The Bad Boy Billionaire: What a Girl Wants (11 page)

“I’m thinking about it. But I just don’t see the point—will they even believe me now? He’s going through a rough patch. How will the cops help? How will a criminal record help him? He knows he fucked up. You made that pretty clear. And I won’t be in his life anymore. I think that’s clear to everyone, even Sam.”

“What about the other girls?” Duke asked.

“What other girls?”

“Do you think you’re the first, the last, the one and only that Sam will do this too?” Duke asked angrily.

That cut deeply, and my temper flared at the suggestion that I was just another girl, that I wasn’t special. But then again—what happened was about Sam’s issues. It could have been any girl.

Oh God, what if he did that—or worse—to another girl? I swore under my breath at Sam. Was I supposed to act in my own best interests? His? Or for some hypothetical sisterhood?

“I’ll think about it,” I said to Duke. “I promise.”

I couldn’t think about it now while he was all tense and glaring at me across the dinner table.

“And the party? How will potentially putting yourself in harm’s way at this party help anyone?” Duke asked. I could see how he got shit done at Project-TK. I felt myself wavering under the intensity of his focus. But I took a deep breath and reminded myself that he was my
partner,
not the boss of me.

“I won’t be alone,” I said. “I’ll have friends with me.”

“I don’t want you to go,” Duke said softly. “Not when I can’t protect you.”

We both glanced down at his hands. They were still bruised and swollen from the beating he’d given Sam the other day.

“So come with me,” I said. Again.

“I
can’t
.”

I laughed bitterly. “We had a deal, you know.”

His eyes flashed. He winced. He remembered.

“We had a deal,” I repeated. “I would pose as your fiancée to help you score that investment funding if you would be my hot date for this reunion. And now you’re reneging on the deal we made. You wouldn’t have your big party if it weren’t for me. Because you’re so notoriously unreliable, aren’t you? Don’t hold up your end of the bargain, do you? Maybe if I was some big-shot investor or whatever.”

I was so angry that he wasn’t going with me, that he had broken a promise, that his big shot job always came ahead of mine, and just . . . argh! I stalked off to our bedroom and slammed the door behind me.

“Jane . . .”

“I’m going,” I shouted at the door. “With or without you.”

D
UKE WOKE ME
up the next morning. He’d gone ahead and ordered room service breakfast—a steaming pot of coffee along with pancakes, bacon, and a side of fruit.

“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely.

“This is quite an apology,” I said, eyeing the feast before me. He poured me a cup of coffee, added some milk, and handed it to me.

“I figured you’d be more amenable after you’ve had coffee and something to eat,” he said.

“You are a genius, aren’t you?” I said after a sip of coffee.

Duke just grinned. God, he was so handsome, especially when he grinned like that. Like a charming, devil-may-care, up-to-no-good-and-he-liked-it rogue. I couldn’t quite resist. I was still a little mad at him from our fight the night before. But the romantic gesture of breakfast and his smile started to make me feel better. Slightly.

“I’ve been thinking and I had an idea. Let’s go to my party. Wait—drink your coffee and hear me out,” he said when I opened my mouth to protest. “And then we get a car to take us out to yours.”

“That’s sweet, Duke, but it won’t work. I mean, just the tunnel traffic alone could take hours. I’ve thought about this. You go to yours and I’ll go to mine and then we can meet up later and tell each other all about it. In bed.”

“If we’re in bed, we’re not going to be talking.”

Our eyes met over the breakfast table. I had wicked thoughts. I know he did, too.

“I want to be there for you,” he said.

“I know,” I replied. I did want him there with me.

“Well,” he sighed. “If that’s really what you want.”

“I think it’s best.”

“I’ll get a driver to take you out there and bring you back to me.”

“Thanks, Duke.”

“Will you come down to Wall Street to ring the opening bell with me? It wouldn’t have happened without you Jane, and I can’t imagine that moment without you by my side.”

“Of course,” I said, smiling. This was a great reason to be late for work. “I’ll be there.”

“Thanks, Babe.” Then Duke checked the time on his phone and swore. “Shit, we have to leave here in thirty minutes.”

“So much for this breakfast,” I said with a sigh as I headed off to the shower. After blowing out my hair, I dressed in one of my sweater sets, a pleated skirt and black patent wedges. It wasn’t the most practical of outfits, but Duke’s driver would pick us up or we would just get a cab—right?

Chapter Eleven

E
VEN UNDER IDEAL
circumstances, getting from the Upper East Side down to Wall Street would be time consuming. We were not under ideal circumstances. The subways were still shut down. Cabs were scarce. Buses were slow, crowded and confusing.

“Where is your car and your driver?” I asked as we stood on the corner of Sixty-third and Madison with our hands in the air, trying to hail a cab.

“The Tesla is in a lot downtown and my driver can’t get into the city from his place in Queens.”

“Don’t you have a backup car and driver? Aren’t you a billionaire or something?”

“Not yet,” he said through gritted teeth, after glancing at the time on his phone again. “The backup car and driver are also stuck in traffic.”

“What about Citi Bike?”

“Good idea, Jane.” He gave me a quick kiss on the lips, grabbed my hand and we rushed over to the nearest docking station, in front of the Plaza Hotel at Fifty-ninth and Fifth Avenue, just south of the park.

“Aw come on!” Duke shouted at the empty docking station. “My luck has fucking run out.”

I winced. That was my fault. Maybe. I looked around, hoping to spot a cab. Everyone was unavailable or off duty.
Oh hell and damnation.
He couldn’t miss this! And then my gaze landed on something unexpected: the Regency answer to transportation. A horse and carriage, empty, and awaiting a customer.

“Excuse me, sir, can you take us down to Wall Street?” I asked.

The driver laughed in my face. “I can’t leave the park, lady.”

“Please,” I begged. “He’s got to get down to Wall Street by 9 a.m. to rig the opening bell. His company has a $20 billion IPO this morning.”

The carriage driver looked over at Duke, with his disheveled hair, Project-TK T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. He burst out laughing. Again.

“I’ve seen plenty of fat cat business men and he ain’t it, honey. Cute story, though.”

“I know what you mean,” I said to the driver. “When I first met him, I thought he was an out-of-work actor tending bar at some hovel in Brooklyn. But it turns out, he’s the founder and CEO of Project-TK. Which, as we mentioned, is about to have a $20 billion IPO this morning.”

The driver eyed me and Duke.

I turned to Duke: “Can’t you offer him stock options or something?”

“If he’d believe me,” Duke muttered.

I glanced around, hoping for
something
to just . . . work. My gaze settled on an old man on a bench reading a copy of the
New York Post
. Duke’s picture was splashed across the front with the headline declaring him the Brawling Bad Boy Billionaire. The accompanying photograph showed Duke throwing a punch at Sam. I snatched the paper out of the old man’s hands, apologized profusely, and held it up next to Duke’s face.

“See! He’s about to be a billionaire and he’s very generous.”

“And dangerous,” the driver muttered.

“Jane . . .”

“No, this is your moment,” I said. “I can’t let you miss it. And neither can this driver who I will immortalize in my next book as either a hero or a villain, depending on if he’ll drive us downtown or not.”

For a moment, he thought about.

“You’ll cover the fines I’ll get?”

“And
more
,” Duke said. He held out his hand to shake on it.

“Climb in, kids,” he said gruffly. We did.

Before we could get comfortable on the red velvet upholstered seats, the driver cracked the whip and the black horse burst into a trot and pulled us out into traffic. We rode down Fifth Avenue, past Tiffany’s, the Prada Store, the line outside the Abercrombie store (Or more to the point: the line of girls waiting to have their picture taken with the scantily clad model with his six pack abs and low slung jeans). We passed Saks, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, the New York Public Library where I would have to work a few hours from now, and then down past the Empire State building.

Around Madison Square Park we got caught in a snarl of traffic. The police cars and fire engines I saw suggested we might be parked here for a while and time was running out. I drummed my fingers along the side of the carriage, trying to calculate how many blocks we’d have to run in order to make it on time. I looked over at Duke; his head was bent over his phone.

“What are you looking at?”

“A YouTube video on how to ride a horse.”

“Why?”

“Because I think we have to do that next if we’re going to make it.” Duke then leaned forward to chat with the driver, Gregory, who would certainly appear favorably in my next novel.

“What’s this horse’s name?” Duke asked.

“Scout,” Gregory answered.

Before I knew it, Gregory had climbed down and was unhitching the carriage from Scout and giving Duke instructions on how to ride.

“Ready?” Gregory asked me.

“No! I don’t have the right outfit for this,” I grumbled. Heels and a skirt were not ideal for riding astride. I had not factored horseback riding into my outfit selection this morning. I was wearing a skirt for lord’s sake.

But ready or not, this was our only chance to get downtown in time. Gregory cupped his hands, indicating that I should step there to launch myself up onto the horse.

“You’re kidding,” I said flatly.

“You paid for a horse, not jokes,” Gregory replied.

I climbed atop the horse and Duke climbed on after me. We both held onto the mane. Then Duke dug in his heels and we were off. On horseback. Through Manhattan.

The horse galloped down Broadway, past Houston, past Canal Street, past City Hall. Its hooves clattered on the macadam. The cars didn’t seem to bother him at all. In fact, the horse seemed happy to be untethered from the carriage and exploring the city. Horns blared at us, people shouted at us, pedestrians got out their phones to take pictures and video. I held on tight, curled my toes in my shoes to keep them on, and held my breath.

By some miracle, no one was hurt, including the horse.

By some miracle, we arrived on time.

After being rushed through security we found ourselves on the podium at 8:59. A sea of guys in suits—traders—stood on the floor before us. Duke squeezed my hand. After a quick kiss on my lips, he rang the bell and the day of trading began.

By the end of the day, it was official: He was the Bad Boy Billionaire with the cash in the bank to prove it.

Chapter Twelve

The Milford Country Club

Jane’s high school anniversary reunion

T
HIS TIME YESTERDAY
I had been so sure of my decision to attend this stupid party on my own. And now I was definitely regretting it. I stood off to the side of the main ballroom in the Milford Country Club checking Twitter. There were tons of tweets and twitpics from Duke’s party. Everyone looked deliriously happy and utterly triumphant.

I was anything but deliriously happy and utterly triumphant as I strolled through the crowd of my former classmates on the terrace of the country club. For a moment I paused to watch the golfers on the course that lay just beyond the big, perfectly manicured and unnaturally green lawn that was probably loaded with toxic chemicals.

I sipped my warm chardonnay and glanced around for someone to talk to. I recognized a bunch of people from Facebook, but so many people were strangers. If I hadn’t talked to them in high school, what did I have to say to them now? I shouldn’t have come.

“Hey Jane.”

I turned to see Steve Prewitt, a longtime friend of Sam’s who was branch manager at the local bank, coached the Little League and had married an elementary school teacher. He and Sam often got together to watch football games and do the sort of guy stuff I tried to avoid. But he was a nice guy, so I smiled and said, “Hi Steve.”

“That was a dick thing you did to Sam,” he said abruptly.

“Excuse me?”

“Calling the cops on him when he’s already having a rough time of it,” Steve said, as if I were an idiot for not knowing what he was talking about. I hadn’t involved the cops—but I had decided to call a hotline to find out what my options were. I wanted to be counted. I was told investigators would follow up with Sam. It would be less confrontational than calling police. I wanted him to understand what he did wasn’t okay, and that he should get help. I wanted to do something to make it sure it didn’t happen again, to another girl.

That was all—for now. I wondered how he found out.

“But . . . but he attacked me,” I sputtered in response. How was I the one in the wrong here? I hugged my wine glass against my chest.

“Like he needs more problems,” Steve said. “Especially after your ‘boyfriend’ beat the crap out of him. Did you know his nose is broken? I was in the ER with him.”

I mumbled a sound of sympathy and then asked, “Is he here tonight?”

“Why, so you can call the cops on him? What, did you get a restraining order, too?”

I wished Duke were here. Steve’s confrontation was making me feel sick—my heart was racing and my palms were sweating. I just wanted to get away. But then I could hear Roxanna in my head: “What a dick. Are you seriously going to let him talk to you like that?”

“Mind your own business, Steve,” I said, forcing my voice to be strong. Then I walked away. It was just small town gossip. It was just Steve defending his friend in his own bone-headed way. But I still turned away, shaken.