Shopping for a Billionaire's Wife (24 page)

He just stares. But he’s listening.

“I didn’t grow up like this. I’m like most people, with money I use as a tool to navigate the world, and my mind in a constant series of negotiations throughout the day about how to allocate my limited resources.”

Tap tap tap.

I frown at him. “Did you order room service?”

His frown matches mine. “No.”

“Delivery!” someone calls out. Dec makes a face of understanding and gives me the side-eye. Wonder what that’s about.

He opens the double doors to the suite and two delivery men roll in a seven-foot-tall teddy bear wearing a sweater with my name on it.

I look at him.

“Seriously?”

He shrugs. “Andrew got Amanda a six-foot-tall one, and this one is animatronic, so—”

It begins to
sing
. It sings Katy Perry’s “Roar.” When the word
fireworks
is in the song, giant silver sparklers light up and a shower of silver foil-covered chocolates shoot out. The damn teddy bear is a creation for nightmares.

“You thought
I
—” my words have to be shouted above the damn singing “—would like this?”

“I thought it would be fun. Those are all milk chocolate, by the way,” he adds in an acerbic tone. “No white chocolate.” 

“You don’t do this at home!”

“I—”

Andrew bursts into the room and stares at the monstrosity, his mouth tightening, nostrils flaring, a patented McCormick-man look if I’ve ever seen one, and trust me, I’ve see a few thousand of these. 

It’s the look that says,
Oh, hell. I’ve been beaten
. 

But I haven’t given up.

“Well played,” Andrew concedes as the damn animatronic bear’s stomach opens up, like the hatch door on an SUV, slowly rising, and shows a video screen on its belly.

“You got me a gigantic Teletubby?” I groan. This thing looks like Dipsy took steroids. 

“A what?” Declan and Andrew seem genuinely confused. I spent most of the late 1990s babysitting toddlers on weekends to make spending money for after-school activities, so I am intimately familiar with that particular breed of kids’ television star, the plush little colored stuffed beings with antennas on their heads and television screens embedded in their abs.

The video screen blinks, turns on, and a goat appears on screen. 

A goat in an African village, the sun setting on the horizon on-screen.

“Greetings!” says a voice in English, the accent light. “We thank you for your donation of one thousand goats to our foundation. Your contribution will—”

I shut off the video and turn to look at Andrew, who is staring up at the top of the giant teddy bear, as if he’s measuring.

Because he is.

“Take your pants down.”

“Excuse me?” Declan says, horrified.

“Excuse me?” Andrew echoes, a little too gleefully.

“Measure your penises. Just get it over with. C’mon. The goats are a nice gesture. The teddy bear is going to creep into my subconscious and terrorize me along with Pennywise the clown and those dreams I’ve started having where Steve Harvey announces I’m Mrs. Declan McCormick and then retracts it.” 

Declan gives me a
WTF?
look.

Tap tap tap.

“That’s probably Amanda,” Andrew says, going to the door and opening it.

Yep.

“But this competition between the two of you, showering me and Amanda with these ridiculous, over-the-top gifts in an effort to one-up each other is—”

“AWESOME!” she shouts, jumping up and down in front of my teddy bear, giggling and clapping.

When we get home, I am stealing some strands of hair from her brush and DNA-matching her against my mom.

“I’m sorry,” Dec says, rubbing my shoulders, willing me to relax into him and lean against his chest. “You’re right. I’ll take back the goats.” 

I turn around and give him a playful punch in the breastbone. “Not the goats! We can keep the goats.”

“Kinky,” Amanda says, eyebrow cocked.

“You want goats?” Andrew asks her. “I can get you goats.”

“The goats are for African villages,” I explain to her. 

“Like the Heifer Project goats?” she asks.

“A foundation like that,” Dec says, wrapping his arms around me. I guess we’re making up. Fight over. Conflict not resolved, but tabled for further discussion.

Away from the prying eyes of a seven-foot-tall bear.

“I can get you water buffalo,” Andrew hisses in her ear. “I can even get you a zebra.” 

“What are you? A zoo pimp?” I ask. 

“Do you mind?” Andrew says, pretending to be offended. “This is a private conversation.”

“Your idea of dirty talk is kind of sick,” I tell him.

“Get out,” Dec says, a pleasant smile on his face, looking pointedly at his brother.

“Why are you guys here?” I ask. 

“I saw the bear being delivered and followed it to your room,” Andrew admits. He looks at Amanda. “You want a bigger bear?” 

She leans in and whispers in his ear. Didn’t know a McCormick man’s skin could flush that fast.

“Convention hall? Which one?”

Declan names the ballroom where the sex toy trade show’s going on.

And they’re off.

“Sex?” Declan whispers in my ear just as I say, “Nap?” 

He mulls that over. “Nap now, sex later?”

“Deal.”

Chapter Sixteen

“Quit worrying,” Declan commands as I fiddle with my earring for the umpteenth time and drink more water. The nap was a waste of time. I couldn’t sleep, and Declan spent the entire time answering messages on his phone. We’re about to have dinner with my mom and dad, the big meal where we finally talk it all out, and I’m one big nerve jangling like a charm on an Alex and Ani bracelet owned by a four year old on a trampoline. 

“I’m not worrying. I am thinking through a delicate situation over and over in an infinite loop of analysis to make sure I don’t leave any details to chance.”

“Like I said. Quit worrying.” He pulls me into his arms, still in a business shirt, cuffs rolled up, eyes tired. He’s been working for a few hours, even though we’re supposed to be on our “honeymoon.” Four different national tourism boards have been lobbying Grace—hard—offering a host of free opportunities for us if we’ll honeymoon in their respective nations.

With the paparazzi in tow, of course.

Our kiss is interrupted by my hand reaching up to play with my stupid earring, and the buzzing of my phone. I check the clock. 7:43 p.m.

“Bet that’s Mom,” I say, pulling out the phone. He lets me go and looks down, reading the glowing screen upside down.

What I see on my text screen fills me with rage.

Need to postpone dinner. Got free tickets to the Donnie and Marie concert across the street. Love u. Breakfast instead?

“What does it say? I can’t read Mother-in-Lawish upside down,” Dec asks.

“They’re ditching us for Donnie and Marie!”

“Who? What?”

“My parents are blowing us off for hair and teeth!” I shout, disgusted. Upstaged by a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll.

I’m a little bit
pissed
.

“Donnie and Marie are still
alive
?” Declan muses. “Huh.”

I wave my screen in the air between us. “Apparently! And worth more than a special dinner with their daughter so they can clear the air with me!”

“Are you sure ‘Donnie’ and ‘Marie’ aren’t a euphemism for something?”

We shudder in unison.

“Let’s change the subject.” He beams. “This is good news! Now we have the entire evening free, and to ourselves.”

My stomach growls.

“I see dinner is first on the agenda,” Dec says with a smile.

“I shored myself up for tonight. I spent half the day avoiding talking to my mother, even when it came to getting a vajacial, and now—” 

“A
what
?”

“I told you about the vajacial earlier, right before you had Smokey the Teletubby delivered to my room.” 

“I wasn’t listening. You were too beautiful.” He gives me a grin that he thinks will paper over past sins.

“Never mind.” I give him a sour look. “But you really need to have a mystery shopping company come in and evaluate that spa you have downstairs. They have some unconventional practices.”

“Let Grace know.” He waves the thought away. “What about food? Where do you want to eat tonight?” Declan asks.

My stomach growls again, and I remember the restaurant next door, the one I walked past several times in my free days. You know. When I could get my own lattes at Grind It Fresh!

“I would love to go to a tapas bar,” I say, recalling the sleek lines, the grey stools, the bottle-glass backsplash at the bar in the resort next door. Maybe if I can make the tapas bar look like Declan’s idea, I can sneak into Grind It Fresh! and get a clandestine latte. Hmmm. This is a sudden plan. 

It could work.

“Excuse me?” Declan clears his throat and leans in. “You want to go to a
what
?” 

“A tapas bar.” I let out a huge sigh. “It’s been a long, tense few days, and now that we’re off the hook with Mom and Dad for dinner, I could use something to pull me out of my own head and help me relax. You know. Try a new experience. Taste the world a little.”

“You could?” Declan’s eyes widen with surprise. He leans in further, with a sexy growl in his voice. “You have a place in mind?” 

I pull back a bit, a little unnerved by his reaction. Wow. He’s really aroused by small plates, huh?

I know the resort next door is expressly forbidden, so I lob the question right back at him. I still can’t believe my mom and dad called off dinner, especially for Donnie and Marie.

What’s next? Breakfast will be canceled by Wayne Newton?

“Um, not really. No place in mind. You know the town better than I do. How about you pick? I want the absolute
best
tapas bar in town,” I reply.  

I know from obsessive research that not only is Grind It Fresh! considered the best coffee house in town, so is the tapas bar next door. The word
best
is a dog whistle. Declan has a fine-tuned radar for wanting to give me the best of everything, so I’m stacking the deck.

Which is what you do in Vegas, right?

He struts across the room like a peacock, all buoyant and suddenly a little too happy. Picking up his phone, he taps a few times and murmurs, his conversation muted by his cupped hand over the phone. The conversation ends and he turns to me with a big wide smile, those green eyes glittering like emeralds, a flush to his face and hooded eyes taking me in. 

“You.” The word comes out in a lustful roll. 

“Me, what?”

“I’m the luckiest man in the world.” And with that, I’m in his arms, his tongue between my lips, sweeping and searching, the kiss dizzying in its intensity.

Geez. All this over some goat-cheese-stuffed figs and prosciutto-wrapped asparagus?

I’ll take it.

The buzzer in the room goes off, indicating our limo is here. Declan groans, his hand up my skirt, fingers digging into my ass. I come up for air.

“Ah, well,” he sighs, lips on mine as he talks. “We can always come back and have this later. Let’s go have a different kind of fun.”

“Right.” I lick my lips as he watches me straighten my skirt. “I sure am looking forward to some fine sampling.”

I reach into my purse and discover it’s a giant mess, filled with a bunch of ones and fives that Amy gave me the other day in exchange for larger bills. She’s been waitressing a couple of shifts a week, and needed to make a fast ATM deposit. The smaller bills made too large an envelope to fit in the machine slot. I pull them out and make a neat, orderly stack, which I shove back in my purse.

When I look up, Declan’s gawking at me. Mouth open and everything.

“I had no idea,” he says, almost gasping. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

I shrug.

“I’ve heard about all the great places here in Vegas, especially the ones run by the pros, but I’ve never been here. Now’s our chance!” I explain. 

Declan’s hand goes in his pocket and he adjusts himself discreetly.

“You seem pretty, uh, excited yourself,” I point out as we take the elevator down to the private garage.

“Of course I am!” he replies.

Right. Of course he is. That makes sense. As a high-ranking man in the hotel and hospitality industry, a person who sets trends rather than copying them, he’d want to make sure he’s on the cutting edge of culinary trends. I start to wonder which place he’s picked.

Knowing Declan, it’ll blow my mind.

We get in the limo and drive through the center of the Strip slowly, pedestrians thick in the streets, drawing out the trip. Sadly, we drive right past the resort next door. No convenient tapas bar for me, one where I can run over to Grind It Fresh! and test how fast I can suck down a clandestine small latte. 

First world problems.

Meanwhile, Declan’s hand is on my thigh, and he’s sliding up, up,
up
, fingertips a little too close to heaven.

“I thought you said that was for later,” I whisper. “After we have our fill of something exotic.”

He stiffens. “Define ‘exotic.’”

I search my brain to think of a tapas menu item that Declan might never have heard of, because
my
idea of exotic and
his
idea of exotic are likely two different things.

“I’ve heard that Moroccan melon can be really tasty. Some people think that it’s better if you lick it before you take a bite.”

Why is he looking at me like that?

“Other people prefer a Mexican mocha with a fish flavor on their melons. It’s all about individual t-t-tastes,” I stammer as Declan peers at me. 

“Two years,” he huffs.

“Two years what?”

“I’ve been with you for more than two years and never knew about this adventurous side of you.”

“You can make it up to me! Now that you know, think of all the great things we can put in our mouths and savor. If we find something we really like, we can share and go back for more.”

He starts coughing uncontrollably.