Billionaire Romance Boxed Set (9 Book Bundle) (93 page)

“We’ve talked about this possibility.
Adoption is one choice. It’s admirable and respectable, but I’d rather
not, and she doesn’t want to, either. I’d like the child to be at least a
part of me, genetically.”

Something, I heard some strange inflection in his
voice that made me think about what he’d just said. “What about
her?” I asked.

He laughed. “She’s not interested in
children at all. I imagine this will be a boon to her, not being able to
conceive naturally. She’s fine with the idea of it, but the process
bothers her. If she could, she’d rather have someone else carry the child
to term so she didn’t have to.”

“It’s possible,” I said, shrugging. My
massage grew lighter as our conversation unfolded and my fingers eased away the
kinks in his shoulder. “There’s egg donations, and you could have
one fertilized with… with your…” I couldn’t bring myself to say
“his seed” despite the fact I was currently standing behind him
without any clothes on. It felt too… dirty? I don’t know.

“True,” he said, scrunching up his brow,
contemplating the idea. After a few seconds, he said, “I don’t know
your name. You’re the temp they hired for the day, correct?”

“Yes.” I gulped. The way he said
it, the way the words just came out, indifferent, made the whole situation
worse. He didn’t even know my name and yet he’d tossed me on his table
like it was nothing? Done all of that to me, and… No, I shouldn’t think
about that. “Jessika Fevrier.”

“Fevrier?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s French.” I spelled it out
for him, since this was a common confusion and I’d learned to do it
unthinking. “Pronounced Fev-ree-ay.” The fact that the
cleaning manager had screwed it up earlier still frustrated me.

“Yes,” he said. “French for
February.”

I frowned, but he didn’t notice. It did mean
that, but he didn’t have to make it sound so ordinary and uninteresting.

“A pleasure meeting you, Jessika.” He
reached over his head and held out his hand for me to shake. Awkwardly, I
took his hand in mine and shook it lightly. That seemed to satisfy him.

Moving from the chaise, standing, he looked me in the
eyes. I hadn’t noticed before, our initial meeting not really being a
great comparison for heights, but he was a good deal taller than me. Not
towering over me like a giant, but when he stood next to me and looked down at
me I felt smaller. Smaller but… safe? Protected? Odd, since
he’d been so angry before, but he had a certain guardian type of air about him,
too.

He moved closer, put his hands around my waist, and
brought his face almost even with mine. I wasn’t sure what I should do,
so I lifted one arm up and put it around his neck while the other just hung
there, loosely. My God, this was confusing. Were we going to… was
he going to? He looked like he might kiss me. The smell of his
cologne intoxicated me; jasmine with a hint of vanilla and a sensual, leathery
musk undertone. My mouth opened slightly, preparing for his lips to touch
mine.

“Jessika,” he said. “I’m sorry
about before. I’ll buy you a new shirt, you don’t have to worry about
that.”

“No,” I said, confused. “It’s
fine. Really.”

“I’m married and I feel like my behavior was out
of line.”

“No!” I said again. “It’s
fine. I enjoyed it, I…”

“You’re an attractive woman and I’d be lying if I
said I didn’t enjoy it, too, but that wasn’t the point. I got carried
away, and…”

Argh! I wanted to press my lips against his, kiss
him, make him want to pull me close and do it all over again, except the only
thing I managed to do was say, “If you think I deserve more punishment
then I accept that and you can do it again if you’d like.”

“Oh, Jessika.” He laughed, but there
was some undeniable twinkle in his eye. Or, I thought there was, but when
I tried to figure it out, it was gone just as quick.

And then he asked me, “I know this is sudden, but
would you consider becoming an egg donor for me and my wife? I’ll need to
discuss it with her first, but I believe she’ll accept the idea. You’ll
need to carry the child, too, but I’ll make certain you’re comfortable. I
can arrange for you to have suitable living quarters in my home for the
duration of your pregnancy.”

“There’s no need to donate,” I blurted
out. “We can just have sex…” I realized what I’d said
before I finished, and the words hung there, awkward.

He stared at me for a brief moment, stared into me,
and then he laughed again. Moving his hands away from my hips, he stepped
away and walked to his office door.

“I…” I said, trying to think of something
to say. Something witty, or sexy, or funny, or intelligent, but I
couldn’t manage any of those.

“Are you busy tomorrow?” he asked.
“Let’s arrange a lunch date. I’ll let you know what Beatrice thinks,
and you can let me know if you’ll agree, too. Consider your answer ample
repayment for the book, whether you agree or not. Those are my
conditions. I won’t accept anything else.”

And, he left.

I stood there, stunned, staring at the door to his
office. Did he just ask me out on a date? Not a real date, I guess,
but…

I scrambled to clean the rest of his office,
completely forgetting about my clothes. When I finished, I retrieved my
outfit and put it on as best I could, but the shirt was ruined. Before I
could worry about it, someone knocked on the door, opened it a crack, and
slipped a package through and onto the floor before closing the door again and
leaving.

Curious, I walked over to the package. On the
top, written in a hasty scrawl, was a note that said, “Ms. Fevrier,
courtesies of Asher Landseer.”

I opened the package. Inside was the most
beautiful silk chemise dress I’d ever seen. I held it up to get a better
look, marveling at it. It was shorter than anything I usually wore, the
skirt stopping at the middle of my thigh, but it was wonderful.

I pinched the soft, silk fabric between my fingers and
gawked at the lovely pattern colored into it; a cloudy sky on the left side,
going from collarbone to hip, with a rich, red rose blooming up towards the
right breast, and a deep green field from the waist down. A lighthearted
but fashionable piece of clothing, the sort of thing I could wear to a casual
spring ball(if I were ever invited to one). Had he really just replaced
my cheap blouse with an expensive dress? When I turned it around to look
at the back, two pieces of paper slipped out of the sleeve and fell to the
ground.

One was a receipt, with a price I thought couldn’t
possibly be right. It was a beautiful dress, but was it really that
pricey?

The other was a personal note from Asher Landseer:
“If you don’t like the dress, feel free to return it. I’ll see you
tomorrow at noon. Meet me at The Simple Path. Reservations are
under Asher Landseer. Don’t be late.”

His Absolute
Requirements

*

I didn’t know what to wear for my meet up with
Asher. He’d called it a date(or a lunch date to be specific), but I had a
hard time thinking of it as such. That’s what the upper class called
these things, wasn’t it? A lunch date wasn’t anything more than a
business meeting at a restaurant for someone like Asher Landseer.

He’d made reservations at The Simple Path, one of the
fancier Japanese restaurants in the city. I’d never been, though I’d
always wanted to go. The food was supposed to be amazing, with the caveat
that everything on the menu had an equally amazing price tag. I could
afford it on occasion, if I really wanted, but it definitely wasn’t an everyday
affair. And lunch at The Simple Path meant I’d need to put off saving for
a weekend vacation or some similar extravagance, so I’d never bothered.
An hour of lunch, or a trip to Maine’s beaches for a couple of days?

My God, I really wanted to go, though. I
absolutely loved Japanese food. Sushi, sashimi, pork and chicken katsu,
and even the occasional vegetable tempura. I dabbled in other entrees,
but stuck with the basics most times. There was something utterly divine
about a fried piece of sweet potato. It was indescribably amazing.

I wasted precious minutes contemplating food options,
and wondering how exactly The Simple Path prepared them differently compared to
my typical jaunts to Yi’s Hibachi Grill & Buffet. I couldn’t leave
Asher waiting, couldn’t leave him sitting in the restaurant wondering if I’d
show. Sure, he’d been a jerk to me the other day, had done some
outrageous things, but…

I imagined it all over again. His hand grabbing
me, my heart beating fast, his fingertips pressed into my wrist and able to
feel each pulse of my veins. Him gently tossing me on his private meeting
room table and stripping me down, throwing my clothes onto the floor,
scattering them around like the pages of his antique book that I’d accidentally
destroyed. And my subsequent arousal at all this. How could I find
it attractive? I had no idea, and still couldn’t fathom it, but Asher had
removed my distraction rather quickly, now hadn’t he? With his fingers,
he’d…

Except a temporary solution didn’t solve
everything. After, when I finished cleaning his office in only my
pantyhose, I’d wanted him to want me, to take me again, but this time with
something more than his fingers. And…

He barely spared me a glance. Barely wanted to
notice I was cleaning or that I was in his office.

Then, later, why did he ask me what he’d asked?
I knew the answer, understood his logic. His wife was infertile and
disliked the idea of having children in the first place. Most likely any
kids they had together would grow up under the watch of a live-in nanny as
opposed to having real parents. That’s how rich families did things,
right? I honestly didn’t know, but it sounded correct.

Asher, though, he sounded like he wanted
children. He’d even asked me if I would consider being an egg donor for
his wife. Except she wouldn’t want to carry any child to term, so I’d
need to do that, too. Was that really donating, then? There were
obviously ways to do something like that, but the situation seemed so far out
there and strange that I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

What would I say? What was my answer? I’d
put off thinking about it, unsure how to respond to him, except I needed to
meet with him for lunch in…

Crap! Too much daydreaming, Jessika, I told
myself. With nothing proper to wear to a classy place like The Simple
Path, I snatched the chemise dress Asher gave me yesterday and put it on.
Perhaps it was a little more casual than their typical patron’s garb, but it
was the best I owned at the moment.

The dress was patterned silk, with a picture of a
cloudy sky on the topmost part, and a grassy green field from the waist down,
ending at the middle of my thighs where the skirt stopped. A beautiful,
vibrant red rose bloomed from the grass and up towards the sky at my right
breast. It was eye-catching and amazing. I hoped, for
whatever reason, Asher found it the same.

There
had
to be a reason he asked me on a lunch
date, right? Something more than needing to hear my answer to his
question about bearing a child for him and his wife. The way he talked,
it sounded like they had a rocky relationship. But could I be content in
acting like some mistress to him, if that was the case? He hadn’t even
offered a situation like that. I couldn’t accept it, anyways. I had
standards and morals. If he tried to convince me of it, I’d have to turn
him down. Except, maybe if…

I shouldn’t think these things, and I knew it, but it
was hard not to. I was always a dreamer at heart, loving books and
becoming lost in them. That’s what led me to this in the first
place. My terrible choice of college degree brought me to a temp agency
for work, which resulted in me cleaning
the
Asher Landseer’s office,
and…

He liked literature, too, though. And maybe…?

Dammit! If I’d left five minutes ago, I might
arrive on time. “Might” being the key word. Now I was
definitely going to be late, and I still needed to finish my makeup. Why
was I wearing sexy makeup to a casual lunch date?

I couldn’t understand it, myself.

…

Asher stood in front of the mirror, checking himself
over. He had an appropriately casual suit; dark blue with a silvery
undershirt. A matching blue tie collared him and kept him from putting on
properly casual airs, so he slipped it off and tossed it to the floor.

He wondered, really wondered, why he was going through
with this. Why had he asked Jessika to father his children? Not
that he required her to do much more than be a donator for his infertile wife,
but to help sweeten the deal with Beatrice he’d asked if Jessika might be
willing to carry the child to term, too.

And her answer? Well, why didn’t they just have
sex! She said it more shyly than that, a certain sense of demurity in her
manner, but the audacity of it. Or, what others might think as audacious,
at least. Asher had thought quite long and hard about her proposal.

Really, why had he done what he did yesterday?
Yes, he was upset about her destroying his book. Granted, he knew it
wasn’t really her fault, and an antiquarian might be able to restore the book
to its previous, undestroyed appearance. It wasn’t even about the book,
though. He loved the book, appreciated
Dante’s Inferno
and Dante’s
intent behind writing a work of that nature, but…

There were more books in the world. More copies
of Dante’s Inferno, too. Probably even a copy exactly like the one she destroyed.
It was expensive, but he could afford it.

He’d been on end, though. Nerve-wracked.
Beatrice’s trip to the doctors kept him anxious. He knew what she wanted
out of it, and she’d gotten exactly that, but what did he want? He wanted
a family, children, a normal household, somehow, amidst his wealth and
otherwise abnormal life.

Jessika was normal, in a way, but then again, she
wasn’t. Asher recognized it in her immediately. He had a flair,
some otherworldly knack, for understanding intelligence, and Jessika definitely
had what he wanted. Women cared so little for reading these days, or so
it seemed. Perhaps he only based his judgments off of Beatrice and her
callous disregard for anything bookish. They had a magnificent library at
home, with every sort of book imaginable, and yet she rarely bothered to go in
there.

And, truth be told, she rarely bothered to remain at
home, either. How many years had it been now since they’d started trying
for a child? Only one, but it seemed far longer. They’d tried,
seriously tried, only a few times during that year, too. He’d almost
chalked it up to unavailability, but in some scheme of hers she’d suggested a
visit to the doctors.

He understood the reason immediately. She didn’t
want children, but felt obligated as his wife. He could respect
that. With this, with medical confirmation, she’d absolved herself of
those marital requirements, though. But then, he thought, what else was
there?

He’d met her through an arrangement between his mother
and his mother’s associate. He and Beatrice hit it off fairly well from
the start, but she always kept herself reserved. At first he thought it
was a privacy issue, where she was guarded and cautious, but after four years
of marriage he’d learned that was just how she was.

Not with everyone, though. With most, and with
Asher, but she had acquaintances who she acted more sociable around.
More… herself? Asher wondered sometimes if he actually knew her.
He knew things about her, knew what she liked and disliked, and other tidbits
of information that lovers knew, but he didn’t know if he really knew Beatrice.

And he absolutely knew he didn’t know Jessika.
Jessika seemed more… real… though? He chalked it up to a
fascination. In all likelihood, she was more attracted to his money than
him, and he understood that. Nothing wrong with it, per se, since he
realized that was the life he lived. It was difficult to find people who
appreciated the smaller things in life as opposed to those who desired a higher
monetary existence.

Silly for him, the CEO of a multi-billion dollar
enterprise, to think this way, but he didn’t care. That was how everyone
rich thought, wasn’t it? Woe is me, everyone only wants me for my money.

Suck it up, Asher, he told himself. No one cares
about your ridiculous billionaire problems.

He fetched his cufflinks from a drawer in the top of
his dresser and pinned them into the cuffs of his silver dress shirt.
Perfect. He had just enough time to arrive early for his and Jessika’s
lunch date at The Simple Path.

…

I scrambled out of the taxi after tossing the driver a
twenty. I was about to rush off, to hurry towards The Simple Path and
apologize profusely to Asher for being late, but some part of me held
off. I only owed the driver eight dollars, and a twelve dollar tip seemed
excessive. His wide smile turned into a miserly scowl as he doled out my
change. To be fair, I handed him a few bills back, but he still looked
annoyed at being shortchanged from his previous generous tip.

Oh well, I thought, can’t please everyone,
right? I was on a roll with that today and it seemed like I wasn’t going
to please anyone, though. I reached into my purse and checked my cell
phone for the time. Nine minutes late for my noontime lunch date with
Asher.

I hurried into The Simple Path. A man greeted me
at the door, stopping me with a friendly smile and a hasty shuffle to block my
way inside. I reminded myself this wasn’t a typical restaurant. I
couldn’t just look through the tables and head over to my friends, moving past
the front door man with hardly a word.

He kept up that friendly smile while talking to
me. “May I help you, miss? Do you have reservations?”

I nodded fast. “I’m here for
Asher?” I wasn’t sure how this was supposed to go, but that seemed
like enough information.

“Asher?” he asked. Turning to a ledger
on his podium, he gave it a cursory glance. “Can you be more
specific?”

Really now? Asher wasn’t the most common of
names. If he had more than one on his list, I’d be surprised.
“Asher Landseer?” I offered.

The man nodded and looked up from his listings.
“Alright. Will you wait here a moment?”

I nodded. Yes, of course, where else would I
go? He called someone else over and whispered into the other man’s
ear. They both gave me a strange look. Why? I didn’t
know. Maybe this was what they did in fancy restaurants? Part of
the appeal? It really didn’t strike me as all that appealing, but who was
I to judge against tradition.

When the other man walked off, leaving me alone with
the man at the front desk, it suddenly dawned on me. Yes, Asher was here,
and I knew this, but they didn’t know he’d invited me. For all they knew,
I was some deranged stalker, or a seductive assassin, or who knew what
else. Paparazzi? I had no camera, except… no, I had my cell
phone, so I technically did have something I could take discrete pictures with.

The idea amused me. I was Jessika Fevrier,
essentially no one of particular importance. I mean, I thought I was
important, but compared to someone like Asher, to these people I was
nothing. But they didn’t know that, and so I had my current status
upgraded to a suspect for possible trouble. I amused myself with those
thoughts while I waited for the other man to return.

I expected this all to be taken care of in short
order, and it was, except…

Along with the other man who’d ostensibly gone to
question after my authenticity, Asher returned, too. He gave me a bright,
brilliant smile, then patted the man behind the ledger desk on the shoulder.

“This is my guest for the afternoon,” he
told the man. “The lady, Jessika Fevrier. Sorry for the
confusion. I should have waited for her before seating myself, but it
must have skipped my mind.”

“Oh, Mr. Landseer,” the man said.
“No, no. My apologies. I didn’t recognize your…?”
He stumbled, clearly thinking I must be someone of importance that he’d failed
to notice.