Finn (Blue-Collar Billionaires #2)

by M. Malone

  I punch in the special security code I was assigned to the panel and then lock the front doors behind me with my key. As I’m walking across the parking lot, the door to the sedan opens. A man steps out. My heart speeds up a bit and I start walking faster. Usually Carrie or whomever I’m working with is walking to their vehicles at the same time so I’ve never felt unsafe here.

  “Marissa!”

  I halt with my hand on the door handle of my car. As the man walks closer, I notice the slight limp right before his face comes into view.

  “Finn? What are you doing here? You scared me!”

  The parking lot is uneven and there are a lot of potholes. He’s walking slowly, stepping carefully, as he makes his way to where I am. Part of me wants to make it easier for him and just walk his way, close the distance. But the rest of me still remembers his heartless questioning this afternoon. He wants to hurt me by his own admission. So why do I still feel sympathy for him?

  “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to let you know that I got your message.”

  “What message?”

  He holds up the catalogue I’d brought back to his place that afternoon. After I’d left, I was so angry. Usually between morning and evening jobs, I go home and rest in between. But I was so stirred up after Finn's interrogation this morning that I drove back to the office to tackle the paperwork on my desk. There were a few invoices that needed to be paid and I was definitely behind on filing. With all that anger energy, I figured if nothing else I'd have a clean desk at the end of the day.

  I'd ordered a pair of fur-lined handcuffs from this particular catalogue as a gag gift for a friend's bachelorette party. They still occasionally send me catalogues so when I saw it in my mail, I knew I had to use it. It was too good not to.

  "I was just doing what you said you wanted. Being helpful. Wifely and all that."

  Finn bursts into laughter and the rumbling sound startles me. It feels like it's been a very long time since I've heard him laugh. Light glints off the head of his cane. This one has a polished silver handle. Considering all that he's been through since he was discharged, I'm guessing it's been a while since he had anything to laugh about.

  "A wife that sends me dildo catalogues. Damn, I've hit the jackpot."

  Our eyes meet and then we both start laughing.

  Finn moves a little closer and then leans against the side of my car next to me. "I want to apologize to you. My behavior earlier today was out of line."

  I shrug but his words actually mean a lot. "I was lashing out too. We seem to bring that out in each other."

  He leans closer. "It's called passion. We always had more than enough of that."

  "We did. Everything between us was so good. Until it wasn't."

  Going back and forth isn't getting us anywhere. And as more time passes, the more I wonder why he's insisting on this ridiculous working arrangement. If he wants to rub my face in his wealth, he's already done that. If he wants to show me that I made the wrong choice, that was already accomplished long before he showed up.

  "I'm so tired of thinking about what an idiot I was. I've spent the last few years just trying to move on."

  "I can't move past this without knowing whether it was even worth it. Why weren't you happy with him, angel?"

  I don't talk about this. With anyone. But something in my face must change because he narrows his eyes. "Rissa?"

  "So does that mean you liked the chair?"

  His brow furrows then he looks down at the catalogue again. "I don't know. I can see how it would come in handy."

  Probably with whatever size zero supermodel would fit into the tiny thong I'd rescued from his couch. "I'm sure your many girlfriends will love it."

  "There are no girlfriends, Rissa. There haven't been for a long time. Although I'm sure there's a woman somewhere who won't mind looking at this mangled leg, I haven't found her yet."

  I will not feel sorry for him. I will not feel sorry for him.

  "The women you date sound like bitches. You got hurt protecting the rest of us. So every scar you have just reminds me that I should be grateful just to be here."

  His eyes seem to burn in his face as he stares at me. “Maybe I have found the right woman."

  I ignore that, knowing he’s just trying to rile me up. “So, did that underwear and all those condom wrappers just materialize out of thin air? Or have they just been there a long time?" I make a face at the thought. "You really did need cleaning services then, huh?"

  Finn doesn't even bother to disguise his laughter. He turns to me, his smile warm. "I was being an asshole. Trying to mess with you. Those underwear probably still had the tags on from when I bought them."

  "I think you also accidentally bought them in the children's section. The cashier probably thought you were a perv."

  He looks horrified. "They have underwear like that for kids?"

  "Disturbingly, yes they do."

  He shakes his head. Then stands back. "Anyway, I wanted to come by and apologize. And make sure you got to your car safely. You know I've never liked you walking places alone."

  I unlock the car and throw my bags on the seat. "I know. But you can't show up everywhere just to make sure I'm safe."

  He looks amused. "Can't I?"

  * * * * *

  “Anna, I need you to go to the Greenberg’s this morning. And Tracy, you’ll have to come with me to Mercers tonight, okay?”

  I stand in my office staring at my list of employees hoping that I'm just missing something. I woke up to a voicemail from Carrie that her son was sick so I'd come in a little early to see what I could do. One of my best girls is already on vacation this week and looking at this list, there's no way around it. Without Carrie, we are supremely screwed today.

  "So, Julie is going to handle the Fulton job by herself then?" Tracy asks.

  I look at the schedule again and then rub my face with my free hand. "No, you're right. That's a two-person job. You stay with Julie. I'll handle Mercers alone today."

  Tracy and Anna exchange glances but they both nod.

  “Carrie’s okay, right?” Anna chews on her bottom lip, looking worried. She’s not much older than Carrie and I know the two have become friends.

  “Caleb is sick again. She left a message this morning that she wasn’t coming in. I’m going to call her back this afternoon to check on her.”

  Anna and Tracy file out the door so Tara can squeeze in to my minuscule office.

  “When it rains, huh?” Tara runs her hands over her face. “Someone always gets sick unexpectedly when someone else is already on vacation. It’s like an unwritten rule.”

  “Yeah I know. But we could always handle it before because we didn’t have this many clients.”

  Ever since the night when Finn apologized in the parking lot of Mercer's, we've had an unspoken truce between us. For the past week things have been completely civil. There have been no more condom wrappers or random women's underwear in the couch cushions and he's stopped snapping at me like I'm a dog.

  We've just … talked. A lot.

  And I've felt a sense of calm for the first time since he’d hired us. Like things were on the right track and I finally had everything under control. Things were going great with the business and Finn and I were actually getting along okay. I should have known that peace wasn’t going to last long.

  Thoughts of Finn bring my mind to the time. I glance at the digital display on the lower right hand side of my computer. “Oh no! I’m late.”

  Tara moves back as I race around the desk and grab my bag sitting on the chair in front of the desk.

  “I’m sure he’ll understand. This was an extraordinary circumstance.”

  “Maybe but I can't take that chance. It’s in the contract. And I don’t want to give him any reason to screw around with us. We need this too much.”

  As I’m jogging down the hall, I hear Tara call out “Don’t let him give you a hard time!"

  Things have been better wi
th Finn but I still remember vividly how much he enjoyed taunting me about Andrew. He'd had me on the verge of tears that day but then he did the incredibly sweet thing of sitting in his car for an hour just so I didn’t have to walk alone to my car at night. It was the kind of thing he would have done when we were teenagers.

  Part of me thinks he's just trying to screw with my head by being evil one minute and nice the next. But when we talk, he seems so sincere. He was a sweet boy but he's become an incredible man. As if I need any other reason to regret the stupid decisions of my youth. The more time I spend with him, the more I realize that what I gave up with him would have likely been the best thing in my life.

  By the time I get to Finn's building, it's a quarter past eight. I race through the lobby, waving over my shoulder to John, the morning concierge. The elevator seems to take forever and by the time I burst through the front door, my breath is coming fast and hard.

  Finn is sitting at the counter in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal. He looks up when I burst through the door.

  "I'm sorry. One of the girls had an emergency. Her baby is sick. I had to rearrange some things."

  He doesn't reply just spoons up another bite of cereal.

  I wilt a little at that. He doesn't look particularly sympathetic. This is what he does. He appears calm and collected and then he lets loose one of his cutting remarks that can slice you open just as surely as a blade. When he's only messing with me, it's one thing. My ego can take it. But this is about the company's future. All those women who won't have jobs if he decides not to pay us.

  "You aren't going to void the contract, are you?"

  The spoon lowers and he frowns at me. Now he really looks pissed. "Christ, Rissa. I’m not heartless. Your employee, is her baby going to be okay?"

  Now that I know he's not angry, I relax a little.

  “Yeah, he just has a cold, I think. But it means I'm in for a really long day. Carrie normally helps me at my evening client and there's no one I can pull in to help out. The other girls already have as much as they can handle.”

  My heart is still racing from running down the hallway so I rest my arms on the counter. Then I rummage through my bag for my phone. Once I find it, I pull up the last employee schedule Tara emailed me. There's got to be someone that I can move around to make things a little easier.

  “I’ll help you.”

  Now that gets my attention. I put my phone down on the counter and peer at Finn skeptically. “You're going to help? Cleaning?”

  He looks amused. “Sure. You used to help me with my chores at home, remember? I figure I owe you one.”

  "This is slightly more complicated than mopping a kitchen floor, Finn. We're going to be covering a large area. Are you sure you want to volunteer? Because if you are, I'm not going to say no. I'm that desperate." I walk to the couch and set my bags down on the floor.

  "If it'll help you out, then yes, I'm serious." His eyes fix on mine and I shiver beneath his gaze.

  "Yeah, it'll help me out a lot."

  "Then it's done. Just let me know what I need to do."

  My phone rings. "Can you check who that is? It might be Tara."

  He picks it up and his smile vanishes. When he hands it to me, I see the name Andrew. I quickly hit the button to silence the call.

  When I look up, Finn is watching me.

  This is definitely not something I want to talk about, no matter how much better things have gotten between us lately. I clear my throat. "I'll be back to pick you up around nine then. Usually it takes a few hours to clean the whole store and then I'm out of there by midnight."

  He stands. "First, I'll pick you up. My driver will take us over and pick us up at the end of the night. You're already exhausted and I don't want you driving when you're this tired. Second, I want you to relax with me this morning. This place is still perfect from yesterday's cleaning. So sit down and take a load off. We'll watch something on television."

  What he's offering is so tempting but a shade too close to charity. He started out wanting to rub my nose in his wealth and now that we've cleared the air he's probably feeling guilty. But I don't take a paycheck for nothing.

  "I'm fine, Finn. Really. I don't need to be chauffeured around and I'm not that tired."

  "You are. And you already know that I'm a complete ass when I don't get my way. So sit."

  He's not going to give up on this, I can tell. So I drop down on the couch and then glare at him. "You're the boss."

  He grumbles under his breath. "If that was true, we wouldn't be wasting time watching TV."

  * * * * *

  Finn turns on the television and we settle on the couch. I grab one of the pillows and squeeze it to my middle trying to pretend that relaxing in a place that looks like a layout for Architectural Digest is no big deal. I'm also determined to ignore what he just muttered under his breath. Things felt different last night, like we reached an agreement. But that doesn't mean I trust him.

  "We can watch whatever you want."

  I shrug. "I don't watch much TV. I'm never home when most shows are on anyway."

  He tunes it to one of the morning shows. The anchors are talking about the latest bestselling book, something racy with a cover that makes me blush just to look at it.

  Finn points at the TV. “Emma has that book. Tank teased her about it until she finally told him that reading hot books is to his benefit. That shut him up pretty quickly."

  "I don't get why people think they have the right to shame women for their entertainment choices. And nobody asks men to defend why they're watching the last Mission Impossible or Jason Bourne flick. No one says they must be boring or unfulfilled in their real lives because they like those shows."

  "Who says that?"

  "Usually jerks on TV. Anyway, all those action movies are way more unrealistic in my opinion and they glorify violence. If you have to portray something unrealistic, I don't see how showing people falling in love is hurting anything."

  He glances over at me. "Falling in love is unrealistic?"

  The soft tone of his voice lulls me. I know what he's thinking. How can it be unrealistic when we had that? We had in reality what most people only experience in the pages of a book or through soft focus scenes in a movie. But I can't think about that right now so I take the coward's way out and make a joke of it.

  "Isn't it? I'm glad it works out for some people but I think for most of us, it's still nothing but a fantasy."

  "I hear billionaires in those love books are all the rage. According to Emma's ereader anyway."

  I look over at him in shock. "You were snooping?"

  He has the decency to at least look embarrassed. "It was right next to me on the table! I don't have one so I just wanted to see how they work. Anyway, I thought it was funny especially since most billionaires are my father's age."

  "Well, I think most women who have that particular fantasy are imagining someone more like you." I don't tell him that I know that from experience, since he's been my favorite late night fantasy for years.

  "Except like most wealthy men in my age group, I'm not a billionaire. More like a billionaire-in-waiting. I'm set to inherit billions and so are my brothers. There are very few young men who are independently wealthy. Most inherit it."

  "That's not nearly as sexy. Let us keep our fantasies, please."

  His lashes lower and his gaze turns heated. "Is that what you fantasize about, Ris?"

  Suddenly I can barely breathe. How am I supposed to talk about fantasies with Finn sitting next to me looking like a wet dream? I close my eyes but that just makes it worse. I can hear every sound when he moves closer, the soft shuffling when he stands, the whisper of his jeans against the fabric of the couch as he sits down again. When I open my eyes, he's right next to me.

  "Finn?" I don't mean it to but it comes out as a question. A plea. This is when I'm supposed to be strong and push him away. He's already admitted that he just wants to get me out of his system. I shouldn't want hi
m at all when I know his ultimate end goal is to use me and then forget about me.

  But then his hand slides under my neck and his mouth is on mine. I'm glad he didn't take it slow and get my permission because I don't want to think right now. I just want to feel and to remember. And kissing him is just like I remember.

  A whimper escapes before I can stop it as his lips travel back and forth over mine. Just soft brushes that awaken every nerve ending. Kissing him was always like this, a sensual experience that made me feel like every inch of my skin was alive. I arch up to him, reaching, trying to get him to deepen the kiss but as always he's in firm control. Then he tugs me closer and tilts his head. The angle changes everything.

  My lips part willingly under his and his tongue invades my mouth. His taste, god his taste, is perfect. My fingers clench against his chest as I resist the urge to grab him and start exploring. Being with him so young had some advantages. I'd had inhibitions but with Finn, I'd never felt insecure. I hadn't worried about whether my ass was too big or if my thighs didn't touch. With the kind of adulation that only a teenage boy can have for a naked woman, he'd made me feel like a goddess. I can remember hours of touching, kissing and cuddling where we'd done nothing but bring each other pleasure.

  But we'd been different people then. We were in love. Making love with Finn had always been about showing each other how we felt. This kiss is a tangled web of lust, deceit and anger.

  Because Finn doesn't love me anymore.

  "Finn, wait. We can't." I push back slightly but can't seem to stop my hands from roaming all over his chest.

  He steals one last kiss, his hands tightening slightly on the back of my neck. It doesn't make me feel threatened at all, rather I get a visceral sense of just how much he wants me. He has unresolved feelings of anger toward me for what I did but he wants me still.

  "I'm sorry. That really wasn't why I asked you to stay." He moves back slightly. His lips are swollen and I like seeing the evidence of what we just did. I lick my own lips instinctively, getting one last taste of him.