Serving the Billionaire (5 page)

“Bad day?” Mr. Sutton asked. The room was small enough that I could clearly hear his words.

“The worst,” the other man said. “Market’s down. Carlson did something idiotic. The usual.” He poured himself a large drink and looked over at Sassy, who was standing near the fireplace with Scarlet. “You going to make me feel better, Sassy Belle?”

She giggled and joined him on the sofa, leaning close and pushing her breasts against his arm. “You just need a drink, Mr. Hackett. That’ll make it
all
okay.”

He slid one arm around her waist and held her close. “I think I might need more than just a drink.”

I watched, a little appalled but not surprised, as Mr. Hackett teased apart the silky bow holding Sassy’s negligee closed and cupped his hand over one of her exposed breasts. She let out a breathy moan and pressed closer against him.

I’d told Mr. Sutton that I wasn’t a prude, but I was. It was my most embarrassing secret, the one that even Sadie didn’t know: I was twenty-four, and I was still a virgin.

There wasn’t any particular reason for it. I’d had a few chances here and there, drunk friends of friends at parties who got a little too friendly, but I’d never met anyone I
really
wanted to have sex with. I’d watched enough porn to know how sex worked, but there was still something vaguely scandalous about watching Sassy get groped right in front of me: the way her nipples hardened as Mr. Hackett squeezed her round breasts, and the way her legs parted as Mr. Hackett’s hands slid down between her thighs.

I was pretty sure I wanted to have sex with Mr. Sutton.

I’d sure been thinking about it enough.

I wondered if he would touch me like that, with his big fingers rubbing against the tiny scrap of satin between my legs. And if I would arch my back like that and push up against him.

The door opened beside me, and I tore my gaze away from the scene on the sofa. Two more men had entered the room: more white guys in suits. They greeted Mr. Sutton and sat down. One of them sat beside Sassy and Mr. Hackett, and started playing with Sassy’s nipples while Mr. Hackett’s fingers worked between her legs.

The other man motioned to Scarlet, who sashayed over to him and perched on one of his knees. She leaned in close and whispered something in his ear, and he chuckled and pulled her against him, hands curling around her hips.

The door opened again, and three men came in, holding briefcases. The newcomers greeted the men who were already present, and there was a series of boisterous exclamations over Sassy and Scarlet, both of whom giggled a lot and appeared to revel in the attention. Shots were poured and toasts were made. The level of whiskey in the bottle dropped dramatically, and I slipped out to get another bottle.

When I returned and set the full bottle beside Mr. Sutton, he said, “You don’t miss anything, do you?”

“I try my best, sir,” I said, eyes lowered. The short hairs on the back of his neck looked soft to the touch. I imagined the way they would bristle beneath my palm.

“Who’s this?” one of the guests asked, gesturing to me with his glass.

“Cocktail waitress,” Mr. Sutton said dismissively. “So, Nathan, you were telling me about the latest merger.”

Another man crooked two fingers at me, and I crossed to his side. He was older, his dark hair sprinkled with gray, and he looked tired. “Get me a bottle of red,” he said. “I don’t care what. Something good.”

“Of course,” I murmured, and went to speak with the bartender.

When I returned with the man’s wine, he handed me a folded bill and said, “You must be new.”

I saw no reason to deny it. “Fairly new,” I said.

“Sit down,” he told me.

I hesitated, but there was enough room on the sofa that I could sit without having to touch him, and I couldn’t see any polite way to refuse. I sat down gingerly, smoothing my skirt out of the way. I hoped he wouldn’t do anything inappropriate. I really,
really
wanted to keep this job, and pissing off one of Mr. Sutton’s guests probably wasn’t the best way to do it.

“I like a pretty face,” the man said, leaning toward me. “You look so exotic. What
are
you?”

My least favorite question. I gritted my teeth and tried to look pleasant. “My ancestry is Filipino,” I said.

“You mean from the Philippines,” the guy said.

Worse and worse. In desperation, I looked toward the couch where Carter—Mr. Sutton—was sitting. He met my gaze, cocked his head to one side, and then motioned to me with one hand.

“Excuse me, sir,” I said to the man, springing to my feet. I crossed the room and bent toward Mr. Sutton, pretending as though I was listening intently to his drink order. My heart was beating more quickly than I could account for. I was really glad he’d rescued me from that creepy guy.

“Stay away from him,” Mr. Sutton said, voice low. “Be as rude as you need to. You don’t have to make him happy. You only have to make
me
happy.”

Now my pulse was racing for a different reason. “How can I make you happy, sir?” I murmured. That was full-on Sadie, right there: not something I, the real me, would ever in a million years be able to say.

Mr. Sutton looked up at me, eyes glinting. “Do you really want to know the answer to that question?”

I wet my lips unconsciously, tongue flickering out of my mouth. Mr. Sutton’s gaze followed the motion, and I inhaled. His eyes darted back up to meet mine. There was a deep, understated heat in them that I didn’t fully comprehend. Was he angry, or aroused? Was it because of me, or because he was watching Scarlet gyrate on a man’s lap while he sucked on her nipples?

“Stay close,” Mr. Sutton said, and I nodded and straightened up. I was happy to stay beside him, and not only because the other guests made me nervous. I wanted him to look at me, to think about me, and not the naked dancers. If he touched either of them, I would probably explode from jealousy.

I stayed in the corner near Mr. Sutton for the rest of the night, leaving only when one of his guests requested a drink. Other than that, I hung back in the shadows and watched Sassy and Scarlet make the rounds. They both ended up without a stitch on them, and Scarlet looked like she had at least one (possibly faked) orgasm, but as Germaine had told me, all of the men remained fully clothed. It was oddly polite for a private sex party.

At the end of the night, after the guests had left and Sassy and Scarlet had tottered off in their heels, Mr. Sutton lingered in the room while I cleaned up empty glasses.

“You did very well tonight,” he said.

I didn’t look up from piling glasses onto a tray. “Thank you, sir,” I said.

“Regan,” he said. “Look at me.”

I couldn’t have resisted the command even if I’d wanted to—not when he spoke to me in that low, firm voice. I stopped what I was doing and turned to face him.

He looked me up and down, eyes raking my figure, and I blushed helplessly. I felt like he was undressing me with his gaze, and I was completely exposed before him, stripped bare and helpless. I wanted to throw myself at his feet and beg for mercy. From what, I wasn’t sure. From the way he was looking at me. From the way he made me feel.

Without speaking, he pulled a wad of bills from his pocket and held them out to me. I was on the other side of the room; he was going to make me walk over to him in order to take the money.

I drew in a deep breath and went to him, feeling unsteady in my shoes. Even though earlier I’d wanted nothing more than to be close to him, I was suddenly reluctant to draw too near. Like he was the sun, and he would burn me if I had the audacity to enter his orbit.

I came to a stop in front of him. He pressed the money into my hand, and with the other, tucked a wayward strand of hair behind my ear. I closed my eyes as I felt his fingers trace down the side of my neck.

“You’re flawless,” Mr. Sutton said. “I’m holding another gathering on Wednesday. Will you serve for me then?”

“Yes,” I said, without thinking.

“There’s a catch,” he said. “I want you to do it topless.”

“Y
ou’re going to do
what
?” Sadie shrieked.

“Shh,” I said, looking around nervously. The sales lady had already given me a few pointed glances. I got the feeling we weren’t her usual clientele, and we were definitely not up to snuff as far as she was concerned.

“Okay, okay,” Sadie said, and went back to flipping through the rack. “Seriously, though, you’re kidding, right?”

“Maybe,” I said. “I haven’t decided yet. It’s a lot of money, Sadie.”

“How much?” she asked.

That was Sadie: practical to the bone. She would probably prostitute herself to the president if he paid her enough money.
Girl’s gotta pay the bills
, she liked to say, and that was the only reason I hadn’t immediately told Mr. Sutton to fuck off. I was still being Sadie, at that point, and my inner Sadie had gone wide-eyed at the thought of five thousand dollars.

Five thousand. That’s what he’d told me, while I stood there and stared at him. He wanted me to wear heels and tights and a skirt and nothing else: walk around bare-breasted with a cocktail tray and entertain his companions. No touching, he’d told me. Just looking.

It was enough money to pay my rent for several months. The thought of having that amount of cash, tax-free, under the table, had stopped me in my tracks. I’d swallowed my first impulse to tell him that he’d gotten the wrong idea about what kind of girl I was. Instead, I’d told him that I would think about it.

I’d been thinking about it for the last two days: while I rode the subway, while I served customers, even while I slept. Mr. Sutton kept invading my dreams. I couldn’t lie down at night without him appearing behind my closed eyelids. He looked at me with those blue eyes and that fierce gaze that told me he’d like to see me naked. Well, I wanted to see
him
naked, so turnabout was fair play.

How bad could it be, anyway? Sassy and Scarlet would probably be there again, and nobody would look at me twice when the two of them were buck naked and writhing all over the place. Tits were nothing compared to bare, shaved pussy. It wasn’t like my breasts were much to look at, anyway: small and brown, with brown nipples—nothing like the expanses of creamy flesh that Sassy and Scarlet had to display.

“Well? How much?” Sadie asked again, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“Five thousand,” I said. The amount still sounded obscene to me. It was like Monopoly money: too much to be real.

“Holy
shit
,” Sadie said, too loudly, and the sales lady glared at us for real that time.

I let go of the skirt I was touching and said, “Why don’t we go somewhere else?”

Sadie rolled her eyes. “Fine. Coming to Barney’s was a stupid idea anyway.”

It hadn’t been
my
idea, but I wasn’t about to say that. Grateful that Sadie wasn’t going to put up more of a fuss, I led the way out of the store and into the cold November evening. I’d taken the night off, and Sadie agreed to meet me after she got off work to help me shop for some new clothes. I’d been wearing the one outfit she loaned me, washing the one blouse in my kitchen sink every night and letting it air-dry while I slept. I had cash, now: the thousand dollars Mr. Sutton had promised me, plus the extra thousand he’d given me as a tip. It was time to upgrade.

We walked down Madison Avenue and found some less ridiculously snooty places to shop. I lost count of how many stores we went in. I was still reluctant to spend much money on clothing—too many years of skirting the edge of poverty—but Sadie eventually bullied me into purchasing two wool pencil skirts, three silk blouses, and a slinky, retro-style black wiggle dress. The silk especially was expensive, but I was willing to shell out for natural fabrics because I thought they would make me look higher-class than anything synthetic. Plus, I had two thousand dollars of Mr. Sutton’s money burning a hole in my pocket.

“You look good, girl,” Sadie told me when I tried on the dress. “If you don’t buy that I’m going to beat you with my purse. Get that shit and let’s go eat some dinner. I’m starving.”

We ended up at some terrible Irish pub, sitting at the bar with my shopping bags on the floor at our feet, eating greasy appetizers and drinking beer. I felt like I hadn’t seen Sadie in about a million years, so it was really nice to have a chance to catch up.

She told me about her latest work drama and about her boyfriend’s idiot roommate’s new plan to grow weed in their bathroom. I laughed in all the right places and asked appropriate questions, but my mind was elsewhere. I couldn’t stop thinking about Mr. Sutton, and about whether I should say yes to his proposal.

I brought it up, finally, after Sadie’s stories petered out. “Do you think I should, you know. Do the serving thing?”

“Um,
yes
,” Sadie said. “Are you kidding me? Hot, rich fancy dude wants you to walk around shirtless so he can ogle you,
and
he’s going to pay you money to do it? I would be all over that in a hot second.”

I hadn’t told Sadie Mr. Sutton’s name, or anything about him other than that he was a client. She already knew where I was working, and what sort of club it was, so I didn’t think I was violating the non-disclosure agreement; but I still felt like I probably shouldn’t be talking about it with her. But I had to talk about it with
someone
. Having a billionaire offer to pay me money to show my boobs was just too insane for me to keep to myself. If I didn’t talk about it, I would go crazy.

I said, “Don’t you think it’s a little, you know. Slutty?”

“Sluttiness is a concept that men invented to oppress women’s sexuality,” Sadie said, and banged her pint glass down on the bar. “Don’t let the patriarchy get you down!”

I sighed. I agreed with her, but once she got started, she was basically impossible to stop. “Sadie...”

“Right, okay,” she said. “Not the time or the place, got it. So are you going to do it?”

I shrugged. “I guess so? It’s a lot money, but...”

“But what?” Sadie asked.

“But it’s
embarrassing
!” I said. “They’ll see me naked, all of those creepy guys—”