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THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR 207
After my impromptu round of 52 Pickup, I had to shuffle the cards all over again. As I dealt, he asked, “Remember our date in Santa Monica?”“And all the hot sex?”“I’m serious.”I looked at him askance, and decided he was.“Of course,” I smiled. “That was one of the best days of my life.”“Mine, too,” he agreed as he arranged his cards. “What did you enjoy about it the most?”I settled back in my chair and considered. “I think… that you got such a kick out of it. The fact that you got to be ‘normal.’ It was like seeing a little kid try ice cream or go to the circus for the first time. I loved that.”A look of peace and contentment filled his face… and then he looked at me quizzically. “Is this what normal people do?”“What?”“Play cards and just… talk.”“When they get shot as part of an assassination plot? I guess.”He gave me a wry look. “You know what I mean.”“Don’t you ever play cards with anybody?”“Well, yeah, but usually it’s poker at $10,000 a hand.”That took a second to pro
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR 208
I swept open the glass door of our office and cried, “Anh, you are not going to believe what that asshole did to…”I stopped in my tracks.Nobody was in.Even though the door was unlocked, nobody was inside.“Hello? Anybody here?” I called out as I checked all the smaller rooms.Nobody. Not Anh, not Susan, not Phuong – nobody.I was beginning to get scared.I whipped out my cell phone and dialed.Anh’s chirpy little voice said, “Hi, this is Anh Nguyen of Ross and Associates. Leave me a message and I’ll return it as soon as possible. Have a great day!”“Anh, this is Lily,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper as I paced up and down the main room. “Where are you? Nobody’s here, but the door to the office was open – call me as soon as you get this, okay?”I hung up and collapsed in an office chair, then swiveled around to stare out the floor-to-ceiling window at the trees.What the hell was going on?Was it Miranda?Was she targeting not only Connor, Johnny, and Sebastian, but my best
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR 209
He looked down at the floor. He wouldn’t – or couldn’t – look at me as he started.“Everything that happened two months ago… I handled that really badly.”I swallowed, hard. “Well… I could have handled it better, too… I guess…”He straightened up and looked me in the eye. “No, you handled it fine. You drew a line in the sand and you refused to take less than you deserved. I admired you for that.”I wondered if he knew where my advice had come from, but I decided now wasn’t the time to ask.What I did ask was what I’d been dying to know all that time:“Why didn’t you call me?”He looked away and began to pace slowly, methodically. I saw him wince, and realized his broken ribs must still be hurting him.“I asked myself that a lot, too,” he said. “I guess I’m just not very good with relationships. My father, my mother… we weren’t the kind of family that…”His words petered out, the idea left hanging in the air. He stopped walking and looked me straight in the eye.“No, that’s bullshit.”
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR 210
We moved in together almost immediately, and split our time between Connor’s Manhattan penthouse and an apartment we rented in Santa Monica. Ross and Associates became bicoastal, with Anh taking over West Coast operations and me handling the East. I spend almost all my time with her whenever I’m in Los Angeles, and we Skype at least an hour every day for business, so it’s not as though I don’t see her… but I miss her. That’s the one slightly melancholy note to everything else wonderful happening in my life.Connor asked if I wanted to give up the business, but it gives me something to do – something of my own. Something I can feel proud of building.The shooter was finally identified as one Johann Wurtzel, a former special forces operative in the German military. Apparently he went to the dark side after he got out; the investigative team turned up numerous mercenary jobs he had done. They also found a week-old $100,000 deposit in a Swiss bank account. It came from a small company he
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR 211
Now it was Tuesday afternoon, and I was waiting on the roof of the skyscraper for my fiancé. I peered down from the roof, out across the canyons of glass and stone surrounding our building, and looked at the green expanse of Central Park. It was amazing to me how much my life had changed. A year ago I had been a temp working for a terrible boss, when a tall, dark, impossibly handsome stranger had come into my life and totally shaken everything up. Whisked me away to Vegas… got me embroiled in a national sex scandal… broken my heart… and then made it whole with a surprise wedding proposal.Add to that a shooting, a bunch of intrigue with his horrible, rotten, no-good, very bad family, and a psychopathic ex… and you have the last year of my life.I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.Off in the distance, I saw the helicopter. I retreated to the edge of the building and gave it plenty of room to set down on the landing pad. Even then, the wind whipped around me like a hurricane, and t
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR 212- Connor
We lay there afterwards, me on my back, Lily snuggled up to my side, both of us naked.“Now that was a hell of a homecoming,” I said.“Mmm… yeah, I liked it, too.”“You sure know how to put the ‘coming’ into ‘homecoming,’ alright.”She groaned and laughed at the same time. “Oh my God, that was such a bad joke.”“Really? I liked it.”“You would. It’s like that line you used on me in Vegas… the one about the dress and ‘becoming’ – ”“That dress looks very becoming on you,” I recited. “And if I were that dress, I’d be coming, too.”She burst into laughter. “That’s the one. You like your little jokes with the word ‘coming’ in them.”“Well, I like coming.”“Mmmm… so do I,” she purred, softly caressing my cock with one finger.“Hey now,” I warned. “You do any more of that, and we’re going again.”“Can’t do that. Dinner’s really soon.”“Then you better stop turning me on.”“Really?” she asked, acting all doe-eyed and biting her lip on purpose.“Woman,” I said, grabbing her underneath her bod
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR 213- Lily
Our little romp ran long, so the SEC prep work turned into a working dinner, with Sebastian going over his papers while Connor, Johnny, Anh, and I paid more attention to our duck confit and wine.Finally Sebastian got frustrated and slapped down his papers. “You can’t treat this so nonchalantly!”“Let’s talk about the wedding, then,” I said.“Oh God… no… please,” Connor pleaded. “Shut up!” I laughed.“We have until the wedding,” Sebastian said. “Which will be ruined by the tuberoses, but that’s another story.”“Hey!”“The SEC meeting is tomorrow, and if we don’t handle this, it could have massive repercussions, and – ”“Sebastian, chill,” Connor snapped. “Why are you going crazy over this?”“I’m not going crazy over this,” Sebastian sniffed. “It’s just a very important meeting and – ”“And you’re totally PMSing about it,” Connor said.“HEY!” both Anh and I shouted together.“Sorry,” Connor apologized. “But he is.”“Why’s it always got to be about PMS when somebody’s cranky?” I said,
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR 214
After dinner, Anh went to take a nap (that girl can not handle her alcohol, even a couple glasses of wine), and Johnny and Connor retired to the ‘dojo’ on the floor below the penthouse. Ever since the assassination attempt last year, Connor has been obsessed with my safety. He still blames himself for endangering me, which is ridiculous; Connor risked his own life to keep me safe. I think what it really is, is that he felt exposed and at the mercy of the hitman, and he never wants to feel that way again. Anyway, he’s got some kind of a macho stick up his butt about it, so he dragooned Johnny into being his Mr. Miyagi. Every night Connor’s in Manhattan, he makes Johnny teach him a bunch of ninjutsu and Special Forces stuff. I’m not kidding. We’re talking hand-to-hand combat, guns, knives. There’s a private, sound-proofed gun range two floors down where they shoot pistols and assault rifles. In the Olympic-sized pool next to the gun range, Connor got certified in scuba. Just in case.
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