The Bad Boy Billionaire's Wicked Arrangement (2 page)

The sighs and moans carried on. Clearly it wasn’t That Guy, since he stood before me. Alone.

“I know they’re loud,” he murmured leaning on the stacks and blocking my exit. “But did you really just shush them?”

I just sighed and gave him an annoyed glance, which hopefully communicated that this was a mortifying encounter that I’d rather not prolong.

“Let me guess. You’re a librarian,” he said with a hint of humor in his voice. “I mean, who else shushes people in a library? And a party.”

“Actually, I am,” I said awkwardly.

He laughed, a low rich sound without any mockery, just mirth. Laughing in the library was also something that usually elicited a
shhh
but I bit that one back.

“Are you going to kick them out for making out in the stacks?”

There was no need to clarify which
them
he was referring to. They were making their presence known. Loudly.

“No. I’m really sorry to interrupt. I didn’t mean to. I’ll just let you . . . finish whatever it is you were doing in here.”

“Just had to take a phone call. Thought it would be quieter in here,” he said, shrugging. “You’re really a librarian?”

Yes. Who cares? I should be going.

He leaned against the stacks as if settling for a long chat. My heart started thudding and I wasn’t sure if it was desire, anticipation or because this was the sort of situation that ended badly and on the cover of the
New York Post
.

“So what’s your name, Sweater Set?” He asked, as he pulled out his iPhone.

“Jane.”

“Jane what?”

“Sparks. Why do you care?”

Jane Sparks, Age 28, hopelessly single and tragically flummoxed by attentions of hot guy at the library.

“I’m looking you up to see if you’re really a librarian. And if I should mention you in my tweet about getting shushed at the Hush party.”

“Is that really necessary?”

They were projecting tweets about the party (#HushParty) on the large screens set up around the room. The last thing I needed was the whole party full of cool people—and the whole freaking Internet—knowing about this increasingly disastrous situation. I was the square who had just shushed people at a party. I had just interrupted a hot hook-up in the stacks. And I was trying to pretend none of it had just happened.

This was like high school all over again.

I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t like I was on some moral crusade. If anything, I was
trying
to be the exact opposite. But old habits died hard.

“There you are. Found you on Facebook,” he said to his phone. “Jane Sparks. Librarian at the New York Public Library. So you weren’t kidding.”

“I just shushed you at a party,” I replied. “Do I seem like kind of girl who has a sense of humor?”

“You seem like the kind of girl who needs a good orgasm.”

“Do lines like that really work for you?”

“Not with the good girls,” he said, and I didn’t know what he meant by that. Good, as in well behaved? Good, as in actually dateable women?

“I’m Duke, by the way.” He held out his hand and, always polite, I extended mine and we shook hands.

“That’s a much better pick-up attempt,” I said and then, catching how presumptuous that sounded, I added, all flustered, “If that’s even what you’re trying to do. Anyway. I’m really sorry for interrupting you.”

“You’re cute,” he said, and I blushed in spite of myself. “I’ve never fantasized about getting a girl out of her sweater set before,” he said, indulging in a long, heated gaze at my sweater set. In my defense, I had come from work. “But they say there’s a first time for everything.”

“Stop with the romantic compliments. I might swoon.”

Duke laughed.

“I’ll catch you, Sweater Set.”

“I don’t doubt that. What happens next is what I’m concerned about it.”

“Mouth to mouth resuscitation,” he said gravely. “To save you.”

“I’m no damsel in distress,” I told him. But I was. I was a mess. Heartbroken and finding my way in a strange city, still dreaming of the life that had slipped through my fingers when I wasn’t looking.

“And I’m no hero,” he murmured. He didn’t look like one, that’s for sure. He wore jeans, sneakers and a T-shirt that said, “Kozmo.com.” Whatever that was.

Maybe I didn’t need a hero.

Maybe I needed what happened next.

His hand slid around my waist, resting on my lower back.

His head dipped toward mine. Instinctively I tipped my face up to his.

Then it happened. His mouth on mine. Tentative at first, becoming all the more bold as I melted into it, much to my shock. But the more I tasted him, the more he demanded and the more I surrendered and forgot all my rules about first dates or at least knowing last names.

I was the kind of girl who didn’t do this
. But I was trying not to be that girl, hence the mask, hence the champagne that had gone straight to my head, hence this kiss. I threaded my fingers through his hair and dared to kiss him hard.

His hands spanning my waist. His hands, skimming higher. My breath catching in my throat. He, whoever he was, pressed me against the stacks. The hard edges of the shelves dug into my back. It hurt, slightly, in an oddly pleasurable way. I couldn’t close my eyes and imagine I was anywhere else. No, there was no forgetting that Good Girl Jane was hooking up with a stranger. In public.

Jane didn’t.

Oh yes she did.

“Take this off,” he whispered urgently, tugging at my cardigan. In our frantic and tangled efforts, we ended up knocking over a swath of all those champagne glasses and bottles of beer. They clinked together, shattered, fell to the floor, making a delicious racket.

I had no thoughts of stopping to clean them up.

You don’t even know him!
My brain shouted. But I just arched my back, let my head fall back and sighed with the pleasure of it all.

I could feel him, hard, pressing against me and I wanted him desperately. Didn’t know his last name. Didn’t know anything about him. Didn’t even care. I heard more sighs, more moans and I vaguely realized they were mine.

I ran my fingers through his soft hair. The stubble on his jaw was rough against my neck as he pressed hot kisses and gentle bites on my skin. I gasped in shock not just that he did that, but that I liked it.

I felt something vibrate against me and for a second I thought all my dreams had come true. But I realized it was just his phone in his pocket.

He pulled back, easing me down to me feet. I found my knees were weak.

“Sorry, Sweater Set, but I have to take this,” he murmured before kissing me and disappearing into the shadows.

Chapter Two

Bar Veloce—the next day

@TechCrunch: Duke Austen’s startup, Project-TK, is rumored to be seeking $150m investment at a $1.2 billion valuation. Here’s why it might not happen:

Is the third time a charm for Silicon Alley party boy Duke Austen? After the spectacular flameouts of his first two startups, he’s on the verge of a major win—as long as investors can overlook his reputation for hard-partying and worries about him paying more attention to the hot supermodels instead of hot new products. Even if he gets the funds, Austen’s prospects of remaining in charge of the company he founded are slim, unless he cleans up his act. Read More . . .

“T
HIS.
” I
SET
down the damned invitation on the bar.

“What is
this
?” Roxanna asked, looking up from her iPhone. We often met here after work for drinks and supper before returning to our microscopic, claustrophobia-inducing Chelsea apartment.

“
This
is the invitation to my tenth annual high school reunion. In other words, I have just been invited to a party to showcase what an utter failure I am.”

“What are you talking about? You have ditched Bumblefuck, Pennsylvania, and your boring ex-boyfriend for the glamorous life of a single working girl in New York City.”

“I’m working as a library assistant, which is a step down from my previous job as head Librarian. I told everyone I was going to write a novel but I only have a word document that reads ‘Untitled Romance Novel’ and not much else. And I still love my ex-boyfriend, thank you very much. And he’s been dating. I saw it on Facebook. I have
not
been dating.”

“No, you’re just having hot and heavy hook-ups with strangers. Much better if you ask me,” Roxanna said with a grin. I had told her a little bit about what had happened at the party last night, leaving out the most embarrassing bits. Which is to say, I left out most of the story.

“
One
hook-up. Once. And while I was pawing at some random guy in the library like an adolescent, everyone else has gotten married and had children. Look—” I said, pulling up the list of my friends on Facebook, many of them from Milford High School. “Melissa, married. Has a baby. Rachel and Dan, married.
Two
children when some people don’t have any! Kate Abbott, who was totally horrible to me throughout high school is ‘seeing someone special.’ And it’s only a matter of time before Sam posts MARRIED! BABY! He keeps posting about dinners at all romantic places around town.”

“What, all three of them? You have to unsubscribe to his status updates,” Roxanna said dryly.

“I don’t know how,” I grumbled. “Technology mystifies me.”

“Here, let me see if I can do this on your phone,” Roxanna said. I handed it over without a second thought. “I’ll take care of this while you pine away for the days of card catalogues, horses and bayonets.”

“We were voted Most Likely to Live Happily Ever After,” I said glumly.

“Aww, should we go home and look through your yearbooks?” Roxanna asked, pushing her red hair over her shoulder.

She was tough as nails and just what I needed. In return, since she was a disaster at things like laundry, cooking, and paying bills, I helped make sure she had clean clothes, Wi-Fi, and didn’t subsist exclusively on bourbon and popcorn.

“No, it will only make me feel worse,” I said with a sigh. I knew because I had already looked through them. It was all the inscriptions that slayed me.
Stay in touch. Don’t ever change.

Growing up, I had this idea of what my life would be like, and I did everything I could to make it happen. Good grades, good school, career in the library sciences, which would allow me some flexibility when Sam and I married and had kids.

We planned to get engaged after he finished his dissertation. Then he’d get a job as a professor at the nearby Montclair University.

We planned to have a house on Brook Street—I knew just the one—with great bookshelves and a yard for the kids. Maybe a couch from Pottery Barn.

Then POOF—fired. Then POOF—dumped.

Sam had coldly explained that he wanted to see more of the world. Date other people. Be with someone more adventurous. Someone who didn’t have every detail of her life already pre-ordered.

“Ah, this will make you feel better,” Roxanna said when the bartender set down our drinks: a glass of chardonnay for me and bourbon on the rocks for her. “Cheers.”

“I just had this idea of what my life would be like by now,” I said as Roxanna messed around with my phone. “And so did everyone else. I had already planned my wedding on Pinterest. Now he’s squiring some girl around town to all the romantic spots while I’m working at the low level job I had in college and I’m hopelessly single.”

“Personally, I wouldn’t give a fuck what my loser high school classmates thought of me,” Roxanna said, sipping her bourbon and still messing around with my phone.

“I know. I’m seething with jealously.”

Truly, I kind of was.

“But since you clearly do care, why don’t you show up with a totally hot, successful date?”

I sighed and smiled. “It would make everyone jealous, wouldn’t it? No one would ask me if I missed my old job, why Sam and I broke up or how my novel writing is going. The problem is your plan requires me knowing a hot, successful guy. The only guy to ask me out since I moved here is José at the bodega.”

“Speaking of hot, successful guys,
why do you have a friend request from DUKE AUSTEN?
” Roxanna looked up at me, her blue eyes wide and her mouth open in shock.

“Hey, why do you still have my phone?”

“Jane! Is this the guy you hooked up with?” Roxanna held out my phone showing the Facebook profile of That Guy. All dark eyes, tousled hair, unshaven. Like a pirate or a highwayman or some rogue up to no good. Yeah, that was the guy.

“I think so. It was dark. I had a mask on,” I said. I figured he was just some charming but scruffy guy who was probably a struggling actor who tended bar at some hipster dive in Williamsburg. Totally un-dateable.

“OMG,” Roxanna said. Gasped, really. “OMG.”

“What?”

“Jane, this is DUKE AUSTEN,” she practically shrieked. Then she looked around as if someone might overhear this conversation. As if he were Somebody.

“I can see that. But who is he?”

“He’s only the billionaire co-founder of Project-TK. See, you do know someone hot and successful. OMG do you ever!”

“He didn’t look like a billionaire.”

“Why? Cos he didn’t wear a suit and grey tie and wave around fat cigars and a bottle of 26-year Macallan? Welcome to the startup world, Jane. Where the billionaires look and act like the guys next door.”

OMG, indeed.

“He caught me on my hands and knees,” I whispered, horrified. “And shushing people at a party.”

“And then he hooked up with you. I spent all day working on a story about him, in fact,” Roxanna said. She grinned wickedly before launching into everything I needed to know about him. “His company is seeking a series C-round of financing but everyone is freaking out because he’s a brilliant disaster and they’re afraid he’ll blow it like he did in his first two companies. Even if he gets the money, the investors might force him to step down. He can code and he can sell anyone on anything. But then he was always getting wasted and missing work or getting embroiled in all sorts of scandals with models. And there are rumors of drug use. He’s all kinds of bad news.”