The PlayLion Billionaire: A Paranormal Billionaire Romance (3 page)

“You are absolutely right about Alex,” Robert said slowly. “I want to give you an opportunity to interview again -- with someone else.”

Olivia’s bright eyes narrowed and she looked at him suspiciously. “Who else?”

Robert shrugged. “I haven’t found his replacement yet; I’ll have to ask our mutual friend, the Human Resources Director, who should be up for it.” Robert fought back the urge to laugh at the look of surprise on Olivia’s face.

“You’re firing him?”

Robert smiled slowly. “Well, he’s been working his way towards this for months now. You shouldn’t feel guilty.”

“I don’t, it’s just…” Olivia shook her head.

“Alexander Brooke has practically been begging to be fired. Treating job candidates the way you say he treated you is just the final straw.”

Olivia hesitated for a moment before nodding. “So where does this leave me?”

Robert smiled again, slowly. “This leaves you with the opportunity to interview again with someone who, I hope, at least, is not a sexist asshole.”

“How long am I going to have to wait?”

Robert shrugged. “Why wait? If you’re tired, we can have lunch first; but I can interview you for any position within the company.”  Robert once more fought back the urge to laugh as he saw the surprise on Olivia’s face. “In fact—why don’t we go to lunch, you can have a drink to get rid of all the tension of dealing with that sexist ass and I will interview you for the position?”

“I shouldn’t drink during a job interview.”

“You should if your future boss orders you a drink.”

Olivia looked at him with suspicion in her eyes.

“Are you actually going to seriously interview me for a job, or is this your way of coming onto me?”

Robert finally gave into the impulse to laugh.

“Olivia, I’m a complicated man,” he said, letting his gaze travel over her curvy body quickly. “It’s both.”

“It can’t be both,” she protested. “If…if you’re trying to make me getting a job here contingent on me sleeping with you, you’re just as bad as Brooke!”

“It’s not contingent, it’s not even related,” Robert said, shaking his head. “You can try for the job, and you can have lunch with me. If you decide you want to sleep with me, that’s entirely separate. If you decide you don’t want to sleep with me, that’s entirely separate too.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Robert held her gaze. “I swear to you, Olivia—if you have lunch with me and turn me down, I will not consider it at all your attempt to work for my company.”
In fact,
he thought wryly,
if you turn me down it would give me even more reason to hire you in the hopes of eventually convincing you.
“But I know you wouldn’t accept me just hiring you outright without at least making you jump through a couple of hoops.” Olivia’s cheeks flushed and she pressed her lips together.

“One thing at a time. Interview me first—honestly. And then…” Olivia’s blush deepened. “And then we can talk about—about anything else.” Robert could smell the nervousness in her pheromones, but also, underneath the scent of her and the anxiety, he caught the scent of something very promising: desire.

“One thing at a time,” Robert agreed, nodding slowly. “Where would you like to have lunch? Anywhere you’d like.” He watched as Olivia considered the question.

“There’s a bunch of chains…”

Robert shook his head.

“If you’re not willing to volunteer a good restaurant, I will choose. You don’t have any food allergies or anything?” Olivia shook her head. “Then let me just make a quick phone call, and then we will go to lunch.” Robert picked up his phone and dialed Alex’s extension.

He watched Olivia watching him; Robert could almost see her pulse fluttering at her throat, he could smell her mingled emotions—anxiety, a slight twinge of fear, and a little bit of desire.

“Alex,” Robert said when the man picked up. “You have until the end of the day to clear your desk. Your separation forms should be submitted to HR by the time I check with them after lunch. I’ve put up with your shit for too long and now you’ve nearly chased away a promising prospective employee.”

Alex sputtered and Robert’s smile deepened. “Yes, I am serious—before you ask. I’ll have Klein in HR give you the details on your separation package, but I am deadly serious about you being out of the building and moved out of your desk by the end of the day.”

Robert hung up the handset for the office phone and looked at Olivia speculatively. “How do you feel about seafood, Olivia?”

CHAPTER TWO

Olivia wasn’t sure what to think of Robert Lowe. He had brought her—still slightly protesting, still uncertain of whether she trusted him—to a restaurant that was nicer than she would ever be able to afford on her own. He had been professional.

Once they had left the office in his chauffeured car, there was no suggestion that he was trying to hit on her. He asked her questions about her education and experiences, and after a while, Olivia found herself beginning to relax. It became easier and easier to answer his questions.

There was not a trace of sexism as he asked her question after question, all the way to the restaurant he had selected. “What initially interested you in marketing and publicity?”

“I liked the challenge,” Olivia answered. It wasn’t a question that she had actually thought she would ever receive. “I like thinking strategically; I like the constant need to stay ahead of things.”

Robert surprised her with his interview style. He didn’t ask any of the questions that she had come to expect from a standard interview. He asked about her most difficult class in college, about what flaw she thought her least favorite professor had. He asked about what she thought made for a good leader—and what she thought made for a poor leader.

It was more like a philosophical discussion than it was a proper job interview, but somehow, it was still utterly professional and still without any hint that he was trying to convince her to hook up with him.

When they arrived at the restaurant, the interview had been suspended. Robert waited until they had been seated, and told Olivia that if she didn’t mind, he would put in their order: he asked for the tasting menu. “It’s an hour and a half,” he said with a faint smile at Olivia. “Enough time to find out a few things.”

True to form, Robert ordered wine to go with the meal, and Olivia found herself drinking a glass of it and then another. She was surprised to find herself gradually opening up to Robert as the interview wound down. “What’s your verdict?” she asked him, feeling daring. Her cheeks were warm from the rush of blood in her body.

“I think you’re an excellent candidate for any position you might want,” Robert said, smiling slowly. “Fortunately, you already have a position in mind. I’ll get in touch with my HR Director this evening.”

“Thank you,” Olivia said, glancing down at her empty plate. She’d tasted so many delicious things; everything that the waiters put in front of her so carefully, so unobtrusively, seemed to go perfectly with the wine Robert ordered.

“This…” she hesitated a moment, looking at Robert once more. She had to admit to herself that he was actually extremely handsome. With his dark and messy short hair, his bright eyes, the slight stubble on his cheeks, his lean build and the impeccably tailored suit he wore, she would find it hard to say no to him. “This isn’t because you want to wear down my resistance, is it?”

Robert held her gaze for a moment and then laughed.

“I am not going to sexually harass you,” he said. “If you have no interest at all in sleeping with me, I will back off gracefully.”

Olivia bit her bottom lip.

“You seem to be pretty confident that I want to sleep with you in the first place,” Olivia said. She felt her heart beating faster. “I’m…I’m not the one-night-stand type, I’m not the mistress type.”

Robert looked at her closely for a long moment, and Olivia felt her heart beating even faster, her cheeks heating up as she blushed.

“I have ways of knowing,” Robert said lowly. “I respect that you can tell me no at any time, and I will never hold that against you.” There was something in his voice—almost a low growl—that gave Olivia a shiver. “For now, why don’t you enjoy dessert, and we can discuss the next thing in its own time.”

Olivia wasn’t sure how she managed to have another glass of wine; she had told herself that she was only going to have one drink. But she was sipping her third glass, eating something that tasted absolutely delicious—something with black currants and chocolate, that she had never tasted before in her life. Olivia was telling him about her less-professional side, telling Robert about the fun times she had had in college instead of her studies. She wasn’t sure how she had managed to open up so much to him.

In her own turn, Olivia found Robert opening up to her—though there was something strangely curt about his disclosures, as if he was cutting himself off just short of revealing some piece of information.

He told her about his father, about growing up as the wealthy son of a billionaire. He joked about his partying ways; Olivia couldn’t quite find herself as attracted to him when he mentioned some of the more extreme pursuits he had followed up until his father had passed away. Olivia had always thought that life itself was already full of risks. She had never been terribly fond of the idea of sleeping around, for either men or women. But he said that he was putting that behind him.

“I’ve been informed by my mother, among others, that it’s my responsibility to find someone to settle down with,” Robert said, pushing his dessert plate lightly aside. “So I must put my bachelor ways behind me.”

“You don’t sound all that enthusiastic,” Olivia said, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, I thought I’d have a few more years,” Robert admitted. “But I have come around to the idea more recently.” He smiled. “You seem tired, Olivia. Why don’t we go somewhere else? Those shoes you’re wearing look like they’re murder on your feet.”

Olivia glanced at the ground. He was right; she had only been counting on wearing the shoes for maybe a couple of hours at most—not through two separate interviews and lunch. “Where did you want to go?”

Robert considered for a moment, and she felt and saw his gaze trail over her body, from her face downward. It was as if he was savoring the sight of her; it wasn’t quite like he was leering at her.

“Do you trust me, Olivia?” Olivia bit her bottom lip, meeting his gaze as her heart beat faster in her chest once more. Did she trust him? She wasn’t sure how she felt about Robert Lowe, but did she trust him? What would it mean to trust a man like him? He had given her, at least he said he had given her, an honest opportunity to try for a job, and he had hired her without even asking her to sleep with him.

He made it clear, in words at least, that he did not intend to hold her sleeping with him or not, over her head. If she went with him, she could expect him to be discreet.

Before she could answer, Robert’s phone chirped. His features fell briefly into an irritated expression, but he slipped the phone out of his pocket, gesturing for Olivia to wait for just a moment. He read something on his screen and she saw a flicker of some deeper emotion that disappeared so quickly she thought she might have imagined it.

Then Robert put his phone back into his pocket and turned his attention onto her. “Well, Olivia? Do you trust me?” She had been so confused by the strange performance that she hadn’t actually given his question very much thought.

She looked him up and down; he had offered her a job, and she couldn’t deny that she was attracted to him.
If he turns out to be some kind of kinky sado-masochist, I am so screwed,
she thought.

“Yes,” she said quietly, glancing around instinctively to see if anyone was actually watching them. “I guess I do trust you. I might regret it, but I do.”

The hotel room that Robert brought Olivia to was so incredibly beyond her experience—so opulent and luxurious—that she almost couldn’t quite believe it. She had known, in theory, that billionaires like Robert had access to the kinds of beautiful spaces that regular people who had to work for their living could only dream of; but she hadn’t had a real concept of what kind of opulence that wealth could buy.

It was a penthouse suite, apparently, under continual reserve for Robert. He had simply gone to the front desk and asked politely for the key to “his” room, and the woman at the desk retrieved a key-card and gave it to him with a smile. A private elevator took them up to the top floor of the hotel, where there was only one other room like it, as evidenced by only two doors in the hallway.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Robert told her as he led her into the room. It was immense, and Olivia thought that the room itself might be larger than her apartment. “If you just want to take off your shoes, have a nap on the couch, you are more than welcome to do just that.” Olivia laughed at the idea.

“I don’t know if I could take a nap knowing that you’re just… hanging out somewhere in the room,” she had said, covering her amazement with an effort. The suite was fully furnished, and it looked to her as if the sofa cost more than all of her bedroom furniture combined; it looked almost obscenely comfortable.

She kicked off her uncomfortable high heels anyway, pushing them carefully aside next to the door and stepping from the cold marble of the entryway onto the plush, thick rug that sprawled across most of the living room floor.

“Do you like me, Olivia?” Robert asked her from behind her. Olivia turned, biting her bottom lip.

“I don’t actually know how I feel about you,” she said. Robert’s bright-eyed gaze was intent on her, seeming to take in every line and curve of her body.

“I can tell you find me attractive,” Robert said, his voice falling into a lower register. Olivia blushed, feeling the burn from the roots of her hair down onto her chest.

“How can you tell? I’m not being—I’m not obvious, am I?”

Robert smiled slightly, shaking his head.

“No. You aren’t. I can smell it on you, though.” He moved closer to her and almost instinctively, Olivia stepped back. Robert paused. “If you tell me no, I will stop, Olivia. I’ll leave you to your privacy in this room, if you like; I’ll go back to the office and make the arrangements for you to start work on Monday.”

Olivia’s eyes widened in surprise. Did she want him to stop? Did she want to tell him no? She could feel her body heating up with more than just embarrassment—she had ignored the low simmering of desire that had started up in her from the moment she’d gotten a good look at Robert Lowe, an instant after she had run into him.

She wasn’t going to be one of “those women,” who tried to use sex to get ahead—especially after Alexander Brooke’s remarks and insinuations. She would be lying to herself if she tried to pretend that she hadn’t noticed that Robert looked good.

“I don’t want you to stop,” she said, her breath hitching in her throat slightly. “It’s been a while, I don’t really know…” She felt her cheeks burning with an even deeper blush.

Robert smiled again.

“All you have to know is that any time you tell me to stop, I will. Any time you tell me no, I take that seriously. The rest is…” he chuckled lightly. “Animal instinct.”

He closed the distance between them and Olivia gasped as she felt his surprisingly warm hands on her waist; she could feel the heat of his body through her clothes and for an instant she wondered at it. Before she could move past simple confusion, however, Robert leaned in, brushing his lips against hers. Breathing in, Olivia could smell the scent of his soap and cologne—clean, slightly woody, with an undercurrent of thick musk that was somehow more pleasant than she would have thought.

Olivia began to respond to the kiss as Robert’s tongue swiped against her lips.  In moments, she found herself pressing against him, feeling her whole body heating up with a steady onrushing flow of desire. Any question of whether she trusted him, what she felt towards him other than the need to see his body naked, to feel his body pressed against hers, dissolved.

Robert’s hands slid all along her body, caressing and teasing, finding the hems and buttons of her clothes, and Olivia’s hands came to life along the lines and planes of Robert’s body as well. She fumbled for the buttons on his blazer, trying to get them open; she tugged and pulled at the fabric, determined to strip it away, even as she felt her own clothes falling without knowing where they landed.

Robert guided her towards the couch, his hands cupping her breasts through the thin fabric of her bra, squeezing lightly. There was something possessive in his touch that Olivia couldn’t define—but something about it made her even hotter, and she could already feel the slickness along her labia, the wet sensation of her body gearing up. Robert reached around to her back, deftly unfastening the clasp of her bra, and Olivia moaned as he pulled the fabric gently away from her body before cupping her breasts once more, teasing her nipples into firm little nubs.

The backs of her knees collided with the edge of the couch, and Olivia fell onto it, startled but unhurt. She looked up at Robert and watched as he stripped off the shirt she hadn’t quite been able to finish unbuttoning, as he unbuttoned and unzipped his pants and pushed them down over his slim hips, stepping out of them quickly and standing before her in nothing more than his boxers. She could see the ridge of his hard cock straining at the confines of the thin fabric.

In that moment, the only thing Olivia could even think of wanting was to see Robert fully naked and feel him inside of her.  “You look even more gorgeous naked than any woman has a right to,” Robert said, his voice slightly breathless. He sank down onto his knees in front of her and Olivia gasped against his lips as his hand slid up between her thighs, his fingertips lightly brushing her bare pussy in a teasing caress.

Robert’s fingers pressed against her, sliding between her slick labia, and Olivia found herself rocking her hips automatically, twisting and writhing for better contact as he stroked and rubbed her, finding her clit by touch.