Wicked Billionaire

by Sawyer Bennett

  The door is opened for us, and we are out. No one from my family comes after us, but I never expected them to. They don’t chase after wayward sons or the lowly help.

  The car service waits at the curb, and the driver sees us as we come down the walkway. He jumps out, opening the back door.

  “The Blackwood,” I say curtly, moving to the side to let Bailey in first.

  She slides across the seat. I move in behind her, settling in close so the outside of our legs touch. I didn’t plan that, but I like touching her more than I don’t, so I stay put.

  As the car drives off from the Blackwood mansion, I pull out my phone and dial the hotel concierge. Glancing at Bailey, I ask, “How do you like your steak?”

  She blinks in surprise at the first words I utter since we stormed out. After a hesitation, she replies, “Medium rare.”

  “Baked potato?”

  She nods.

  “Veggies?”

  Another nod.

  When the phone is answered, I identify myself. The concierge stumbles in his effusiveness to help me. I request room service and order us a couple of filets along with the appropriate sides, relief settling in to be out of that toxic environment. Normally, I’d suffer through all the trite talk to cover up the way we ignore each other and my mother’s acidic tongue, but the minute she disparaged Bailey as merely “the help,” I’d lost my shit.

  I know I shocked the hell out of my mother by leaving, but damn… it shocked me that I’d left. I usually battle through these things, employing my own techniques to ignore the worst of it. That cool, iron-clad control I pride myself on seemed to evaporate like morning mist when the sun rises. My nerves twitched, my gut tightened, and my blood pressure spiked high. As I consider those feelings, I realize what a rarity it is to experience those types of anxieties. It’s not within me to be bothered. Somehow, I expect that has more to do with my feelings for Bailey than some inherent loss of ability to control my emotions.

  Bailey sits next to me, her phone now in hand as she surfs through it. She’s patiently waiting for me to say something, but I don’t trust myself right now as I don’t want her to think my anger is directed at her in any way. As such, I ignore her to stare out the window as we traverse the city streets back to the Blackwood. I take measured breaths, try to forget how supremely rude and arrogant my parents were toward my guest, versus their regular rude superiority.

  My dad and sister were being themselves, but my mother was purposefully baiting me. She was not happy I invited Bailey, and she’d made her feelings known in a text exchange we’d had this morning. She felt it was inappropriate from the start that I’d bring my assistant. I disagreed with her, which she didn’t like, and told her to have a place setting for Bailey, or I wouldn’t come.

  Of course, her not having a place setting when we arrived was the first strike against my mother, an embarrassingly obvious message Bailey wasn’t welcome. I should have walked out the door right then.

  “Declan,” Bailey murmurs. I jolt, looking down at her. She nods toward the window, and I see that we’ve arrived at the hotel. I had been so deep in my brooding I hadn’t realized it.

  The driver opens the door for us. I step out, turning to offer my hand to Bailey. She takes it, a repeat of how we had arrived at my parents’ home, except now the lines of tension on her face are deeper. I hate it.

  I usher her into the hotel, straight to the elevator, and up to the family suite. Once we’re inside, I move to the wet bar and open a bottle of red, pouring us each a glass as Bailey goes to the couch. She looks tired.

  I know I am.

  I head over to sit on the couch with enough room to angle toward her. She accepts the glass of wine, and then does something that, for some silly reason, charms the fuck out of me.

  She kicks off her heels, pulls her legs up onto the couch, and draws them underneath her. Angling toward me, she drapes an arm casually over the sofa. Holding her glass out, she murmurs, “Cheers.”

  I smile. “Cheers.”

  We both take a sip, staring at each other over the rims of the glasses. When I lower mine, I say, “I’m sorry about what happened. How my family treated you. It was inexcusable.”

  “It’s fine—”

  “No, it’s not,” I cut in. “I shouldn’t have brought you there. I knew that might happen. Or at least, I knew they’d be their rude and arrogant selves. I didn’t realize they’d be so focused, though. I thought they might abide by some common decency.”

  Bailey gives a wan smile. “Your family is… interesting.”

  “My family is a bunch of assholes,” I mutter. “I’ve been called that a time or two myself, so I know the title is appropriate.”

  Bailey giggles, and I’m glad to see she’s taking this with a bit of humor. “You’re not an asshole.”

  “So magnanimous,” I reply dryly, shaking my head.

  Now I get a full-throated laugh, and fuck… it’s sexy. It’s why I’m in no way offended when she admits, “Okay, I thought you were an asshole when I first met you.”

  “I could tell.” I swirl my wine in my glass with the memory of her cleaning my suite. Who would have thought we’d be where we are today?

  Bailey gives a tiny cough, causing my gaze to move up to her face. She winces slightly as she asks, “Was that… um… a typical dinner?”

  “You mean the formality?” I ask with a wry smile. “Or the multitude of servants who would wipe your ass if you demanded it? Or maybe the fact no one in my family seems to like each other?”

  “All of it,” she replies with a grin.

  “Sadly,” I muse, taking a sip. “That was pretty typical. Horrible conversation because everyone is trying to toot their own horn. Parents not engaged with their kids because, let’s face it… they don’t give a crap. That’s what it was like growing up a Blackwood, so you can see why I didn’t mind going away to boarding school.”

  Her eyes fill with pained sadness, and I give a hard shake of my head.

  “No,” I instruct with a wag of my finger. “You are not allowed to feel sorry for me.”

  “But it’s awful,” she murmurs.

  “It was normal.” She blinks in surprise because my tone conveys I don’t have any bitterness. “I didn’t know—don’t know—any different. If there’s something better out there, it’s beyond me.”

  “Really?” she asks.

  “It was normal,” I assure her.

  “Doesn’t feel normal now, does it? It’s why we left.”

  I’m the one who reels in surprise at that proclamation. And she’s absolutely right… it didn’t feel healthy at all. It felt oppressive. Plus, the tension bothered me, whereas before, I could always let it roll off my back.

  I smile with a feeling of tenderness I don’t quite understand. “Nothing’s been normal since I met you, Miss Robbins.”

  She snickers, then takes a small sip of her wine. When she swallows, she points out, “You used to call me Miss Robbins to put distance between us. Remind me of my place. But now it’s just kind of sexy when you do it.”

  This time, a deep laugh tears free of me, and I like the way it feels. She’s absolutely right about that. Now when I call her Miss Robbins, it is in no way done as a means to keep my distance.

  “You said something to your mom as we were leaving,” Bailey murmurs, and the somber tone has my laugh dying a quick death.

  I nod because I know exactly what she’s remembering. And I hadn’t meant for those words to come out, but they had. Of course, Bailey latched onto them.

  “You implied I was more than an employee,” she says.

  “Yes,” I admit without hesitation. No sense in hiding it. “Which is at odds with what I thought I wanted.”

  “Which was?” she inquires.

  “Life without commitments. No expectations. Minimal ties. All that means there can be no disappointments. Freedom is what I wanted.”

  Bailey frowns as she considers my words. “I can tell you don’t like havin
g feelings. They’re hard for you to reconcile.”

  There’s not much I can say to that except, “True.”

  She nods in understanding. “Just so you know, I’m sort of the same. This wasn’t anything I was looking for or wanted.”

  “And yet here we are,” I murmur.

  “Here we are,” she echoes.

  Silence ensues, and it’s not uncomfortable. We digest the admissions we just exchanged, Bailey staring into her wine and me staring at Bailey.

  She’s so beautiful, and it has more to do with who she is inside than outside.

  Weird.

  “Are we going to do something about this?” she finally asks.

  Once again, I’m surprised at the blunt question. “You mean like… have a relationship?”

  Bailey shrugs. “That, or go back to the way we were. Sex only at the club.”

  I see what she’s doing. She’s forcing me to confront my own words to my mother as we stormed out of the dining room.

  She had said, “She’s just an employee.”

  And I had said, “You’re wrong about that, Mother.”

  Now Bailey is pushing me to see if I really meant it. Because if she is just an employee, then we should abide by the regular agreement. We are professional colleagues by day, fuck buddies by night, and nothing more.

  That means I can’t get offended if someone does something rude to Bailey. To be honest it has a lot of repercussions.

  I muse. “If we only had sex at The Wicked Horse, that would hinder my ability to bend you over my desk when I saw fit.”

  Bailey smirks. “I see the conundrum.”

  And since I’ve thought about bending her over that desk, I must do it at some point. I’ll obsess about it until I have her that way.

  So it’s time to decide on what I want. Reaching out, I take Bailey’s wine glass. I lean forward to set it with mine on the coffee table. Pressing a hand down into the cushion, I get closer until she has to meet my eyes. “I think I’d like better access to you.”

  An elegant eyebrow draws upward. “You mean more convenient sex?”

  My chin jerks inward, my expression one of mock surprise. “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

  She snorts, and I laugh along with her. I reach out, take her hand. “But no… I’m thinking about more time with you. You fascinate me, Miss Robbins.”

  “There you go… calling me that again,” she teases.

  “Yeah… there I go again,” I agree softly.

  Bailey goes up on her knees, scoots closer to me on the couch. Her hands come down on my shoulders, and she hovers in front of me. I’m hypnotized as she drifts in closer, her head angling slightly so her mouth can close over mine. It’s the first time she’s initiated a kiss, and the touch of her soft lips against mine goes straight to my cock.

  “Mmmm,” I murmur my appreciation, taking her hand from my shoulder and sliding it down my chest, over my abdomen, and onto my lap to force her fingers around my erection. “See what you do to me? With just a kiss.”

  “You do the same to me,” she replies breathily.

  “I think I’ll find that out for myself,” I growl, fingering the hem of her dress. “Can’t take your word for it, you know.”

  Bailey’s head tips back, and she laughs. I’m mesmerized by the flash of white teeth and the beautiful sound, and I realize I like it as much as her hand on my dick.

  “You’re definitely more than an employee,” I say, knocking the smile right off her face at my bold proclamation. “I just don’t know what yet. I want to find out.”

  This time, I kiss her, drawing her down onto my lap with my arms wrapped tight around her. My kiss is hard and deep. When I let her have air, I ask, “Do you want to find out, Miss Robbins?”

  If I had expected her to just roll over and bare her throat to me, I should remember she’s unlike other women.

  Instead, she pulls back with a cautious expression. “If this doesn’t work out, my job is in jeopardy.”

  I frown at her rational approach. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I’d make it right.”

  “How do I know that?”

  I shrug. “You don’t. I guess it’s a leap of faith.”

  She nods, her gaze sliding off as she chews on her lip. Those eyebrows draw in over those glorious blue eyes as she contemplates.

  Finally, she gives me a tiny nod. “Guess I’ll leap.”

  I hadn’t known how important her answer would be until a lightness erupts within me, and I almost laugh in giddiness. To cover that up, I kiss her instead, using the moment to flip her beneath me on the couch. My hand goes right under the hem of her dress so I can find out if she is as moved by our kissing as I am.

  There’s a sharp knock on the door.

  Fuck… room service.

  I growl like a lion protecting his mate, then yell toward the foyer. “I’m busy. Just leave the cart outside the door.”

  No clue if I’m heard. Don’t care.

  I roll us both off the couch, then carry Bailey to the bedroom.

  We’ll eat later.

  CHAPTER 20

  Bailey

  And so it begins… an attempt by Declan and me to have a relationship.

  We decided to start out with something simple. Without pressure. Away from The Wicked Horse. I’m cooking him dinner at my home, and he should be here soon.

  It’s not that we’re opposed to The Wicked Horse. We’ll probably go again. But Declan and I talked a bit that last evening in Chicago in his bed in the family suite. We focused on what a relationship would look like between us, given we hadn’t been looking for something like this.

  It was comical, really. Sometimes, it felt like we were negotiating a new agreement we would ultimately put in writing. It was clear we were operating from a place where trust doesn’t come easily. I have no clue his reasons, but I suspect it has to do with the way he was raised. As for me, it’s merely that I got pretty badly burned by a man I thought I could trust.

  My most significant demand, and it was non-negotiable, was exclusivity. While I loved my experiences at the club, I wasn’t into sharing, and I was clear about that. Declan called me cute, kissed me on my nose, and said he could agree to that. Surprisingly, he admitted he hadn’t liked those men touching me that night as much as he thought he would, so he was okay with a pure sort of monogamy. We agreed our playtime in The Wicked Horse—should we choose to go back—would only be with each other.

  For now.

  The other thing we discussed was safe sex. We’ve been using condoms, which is the norm for people who aren’t committed and don’t know each other. Declan asked if I would consider doing away with them since we agreed to exclusivity, and I was on the pill. To be honest, the thought of having that level of intimacy with him was appealing. It was also an indication this wasn’t a whim.

  We were thinking not only with our bodies, but our heads and maybe a little bit with our hearts.

  Both of us had STD tests today—not that we’re expecting anything wrong to show up—and we’ll get the results soon. To say I’m eagerly anticipating sex with that man without anything between us is an understatement.

  I glance at the clock. Declan should be here any moment. Lasagna is my go-to meal, and despite my not being Italian, I make a pretty damn good one. It’s been cooling on top of the stove while the garlic bread browns in the oven.

  There’s a bottle of red opened on my wobbly, folding card table in my tiny kitchen done in faded yellow wallpaper, chipped Formica counters, and weathered linoleum floors. The downside to renting is I’m stuck with the trappings since it makes no sense to make improvements to a temporary home.

  I contrast this dinner setup to the one at Blackwood mansion night before last. Not a single piece of crystal in sight. My plates are from Target. When I bought them after the divorce, I could only afford a setting for four. The wine was only fourteen dollars, and we’re going to have to drink it from the cheap glasses I got with the plates. I don’t have
linen napkins, only paper towels, and the only flatware is a fork and a butter knife. About the fanciest thing I did was pour the grated parmesan cheese into a bowl.

  It’s a far cry from what Declan is used to, yet… I don’t feel inadequate at all. Because one thing about Declan is that while he’s accustomed to the finer things, I don’t think he is dependent on them.

  He’s the one who brought up a relationship. He’s the one who suggested a quiet dinner in my home would be a great first date. He knows I can’t offer the expensive things in life, but I can give him an honest effort at making him welcome and feeding him well.

  I glance down at my outfit. I’d decided to be myself, and that means jeans—old and faded with a rip in one knee—a t-shirt, and bare feet. I scrubbed my face free of makeup after work, threw my hair up in a ponytail, and got busy putting my lasagna together. I told Declan this would be casual, and I’m dying to see the man in perhaps a pair of jeans, too. While he fills out a designer suit in the yummiest of ways, I bet jeans were built for a man such as him.

  There’s a knock on the door.

  Seven PM on the dot.

  I blow a breath out—nerves and excitement—and rush into the living room and to the front door.

  I swing it open, taking in the man on my front porch. He’s in a dark suit, designer dress shirt, and a silk tie. In his hand, he holds a white plastic bag that looks like takeout.

  “You’re dressed nice,” I accuse, my greeting causing him to blink in surprise.

  “But I brought dessert… from Flemings,” he cajoles, holding the bag up. “Cheesecake. You know they make the best.”

  I don’t know that since I can’t afford to eat at Flemings, but I’m stuck on the disappointment of him not being dressed down. “We agreed this was casual. My home is all about jeans. Even sweatpants. And yet, here you are, dressed all fancy. Declan, I’m not a fancy person. I mean, look at me… This is who I am and how I like things.”