Stingray Billionaire: The Complete Series (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (7 page)

“If this is another
chocolate run,” Naomi says, “I get that your metabolism is fantastic and everything,
but—”

“It’s not that,” I tell
her.

Nick called this morning,
asking if he could stop by with some chicken soup. Apparently, the soup was
prepared by world class chef
What’s-His-Name
and is said to have healing powers beyond that of
conventional
poultry.

“Oh, you’ll never guess
what happened to me today,” Naomi says.

“Win something?” I ask.

She sighs and her
shoulders drop a little. “You know you take all the fun out of this,” she says.

Naomi is the luckiest
person I’ve ever met. When Naomi was five months old, mom entered her into a
cute baby contest. Naomi came in fourth. Between the time she was passed over
for the job and the photo shoot itself, though, all three kids in front of her
came down with a different illness.

Since then, every time there’s
something to win, Naomi’s won it. The only exceptions I’ve found so far are the
lottery and general gambling. I guess it’s more a sweepstakes kind of luck than
anything.

“What’d you get?” I ask.

“A car,” she says.

“You won a car?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says, waving
her hand, “it’s nothing too fancy, though. I think they were just looking for a
way to get rid of the thing, if I’m honest.”

“You won a car?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says. “I
checked the
blue book
on it. I can keep
it,
and we can have something to drive around,
or I can sell it and probably get about twelve-thousand. What do you think?”

“You won a car?” I ask.

“Yes,
sororal
broken record of mine,” Naomi says. “I
won a car.”

“This is big,” I say.
“Well, why aren’t you out driving it?”

Maybe I don’t have to ask
for the favor after all. Now, if I can get her out of the house for a few hours
so I can see Nick without leaving the house or subjecting him to her …

“Because I just got
home,” she says. “Why, are you trying to get me out of the house so your
boyfriend
can come over and whisper
sweet nothings about how he doesn’t mind dating shut-ins?”

The downside of living
with someone you grew up with is they see through ploys, plots and schemes
better than anyone.

“Come on,” I say. “I
postponed on him a few days ago, and he still thinks I’m over here hacking up a
lung or something.”

“Ooh, he should be
thrilled
to drop what he’s doing and
come over here, then,” she says.

“I may mention something
about not being sick,” I tell Naomi through gritted teeth.

“I don’t know, sis,” she
says. “Perhaps I should meet this gentleman and make sure he’s the kind of guy
who’s worthy of you
before I let you have him
over here all by yourself.”

“Nan,” I say and Naomi
shudders, “think about it this way: While you’ve done a great job of furnishing
this place with all the crap you’ve won over the years, I’m still the one who’s
paid rent every month. In fact, I’m not sure I remembered to have them add you
to the lease.”

“You didn’t add me to the
lease?” she asks. “With as long as I’ve been living here, I’d say that’s a
breach of contract on your part. What else do you have?”

“Maybe I just decide to
have my boyfriend get me a nice place out of state and maybe I don’t tell you
where it is,” I say.

“Oh, come on,” she says.
“The two of you have only been on one real date. He’s not going to rent you a
place.”

“Who said anything about
renting?” I ask. “You know, with a nine-digit bank account, I’d bet he wouldn’t
even feel the pinch if he got me
a lovely
mansion on a shore somewhere.”

“You know a beach house
is my dream house,” Naomi says. “That’s not cool.”

“Leave now, and I’ll put
away the rest of the groceries,” I tell her.

I don’t know if it was
the
hypothetical
beach house or the offer
to put away a single bag’s worth of items, but Naomi stops what she’s doing,
grabs the keys to her new car off the countertop, and walks out the front door.

She’s a bit of an odd
one, Naomi.

I pull out my phone and
send Nick a quick text to ask if
he has
a
minute. The phone’s ringing a minute later.

“Hey there,” I answer.

“Hey,” Nick says. “How
are you feeling?”

“You know,” I tell him,
“I think I’m doing a lot better.” I’m not going to complain about a few people
in front of my door when he had half the town camped out waiting for him.
“Naomi’s
out. I
was wondering if you
maybe had some time to come over.”

“Well,” he says, “I’ve
got a few things to finish up right now. How does three o’clock sound?”

It
looks
like Naomi’s going to get to meet the
boyfriend after all.

“That’s fine,” I tell
him. “Let me know when you’re on your way and I’ll make sure to have a drink
ready for you when you get here.”

“Sounds great,” he says.
“Listen, I have to go now, but I’m glad you’re doing all right, and I’ll see
you in a little while.”

“Thanks,” I say, though I
have no idea why. “I mean sounds good. I’ll see you then.”

If I offer to do Naomi’s
laundry for a week, I wonder if she’d be willing to stay out of the apartment a
while longer. I pull out my phone.

*
                   
*
                   
*

It’s about 3:05 when the knock
falls on the
door,
and I’m just finishing
up the vodka martini—stirred, not shaken. Max barks lazily from Naomi’s
room
but doesn’t follow it up with anything.
Sammie just sits in the middle of the floor staring at me.

I get to the door and,
once it’s open, I poke my head out just far enough to look to the left and then
to the right, and I grab Nick by the lapels of his suit jacket and pull him
into the apartment. Closing and locking the door, I say, “Hey, sorry about
that. Things have been a bit hectic around here.”

“I’d say from the amount
of force you used pulling me in
here you
must feel quite a bit better,” he says.

I cringe. “Yeah,” I say.
“Hey, I know this is off-topic, but I was wondering if you had any
particular
way you deal with people who want
something from you.”

“What do you mean?” he
asks.

“Never mind,” I tell him.
“You
look great.
”

Nick is wearing a dark
gray suit with a deep red tie. While it hardly
seems
like he uses any product, there’s not a strand of his short, black hair that’s
out of place.

“You can take your jacket
off,” I tell him. “Stay awhile.”

“Thanks,” he says and
starts looking around as he slides the jacket off of him with incredible ease.
“Do you have a coat rack or a hanger or something?” he asks.

“I’ll take it,” I tell him
and hold out my hands. When he hands me the jacket, it’s all I can do not to
start going on about how deceptively soft the material is. “Your martini is
waiting for you in the kitchen,” I tell him. “I’m just going to take this back
to my
room,
and I’ll be out to join you.”

“Thanks,” he
says,
and I head back to my room.

Closing the door behind
me,
I take a stab at getting the butterflies
in my stomach
to stop trying to escape.

He looks incredible.
Nothing’s changed about him since the last time I saw him—
clothes excepted
—but I’m
noticing, for the first time, the finer points of his physique.

Without the jacket, he’s
a lot more muscular than I’d anticipated. I just thought he had a preference
for thick fabric. Something has changed, but I don’t
believe the change came
from him.

I go to my closet and
open it up, scowling at my laughably inferior clothing. For a second, I
consider changing into something a bit
chicer
,
but I’m already wearing my best low-cut dress.

There’s so much about him
I hadn’t noticed, or hadn’t let myself
notice,
and it was all, every bit of it, in front of me the whole time. I have a little
trouble convincing myself, but after another minute, I hang up the suit coat
and head back out of the room.

I get to the living room
to find Nikolai Scipio looking out one window, martini in hand.

“I like your place,” he
says.

“Right,” I scoff.

“Seriously,” he says.
“I’m particularly fond of your view. In New York, the best you can hope for is
a high vantage point so you can see all the other CEOs somewhere down below
you. Apart from the schadenfreude, it’s not all that spectacular.”

I’ve never been to New
York, but just like everyone else in the
world,
I
’ve seen plenty of pictures. Maybe a person gets tired of the cityscape
when they live in it, but I can’t see anything like that ever happening to me.

“So,” he says, “what
would you like to do this evening?”

“Huh?” I ask.

Stop daydreaming, Ellie.

“I was just asking what
you’d like to do,” he says.

“Oh,” I respond, finally.
“You know, I hadn’t thought about it.”

He smiles and then looks
back out the window, sipping his drink.

“It’s weird,” I tell him,
“you being in this apartment.”

“Why’s that?” he
asks,
and now I’m certain he’s just playing
dumb.

“Oh, don’t be polite,” I
tell him. “I bet where you
live, you
’ve
got bathrooms bigger than this whole place.”

“No,
really
,” he says. “Why do you think I’m here
and not in Manhattan?”

“You’re moving
headquarters, aren’t you?” I ask.

“Yes,” he answers, “but
why do you think I chose a place like Mulholland instead of, say, L.A. or
Boston?”

“Better deals on rent?” I
ask.

He laughs. It’s
a rich
, almost soothing sound. “That’s just a
perk,” he says. “I noticed you didn’t have a drink of your
own
set-out
,
so I took the liberty of fixing one up for you. I’ll just
grab
it.”

“You stay and enjoy—” I
can’t believe I’m saying this “—the view, and maybe we can figure out something
to do when I get back.”

“Okay,” he
says,
and I go into the kitchen.

What’s the matter with
me? I don’t know if I’m speaking
normally
or if I’ve said anything at all. At the moment, the only thing I’m sure of is
the drink waiting for me isn’t a martini. Of course, not knowing what I’m
drinking doesn’t stop me from downing the whole thing.

Once the last few drops
are down my gullet, I become acutely aware that I’m about to go back out there
with nothing. As quickly as I can, I pour some vodka into the glass and walk
back out to the living room once more.

Nick’s sitting on the
couch.

“Have you tried it yet?”
he asks. “It’s something my butler told me about—apparently, it was one of the
Tsar’s favorites, though I still haven’t gotten Witherton to say how he’d know
that.”

“Yeah,” I say, giving my
glass a big whiff and then squinting my eyes to hide the tears that form. “It’s
really
something.”

I walk over to join Nick
on the couch, setting the glass on the coffee table, far enough away from him
he shouldn’t notice the sharp smell of my
drink
.

“Tell me something,” he
says as I try to get settled into a cushion that has never felt so awkward to
sit on.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Were you
really
sick or did you just not want to see
me?” he asks.

“What do you mean?” I
ask.

“I mean,” he smiles,
“were you
really
sick or did you just not
want to see me?”

I think a moment and
answer, “There’s just no
satisfactory
answer to that question.”

“You know I like you,” he
says. “I don’t think there’s been a lot of suspense there. With that said,
though, it’s hard to know how to act when you keep dropping out of existence
for days at a time.”

“I know,” I tell him.
“I’m sorry about that.”

That’s all I can manage
to say.

“So, how do I know that’s
not going to happen this time?” he asks.

I shrug and scour my
brain for something resembling a verbal
response—only
I don’t find anything there.

“Well that’s comforting,”
he chuckles.