4 The Billionaire's Seduction All That He Requires (15 page)

But then Mr. Templeton spoke.

“
Wait.
”

It was a commanding tone of voice. The voice of an emperor or king. The voice of someone who was
never
disobeyed, on pain of death.

I’d heard Connor use a similar tone of voice… but even he wasn’t
this
intimidating.

Everyone in the room froze – even Connor. But he was right up in his father’s face, less than a foot away from him now.

Johnny stopped, too, but he was right by Connor’s side, body tensed like a steel spring, eyes focused on the left two Secret Service guys.

Connor and his father stared each other down. It seemed to drag on forever, although it was probably no more than three seconds.

Then Mr. Templeton glanced over at one of the Secret Service guys, tilted his head, and half-closed his eyes.

Stand down.

All four bodyguards slowly retreated back to the walls.

Johnny stayed where he was, though he relaxed noticeably.

Mr. Templeton looked back at his son with a scowl… and then relented.

However, he never looked at me the entire time he spoke – only at Connor.

“Ms…. Ross, is it? As my son can tell you, I’m not the most pleasant of men at times. Especially when he’s deliberately flouting me. My apologies.”

Though his lack of eye contact was dehumanizing, and there was no warmth in his voice, there was no sarcasm, either. I figured this was about as straight-up an apology as he’d ever given in his life.

The guy was a raging jerk, there was no doubt about that. But, when a multi-billionaire apologizes to you – no matter how insincerely – it’s not something you brush off lightly.

Though I considered my options for a brief second.

Be a bitch back at him, or take the high road?

No matter how much I disliked him, though, he was still Connor’s father.

And I was uncomfortably aware how… um…
bedraggled
I looked at the moment. I didn’t want to come off as having a ghetto personality, too.

More than anything, though, I just wanted to decrease the tension level in the room. For Connor and Johnny’s sake.

“Apology accepted,” I said in as dignified a tone as I could muster at the moment, looking the way I did. And lacking panties.

He still never looked at me as he continued to speak to Connor. “So, can we continue this conversation in private?”

“No. You can state your business, or you can leave.”

“Alright.” Mr. Templeton raised his head slightly and looked down his nose, like he was a king giving out a death sentence. “You
really
thought you could get away with it?”

“‘Away with it’? You make starting a new company sound like a crime.”

“In this case, it is.”

“Actually, no, I’m not following your normal business plan.”

“You’ll never succeed. We have the politicians in our pocket.”

“Turns out, they tend to jump out of one pocket and into whoever’s are deeper.”

“They’ll see reason.”

“They already have. I have several of them – the most important ones, anyway – locked down tight.”

Mr. Templeton’s right eyebrow arched up. “Blackmail?”

Connor didn’t say anything. He just stood there.

I didn’t like the idea that Connor would resort to blackmail to get his way. And I especially didn’t like his silence when confronted. But it was the first thing that had impressed Augustus Templeton so far. “And here I thought you said you weren’t playing by my rulebook.”

“When I know my opponent’s dirty, occasionally I play dirtier.”

“We’ll support the opposing candidate. First in the primary, and if they make it out of that, then the general election.”

Connor sounded positively gleeful. “Then it’s going to be a very expensive election season in Nevada next year.”

Mr. Templeton’s blue eyes flashed with cold fire. “You’re doing this deliberately to spite me.”

“No. As I explained to Lily, that’s just one of the many, many side benefits.”

“What, destroying our family?”

“‘Destroying our family’? That’s a bit grandiose, don’t you think?”

“You’d cost us billions of dollars.”

“And save hundreds of billions of dollars for everyone else on earth.”

Mr. Templeton sneered. “Now who’s being grandiose?”

“At least I’m thinking about somebody other than myself.”

“Just not the people you
should
be thinking of
.
”

“Oh, come off it, Dad. Just cancel the order on the 500-foot yacht, and don’t get any more Van Goghs for your private collection. And tell Mother she can only buy
two
Tuscan villas this year.”

“You can tell her yourself.”

And then, from the dining room area of the penthouse, came a woman’s regal voice:

“Hello, darling.”

Mrs. Templeton entered the room like she was walking onstage in a Broadway drama.

She was thin and tall – taller than me, anyway, though that’s not saying much. She was a ‘woman of a certain age,’ and fighting it mightily. Her face had the slightly too-tight look of someone with plastic surgery, though it was top-notch, I have to say that for her. Her neck was smooth with very few wrinkles, and her forehead was flawless. Either she’d had Connor when she was sixteen (I’m going to say ‘no’), or her surgeon had worked wonders on her. So had her stylist: not a gray strand in sight, just frosted blonde hair cut in a long-ish bob, Anna Wintour-style.

Like her husband, she reeked of money and prestige. Her aristocratic tone was forged, no doubt, by the best prep schools and colleges that Old Money can buy. She wore a grey, business-like dress with a slim-cut matching jacket. Conservative enough to match her station in life, but obviously a designer label to show off her money. She wore a beautiful double strand of pearls around her neck, ostentatious without being over-the-top. She wore only a couple of rings on her hands, but the diamond on her engagement ring rivaled an ice cube in size. (Okay, a
small
ice cube.)

Unlike her husband, she walked straight over to Connor and gave him a kiss.

Well, an
air
kiss, anyway, one on each side of the face,
mwah, mwah.

“Good Lord, you’re a mess, Connor. What have you been doing, running a marathon? Don’t answer that, I don’t want to know.”

“You’ve been here the entire time?” Connor asked, seriously annoyed.

“I thought I’d let you and your father talk things over first. Although
that
didn’t solve anything, so now seemed as good a time as any to enter the fray.”

“Wonderful. All we need now is Vincent to complete the happy family reunion. Where
is
Vince?”

“He’s on his way,” Mr. Templeton said.

“Of
course
he is.”

“His jet landed just before you arrived.”

“Don’t you mean
your
jet?”

“What’s ours is his, and would be yours, too,” Mrs. Templeton snapped, “if you wouldn’t insist on betraying us. What’s this foolishness about you leasing 10,000 square miles of federal and state land?”

“If you know the square footage, you probably know the reason.”

“Honestly, Connor, why go you out of your way to antagonize us – ”

“Not kowtowing to your every wish
isn’t
going out of my way to antagonize you.
Or
betray you.”

“No, it’s just a ‘side benefit,’” she said acidly.

I could hear the impish delight in Connor’s voice. “One of the many.”

Mr. Templeton hurled himself once more into the breach. “I’m ordering you to stop this foolishness.”

“Oh
–
well
– in THAT case…”

“As my son, you have a duty to – ”

“You’re trying to trade on the ‘filial devotion’ card? You ran out of those when I pulled your sorry ass out of Mexico.”

The old man’s jaw set.

But Mrs. Templeton went off on a drama queen rant, throwing her hands in the air and rolling her eyes.

“Oh, for God’s sake, do you have to keep bringing that up? You stab him in the back – ‘But I saved you in Mexico.’ You send our stock plummeting 20% – ‘But I saved you in Mexico.’ You plot to destroy us – ‘But I saved you in Mexico.’ You think your little Mexico spiel cuts any weight with me? ‘I gave birth to you’ is a bit more of an obligation than anything you have to offer.”

Connor’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Thank you, mother, for giving birth to me. And then promptly foisting me off on an endless succession of nannies and boarding schools.”

“Perhaps I
should
have kept you by my side continually. Maybe then you wouldn’t have turned out to be such a sadistic, vengeful child.”

“Yes, you forgot the first rule of parenting: ‘keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.’”

“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth…” she muttered.

“Well, look on the bright side: you have at least
one
grateful son,” Connor sneered. “After all, he owes you two everything.”

“And you think you owe us
nothing
.”

“Ten million dollars, as I recall,” Mr. Templeton said.

“Oh, but didn’t you hear, Augustus?” Mrs. Templeton replied. “He saved you in Mexico.”

My eyes widened.

This was beginning to make
Mommie Dearest
look like
The Donna Reed
show.

Unfortunately, I think my little facial expression caught her attention.

She looked over at me and narrowed her lids the slightest amount.

I noticed that, like her husband, she disregarded Johnny completely. Just looked right through him. The only time Mr. Templeton had acknowledged his existence was when he referred to him in the third person as ‘Mr. Inaba.’

Maybe that explained why Johnny had been so surprised when I’d said goodbye to him Sunday evening, when Connor took me back to my place…

Connor saw that she was looking at me. “Lily, meet my mother, Lenora. Mother, Lily Ross.”

“‘Mrs. Templeton’ will do fine.” She flashed a fake smile that died a quick death, then walked closer and looked me up and down.

She had high, arched eyebrows, frozen perpetually in an expression of haughty disapproval – which is all she was giving me at that second.

Well,
that
and overt hostility.

I felt like a baby seal being eyed by a great white shark.

Take the high road, Lily,
I told myself.

I put out my hand. “It’s very nice to meet – ”

She interrupted me – though not to speak to
me.
Oh heavens, no.

“A darling little thing, Connor. Where did you pick her up?” she asked, her voice dripping with disdain. “A bar? A trailer park? The discount bin at Walmart?”

I saw Johnny’s mouth drop open in shock.

Connor’s face contorted in rage. “Mother – ”

But this time, I beat him to the punch.

Still tried to take the high road, though.

“Where I come from, you’re being very rude,” I said quietly, staring her straight in the eyes.

“Oh, don’t take offense, darling,” she smiled. “Where I come from, that’s how we treat people like
you.
”

You know how, when someone insults you, you always think of the perfect comeback hours later?

I heard once that the French have a phrase for it. I can’t remember the real translation, but it’s something like ‘the stairway quip.’ Meaning that you don’t think of it until afterwards, when you’re walking down the stairs to leave.

I never think of the perfect retort.
Ever
.

Except for this one bright and shining moment.

I don’t know if I was channeling Sebastian or what, but as soon as she said,
‘Where I come from, that’s how we treat people like you,’
I just smiled demurely.

“And where is that, exactly? ‘Bitches ‘R Us’?”

Connor burst out into howls of laughter.

Johnny had to hide his smile behind his hand.

The four Secret Service agents clamped their jaws tight and looked down intently at the floor.

Even Augustus Templeton snorted.

His wife whipped around and gave him a dagger of a look.

He quickly turned his face away, as though something in the corner interested him greatly.

Then she turned back to me.

“Vulgar girl, vulgar tongue,” she hissed.

And for the second time, Sebastian came to my aid. At least in spirit.

“Mean old woman…”

I paused, then shrugged.

“…that’s all I got. Mean and old, no matter how much plastic surgery you’ve had.”

I think she almost had a coronary. A single vein started thumping in her temple as she stared me down, murder in her eyes.

“OHHH!” Connor guffawed.

Johnny’s eyebrows raised like he couldn’t believe I’d just said it.

Mrs. Templeton started trembling with fury. “You… little…
harlot…
how
dare
you – ”

“‘Harlot’? What is this, the 18th century?” I asked, with absolutely no follow-up intended – but saying it gave my brain just enough time to come up with a beautiful kicker. “Oh, wait – that’s when you were born, right?”

BOOM.

Three for three.

I’ll never have that good a performance again in my
life.

I swear to God, I think she was about to slap me when Connor rushed up and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Remember, Mother,” Connor chided her, “when you play with fire, sometimes you get burned.”

“Just remember that when she gives you a venereal disease,” Mrs. Templeton spat.

I couldn’t think of anything witty for that one, but it didn’t matter – Connor had regained control of the situation.

“Lily’s wanted here, Mother. You’re not. Keep that in mind, or leave.”

She whirled around. “All I
want
is a private conversation – is that too much to ask?”

Connor looked over her shoulder at me.

I figured I’d taken the low road enough for the day. I half-closed my eyelids and gave a couple of tiny nods like,
It’s okay.

The corner of his mouth quirked up, and his eyes gave me a warm, invisible hug.

Then he called out over his shoulder, “Johnny, could you take Lily into the kitchen for me?”

“Sure.”

I walked past Mrs. Templeton.

As I passed Connor, he reached out, lightly grasped my hand, and gave it a little squeeze.

I paused and looked up at him.

He winked, and I smiled.

Then Johnny hooked my arm and we walked away under the arctic stares of Mr. and Mrs. Templeton.