Million Dollar Devil (Million Dollar #1)(75)

She shakes her head, laughing. “Don’t worry! Lizzy doesn’t know I’m talking to you about this. Your contract with Banks is safe. I wouldn’t ever harm her, or you. But I mention this because you two need to be careful. If someone else found out . . . it could destroy Lizzy, and you, and even this contract.” She sighs as I absorb that. “I think you should talk to her about this decision. Because I know that you two have more than business on the line.”

“She’ll discourage me, and I don’t want her to.” I shove my hands into my slacks pockets.

Jeanine leans back in her chair. “James . . . Jimmy . . . let me tell you something. Lizzy has been my friend for a long, long time. We’re very close. And yet I can assure you that the way she is with you, the way she looks at you, acts a little bit jealous around you . . .” She shakes her head, her expression amazed. “I’ve never seen my friend act like this around any guy. Ever.”

I don’t know why, but my chest suddenly feels constrained. Like my jacket just shrank.

“You care about her too. You don’t need to pretend you don’t. And if I were you, I’d weigh that into my decision. Because this contract”—she waves it in the air—“is going to take you far, far away from her. And I’m not sure that’s what you want. And I can definitely tell you for certain that’s not what she’ll want.”

I eye her quietly as I pick up the contract. “Thanks for that.” I pluck the contract from her hands, fold it, and tuck it into my back pocket. “I will decline.”

I walk out of there and dial the number on the card Kim gave me, asking where I can meet her. I figure it’s polite to decline in person, considering I’m turning down $30 million. And Lizzy’s taught me to be a better man. While Jimmy might have texted and said, No thanks—hasta la vista! James knows better. I know better.



I meet Kim at a nearby hotel. I asked to meet her somewhere else, but she said it was this or nothing at all. So whatever. This will be the last time I have to see her anyway. Now she’s sitting across a fancy European-like settee from me, crossing her legs slowly from one to the other. She offered wine, but I asked for coffee instead. She’s finishing her glass, listening to my decision.

“You’re saying . . . you decline?”

“Respectfully. Yeah.” I nod my head and shove the contract down at the table and push it closer to her side.

She glances at the contract and laughs, raising her eyes to meet mine with a gleam of anger there and something else.

“You can’t. You can’t decline, James.”

“I just did.”

“Oh, James,” she laughs, pushing the contract back with two manicured fingernails in my direction. “You want out of there. Don’t deny it. You and Lizzy’s relationship is complicated, and she’ll never give you what I can . . .”

She starts to stand, and so do I.

“I . . .” I was about to say “ain’t interested” but swiftly correct myself. “I’m not interested.”

She laughs and comes around the coffee table. “Oh, come now. You don’t have to pretend with me, Jimmy. You can say ain’t.” She continues winding slowly around the table. “You said it all the time the other night, and I find it to be quite sexy. Along with those other little secrets, especially that big LA secret. And about where Lizzy found you. Big boy.”

I freeze as she stops before me and leans forward, batting her eyelashes seductively at me.

“You think you’re not good enough for her. Oh yes, I deduced as much when you let it out as a reason for rejecting me. It’s her you want, but you don’t think you’re deserving. Even after LA, when you were so close you were pretty sure ‘I ended where she started and vice versa.’ See? I remember quite clearly.”

I’m frozen, my mind spinning as I register what she’s saying.

I let that secret out too?

To Lizzy’s competition?

What the fuck was I THINKING?!

Drinking?!

Doing?!

“What are you talking about?” I say as she curves her arms around my neck. I wrinkle my brow, racking my fuzzy brain for the shit I said that night as I tried to politely but firmly pry myself out of her grip. “I’m sorry. I’m not following.”

She straightens as I step back. Flips her hair again as she comes forward once more. “Well, of course you’re not following. You didn’t really realize what you were saying. But I could read between the lines, noticed your hopeless devotion to Lizzy, which is cute but not happening. Because if you think you two stand a chance, Jimmy . . . I know a way that things may fall apart.”

I cross my arms, stunned by what I’m hearing. “Go on. I’m listening.”

“If it somehow got out just who you are? The sewer you slithered from?” She smiles. “That Lizzy has been lying . . . to the world. To her father. A man like that, taken for a fool? How do you think that would go? I bet if the truth of you got out, you’d destroy Lizzy. You’d destroy Banks Limited, and you’d probably destroy any chance of this new contract, too, since there’s a clause in here that says that as the face of their line, you’ll need to keep a squeaky-clean image. So my ass is on the line, too, champ. This secret can stay just between us . . . where it is. It’s more . . . intimate this way. Don’t you think? Nobody else needs to know, Jimmy.”