Billionaire Romance Boxed Set (9 Book Bundle) (96 page)

“Asher, I’m so terribly sorry about that
again. I really didn’t mean to ruin your book. I still feel
badly.”

He waved away my concern. Then he scooted
further to the side and patted the cushion next to him. “Sit
here. It’s easier to discuss things if we’re closer.”

Was that it? Yes, it made sense to some extent,
but not really. Still, I went. I would have gone no matter
what. I didn’t know what it was about him, but I felt like I should hang on
his every word, wait for him to demand something from me, and then do it as
best I could. And not for any particular reason save for the fact that he
seemed like the type of person who would never lead me astray. Why did I
think this? What was it? I felt guarded and unsure around him, but
I also felt a sense of trustworthiness.

When I went to sit next to him, moving slowly as if in
a dream, he brought out a pen and pad of paper from his suit coat. As a
random observation, I added, “You’re still wearing your coat.”

He gave me a quizzical look, then laughed.
“I am, aren’t I? Well, there’s no need for it. I guess I just
feel more comfortable in it than out of it.” He took it off,
revealing the rest of his silver shirt, and put the coat at his side.

“The way I see it, and I don’t know much about
this business so forgive me any mistakes, but there’s many ways to become
successful when dealing with something like this. First, reviewing
something that sells is…”

“Asher,” I said, interrupting. “I
know you mean well, but…”

“I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I?” he
said.

“No, it’s not that, but…” I didn’t
know how to say this gracefully, so I just let it loose. “I’m not a
very good drinker.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t do it too much and…”

“Yes, sake has a decently high alcohol
content.”

“I’m not drunk, but…”

“We can discuss business another time,” he
said with a grin.

“What do you do?” I asked, suddenly. I
don’t know why I asked it, because I knew what he did. He was the CEO of
Landseer Enterprises, running numerous different entertainment and vacation
holdings. Resorts, mostly, with a few casinos, and there were rumors they
had share in other places, but that information was kept carefully
secret. Why? I didn’t know. I wasn’t a billionaire, or else I’d
probably keep billionaire secrets, too. That didn’t stop me from wanting
to know, though.

“Besides running a multi-billion dollar company,
which makes me seem much more extravagant than I think I am,” Asher said,
“I like photography.”

I stared at him, dumbfounded.
“Photography?” I asked.

“Yes, but…”

“But?”

“I won’t tell you the type.”

“Please?” I begged. Like some foolish
girl I tugged on his shirt sleeve. It was the alcohol, I told myself,
except I really just wanted to touch him, to be closer to him.

He leaned close to me, whispering into my ear.
“I trust you’ll keep a secret. I enjoy photography of an intimate
and female sort. I don’t share this information with many people.”

I looked at him as if he were daft. “So you
take sexy pictures of scantily clad woman?” I asked.

“You make it sound so artistic,” he said,
rolling his eyes.

“I guess it could be…”

“I’ll show you if you want.”

“What do you mean by that? I don’t want to
see pictures of other women.”

“No,” he said, matter-of-fact.
“Of course not. We can do a session, you and me, and I’ll show you
what goes into it, then you can see the results first hand.”

“Asher,” I said, leaning my head on his
shoulder. “That won’t work. I’m not sexy enough.”

He downed his current cup of sake, then poured me
another, and held out his cup for me to do the same. Together, we drank.

“I beg to differ,” he said.

“What do you mean you beg to differ? I
think I know myself, and I definitely know I’m not sexy enough to be in any of
your pornographic photos.”

“Pornographic!” he said, as if it were the
most amusing concept in the world. “Hardly! Jessika, this is
art. Like classic Greek sculptures, I capture the pure essence of each
individual.”

“You do realize that most classic Greek
sculptures have woman of quite more than adequate proportions, don’t you?
You basically just called me fat.”

“I did nothing of the sort. In fact, I
resent that.” He rolled his eyes and made to move away from me, but
only in teasing. “You’re not even close to fat, anyways. I’m
glad you like the dress, by the way. It looks lovely on you.”

“I do,” I said. “I like it.”

I inched closer to him. I wanted more, a lot
more. I looked up at Asher, saw a look in his eyes that I hadn’t seen
before. What was it? I moved closer, trying to figure it out, but
halfway there I gave up. The alcohol fuzzed my brain. Not a lot,
but enough. At least I wouldn’t be sleeping on a park bench tonight, not
yet anyways.

It made me a little bolder, though. I put my
hand on his crotch, felt his manhood beneath his pants. How did it come
to this? I didn’t know. Asher watched me, stared at me, the look in
his eyes changing ever so slightly. God, I wished I weren’t somewhat
drunk so I could better read him, except if I weren’t I wouldn’t have my hand
on his crotch, now would I?

I craned my neck up, moved my head forward to kiss
him, and he didn’t stop me. His hand touched my breast, squeezed it,
bunched up the fabric of my dress until he held it tight in his hand. I
grabbed frantically for his erection, stroking him through his pants. I
wanted those pants off. Right now.

Asher seemed the same. But, his wife. I
couldn’t do this, had to stop, and that’s what I kept telling myself but I
never did it.

The waiter knocked on the wooden sliding door.
“The rest of your meal is ready,” he said.

No, no! Asher pulled me away from him, made me
put my hands in my lap and sit politely while he leaned over and opened the
door. When the waiter saw us sitting next to each other, he raised one
brow, but said nothing. One after another, him and his assistant placed
plates of food on our table, neatly arranging them around our lover’s special
sushi platter. Once finished, the waiter closed the door for us, but not
before saying, “I’ll bring more sake, Mr. Landseer.”

“Jessika,” Asher said when we were alone
again. “I’m sorry, but we can’t do this. You’re drunk.”

Something struck me, some blind inspiration, and I
decided to go with it. “You said we wouldn’t end our lunch date
until I told you my answer,” I said. “I’m in no hurry to tell
you.”

I meant, though the words came out a bit hazy, that he
was stuck with me. I would tell him when I felt like it, and keep him for
myself until then. It sounded less nice when I said it aloud, but I hoped
he caught my meaning.

“Is that so?” he asked. “I said
it was a romanticized thought, but I never actually said I’d go through with
it.”

“You have to!” I pleaded. He was
ruining my plans before I could even begin them, and it frustrated me.

“I’ll do it,” he said. “But I
have a few requirements.”

“What?” I asked. “I’ll do
them.” Whatever they were, I would, if only to…

“First, we need to cease this. We are both
adults, and I am married. We can’t act as anything more than friendly to
one another.”

“Fine,” I said in a huff, crossing my arms
over my chest. “Fine. That’s fine. I don’t mean to sound
upset, but I never meant it. It was an accident.”

“Yes,” he said, sounding unconvinced.
“An accident.”

“You said ‘first.’ What’s second?”

“Second, if you insist on this, I insist you
allow me to photograph you.”

“I guess,” I said. If I gave in for
now, agreed to his requirements, then I thought I could stay with him for just
a little longer. If I changed my mind tomorrow, what would he do?
Our time together would be spent and done already. “When do you want
to do this? I have the weekend free.”

“As soon as we finish our meal,” he said.

“What?” I stared at him, blinking.

“You’ve heard the requirements. Do you
agree or not?”

“I…” I couldn’t do that! I
was… well, not yet, but I could become drunk if the waiter kept bringing us
more sake. And, sexy? How was I supposed to be sexy? I knew a
thing or two about it, and I understood the general premise, but I highly
doubted I could look as appealing as the women in some of the photographs I’d
seen before. Not to mention I didn’t even know exactly what kind of
photography he did. He said it was intimate and female, but
that was vague enough to be almost anything.

“Do you agree or not?” he asked, repeating
himself.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll do
it.”

“Good,” he said with a wicked grin.
Picking up his chopsticks, he grabbed a piece of vegetable tempura; one of the
fried sweet potatoes. “Excellent choice on the tempura, by the
way. These are delicious. I haven’t had them in forever.”

His Absolute
Instructions

*

I never thought I was sexy. That isn’t to say I
thought I was unattractive, but there’s a difference between sexiness and an
acceptable look. Everyone has something nice about their personal
appearance, but that doesn’t mean they have that
je ne sais quoi
sexual
appeal.

I dressed as nicely as I could, though, wearing nice
looking skirts and blouses. Maybe I bought my clothes at Macy’s or J.C.
Penney, but they looked good. Probably not as fashionable as women in
Asher Landseer’s tier, but I could buy ten full outfits with what they paid for
a single blouse. I owned shelves full of body scrubs, soaps, facial
cleansers, and a ton of other woman’s essentials for my early morning routine
when I was getting ready for the day. I loved to take baths, used rose,
sandalwood, and green tea scented shampoo, and splurged on the more expensive
conditioners.

I looked nice; I liked how I looked. Blonde,
average weight, a little bit of a tan from the tanning machines at the gym
where I shared a membership with a friend. I kept in shape, ate as well
as I could, and cared about my appearance. Cosmetics, styling my hair,
making sure my clothes were fresh and clean and without wrinkles.

Still, that didn’t make me sexy. I was sure men
found me attractive enough, and I’d had boyfriends in the past. Sex,
compliments, and everything that went along with relationships.

But…

When Asher Landseer, the billionaire CEO of Landseer
Enterprises asked to take sexy photos of me, I balked.

It was a requirement, he said. Not a requirement
of his choosing, either, but mine. At least it was mine in a way. I
could say no, I could disagree, but if I wanted him to agree to what I’d asked
of him, then I needed to accept his requirement.

A small part of me wanted to run away right
then. What was I getting myself into? He’d invited me to a
restaurant to discuss something and that was it. Granted, he wanted to
discuss me possibly becoming an egg donor and surrogate mother for him and his
wife, so the situation was already awkward, but this just made it worse.

He teased me, tormented me, except I thought he didn’t
mean it in a bad way. An accident, like someone who was unsure how to
proceed. Thinking back to what I’d done, I felt the same. Why did I
curl my toes, let them trace towards his crotch and his stiffening manhood
hidden beneath his pants. He’d offered me a calf massage and nothing
more, and I was the one who took it further. Asher was the one who
elevated it, almost getting me off with his foot, but then it stopped.

And started. And stopped.

Sitting in our private booth at The Simple Path, a
luxurious Japanese restaurant, I answered him.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll do
it.”

“Good,” he said with a deliciously deviant
grin on his face.

I wanted to kiss him so badly, but he reached for a
piece of battered and fried sweet potato from our vegetable tempura
plate. Why was I sitting next to him now? I’d started across the
table, less intimate, and now here I was, sitting elbow to elbow with him,
the
Asher Landseer.

It was the sake. I was never a good drinker,
always quick to get a bit of a buzz, and we’d gone through three cups of the
drink already. Not drunk, not by a long shot, but I wanted an
excuse. I needed a reason to stay near him, desired it. As per our
agreement, I would answer him about surrogacy when I was good and ready, and
not a moment sooner, and he would spend the day with me until I did. Was
that selfish? Who had the better part of the deal there? It was his
idea, a type of control, or the giving away of it, but what did he really want
out of this?

I could keep him to myself, at least for a little bit,
and pretend there was some other reason he wanted to share my company, some
other purpose besides his request for me to think about becoming his wife’s egg
donor. She was infertile, they didn’t see each other often, maybe he was
lonely?

Maybe… he wanted… me?

I didn’t know if I could let him take sexy pictures of
me, though. A hobby, nothing more, just something he enjoyed doing in his
spare time.

I never thought I was sexy. I still wasn’t sure.

…

Asher didn’t know what had come over him. He
didn’t know why he’d asked Jessika to model for his photography. It
wasn’t a shameful thing, not in his mind, and he owned all of the proper
equipment, but this was new to him. He couldn’t help himself. It
was as if he needed to ask her, some fate ordained.

He never believed in fates or destinies or anything
like that, though. People made their own paths in life, and he’d made his.
He’d invited her here under the awkward, though innocuous reason of seeing how
she would answer his request from the day prior.

Yes, nothing more than that, right? Except
yesterday he’d chastised her by putting her on the table in his private meeting
room and stripping her of all her clothes. True, she ruined one of his
favorite books first, the one that his father had given to him after he
graduated from private school and before he’d gone to college, but it was
replaceable. Special, with memories, but she never destroyed the memories
and sentiment.

He didn’t think Jessika could ever do something like
that. She only made them, new ones, blossomed and nurtured thoughts.

She was plain, regular, and… no, she was none of
those things. Her clothing looked average, but like any book, there was a
lot going on beneath her cover. He wanted to know it, to read her, to sit
by a fire while drinking a fine wine and exploring every aspect of her as if
she were a classic work of literature and he was stuck inside on a rainy,
dismal day.

He had a wife. He couldn’t do these
things. This was some inexplicable fascination. He tried to
dissuade himself, letting himself look at her. She wore the casual
chemise shirt he gave her yesterday after he’d ripped the buttons from her
other shirt. The skirt covering her legs went a little higher than her
hips, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. Her perfume, whatever the
scent, was pleasant but not too intoxicatingly so.

But her eyes! She looked at everything as if it
was exciting. Curiosity flickered through them, glimmers of innocence
wanting to learn more. They were a startling blue, like the sky on a
bright summer’s day, but he felt like they might cloud up and hide her true
feelings if he so much as breathed the wrong way, sent forth a bad gust of
wind. And her hands, timid, but wanting. The way she held her
chopsticks when she reached for a strip of
chicken kara age
, slow and
unsure, with a tilt of her head as she looked his way. He wanted to nod,
say yes, it’s delicious and I think you’ll love it. He wanted to pick the
meat up in his fingers and lean towards her, close, placing it lightly in her
mouth, feeding her the morsel, letting her chew and swallow it before kissing
the remnants off her pink, delicate lips.

That was too much, though. If he scared her,
worried her, he didn’t think he’d have another chance. He wanted to
squeeze her, grab her, demand things from her. He wanted to lay her down
on the bench right then and there and rip off her clothes and press his warm
mouth against every part of her body.

He wanted her to be her, but he wanted her to be his,
too.

And so, without thinking, the urge overriding the
logical part of his brain, he’d asked her to model for his photography
hobby. She agreed. She agreed! This startled him somewhat,
but he wasn’t entirely surprised. Except now what?

He needed to tone this down, to lighten the mood and
keep all intimate thoughts at bay. This would be strictly an enjoyable
pastime where he showed her a few things about taking pictures and
modeling. And that was it. No more.

He had a wife, he knew that, and this was some odd,
mild fascination with an interesting woman. Nothing more or less than
that, and in time it would pass.

…

I had taken a taxi to the restaurant since I didn’t
own a car; it was easier to travel in the city without one most of the
time. A lack of parking spots, or traffic issues, or any other numerous
problems could and did happen on a daily basis, making owning a car more of a luxury
than a necessity here. I liked not having a car, anyways. Sometimes
it was nice to imagine it as freedom. With cars I was stuck on city
roads, but walking, or a taxi, or the subway could bring me almost anywhere.

I didn’t know if Asher agreed with that, but he had a
car of sorts. He drove, he said, sometimes, but he had a man who drove
him around most of the time. Especially now as we’d both been drinking,
so it obviously wasn’t safe for either of us to drive.

We stepped out of the restaurant, a little tipsy,
after Asher paid the waiter for our meal. The food was as delicious as I
imagined—probably better—but the price!

“Did you really just pay three hundred dollars
for our lunch?” I asked him after sneaking a peek at the bill.

Asher shrugged, nonchalant. “They included
the tip in the bill,” he said.

He held my arm in his as we walked down the street
towards his car. I felt nice then, sophisticated. Asher was a
gentleman, if nothing else, and he more than acted the part. His free
hand reached across the front of his torso towards where my arm held onto his
and he placed his fingers on my hand in a silent gesture.

Safe, it said. You’re safe, don’t worry.
Safe and mine. I wanted to think the last part was at least somewhat
true, but I knew it couldn’t be. We’d discussed this before leaving.

“We need to stop this,” he had said.
“You’re an attractive woman, but I’m married, and—”

Yes. It didn’t really matter what he said, but I
understood it. I completely agreed with him no matter how much I didn’t
want to.

The bright, noontime sun shone down on us as we turned
the corner. People passed us by on the streets, barely giving us a second
glance. Did they think we were a couple? I wondered about
that. We might look somewhat like it. I eased closer to him, tried
to relax and act as if we’d known each other for longer than a couple of
days. Relaxed, friendly, intimate, close.

I tilted my head, just a little bit, and rested the
side of my forehead on his shoulder. He smiled and looked over at
me. If I moved my face up, turned my chin just so, I could have snuck in
for a quick kiss.

“Are you alright?” he asked, concerned.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m just a little
tired. The sake, maybe.”

I wasn’t tired, not at all. The alcohol was
doing some things, but that wasn’t the reason I had my head on his
shoulder. It made a wonderful excuse, though.

We stopped in front of a black car with tinted
windows. As soon as Asher approached, I heard the click of a door
unlocking. Asher reached for the door handle, pulled on it, and swept
open the door for me. Reluctantly, I let go of his arm and stepped into
the car.

The back seat was bigger than it looked from the
outside. I sat on the plush leather and shimmied over to give Asher room
to come in, too. Stretching my legs out as far as they could go, I still
had a few more inches before my toes would touch the back of the drivers
seat. Asher grinned and slipped in beside me.

“Where to, boss?” the man in the driver’s
seat asked.

“Home, Jeremy,” Asher said. “To
the guest house, though. Jessika and I have private business arrangements
to discuss, so I’d rather not go to the main house for now.”

“Sure thing. Not a problem,” Jeremy
said.

Asher nodded, the car started, and we were off.
That was that, and I expected a typical ride to wherever we were off to, except
Asher had other things in mind. Touching a switch on the hand rest next
to him, a piece of dark, thick glass rose up from behind the front seats and
blocked my view of the road in front of us. Presumably it blocked
Jeremy’s view of us, too. Asher confirmed as much.

“I thought you might like the privacy,” he
said. “If not I’ll lower it again.”

I shrugged, smiled, nonchalant. “It’s
fine.”

“Relax if you want,” Asher added.
“Buckle your seat belt? Or not? Shall we live on the wild
side?”

“Ooh!” I said with mock enthusiasm.
“Dangerous, are we?”

He laughed. “As dangerous as we can be with
a chauffeur with an impeccable driving record.”

I decided on not buckling my seat belt, but for other,
possibly even more dangerous reasons.

I don’t know what came over me, and I don’t think I
would have done this regularly, but my hand crept towards the buttons of my
chemise and I undid the top one. Asher took no notice as I did this,
instead peering out the window at something or other. I undid the next
button, and the next, letting loose a sizable amount of my cleavage. Then
another, and one more. As I undid the last button, revealing a thin line
of bare flesh from the top of my neck to the curves of my waist, hindered only
by my lacy white bra, Asher glanced over at me.