Mr. Black's Proposal (Part One: A Billionaire Erotic Romance) (9 page)

“I’m flying her family out,” he was saying.

I snapped back to attention. I had a great idea.

“How about her friend?” I asked.

“Her friend?”

“Steph.”

“The cupcake lady? What about her?”

“You should fly her out too.” Then I could have another shot at her. She hadn’t wanted to come to Paris with me, but she would want to come for her best friend’s proposal, wouldn’t she? It was a perfect idea.

Jake leveled his eyes at me.

“You’re not serious.”

“Why not? It would be nice for her, wouldn’t it, to have her friend there—”

“Don’t even pretend like you want her to come along for anything other than the real reason.”

“What? What real reason?”

“You want to get your claws into Steph.”

“Claws? I have no claws.”

“That’s right. More like talons. You’ll pick her up and drop her right off the edge of a cliff.”

“

“I haven’t even picked her up yet,” I protested. I didn’t mention that it was because she had turned me down. I was sure that, given another chance, I could convince her to let her defenses down enough to enjoy a non-serious night with me.

“So you want me to fly her out so you can wine and dine her into submitting to your charms?” Jake asked, skeptical.

“I’ll fly her out myself,” I said, smiling. “I just want you to give me a good excuse to do it.”

I was never nervous when speaking to a girl. But just thinking about hearing her voice made something inside my gut tingle. When Steph picked up the phone, I had to swallow the lump in my throat before speaking.

“Hey, Steph?” I said.

“Lucas?”

“Hey, I’m here in Paris.”

“Yeah?”

I could hear the resistance in her voice already. But I had the perfect lure. No girl would want to miss out on her best friend’s proposal, especially if it was in Paris. I tried to act nonchalant.

“Well, I was talking with Jake, and he wants you to fly out to Paris.”

“Jake does? Why?” I could hear her confusion.

“It’s a secret.”

“A secret—is this something to do with Lacey?”

God, she was smart. It was perfect, really. I had her hooked.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Maybe?”

“Yes. You’re right, okay? Anyway, he’s flying out her family from Iowa and he wants you there, too. He’s going to throw a party to celebrate, uh, the secret thing.”

“Her family?” Her voice rose one octave. “What’s going on, Lucas? Is he proposing?”

“Don’t tell!” I shushed her. “You can’t tell her. It’s a secret.”

“Yeah? Way to keep it a secret,” she said.

“Hey, I tried.”

“Remind me never to give you any classified information.”

“So you’ll come?” I asked.

“I don’t have the money to hop over to Paris on a moment’s notice.”

“I’ll fly you out.”

“You will?”

“I have a private jet at LaGuardia. You can take it over. It’s much faster than flying commercial.”

There was a pause. My stomach did a little flip. Why was I so hung up on this girl? I vowed to myself that if she came out to Paris, I would have her for a night. All night. I would get her out of my system. That was all I needed.

“Can I fly out there for one night and fly back the next morning?”

“Sure,” I said. All I needed was one night.

“And this is for real? This isn’t something you made up to get me to come out to Paris—”

“Why would I do that? You want to talk to Jake? I can put him on the phone if you want to talk to him—”

“I—no. No, it’s okay. Sure.”

“You’ll fly out here?”

“Sure.” Her voice was tense. I could almost see her looking around the bakery, the mental checklist popping up bullet points for everything that had to get done before she left to come to Paris. But she was going to come to Paris!

“Great,” I said, before she could change her mind. “I’ll text you the flight info and I’ll see you when you get to France!”

I hung up and gave a quick fist pump. I don’t know if it was just because she was more of a challenge than the other girls, but it gave me a thrill to know that I was going to get a shot to win her over.

It was Paris, the city of love. How could she resist?

Chapter Nine

Steph

The jet plane was totally empty except for me, the pilot, and the flight attendant. I stared out the window at the Atlantic Ocean dropping away below and ticked off the checklist that I’d left for Andy.

Cupcakes for all twelve of the coffee shops. Two birthday cakes that had to be iced and delivered. Three sheet cakes for the corporate gig I’d landed. The health inspector was supposed to be showing up sometime this month; I hoped it wouldn’t be on the one day I was gone.

I couldn’t believe that Jake was going to propose to Lacey. That had to be the reason he was flying her whole family out. I had to say, I was a little bit jealous. Lacey had always asked me for tips on dating. I’d been the savvy one, the experienced one. And now she had a boyfriend, and he was going to propose to her.

I shouldn’t have been jealous, but this was insane. She had only been dating him for what? A month?

I wonder how long it would take Lucas to propose.

Insane. Absolutely insane. Lucas was a bachelor for life. And anyway, I wasn’t going to get involved with him.

The flight attendant was dressed in the absolute cutest pencil skirt, a sleek charcoal wool fabric that wrapped snugly around her waist. When she came back to my seat to bring me a glass of champagne, I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

“A present from Mr. Black,” she said. Her expression was politely blank, and I smiled back with an equally fake look.

Of course.
Lucas had probably fucked her, along with every other woman he had working for him. That was what billionaires did, right? At least, that kind of billionaire.

I spent the rest of the flight going through the customized designs I’d created for Lucas’s party and sketching out some new ideas. It was a great theme—black and white—and the hours flew by as I worked through my plan for the presentation.

When the plane banked, I blinked hard. The sky outside the window was gray. Had I fallen asleep?

I peered out over the plane’s wing. We were going through clouds, and then—

The Eiffel Tower! It stuck out from a sea of gray buildings sprawling across the ground. The lines of the main roads were arranged in a spoked circle. The Eiffel Tower wasn’t quite at the center, though, it was set apart a little ways.

The plane bounced once, then twice, rolling through the fog with a low roar. When we finally rolled to a stop, I stood up excitedly. We were here! I was in Paris!

“Where should I wait for a cab?” I asked the flight attendant. She raised her eyebrows at me.

“Just down the stairs,” she said. “You won’t need a cab.”

I frowned but made my way down the stairs carefully. I was wearing heels and a simple dark skirt, and the wind was blowing so fiercely outside that I took my time getting down the steps. Then I saw a black car roll up on the tarmac.

The back door of the car opened.

“Stephanie!”

My lips parted in surprise, then I snapped them shut. It was Lucas.

He was dressed in gray pinstriped suit pants and a white button-up shirt. It looked like he had just come from work. And god, he looked even hotter now than he had back in New York City. He came over with a jaunty bounce in his step, his arms swinging at his sides. I remembered his arms, the way he’d wrapped them around me—
No. You’re not getting involved with this guy.

“You didn’t have to come pick me up,” I said.

“Of course I did.”

He leaned down and kissed me first on one cheek, then the other. I was too surprised to even push him away, but he saw the shock on my face.

“It’s the traditional French greeting,” he said. “Get used to it.”

“Oh. Oh!” I said, flushing.

“Where are your bags?” he asked.

“Bags?” I asked, looking back over my shoulder where his eyes were sweeping. “Oh! Bags. I don’t have any bags. I thought…”

“Yes?”

“I thought I was just going to be here one night. You said—”

“Yes, but we’re going to be celebrating tonight!”

I looked down at my outfit.

“Is this not nice enough?”

I shouldn’t have asked. When Lucas’s gaze swept over my body, I turned hot all over.

“You’ll be cold in such a short skirt,” he said. “Turn around.”

I had only twisted sideways when he reached out and tried to cup my ass. I swatted his hand away.

“Lucas!”

“Yep, definitely too short,” he said, grinning at me. “Personally, I love it.”

“You would,” I said, huffing into the car. He held the door open and watched as I clambered in, trying desperately to keep my skirt around my knees.

“Way too short,” Lucas said. “I think I got a glimpse of your underwear there. Unless that’s what you were going for.”

“Absolutely not,” I snapped. I stared firmly out the window. I was here for Lacey, and that was it.

Wasn’t it?

He slid into the seat next to me.

“Let’s go shopping, then,” he said.

Lucas took me to a little boutique off of the Champs-Elysees. To his credit, he didn’t try to touch my ass again, although he did wait for me to climb out of the car. I could feel his gaze sliding over my curves, and I clasped my hands across my chest.

We went into the boutique and I stood in amazement at the rows of mannequins in gorgeous designer silk dresses, skirts, and suits. I turned to Lucas as a saleslady came over to us.

“I don’t think this is the right kind of shop for me,” I said. I normally bought my dresses from JC Penny or H&M. This was way out of my price range.

“Nonsense,” Lucas said.

“But I can’t afford—”

“Bonjour,” Lucas said to the saleswoman. She was standing right in front of us, and I clapped my mouth shut on my objections. “Pouvez-vous assister avec des robes?”

I stared at him agog. His accent was flawless, as far as I could tell. I’d only taken high school French, so I couldn’t tell very far, but it was still impressive.

“Mais oui, Monsieur,” the saleslady said. She gestured to me. “C’est pour vous?”

I stared baldly at her in complete ignorance, trying to parse the sentence she’d just clipped out in rapid-fire French. Her face clicked in realization and she switched to English without missing a beat. “The dress is for you?”

“Oh. Yes,” I said, only a little embarrassed that my high school language classes had failed me so miserably.

“It’s for a special occasion,” Lucas said. “Perhaps you could pick out a few things?”

“Of course,” the saleslady said, in a slight French accent. She motioned to the back. “I will bring them to the fitting room.”

Lucas put his hand on my back and led me back. I wanted to swat it away, but his touch felt so comforting in this strange place.

“I can’t afford any of this,” I whispered to him.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lucas whispered back.

“But you can’t—”

“Our friends are getting engaged,” Lucas said. “It’s a special occasion. Please don’t think anything of it.”

He smiled so calmly that I almost believed him. I hated that I couldn’t pay for my own way, though. I didn’t want to be in debt to him. He had already flown me out on his jet plane, for God’s sake.

Without meaning to, I thought about my mother, and about the men that had come and gone through our apartment when Andy and I were young. She was always clinging to them, needy and desperate. I didn’t want to be like that. I never wanted to need a man.

Lucas was different.

No. He wasn’t any different. And even though he was super wealthy, I knew that eventually things would come around. In some way or other, I would have to pay.

Now, though, the saleslady appeared in front of me with an armful of dresses. An assistant joined her and offered a plate of pastries and glasses of cucumber lemon water. Lucas sat down in the plush chair in front of the dressing room and sipped from his glass.

“Let’s see these dresses on you,” he said.

I bit back a retort—I wasn’t one of his glamour photo shoot girls—and took the dresses into the fitting room.

It was incredible. The mannequins out front had me worried that I would have to be rail-thin to look good in the dresses. But the ones that the saleslady brought to me were perfectly form-fitting.

I slipped a red silk gown over my body and stepped out in front of the dressing room curtain.