Billionaire Bought: My Billionaire Boss, Part 6 (A BDSM Erotic Romance) (2 page)

My head was spinning and I felt strangely unbalanced. It all seemed too easy. He really didn't care I came here to destroy his business? He just ... trusted that I didn't burn down Stone Pharma?

"Yes, sir. But..."

"What is it?" Mr. Stone asked, taking my hands in his.

I felt the prickle of tears in my eyes and took a deep breath to stop them. I couldn't end up sobbing again in front of him.

"You ... you trust me?" I kept my face down, unable to look at him.

He stepped closer to me and brushed his fingers across my cheek and briefly across my collar.

"Look at me," he whispered.

I forced myself to look up into his intense gaze.

"I trust you completely," he said and then kissed me softly on the lips.

Before I could answer, he turned me around and swatted me on the rear. "Now get down to those archives!" he said with a grin. I smiled back at him and then poked my tongue out.

"Yes sir, Mr. Boss man," I said, bolting out of the room as he took a step towards me.

In the peace and quiet of the archives I finally had a chance to think. Mr. Stone hadn't seemed ruffled at my confession that I'd joined just so I could harm his company. What did that mean? Was this a normal occurrence in the life of a billionaire?

But he trusted me. I told him I'd joined his business just to hurt it and he told me he trusted me in return. I touched the collar around my neck and remembered what he'd said to me when he had offered it to me. He needed to trust me. I told him he could but it had been a lie.

I moved methodically through the list, collecting the contracts in a box without reading them. As the paperwork piled up I tried to piece together what I knew. It wasn't much really. Someone wanted a bunch of contracts destroyed and they wanted me to do it. I'm sure I'd heard Mr. Stone and Mr. Black mention Stone Pharma. Did Mr. Black have anything to do with all this? It just seemed unbelievable that the man who sent me a bacon breakfast with a truly horrible poem and then who asked me out like an embarrassed teenager would be the same man behind blackmail.

But Mr. Stone didn't like him, even though they were business partners. And that thought crossed my mind again. Billionaires don't become billionaires without getting some blood on their hands. Again, I struggled with the idea. I did trust Mr. Stone but I kept having all these thoughts. Thoughts that maybe I was the fool.

I glanced down into the box and my eyes widened when I read STONE PHARMA. I put everything on a desk and pulled out the contract. It was mostly in legalese gibberish like the rest but this one was clearly a contract for chemical waste-disposal services in Bedford. After all this time, this was precisely the kind of thing I had been looking for. All it had taken was a blackmail threat to find it. I flipped to the signature sheet and felt my heart sink. I grabbed another contract and went to the back only to find the same result.

They were all signed by Jackson Stone.

*

My trip upstairs with the box of contracts wasn't a happy one. I trusted Mr. Stone but now I had papers with his signature on them. Contracts directly connecting the waste-disposal service with Stone Pharma.

I sat down at my desk and glowered at the black mahogany door of his office for a few minutes. Was I being a fool? I should trust Mr. Stone just because he says I should trust him?

I looked at my email and saw he'd sent me one telling me he'd left the office and giving me the time Mi-oh would pick me up. He also advised I should order lunch in and not leave the building until she collected me.

Blackmail and blackmailers and someone in my apartment. Was I in more danger than I suspected? I'd go home and die from poisoned milk or some black van would scoop me up on the street and I'd never been seen again?

I felt like I was playing some game where not only didn't I know the rules but I had no idea who the players were or what they might do. I started going through the papers and then had to stop to take out a piece of paper so I could draw up all the connections. One company contracting to another but owned by some other one and licensing out another service and then they were owned by two more and it looked like a big tangled knot between them all.

I scowled at the complicated diagram in front of me and then that expression got worse as another email arrived, this time from Mr. Black. He was requesting more work and could I pretty please have it by tonight and he'd send me all the bacon lunches I wanted. I ignored it and continued to look over the puzzle in front of me. I'm sure there was an answer.

*

The rest of the day went by fairly quickly and eventually my bad mood lifted. Yes, it was replaced with terror at meeting Mr. Stone's mother and then guilt about how ridiculously expensive the dress I'd probably wear would be but at least it was a change.

I met Mi-oh downstairs, only recognizing her by the car because this time he was dressed like a South Korean pop star.

"Is that dress made out of bubble-wrap?"

"Something Alma made for me," she said and winked. "Is that Mr. Stone's work?"

I gave her the box of contracts and got into the car. Something about Mi-oh always managed to make me happy.

We chatted away as Mi-oh drove and I told her I was meant to be buying Mr. Stone tonight at the bachelor auction.

"Oh, he's at least worth five bucks," she said.

"I'd pay ten," I answered and laughed.

"Must be true love," she said and flickered her eyebrows at me.

Love?

True
love?

Soon we were in that ridiculously expensive shopping district we'd come to last time. I got out of the car just as Alma opened the door to her boutique. Last time I'd seen her, her hair had been dyed a deep red. Now it was pitch black with a red shimmer and moved like a silken waterfall as she nodded at me.

She handed me a glass of champagne as she invited me inside.

"What can we do for you today?" she said, raising a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

I took a sip of the champagne, feeling the bubbles rush over my tongue and the warmth of the alcohol flow down my throat.

"I'm buying a billionaire tonight," I said and raised my glass.

Alma clinked hers against mine and laughed.

"We have just the thing," she said and took me by the arm.

*

After the girl had done their thing, Mi-oh drove us over to the opposite side of the city from where Mr. Stone's mansion was. And when I say opposite, I mean opposite. His mansion was about as far away from where we were going as it could be while still being in the same city. I wondered if that was deliberate.

As we drove along a hedge-lined street I caught glimpses of a distant mansion through the trees. Was that it?

Soon, Mi-oh turned and we were buzzed in through a giant wrought-iron gate and began our way up a curved paved driveway. I looked out the window feeling my sense of calm evaporating and then I realized the street we'd been driving down for the last ten minutes was just one on side of this piece of land. You could have fit two suburbs with their very own Wal-Marts in here and still had room for a stadium left over.

We rounded a curve and I gasped at the mansion that appeared before us. I'd never seen a castle in real life ... that is, until now. It was like they'd taken a few mansions and mixed in a castle and then decided it needed to be about three times larger. It looked like one of those crazy places you see in a magazine that some movie-star just bought and they talk about its twenty-three bathrooms.

"Close your mouth, a fly will go in," Mi-oh said and then laughed.

I shut my mouth but I couldn't stop myself clenching my hands on the tiny black bag I carried.

"This is Mr. Stone's childhood home?" I managed to squeak out.

"Rather small isn't it? No wonder the guy suffers from claustrophobia."

I laughed and then shook my head at myself. Have some confidence Delilah! Mr. Stone invited you here. He wants you here.

We pulled up and a doorman approached.

"Knock 'em dead, tiger," Mi-oh said.

I stepped out of the Bentley and took a deep breath of the night air.

I can do this.

*

The doorman led me to a butler who led me to a ballroom. I'm sure I mumbled something to the butler but I have no idea what I said as I walked through the Stone mansion. It felt like I was in an art gallery and museum that had then been covered in gold and silver. Statuettes in glass cases lined the corridor along with enormous oil paintings. I'm pretty sure the rug I walked on cost more than I've made for my entire life put together.

I understood on some level that Mr. Stone was wealthy. I mean, he was a billionaire but all that had meant so far was an amazing mansion that he lived in. It was big and incredible but it seemed to fit him. This place though ... he grew up here? It didn't look like a place for children. I suddenly wondered what Mr. Stone would think of the little house I grew up in. One of the bathrooms here was probably larger than our kitchen.

The butler stopped short of the ballroom and waved me in before heading back to the front door. I stood there in the doorway trying to get myself under control. Earlier today with Alma and the girls I'd felt like a warrior queen. They'd dressed me in slinky black and fixed my hair and given me just a touch of make-up. When I'd seen myself in the mirror I'd been shocked at the movie star looking back at me.

That confidence had faded the closer I'd come to Mr. Stone's childhood home. Now, in the midst of ridiculous wealth, I saw how stupid our relationship really was. How could it ever work? I'd be diluting the washing up liquid to make it last longer and he'd be ... buying the company that made the stuff with the change that fell down the back of the sofa?

Just as I was about to freak out and maybe run away, I breathed in Mr. Stone's scent and knew that he was standing behind me. He was so quiet I wouldn't be surprised to find out his mother was a mime and his father a ninja. A pair of strong arms wrapped around me and his lips pressed up against my ear.

"I need you," Mr. Stone whispered.

I closed my eyes as his lips nuzzled down my neck. Then he turned me around and I opened my eyes to see him appraising me with a hunger in his eyes. He was dressed in a light charcoal suit, almost pale gray and as soon as I saw him I wanted to pull it off his body. He must have seen the look in my eye because he stepped closer, holding my gaze.

"Later, my slave," he said.

He took my hand and pulled me into the ballroom. Like the one at his house it had a staircase that led down to a sunken floor. At this party however it was like every woman had been issued with diamond necklaces and every man with gold watches. Practically everyone looked up as we stepped out on to the landing.

Then Mr. Stone stopped and kissed me.

He kissed me and the mansion vanished. The guests were no more than a murmur and I felt myself ready to float away.

We broke off our kiss and I found myself smiling at him. It was like he had read my mind and knew exactly what to do to make me feel better.

"Remember, there is no limit on what to bid for me. I don't want to be bought by some of the sharks down there."

I raised my eyebrow at him and a mischievous look crept across my face.

"I'd worry more about all the dishes at my apartment that you'll be doing," I said.

He laughed and held out his arm. I linked mine in his.

"And now, we meet my mother," Mr. Stone said.

We walked down the staircase and I felt like I was a princess about to be presented to the Queen. Mr. Stone nodded to various men and woman as we descended and I tried to keep my eyes ahead of me so I wouldn't fall down the stairs and end up on my butt in front of everyone.

We mingled with the crowd and almost immediately met Andrea Wright, the head of Wright Technologies. The first time I'd been introduced to her, Mr. Stone had me wearing a pair of vibrating underwear and had his finger on the button in his pocket.

"Delilah, you are gorgeous! Where did you get that dress?" Andrea said by way of introduction.

"Alma is her name."

"Oh, those tattooed girls. They do know their stuff. And what's your story, Jackson?"

Mr. Stone smiled and kissed her on the cheek. "Intrigue and mystery," he said with a sideways look at me.

"I prefer steamy romance with hot foreign men," she replied and then winked at us before walking away to a tall young blonde man who was holding a drink for her.

"That is definitely not her son," Mr. Stone said. We watched as she gave the man a passionate kiss and then raised our eyebrows at each other before moving on.

"Was that little performance really necessary Jackson?"

"Good to see you too ... Mother," Mr. Stone said.

He leaned forward and kissed the woman who had appeared in front of us on the cheek. She was in her sixties with iron-gray hair. Diamonds glittered at her throat and wrists and I saw she had the same blue-green eyes as Mr. Stone. She looked at me, her eyes flickering for a moment down to the collar I wore around my neck.

"This is Delilah Neri. Delilah, this is my mother, Jeannette Stone," Mr. Stone said.

"Nice to meet you," I said and held out my hand.

"Delilah is my performance partner. We're touring the country kissing on staircases," Mr. Stone added.

Mrs. Stone rolled her eyes at him and then swatted him on the arm. "Nice to meet you too," she said and shook my hand. Then she waved at someone behind us and was gone a moment later.

I turned to Mr. Stone.

"Performance partner?"

Mr. Stone looked at his mother who was now surrounded by a group of older women and smirked. "It does her good to be stirred up every now and again. Since my father died she has become a bit set in her ways."

He checked his watch and then looked over at the bar. "I have to leave you for a short time but I'll be back before the auction begins." He lowered his voice and clasped my hand. "You're here with me and you are the most beautiful woman of all of them. Don't be shy."

He kissed me on the cheek and then walked away, heading for the back of the ballroom.