Baby Love: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance (8 page)

He reached down, his fingertips caressing the tops of my breasts, and slipped the crisp, folded bill into my bra without a word.

I nearly fell over.

Zane was enjoying teasing me, I could tell. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close into his chest. “Jesus, isn’t it weird to think about Scott Fucking Friendly selling you a hot dog?”

“He probably owns that cart we just went to in one way or another,” I replied, trying to keep my shaking voice steady. I was still recovering from him nearly grabbing my breast. It was thrilling, all these people around, this slinky, silky dress and the underwear that was just for him hiding secretly underneath it. I felt the heady mix of hormones urging me forward. “You want to head back to your place?”

Zane bent down and kissed my head. My entire body felt like it was a raw bundle of live wires. It was like there was magnets pulling us toward each other. “Not tonight,” he replied. “Let me take you home.”

CHAPTER NINE

RACHEL

“Good morning,” Callie murmured from behind her coffee cup. “You were home late.”

I grunted a hello, my bedhead hair sticking up at all angles. I poured myself a bowl of organic cornflakes. “Not late enough for my taste,” I replied.

She raised her eyebrows. “Sex was on the table?”

“I
wanted
sex on the table. And in the car. And on the subway home. And on your front porch. And on the sculptures in Millenium Park…” I drifted off in my mind.

Callie laughed. “Sexual frustration is a strange look on you,” she said.

Patrick walked into the kitchen wearing his bathrobe. “Who’s sexually frustrated?”

“Rachel,” Callie replied for me.

Patrick looked at me, surprised.

I shifted uncomfortably. There was an unspoken tension in the room. Patrick and I had dated before he went out with Callie. Callie didn’t know that. “Now that we’ve thoroughly discussed my vagina, maybe a subject change is at hand?”

Patrick opened the fridge door forcefully. Was he upset?

“What’s up your behind?” Callie asked.

“Hangover,” he said simply, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

She raised her eyebrows in light judgment. “Tequila shots with the boys again?”

“Something like that,” Patrick said shortly. “I’ll be in my office.” He left the kitchen without another word.

I crunched my cornflakes nervously, hoping Callie didn’t press any more theories about Patrick’s mood upon me. She mercifully switched back to the Zane topic. “So it was a good date? Other than the lack of sex?”

I sighed and collapsed onto the barstool. “We sizzle,” I said to her honestly. “It’s…electric. That’s all I can say.”

Callie was beaming. “I never thought I’d live to see the day,” she said in her Georgia dialect. “Rachel Cobb is actually interested in chemistry with a man over, well,
actual
chemistry.”

I chewed my flakes. “He’s kind of a dick, though, to the people who work for him.”

Callie shrugged. “Who cares? He a sexy billionaire sending you lacy lingerie. He can yell at the wait staff as much as he wants as long as he’s channeling that rage somewhere else when the night ends.” She put her mug down. “Why didn’t he want to have sex with you?”

I shrugged and pushed my glasses up my nose. “I asked him. He said not tonight.”

Callie nearly spit out her coffee. “You
asked
him?”

I nodded. “What’s the big deal?” But I blushed at the memory. It was like someone else had taken over my body.

Callie laughed and shook her head. “You’re the most awkward person I know, that’s all.”

“Gee, thanks, Call,” I replied sarcastically.

“It’s just the truth, science geek.”

“He did say something weird, though. He said he wanted to add another condition to our contract next week. I have a meeting with him and his people on Monday. I’m kind of nervous.”

Callie wiggled her eyebrows. “Maybe he wants you to be his Anastasia to his Christian Grey.”

“Who?”

She rolled her eyes. “I keep forgetting you’ve been trapped in a science lab the better part of the last five years. It’s from – never mind. Maybe he’s going to make you sign a BDSM contract. You get to be his sex slave in return for his offering you millions.”

I inhaled a cornflake and choked; thankfully the purple from the lack of oxygen hid my blushing.

***

I wore my borrowed suit skirt and silk blouse on Monday morning, eager to see Zane again. I couldn’t help it. All I could think about was him licking that mustard off of my cheek. I felt like a horny teenager again. It was hard for me to think about the details of the official deal we were going to sign in the context of my sexual attraction to him. He hadn’t contacted me all weekend. I’d love to lie and say I hadn’t waited by the phone. But I had.

And I only kind of hated myself for it. I’d also been so bleary-eyed after several restless nights with minimal, sex-dream-filled sleep that I couldn’t manage to put in my contact lenses. I’d dropped my last pair down the drain. It would have to be my horn-rimmed glasses from here on out, at least until I got my first paycheck.

Callie had cleared her schedule to come with me as my legal representation.

“Mr. Reid will be in with the rest of his advisory team in a few minutes,” said the buxom secretary. She eyed me up and down. I’d actually put on makeup today; I was hoping I hadn’t overdone the effect. I wasn’t used to wearing anything aside from lip balm. “You can go inside and sit down.”

The board room smelled like pricy cologne.

I looked over the city below me. This had to be the best view in Chicago. Callie was unimpressed by the view; her firm had one nearly as good. She set her Gucci purse down. I pulled out a seat near the head of the table. There were pens and legal pads waiting at only three of the thirty seats. I found myself worrying absurdly that there was assigned seating and I was going to mess it up. I tapped the pen nervously against the paper pad.

A short, bald man walked in first and nodded at both of us. He reached out his hand. “I’m Bob Sanderson,” he said. “Mr. Reid’s primary attorney.”

“Lovely to meet you,” I said, extending a clammy hand toward him.

“Callie Conrad,” Callie said cordially.

He nodded curtly. “Mr. Reid will be in later. For now, he wanted me to go over the partnership, particularly the five D’s.”

“Five D’s?” I asked, panicking. I was remembering Callie’s sex slave joke from earlier.

“Death, divorce, disagreement, disability, and debt,” he explained.

“It’s detailing what happens to the partnership in the event that either partner ends up in any of those situations,” Callie explained further. She was in her element. “The sixth, of course, would be dissolution. If either one of you decides to end the professional relationship.”

I nodded, listening as intently as I could as both Callie and Mr. Sanderson negotiated. “Mr. Reid is insisting on a two hundred-thousand-dollar annual salary to be paid out biweekly for Ms. Cobb,” Mr. Sanderson said.

I nearly choked. “That’s too much,” I said. “Way too much.”

Mr. Sanderson smiled. “Well, I have to say that’s a first; someone asking for
less
money. But he insists on it. You can take it up with him. It’s easy enough to change later.”

I was following most of the legal speak until I saw Zane across the office. He was standing by his secretary’s desk in full view of the conference room. He leaned down and said something to her. She laughed at the joke he’d told, flipping her perfect brown hair over her shoulder flirtatiously.

I felt jealousy burning through me. I adjusted my glasses, going red from embarrassment. I was basically a child. Why would he want me?

“Rachel?” Callie’s voice finally bored through my brain. I saw that both of them were staring at me. I wondered how many times they’d tried to get my attention.

“Sorry,” I said. “What’s that?”

“We’re done. We just need you to sign on the bottom line and the main part of the contract is done,” Mr. Sanderson explained, handing me his Mont Blanc pen.

I scribbled my name nervously at the bottom, determinedly avoiding looking at Zane again. Mr. Sanderson flipped the thick stack of papers shut and put them in a folio. “I’ll have my secretary send you copies.”

Callie handed him her business card. “Perfect,” she said.

“There
is
one more thing,” Mr. Sanderson said. “There’s an addendum to the contract that Mr. Reid wanted to go over with Ms. Cobb here alone.”

Callie glanced at me suspiciously. “I’d prefer, as her lawyer, that she sign nothing without my presence.”

Mr. Sanderson folded his hands. “He was quite insistent that this remain confidential between him and Ms. Cobb.”

My stomach was instantly filled with butterflies. I glanced back at the secretary’s desk but saw Zane was gone. Then I heard his voice. “Rachel,” Zane said, sending electricity down my spine.

He was standing in the doorway, a steely look on his face. This wasn’t the boyish guy I’d seen in the park. He was back to business Zane.

“Mr. Reid,” Callie said, standing up to shake his hand. He ignored her. I saw that Callie had pushed her breasts out to show them off. I felt a bitter surge of satisfaction that he wasn’t tempted in the slightest by her slim figure. Callie always outshone me. But not now. Zane only had eyes for me.

“Come to my office, Rachel. I’m assuming you’re done here?”

I communicated a look of
It’s fine
to Callie before following him out of the room. I knew she was pissed. I could feel it like a sixth sense. We marched through the office, everyone staring at me. I tried not to be bothered. Finally, we reached double wooden doors that Zane held open for me. “After you,” he said, smoldering at me.

My breath caught in my chest as I made eye contact with him. I wanted to crawl inside his stare and live there for the rest of my life. He was fire.

His office was surprisingly traditional; dark wood-paneled walls lining three sides of the room. The fourth had a view of Lake Michigan, unobstructed. The teal waters glimmered in the late morning sunlight. Zane sat down at his enormous desk and put his feet up. “Have a seat, Rachel.”

I perched on the edge of a plush red chair in front of his desk. I crossed my ankles, thinking about how my mom would insist on me doing that if she were here. “Mr. Reid,” I said.

Zane laughed. “You don’t need to call me that here either,” he insisted.

I brushed a lock of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail back over my ear. “I feel like establishing these clear boundaries is good for both of us.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You’re implying that we’ll have occasion to meet each other in a non-business setting again?”

I opened my mouth and closed it, pink creeping up my cheeks. “I wasn’t- I –“

Zane put his feet down and leaned forward across his desk. “I like the glasses.”

The pink on my cheeks was now a four-alarm fire. “Thank you,” I replied. “I lost my last pair of contacts down the drain.”

“You should keep the glasses,” he said. “They’re fucking sexy.”

I cleared my throat but couldn’t come up with anything to say. I tapped my leg on the carpet.

“I think Bob told you there was something I wanted to discuss with you one on one.”

I nodded nervously. “Yes.”

Zane laughed. “Why do you look so nervous?”

I stopped jiggling my leg immediately. “Callie thought you might be making me some kind of BDSM submissive.”

Zane smiled wryly. “Not quite. But I do have a proposal for you.”

My stomach turned over at the word “proposal” and I had a vision of Zane getting down on one knee. My imagination was threatening to run away with my brain if I didn’t reign it in soon. “Okay. I’m listening.”

Zane stood up and walked over to the window, his hands in his pockets. I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to follow him or not. “When you’re a billionaire, the world is yours,” he said toward the glass. I decided to stay put. “I can have everything. I do have everything. Everything that I could ever possibly want. Well, nearly everything. Do you know what I don’t have, Rachel?” He turned around to face me.

“I have no idea,” I said honestly. “A ‘Han Shot First’ t-shirt?”

Zane’s perfect façade faltered for an instant. He was about to laugh but he recovered quickly. “I don’t have you,” he replied.

It was my turn to laugh, and I didn’t stop myself. My glasses nearly fell off my nose. “Excuse me?” When I came up for air, he was still staring at me like he was trying to light my clothes on fire.

“I’m serious. I don’t have you.”

I looked around the office. “Is this a joke?”

He shook his head once. “You feel it. Our chemistry. It’s undeniable. I want you Rachel. I want all of you. And I know I could have you if I just asked. But there’s one more thing I want.”

I felt my breathing slow down so much I thought my heart might stop. “And what’s that?” I whispered, my voice hoarse from sheer nerves.

“A baby. With you.”

CHAPTER TEN

ZANE

“Sign over your entire empire yet?” Roger asked. We were in my apartment eating a catered dinner from the downstairs kitchen in the hotel. Liz was there as well, enjoying a night out without her kids. She was a single mother to five after her husband had passed away a few years’ prior.

“Not quite,” I replied, pouring a glass of wine.

“You regret anything yet?” Liz asked.

I bit my tongue before responding that the only thing I regretted was not asking Rachel to pull her ponytail out and shake all of her hair around her shoulders with those glasses on. They were fuck-me-in-the-library glasses. “Nope,” I responded simply, filling my bowl with Thai coconut curry.

“You know the production team thinks you’ve lost your mind,” Liz said.

“But the marketing team is going ape shit. They’re planning on putting that final scene onto YouTube. It’ll be viral. Probably over a hundred million hits in three days, I’d guess,” Roger enthused.

The soup was delicious and decadent. I had prepared myself for their criticisms. “It wasn’t pity,” I explained. “It was a deal I wanted to make so I followed my instincts and made it. My instincts haven’t lead me wrong yet.”