Shopping for a Billionaire 3 (10 page)

“I’m joking.”

“I know you are, because Grace is old enough to be my grandmother and is married to a rugby player.”

I laugh. “He’d kill you if you made a move.”

“She.”

“She what?”

“Grace’s wife. Seventy-three-year-old female rugby player.”

Leaving me with that interesting tidbit, he turns away and speaks into the phone. I take the opportunity to check my own phone.

Twenty-seven messages. Nine from Steve:

What the hell, Shannon?

He’s such an asshole.

Are you safe?

I think he’s an emotional abuser.

Your car’s still here.

Should I call the police?

I texted your mother.

Thank him for paying.

Ask him what he thinks about Canford Industries and whether it’s a good stock buy.

Delete. I repeat it nine times. Go ahead, Steve. Call the police. The fact that you texted my mother means…

Yep.

Nine
messages from her:

You ditched Steve for Declan? Good girl. Aim higher.
Shall I start booking a spring 2015 spot at Farmington?
 

I don’t even read the other eight. Delete times nine.

Eight from Amanda:

Your mother is texting me. You ditched Steve?

Is Declan being emotionally abusive? Steve’s saying yes.

Steve is on Twitter creating hashtags about you.

Huh? I stop reading and call her, furious.

“
What the hell is going on?” I hiss into the phone. Declan’s back is still turned, his shirt tail hanging out over that hot, tight ass I just had in my hands. Now I’m spewing invective at my best friend about my arrogant ex. Something is very wrong with this picture. The candles still burn, the room is still filled with sex and promise, and I’m—venting about
Steve
?
 

“Steve’s been calling and texting your mom and me about how Declan appeared and made you leave. How scared and vulnerable you looked. How he thinks you’re being emotionally abused.”

I just had the most mind-blowing sex of my life while stradd
l
ing Declan in a limo and I have to deal with an ex who is acting like a middle school gossip girl?

“
He WHAT?”
I
ask
. A little too loudly, too, because Declan frowns and walks toward me.

“W
h
at’
s wrong
?”
Declan asks.
I can’t wiggle out of this one.

“Nothing,” I say with a chirp. I’m turning into Amanda.
There’s no way I’m telling her what Declan just said to me, his heartfelt confession, because I can’t even wrap my head and heart around the words. He said everything I feel, except with clarity. When I think the same words they just come out like unintelligible babble.
“Just a…work problem.”

“Not with an Anterdec property?”

“No, no…just a pest control issue,” I hiss. I motion for him to go back to his call and suddenly, the room feels cold. Broken. Lost.

Or maybe it’s just me.

I hear a decidedly masculine voice on the other end of Declan’s call, the dissonance between my assum
p
tion it was Grace and the male voice confusing. “Declan?”
t
he voice says. “Just because you don’t like what I have to say about her doesn’t mean you should ignore me.”

I know that voice.
I
t’s James, his father.

Declan frowns at his screen and shows me his back. Hmmm. “Her”? Does his father not like me? Or are they talking about some other woman? Of course they are. I’m being silly and self-centered. Why would James McCormick 1) not like me?
That’s akin to not liking a golden retriever. I’m the epitome of nice
and 2) even bother with me. He only noticed me because Declan pointed me out in that business meeting a few weeks ago, and almost bailed on a business trip to swing by my office, and saved my life…

Hmmm.

“
Steve
’s crazy, Shannon, and we know it. Don’t worry. Your mom thinks you’re a feminist hero, though, for going on one date and leaving with another guy.”
Amanda’s voice slices through my rapid-fire thoughts.
 

“I wasn’t on a date with Steve! I’d rather get a Brazilian wax with battery acid.”

“
O
uch,” she says in unison with Declan, who is now off the phone and behind me, all heat and muscle bearing down, moving with a slight rhythm that tells me exactly what—and who—is coming next.

“Gotta go, Amanda. We’re in a lighthouse in the harbor and Declan’s about to—”

Click
.

“
About to…?” He kisses my shoulder, taking the phone out of my hand as his thumb presses the “Power” button. His chest is hot against my back and as he leans around me to set down my phone on the table, I realize his shirt’s unbuttoned. Bare skin warms my cotton shirt and he turns me to face him.
 

I look at the L-shaped couch
e
s across the room, the flicker of fire in the glass door of the wood stove making the velvet seem so soft, so welcoming.

Like Declan’s hands as he lifts my shirt for
what feels like the umpteenth
time this evening.

“
You,” he says with a growl as he reveals my bra, “are so hot.”
 

“I’m Toilet Girl.”

“You’re Hot Girl.”

“That’s
your
title.”
 

“I’m Hot Girl?” He takes my hand and puts it at his waistband as he undoes his belt. He has a point.

“I retract that statement.”

“This isn’t a newspaper article. You’re not a reporter.” His voice holds a smile. “Unless you’re undercover and investigating me.”

“I’m only dating you for the account,” I joke. “Nothing more. No Woodward and Bernstein. No deep cover.”

“If you’re only dating me for the account, then you nailed it two dates ago,” he whispers as he unclasps my bra. The shiver that runs through me vibrates into the scarred wood floor, carrying out into the ocean’s waves, triggering a tsunami somewhere in the Azores islands.

“
T
hen why am I here?”

H
is mouth stops me from saying more, sla
n
ting against mine, his arms strong and lifting me to tiptoes. My bare breasts press against the heat of his pecs and the push of his abs against my belly makes me feel more intimate than when he was inside me, in the limo.

“
Let me show you exactly why you’re here, Shannon.”
 

A
nd he does.

“
Your medical emergency made the local Patch news!” Mom shouts from the kitchen. Mom begged and begged and begged and guilted and blackmailed me into coming to one of her yoga classes, and then she snuck into my phone and texted Declan, pretending to be me, and he’s here.
 

Here. Standing in my childhood home drinking orange spice tea and wearing workout clothes that make me feel feral.

“Great. Just what we need. Notoriety from a news site that covers misspelled store signs
and duck crossings
with as much space as they cover
fatal car accidents and government corruption
,” Declan mutters.

“What did they say,
Mom
?” I ask, forcing myself to be polite. I’m drinking chamomile tea and it’s not relaxing me.
You could pump Zen Tea into me via IV and it wouldn’t work. My heart is the sound of one hand clapping, flailing in the wind, trying to find something to rest against.
 

Watching Declan sit on ou
r sunken sofa, perched with perfect posture and powerful legs encased in lycra stretch fabric, confuses the hell out of the wiring in my brain.
 

“And Jessica Coffin mentioned you!”

Declan groans, then covers it with a sip. His eyes take in the room. Mom has a thing for thrift shopping, even though Dad complains that we can afford to buy new, as long as it’s at a discount warehouse. Born and raised in New England, Mom’s Yankee sensibilities tell her she can’t dare to buy a new dresser even though she spends $60 a week on mani-pedis. The incongruity has been long pointed out to her, like explaining that driving seventeen miles to go to a different grocery store to save $1.70 on apples isn’t worth it.

“She says, ‘
Buzz buzz sting sting run run stupid stupid.’”
 

“What, no ‘oink oink’?” Declan smacks my knee, hard, and gives me a glare that says,
You’re ridiculous
and
Stop it
and then his look says
I want to make love right here on the couch in front of your mother.
 

And then he kisses me so hard even Mom goes silent.

“So,” she interrupts, her voice high and reedy, “we need to get going. Downward
F
acing
D
og is for yoga class, not on my nice Bauhaus sofa.”

Declan ignores her
and smiles against my mouth. Aha. I’m sensing a trend. He loves to smile while kissing me while defying the people most interested in controlling me. Hmmm. I should think that one through, but the flutter of his fingers against my breast makes me think I’m about to pop my Bauhaus sofa cherry and then my sex starts doing jumping jacks and shouting,
Control me! Control me!
 

“I’m going to class! Need to be there early!” Mom’s shaky voice carries through the room at a distance.

Declan’s hand leaves my breast and he waves silently, mouth a bit busy. I hear the click of the front door as it shuts and he pulls away, smile intact.

“Mission accomplished.”

My face falls. “
That
was your mission? To drive my mom away? I can do that by pretending to be a Republican.”

His face becomes a stone mask. “
I’m
a Republican.”

I punch his shoulder lightly and laugh. “You almost had me there.”

The expression doesn’t change.

Oh, hell no. Even Steve was a Democrat. Most of the time.

“What are you?” he asks.

“
I’m a Stewartarian.”
 

“You worship
The Daily Show
?”

“It’s like my daily mass.” My heart is hammering. I hate politics. I don’t even really have a party. In Massachusetts almost everyone I know is a Democrat, and if they’re not, they’re originally from New Hampshire or Maine. So…

“Are you one of those screechy liberals who crams your morals down other people’s throats because you you view the world through a rigid ideological lens and can’t bear to see other people making different choices?”
he asks.
 

“You sound like Rush Limbaugh!” I squeak.

He’s laughing, though. “Replace ‘liberals’ with ‘conservatives’ and you get the same end.” He chuckles quietly, then caresses my face. “I don’t care what you believe, as long as I can have a rational conversation with you.”

“The only topic where reason goes out the window is
cilantro.”
 

“Cilantro?”

“Tastes like soap.”

“Same here.”

“Oh my God! It’s true love!” I clap my hand over my mouth as if that will shove the words back in.

T
he grin he gives me changes as his eyes shift to something behind me.
The clock.
“We’re going to be late.”

Breathe, Shannon. Breathe
. Let respiration restart so you don’t pass out on top of blurting out that you’re in love with him already.
I
t’s only been a month. Who falls in love in a month? People on LastShot.com, where you openly confess to having STD lesions, and gamers, that’s who.

“And,” he says as we stand, stopping me from grabbing a kitchen kni
fe
and carving out my vocal cords, “nothing says true love like Mexican food that tastes like laundry detergent.”

* * *

One of
M
om’s friends from college moved in a few towns over and took an old chicken coop on her property and turned it into a yoga studio. Yep—chicken coop. Except this is like a chicken spa, and if any actual chickens ever set foot in here I think they’d face twenty-five screaming women all searching for their pillow-sized Vera Bradley bags to bash the poor creatures to death.

Declan and I arrive and immediately change the demographics in the room:

1. We lower the average age by a mere two years, but hey,
we’re outnumbered
…

2. Declan alone increases the average income by five figures.

3. He adds a male to the group. The
only
male in the group.

Mom urges us to get in the front row, and I scout it out carefully. Yoga freaks have this
thing
about their space. No one actually, officially, claims a space, but they do in their
minds
, and no matter how much yoga is supposed to be about awareness and acceptance and
detachment and
flow, so help you bloody GOD if you take a yoga freak’s spot in class.

Namaste, motherf—

“I am so glad you’re here!” Mom squeals as Declan rolls out his mat. We’re barefoot and I can’t stop peeking at his feet. For a guy, they’re remark
a
bl
y
nice and athletic and groomed. “Metrosexual” is not the word I’d use to describe Declan, but his feet scream
manscaped!
I
imagine them sliding up and down my calves…
 

H
e starts to stretch and smiles at me, beckoning with his eyes to join him. I bend down to unroll my mat and a popcorn popper goes off.

Wait. That’s just my joints.

And twenty old ladies’ necks all turning at once when they realize there’s a man in the room, and he’s not on Viagra.

(At least, I assume he’s not.
And it’s no thanks to me. One inch in the wrong direction with that EpiPen and…)
 

I shudder and he reaches over to give me an affectionate caress. “You cold?”

Twenty sighs fill the air.
Mom appears up front, setting up her blocks and yoga mat. This is Restorative Yoga, which means everyone in the room pays $17 each to lie around on a foam mat and fall asleep. How Mom ever got into this business is still a mystery to me, but anyone who can get paid to make her customers zone out and snore and be
praised wildly
is pretty freaking brilliant as far as I’m concerned.