pajamas, too, and then it would’ve been a slumber party—not that I’m planning to stay the night.” I pointed to the bottle of wine in his hand.

  “If you’re planning on drinking all of that with me, you’re probably going to sleep on the couch or get a cab; I’m not letting you drive drunk,” I told him firmly.

  “I’ll catch a cab,” he said, smiling slowly. “Got any glasses?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.” They’d been given to me when Alex and I had gotten married; I was just glad that they were neutral—no overt wedding motif or our names or anything like that. I went into the kitchen and Zeke followed me, looking oddly at ease—and even more strangely, just right—in my apartment.

  I got the glasses off of their shelf at the top of the cabinet, and Zeke found a corkscrew in one of my kitchen drawers. In a matter of moments, we were both sipping the wine he’d brought, and I felt the tension in the pit of my stomach start to ease. “Let’s go into the living room; I’ll put something else on TV,” I suggested. In spite of the effects of the wine, I still felt jittery—restless in a way that I hadn’t felt in years.

  I finished off my first glass of wine faster than I would have believed possible while we looked through the Netflix selections, debating each possibility quietly. Zeke He our glasses and I made myself sip more carefully as we finally began watching The Princess Bride. The last thing I wanted was to get drunk before the movie was even a third done; I reminded myself that I had to keep my wits about me.

  We’d both seen the movie at least a dozen times, so in between quoting our favorite lines, we started talking. “I really appreciate you letting me come over,” Zeke told me, refilling our glasses once more. How much wine is even in that bottle? I tried to estimate—it hadn’t seemed that large when I’d first looked at it, but it was definitely starting to effect me, and after three glasses each, it didn’t seem to be empty.

  “I have no idea why I agreed to that,” I admitted, grinning.

  “You felt bad for me, admit it,” he said, mirroring my grin.

  “I did not!” I could feel the heat in my cheeks, and as Zeke shifted on the couch a few feet away from me, I saw a flash of his abdomen—more than enough, as far as I was concerned. I looked at the TV for a few seconds to try and get my composure. “I guess I was feeling lonely, too.”

  “When was the last time you dated someone—like really dated them?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve had a few dates since the divorce,” I said, taking another sip of my wine. It was the best red I’d had in a long time—fruity without being overpoweringly sweet, rich and
full-flavored in my mouth. “But with the job, going out on actual dates is kind of…”

  “A busman’s holiday?” I nodded.

  “You know,” Zeke said, shifting in his seat once more and swallowing down a little more wine, “At the risk of completely overstepping my boundaries here…”

  “That ship has sailed,” I interjected.

  “Anyway,” he said, holding his glass up to the light and looking at its contents for a moment before sipping again, “I think the thing that sort of…gets to me, in a way…is that I haven’t gotten laid in so long.”

  “Oh God,” I said, covering my eyes with my hands. “This is not a safe topic of discussion.”

  “We’re half-tipsy and we’re both adults,” he pointed out. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, trying to regain my composure.

  “It’s been a while for me, too,” I admitted.

  “Well, women are expected to not be all that into sex,” he countered. “I’m not saying that’s accurate or right, but it’s the expectation. Everyone sees a guy who isn’t having sex with however many women he can—or at least with a girlfriend or a wife—and they think there must be something wrong with him.”

  “Are you seriously only doing this matchmaking thing to get laid?”

  Zeke shook his head emphatically. “I want a relationship,” he said. “I want companionship. The whole deal. That’s why I haven’t been getting laid.”

  “Run that by me again?” I knocked back the last of the wine in my glass, and he obligingly refilled both of our glasses; thankfully it seemed like we’d gotten through the whole bottle, finally.

  “I’ve had a few one-night stands here and there,” he explained, “but I hate them. It’s always bad sex when it’s that situation.” I considered that for a moment; I had only had a few one-night stands in my life before I’d met Alex. I nodded my agreement with Zeke’s point. “So, I guess in some stupid way, I thought that if I could get a woman to go on a few dates with me—real dates—then I might actually get laid again finally.” I laughed out loud and hen clapped my hand over my mouth, remembering Brady asleep in his room.