Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (198 page)

Chapter
Seven

“So do these people know the deal?” Kenley
asked.

“What do you mean?” Chad replied.
 
They were on the sidewalk in Manhattan,
walking toward midtown.
 
They’d
taken a car into the city from Brooklyn, but had been dropped off a few blocks
away from Broadway.
 
At the last
minute, Chad had decided it would be best not to go to Nobu, instead opting for
a restaurant in the middle of Times Square. He figured it would be better
– less chance of paparazzi, but the city would be busy, and hopefully
some fans would be there, snapping pics to post all over facebook and twitter.

“I mean do Jay and Alyssa know that you’re
paying me to be your girlfriend?”
 
Kenley asked.

“Yes.”

“They do?”
 
She stopped in the middle of the street, looking shocked.

“Yeah,” he said.
 
“Why?”

“Because you told me not to tell anyone!”
“So?”
“So how come you got to tell people?”

“Jay’s one of my best friends,” Chad said.
 
“And he can keep a secret.”

“How am I supposed to know that?
 
I’ve never met this Jay person.”

“Look, if this gets out, I’m the one who stands
to lose something,” Chad said.
 
“Not
you.”
 
They were walking again,
getting into the heart of Times Square, and he moved through the crowd
expertly, dodging the tourists and the vendors, making sure to stay with the
flow of foot traffic.
 
Kenley,
surprisingly, was having no trouble keeping up with him.

“Ha!” Kenley said.
 
“You might lose some stupid endorsement
deal, but I’m going to lose my dignity.”

“Your
dignity?”

“Yeah.
 
People will know that I consented to be your fake girlfriend.”
 

“No one’s going to find out.”
 
He rolled his eyes and tried to sound
reassuring, but the truth was that there was always a chance someone could find
out.
 
It was the information
age.
 
Rumors and gossip moved at the
speed of light.
 
All it took was one
person, one conversation, one text to the wrong person and it was all over.
 

“Whatever,” Kenley grumbled.
 
Chad glanced at her out of the corner of
his eye.
 
She looked absolutely
fantastic.
 
Her hair was loose and
flowing around her shoulders, and her skin had just the right amount of tan
after her time in Florida.
 
She was
wearing a tight gray dress that was short enough that it showed off her legs,
but sophisticated enough so that she looked put together and stylish.
 
He’d almost been rendered speechless
when she’d come out of the guestroom.
 
It was a new, weird feeling for him.
 
He’d dated some of the most beautiful
women in the world, and here was this woman that he’d just met randomly, and he
was more attracted to her than he’d ever been to anyone in his life.

He had the sudden urge to touch her, and so he
reached out and took her hand.
 
She
looked up at him in surprise.

“We have to make sure we look like we’re
together,” he explained.
 
“You know,
so that it’s believable.”

“Whatever.”
 

It was a warm evening with just a bit of a
breeze, and they walked slowly through Times Square toward the restaurant.
 
When they got there,
 
Jay was waiting outside with his fiancé
Alyssa.
 
There was a bunch of people
around them taking pictures with their cell phones.

“I tried to get a crowd going,” Jay whispered
to Chad as he greeted him.
 
“So that
it wouldn’t be so hard to get some pictures going.”

“Thanks,” Chad said.
 
“I appreciate that.”

He introduced Kenley to Jay and Alyssa, and the
two women started talking while Jay and Chad started signing autographs for the
fans.

“You didn’t tell me she was hot,” Jay said as
he signed a woman’s I HEART NY t-shirt.

“Yes, I did,” Chad said.
 
“You just weren’t listening.”
“You have to be careful,” Jay said, shaking his head.
 
“She looks way too nice for you.”

“She can handle herself,” Chad said.
 
“Trust me.”

Jay shrugged.
 
“Well, whatever.”
 
He handed the t-shirt back to the woman
in front of him.
 
“Hey,” he said to
the crowd.
 
“Anyone want to get
pictures with me and my fiancé?”

There was a flurry of activity as Alyssa
stepped up next to him.
 
People
loved getting pictures of Jay and Alyssa together.
 
Alyssa was a journalist that had been
assigned to cover the Brooklyn Heat, and her and Jay had fallen in love while
she was writing about the team.
 
He’d proposed to her at one of their games, and since then, America had
been enthralled with their romance.

Chad watched the two of them posing.
 
It was so natural, so right.
 
They were smiling,
 
looking very much in love.
 
He glanced behind him and saw Kenley
standing against the side of the building.
 
She looked a little lose and uncomfortable.

“Anyone want to get pictures of me and my
girlfriend?” he asked.
 
He pulled
Kenley toward him.
 
And then he
realized he had the perfect opportunity to get what he wanted.
 
So as people started snapping pictures,
Chad pulled Kenley into his arms and kissed her.

***

Kenley hardly had time to react to the kiss
before it was over.
 
All she knew
was that suddenly her knees were weak and her heart was racing.
 
Chad’s lips were warm and soft, and she
wanted him so badly she could hardly take it.
 
But then, just like that, it was over.

She forced a smile on her face as she posed for
the cameras, thankful that Chad was holding her close.
 
She didn’t trust herself to stay
standing up.
 
What the hell was
wrong with her?
 
The guy was a total
jerk.
 
Just because he was hot
didn’t mean he should be having this effect on her, making her get all swoony
like some crazy high schooler.

“What was the point of that?” she asked as Chad
led her into the restaurant.
 
He was
still holding her close, and warmth was spreading through her body. “None of
those people were paparazzi.”

“No, but they all have facebook and twitter,”
he said.
 
“Those pictures will be
all over the internet before we’re done with our appetizers.”

“Good,” she said, not sure if she really meant
it.
 
It was a little unsettling,
thinking about her picture
 
being
all over the internet.
 
She didn’t
even like when other people tagged her on facebook without her permission.

The four of them sat down, and when the waiter
came over, Chad ordered a bottle of wine for the table.

“So Kenley,” Alyssa said as she spread her
napkin across her lap “What do you do?”

“Well,” Kenley said, choosing her words
carefully.
 
“I’m kind of in between
jobs right now.”
 
She felt
embarrassed saying it, but Alyssa’s face was warm and kind.

“Ugh, the economy’s just the worst right now,”
Alyssa said and sighed.
 
“I’m
halfway expecting to get laid off sometime this month, or at least take a huge
pay cut.”

“What do you do?” Kenley asked, impressed that
Alyssa worked.
 
If she were engaged
to a man that made as much money as Jay Havens, she wasn’t sure she’d be psyched
to be going off to some stupid desk job every morning.
 

“I work on a website,” Alyssa said.
 
“Writing articles, that kind of
thing.
 
But journalism, even web
journalism, is on the decline.
 
And
so cutbacks are pretty much inevitable.”

“Well, it’s best not to worry about it until it
happens,” Kenley said.
 
“And if it
does, I’m sure you’ll be fine.
 
I
bet you’re a great writer.”

Alyssa smiled at her, then took her sip of her
water.
  
“Chad, are you sure
you want to keep this one as a fake girlfriend?” she said.
 
“She seems pretty amazing.”

The waiter appeared again to ask if they’d like
some appetizers.
 
As Alyssa and Jay
ordered their appetizers, suddenly, under the table, Kenley felt Chad’s hand on
her leg.
 
She took in a sharp
breath.
 
His hand began stroking,
moving further up her thigh, pushing the bottom of her dress up.
 
His fingertips went higher and higher,
sending waves of longing through her skin.
 
After a few seconds, she felt a wetness in her panties, and knew she
wouldn’t be able to take Chad’s touch for much longer.
 
She shifted on her chair, trying to move
away, but she couldn’t.
 
She was
mesmerized, and besides, there was really nowhere to go.

“Appetizer?” the waiter asked.

“We’re going to share some mozzarella sticks,”
Chad said.
 
His voice sounded
cheerful.
 
Underneath the table, he
moved her dress up a little further.

Kenley nodded her agreement, not trusting
herself to speak.
 
She loved the
fact that Chad was ordering for the both of them, that he was acting like they
were a couple.
 
He was still
stroking her thigh, moving his hand higher and higher under her skirt, the
whole time talking to Jay and Alyssa like it wasn’t affecting him at all.

Her phone rang from inside her bag.

“Excuse me,” she said when she saw it was
Melissa.
 
“It’s my sister, it might
be an emergency.”
 
She knew it
wasn’t, but she needed to get away from Chad and his fingers.
 
It was making her too light-headed.

“Hi,” she said when she answered, moving away
from the table and down the hallway toward the restrooms.
 

“Kenley!” Melissa yelled.
 
“Did you know that your picture is on
twitter?
 
It’s all over the place!”

“Already?”
 
Wow, that was fast.
 
They
obviously weren’t kidding when they talked about the twenty-four hour news
cycle.
 
Not that her and Chad were
important news.
 
But still.

“Yes!” she said.
 
“You look fab by the way, did Chad buy
you that dress?”

“No.”
 
She was in the bathroom now, and she reached into her purse and pulled
out her lip gloss.
 
She relined her
lips, took a few deep breaths, and then readjusted the bottom of her
dress.
 
Now that she was away from
Chad, all she wanted was for his hands to be back on her skin.

“He didn’t?
 
Then where’d you get it?”

“He had it waiting for me.”

“So he
did
buy it for you.”

“No.
 
I mean, yes.
 
I mean, no, he
didn’t buy it for me, I don’t get to keep it or anything.”
  
But as she was saying the words,
she realized she didn’t know if they were true or not.
 
What was Chad really going to do with a
bunch of women’s clothing?
 
She
should at least get to keep some of it.
 
 

“So are you having fun?” Melissa asked.

“Kind of,” she said, and realized she meant
it.
 
So far, this whole thing hadn’t
been that bad.
 
She was a few hours
into it, and she’d spent
 
her time
soaking in a long hot bath and then being taken out to dinner with some nice
people . Granted, her picture was apparently on twitter.
 
But who really cared about that?
 
According to Melissa, Kenley looked
fabulous in those twitter pics.
 
The
only real problem she was having was how she felt when she was around Chad.
 
She really did need to get a handle on
that.