Billionaire's Bounty (Plus Size Loving) BBW Erotic Romance (3 page)

But here she was, meeting Jude Stone. When his PA
Carly had come to see her, Miranda had sworn to herself there could be nothing
they could have to discuss. Turned out she was wrong.

“Thank you,” she said, all composure now as she
took the seat held out by the hovering waiter. She remembered her inner vow
back at the office when she’d agreed with Carly to meet him. Her plan was to
come, listen to what he had to say, and then leave. There was no harm, she’d
decided, in hearing him out.

Some minutes later, their orders made,
Miranda was speared once more by his piercing, darkly gleaming eyes
.
“I wasn’t quite sure, until I saw you walking in the door, that you’d come.”

“Your assistant was very…convincing,” Miranda
murmured, taking a sip of her wine as she stalled for time. She quelled herself
to lift her eyes to hold his gaze again. “On one part, at least. My coming
here…was just to find out for myself if this all wasn’t just some crazy ruse.
To look you in the eye and discover if it’s really true what she said. That
you’re willing to hand back the company on a platter.”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t make the offer if it
wasn’t possible, Miranda. I don’t make empty promises.”

“But why would you do that? Why would you even
want to?”

She couldn’t keep the confusion from her tone,
and saw him smile. “Why? Do you really need to ask? Miranda, have you looked in
a mirror? I mean, really?” His smile widened as her discomfort increased, her
neck flushing. His eyes scanned her swiftly, and it was like a laser passing
over her skin.

“I want you,” he said simply
, shrugging one hard-packed shoulder.
“Right from the moment I set eyes on you, I knew exactly how it could be
between us. Everything about you, your sexy curvy body, your feminine air of
assertiveness, showed me that you were just the type of woman with the power to
drive me wild.”

Miranda chewed
on her lip, wondering if her complexion was ever going to shift back from pink
to normal. “That doesn’t explain why you’re willing to give up a company you’d
taken such time, effort and resources to acquire in the first place. I mean,
who does that?”

He lifted his
shoulders in a Gallic shrug. “
That’s just me. Nothing stands in the
way of getting what I want.
"

His fingers
were drumming lightly on the t
a
blecloth
,
a
nd
Mir
a
nd
a
felt her eyes un
a
ble
to shift from his intense g
a
ze
. E
a
ch
word seemed to scald unto her senses
like hot w
a
x.

“What I’m
trying to say, Miranda is that we have this thing in the way, keeping us apart.
And I’m willing to make the obstacle disappear, if that’s what it’ll take.”

“So you’re
trying to buy me, is that it? My body for the company.” Miranda’s tone was conversational,
meant to hide the turmoil within her. “How dare you think I can be bought?”

“It’s not about
buying anyone,” he said with equal mildness, eyes narrowing to slits. “It’s
about give and take. Something I’m sure you can understand plainly.”

She watched him
coolly take a sip of his wine, and she shivered deep inside. It was becoming
clear to her that the man called Jude Stone was calm and calculating in every
way – even in matters that were nothing to do with business. Here he was,
methodically asking her to give him her body in exchange for returning power of
her father’s company to her family. How was she meant to wrap her head around
that?

“Oh, I do
understand. Perfectly,” she said at last. “I understand that just because you
have all that money and power, it means you can acquire whatever you want. But
you seem to have the erroneous belief that the only reason I’m resisting you is
simply because of the way you took over my father’s company. Has it ever
occurred to you that you’re actually not my type? Even without all this bad
blood between you and my family, I still wouldn’t be tempted to have anything
to do with you. You’re cold, calculating and cocky. Definitely not my kind of
man at all.”

There was a
disbelieving look in his eye that made her grit her teeth. “You can tell
yourself all the lies you want, Miranda. But if you decide to refuse my offer,
then you’re not the smart woman I first thought you to be. Besides – I
can’t seem to credit your claim that I’m so loathsome to you. If I remember correctly,
you were melting in my arms well enough that night.”

Her lips tilted
slightly in a sardonic smile, though once again, he made a pinkness rise in her
face. “I guess you’re free to tell yourself all the lies
you
want,” she murmured, throwing his earlier words back at him.
She raised her glass of wine to her lips, noting the slight tremble in her
fingers. Damn it! How could she be letting him get to her this way? She could
keep putting up the act but she knew in her heart she was no match for him when
it came right down to it. Perhaps it was time she stopped thinking she could
best him – because it wasn’t going to happen.

“It was a
mistake to come here,” she mumbled, laying down the glass and reaching for her
purse.

“Your father
hasn’t been well, has he?” Jude asked in an unhurried tone, making her pause
unconsciously. His eyes were downcast, his expression veiled by his dark,
enviously thick lashes. “From what I hear, he’s taken an extended holiday
somewhere in Rio de Janeiro. He took the loss of the company very hard, I must
imagine. And then there’s your brother,
well-meaning
but still, misguided. Trying to find ways to set things right but lacking the
capital and the cunning.”

“Now look
–”

“No, you look,
Miranda,” he said, his voice chilling unexpectedly as he flashed his aqua-blue
eyes to meet hers. “With just one word, you can make both their troubles go
away. You could be the family heroine, doing what needs to be done to set
things right. This might be the only chance available for the Quinn name to
save face and get back on the ground. And all this with little or no cost to
anyone.”

“Hearing you
talk, one would think you were asking to do all this for nothing,” she couldn’t
help but sneer, jarred by his cold facts.

Jude smiled
slightly, relaxing back in his chair. “One week, Miranda. That’s all that’s
required. I will be leaving for London in two days on a
weeklong
business trip. I will want you with me.
To be at my beck and
call, in a manner of speaking.
Pleasing me in every way that I know that
you can. Giving
yourself
to me again and again, with
the same passion and desire that ignited between us that first moment we came
face to face. I know you felt it – though you deny it with your eyes and
lips, I know the truth. You want me just as badly. I’m simply making it easier
for you this way.”

Miranda wanted
to think up something cutting and sarcastic to say, but couldn’t. Besides, the
waiter had reappeared with their first course, and she had to bite back any
retort. Just thinking about his proposition: one week alone with him in another
city,
there
to satisfy his every whim. And in return,
the company would be her
family’s
again. Her father
could come home. Her brother Jeffery would have the weight off his shoulders
that had turned him into such a mass of worry the past few months.

In short, Jude
Stone was presenting her an offer that was almost too good to be true.

And one she
might forever regret not taking up when she had the chance...

***

Miranda still
had that funny feeling everything that was happening was actually happening to
someone else, not her. It was two days later and she was on her way to London
with Jude Stone. He had a private jet – or course. And they had left the
city two hours ago, en route to London. It was happening; she was officially
taking the biggest, wildest step she’d ever taken in her life.

Once she’d
agreed to go along with his scheme, everything seemed to have happened in a
blur. She’d barely had the time or even the presence of mind to pack. In any
case, Jude had already made it clear that she wouldn’t need that many clothes
anyway.

He was seated
across from her on the jet, looking through some papers. Next to him was his
trusted PA, Carly. Their words as they discussed seemed to pass over Miranda’s
head in a fog.

I can’t believe I’m doing this
, she thought. But she
was
doing it. She was on her way to
London with Jude to be his sexual plaything for a week. By day he would do his
business deals, and by night, she was to be willing and ready to fulfil every
one of his perverted desires.

In her slim case,
which lay on the seat beside her, was her copy of the papers that would Jude
would sign by the end of their weeklong arrangement. With his signature, the
company would be handed back to her father. Her family would be okay again, and
everything would be back to normal.

And yet, was
that the only reason she was here?

Miranda knew
she would be lying if she said that. She looked surreptitiously at Jude,
dressed impeccably as always in his sharp-fitting, stylish suit, hair waving in
sleek golden locks across his forehead. He was all business, not sparing her
much attention beyond asking if she wanted more champagne, or another tasteful,
perfectly prepared dish to be provided by the on-flight chef.

Funny how the
moment she’d accepted his highly unconventional, fiendish proposition, he’d
seemed to cool off into his untouchable persona. Almost as if, now that he knew
the deal was in the bag, so to speak, he’d virtually lost interest.

The very notion
pricked. Which was annoying in
itself
. What had she
expected, that he’d be drooling over her?
He’d made an offer
,
she’d taken it
. This was merely business, just like
all the other corporate schemes he negotiated every single day. The sooner she
phased
herself into that concept, the easier this ordeal
would be.

Ordeal
...well, that was what she’d like to tell herself this
was going to be. Spending a whole week with the billionaire hunk Jude Stone
– a man she was supposed to hate with all her mind and body – was
going to be a chore, certainly. A man who treated everything, even people,
like
commodities to be priced and tagged. How on earth could
she stand to be so objectified, agreeing to play the part of his paramour for
seven whole days?

Miranda thought
of the letter she’d left, on her brother’s desk. It had been vague somewhat,
but she’d tried as best as she could to explain her decision. “Jude Stone made
me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” she’d written. “I’m off to London with him for
a week. I’m trying to do what’s best for the family, and not just me, this
time. I sure hope it will be good enough.”

She wondered
what he would make of it – but then she didn’t really care. She was
showing him in her own way that she was far from the selfish brat he thought
she was.

Here she was,
willing to take the bullet for the team. That had to count for something.

She sighed
deeply, turning to look out of the window, her heart torn between heaviness and
a strange, twisting excitement at what was to come.
And then she felt it
.

It was a warm,
tingling sensation, and it grew stronger by the second. She turned her gaze
instinctively in Jude’s direction, and had to suck in a breath.

He was looking
at her. It was just a brief glance, lasting no more than five seconds at most.
But in that one look, she’d felt transported right into his mind, saw the
blazing gleam that darkened his aqua-blue eyes almost to navy. It was a look so
bad, so ferociously filthy, that she had no doubts of exactly the thoughts
going through his head in those moments.

And for the
first time in her life, Miranda now could understand the feeling like her
clothes were being stripped off her, in a
trice
.
Knew what it meant to be desired so deeply that she could taste his want on the
tip of her tongue; could almost catch a heady whiff of it in the air as their
eyes held for those brief, searing seconds.

In that one,
long, lasing look at her, she had a glimpse of the hot, blinding flash of lust
that reminded her exactly why she was here – and left her in no more
doubt as to whether he’d cooled off interest. Now she knew that was far, far
from the truth. The spell was broken when he turned once more to Carly, who had
been busy reading out a paragraph from the papers in her hand and had been
blissfully unaware of the very heated exchange that had just been made between
Jude and Miranda. He was back to being business-like Jude, his tone crisp as he
pointed out a line to Carly on the document.

It took a while
for Miranda to remember that she’d stopped breathing, as she forced air back
into her lungs, willing her heart to beat less thunderously as she grabbed the
glass of champagne at her elbow and took a long, grateful gulp.