Dirty Rumor: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance

by Amelia Wilde

  “I scheduled a meeting for—”

  He waves his hand in the air. “It can wait another twenty minutes. I’m taking my son out to lunch, and we’re going to have a goddamn conversation. No phones. Let’s go!”

  “All right,” I say, plastering a smile on my face.

  “What?” my father says, leaning in, grinning. “You in love with a girl, is that it? Can’t wait another hour to talk to her?”

  My mouth drops open as his words sink in.

  “No,” I choke out, finally.

  It’s the biggest lie I’ve ever told, because now that my father has said it—even if he was only kidding—I have no choice but to accept it.

  I’ve fallen for Carolyn Banks.

  Chapter 25

  Carolyn

  I have never been so damn conflicted in my entire life.

  There are multiple forces pulling me in every direction, the least of them all is the boutique.

  I take one day off and foot traffic skyrockets. No idea why, but the first thing I do when I get in on Tuesday morning is have Natalie and Sarah overhaul the displays in the front window to show off some of our newest arrivals. There’s a surge in customers around the lunch hour, and I stay on the floor to help move product.

  Natalie doesn’t think I should stoop so low as to actually wait on customers.

  She stops in the midst of rushing back to the dressing room with another armload of clothes. “Carolyn, you don’t have to stay out here with us. We can handle it!”

  I give her a smile and shake my head. “What, just because I own the place, you think I should be in the back counting money?” I would never tell Natalie that I’m not passionate about my boutique—it’s a fun project that happens to be successful—but even so, I’m not going to put my feet up while everyone else does the dirty work. With a wink and a dismissive wave of my hand, I send her on her way and turn to face two women who look like they’ve walked directly out of the Victoria’s Secret catalogue into my boutique. “Welcome, ladies. Is there anything I can direct you toward today?”

  “Yes!” chirps the brunette. “I’m looking for a dress that can go from day to evening.”

  “I have the perfect thing for you.” I lead her back toward a rack that’s purposefully filled with pieces that could—but don’t necessarily have to—form a stunning, eclectic outfit.

  The rest of the afternoon passes by in a blur, the cash register ringing nonstop.

  “This is incredible,” Natalie whispers to me when I come around behind the counter with another customer’s purchases. “Have you ever seen this much traffic before?”

  “No,” I say, then laugh. “Maybe all I had to do was go away for the day.”

  “It definitely wasn’t like this yesterday.”

  She has a good point. What is bringing people in like this?

  Just before close, I ask a girl with gorgeous auburn hair what brought her to the boutique today.

  She looks at me with a strange half smile. “You’re—I mean, I’m so sorry if this sounds creepy—but you’re Carolyn Banks, right?”

  “I am.” I return the smile, then wait. If she wants to tell me more, she will. In the meantime, I pull another blouse off the rack and hold it up for her approval.

  She nods, and I lay it on the pile to take to the dressing room. “Well—I heard you were—I heard you were dating Ace Kingsley.”

  My cheeks go pink—I can feel it—but I force my face to stay neutral, open. “Well, that’s a rumor, if I’ve ever heard one.”

  Now it’s her turn to blush. “Oh. Maybe it wasn’t you then. I saw some pictures from an exclusive nightclub—I think it was last weekend—and they’ve hit some of the…some of the blogs I follow.”

  This poor girl doesn’t want to say that they’re “gossip blogs,” but who in New York City doesn’t read them? I certainly do, although it’s more as research for Rainflower Blue than anything else.

  “Oh!” I exclaim, laughing a little. “I was with him there. You got me. But I wouldn’t say we’re dating.” I arch an eyebrow at her.

  “No?” She runs her hands down one last dress, then turns to face me. “It looked like fun. Anyway—I heard about you—he’s been big news lately—and then one of my friends said you owned a boutique here, and I just had to check it out. Your outfit in the picture was so beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” I say, keeping my tone gracious. She changes the subject on the way back to the dressing room, and we turn our attention to the clothes. She buys almost everything she tries on, and after she steps out onto the sidewalk, I lock the front door behind her and flip the “open” sign to “closed.”

  Behind me, Natalie lets out a sigh of relief. When things started to slow down a little around the dinner hour, I let Sarah leave—she has a date, and I’m not one of those bitchy bosses—so it’s just the two of us.

  “Unbelievable.” Natalie leans against the counter and surveys the boutique, which is more than a little rumpled, despite how hard we’ve tried to keep it in order. “That was crazy, right?”

  “Are you holding out on me, Nat? Don’t tell me you don’t read the gossip sites.”

  Natalie gives me a wide-eyed look. “Gossip blogs? Never!”

  “I’ve been a little bit behind. So…I’ve been on them, right?” It’s true. I spent all weekend with Ace and all day yesterday…but not exactly searching for information about him. After I went for a walk, I had lunch with Jess and then I went to the gym, and then I ordered in for dinner…anything to keep my mind off the swirling, dizzy love that wouldn’t let go of its hold on me.

  We both move farther into the boutique shoulder to shoulder, instinctively straightening the first items that come to our hands.

  “I mean…a little bit,” she says, hanging a dress back in its place. “I think some pictures came out yesterday, so word has had a chance to get around.”

  I laugh. “Well, it’s done wonders for sales, hasn’t it?”

  “No kidding. Maybe you should make out with Ace Kingsley more often.”

  “Who said I made out with him?”

  She gives me a look from around a mannequin. “The pictures were of the two of you dancing, but it looked pretty hot, so….”

  There is one issue with this, which is that the Swan generally frowns upon people posting pictures from inside its walls. My guess is that this scenario won’t play out again—they have their ways of finding out which member is the culprit—but it’s a kick in the ass for me to get on this, and soon. If everybody’s going to be talking about me….

  “Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t. I’ll never tell,” I tease.

  I’m going to have to get serious about these rumors. Especially if I’m going to be dragged into the fray.

  Chapter 26

  Ace

  After having lunch with my father—during which he harasses me endlessly about the woman I’m interested in, and I tell him virtually nothing, because I’m still not certain this won’t crash and burn, the memory of Elisa constricting my throat more than once—I rethink the idea of sending Carolyn a filthy text. The weekend was hotter than I ever could have dreamed. If she was anyone else pre-Elisa, I might not give a fuck, but with Carolyn, it matters.

  It might be a good idea to think about turning the heat down a bit, as much as my cock disagrees.

  We exchange a few flirty texts on Monday—nothing too heavy, and she seems a little distracted—but on Tuesday evening, I run into her in the lobby.

  Her cheeks are flushed and her hair is a little disheveled—nothing compared to how it looked after we got out of bed on Saturday—and she’s got a satisfied smile on her face.

  A hard knot forms in my gut before I can stop it. Is she seeing someone else? It’s not like we’ve made any commitment to each other—not really—but if some other man has had his hands on her, I’ll—

  “Ace!” she says, catching sight of me. “I’m sorry I didn’t message you all day.” She comes quickly across the lobby, catching up wit
h me at the elevators. “The boutique has been crazy.” Her eyes shine in the light, and she looks so fucking beautiful, I can’t resist.

  “Hi, gorgeous,” I say, and then—audience be damned—I put my hand behind her neck and pull her in for a kiss. It’s slow and hot and perfect, and it stops only when the arrival of the elevator car interrupts us.

  “Whoa,” Carolyn breathes. “Did you miss me that much?”

  My cock stirs. “More. Come have dinner with me.”

  She hesitates for only an instant, her forehead wrinkling, but then the smile is back on her face. “Okay. But I’m not staying the night.” Her cheeks go a little pinker. “This is pathetic, but I’m actually…I’m actually pretty tired.”

  I move my arm lower to wrap it around her shoulders, and we step into the elevator together. “What do you think I am, some kind of sex addict?”

  “Maybe. I am pretty hot.”

  I laugh out loud. After two full days of missing her, it feels fucking great—this calm, peaceful feeling.

  It would be a little more peaceful if my cock wasn’t already pulsing with need for her, but that will have to wait.

  I order from one of my favorite Indian places, and while we wait for the food to arrive, Carolyn curls up on my sofa, her feet on the ottoman. She gasps a little when I emerge from the kitchen with two glasses of wine.

  “A man after my own heart,” she says, taking one from me and sipping it. Her eyes go a little wider. “This is so good.”

  My heart skips a beat at her words, then it recovers. It’s true. I am after her own heart. And more than anything, right now, I want to know more about her. Anything more. Everything more.

  I sit in the silence with her for a few moments.

  “What made you decide to open a boutique?”

  Carolyn purses her lips, considering. “I was tired of my old job. I was pretty high up in a marketing firm here in the city, but it was just…wearing on me. The day-to-day.”

  “And you love fashion?”

  Carolyn’s mouth quirks into a smile. “I enjoy fashion. It’s not something that makes me go crazy with lust, though.”

  I lean in and kiss the line of her jaw.

  “That might make me go crazy with lust.”

  “I’ll stop,” I say with a grin, pulling back.

  She growls a little. “If I end up staying here, I’ll never get to work in the morning.”

  I hold my free hand up. “Fine, fine. So…what do you really do, then?”

  I expect Carolyn to laugh and say something like “seduce men at the Swan, obviously,” but instead she blinks a few times, shrugging her shoulders. It takes longer than it should for her to answer.

  “Oh,” she says with a little smile. “I really do run the boutique, most days. There’s a lot more to it than selling clothes. Travel, inventory selection…all of that.”

  “You can’t tell me there’s nothing that captures your interest. There must be some sort of heart-and-soul type of thing.”

  She looks away, toward the kitchen, then she turns her head so she’s looking back at me. “Not that I can think of.” Then she grins, eyes shining again, her expression full of playful wickedness. “Last weekend came pretty close.”

  Goosebumps play along the line of my spine. Something isn’t quite right. Or am I just looking for something to be…not right?

  It hits me hard, straight in the gut. We have to get there first. Carolyn isn’t going to open up with me—not totally, anyway—unless we turn down the heat a little, give things a chance to develop naturally. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t really want to talk to me about the hobbies that take up her non-working hours.

  Lately that hobby has been me, but there has to be something else. Perhaps something she’s embarrassed about. I don’t know.

  Our conversation is interrupted by the food’s arrival, and the heaviness lurking in the room clears. It’s damn delicious, and finally Carolyn leans back from the table in the breakfast nook. “I want to keep eating, but I can’t.”

  “Next time I’ll order less,” I say with a laugh.

  “Oh, don’t,” she says, genuinely on the verge of distress. “The leftovers…don’t deprive yourself of that. That’s the best part.”

  “You’ve convinced me,” I say seriously, and she laughs again. I stand up and take her plate, but my hand is aching to take hers in mine and lead her to the bedroom. Still, I can see the dark circles under her eyes, the yawns she keeps stifling.

  “Oh—Carolyn, there’s something I wanted to tell you.”

  She gets up and follows me toward the kitchen.

  “What? That I can’t leave with all of my clothes intact?”

  This woman. “No, I—” The words stick in my throat, but this lie will be better for us in the long run. “I won’t be able to see you this weekend. I’ve got some things to attend to.”

  The corners of her mouth turn down, but only for a moment, and then she smiles. “Thank God. I’ll be able to sleep in!”

  Then she reaches up and pulls my face toward hers, kisses me savagely, and heads for the door.

  Chapter 27

  Carolyn

  When Saturday morning comes, I wake up bright and early, put on my cutest exercise outfit, and head to the gym before I can convince myself otherwise. I’m in the lull between the early morning gym rats and the later-morning class attendees, so my favorite treadmill is free and the weight room is sparsely populated. It’s ideal.

  I get in a full hour of burn, and then I head back to my apartment, purpose accenting every step. Shower. Breakfast. Then search.

  I shower with military precision, faster than usual, and then move around the kitchen in a pair of clean yoga pants and my favorite tank, only to discover that I’m in desperate need of a trip to the grocery store. I share an assistant with a few other people for times like this, but I don’t want to take the time to put together a list. Deli it is.

  The breakfast sandwiches I order at the counter are gone by the time I get into the elevator at my building.

  I’m only slightly disappointed that Ace is nowhere to be seen in the lobby. It’s a waste, though—he said he’d be busy this weekend, and I have no idea if that means he’ll be in the penthouse at all. For all I know, he’s been gone for hours.

  But where would he go?

  The next thought: Is there someone else?

  I scoff out loud as I unlock the front door to my apartment. I might be ridiculously and prematurely in love with Ace Kingsley, but we’re not together. The moment he admits having similar feelings, everything might be different…but in the meantime, there are more pressing things to worry about, like the rumors that he might be a murderer. And here I am fretting over the possibility that he might be cheating on me with another woman.

  I lock the door behind me with a firm twist and march over to my desk.

  Settling in front of my computer, I take a deep breath. The photograph in the local newspaper is all I have to go on right now, so I’ll start there.

  The first thing I do is log on to an online marketplace for people with translation skills. Within ten minutes, I’ve hired a man—I guess it could be a woman…the screen name offers no indication one way or the other—to translate the entire paper into English. I don’t want to take a chance on Google Translate and have the entire thing be unreadable. He—she?—promises to have it back to me within two hours.

  In the meantime, I do an extensive search of the keywords I can claw out of the non-translated paper. All that comes up are more copies of the picture and the paper on a few obscure mirroring websites, mostly the kind that claim to “index the web” and don’t do anything else.

  The notification that the job has been completed pops up forty-five minutes early, and I abandon the fruitless search and double-click to open the file. The translator has written the English copy in a Word document with labelled sections that correspond to red boxes he’s highlighted on each section in the newspaper.

  The damn thi
ng turns out to be a kind of travel newsletter that tourists can pick up for free at a kiosk for a travel company, which means it’s hardly newsworthy, and the picture could be from any point during his travels.

  Shit.

  I’m at a loss until I find one last line of text at the bottom of the document corresponding to a narrow box just below the picture caption. It reads: “The couple travelled to Rome from Bari.”

  I read through all of the text again, but the sentence seems to be tacked on near the end of an article about Famous Sights in Rome. Maybe it was meant to be part of the caption, and some slipshod designer—probably whoever runs the kiosk, or the travel company—didn’t proofread it.

  They might know something.

  They might also speak Italian.

  But a travel agent should know English….

  I check the clock on my computer. It’s just after eleven a.m., so it’ll be…what…four o’clock in Italy?

  The newsletter, in fine print at the bottom, lists an address and an international phone number, which, conveniently, I can call from my cell phone.

  The voice that picks up on the other end of the line is crisp, British-sounding. “Good afternoon. You’ve reached International Adventurers. Are you calling to inquire about booking future travel, or about a previously booked adventure?”

  “Oh, I’m—I’m so glad you speak English,” I blurt out with a nervous laugh. Where the hell has all my professional demeanor gone?

  “Of course, miss. My name is Phillip. Is there anything I can help you with?”

  I clear my throat. “I’m actually calling to ask about a newsletter I found online that I think your company created.”

  “Ah, yes. We put them out monthly for about six months, then stopped and archived them for our website. Did you find an egregious error?”

  “Well, in the—” I flip the newsletter to the front page, “—March issue of this year, you ran a photograph of a man named Ace King—Ace K. I wondered if you had any more information about him.”