A Date to Remember (2 page)

So, when she’d been told that her scholarship was running out and she’d have to find another way to afford school, and Thomas had produced a credit card without a spending limit, she’d thought it was a fairy tale. He wove her a story of love forever, marriage in the future, and a poor rich boy who didn’t want to be loved for his money but who he was. He’d told her she’d answered his prayers. She’d wanted him and not his money. She’d been so happy then.

That was until Cheryl Watson, heiress to some import-and-export conglomerate, had entered the picture. Suddenly Thomas found out that love for money was much better than love for the heart. Sam had been summarily dismissed, albeit with her college paid for as a thank-you, kicked out of their mutual apartment, and she’d moved into the dorms, aware that many around her knew why she was there. That pain spurred her to graduate at the top of her class, get out of Florida, and get on with her life.

She’d thanked Thomas later, when he’d come into town on some business trip for something or other, and he returned that act of mercy with a proposition to share her bed that night so she could show him how appreciative she was. Supposedly the wife didn’t enjoy sex as much as Sam had, so he was feeling nostalgic. The arrogant prick. She’d given him sore balls for the night with a well-placed knee lift—accidently, of course, when she rushed to move past him—and never looked back. She imagined that Mr. Anderson would be much the same way.

“I would think you would be hungrily waiting for me.”

Pulled out of her daydream of loathing, it took a moment for Sam’s mind to clear enough to realize there was a man speaking to her. Once it did, it ran again, and her latent libido took over. To say the man was attractive was an understatement. He wasn’t handsome in a smooth, pretty way. No, not this man. He was rugged like the great outdoors. His strong jaw had the shadow of a dark beard beginning. His lips were full and turned into a confident smile she found instantly sexy. Long, thick lashes surrounded deep green eyes. His raven’s-wing hair was styled expertly into a short crop that was just long enough for her to curl her fingers into. His olive skin made her think that maybe Mr. Anderson had some Italian in his background. He was absolutely mouth-watering.

“I just might have been,” she purred, lost in the fantasy of having his hands on her. Hearing her own voice, though, snapped some sense into her. She had never heard such a throaty sound before outside of the movies, and she was surprised that it had come from her.

“Much better,” he said then, smiling, and her stomach dropped and ran away. Maybe Natalie had been right when she said that sinners had more fun. She definitely was having some evil thoughts, some she was sure were illegal on every continent, but she really didn’t care.

“I take it that you are pleased with the accommodations?” he asked in a gruff baritone.

Damn, even the man’s voice is seductive
, she thought.

“It’s a beautiful place.”

“Yes, quite beautiful,” he murmured as his gaze captured hers.

Sam felt like Alice falling into Wonderland. She’d never been so drawn to a man in her life, and yet he didn’t know who she was. Tonight she wasn’t Samantha, she was Natalie, and she had to remember that. She shook her head slightly to clear her thoughts and took a deep breath.

“It is very nice to meet you, Mr. Anderson.”

“Please, call me Joel,” he said, never taking his eyes off her as he signaled for a waiter.

The waiter appeared quickly next to the table. “What can I get you, sir?”

“Dom Romane Conti, the year nineteen ninety-seven. We will reserve the bottle, but just bring us glasses, thank you.”

The waiter disappeared just as quickly as he had come. Sam didn’t know much about wines, but Thomas had, once he’d let her know the money he had. She’d remembered he favored the Dom Romane as well, though he hadn’t been as specific about the vintage. She was sure it was expensive. She was way out of her league.

“Have you looked at the menu at all?”

“Not yet, I waited for you,” she said then, breathlessness lending an airy sound to her voice she hoped sounded appealing. She just barely stopped herself from falling out of her seat as he watched her. It wouldn’t do well for the job.

“Then allow me to order for us,” he said. The waiter returned and poured their wine with a flourish after Joel tested the cork and took a taste. He ordered an appetizer salad, braised pork loin meal, gold-filament sundae, and after-dinner coffee. “Now that is done, what do you do for a living, Natalie?”

Something in his eyes cooled her libido. It was a simple enough question. However, he should have known if he had requested her personally. It wasn’t like the clients didn’t know they were procuring an escort for the night. Was she missing some signal that Natalie had forgotten to tell her?

“Whatever you want me to do,” she responded, unsure of how exactly to proceed.

“Let me begin by saying that I value honesty before anything else. Do not lie to me,” he finished, and something in his eyes warned her he meant business. She curled her fingers into her lap. This all was a lie. She wasn’t who he thought she was. She had to keep up pretenses, though. She didn’t have a choice.

“My job is what I am doing here tonight. I am a companion.”

“Does your job include perks? Surely a
companion
has a broad scope of interpretation.”

“I am who I am and who I need to be. You wanted someone to spend dinner with. Why, I have no idea. You look like a man who can have whoever he wants. Why pay for me?”

“Why indeed?” he asked quietly as the waiter came with their salads.

Sam wasn’t sure she could eat a bite, but she tried to. When this was all over, and she was ten thousand dollars richer, she was still going to kill her friend.

Chapter Three

Joel could understand why Maddox was besotted with this woman. He’d never seen someone so beautiful. Her bowed mouth slid against the fork, and he couldn’t help but imagine it sliding over his cock. He shook his head. He was going to expose this woman for the gold digger she was. Maddox might think he was in love, but this woman’s job was to make men feel that way. It had taken him nearly a month to find the exclusive Madame Butterfly’s Beauties club she belonged to. It seemed the Madame had the protection of some pretty influential men. But Joel Anderson hadn’t built himself from pauper to multimillionaire without having some balls. No matter what amount of money it took, he was going to save Maddox from ruining his life with a woman who wasn’t worth it.

So what if her brown eyes made him think of the bedroom and silk sheets? Did it matter if her body was like some damn goddess, thick and curved in all the right places, nothing like the models he normally toted around? Were there any second thoughts even if he wondered what it would be like to see his pale flesh disappearing into her darker skin? No. He didn’t care what his cock wanted. Right now bros definitely came before… Well, he didn’t need to finish the words to get the idea. When he was able to prove what was going on with this woman, he would destroy her.

That idea at hand, he kept silent during dinner, per his instructions. He wanted to see if she would break, if she would begin to fidget. To his surprise, she did not. She seemed almost to act as if he was not there. She seemed comfortable in her own company and simply enjoyed her meal as he sat there thinking about her. Her actions forced him to have a sort of grudging respect for her. He didn’t know many women who could hold their own against him. He’d met plenty of powerful women, that was for sure. However, most of the ones he came across in his line of work either slept their way there or had to prove they could stand up to men so much that they came across as wanting to be a man. He couldn’t quite understand what was wrong with being a woman without needing to be a slut or a woman in disguise.

Somehow he knew he was looking at a woman like that in front of him. He wasn’t interested in her, per se, but even he had to ignore his raging hormones. That was physical. She was beautiful, but it was the intelligence in her eyes. She ate her food with a thoughtful expression or rolled a choice morsel over her tongue with a look of pure pleasure on her face that made him shift in his seat. For all intents and purposes, he didn’t have to be there, and the idea pissed him off. She should have been hanging on him, looking for him to give her compliments, excited she was by his side. Instead she ignored him. It was not a feeling he’d ever thought he’d have to deal with.

When he’d first entered the work field, he’d been a construction worker, barely seventeen, but he’d learned the ropes. He’d saved his money, sent himself to college, and then turned around and bought his first business. He enjoyed investing. It wasn’t about if he believed in a company’s model, or if he thought they had a sound business plan. It was about the bottom line. If the company could make good money, and he could provide the start-up capital, he did. In short, he owned tons of businesses that he never saw the inside of for the pure wealth of it. The clients were happy to have a wealthy investor, and his bank account grew. Some said he was Machiavellian in his ways, and he couldn’t exactly disagree with that, but he was good at what he did.

He smiled, feeling better suddenly. He knew what he was going to do, knew how he was going to get this woman. She had now become a business he wanted to acquire, a very attractive business, and he’d have her, piece by piece, until she was no more. Then he would toss her aside, save Maddox from going down the aisle, and have fun while he did it.

Man, but life was good.

Chapter Four

“Tell me about yourself. Am I keeping you from someone else tonight?”

Samantha jolted at the question. Maybe her nerves were shot after eating dinner, or she was just being paranoid, but the question felt like a pointed one. She’d tried her best to ignore him through dinner since he wanted to be so quiet. She’d just resorted to thinking about work, or her food, or what she’d be doing with the ten thousand dollars. Anything to keep from thinking about him. But now that he’d turned his attention to her, she didn’t know what she was going to do.

“I’m pretty simple,” she started, feeling like sticking closer to the truth would make things easier to remember. “When I graduated from college, I started doing consulting work.”

“Consulting work? Is that another name for what you do?”

He didn’t have to be so snide, but it didn’t matter. This was only for one night. Joel could think whatever he wanted. She wasn’t going to disabuse him of his notions. She was starting to see why he may need to pay for company.

“Sure,” she answered vaguely. “It pays the bills, and I enjoy what I do. It can be hard work sometimes, but it’s fulfilling.”

“Fulfilling? One of the perks, I suppose.” He chuckled to himself. He watched her over the edge of his cup as he sipped his coffee.

Sam wondered what he would be like if he smiled more. He would probably have to take the stick out of his ass, though. Probably would need surgery to do it, she thought, smiling at the image.

“I suppose,” she answered back, her spirits momentarily lifted. She’d made it through dinner and, in just a few minutes, would be on her way home. It hadn’t been as bad as she thought it was going to be. Maybe she’d talk to Natalie about taking over some more of her jobs. This was the easiest money she’d made in a while.

“I hope you enjoyed your evening. It was great talking with you. I hope to see you again,” she said as the waiter brought them the check and Joel slid a credit card toward him.

“Allow me to take you home. It’s the least I can do.”

Sam nodded, sure that she was almost in the clear. They stood after the waiter brought his credit card back to him, and Joel placed his hand on her back to escort her out. Pure heat spread through her at the simple touch. As she walked at his side, her hip grazed him, and sparks of electricity sizzled over her nerve endings. She swallowed, attempting to moisten her suddenly dry throat. Jesus, she needed to get laid. There was no other way she should have been this turned on just by a man’s touch—a man she didn’t even know if she liked very much.

“You don’t have to take me home,” she told him then, wanting to put some distance between them. Call it woman’s intuition, but she didn’t want to get in that car with him.

“Nonsense. I can’t let a lovely woman like you go home without escorting you. What sort of man would I be?”

He wrapped his arm tighter around her and pulled her against his side. He kept walking out of the restaurant as though she hadn’t said a thing. A black Mercedes limo pulled up quietly in front of them, and the driver got out and opened the door for them without saying a word. Sam didn’t know how she had gotten into the car, with Joel next to her and them moving, but in the darkness, she couldn’t think clearly. For a moment she wondered if Joel had slipped her something, but she had never been away from the table the whole night. All she knew was that her body was on fire.

Joel moved closer to her, pressing tight against her side. She could barely catch her breath. Before she could utter a word, he tapped the ceiling of the car and pulled her into his arms. Sam was not prepared for her blood boiling in her veins. She felt her nipples harden until they were aching points on her body. He claimed her with his mouth, his tongue tracing her lips before sinking inside. He slid his tongue in and out, mirroring what she wanted to do with his cock. Her pussy flooded with moisture. She moaned as his hands framed her sides and then pulled her by her hips until she was on his lap.

His cock, thick, long, and hard, pushed against her ass, and she couldn’t help the motion of her body as she ground against him. He wrapped one arm around her, pulling her hard against his body, as his other hand framed her breast. He squeezed and molded her breast before twisting her cloth-covered nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She moaned into his mouth, head falling back. He kissed down her neck, his hand pulling down the top of her dress to expose the nipple he had been playing with. As his lips sipped at the curve of her cleavage, his free hand lifted the hem of her dress. He pushed her legs apart so that she was sprawled over his lap, and traced circles up her inner thigh.