At the Billionaire’s Wedding (28 page)

“Exclusive girlfriend?” she asked, not shocked by how ragged and husky her voice was. It was a miracle she could form words at all.

“The one and only.”

“I… I’m thinking…” she said faintly.

His eyes glittered. “Good.” His hands spread wide on her thighs and he lowered his head.

She had a hazy thought that if this was some sort of boyfriend audition, he was acing it. His lips were soft, his tongue firm. He held her in place as she rocked and twisted, blown away by the sharp pleasure of his mouth. He seemed to know exactly what to do, backing off just when it grew too intense, alternately gentling or dominating. She forced open her eyes to look in wonder on this man who had learned her so well so fast, and met his scorching gaze head-on. He was watching her, reading her… Then he pushed two long fingers inside her and broke her, his mouth pulling on her clit as she came, harder than she’d ever come in her life.

“Still thinking?” he rasped several minutes later, sounding as though he’d just run the marathon.

Dumbly, she shook her head.

“I heard you scream
yes
at least three times.”

She smiled, uncaring that she was sprawled on the kitchen counter with traces of whipped cream on her skin. She would never forget this kitchen. “Did I?”

“You did.” He pressed a lingering kiss to the inside of her thigh. “Was that your answer?”

With some effort she pushed herself upright. He grinned, looking rumpled and devastatingly sexy. She’d been right about him from the start—guys this
right
didn’t walk into a girl’s life every day. “Yes—times three.”

Caroline Linden was born a reader, not a writer. She earned a math degree from Harvard University and wrote computer software before turning to writing fiction. Since then the Boston Red Sox have won the World Series three times, which can hardly be a coincidence. Her books have won the NEC Reader’s Choice Beanpot Award, the Daphne du Maurier Award, and RWA’s RITA Award. If you’d like to be notified when her next book is available, visit her
website
to sign up for her newsletter. You can also follow her on
twitter
or like her on
Facebook
.

The City of Brotherly Love

Except for the sexy stranger, the park was empty when Cali Blake pulled the library’s shiny new bookmobile up to the curb and jumped out. Commanding his usual bench near the south entrance, he wore the same blue chamois shirt over a T-shirt and the hat that covered half his face. As always, he was reading the paper.

Today’s choice: the
Wall Street Journal
. He must be feeling serious. Cali liked it better when he read the
Philadelphia Star
. Then she let herself imagine crazy stories, like how a librarian found a government bond worth millions inside a book that’d never been checked out.

Other than the hat guy, Cali had the park to herself.

Green Park wasn’t green or even much of a park. It was a square of concrete with a ten-foot chain link fence on one side, a single tree, and a handful of benches cemented to the ground. The only signs of life were the man on the bench and pigeons picking at trash. But it wasn’t quite nine yet. Cali’s regulars would arrive soon.

She waved at the hat guy. Apparently seeing her through both his newspaper and hat brim, he nodded.

She flipped the lever to open the van’s rear door and lower the step, then shut off the engine and walked to the back of the small white bus with
BOOKMOBILE
painted across the side.

Books were stacked all around the sides and to the ceiling. A shelf ran down the center of the van, packed spine to spine too. She’d restocked this morning, adding a few more Spanish and Korean kids’ books, some of the thrillers Roy liked, and a few new cookbooks for Maggie and fashion magazines for Masala. She restocked every day now. Despite the naysayers, the bookmobile was thriving. When the Philadelphia big-money Prescott Foundation rejected the grant proposal that she’d spent months helping the library’s grant writer prepare, she’d almost given up hope. Then the library got an anonymous donation from someone who’d read her interview in the
City Paper
.

She pulled out her director’s chair and set it on the sidewalk dappled with cigarette butts and syringes.

“Open for business,” she hummed to herself. The air was fresh after yesterday’s rain. The cityscape on one side didn’t impress—battered apartment buildings with broken windows—but rose spectacularly on the other, with skyscrapers designed by Stern and Jahn. Behind it all a bright blue sky proclaimed summertime.

The hat guy turned a page.

His legs were long and stretched out in front of him, knees apart, his feet planted firmly on the cement, owning that corner of the park without effort. He wore the usual faded Levis and half-laced work boots too. A hint of dark hair peeked out under the hat above his collar.

Cali silently wished for a heat wave so he’d take off the button-down. The way he moved, like he had every muscle in his body in perfect control, gave her a hunch he’d have great arms. She liked great arms. A lot.

He had big hands, too, strong-looking with prominent veins, proof that he worked out, probably at one of those garage gyms the petty dealers used, where you could trade a fifth of Jack or a gram of crack for a month’s membership.

When she was waiting for bookmobile patrons, like now, sometimes she stared at his hands holding the paper like some guys held a football. Like he’d been born with a newspaper in his hands. Not a smartphone.
The actual printed word.
At those moments, with her pulse a little quick, she prayed he wasn’t a drug dealer. Having a secret semi-crush on a drug dealer whose face she’d never seen was so completely wrong in so many ways.

It didn’t matter, though. She wasn’t looking for a guy who spent his days sitting around doing nothing. She’d already had a guy like that in her life. It ended badly.

“Miss Cali Blake, where you been all my life?” called a crackly voice from down the sidewalk.

“Right here waiting for you, Roy.” She gave the stooped, retired trash collector a big smile. A woman in a flowing skirt with gold loop earrings walked on his arm like she was strutting a catwalk. “Good morning, Masala,” Cali said. “I brought you a present.” She snatched up
From Helen of Troy to Madame Pompadour: Women’s Hair in History
. “Orange today. Nice.”

“It’s called Tangerine Dream.” Masala patted her weave and gave Cali’s straight hair tied back in a ponytail the weekly once-over. “Cali girl, you let me do something with that nothing you got there, and you’ll get yourself a man in no time.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. My boss would freak if I walked in with Technicolor hair.” Not that any library patrons ever saw her. Until she’d started taking out the bookmobile, she’d been stuck in the basement stacks mostly. They’d given her this gig because they’d assumed it would flop. Best to keep the failure on a lower rung of the staff ladder.

It hadn’t failed. With the anonymous donation, the mobile unit was set for a trial period of a year, but it’d taken off in only two months. Already Cali was in love with the project and the people she met on her stops. They couldn’t believe she was bringing books right to their doorsteps—for free. Every day she felt like Santa Claus. And she got to spend time in neighborhoods where the families actually knew each other and the businesses had been around for decades.

“For you, sir.” She handed Roy the newest hardcover Dean Koontz.

Maggie appeared across the street, her short, crisp strides reminiscent of days when modest women wore narrow skirts to their ankles.

“This one’s for you, Miss Maggie.” Cali proffered her
15-Minute Recipes
. “No more frozen dinners.”

Maggie’s wrinkled face was all smiles. “Cali, you’re a ray of sunshine in this old neighborhood.”

“What’d you bring Junior to read?” Roy gestured toward the hat guy.

“He’s got his paper.” She lowered her voice. “I’ve been meaning to ask: why do you call him Junior?”

“Boy’s got the same name as his father,” Roy said. “What else do you want me to call him?”

“Oh. Huh. I wonder what his father thinks of him spending every day in this park reading the paper.” Her father would’ve thought it was peachy, as long as he had a bottle of Hennessy on a bench waiting for him. Later, he’d settled for cough syrup.

But as far as she could tell, the hat guy wasn’t a drunk. His clothes were a little worn but clean, and he didn’t move like a drunk. He moved really …
sexy
.

Masala gave a rippling chortle. “Oh, Cali girl. Junior don’t come around here every day. Only Friday mornings, when you’re here.”

Cali’s stomach did a little flip. “Really?”

“I think he likes our California,” Maggie said to Roy and Masala.

“So this is either a coincidence,” Cali said, still in a whisper, “or I should call the cops.”

Roy waved his hand. “Junior wouldn’t hurt a fly. Men that read, like we do, only got the most honorable of intentions.”

Cali laughed. “Honorable, huh?”

“Why don’t you go on over there and say hello?” Maggie said.

“Because I’m not looking for a man.” Even if she were, she didn’t have time to date. “Now I’m going to stop whispering about somebody like he’s not within earshot, okay?”

Masala gave her a saucy look, fuchsia lips pursing. Roy shook his head. They all settled on their regular benches, which were divided into individual seats with iron bars so people couldn’t sleep on them.

“What’s going on with you this week, Cali girl?” Masala asked, tucking the book about hair into her enormous spangled purse.

“I got invited to a wedding. A really big society shindig.”

“You gonna take me as your date, sweetheart?” Roy said.

“I would, dear. But I’m not going. It’s in England. It’s going to be a grand party at a huge old mansion with lots of fabulously rich and famous people. The groom is paying for everybody to stay there for a week. He’s a billionaire.”

“Billion?”

“I kid you not. It’s a real fairy-tale wedding. I’d love to go. The bride, Jane, is my old college friend who works at the New York Public library. She’s also a best-selling novelist now. Maggie, I gave you Jane’s book last month. You loved it.”

“That book about the girl who pretended she was engaged to a duke? I did!”

“Why aren’t you going, girl?” Masala demanded.

“I can’t afford it. Home care visits for Zoe would be insanely expensive. And of course the plane ticket would cost a mint. It’s just way too much.” Paying the rent was way too much too. And buying groceries. And the insurance deductible for her sister’s therapy and meds. And pretty much breathing.

Maggie sighed. Masala frowned.

“But the real problem,” Cali said with a mock-sober nod, “is that I don’t have a dress.”

“You don’t have a dress, girl? Now that’s a fib. I seen you in a dress right here.”

“I mean I don’t have a dress that’s appropriate for a party like that. Those women will be wearing stuff that costs hundreds of dollars, maybe thousands, with jewelry and shoes to match.”

Roy whistled low.

“I bet you have the shoes,” Maggie said.

Cali grinned. “You bet right.” Thank God for the discount shoe warehouse.

“Buys ‘em and never wears ‘em. Women are crazy, I say.”

“A girl’s gotta have her fun,” Masala said with a pat on Cali’s hand. “You keep on buying those shoes, and someday we’ll find someplace nice for you to wear them. Maybe sooner than you think.”

A group of kids burst out of the daycare across the street, followed by two women.

“
Hola
, Señorita California!” a little one yelled. The rest joined in like a chorus.

“
Hola
, guys.” Cali met them at the van and started collecting books they’d brought to return. After that they searched for new treasures on the shelves. She stayed busy till eleven, then packed up. Her friends had gone—Masala to her salon, and Maggie and Roy to bingo at the church. She gave the hat guy a wave and climbed into the van.