All That He Demands (The Billionaire's Seduction Part 3)

I stood in the parking garage with all my belongings in a cardboard filing box.

I looked around in confusion and shock, trying to process what had just happened.

Then I burst into tears.

That
had not gone well.

My entire life had cratered in just three short days. Less than that, even: sixty hours since I’d first met him, I was a sobbing mess.

Sure, I’d been places I’d only seen on E! Channel red carpet premieres. I’d rubbed elbows with people from the covers of
Rolling Stone
and
Vanity Fair.
I’d had experiences right out of
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
…

…and I’d felt things I had only read about before in romance novels.

And for what?

So I could stand in a parking garage with a cardboard box in my arms, tears running down my cheeks.

I should have never gotten in that damn limo.

All that came later, though.

At the moment, I was in a luxurious penthouse hotel room, in the most exclusive hotel in Los Angeles…

…in the middle of a full-on freakout.

I’d met him at my job, where I was a lowly secretary.

Connor Brooks.

Tall, dark, handsome, charming… a sculpted Adonis.

He’d seduced me.

Well, I mean, I was a willing participant from the get-go. Looking like he did, with his playful grin and occasionally infuriating cockiness, he didn’t have to try too hard.

We’d had mind-blowing sex in the boardroom of my company. After hours, of course – I’m not
that
stupid. It was, however, a room I wasn’t even
supposed
to enter,
ever,
much less have sex on their super-posh carpet.

Then he’d asked me to run away with him, to ignore work and my obligations and everything I was supposed to do, just so I could spend the rest of the evening – and maybe the weekend – with him.

We’d wound up at the Dubai Hotel in West Hollywood, courtesy of his Bentley limo and his badass bodyguard/chauffeur.

We’d had an amazing dinner in the penthouse, during which time I succumbed to the little voices in my head telling me,
He’s rich, he does this with every woman he meets, you’re nothing special, you’re an IDIOT.

He seemed to guess what was going on, and he proposed a sort of hybrid game of strip poker and ‘Truth or Dare.’

He mostly asked me to take off my clothes and do naughty things to him; I mostly asked him questions.

That was how I found out he’d slept with a lot of women.

A
lot
of women.

Which made me feel nauseated and insecure.

But it was also how I’d found out that I was the first woman he’d slept with in eight months… which made me feel a whole lot better. (A ‘whole lot better,’ as in I slept with him again. And oh. My. GOD am I glad I did.)

It was also how I found out his name wasn’t really Connor Brooks.

It was Connor Templeton.

As in the Templeton family, one of the richest families in America.

I’d just unknowingly had scorchingly hot sex – twice – with one of the wealthiest men in the world.

Commence freakout.

I was pacing back and forth, back and forth, doing this thing with my hands that I do when I flip out: I flap them frantically, like I painted the nails and I’m trying to dry them superfast.

And I was trying really hard to
breathe.

It was sort of working.

The breathing part, I mean.

Sort of.

“Uh… Lily… are you okay?” Connor asked.

He was lying on the bed, leaned back against the pillows, the muscles on his perfect body etched by the shadows. His crystal blue eyes followed me as I paced in a loop from one side of the room to the other.

He was grinning, too, like he found all of this very amusing.

Like I said: he could be infuriating sometimes.

“No!” I cried out.

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re… ohmygod… you’re not… you’re not who you said you were!”

He shrugged and settled nonchalantly back into the pillows. “Sure I am.”

Then he took a sip of wine and popped a grape into his mouth like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“You don’t even care!” I said as I fought down a rising tide of hysteria.

“Sure I care.”

“You don’t look like you care!”

“Well, frankly, I’m kind of relieved.”

“Relieved about what?!”

“That you’re acting so freaked out.”

That
stopped me in my tracks. “Why?!”

“All the other women I’ve been with knew my last name before they slept with me. And usually, at some point, they want to go shopping. Four hours, four days… depends on the woman, but at some point, most want to go shopping. Whether I go along or not is pretty much immaterial, as long as they have my credit card.”

“Well I do NOT want to go SHOPPING!” I snapped.

“I can see that,” he grinned. “Which is why I’m relieved – because now I’m
positive
you’re not like them.”

I started pacing again, but slower now. That last little bit about how I wasn’t like other women was oddly comforting.

Connor gestured towards me with his glass. “As much as I’m enjoying the show, I think you should come over here and we should talk.”

I looked down and realized I was totally naked.

Which, you know, shouldn’t have taken me by surprise, seeing as we’d just finished having sex about ten minutes before, and spent the rest of the time lounging around in the nude.

But having your world yanked out from under you like a cheap rug on a hardwood floor makes you forget things like
Hey, I don’t have any clothes on as I parade around naked in front of Mr. Perfect!

Mr. BILLIONAIRE Perfect!

Flapping my hands and probably jiggling stuff I don’t want to be jiggling right now!

I stopped mid-step, gave a little shriek, and covered myself with my arms.

“Lily… come here,” he said softly but firmly, and patted the bed next to him.

I hesitated.

“Lily…
come HERE,
” he growled with that ultra-sexy voice of his, in a tone of voice that refused to be denied.

I timidly padded over to the bed and sat down beside him… though several feet away. I was closer to his feet than the spot where he’d patted.

And I sat with my back to him, like I was afraid to face him.

Because I was.

But I could still feel his eyes on my shoulders as I clasped my arms around my naked body, trying to protect myself.

“What’s going on here?” he asked.

I looked over my shoulder at him. He’d cocked his head slightly and was staring at me with a quizzical look.

“I… you… I don’t…” I tried, and then I just gave up.

“Why are you freaking out?”

“Because you’re not who you said you are!”

“I’m Connor. That’s it. My last name doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t matter when it’s ‘Lily Ross’! It
does
when it’s – it’s – Kennedy, or Rockefeller, or Templeton!” I spluttered.

“
Why
does it matter?”

That stopped me.

It
shouldn’t
have mattered. He was the same man who’d made love to me fifteen minutes ago… his name shouldn’t have changed anything.

But it did.

Not because of him… but because of me.

“I’m not… I’m not…” I whispered.

“What?!”

His eyes were so soft as they peered into mine – but probing, as though I was some unfathomable mystery, and he wanted more than anything to know what the hell I was thinking.

I could feel my lower lip trembling as I whispered, “Why were you even interested in me?”

His forehead frowned, but his mouth grinned, like I’d said the most endearingly stupid thing he’d ever heard.

“Because you were beautiful.”

My body flooded with warmth, and I relaxed the death grip I had on myself as I hugged my arms to my chest.

But as much as that answer made my heart skip a beat, it wasn’t enough.

“There are lots of other women more beautiful than me,” I murmured.

The smile faded to a look of concern.

Despite my freakout, I couldn’t help but longingly watch those muscular arms, that magnificent chest, the washboard abs, the powerful thighs, the… um… the very,
very
nice naughty bits between the thighs as he scooted across the bed towards me.

He raised one hand to my face and brushed a curl of hair – still damp from our frenzied lovemaking – away from my forehead and behind my ear.

His eyes locked into mine, and I felt like I was drowning in them.

“Not to me, there aren’t,” he whispered.

It was a line. I
knew
it was a line. I’m not a supermodel, I’m not a Victoria’s Secret Angel, I’m not even a former high school cheerleader. I may be cute, but I’m not one of the most beautiful women in the 90028 area code, much less Los Angeles. Hell, I’m not even one of the most beautiful women on my
block.

But it was what I wanted to hear.

What I
needed
to hear.

He pulled closer to me, and I could feel the heat radiating off his body, warming my skin like the sun.

“Do you want to know why else I wanted you?” he asked, his eyes hypnotizing me.

“Why?” I whispered.

“Because you were funny. Because you had backbone. Because you were smart. Because you wouldn’t take any crap from me, even though I knew you wanted to kiss me from the moment I saw you.”

I blushed. “Not the
first
minute… exactly…”

It was a lie, and he knew it.

He grinned. “Okay, the second minute, then.”

“Maybe the second,” I relented.

He laughed, and then he got serious again. “All of that, and because you gave as good as you got. I gave you shit, and you wouldn’t take any of it. You stood up for yourself. Because you’re your own woman – even if you don’t exactly know where you fit in yet… even if you’re still looking for a place to belong. Because I could see so much in you… so much talent, so much potential, so much
power,
and you didn’t even know it was there. Because it killed me to see a woman as wonderful as you not know how incredibly special she was.
That’s
why I wanted you – not just because I wanted you naked, in my arms, and to hear you moan when I made you come… but because I wanted to make you
see,
just for one moment, what
I
saw.”

Everything he was saying to me, it made me want to cry, and to laugh a little.

It made my heart soar.

And broke it a little, too.

Nobody had told me I was special like that, never.

Nobody had ever made me
feel
I was special like that, either.

And then, when he got to the
I wanted you naked, in my arms, and to hear you moan when I made you come
…

Oh.

My.

God.

I wanted him so badly again, I ached.

“Do you know why else I wanted you?” he whispered, in a deep, seductive voice, as his fingers caressed my hair and set my heart pounding.

“…why?” I whispered back.

“Because you’re
real.
”

I frowned a tiny bit… and then dropped my eyes down to my chest.