Serving the Billionaire (11 page)

It was kind of terrifying how easy it was to justify my decisions. Or else it was just that Carter kept making it easy: first the money, then the hot sex, now the hot coffee. I hadn’t been able to say no to him yet. I wondered if I would ever be able to.

“A cup of coffee sounds good,” I said, and watched as one corner of his mouth curled into that familiar half-smile.

He disappeared into the kitchen, and I draped my coat over the back of the chair across from his and took a seat. He had a stack of papers resting beside his laptop, and an open file with some sort of official-looking document inside. It surprised me that he was working already, so early; didn’t he have people to take care of paperwork for him? But maybe that was the difference between being a millionaire and being a billionaire. Carter hadn’t gotten where he had by being lazy and outsourcing grunt work.

He returned with a mug and set it down in front of me. “I don’t know how you take your coffee,” he said. “There’s creamer in the fridge, and sugar—”

“Black is fine,” I said, even though I usually drank my coffee with a generous pour of creamer. I didn’t want to cause him any trouble. He was obviously busy, and I was interrupting. I was keeping him from his work. I just wanted to drink my coffee and leave.

He sat down and immediately directed his attention to his laptop. I raised my mug and blew on the steaming coffee. It smelled incredible. I took a hesitant sip. Still too hot to drink, but rich and full-bodied in a way that supermarket coffee never was. It was too bad that I wouldn’t be able to linger and fully enjoy it.

He glanced up at me and gave me a rueful smile. “I’m sorry for ignoring you like this,” he said. “I have a conference call with the president at 11, and I need to review these files before I speak with him.”

“The president of your company?” I asked. I didn’t know anything about business, but I knew that companies had presidents. I was pretty sure.

His mouth did something that I couldn’t interpret. “The president of the United States,” he said.

I didn’t have anything to say in response to that. I curled my shoulders forward and sipped my coffee. What was I doing here with this man who had the President on speed-dial? I was a waitress. I was an ordinary person. I had nothing to offer Carter; I could only hold him back.

The realization washed over me in a flood of embarrassment. My face went hot. I couldn’t believe I had indulged a single fantasy, however far-fetched, of
dating
him, of getting to know him, of somehow becoming a part of his life. We were from two entirely different worlds. I had nothing to offer to Carter beyond sex.

We sat in silence for a few minutes as I sipped at my coffee and he typed at his laptop, brow furrowed in concentration. I wondered what he was going to talk to the President about. I couldn’t imagine a world in which I was important enough to talk to the leader of the free world. What would I even say? I wondered if Carter ever felt nervous, talking to the powerful, important people he knew. Probably not. He was a powerful, important person too.

Just as I was sinking into the benthic depths of self-pity, he shut his laptop with an authoritative snap and pinned me with a searching glance. “So, I suppose this is when we’re supposed to make stilted morning-after conversation.”

I laughed awkwardly and looked down at my coffee mug. “I wouldn’t know.”

He didn’t say anything, and I glanced up at him quickly, feeling shy. He was watching me with an expression that made me want to cover my face. He said, “You don’t have many one-night stands, I take it.”

“Not really,” I said. “I’m sort of... it’s not the kind of thing I usually do.”

“You can’t have lived in New York for very long,” he said. “You aren’t cynical enough.”

I took another sip of coffee, trying to hide my confusion. I wasn’t sure if I should feel insulted. “I’ve been living here for six years,” I said.

He held up his hands, the classic I’m-innocent gesture. “My mistake. Where are you from, then, if you’re not a native?”

He’d tricked me; I had to admit, now, that I hadn’t been born here. “Southern California,” I said. “The Inland Empire. Not very glamorous. I moved here after high school.”

“You’re a long way from home,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. I didn’t want to talk about it. I’d moved as far away from San Bernardino as I could get without actually leaving the continent, and I was never going back.

Carter must have sensed my reluctance, because he didn’t press the point. “Did you go to college here in the city?” he asked. He was leaning toward me now, arms folded on the table, intent on my response. I still didn’t know how to handle the intensity of his regard.

That he assumed I’d gone to college summed up everything that was different about us. “I did a couple of semesters at CUNY,” I said. “And then I couldn’t afford it anymore, so I had to drop out.” I refused to be ashamed. Not everyone was born into wealth. I was smart, and I read a lot, and I worked hard. Maybe someday I would finish my degree, and maybe I wouldn’t.

He looked surprised. Of course he was; it was probably unthinkable to him that a competent adult wouldn’t get a college education. But he just said, “Have you been working at the club for long?”

“I just started a couple of weeks ago,” I said. “I’ve had a lot of different jobs. I was a receptionist for a while, and a paralegal, and—some other things.” I was boring even myself. There was no way he was actually interested in my life history. He was just trying to be nice, to make conversation. I should have just invented some wild tale about running away to join the circus.

I didn’t want to talk about myself anymore. It was time to turn the tables. I set down my mug and looked at him. “What about you? You spend a lot of time at the club. What do you like so much about it?  It seems like a strange place to hold business meetings.”

He chuckled and leaned back in his chair. “Touché. Tired of being interrogated, are we? I’m sorry. It’s just that I find you fascinating, and I know next to nothing about you.”

I felt exactly the same way about him. I wanted to know everything: his favorite color, his childhood pet’s name, his favorite book. But that felt too intimate, somehow. Talking about the club was firmer ground. “You didn’t answer my question,” I said.

“You’re very astute,” he said. “The club is... well, you said yourself that you haven’t been working there very long. There’s more that goes in, in the private rooms, than just some drunken groping.”

I swallowed. I had already more or less figured that out, but I hadn’t expected him to admit it. “Go on,” I said.

He said, “I told you that I have particular tastes. And I like to watch, and the club presents plenty of opportunities for me to watch the kinds of things that I like. So.” He shrugged. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn he was a little embarrassed.

“But you take your clients there,” I said. “Co-workers? Whoever they are. Isn’t that sort of...”

“The illegality is what appeals to some of my associates,” he said. “If we’re doing something naughty together, they think I’m less likely to screw them over in a business deal.”

“Are you?” I asked.

His mouth quirked. “Not particularly. But I like them to think they have the upper hand.”

He was cut-throat. I wouldn’t want to face him across a boardroom table. “Being a billionaire sounds like hard work,” I said.

He laughed. “More than most people would think.” He reached across the table and covered my hands with his. “Did I satisfy your curiosity? Is there anything else you’d like to know? Shirt size, inseam?”

I looked away, embarrassed, and a little annoyed that he was calling me out on questioning him when he’d done the same thing to me.

“Hey,” he said. He squeezed my hands, and I looked back at him. “I’m teasing you. You’re allowed to ask me questions.” He glanced at the clock and frowned. “I need to get going. I’ll have my driver take you to your apartment after he drops me off at the office.”

“I live in Brooklyn,” I said. “It’s kind of far.”

“Then it’s a good thing I pay him to do nothing but drive around the city at my convenience,” he said, and smiled at me. “Put your coat on.”

I did as he said. He picked up his phone and had a brief conversation with someone who I assumed was his driver. He hung up as I was wrapping my scarf around my neck, and he guided me to the elevator with one hand on my lower back, a warm pressure.

We took the elevator down and down, not speaking. It wasn’t like it had been last night, when the sexual energy crackling between us had been impossible to ignore or resist. I was sleepy, and Carter was a comforting presence beside me, companionable in a way that I wouldn’t have thought possible. It was like we had known each other for years, and had just run out of things to say.

The doors opened. We went out into a parking garage, and Carter ushered me toward the black town car that was waiting for us.

“I expected a white stretch limousine,” I said, as he opened the door for me.

He laughed. “That would be tacky,” he said. “I’ve never done anything tacky in my life.”

I slid onto the leather seat, hiding my smile. My new goal in life was to make Carter Sutton do something extraordinarily, undeniably tacky.

I caught myself then, and shook my head at my own train of thought. None of my life goals could have anything to do with Carter. I might see him again, across the room at the club, but I wasn’t going to serve for him again, and I certainly wasn’t going to spend another night in his bed. As appealing as my fantasies were, they just weren’t realistic.

Carter slid into the car behind me and thumped on the divider separating the back seat from the driver. The car started moving, and he sat back and glanced at his watch. “Half an hour. That’s plenty of time.”

“How long does it take to get to your office?” I asked.

“Ten minutes, with no traffic. And Henry knows how to avoid the traffic.” He looked at me, his eyes darkening. “Now, what do you think we can do to occupy ourselves for the next ten minutes?”

By the time the car pulled out of the garage and merged onto the West Side Highway, we were making out in the back seat, one of his hands up my skirt and rubbing circles against my thigh. His mouth claimed mine, and I clung to him and let myself be taken.

He unbuttoned my blouse, revealing the lacy cups of my bra, and kissed down my neck to the exposed hollow of my throat, lingering over the bruise he’d made the night before. “Sorry about this,” he murmured, his lips brushing against the bruise.

“I don’t care,” I said, my hands buried in his hair, and I didn’t. I liked that he’d left a mark on me, some solid proof of what had happened. This way, I wouldn’t have to wonder if I’d imagined it.

The ride passed too quickly. By the time the car slowed to a stop, my hair had fallen loose from its knot, and Carter had sucked two throbbing circles on the curve of my breast that I thought would probably bruise. I was slick between my legs, and I wanted him.

There was no time. He pulled away from me and said, “We’re here. I’m sorry I can’t linger.” He tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “I’ll be at the club on Sunday night,” he said. “Will you be there?”

“Yes,” I said, because I was an idiot, because I couldn’t tell him no. “I’ll be there.”

“Good,” he said, giving me the sort of look that made my insides turn to liquid gold. And then he pushed open the door and got out of the car and was gone.

I exhaled noisily in the sudden silence of the car. God, I was an idiot.

The panel dividing the car in two slid open, and I was faced with the driver, who had turned around in his seat and was watching me with a poker face. “Your address, miss?” he asked me, voice perfectly neutral. He probably saw this all the time—the mornings after of Carter’s exploits.

I gave him my address, and he slid the panel shut again without comment. The car started moving.

I leaned my head against the back of the seat and closed my eyes.

I didn’t know what to do. Why had I told Carter that I would be at the club? I had as much as agreed to waitress for him again, and I didn’t want to. That wasn’t true; I wanted to, but it was a terrible idea. I wanted to be around him all the time, but it was impossible. He was, right now, taking the elevator up to his office—I imagined that it was probably at the top of some very tall building, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a panoramic view—to have a casual, Saturday morning phone chat with the President. And I was on my way home to shower, stuff my face with some breakfast, and head to my job as an overpaid purveyor of alcoholic beverages.

I didn’t believe in fairy tales; I never had. They were nice to read, as a child—to imagine that a handsome prince would swoop in from who-knows-where and rescue you from the bitter dissolution of your parents’ marriage, your father’s alcoholism, and your disapproving relatives. But then you got older, and you learned that nothing good happened to you unless you fought for it tooth and nail. I was still fighting. Carter was no Prince Charming. I would rescue myself.

I leaned my head against the window and watched lower Manhattan pass by as we headed for the Battery Tunnel. I would have to tell Carter that we couldn’t spend any more time together. There was no point in letting myself get attached to him. Sooner or later, he would realize that I couldn’t offer him what he needed. It was better to make a clean break now, when we were still relative strangers.

I didn’t know anything about men, or about sex, and the fact that Carter was a rich, handsome, charismatic man only made things that much worse. I should have experimented with someone harmless when I had the chance—like that guy at my first job, who’d been so infatuated with me. I couldn’t even remember his name anymore. He would have been perfect: I could have gotten all of this out of the way, the nerves, the butterflies, the awkwardness. The terror.

Losing your virginity to a billionaire probably wasn’t the way to go.

I fished my phone out of my purse and dialed Sadie’s number. She didn’t work on Saturdays, and I really needed to hear her voice.

She answered after a few rings and said, “You are out of your mind if you’re calling me before noon on the weekend!”