Shopping for a Billionaire's Wife (3 page)

“I’m really sorry,” I whisper.

“Shannon,” he says, his voice low and suggestive. “You don’t have to apologize for groping me. Ever.”  

As he starts to say more, the pilot cuts in. Sprinkled in between unintelligible words I hear enough. The FAA has been called off. Mom’s report has been verified to be untrue.

I pat his leg, feeling him swell underneath.

As we land, I realize this adventure has only just begun.

Chapter Two

We are at a private airport I’ve never seen before. The sky is that glorious shade of blue that seems to deepen as you look up, with a smattering of clouds that draw the eye to them. It’s a perfect, idyllic July day in Massachusetts. 

A great day for an outdoor wedding.

Declan and the helicopter pilot, whose name I never caught, exchange a few words in Russian before I rib my soon-to-be husband and whisper, “Would you please speak in English?”

“Why?”

“
Why?
”

He just stares at me with that intimidatingly blank face.

“That doesn’t work, you know,” I tell him with a pointed sneer. Or, at least, I try to sneer. I’m not so good at the sneering thing. That’s more Jessica Coffin’s area of expertise. 

He doesn’t twitch a muscle. For whatever reason, he doesn’t want me to know what he and the pilot are talking about. Fine. Fine!

But this alpha-male dominant crap—you know, the stuff I fell in love with him for—is getting on my nerves.

“Declan, please,” I concede.

No change.

The exasperated hiss that comes out of me makes my body flush with fury. “It’s our wedding day. I am supposed to be kissing you at the altar right now while the minister pronounces us husband and wife. Instead, I listened to
you
and went along with this crazy scheme to run off to Las Vegas and leave everyone—everyone!—behind.”

Side note: I know that’s not true. The decision to ditch my mother was mutual. But right now, I have zero leverage, and he’s giving me that granite look like he’s an Easter Island statue, so I have to find some kind of vulnerability in him.

I’m saving sex for the nuclear option.

His lips purse, jaw grinding, as he finally opens his mouth and says, “No one forced you into the helicopter.”

The words feel like knife blades against my heart, scraping lightly rather than plunging straight in. He’s right. His eyes fill with a kind of measured kindness, as if he understands I’m falling apart in stages.

I am. The Russian thing isn’t helping.

“Why won’t you tell me what you’re talking about with the pilot?”

“Because it’s a surprise.”

“Not a surprise that involves swallowing, I hope?” 

His sharp intake of air makes me realize what I’ve, um, hinted at.

“I meant swallowing a
ring
,” I clarify, clearing my throat.

Emotion finally flickers in his face.

It’s disappointment.

He can play this immutable look game for as long as he wants. Two years ago, it worked. I’ve lived with this man for nearly a year. I know him intimately now. He knows me thoroughly (though, perhaps, not as intimately as his mother’s engagement ring knows me, but let’s not go there...).

I leave.

Turning away from him and bumbling out of the helicopter in my tartan-and-white monstrosity of a gown isn’t easy, but I accomplish the near-impossible and disembark without assistance. I’m a good twenty feet toward a metal-sided building at this tiny airport before he grips my elbow.

“Shannon, stop.”

I keep walking.

“Shannon, I said
stop
.” His voice is an emotionless growl. He sounds like a CIA agent barking orders.

The catcalls continue, the voices more numerous.

“Why?” I continue, giving him a taste of his own medicine. I can be cool and composed. I can show no more emotion than a cucumber. I can be neutral and blank, slack and granite, a sophisticated ice queen who gives nothing away.

He stands behind me, a wall of heat pressing against my back, hands on my elbows and stopping me from proceeding. Declan leans down over my shoulder, his lips brushing against my ear, and says:

“Because part of the back of your dress is tucked into your tartan thong.”

Oh, crap.

Someone in the distance shouts a single word in Russian. I hear hoots and hollers.

Declan tenses, his fingers finding the piece of offending material that twists in my garters and G-string. Unexpectedly, he makes no suggestive moves, his fingertips nimble and purposeful, focused only on getting me into a state of full dress again.

More Russian is shouted. Shrill whistles and come-ons.

Declan practically pulses with white-hot anger.

Maybe his fluency isn’t so great to possess all the time. Especially when a bunch of Russian pilots are ogling your not-quite-wife. 

“You’re not going to punch the pilot this time, are you?” I demand as I turn around, fluffing out my skirts. My legs do feel really warm suddenly. I wonder just how much skin everyone got to see. 

“When have I ever punched a pilot?” he asks, his voice filled with incredulity.

Hah. Gotcha. Made him
feel
.

“You punched the scamming photographer at the mall when you played Santa. The Russian mobster guy.”

“He tried to pull a gun on me!”

I have to give him that.

“What did the helicopter pilot
say
?” I ask. 

Declan gives me a dark look, his hands on my hips, encircling my waist as if doing a quality assurance check rather than displaying affection.

“You don’t want to know.”

I burst into tears.

“Oh, crap,” he mutters, pulling me to him. 

“That’s my line,” I choke out.

His crotch buzzes again.

“This is not going as planned,” he murmurs in my ear. 

“You had a
plan
for this? We just invented the idea on the fly.” I sniff against his chest, the wool making me itchy, but I don’t care. His arms muffle the sounds of the world and I want to stay here forever, pretending we didn’t just create a massive mess back at the Farmington Country Club that will chase us for decades. 

Bzzzz.

Declan’s fingers shove between us, the heel of his hand digging into a spot on me that is far more sensitive than I’d have imagined it could get. I make an involuntary sound that gives him pause.

“The plane with the private bedroom better be the one that’s here,” he grouses, his breath coming out of him with a sort of angry huff that I associate with his primal possession of me. I’ve only seen it in glimpses, micro-slices of dominance that flicker when he feels a need to protect me. 

I’ve never seen Declan act like this without that trigger, though. Mostly, he behaved like this very early in our relationship, when my ex-boyfriend, Steve, was still a part of my life.

I’m musing through this as I watch him, not really paying attention to his words until they hit me. “A plane with a
bedroom
?”

He shrugs. “You want one with a jacuzzi tub? I keep trying to convince Andrew it’s worth it, especially now that—”

“Declan!” I squeal. “I’ve been on private jets with Anterdec before,” I try to explain. We’re standing on the tarmac, a gust of wind blowing my veil into my face as a small, single-engine plane takes off. “But never one with a private bedroom.” 

“We never needed one,” he says gently, pulling the lace away from my face and kissing me. Oh, his lips are so warm and soft. As his arms wrap around me, my hands splay against the fine cloth of his tuxedo jacket, palms taking in the wool weave as I move up, my fingers finding the nape of his neck and pulling him closer to me.

The whoosh of a larger jet flying over us cracks the air in two, but we ignore it. Our inner world trumps everything else, his mouth grounding me, hands calm and in control. I don’t even have to question his love. Two years together have given me more than a glimpse into Declan’s heart and soul. From the moment we met, I knew what I felt was more than a horny-porny reaction to a hot guy in a suit.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Bzzzz.

“I’m ready to throw my phone into a running jet engine,” Declan says against my mouth, the vibration of his deep voice making me shiver.

“Better than throwing in my mother,” I joke. 

His silence makes me stomach clench.

“Declan!” I say with a nudge.

He laughs, the chuckle a tactile sensation I feel through his chest. My hands are still on his neck and back, and he’s pressing his forehead against mine.

“Let’s not talk about Marie right now,” he says.

“Agreed.”

Without effort, we pivot and return to the path toward the terminal. My wedding dress has a long train, covered in silk, tartan, tulle and what feels like chain mail. Declan seems to anticipate any potential mishap I may experience, expertly shoving various pieces of fabric out of the way so I can move with freedom and grace. Who on earth thought this monstrosity of a wedding dress was a good idea for a July ceremony in Massachusetts?

Oh. Right.

She Who Must Not Be Named.

I love my mom. I do. But I don’t love what the wedding made her become.

We enter the private airport lounge, where a large, thin-screen television is bolted to the ceiling in one corner. When I was a little girl, Dad liked to bring me, Carol and Amy to the local small airport. The place had a diner in it, and we’d order French fries and strawberry milkshakes, spending an hour or two watching the planes land and take off. If we were lucky, a helicopter would come along.

Once, a really friendly pilot let us climb in his plane.

The place is nothing like
that
little airport. This is where millionaires and billionaires go to avoid the TSA.

The rich really do live different lives than the rest of us.

This lounge is all clean glass and smoky brown leather. If you told me that the same interior designer who decorated James McCormick’s office at Anterdec had done this job, I’d believe you.

It looks like Teddy Roosevelt came back from the dead and demanded his own airport.

The small bar chairs, dark brown and creased with the kind of patina and age that looks shabby on cheaper leather, but chic and old-world sophisticated among the wealthy, are filled with a smattering of men and women, most in their fifties on up.

All of the servers and bartenders are in their twenties, and not a single one has an extra ounce of fat on them. It’s like Crossfit decided to hold a bartender school.

As we walk into the lounge, every single pair of eyes swivels to take us in.

“Why are they staring at us?” I ask Declan, clutching his arm.

“Because you’re wearing a wedding dress and I look like something out of a BBC documentary?” he answers smoothly.

I look down at myself. Look over at him. Take in the kilt, the socks covering his calves, the laces on his special Scottish shoes.

“Oh.”

One of the patrons, a man who is sitting next to a woman who looks like an adventurous traveler and not a mannequin on a rich man’s arm, points to the television, then back to us.

“You two on the run?”

Declan frowns and pulls me closer to the television.

Where someone is interviewing my
mother
.

Chapter Three

“And the president just took my daughter and son-in-law away. We’re not sure why!” Mom says, eyes wild, her hairdo like something out of
The Hunger Games
. “Maybe it’s because Declan speaks Russian. Maybe he’s actually a double agent or something,” she mutters as Dad pulls her away from the camera, shaking his head. 

In the background I see Jeffrey put his fingers in his mouth, stretch it into a grimace, and stick his tongue out, crossing his eyes. Tyler is reaching for the first layer of the nine-layer cake, eating it by the handful, a slow and steady behavior that is mesmerizing to watch, much like those videos of sloths eating that you find all over YouTube. 

One of the dogs Amanda rescued from the pool is licking up every crumb Tyler misses. Then the dog starts licking Tyler’s hand, which makes him scream. Carol appears, her back turned to the camera, her butt covered with frosting. 

“Shannon! I’m coming to find you!” Mom screams into the camera as poor, helpless Daddy tries to pull her away. “I’m never going to give you up!”

I stare in stunned silence at the television. No. No way. She didn’t just— 

“Did your mother just
rickroll
you on national television?” Declan asks.

She did.

The announcer’s voice cuts in as Mom disappears from the screen. “You heard it here first, folks. The Boston wedding of the decade has become a presidential scandal as reports are pouring in from the bride’s family that the President of the United States himself landed and absconded with—”

The young reporter, who looks like he should be selling “fries with that” at a fast food counter rather than standing in front of a camera, reaches for his earpiece, frowns, blushes, and looks like he just peed his pants.

“Uh, this just in. Reports confirm that there has been no White House involvement in this wedding whatsoever. Repeat: the White House and United States federal government have played
no role
in any way, shape, or form.” The poor reporter’s eyes shift left and right, as if he thinks the Men in Black are about to drag him off. 

“But the president stole my daughter!” Mom screams in the background, a disembodied voice. “We’re coming to rescue you in Vegas, honey!”

She really does know. Great.

The screen cuts instantly to four people back in the studio, all gaping at the viewing audience. They look like every single person in this airport lounge, except these people right here are gaping at
us
. 

“Thanks, Obama,” I mumble.

I look to Declan, but Declan is alternating his attention between his smartphone and a quiet guy in one corner, who keeps looking at us, then his phone.

“We need to get out of here. Now,” Declan barks. He grabs my hand and pulls me through the lounge, toward a set of double doors that leads to the hangar. “She knows we’re going to Vegas. How in the hell did she figure that one out?”