The Deal--A Sexy Billionaire Romance Read online

  ‘It’s not that I want a relationship.’ The very idea fills me with panic. ‘There’s no way I could fit one in. I barely have time to workout in the day. I have to get a manicurist to come to the office if I need my nails done.’ I shake my head, hating how entitled that sounds, resisting an urge to explain it’s part of the whole image thing my clients expect me to project.

  ‘So our night in Sydney was...what? Your sexual equivalent to an in-office manicure?’ he teases.

  Heat blooms in my cheeks.

  ‘Dial-a-Fuck?’ he pushes, and I laugh, shaking my head.

  ‘Honestly? I was seriously starting to worry I might have forgotten how to even do sex.’ I laugh, and am relieved when he does too.

  ‘So... Dial-a-Fuck meets sex refresher course?’

  ‘Sex for Beginners,’ I agree with a wink.

  ‘Well, Miss Carmichael, I’m delighted to say you passed, with flying colours.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Silence hums around us, buzzing like paparazzi at fashion week. I hold my breath and wait, though I have no idea what I’m waiting for.

  ‘Why did you come here?’

  His brows lift, just a little. ‘I was looking for you.’

  Heat spreads through my body.

  ‘Why?’

  His hands lift to my hair, flicking it between his fingers. ‘You suit blonde.’ His smile is somehow self-deprecating. ‘Then again, you also suit pink.’

  I laugh. ‘Did you come here to discuss my hair?’

  ‘No.’ His eyes pierce mine. ‘I came here to find Miss Anonymous.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because last week was the best sex I’ve ever had, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. I want more. More of her, you, this. And I think you do too.’

  My jaw drops, my heart stops, my pulse cracks like a frozen river.

  ‘Nicholas—’

  His name rushes from my lips, too much air, too much feeling. It’s too much. If sex were a college degree, this guy would hold several PhDs. He really thinks I’m the best? The best he’s ever had? Pride soars in my chest, and, more than that, the addiction centres of my brain are going into overdrive because he’s damned right. I do want more of this.

  But... ‘We agreed it would just be one night.’

  ‘That was before.’ He shrugs away the objection, as though it doesn’t matter.

  ‘But you’re not... Neither of us wants... I mean, what are you saying?’

  ‘I’m glad you asked,’ he says teasingly, pulling me closer, wrapping his arms behind my back so our bodies are cleaved together in a way that is both sexy and intimate. ‘I came here wanting to fuck Miss Anonymous again, and I did. And still I want more. And now, I think I can see a way for both of us to get what we want.’

  ‘What’s that?’ I sound as if I’ve run a marathon.

  ‘Go out with me.’

  Panic spirals through me and I shake my head on instinct. ‘I don’t date, Nicholas. I didn’t mean to imply that I want that...’

  ‘Relax.’ He grins, and something fizzes in my gut. ‘I don’t mean for real.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You haven’t dated in a long time, and that seems like a waste. So date me. Play with me. Fuck me.’ He says the last in a voice that is so deep it rumbles right through my bones. ‘I’m moving home in a month and, suddenly, I can’t think of any way I’d rather spend what remains of my time in New York than with you.’

  His voice whips against me, seductive and intense. But I hold onto Chance, to what I owe Abbey, to the single-minded focus this business takes to run. ‘I can’t.’ My tone is clipped, strange-sounding in the midst of our conversation and what we’ve just done. ‘I don’t have time to date.’

  ‘That’s a cop-out.’ His words are a little mocking.

  ‘I’m sorry you feel that way, but it’s the truth. I work really hard, and I can’t spare the time to fill your last few weeks here in New York.’

  ‘You’re saying you’d rather work than do more of this?’ He lifts a brow and, damn it, he is so hot, and I want him, and he knows it. He knows what he’s doing to me. I swallow, frustration biting into my belly.

  ‘Look, Nicholas, I appreciate the offer.’ I wince, knowing it sounds like some kind of real-estate merger. ‘But this was only meant to be one night. I hadn’t—’

  ‘Had sex in a really long time,’ he supplies, a smile on his lips, as if he’s teasing me, and a smile twitches on my own lips in response.

  ‘I haven’t had a life in a really long time. No friends, no boyfriend, I barely see my family—though I can’t say that’s a bad thing, actually—but I got... I know it’s kind of sad to admit this, I got lonely, okay? I just wanted one night to be like a regular woman in her twenties. And it was great. You were great. But that’s all it can be between us. I can’t afford to get distracted.’

  ‘Great. I don’t want to distract you.’ He wiggles his brows. ‘At least, not beyond this month.’

  ‘Nicholas,’ I groan, lifting my hands to my face and covering my eyes. ‘I can’t do it. This all means too much to me—’

  ‘I get it.’ I remove my hands to find him watching me. ‘Your work is important to you. But you just said you haven’t had a life in a really long time. So why not give yourself one? Just for a few weeks.’

  His words catch in my chest. I frown.

  ‘I’m not talking about a relationship, and I’m not talking about long-term. I’m literally talking about you and me, doing more of this.’ He gestures towards my desk and the window that still bears my handprints. ‘Dating for a few weeks, having fun, all kinds of fun, until it’s time for me to leave.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Then, I go back to my life, and you can go back to working twenty-two hours a day and pretending you’re not a red-blooded woman.’

  It’s crazy. But what’s craziest of all is that it makes sense. It’s everything I wanted and never thought I could have. A relationship with clear boundaries, limits on what we get from one another and a stop point that would make it impossible for this to overshadow my real life in any way. It’s exactly the kind of relationship I would create, if I thought there was any likelihood I’d find a guy to go along with it.

  It feels almost too good to be true. ‘You want to date me?’

  ‘Well, I want to fuck you,’ he says with a devilish grin that takes any impertinence out of his correction. ‘But you should be dated. And I’m pretty good at the whole dating thing.’

  My heart kicks up a notch. ‘And not at all arrogant with it, right?’

  ‘It’s not arrogant if it’s true.’

  I roll my eyes again but stifle a laugh. ‘I suppose you have a point.’

  ‘So? Four weeks of debauched fun. What say you, Miss Carmichael?’

  My body unequivocally and enthusiastically says ‘yes’. A thousand times over, yes. But I have to think this through. I’m not someone who jumps off the deep end without looking at every angle first. ‘I don’t date clients.’

  ‘Ever?’ Then, before I can answer, ‘Right, you’re a date virgin.’

  ‘I am not!’ I splutter, laughing. ‘I have dated.’

  ‘A millennium ago.’

  ‘Shut up.’ I punch his shoulder playfully but his eyes flare in a way that promises it could very quickly go from playful to something else entirely if I’m not careful.

  ‘No one has to know about this.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Could we actually keep this a secret? Is that remotely feasible?

  ‘What? You’re planning on taking out a full-page ad?’

  ‘No, but, you’re kind of recognisable, and so am I.’ Temptation is dragging me towards the line of acceptance, though. ‘Why don’t we just, you know, sleep together? My apartment has a basement garage, you c
an come and go and no one needs to know...’

  ‘No.’ He lifts a hand, curving it around my cheek, his eyes flaring with mine. ‘It’s obvious you’re a total novice and need a first-rate education. I’m going to take you out.’

  ‘Wine and dine me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Heat soars in my chest.

  ‘It wouldn’t work. I can’t have people talking. This matters too much to me.’ Once more, I wave my hand around my office, indicating the club.

  ‘I respect that.’ He studies me for a beat. ‘I promise I won’t do anything that could damage your reputation in the club. Scout’s honour.’

  I laugh, because he is far from a Scout. ‘Dating you would do that though.’ And it would. Not just because I’m me, but because he’s Nicholas Rothsmore and his reputation would be enough to drag me towards scandal—just the kind of scandal I promise my members the club will help them avoid.

  ‘So we’ll keep it secret.’ He says it as if it’s simple.

  Before I can ask him exactly how he proposes to do that, he pulls me closer, tighter, so our bodies meld and thought becomes a little harder.

  ‘I saw something on the forums about the Christmas gala,’ he murmurs, his eyes sweeping my face.

  ‘That we’re looking for donations of time?’

  He nods, then drops his head so his lips buzz mine so lightly it’s a form of torture. I push up on my tiptoes without meaning to, so my face is closer, wanting an actual kiss.

  He pulls back, just a little, teasing me, tempting me. Frustration kicks in my abdomen.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So,’ he murmurs, buzzing my lips again, then sliding a hand between my legs so I sway forward and exhale softly. ‘If anyone runs into us, we’ll tell them I’m helping with the Christmas gala.’ His fingers brush my clit and I dig my fingers into his shoulder, holding on for dear life as he stirs my body to a new fever pitch.

  It’s so plausible. Members with certain expertise often volunteer their time or resources when it comes to organising events. Ellie Little recently provided a heap of supercars for a member event. This isn’t unprecedented.

  People would believe it.

  Probably.

  He slides a single finger inside my core and my knees threaten to buckle. His arm clamps around my back as if he knows somehow.

  ‘Think about it,’ he murmurs in my ear before sucking my lobe into his mouth, teasing it between his teeth. ‘How else will you know what really...’ he moves his finger deeper, brushing his thumb over my clit; my breath hurts ‘...really...’ he bites his teeth down on my earlobe and I make a sound of total surrender ‘...great dating feels like?’

  I hold him as he moves faster and pleasure is like a tidal wave swirling around me. I’m not sure I care about dating so much as sex, and sex specifically with Nicholas, but at the same time I’m completely intrigued.

  Pleasure is making thought almost impossible, so I ask the first thing that occurs to me before I lose myself utterly in this moment. ‘Why would you do this?’

  ‘Beyond the fact the sex with you is fucking fantastic?’

  I nod, tilting my head back, staring at my ceiling as everything explodes in my chest.

  ‘Because in a month I will become the man who’s going to be Lord Rothsmore and any kind of social life will be a distant memory.’ I cling on tighter as my eyes fill with stars. ‘This month with you will be like my very own goodbye party to my real life.’

  If I weren’t cresting over a wave of sublime release, I might almost have felt sorry for him, I might have paid more attention to the heaviness in his voice. But I cannot think properly, I cannot act as I normally would. I cry out his name and tip over the edge, my eyes blinking open to find him watching me with an intensity that takes my breath away.

  ‘Say yes,’ he prompts, a smile flickering across his lips, as though he knows I’ll agree—how can I not?

  My throat is parched, my body awash with a shock of feelings, but I nod, jerkily. In that moment, I would have agreed to give him my soul; I would have agreed to anything he asked of me. We have thirty days, not one thousand and one, and yet sex, I think, has become my Scheherazade’s tale, and he is the master storyteller, intriguing me more and more with each and every encounter...

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WELL... THAT WAS UNEXPECTED.

  I settle into the luxurious leather of my limo, staring out at Manhattan as I cut across town. I can still smell her on my skin, on my hands, taste her in my mouth. Desire slides across me like warm water, and I throw my head back, squeeze my eyes shut and exhale.

  Miss Anonymous is Miss Imogen Carmichael.

  I’ve met her before, but only briefly, and while I thought she was attractive, I haven’t really given her a second thought. I focus on that memory now, remembering the way she was with me, the same way she is with everyone in the exclusive club. Friendly, but in a way I instinctively understood to be guarded. She is exceptional at seeming warm without giving much of herself away.

  She’s calm and measured, and the club is a testament to that. It’s a behemoth of an organisation and she oversees all aspects of it, an impressive tribute to her hard work.

  What is unexpected is the heat that runs just beneath her surface. The passion that makes her lose herself in the moment just as completely as I do—if not more so. She’s driven by instincts, and her instincts are fire and flame.

  It isn’t that I haven’t had good sex. I have. But she’s on a whole other level. There’s nothing practised about her, there’s nothing overthought or contrived. She does as she feels, and she feels as she needs, and her body answers mine in every way.

  It’s utterly surreal.

  It must have been, for me to suggest we date.

  Date! What the actual fuck?

  I don’t date. I screw. I screw beautiful, available, temporary lovers then move on. A week here and there, sometimes longer, but always on my terms, and always only if my lovers understand my ballgame. I don’t do promises, I don’t do hearts and candles, love, promises of a future. If I date a woman, it’s because she knows how temporary and superficial it will be.

  One day, I’ll marry, someone like Saffy, except I’ll never make the mistake of falling in love with them again. The pain of Saffy’s desertion has been muted by the passage of time but it’s still there, a pressure in my solar plexus whenever I remember it. When I think of how it felt to stand in front of the church and realise that she simply wasn’t going to show. It’s a pain that only grew when, a month later, I learned she’d fallen in love with someone else. While I was preparing for our wedding, she was working out how to leave me for some new guy.

  I feel my tattoo restlessly. I am my own.

  I’d forgotten that for a while. I’d let the union my parents had pushed me into, had championed and supported, become something else in my mind, so I’d actually let myself fall in love with Saffron. So much so that I was devastated when we broke up. Devastated, humiliated, burned to a crisp.

  Never again.

  When I get married, it will be to someone who wants the title I can give her and the money at my disposal, who understands that, beyond polite companionship, I’m not offering anything more and that, beyond a need for a couple of heirs, I’m not looking for anything further.

  It makes me see my parents’ marriage through a new light. I used to think their lovelessness was kind of sad—the way they wasp their way through life. Now, I get it. It’s a practical marriage. They married because it made sense, they had their son and heir to carry on the family name and probably never touched each other again.

  Yeah, it’s a well-worn blueprint for marriage in their circles, in my circle, and I have no doubt my own will be just like it.

  But until then, for one month, I’m going to enjoy Imogen Carmichael, and I’m going to make it one of the best months of her
life. I’m going to take dating to the next level, set the bar so fucking high for the poor next guy that he has to spend the rest of his life working to make her as happy and fulfilled as I have in these four weeks.

  Why? Because I’m Nicholas Rothsmore and I’m always, without fail, the best at everything I do, and now that includes dating Imogen.

  * * *

  A box arrives the following afternoon. It’s gunmetal-grey with white cursive script embossed across the top, proclaiming the name of an exclusive Manhattan lingerie boutique. My breath immediately speeds up. I ignore Emily’s curious glance as I take it from her, moving to my desk and placing it carefully on the corner.

  ‘RSVPs are coming thick and fast,’ I say. ‘Ticket payments are way ahead of where we were at this time last year.’

  But, curious or not, Emily is all professionalism. She consults her clipboard for a moment. ‘And donations are great too. Sir Bennet Alwin has donated a guided tour of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef on his own personal submersible.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind winning that,’ I say with a smile. He’s one of the leading naturalists of our time, and the Great Barrier Reef is regrettably a dying wonder of the world.

  ‘You can bid,’ she points out.

  It’s true, there’s nothing to preclude me from entering the auction bidding, but, much like dating members, I have my own little set of rules that stands me apart from the other club members. In the past, I’ve matched donations for items that can be replicated, so the charity wins twice.