The Billionaire Bargain 3 (5 page)

“When
you rode off into the sunset, did you go home that night, touch
yourself all alone in your bed?” His voice grew rougher yet his
touch stayed light, the gentleness a startling contrast to his coarse
words, the combination making me slick between my thighs. “Did
you imagine it was me inside you, did you think about how hard I used
to fuck you?”

Oh
God, I could feel him hardening against my thigh. I could remember
how he felt inside me, and I wanted to feel him again, oh God, right
here up against this wall—no, we couldn’t—but—

“Did
you say my name out loud when you came?” he whispered, and I
moaned, unable to respond in any other way to his warm breath on my
skin, his strong hands intent on my body, even as his words broke my
heart.

“Grant—”
I pleaded. Oh, if he could just give me a moment to think, to think
about anything except how desperately I wanted him, I could explain.

“Just
like that,” he growled. One of his hands had made it under the
hem of my skirt, he was pinching and teasing my clit through my thin
lingerie. Oh God, his fingers would be slick even through the fabric.
“Did you say it just like that?”

I
surged upward, grabbing at his collar as I kissed him. I devoured his
mouth as if he were going to war, as if he were water in the desert,
as if he were the antidote to poison and fear and despair. And he
kissed me back as if he were starving for the taste of me, biting my
lips possessively, thrusting his tongue into my mouth, claiming me—

Suddenly
he pulled away and slapped another button, and the elevator was
moving again.

I
staggered, dizzy with the loss of him holding me upright, wondering
what kind of tension was filling the elevator now. Was that—?
Did he—? Should I—? And then we came to a halt, the
elevator chiming as the doors slid open.

Grant
smirked, as if he had just scored a point in a game he didn’t
quite know how to win. He smoothed down his tie and tweaked his cuffs
back into place as he stepped toward the doors. “I guess I’ve
still got it, Lacey?” he asked, almost as if he wasn’t
sure.

My
brain struggled to recover from its lust-fueled short circuit, but
before I could come up with an appropriate verbal reply, the doors
started closing.

Grant’s
face went stony again, and he backed out into the hall. “Well.
Good to know.”

And
then he turned and walked away, was gone before I could even respond.

The
elevator continued on its way, and I stared out the window. Grief and
anger battled inside me like wolves, but I felt something else win:
determination.

I
had lost Grant, but I still had Devlin Media Corp.

And
I would do whatever I had to do to protect it.

Determination
was well and good, but with all the emotions swirling around my head
like autumn leaves, I didn’t have a clue where to start.

…that
is, I didn’t have a clue where to start until I saw Portia
trying to sneak out of the building.

See,
people like Portia usually walk around like they own the place,
striding directly wherever they want to go, eyes forward and chin
thrust high like a warning to get the hell out of their way or
they’ll mow you down.

But
Portia was moving through the lobby…slowly. Positively
dawdling at she stopped to gaze at the artwork, or flash a smile at
an incoming employee—a few, probably those who knew her,
actually stumbled in shock at the sight.

I’d
been unable to shake the feeling that she was up to something before,
and now that I was seeing this blatant telegraphing of ‘look at
me, harmless and innocent, just stepping out of the office for no
sinister purpose, I swear,’ my suspicions were cemented.

I
dashed over to Kate, who was pretending to shuffle appointments but
was really adding the final touches to a naughty nightie on an
artist’s program. I grabbed her arm. “Hit Save and take a
break, Katie, we have work to do.”

“I
already took my break—” Kate protested, even as she
frantically hit the Save button and closed the program.

“I’ll
talk to your manager and have her sign off on another one, she owes
me a favor, come on!” Portia was already out the door, and if
she made it out of sight before we left—

Kate
scribbled a note as I pulled her away from the desk, miming to her
co-receptionist Kari to cover her.

“What
the hell?” she asked as soon as we were out of the lobby and
out of the earshot of anyone from work. “I mean, I like extra
breaks, who doesn’t like extra breaks, they’re great and
of course I’m always here to help you with anything you need,
but Lacey, I am wearing
heels,
can we
please
slow down—”

“Not
until she slows down,” I said, picking up my own pace as our
quarry turned a corner and briefly disappeared behind the awning of
an upscale jewelry boutique.

“Who?”

“Come
on!”

We
dashed around the corner, and I groaned. She was already a block
ahead of us, and a huge group of tourists were in the way. Granted,
they were blocking her view of us as well, but if she spotted us
through the crowd she could lose us in a flash.

Kate
craned her neck to see who I was trying to catch up to. “Portia?
Why are we—”

“Keep
your voice down,” I hissed, pulling her behind the cart of a
very confused hot dog vendor, just in time to avoid Portia’s
gaze as her head snapped backwards, owl-like, to scan the area behind
her. “And I don’t know why. Not exactly. Not yet. But I
will.”

“Well,
that’s reassuring,” Kate said with an amount of sarcasm
so great that new scientific instruments would have to be invented to
measure it. “And when, exactly, are you expecting to get this
info? Is it going to be before she catches us and fires me? I’m
really hoping it’s before she catches us and fires me. You see,
I have this hobby of eating, and my day job allows me to do that.”

“She’s
up to something,” I insisted. “I know it.”

Keeping
one eye on Portia and one hand on Kate’s arm, I pulled her
along and quickly and quietly filled her in on Portia’s
behavior during today’s meeting.

“And
then I came downstairs and saw her pulling that sweet innocent Disney
Princess bullshit like she was just casually wandering out the lobby
looking for a fucking bluebird to sing with or something. Would
Portia ever pull an act like that if she didn’t have something
to hide?”

“A
falcon or a vulture does seem more her style for a duet bird,”
Kate said, and raised her hands defensively at my glare. “I’m
agreeing with you! Just give me a second; I didn’t get out of
bed this morning thinking I’d be in a Cagney and Lacey act!”

I
rolled my eyes and then ducked behind a dumpster as Portia yet again
whirled to survey the area around her. Yeah, not shady at all,
Portia. Why don’t you just rent a giant billboard saying ‘I
AM TOTALLY UP TO SOMETHING RIGHT NOW.’ You could add on
blinking neon lights and it’d still be more subtle than the act
she was putting on.

“What,
reference too dated?” Kate asked from behind me. “Fine,
I’ll be Watson and you’ll be Holmes. Just don’t go
getting addicted to cocaine; I think any more excitement in my life
and I’ll need to become a nun and enter a life of silent
contemplation. Also, there is a banana peel in my hair right now and
it is totally your fault.”

“Banana
peels are in this season,” I said absentmindedly, watching
Portia glance up and down the street. “Also, you do know that
Sherlock Holmes is older than Cagney and Lacey, right? He is, like,
literally the oldest imaginary detective.”

“Girl,
Sherlock Holmes was a cheap ripoff of Edgar Allan Poe’s Auguste
Dupin,” Kate said. “Just because you have this new
‘trailing suspects’ hobby that you did not tell me about,
do not even try to outmatch me in the fictional detective department.
Think of it as a professional courtesy, like how I don’t try to
argue with you that James Bond is better than John Steed.”

“That’s
not even debatable,” I said, turning around for just a second
to argue this incredibly important point. “Can Bond pull off a
bowler? No? End of discussion.”

“Yeah,
but Bond had all the gadgets,” Kate said. “Like, he
totally would have had a sweet invisible car we could have tailed
Portia in, or cameras in our hairclips so we could still have this
discussion and you wouldn’t miss Portia going into Rama like
she is just now.”

“Wait,
what?” I whirled back around. Shit, she was right.

I
caught just a glimpse of the hem of Portia’s dress as she swept
inside the restaurant on the arm of some older Wall-Street-looking
guy. He was followed by a whole wolf pack of Wall-Street-looking
guys, you know the kind I mean, well-made suits in classic cuts and
conservative blacks, greys, and navy blues, like the slightest
unorthodox angle or splash of bright pink might bring the Conformity
Police down on them with batons and tear gas.

“Okay,
yeah, the fishiness index just went off the charts. I’m going
in.”

I
rose, and Kate rose with me.

“Kate,
no. You don’t need to come in with me and risk your job any
further.”

“So
you dragged me out to, what, watch the building to make sure it
doesn’t walk away?” Kate said with a raised eyebrow. She
made her eyes large and pleading. “Come on, you can’t
just ditch me now after giving me all that lead-up!”

“Well,
first of all, I’m not even sure I can get in without Grant
here,” I said, tapping my foot and darting nervous looks at the
front door of Rama. The longer I stayed out here, the more likely the
employees would notice me lurking behind a dumpster, and that was
definitely not conducive to the image of a well-off young lady who
could pay for an upscale Thai dinner. Also, what if this was a feint,
and Portia was sneaking out the back this very minute? “Second
of all, the more of us there are, the more likely she’ll see us
the second we walk through that door.”

“Didn’t
you tell me last time that everybody was watching the front door?”
Kate pointed out. “Places like this, they treat people-watching
like a competitive sport. And if you’re right about Portia and
she’s on edge, she’s definitely going to see you even if
you go alone.”

I
gritted my teeth, and then sighed. “You have a point.”

“I
always have a point,” Kate said. “That’s why you
keep me around, despite my devastatingly distracting beauty. So what
do we do now, Miss Marple?”

“Miss
Marple didn’t trail people, Kate, she just sat still and
gossiped and knit and listened to what people said and drew
conclusions from her rich knowledge of the human psyche,” I
said, unable to let this pass from a proclaimed expert on fictional
detectives, despite the current high stakes in our real life
detecting. “God, it’s like we never had seventeen
sleepovers where I introduced you to the staples of classic British
television.”

“Don’t
remind me; I talked in a British accent for six weeks. My parents
were thinking about having me committed. So,
Insert-Lady-Detective-And-Or-Spy-Name-of-Choice here—”

“Peggy
Carter.”

“So,
Peggy Carter, what’s our next step?”

I
thought for a second, and then I felt a wicked grin bloom on my face
as I came across the perfect idea.

“We
get sneaky.”

I
fished my cell phone out of my purse and searched for the restaurant
number. Grant had gone ahead and put it in after a few days into us
living together, “so you aren’t perpetually asking me
what it is when you get your inevitable cravings for mango sorbet.”
I stifled the bittersweet pang that rose in my heart when I
remembered that moment, remembered the softness in his eyes
undercutting the dryness of his words.

“Rama
front desk, how may I help you?” The brisk business-like voice
of the receptionist called me back to reality.

I
shot a grin at Kate and, twirling a lock of hair around my finger,
put on my very best Valley Girl voice. “Um, hi, this is
Kimberly? I’m the assistant to, like, Portia Smith? And oh my
God this is totally random but she really really wanted to know when
her South African diamond shipment came in here at the office? And
I’m totally supposed to deliver the shipping manifest to your
restaurant and she’ll totally kill me if I don’t get it
there on time?”

Kate
was holding her stomach trying to keep in the laughter. I shot her a
warning look; background giggles would definitely give us away.

“I
see,” the receptionist said slowly. “Well, we can
certainly accommodate a delivery, if you would care to stop by—”

“Well,
gosh, sure, thanks!” I bubbled like an out-of-control water
cooler. “But it’s like, for her eyes only? And, like, the
delivery boy has to know the name the reservation is under? And I
can’t remember if it’s Smith or one of her business
partners and OMG this is so embarrassing but I totally forgot their
names? Like, one of them—” I cast my memory back to the
sight of Portia entering Rama—“he’s like, older,
bald, blue suit, kind of a hatchet chin? And another one, he’s
younger, slicked back blonde hair, black suit, sort of, like, a
button nose? And there’s about three other guys with them,
basically dressed the same, like totally a clone army, you know?”

“Er…”
I could hear the uncertainty in the receptionist’s voice.
“We’re really not supposed to give out that kind of
information, I’m sure you understand—”

“Oh
my gosh, please, I’ll be like, totally indebted to you!”
I pleaded, trying not to look at Kate, who was steadily losing it,
hand clapped over her mouth as she writhed in laughter. “She’ll
totally murder me with a slide rule or something if I don’t get
this to her, and I really need this job!”

“I’m
sorry, and I’d really love to help, but—” the
receptionist began.