Shopping for a Billionaire's Wife (17 page)

All I have to do is look at her to get what she means. Amanda’s new wardrobe upgrade screams
Andrew hired a stylist for me
. It’s a nice mix of tastefully erotic and
Girls Gone Wild
. Never in a bajillion years would Amanda wear this outfit, with a push-up bra that turns her breasts into a reportable FAA obstacle, but she and Andrew are in that early phase of a relationship. 

You know. The one where all you can think about is being naked together. Society requires that we cover our erogenous zones in public, so this is the next best thing.

In Man Land.

“Quit staring at my boobs.”

“I can’t help it. They’re so...prominent.”

She tugs at the hem of her shirt and
whoops!
There we go. Don’t need that helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon that Declan was planning for tomorrow. Just got an eyeful.

“You could sell tickets to that view,” I say with some speculation. My treadmill counter ticks over the two-mile mark. We should celebrate with another latte. 

“Andrew. It’s all his fault. And frankly, yours, too.”

“Mine?”

“If you’d just let Declan spoil you a little, Andrew wouldn’t feel the need to one-up Declan all the time.”

“Huh?”

“They’re trying to outshine each other. Declan keeps getting upset that you won’t wear the jewelry or the clothes he’s buying you. Now he’s prowling around Tesla dealers and thinking about getting you a new car.”

“WHAT?” Declan’s earlier Tesla joke pings in my mind. He
wasn’t
joking? 

“And you should accept it!”

I give her a speculative look. “Is Andrew buying you a car?”

She shrugs, then brightens. “I don’t know. He hates the Turdmobile, so...”

“I don’t need these things—necklaces, clothes, fancy cars. Do
you
? Really?”

Her eyes glaze over. I know she’s thinking about Andrew naked. “It’s nice. I don’t know.” She shakes her wrist. The charms on the Tiffany bracelet cheer for her. “He likes to give me these things. It brings him joy.”

I start to say something snarky, but realize that won’t improve matters. I am at a crossroads with Declan and need to fix this. Sarcasm doesn’t repair anything.

“Doesn’t it make you feel weird accepting all these lavish gifts?”

She peers at me in confusion. “No. I’m not
asking
for them. I’ve never pressured Andrew to spend money on me. Ever. If he wants to give me these beautiful items as a present, then what’s the harm?”

What’s the harm?

“Don’t you feel like it’s too much, too soon? I’ve been with Declan for more than two years and some of the gifts he tries to give me feel too extravagant.” 

Amanda’s eyes tighten, her head shaking slightly, her expression one of intense thought. “If I felt like it made me obligated to him, I suppose it would bother me.” Her eyes dart nervously to me. “Is that it?”

“No! No,” I protest. “Not at all. Declan’s made it really clear that he wants me to have all these beautiful luxuries because he can give them. Not because it ties me to him, or makes me think I owe him.”

“Is this about Steve?”

“
Wha?
”

“Are you worried Declan’s trying to shape you too much, like Steve did? Worried that he wants you to wear the ‘right’ clothes, drive the ‘right’ car, eat the ‘right’ foods?”

“No.” The answer comes so easily, and is crystal clear. For a topic I can’t quite wrap my head around, this much is obvious. “I don’t get that vibe from him at all. Never have.”

Her shoulders relax, and she grabs for her water bottle on the treadmill rack, drinking half before turning back to me with a smile. “Then he just wants to share.”

“Share?”

“Share his life with you.” A sly smile tickles her lips. “We think of these choices Andrew and Declan make as luxuries, but to them, they’re not. A Tesla to Andrew is like buying a cheap Toyota to us. Bringing an Italian designer into your hotel suite to create outfits for you is like one of us going to Ann Taylor at the mall and asking the salesperson for some color-coordination help.” 

I slow the treadmill down to 2.5 miles per hour and finish off my water, all while contemplating her words.

“Shannon, maybe this is just who Declan is, and he wants you to embrace that. Let him.”

“How did you become so wise?” 

She jangles her Tiffany charm bracelet. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m blowing smoke out my own ass. I just know that Andrew is giving me peeks into his real life, and I’m accepting that. Reveling in it. Besides,” she says with a confident laugh, “it’s not like I’m marrying the guy anytime soon!”

It’s hard to believe that two days ago she was bringing me lattes from Starbucks in the prep room at Farmington Country Club, acting as a filter between me and Mom.

It’s even harder to realize she’s really with Andrew, and that they’re happy, after two years of Andrew being a douche and not letting himself truly fall in love with her.

But you know what’s harder?

Realizing that she’s right.

Maybe I’ve gone about this all wrong. Amanda has a great point.

Maybe I need to let Declan spoil me a little.

It can’t hurt, right?

* * *

“What are you doing?” Declan asks as he walks into the bathroom, naked, obviously ready to take a shower. I eye the wall of glass, twelve different shower heads all positioned at various angles. If the entire enclosure weren’t lined with Italian marble I’d think this was a prison.

I squint, holding the magnifying-glass mirror a few inches from my face, tweezers in hand. “I’m doing my eyebrows.”

Reflected in the half-wall-sized mirror, he’s a study in artistic perfection. While I am Rubenesque, he’s all Greek sculpture, his body suited for display at a national gallery. Declan isn’t an enormous, overbuilt gym rat, nor is he a metrosexually-toned man who has a Body By Trainer. He works out regularly and yes, has a staff for that, but the natural grace of muscles stretched over bone that moves through the world as if it owns the space in any given room is part of his mystique.

He sets his neatly-folded underwear on the sink next to my toothbrush and glowers at me.

“Doing your eyebrows?”

“Yes. It’s a beauty thing.”

“I know what it is, Shannon. Why not go to the spa downstairs?” He frowns again, his eyes buried under a tuft of bedhead hair from last night. Boyishly cute, his look morphs into an expression that makes me pause.

“Spa? No.” I don’t need the intimidation factor. If I want to be reduced to an ego the size of a fingernail and feel like an awkward middle-schooler out of her league, I’ll ask my mother to go shoe shopping with me. I don’t need the stress that comes from going to a luxury spa in a place where the breakfast menu includes egg whites with basil-infused
air
. 

“Where did you get tweezers? We never packed bags. Did the staff bring those?”

“When I went out with Amanda yesterday, I dashed across the street to a drug store. Got a few things.”

His frown deepens. “You’re plucking your eyebrows with
drug store
tweezers?”

“Yes.”

“While staying in one of the first hotels I created, which possesses a world-class spa I personally designed for optimal marketing purposes and hotel guest satisfaction?”

“Uh...”

Snatching the silver implement out of my hands, he throws it in the trash and stalks out of the bathroom. I retrieve the tweezers from the garbage can and tuck them away in my makeup bag.

He’s back in one minute. “Lüq is expecting you downstairs. Now.”

“Luke?” He says it in a funny way, like
Lee-ooq
. 

“No, Lüq.”

“That’s what I said.
Luke
. And who is Lüq?” 

“The spa manager. Lüq has orders to take care of you.” 

Terror makes all the hair on my body stand up, especially the southern parts. I know where this is going.

“I hate spas. You know I hate spas.” 

He leans against the doorjamb with a smug smile. “I know you do. That’s why I just called in reinforcements.”

“What? You need reinforcements for cucumber skin treatments and hot stone massages?”

His eyebrow goes up. “You
did
read the spa menu.”

I shrug. “But at two hundred bucks for a fifty-minute massage, no way.”

“That’s a bargain.”

“That’s a
crime
. For five dollars I can get Tyler to heat up rocks in the microwave and put them on my back while Jeffrey walks on my ass and spine in his stocking feet.”

Knock knock knock
.

“Shannon?”

That’s my
mother’s
voice.

I look at him in horror. “You didn’t.”

“Reinforcements.” His smug smile makes me regret having so much sex with him this morning. 

Okay. That’s not true. Let’s just say I’m angry and leave it at that.

Declan shrugs into the bathrobe in the armoire, then opens the door. Even Mr. Exhibitionist has his limits when it comes to being naked around my mother. 

Mom and Amanda are standing there.

Mom walks in, looking as excited as Chris Harrison with a fresh set of contestants on
The Bachelor
. “We’re here to make Shannon learn to relax!”

Right. ’Cause that’ll work.
Force
Shannon to enjoy herself.

She reaches for my face and twists it from side to side. “You need a full-face threading. Especially for that chin hair there. A few more of those and you’ll have that new lumbersexual look down, honey. If Declan wanted to see growth like that, he’d have married a man.”

Amanda mouths,
I’m so sorry.
 

My nostrils are flared and my teeth are gritted, so I all I can do is bare my fangs like a dog with rabies. Am I frothing? If not, I should be. In fact, I wish I had rabies. Then they’d have to take me to the emergency room and give me shots to the stomach with super-long needles, which is sounding like Disney World compared to what’s coming.

“Let’s go get smooth!” Mom crows, linking her arm through mine like we’re Dorothy and the Tin Man and off to see the Wizard.

The wonderful wizard of chin hairs.

“Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.” I dig in my heels, physically refusing to let my mom get me out into the hallway. “You are
not
tricking me into a full Brazilian again.” 

She looks abashed. “That was never a trick! A miscommunication, but not a trick.” Right after our first Christmas together, Declan got me, Mom, Carol and Amy a day at one of the Anterdec hotel spas in Boston. Through a series of unmentionable events (involving my unmentionable bits), Mom was in charge of telling my waxer what I wanted, and I was given a Brazilian. You don’t get over a “miscommunication” like that quickly. 

“I couldn’t pee straight for weeks, Mom.” I wasn’t waxed.  

I was
deforested
. 

“We have to suffer for our beauty. Pain builds character. And the right waxing reduces that whole Sasquatch thing you’ve got going down there. I see your father’s Polish ancestry coming out in you.” She winks at Declan, who just scowls. He wasn’t a fan of the all-bald look, but mostly didn’t like the fact that I was in so much pain we didn’t have sex for a week.

Declan catches my eye over Mom’s head. “I already warned Lüq. No worries.”

Mom gives him an impressed look. “Lüq? He sounds very sophisticated.” Leave it to Mom to confer status on someone based solely on how their name sounds.

“Hu is,” Declan answers.

“Who?” Mom asks.

“Lüq.” 

“You already said that.”

“I know, but you asked.”

“I just asked who he is.”

“Hu.”

“What are you talking about?” Mom screeches. 

“Lüq is gender nonconforming,” Declan says with a sigh he reserves for my mother, and
only
my mother. “We don’t use gender-specific pronouns when talking about hu.” 

“H-u, Marie,” Amanda says gently. “It’s a way of saying he or she.”

“Why not say
it
? Or
they
?” Mom asks. 

“Try that,” Declan says coldly, “and Lüq will give you a makeover that reminds you of those 1990s photos from Glamour Shots.” 

Mom’s eyes light up. “Promise?”

Amanda drags her away before both Declan and I shove her in the minibar fridge and tape it shut.

“Go,” he says. “Get whatever you need. But don’t let your mother alienate Lüq.”

“Can I get Mom a Brazilian where they wax her tongue out of her mouth? ’Cause that’s probably the only way she won’t offend him—er,
hu
.”

He pretends to consider it. “We could sell that as a popular service to an awful lot of disenchanted sons-in-law. But seriously, Shannon. Go to the spa. That’s what it’s there for.” He shudders. “Not the drug store. Drug stores are good for one thing.” 

“What’s that?”

“Period errands.”

We laugh. It feels good. And he’s right.

“What about condoms?” I ask.

“What
about
condoms?” Declan’s demeanor changes, one eyebrow lifting. The topic of sex makes everything lighten up.

“Drug stores are good for those, too.”

“I am so glad we don’t need them anymore.” I’m on the pill now. 

“And soon,” he adds softly, “we won’t need the pill, either.”

“Excuse me?”

“Eventually, I mean.” We’re sharing one of those looks that make you understand why you’re in a committed relationship. “Someday.”

“Someday,” I agree, my voice faint.

“Right now, though, you’re banned from drug stores.”

“That means you’re running all my period errands, then.”

He sighs. “Don’t I already?”

I cringe, because yeah. He does. Or his chauffeurs, Gerald and Lance, do.

“Just go to the spa,” he orders.

“Fine. But only because you designed it. And I’m coming back with hair.”

“I hope so. I don’t want you out of commission for a week.”

“If I am, it’s your fault.” 

I shut the door on his contemplative face and follow Amanda and Mom down the long hallway. They’d better have good food down in the spa, because as I walk slowly, this is starting to feel like a Star Trek episode where they beam down to a new planet, and I’m wearing a red crew shirt. I need a good final meal.