The Billionaire Bargain 2 (2 page)

“I’
m serious, Grant, we have to stay on the ball here
.
”

“I can think of other things I’d like you to stay on,” he murmured with a rakish grin.

Dammit, no one had a rakish grin in real life! Rakish grins were for sexy pirates and dashing seventeenth century French spies with ruffled shirts! I refused to melt for an attribute real people were
n’
t even supposed to have.

“
Yo
u’
re not a pirate
,”
I informed him
.“
You do
n’
t have a parrot or a hook hand or anything except the sexiness, so you can just stop with the pirateness right now and get back to business
.
”

I
t’
s just possible that I was becoming tipsy. Maybe. You make a not entirely weak argument for the tipsiness hypothesis.

Grant didn’t even blink at my verbal sidetrip into pirate territory. “Business, hmmm? Ah, a girl with her eye on the prize. Are you into diamonds? Or did you see that movie about blood diamonds and become a sapphire girl?” His hand came up to stroke my cheek; I leaned into it without thinking. “Rubies would certainly be enchanting with your complexion.”

“
Please stop talking
,”
I said into the skin of his palm. Oooh, nice skin. Just slightly weathered enough to be rugged, and so warm.

“
If you insist
,”
he replied with a glint in his eye. He leaned closer.

I slapped him away
.“
Not like that!
I’
m pretty sure you can stop talking without using my lips as a breaking mech
a—
mechami
s—
stopping thing
!
”

He pouted. I was nearly overcome with the urge to kiss him in order to stop him from pouting. It would have been for the greater good of humanity. Pouts like that could drive the entire female population of Earth to sex-based insanity.

“
Is that really how you want to treat your fian
cé?”
he asked, his eyes wide in a parody of tragic disappointment
.“
Lacey, I do believe yo
u’
ll give me a complex
.
”

“
Yo
u’
re not my fian
cé,”
I mumbled
.“
The question is invalid
.
”

“
I know a few hundred people who would disagree
,”
he said.

“
Fuck those guys
,”
I said eloquently.

“I’
d rather fuck you
,”
he said bluntly, and my entire body lit up like a volcano, magma pulsing through my veins as I swooned towards him, melting
.“
Though if yo
u’
d prefer to wait for the wedding night, I might let myself be persuaded
.”

Contrary to this statement, his hand began a leisurely journey up my thigh, occasionally pausing to take in the sights and soak up the atmosphere. I was torn between derailing it and telling it to stop snapping vacation photos and get to its final destination before its hotel reservation was canceled.

“
Now, as to the wedding dress and wedding rin
g
—”

The beacon light of the neon Steddy Tatts sign had never looked so inviting, like the shining beam of a lighthouse saving me from the stormy seas of hormones, really bad decisions, and future humiliation. I practically leapt out of the limo almost before the driver had come to a full stop, avoiding spraining my ankle Lord-only-knows-how as I blurted
:“
We will talk about this tomorrow goodnight goodbye!
!
”

Gran
t’
s voice pursued me up the steps to my apartment, his accent only broadened by his obvious amusement
:“
Do
n’
t leave me in suspense, Lacey: do you prefer princess, or square-cut
?
”

Princess, but there was no way in hell I was telling him that.

I awoke with an all-drum band going to town in my head, improvising alternatively between meringue, salsa, and a little-known genre of drum music I like to call
‘
fuck you, Lacey, fuck you so hard for drinking that much, are you a fucking idiot, oh God I want to die, let me just die if it will only end this pain
.’
I
t’
s kind of obscure, but I myself am well-acquainted with its many fascinating variations.

“
Fuuuuuuuuuck
,”
I moaned, and rolled over to blink blearily at the alarm clock. The fuzzy red numerals informed me that it was noon. Noo
n—
there was something important about noon. Work? My heart seized up in a moment of panic before I remembered that it was my weekend off; I was
n’
t scheduled to go in till Monday. So, not work then. Oh well. It would come to me.

I let my head fall back into the pillow. Pillows were great. The whole world should be made of great big fleecy pillows, and darkness, and silence. Oh God. That had definitely been too much champagne last night. Was it possible to actually die of a hangover? I would definitely be testing that theory to its limit this mornin
g—
er, afternoon. Oh God. Why me? Could
n’
t this hangover and its pounding headache have gone to someone who deserved it, like a terrorist or an embezzler or Grant Fucking Devlin? There was no justice in the world. Just blaring noonday light, and that endless pounding drumming soun
d
—

Bam, bam, bam. BAM.

Wait a minute.

BAM.

That drumming was not coming from inside my head. It was coming fro
m…
my front door? How long had whoever it was been knocking there? Someone was really fucking determined.

If it was Grant, he better have brought an entire yea
r’
s production of aspirin and the annual coffee crop of a random Latin American country if he wanted me to refrain from ripping his head off.

“
Hold on a damn minute
!”
I yelled, and immediately regretted it as the sound waves of my own voice crashed through my head. Wincing and muttering every curse word I could think of, I stood up.

The frantic pounding at the door, if anything, intensified.

“
I swear to God
,”
I muttered, as softly as I could to keep pain from lancing through my head as I shuffled to the door
,“
I will cut his balls off and mail them to China first class and send him the bill. I will carve him like sliced ham and feed him to that witch Portia on an artisan sandwich
.”

Something about this last sentence made me pause as it rang a mental bell, something familiar about what I had said, something I was supposed to remembe
r—
it was gone. Ah well. The ridiculous threats were making me feel marginally better, so I continued them as I advanced across my apartment towards the cacophony that was currently my front door, shuffling as slowly as I could both to avoid stepping on anything small and painful, and because I was feeling a perverse pleasure in taking as long as possible to answer whatever entitled jackass was at the doo
r—
like I did
n’
t already know it was Grant, the asshole, probably back to mock me some more.

“
I will call a press conference and tell the world that he has a tiny dick and a crippling addiction to reality television
.”
I remembered Gran
t’
s distaste at the state of modern television, and allowed myself a wicked smirk at the thought of twisting that particular knife.

I tried to look through the peephole, but it was dark; damn teenagers kept sticking gum over it as a joke. I called through the door
:“
Who the hell is it
?
”

“
I
t’
s noon, Lacey, for heave
n’
s sake
,”
Kat
e’
s voice shrilled through the keyhole. I winced; I love that girl, but that particular tone was cutting through my skull like a buzz-saw
.“
Open up, open up, open up
!
”

My hand was barely finished pulling up the latch when Kate barreled through the doorway like a tornado that had been through a printing house. The San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, the SF Weekly, the San Francisco Bay Guardia
n…
she could have opened up a newsstand with just what she had in her left hand.

She promptly dumped them on the floor in front of me.

“
What the hel
l
—
”
I shrieked, my surprise triumphing over my short-term memory, and once again instantly regretted raising my voice.

“
Do
n’t‘
what the hel
l’
me, Lacey Newman
,”
Kate said.

She grabbed a first page at random, and I cringed at the full color photo of me in the sleek little black dres
s—
considerably sleeker in the photo than on me now, rumpled with a full nigh
t’
s sleep and speckled with green mattress lint from my futon be
d—
gasping in surprise and apparent delight as I looked down at my hand and a diamond so big it looked like it had been chipped from the idol of some forgotten god in an Indiana Jones movie.

Kat
e’
s eyes followed mine, and then fastened on my hand, the engagement ring still perched there and sparkling away
.“
Is there something you want to tell me? And do you maybe also want to tell me why you could
n’
t have told me it last night, or when we went out for drinks, or
any freaking time
we talked in the last week
?
”

Where the hell to begin? I avoided even thinking about trying to untangle last nigh
t’
s events for Kat
e’
s benefit by casting an eye over the sea of newsprint Kate had dumped on my floor.

Splashed across the pages were photos of me with my mouth making a perfec
t‘o’
of surprise, photos of Grant gazing into my eyes in an impressive pretense of adoration, photos of us both with our arms around each other, smiling like we had just stepped out of a fairy tale. PLAYBOY POPS THE QUESTION, one headline blared. ONE GALA NIGHT WE WO
N’
T FORGET, insisted another. WHO IS THIS LUCKY LADY, wondered a third
.“
Did you rob a paperboy? Where did you even get all of these
?
”

“
The pharmacy next to the bodega by my place, and do
n’
t change the subject
,”
Kate answered promptly
.“
I got them
after
I heard about it on the radio when my alarm went off this morning, and after I heard three little old ladies and a teenage girl gossiping about it at the bus stop. Lacey! You did not say anything about this at drinks! You said basically the opposite of this when we went for drinks! You cannot go around saying the opposite of things you are going to do or I will know you are not Lacey Newman, and I will have to hold you hostage until you confess to being a Russian spy who has replaced Lacey in order to inveigle your way into my confidence and steal my lingerie designs
.
”

This was a long spiel even for Kate, and I could see in the way that she was rushing through her words that despite her bubbly, silly tone, she was trying not to show that she was hurt.

“
Seriously, girl, I know my designs would do wonders for the Russian morale in this economic downturn, but you could
n’
t say anything to your best friend? Even last night
?
”

“
I did
n’
t know last night
!”
I hastily reassured her
.“
I swear, if
I’
d known anything about what that jackass had up his hand-tailored sleeve,
I’
d have been in that taxi to you in two seconds flat. He sprung this on me last night. I
t’
s his idea of listening to my advice about PR
.
”

“
Wow
.”
Kate took a second to process this
.“
Does he maybe want to look up
‘
listenin
g
’ in a dictionary or something
?
”

“
Tell me about it
,”
I sighed. I reached out and squeezed her hand
.“
I should have called you again when I got home from the gala. I did
n’
t think.
I’
m sorry
.
”

“
Oh, apology accepted
!”
Kate said, and hugged me tight
.“
Just make up for lost time and spill. How are you doing with all this? How do you feel? Are you going to go through with it? Can I look at the ring up close
?
”

The last question was by far the easiest to answer, and I slid it off my finger for Kate to inspect. She oohed and aahed over it as she turned it over in her hands, and I contemplated again the headlines on all the local papers strewn over the floo
r
—

All the local papers strewn over the floo
r
—

All the local paper
s
—

“
Oh shit
,”
I said out loud, interrupting Kat
e’
s monologue about Gran
t’
s excellent taste in choosing the round brilliant cut over the more trendy rose cut, which she personally felt was only an excuse to sell oddly shaped gems
.“
Kate, you said you heard people gossiping about this? Did yo
u—
is my famil
y—
does
everyone
know
?
”

“
E
r
—
”
Kat
e’
s eyes darted to the side.

As if to spare Kate from having to answer, my phone buzzed loudly enough that I could hear the vibrations through the purse on the other side of the room.

With
a‘
you have not gotten out of this that easil
y’
mock glare at Kate, I ran to check the display and gaped. Sixty-two messages?! This poor little bargain basement cell had never worked so hard in its whole life. I scrolled through them, my eyes widening and my mouth slowly dropping in disbelief at their sheer quantity.
 
‘
Congratulations, girl
!’
‘
Sweetie, what good news! Call me so I can set you up with my favorite florist. Love, G-Ma
!’
‘
Whoa
!’
‘
Hey, babe, saw the news and I know you ca
n’
t really want that prick. Hit me up for some hot times
.’
‘
Lacey, is this a joke?! Call me
.
’

And then, still buzzing like a kid on espresso with a chaser of caffeine pills, my phone started to ring. Worse yet, the ringtone wa
s‘
Imagin
e’
by John Lennon, the ringtone I had specifically chosen for my mom. I groaned.

“
You gotta face her sometime
,”
Kate pointed out
.“
Besides, what are the odds she knows? Do
n’
t your parents only read news printed with organic walnut ink on locally sourced hemp paper
?
”

“
We can but hope
,”
I said, and took the call.

“
Pumpkin
!”
My mo
m’
s voice was more riddled with static than a dial-up internet connection, but even that could
n’
t disguise the delight shining through every syllable
.“
Can you hear me, Pumpkin Pie?
I’
m calling from the middle of the woods, your father and I are at that Santa Cruz retreat! Aunt Jess called me just this morning to tell me the good news
!
”