At the Billionaire’s Wedding (47 page)

“Is it five o’clock yet?” Roxanna asked no one in particular. “Because I could use a drink.”

“What sort of drink would you fancy?” asked Handsome Mark. She decided she liked him.

“Perhaps you might show us to our rooms and we’ll freshen up first,” Damien said. “Then this spitfire of a woman would like a tumbler of your most expensive whiskey.”

“Charge it to this guy,” she said sarcastically, with a nod in Damien’s direction, even though Jane and Duke were paying for everything. “That’s why I brought him.”

They were shown to a room that had been recently renovated and had the fresh paint smell to prove it. Jane had been a super stressed-out bride, wanting everything to be perfect for her big wedding. It didn’t help that she chose Brampton House, which was still under renovation, while she was trying to plan every last detail … or that she’d been planning from another continent while trying to write books on deadline and keep up with her job at the New York Public Library.

Thank God she had Arwen Kilpatrick as her wedding planner to coordinate all the logistics and to act interested when Jane waffled over floral arrangements, cake styles, seating arrangements, and a billion other little details that strengthened Roxanna’s intention to elope,
if
she ever married.

Damien began to unpack while she started stripping off her clothes, first kicking off her Charlotte Olympia flats and tossing her whisper-thin cashmere scarf on the bed.

“I mean it, Damien. I won’t sell out my friend,” Roxanna said, pulling her silky soft gray James Perse T-shirt off and tossing it on the floor. He glanced at it, obviously dying to pick it up—he was such a neat freak—but then his gaze settled on her breasts, clad in a pink lace bra that was a naughty mixture of debauchery with a hint of innocence.

“Is that so? Tell me why,” he said.

“She’s my
friend
.”

Roxanna wriggled out of her skinny jeans. A grin tugged at his lips. He was not focusing on their conversation at all.

“Your point being…”

“You don’t have friends, do you?” Roxanna said, standing before him in just her bra and undies. He was obviously distracted by her
lack of attire
, as Jane might say in one of her delicately worded historical novels. Roxanna would say
tits and ass
. Either way, she was having a freaking insight about her Gentleman Friend/Lover/Boss and she was never shy about sharing. “You have business associates, contacts, a network, you never lack for company for drinks or dinner. But you don’t have a guy who you can just kick back, have a beer, watch the game, and bitch about women with.”

“With
whom
you can kick back, have a beer, watch the game, and bitch about women,” Damien corrected.

“Whatever.”

“Said the writer. None of those activities appeal to me,” he said with a shrug. “Except for one.”

“Bitching about women.”

“Beer.”

Roxanna laughed and strolled into the bathroom. She turned the shower on, stripped off her lingerie and stepped into the steaming hot water, careful not to get her hair wet and ruin her blow-out. Ahhh. Bliss.

Damien followed her in, watching her. God, she loved his eyes on her. He was not at all aloof or inscrutable when he was looking at her. His expression had darkened considerably. The man’s gaze positively set her on fire in a really, really good way.

“I understand,” he said. “I do. But something has come up and let’s just say if it weren’t for this one reason, I would never ask this of you.”

“What is this mysterious serious reason?”

“I can’t say,” he said softly.

“Then I can’t do it.”

“What if this is an order from your boss?”

She did, often, enjoy orders from her boss. Just not at work. And not for this. Not when it involved Jane, who was so freaking sensitive, and would be devastated by a betrayal from her maid of honor.

“Jane is my friend. She’s had enough of her romance splashed across the Internet. This is her big day and she doesn’t need grainy iPhone photos of her puking at her bachelorette party all over the interwebs.”

“And why was her romance splashed across the Internet to begin with?”

“Touché.”

On that high note, Damien returned to the bedroom.

Roxanna might have launched Duke and Jane’s entire relationship with a prank post to Jane’s Facebook page declaring that she and the guy she’d met but once were engaged. A sham engagement ensued (naturally), followed by real love … and now this wedding. Because so much of their relationship had been conducted online—as will happen when you fall in love with a famous tech entrepreneur—Jane was desperate to keep their wedding as offline as possible. Guests would be asked to leave their phones in their rooms for the events this week and it was requested that guests keep the location and all details secret.

No way could Roxanna be the one to share intimate details of the wedding. Not for her boss, or her boyfriend, or whatever he was.

She turned off the shower, dried off, and started rummaging through her luggage for underthings and a dress. She slipped on a matching bra and undies made of an insanely delicate black lace under a slinky navy blue wrap dress. Damien was frowning at his computer and glaring at his phone.

“There’s no bloody Internet or cell reception.”

“Oh God, that’s terrible.” In this, she was not jesting. Jane was marrying Duke Austen, a billionaire tech entrepreneur who lived and breathed via the World Wide Web. Thus, so did many of the guests. Including her. And Damien. There would be a swarm of angry people suffering from Twitter and e-mail withdrawal. Hardly festive.

There was one plus to this, though…

“Guess I can’t do the story, then! Wah wah!”

“What about the dress?” Damien asked.

“I am not leaking pictures of the dress!” God, she wanted to smack some sense into the man. “Duke will see and everyone knows that’s bad luck.”

“No, I mean
your
dress,” he said. “Off with it.”

“Gawd, listen to you. All haughty British aristocrat, giving orders,” she retorted, but there wasn’t much fire in her reply. The man made her positively weak in the knees when he did that.

“That’s right,” he murmured. “Impertinent American.”

He had that look in his eye: like he had all sorts of wicked intentions and Would Not Be Stopped from executing his plans. She never thought she was the nervous, feeling butterflies kind of girl. But when he looked at her like that…

When he crossed the room, all towering male and totally determined…

When he slid his arm around her waist and gave her the most devastating smile that promised all sorts of trouble…

“I know you happen to have a thing for impertinent Americans,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around him and savoring the feeling of his hard body against hers.

“I also have a thing for providing exclusive and original content to millions of readers, to whom I also deliver millions of dollars in advertising, all for a nice, big bottom line.”

His hand playfully swatted her ass. She scowled.

“I love it when you talk business to me,” she said dryly.

“This isn’t some new facet of my personality, Roxanna. I believe it’s been widely reported. In fact, I know you’re intimately acquainted with my … personality.”

“You don’t need this story,” she protested. “Your sites are performing well. You have money to burn. So why?”

He turned away, glancing out the window at the green lawns and blue skies beyond. This was a man who always looked you in the eye, who never shied away from anything. She had once seen him face down a would-be mugger on the Lower East Side with nothing more than his steely gaze.

“I can’t tell you,” he said.

“Oh?” And now she did lift one brow. “The plot thickens.”

“There’s no plot,” he said, pushing his fingers through his hair. “There you go with your imagination again.”

“My friend is the one who has the imagination. I just detect bullshit. You are up to no good, Knightly. Spill.”

“To a known gossip like you?”

“I’ve kept
our
secret. So far.”

What with him being the owner and CEO of the company for which she was just a writer, she supposed she ought to think of him as her
secret
Gentleman Friend or
secret
Manfriend or
secret
lover.

“I can’t tell you this. But I need stories on Jane and Duke’s wedding. With pictures.”

“Why don’t you take them?”

“Because I’m not as close to Jane and Duke as you are, which means I can’t get as close. But if I have to, I will. I’ll send awful iPhone photos to that woman in your office with whom you have a rivalry. What was her name…?”

“That Bitch Karen.”

Not That Bitch or Karen but
That Bitch Karen
. She had once published a story outing Jane as the author of her novels, and insinuating that they were based on Duke (which they were), which caused tons of trouble for him, since his investors wanted news of his private life
out
of the media and reports of his company on the front pages. The whole thing almost broke them up.

Damien paced around the room, loosening his tie, and rolling up his sleeves. She could see that he was coming undone.

There was a haunted look in his eye. Her smooth, debonair man was
troubled
by something and she felt out of her depth, not knowing what to say or do.

“I am desperate, Roxanna. I need the story.”

“Or else?”

“Or else…”

He strode toward her and pulled her close, flush up against his hard abs and chest. Her face tilted up to his as he lowered his mouth to hers for the sort of kiss that was an intimate promise of more for later.

God, is it later yet?

It wasn’t. And he was just avoiding all her questions. She couldn’t help him if he wouldn’t confide in her. She wouldn’t expose her friend for the guy she was just dating.

They were just dating. On the DL. Secretly. Nothing serious.

For the first time that irked her.

“I won’t do it,” she said, breaking away. Jane had made her promise
no more meddling
. No more online shit. No more borrowing phones, or surprise Facebook updates. No Tweets, or Pins, or Instagrams. She didn’t want the details of her special day leaked all over the world for strangers and crazy ex-boyfriends to find out about. This was Jane’s wedding to her real-life romance hero, and she wanted it to be private.

Damien frowned. “I’m sorry Roxanna, but then I’ll have to find someone else who will.”

“Are you joking?” She had to ask, anyway. Again.

“You keep asking me that,” he said half impatiently, half laughing.

She wasn’t finding this funny at all. To demonstrate it, she grabbed his loosened tie in her fist and growled, “I won’t let you publish anything about this wedding.”

“Is that a challenge, Ms. Lane?”

She gave him her most seductive smile and said, breathlessly, “Oh, yes it is, Mr. Knightly.”

On the terrace

Roxanna had put on some slinky blue dress that made him deeply regret the need to socialize with the other guests on the terrace. He wanted to take her back to the room, strip the dress off, lay her down on the bed, and make love to her until they were completely and utterly spent in a tangle of sweaty limbs and gasping for breath.

Damien schooled his features into the sort of cool, aloof expression befitting a ridiculously wealthy aristocrat, but inside he was churning. He wanted her intensely, but she was angry with him. Without this story, he was screwed.

It occurred to him, as he sipped a much-needed drink, that he’d been counting on her to save him from the stupid, catastrophic situation he found himself in. But it seemed now that he would lose
her
if he went ahead with the story, somehow. Or he would lose the only other thing he cared about in the world.

Damien Knightly was not accustomed to losing.

He watched her slink across the terrace—pausing to toss a coy smile over her shoulder at him. She accepted a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and went off to greet Jane. They did their girlish hellos—lots of hugs and laughter as if they’d been parted for months instead of days.

Damien hardly knew Jane. She was Roxanna’s best friend, roommate and a novelist who wrote some sort of smutty books about English lords and whatnot. He was better friends with the groom, Duke Austen. Although
friends
might be a stretch. They did business together and socialized together frequently, though they never kicked back with beers to watch a game and bitch about women. Still, Damien entertained the idea of reporting on his wedding. He
had
to.

The story of the billionaire tech guy and the romance novelist who based her books on him was too rich for any news outlet to resist. Someone was going to do it. Might as well be someone who could control the story and images instead of some scummy paparazzo taking grainy shots from the bushes on behalf of, say,
The Daily Post
, which was the most tawdry, salacious publication, barely a step above the rubbish handed out free in the Underground.