The Billionaire Dating Game: A Romance Novel (4 page)

“Reason number four I haven’t found Mr. Right: I’m too busy saving lives.”

“You are a super hero in this office. Even if Clarence doesn’t respect that.”

“What’s to respect? I make stupid graphics about fashion trends and write articles that make women feel bad about themselves,” I complained.

I felt like slumping to the floor and giving up my super hero duties right then. It was an hour after I was supposed to be home, and I wasn’t a single word closer to finishing this article.

“Your stupid graphics are
so much better
than anybody else’s stupid graphics,” she said, with a look of sincere optimism that made me want to cry.

“Tell me why I work here again?”

“Because,” Jessica said, turning away from the doorway, “if I didn’t have you to bitch to, I would have killed myself a long time ago.”

“Ah,” I said. I blinked hard.
“Right
.”

My phone rang. I looked at it and then wished I hadn’t.

“It’s Clarence,” I said.

“Don’t answer it. You’re busy writing an article, and he’s going to call you in to sharpen all of his pencils. Or reorganize the magazine awards on his wall. Or something.”

“I have to answer it!”

“Reason number five you haven’t found Mr. Right,” Jess said, as I picked up the phone. “You pretend to be independent, and then you let guys step all over you.”

“I don’t—hello? Yes?” I gritted my teeth. “Yes, I’ll be right there.”

“
Told you
,” Jessica mouthed to me. I threw a gummi bear at her head, and she caught it expertly in her mouth. “Thanks for the candy.”

“Take them all!” I called back to her, as I headed down the hall to Clarence’s office and certain doom.

“But I hate reality TV!”

“Doesn’t matter.” Clarence clicked his pen shut, a sure sign that the conversation was done. “We need a replacement column and there’s nobody else who can write, edit, and proof within the day. This one is yours, Lisa.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. I put my clipboard on my knee and balanced my coffee cup on top of it. “Does it
have
to be an interview with some reality TV host?”

“It’s not just
some reality TV host,
Lisa. It’s Piers Letocci.”

“Who the hell is Piers Letocci?”

“Oh my gosh!” Jessica exclaimed, poking her head through the door of Clarence’s office. “Are you meeting with
Piers Letocci
?”

“No
,” I said, at the same time Clarence said
“Yes
.”

“Why don’t you give Jessica the interview?” I asked Clarence. Jessica perked up her ears, but he was already shaking his head.

“No. Jessica’s on the fashion show in Midtown tomorrow.”

“Sorry, Jess,” I said, leaning back over my chair. “I tried.”

“Ooh, you’ll have so much fun!” she said. “Get me his autograph, will you?”

“Sure,” I said. When she stepped away, I turned back to Clarence. “No, I won’t. Because I’m not doing this interview.”

“What else do you want me to put in the entertainment section?”

“Thanks for asking. I have a great idea, actually,” I said, flipping through my clipboard. “A couple of great ideas.”

Clarence leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes with his fists.

“Why did I ask?”

“There’s a girl who’s been fighting in Syria for—”

“No.”

“No what? You haven’t even heard the pitch.”

“Syria? Lisa, really? It’s an entertainment column.”

“Okay,” I said, flipping another two pages. “Okay. How’s this? Ellen Degeneres is hosting a charity concert in Central Park to help prevent teen suicide—”

“No.”

“—even if the band playing is
Talismen
?”

Clarence squinted at me suspiciously.

“Can you get an interview with them?”

I took a sip of coffee and realized that I couldn’t get away with a lie.

“Well, no,” I admitted. “But the head of the charity—”

“No. No, no, no. Why am I even listening to you? We’re running with this. It’s a new reality TV show and we
finally
got Piers Letocci to agree to an interview with
Moi
.”

“Finally!” I let the sarcasm drip off my tongue. “I’ve been waiting for eons for an opportunity like this.”

“Don’t fuck this up, Lisa. Piers Letocci is the face of America.”

“Isn’t he British?” I frowned, tapping my pen on the clipboard.

“That’s why Americans love him. America loves British guys.”

I sighed. I wasn’t getting out of this. One interview wouldn’t kill me, even it was with some airhead reality TV host. I lifted the coffee mug to my lips and pretended to deliberate.

“Fine. You owe me,” I said to Clarence, for what seemed like the millionth time.

“Didn’t you hear what Jessica said? You’re going to have
so much fun
.”

“Kill me now.”

Clarence ignored me.

“Here’s the address. He’ll be ready for you at three o’clock.”

“Three o’clock
tomorrow
? That gives me, what? An hour to write the dang article before we go to press? Maybe an hour and a half?!”

“I know it’s short notice. That’s why I chose you. You can think quickly. And you write well under pressure.”

“Don’t try to flatter me, Clarence,” I grumbled.

“Okay. You should probably wear a different outfit when you head downtown tomorrow.”

“Why? What’s wrong with this outfit?” I looked down at my black pants suit, which was my only clean suit for the week.

Well, kind of clean. My white blouse had a little bit of a Pop Tart stain on it. I licked my thumb and rubbed at it fiercely.
Mmm, strawberry.
“See? All good.”

Clarence raised both hands in the air in surrender.

“Just get me the column by five,” he said.

I sighed.

“Photographer?”

“We’ll pull a stock photo of him from our files.”

“Oh? We have photos of him?”

“We have several thousand photos of him, yes, Lisa. He’s kind of a big deal. Can you treat this assignment seriously?”

I rolled my eyes.

“What’s the name of the show?”

“
The Billionaire Dating Game
.”

I didn’t spit out my coffee, but I came close.

“You’re not serious.”

“Get down there, Lisa. Get me a great interview with Piers Letocci. And maybe I’ll be able to fit your Syria thing in next month if we have the room.”

“Sure,” I said, pressing my lips together. “Great. Will do.”

The Billionaire Dating Game
, I muttered under my breath as I walked away from Clarence’s office.
This
is what ten years of working in journalism gets me.
The Freaking Billionaire Dating Game.

Chapter Five

The next day, I headed downtown to the building where they were having the first round of auditions for
The Billionaire Dating Game
. I’d spent the whole morning writing up my article about finding Mr. Right, so I hadn’t had time to do much research on Piers Letocci. I clutched Clarence’s list of mandatory questions in one hand and a large double mocha latte in the other. Twisting sideways on the subway, I tried to adjust Emma’s pencil skirt that fit a bit too tightly around my waist. I was already going to be five minutes late, and the interview slot was only a half hour long.

Clarence had wolf whistled at my borrowed outfit when I arrived that morning, so at least I had that going for me. If I never found my Mr. Right, I could always date my skeevy, controlling boss. Unless he fired me for being late for this opportunity-of-a-lifetime interview. Then I’d be out on the streets in my too-tight skirt.

Slutty Lisa Forrester
, I thought grimly.

I stared down at the question list but all of the words blurred together. I’d been up too late last night with Arlen screaming her head off. I sipped my latte and willed the caffeine into my veins. I’d done plenty of interviews with celebrities before. Nothing to worry about. There was a format that these sorts of things tended to follow, and I wasn’t going to stress over it.

At least, I wasn’t until I got there.

I was most of the way down the hall to the room where I thought the auditions were being held. As I turned the corner, though, a door opened in front of me. I held up my hands to stop the door from smacking me in the face, and—

“
Ahh!
”

I shrieked as the double mocha latte splashed all down the front of my white blouse.

“Ow!” I cried, dropping the cup on the ground and plucking the hot fabric away from my skin. “Ow! Ow! Ow!”

“Are you alright?”

I turned my attention away from my quickly cooling blouse and glared up at the man who was making me even later to my interview.

“No thanks to y—”

My words stopped in my mouth when I saw who it was who was responsible for my shirt being doused in coffee. The man standing over me was wearing expensive leather shoes that shone like ebony. The cufflinks on his wrists sparkled gold. He smelled like expensive cologne, the kind we advertise in the pages of
Moi
. And the lines of his crisp dark suit led straight up to his eyes.

His piercing, blue-green eyes.

“I—you—
you
!” I stammered.

“Me. Indeed.”

I stared at his eyes. He was wearing something weird—eyeliner, maybe? It made his eyes pop even more. But that wasn’t the craziest part of all this.

“
You work here?
” I asked in astonishment. The coincidence was unbelievable.

“Something like that,” the man said. He reached out quickly, calmly. “Come here. We’ll get you cleaned up.”

He took me by the arm and led me down the hallway. I couldn’t resist, even if I had wanted to. His touch was so sure, so possessive, that it made my muscles obey him like a trained automaton. He pulled me sharply into a break room and locked the door behind us. When he whirled around, there was anger in his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” he hissed.

“I’m working! What are you doing here?”

“Me? I work here!” he said, like I was ridiculous for even asking the question. “Did you follow me here?”

To my surprise, he had a heavy British accent. Much heavier than when I’d met him. But his question threw me for an even bigger loop.

“
Follow
you? What do you think I am, a stalker?”

“Maybe.” He crossed his arms and arched his eyebrows suspiciously. God, he looked even sexier than he had at the coffeeshop.

Coffee
. I looked down at my blouse.

“You spilled my latte all over me!” I said. “I was minding my own business—”

“—not watching where you were going—”

“It doesn’t even matter!” I cried, knowing that he was right about that. “You opened the door too fast! And now look at me!”

He looked down at my blouse for the first time, and a wicked smile spread across his face.

“You’re a bit more see-through than the first time I saw you.”

I snapped my head down. My drenched white blouse was sticking to my skin and black bra, showing every curve and mole on my belly.

“Don’t look at me!”

“You’re a bit of a contradiction, aren’t you?” he said, his smile spreading even wider. “Look at me, don’t look at me! Kiss me—”

“Don’t kiss me!”

“Exactly.”

“I never once told you to kiss me!” I hissed.

“No, that’s true,” he said. “But you were thinking it.”

My God, this guy was cocky as hell. I breathed in, then out, gathering my nerves.

“Forget that. What are we going to do about
this
?” I asked, pulling my coffee-soaked shirt away from my skin. It was starting to get cold, and goosebumps rose up on my arms.

He put his hand on his chin and stroked. Although he must have been freshly shaved from this morning, a bit of shadow was already starting to show on his chin. And his strong fingers looked the same as they had before, caressing his strong jaw. It made my body flush hotly and remember the way those fingers had kneaded the small of my back. How they had threaded through my hair—

“I have a plan,” he said.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Alright, what?”

He unlocked the door and ducked his head out into the hallway, looking back and forth.

“First, give me your blouse,” he said.

“What? No!”

“Come on. It’s not like it’s covering anything right now.”

I frowned, but he had a point. I unbuttoned the front of my shirt and shucked it off. As I looked up, I saw him staring at me. I flushed as I handed over my shirt. He tossed it out into the hallway and closed the door again.

“Now,” he said, “hand me your bra.”

“
What?!
”

“Damn,” he said, grinning. “Thought I had you there.”

“Wha—what was your plan?”

“To get you completely undressed, for one,” he said. “Then I’d probably get undressed myself, and then—”

“Stop!” I cried out. “Give me back my blouse!”

“No,” he said firmly. “You’ll catch a cold in wet clothes, and I won’t be responsible for that.”

“Fine! I’ll get it myself!” I said. He didn’t move aside for me, and when I reached for the doorknob, he caught my wrist.

I stopped in my tracks, my protests catching in my throat. His hand was hot against my skin, and firm, and it sent my entire body into the memory of two nights ago.

I felt my insides loosening as his thumb stroked the inside of my wrist, just below my palm. The air in the break room turned stuffy, and shivers of desire ran through me. His kiss—the way his lips had seized mine—the way his hands had gripped me the same way—

His face was only a few inches from mine, and I could feel his heat radiating against my bare skin. The scent of his cologne filled my nostrils, and I felt myself growing dizzy.

“Please—” I managed to choke out.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go through with my plan?” he asked. His thumb rubbed insistently, sending a spasm through my core.

How could a man do this to me? A single touch of his hands was enough to melt me, and I felt as though if he let go of my wrist I would fall plain over. I had always laughed at how easily ladies in Victorian novels fainted, but now I felt as though I could faint at any moment. There wasn’t enough air, and his thumb was stroking, stroking…