Billionaire Romance Boxed Set (9 Book Bundle) (78 page)

Well, they probably just said
that for legal reasons.

I hoped.

It took some jumping through
hoops to actually schedule the appointment for a time when Daniel could get
away from work, but when we finally did, it was a full month away. I didn’t
know how I was going to survive the anticipation.

I spent a lot more time
researching and a lot more time pacing. Daniel pulled out his tiny notebook and
we went over everything again, and again and again. He kept telling me that the
most important thing was to sound honest and unrehearsed, but I was absolutely
sure I was going to make some horribly obvious mistake and ruin everything.

The morning of the interview, I
dressed in my most responsible-looking outfit and threw up twice in the
bathroom while I was getting ready. The whole drive over, I felt like every
organ in my body was trying to crawl out through my chest. I let my hand from
my lap down to the seat, where I found Daniel’s. I clasped his fingers in mine
and squeezed tight, and he squeezed back.

He had, at least, some amount of
faith in me. I just wasn’t sure if it was justified.

We went to a nondescript building
downtown; it could have passed for any other bank of offices. After a long walk
down many hallways, we finally arrived at our meeting place.

The waiting room was small, and
crowded with people. Most of them had the same thousand-yard stare that I was
sure I sported. Not a single one of us wanted to be there. You could
practically smell the fear.

I sat there, still clutching
Daniel’s hand, until his name was called.

“Mr. Thorne?”

I had forgotten they’d be talking
to us separately. Of course they would. I let go of his hand and hunched down
in my seat.

This was going to be the longest
wait of my life.

After a while, I actually started
to seriously consider that he might never come back. Maybe they’d already
arrested him, and they’d be coming for me next. Of course our story wouldn’t
hold up. Why would it? We’d been stupid to think we could beat the system.

I sat in utter misery for what
felt like hours. Every time the woman came back to the door and looked around
the room, my head perked up, hoping against hope it would be my name that she
called.

But it never was.

And then, finally, I heard it.

“Mrs. Thorne. Will you
please come with me.”

I followed her, into a tiny
office with barely enough room for two chairs and a desk. I sat down.

“Someone will be with you in
just a moment.”

She disappeared.

Sitting there, alone, in the
stifling little room, I was very aware of the sound of my own breathing. Did I
seem nervous? I had to act normal. I had to remember to smile.

The doorknob rattled.

A middle-aged man walked in,
glasses perched on his nose. He was dressed like Mr. Rogers. I smiled bravely
at him.

“Mrs. Thorne,” he said.
“Thank you for coming in.”

“My pleasure,” I said,
absurdly.

“All right.” He opened
a manila folder on his desk. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

Chapter Thirteen

I sat quietly, irrationally
worried that the interviewer could hear my heartbeat. The silence seemed to
stretch on forever, and then, he finally spoke.

“Can you tell me about your
first meeting?”

I cleared my throat. “Well,
uh, he runs the company that I work at. But he doesn’t take a very…hands-on
role in dealing with his staff. So I saw him around for years before I ever
really ‘met’ him.” I inhaled, slowly. Breathing. Staying present with
myself. “Then, about three months ago, he sent his lawyer to get me. He told
me that Daniel wanted to meet with me.”

“And what happened
then?”

“Daniel wanted to talk about
a special project. A logo redesign for the company. Complete image overhaul. He
wanted to keep it a secret, which was why he was talking to me about it directly.
Or so he said.”

“It wasn’t true?”

I smiled. “He made it all
up, just to get a chance to talk to me. I guess he’d been, sort of…interested
in me for a while.”

“Did he make you aware of
his interest in the first meeting?”

I swallowed. We hadn’t gone over
this. “Not…not in so many words.”

The interviewer looked at me,
clicking his pen.

“I…suspected,” I said,
at last. “From the way he looked at me. But I thought I must be imagining
things.”

“So.” He looked down at
his papers. “Where were you living, at this time?”

I recited the address to my old
apartment.

“At your first meeting, did
you exchange contact information? Did you make arrangements to see each other
again?”

I hesitated. “I…I think
so,” I said. “But I can’t really remember exactly how many times we
met before he gave me his number.”

So far, I was following Daniel’s
guidelines as closely as I could. I figured vague was best, but too vague and I
risked looking suspicious. I had to walk a delicate balance.

And breathe.

“Can you tell me about when
you first realized you had something in common?”

I laughed a little, looking into
the distance, like I was remembering something that made me happy to think
about. “I don’t remember how it came up, exactly, but…Woody Allen movies.
Turns out we both grew up watching them. We started talking about them every
time we got together, just chit-chatting…less and less about the ‘project,’ and
more and more about personal things. Finally, he told me that they were putting
the project on hold, but…he still wanted to see me.”

“And you felt the same
way.”

“Yes.”

A part of me was actually
starting to believe my own story, and it made my heart ache.

“So would you say that’s
when your relationship turned romantic?”

I nodded.

“Where did you go on your
first date?”

“We ate lunch together at
the office quite a bit,” I said. “But…officially? The Inn at
Grenarnia,” I said. “It was very nice.”

“Do you remember the
date?”

“I think it was…around the
end of July?

“Were you concerned about
your coworkers finding out about your relationship?”

“We were, for a while.
That’s why we kept it quiet. But eventually we decided it was best to be open
about things, and that I would quit my job as soon as it was feasible to avoid
conflicts of interest.”

“How soon into the
relationship did he inform you about his immigration difficulties?”

“Before he proposed,” I
said. “He wanted to make sure I knew that it wasn’t about that.”

“And when was that?”

I looked down. “After a few
weeks of dating for real,” I said. “He told me that he knew it was
crazy…but the craziest part was, I felt exactly the same way. I was ready to
take a leap of faith.”

“What made you decide to
have a short engagement?”

“Well, neither one of us is
particularly romantic. I didn’t want a big fuss and he didn’t either. So we
figured there was no reason to let things drag out forever.”

“How did your parents feel
about the relationship?”

I hesitated for a moment.
“My parents and I aren’t…close. I invited them to the wedding, but they
wouldn’t travel. Daniel’s parents have passed away.”

“Well, that takes care of my
next question.” The interviewer looked up, smiling a little bit. Finally
showing his human side.

I just kept breathing.

More questions came after that.
About the wedding, the number of people in attendance, about who took care of the
finances and what T.V. shows we watched together every week. He asked to see my
keys, examining the one I said was for Daniel’s apartment. I wondered if he was
trying to match them up from memory.

He wanted to know if I’d met any
members of Daniel’s family, so I told him about Lindsey and Ray. I answered a
long string of mundane questions about our home life - the number of bedrooms
and bathrooms, when the garbage pickup came, and the color of the carpet.

Finally, he released me. I walked
back out into the waiting room slowly. Daniel jumped up out of his chair when
he spotted me.

I hurried over to him; he pulled
me close and kissed me swiftly.

“We survived,” I said.

“Yes.” He put his arm
around my shoulders. “Come on. Let’s go.”

I had to bite my tongue until we
got back home, although I was dying to compare whatever answers we could
remember. John was driving, and he didn’t know the truth.

As soon as the door closed behind
us, I turned to him and blurted out:

“Did they ask you if you
came onto me at our first meeting?”

He blinked. “I said that I
was flirting with you, but being subtle about it. What did you say?”

I exhaled. “I said that I
thought maybe you were, but I wasn’t sure.”

“That’s fine, then.” He
pressed a quick kiss to my forehead. “I’m sure everything will match
perfectly. There’s really nothing to worry about.”

“When will we find
out?”

“I should get a letter in a
few months,” he said. “If we don’t hear anything between now and
then, we’re to assume everything’s going smoothly. Which I’m sure it will.”

“I’m glad you’re so
confident.”

“Come on.” He laid his
hands on my shoulders. “It’s all right. I know this isn’t the easiest
thing in the world, with all the waiting, but everything will be just
fine.”

I smiled, and then looked away
for a moment. I wanted, very badly, to say something about the honeymoon. About
the fact that we hadn’t really touched each other since. About the fact that I
wanted, more than anything, for him to grab me and take me like I knew he
really wanted to.

I knew he did, even if he wasn’t
showing it.

“We had a good time on the
honeymoon,” I said, finally. “Didn’t we?”

“Yes,” he said, a
little hesitantly.

“And I’m not talking about
the moon walk.”

His mouth twitched.

“Maddy,” he said.
“Maybe we shouldn’t -“

“What - talk about it?”
I touched the side of his face. “Do it? What difference does it
make?”

He swallowed. “Maddy,”
he said, a little hoarsely. So I was getting to him, at least.

“We’re going to feel what we
feel,” I said. “Whether we act on it or not.”

He licked his lips. “All the
same,” he said.

“All the same? What kind of
counter-argument is that?” I smiled. “Stop acting like a character in
some Victorian loss-of-virtue novel.”

He laughed, and then leaned down
to kiss me. “You’re very persuasive, you know that?” he said when he
broke away. “That’s very naughty. Tempting me. You know I can’t
resist.”

“Why would I ever want you
to?” I wound my arms around his neck, smiling.

“I don’t know if you realize
what you’ve unleashed.” He had such a wicked grin on his face. “Go
upstairs and wait for me.”

I frowned a little.
“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

He was still smiling.

“Fine,” I said.
“But you better make it worth my while.” I turned and skipped up the
stairs, two at a time.

“Oh, I will,” he
shouted after me.

I stood in the middle of the
bedroom for a moment, trying to decide how to present myself. The obvious thing
would be to undress completely - or at least partway. But he’d be expecting
that. He wanted to punish me, didn’t he? And strangely enough, I wanted to be
punished too. So I should be bad, right? I should do the opposite of what he
expected. What he wanted.

I went over to the small
bookshelf by the door. I hadn’t looked at it too much; it was mostly business
stuff or financial guides, nothing that really interested me. But there were a
few novels on the top shelf, so I picked one at random and sat down on the edge
of the bed. It looked like something you’d buy at the airport on a whim. I
flipped it open and started reading.

Minutes ticked by, and I
hadn’t turned the page. I couldn’t really process the words. I felt nervous and
excited, my heart thumping wildly in my chest, more so even than it had at the
interview.

Suddenly, I heard a light tapping
noise. I looked up.

Daniel was standing in the
doorway, leaning against the frame, his fingers drumming out a staccato on the
smoothly painted wood. He was smiling, coldly.

“I thought I told you to
wait for me.”

“I am waiting,” I said,
innocently. I looked up, setting the book down on the mattress. “I got
bored. Is that a crime?”

He strode over rapidly, stopping
a few feet away from me and staring down at me. I swore his eye twitched.

“When I tell you wait for
me,” he said, his voice low and dangerous, “you wait for me. You
don’t read. You don’t check your phone. You don’t think. You just wait. That’s
all you are allowed to do.”

My throat tightened. He was right
- I had no idea what I’d unleashed. This was a side of him I hadn’t seen
before. It was a strange, intimate version of his forbidding work persona, more
like how I’d imagined he would be in private. And apparently, I was right. I
just hadn’t known how right, until now.

I’d intended to keep up the
defiant act for a little longer, but I found the words stuck in my throat.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” I
said. “I didn’t know.”

“Well, you should
have.” He walked over to his closet and began rifling through his belt
rack. I felt all the blood drain from my face. Was he really going to do what I
thought he was going to do?

A little spanking was one thing,
but I wasn’t sure I was ready to get hit with a belt.

Then again, there was something
inside me - something that stopped me from protesting. A very small voice, but
very clear.

I trusted him.

He came back with a belt looped
in his hand. I was afraid, yet at the same time, I wasn’t.

“What do you think?” he
said. “Is this what you deserve?”

I swallowed. “No,” I
said, very quietly.

He smiled. “Maybe not,”
he said, looking down at the leather in his hand. He loosened his grip and let
it slither to the floor.

“Maybe this would be more
appropriate,” he said, reaching for the book.

“Thank God I picked a
paperback,” I said, before I could stop myself.

He grabbed me by my arm, flipping
me over onto my stomach. I squealed.

“You’ve got a smart
tongue,” he said. “You really should learn to control it a little better.”

He spanked me with the book.
Hard. It didn’t sting as badly as I thought it would, especially through my
jeans, but it was a powerful swing. I groaned into the pillow, half out of pain
and half out of pleasure.

He was relentless, but at the
same time, I could tell he was paying attention to me. Gauging my body’s
reactions. He wasn’t going to give me more than I could take.

Just when I was beginning to grow
numb, I heard him toss the book aside.

“Turn over,” he said.

I did.

His smile was gentler now, and he
leaned down to kiss me.

“This is all just a silly
game,” he whispered. “You know that, right?”

I nodded.

“If you say stop I’ll
stop,” he said. “It ends. No questions, no hesitations.”

“I know.” I took a deep
breath. “I trust you.”

“Good,” he said. His
face changed. “Now, get yourself undressed.” He stood up, stepping
away from the bed to watch me. I met his eyes as I pulled my shirt off over my
head.

“Slowly,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow, sliding down
off the bed with what I hoped was a smooth, sensual movement and unbuttoning my
jeans. I made a show of shimmying out of them, dragging it out for much longer
than I needed to. I tossed them aside, and then started on the bra, making sure
my hair fell down over my ear in a very fetching way as I did so. I unclasped
it, hook by hook, until it was finally undone. Then, I let it fall to the
floor.

One piece left.

I hooked my thumbs in the
waistband of my panties, just above my hips. I slid them down, inch by inch,
making sure to turn around and give him the three hundred and sixty-five degree
view.

Finally, I was naked in front of
him in his own bedroom. It felt different than it had on the honeymoon. More
real. He came walking towards me.

“Shameless,” he said,
grabbing me by my wrists and pulling me towards him, slightly off-balance. I
stumbled into his body, and made no effort to recover myself. Not that I could
have, even if I’d wanted to. He was holding me far too tightly.

He made a small noise with his
tongue: tsk, tsk. But he couldn’t stop himself from smiling.

“Wait here,” he said,
and I stood there by the bed while he went into his closet and rummaged for a
moment. I don’t know what I was expecting him to bring out, but it certainly
wasn’t a length of rope. It was long and elegant, and it had been dyed a deep
wine-red. He let it slide across my skin, and I shivered at the silken feel of
it.