The Billionaire Game(18)
Asher stood quickly, taking my arm and guiding me out to the balcony. “Of course. Is there a problem? Do you need me to go take the piss out of your brother again?”
“Ha, no. Actually, I just—” I pulled my arm away with an apologetic grimace; I didn’t want to seem rude, but it was suddenly hard to concentrate on what he was saying when he was touching me. I could feel the heat of his hands through my sleeve. “I just wanted to say thank you, and sorry. I don’t usually go around lie-bragging about how great I am, but my brother was being King of the Dickwads and I guess he pushed one button too many.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Asher said with a laugh, lounging back against one of the balcony’s columns. “I have five older siblings. I know what it’s like to always be in competition. My oldest brother—he was the golden child for as long as I can remember.”
“Bet you don’t have that problem anymore, though,” I said, matching his posture and trying not to let my breath catch at the way the top two pearl buttons of his shirt were undone, exposing smooth, deeply tanned skin. “A few billionaire dollars has got to shut him up, right?”
Asher’s expression darkened, and I felt my heart quicken.
“You’d be surprised,” he said, and didn’t expand further.
It was just starting to get dark out, and the balcony’s torches and the colored lights of the street still left us half in shadows. We were only on the balcony of a steakhouse, less than twenty feet away from a dozen other customers, and yet the gloomy half-light made it feel…exciting. Illicit.
I wondered idly if he’d broken up with the latest blonde yet. I did need a pick-me-up, and Asher apparently wasn’t as big of a jerk as I’d thought. What would it hurt if I just took one step forward and kissed him? Gripped those firm shoulders and let him press against me, slid my hand down those tight trousers to stroke his firm cock, let him pull me into the shadows and f*ck me quick and hard and dirty up against the wall, biting his shoulders to muffle my screams as I came—
“I wasn’t lying,” he said abruptly. “When I was talking to your family. I think you have real talent, and I’d like to have that meeting tomorrow to discuss investing. If you would.”
My heart soared, and then trembled, hesitating. Did he really mean it? He seemed sincere, but what if this was a ploy to get in my pants? And worse, what if I was okay with that? I had to make sure this meeting was all business, but how could I manage it when he was so distracting? Even now, I couldn’t stop my eyes from traveling down his crisp shirt, past his belt, skimming over his—focus, Katie.
I had to take this seriously. The bank had already rejected me, my savings account wasn’t going to keep me going much longer, and Asher really believed in me, or at least said he did. What did I have to lose by listening to his proposal? He was just a man, albeit a ridiculously hot one. I could keep myself, and him, in check.
“Okay,” I said, heart hammering in anticipation, excitement, and a little bit of terror. “You’re on. Business meeting tomorrow; you bring your money, I’ll bring my vision.”
He grinned, a flash of devilish white teeth in the early evening half-light. “Agreed.”
Going into business with him would mean having to give up f*cking him against a wall, but hey, we all have to make sacrifices.
SEVEN
What do you wear to the business meeting that could change your entire life?
If I listened to my gut I’d be going in battle armor, but unfortunately Macy’s doesn’t have a chainmail section these days. So I was stuck instead staring at the entire contents of my dresser dumped out on my bed, trying to decide: the little black dress, or the purple pantsuit? The floral blouse with the blue slacks, or the blue blouse with the floral slacks? Did a tie say ‘I’m professional’ or ‘I’m trying too hard?’
At this rate, I was going to join a nudist colony before I managed to decide.
This so wasn’t me. I never worried about getting dressed up for some guy. But this wasn’t just some guy, this was some guy who could either make my dream come true or stomp it into tiny little pieces and flush them down the toilet, and he could do it with a single word: yes or no.
I finally settled on a pinstriped skirt-suit with a neckline and hemline both just long enough to be intriguing without becoming unprofessional. I packed some of my best lingerie samples in a variety of styles, fabrics, and colors into a briefcase so that I could have them on hand to illustrate a point if need be. Hopefully whatever restaurant Asher had chosen was set up so that we could have a cozy little nook; I didn’t relish the idea of arranging panties around bowls of linguini for the amusement of all the staff and other customers.
The doorbell rang, and then rang again. And again.
I pulled open a window. “Newsflash!” I yelled down at Asher, still pushing the buzzer in front of my apartment building. “The world doesn’t end if you have to wait five seconds for something!”
“But why take the chance?” he called back up.
I slammed the window back down, and hustled out of the building.
“You look lovely,” he said, immediately disarming anything rude I might have said about his doorbell-pressing practices. Which was probably good; I needed to keep my mouth in check if I was going to keep from driving away my one and only interested investor.