How to Seduce a Billionaire (6 page)

‘He’s only visiting for the day, love,’ countered Jess. ‘A royal visit to inspect the drones and all that. We’ll probably never see him again.’

Again, came that stab of pain. But why? Realistically, Ellis McKenna could never be more than a fantasy object, the future face of Dream Lover. He’d given her a foot massage and made a pass of sorts, but he’d probably already forgotten her. Any ideas that he might be the one to help her get rid of something she was getting mighty fed up of saving … well, they were patently ridiculous.

‘Ooh, I don’t know,’ said Emma. ‘I was talking to someone from personnel who knows a bit more. Apparently, he actually has a house in this area. Some stately pile or other that belonged to a Brit branch of the McKenna family.’ She paused and took a long slurp from her juice carton. ‘With any luck he’ll decide to settle down there and he’ll be popping in to see us every day!’

‘Ah, but doesn’t the McKenna empire have holdings all over the world? They must have posh pads everywhere,’ Pam said thoughtfully, ‘America and Australia, at least. He’s probably lived all over the place, and if he’s got the pick of them, why on earth would he decide to take up residence here in the arse end of the universe?’

America? Australia? Well, perhaps that explained the hard-to-pinpoint accent. Like everything about him, his voice had intrigued her. He’d sounded, well, basically English, but with other notes too, a bit American but not quite wholly so.

You speak like velvet, every syllable a seduction.

‘Well, he obviously likes the arse end of the universe,’ said Emma, her eyes widening. She was staring over Jess’s shoulder towards the serving counter at the other end of the canteen. ‘At least this particular cheek of it … I do believe our glorious leader is down here to dine amongst us plebs! He’s just walked in.’

Don’t look round. Don’t look round.

Jess had to grit her teeth to stop herself rubbernecking. The volume of chatter in the room had quadrupled in the last few seconds, and everybody she could see was staring towards the counter. The men all looked surprised and curious, and the ones who were chatting up a female lunch companion looked downright annoyed! Every woman in the room was clearly bedazzled, just as they’d been during Ellis’s royal progress through the work-floor.

‘Aren’t you going to look?’ demanded Pam. ‘I’d give even money he’s looking for you.’

‘Don’t be daft. He’s not interested in me. All this “getting down with the employees” and chatting to random people … it’s just an act,’ Jess said, stabbing at the remnants of her salad again, ‘a ploy to seem like the big nice guy super boss. There’ll probably be redundancies next week, when he’s gone, regardless of his bullshit for the troops.’

‘Why so bitter? You said he was nice,’ Pam said, her eyes still scoping the far end of the room.

He is nice. He’s more than nice. But I … I … I can’t forgive him. He’s started something, and he’ll be gone in an hour and I’ll never see him again.

She’d feel differently tomorrow. Probably mightily amused by it all. Perhaps grateful, and changed too, and ready to be bolder and, well, live a little.

But today, now, it was all too confusing. ‘He was perfectly fine,’ Jess said, ‘but let’s face it, he’s an obscenely wealthy man who employs us, amongst many, many thousands of others. He hasn’t got where he is today by really being “nice”, has he? It’s all an act.’

‘Well, we’ll soon see … Incoming!’ Emma’s eyes were bright and her face pink … and suddenly wreathed in her best ‘pulling’ smile.

Oh no!

But, it was
oh yes.
Ellis McKenna slid into the spare seat at their table of four with a belated, ‘May I join you?’ Setting his cup in front of him, he grinned as if he completed their chatty foursome every day.

Jess couldn’t speak, but at least she wasn’t the only one. The others were gaping at their new companion, as subject to the ‘dazzle’ effect as she was. Although perhaps for not quite the same reasons.

Ellis took a sip of what looked like jet black coffee and said, ‘Not bad … not bad at all.’ He took another sip, and then lounged back in his chair, beaming at them. ‘Seems a decent canteen. The only shortcoming I can see is that there’s no hot chocolate on the menu, but that can be rectified.’

Did you just wink at me? Oh you, devil, how could you? Stop it!

‘So, ladies, what do you think of the food? How’s that tuna thing?’ He nodded to the food still on Jess’s plate. ‘Nothing wrong with it, I hope? Nothing I need to look into?’

‘It’s excellent, actually.’ It was normally one of her favourites, but a certain person had put the kybosh on her appetite. ‘I’m just not particularly hungry today.’

‘And why is that? Nerves about meeting the big horrible ogre who’s just bought the company?’

Pam and Emma giggled. How the hell could she give them a ‘cool it and behave look’ without him noticing? They were exchanging looks and Jess had seen that secret code, and been part of it herself, when one or other of them had fancied a new male employee, and set their sights on the guy, here in the canteen. The look meant it was time to scuttle off and leave the field clear to the one who hoped to ‘click’.

‘No, not that at all.’ Jess paused to deliberately stab up a tuna chunk, convey it to her lips, and then chew. It tasted of nothing. ‘I think you’ve proved to us all that you’re not an ogre, so there’s nothing to be nervous about.’

It was Ellis’s turn to laugh. ‘Now that’s a shame. Obviously rumours of my power and awesomeness have been grossly exaggerated. I’m crushed.’

‘Look, it’s been lovely meeting you, Mr McKenna,’ said Pam, already on her feet, ‘but I’m a dutiful employee and I have some stuff to catch up on …’ She grabbed Emma’s elbow. ‘And so has Emma. Please excuse us.’

Emma clearly didn’t really want to be excused, especially as she was sitting right next to Ellis, their bodies almost touching, but she complied with a smile, and ‘Catch you later’, then followed the other girl away from the table.

‘Nice girls,’ observed Ellis, leaning forward again, eyes alight. ‘Very tactful … very perceptive.’

‘Yes, they are nice. They’re my friends. And we were enjoying our lunch together.’

‘I’m sorry …’ Oh, what an obvious, big fat lie. ‘But I wanted to continue our conversation and I thought this would be less conspicuous than summoning you upstairs again.’ His long, slightly tanned hands were on the table now, just inches from hers. Oh God, he wasn’t going to try and grab her, was he?

‘What do you mean, less conspicuous? Everybody’s looking at us, Mr McKenna, in case you hadn’t noticed?’

It was true. Everyone in the immediate vicinity appeared to be hanging on their every word, some blatantly, and some trying for at least a semblance of stealth.

‘I tend to have that effect,’ he said with a lift of his dark eyebrows, ‘but you’re right. This is quite a public place for the kind of questions I’d like to ask you. What say we go out for lunch? You’re not really eating that, and I know several places not too far away where the cuisine might be a bit more tempting. How about it?’ He looked as if he might reach out and take her hand, but Jess hid both quickly, in her lap.

You’re the temptation …

It was true, but to succumb was pointless. It would only make things worse. He was muddying the water. She only wanted a face and a body to star in her fantasies. There was no possibility of more, and she didn’t want to spill all the details of her non-existent sex life to a man she’d never see again. Especially one who was starting to make her cross as well as turned on, what with his arrogance and his alpha male games.

‘That’s very kind of you, Mr McKenna, but I’m afraid I’ve already got my lunch here, and to be honest, I don’t want to answer any questions. Not unless they’re to do with my performance as an employee here.’ She gave him a very firm look. ‘I really think that’s all you’re entitled to, don’t you?’

He shrugged; a beautiful, loose, mammalian movement, accompanied by a boyish, rueful smile. ‘You’re right, of course. But I just wanted to get to know you better, Jess. No pressure. No questions if you don’t want any. Just a bit of time spent in each other’s company.’

What was he playing at? Why was he playing with
her
? She was an ordinary woman, a middling happy insurance clerk heading for thirty. Her life wasn’t perfect – whose was – but mostly she liked it the way it was.

Ellis McKenna was as alien as a man from another planet. In every way that mattered, their worlds could never really intersect. Stop the madness now.

Coward, Jess. Coward …

‘I don’t think that’s really a good idea, Mr McKenna. I’m me and you’re you.’ She looked around. ‘I … I feel uncomfortable with you here. It’s making people stare at me. I like fitting in here. I like my job. But it’s going to get weird if people keep seeing me with you.’ She drew in a deep breath, preparing herself. ‘I really do wish you would go … Please.’

He frowned. Was he cross? Annoyed at not getting his way, as usual? Then he smiled again, shrugging that fabulous shrug. ‘All right. I see that. I’m being a bit of an oaf, aren’t I?’ His fingers flexed, as if he really was fighting the urge to reach out and grab her hand. ‘I’ll leave right now, if you’ll promise me one thing. No … two things.’

‘What things?’
Just go … go … you’re driving me crazy and making me want what I can’t have. Well, not with you …

‘One, you call me “Ellis”.’ He reached into his inner pocket and drew out a couple of business cards. ‘And two, you’ll at least consider having dinner with me some time. Away from here. Nobody need know.’ Reaching in his pocket again, he brought out a pen. ‘This is my private number …’ He scribbled it on the back of one of the cards, and then pushed both cards and the pen towards her. ‘Can I have yours?’ He waited, in one of his cleverly executed micropauses. ‘Please?’

She hesitated. People were watching, but she no longer cared. Exchanging numbers was like … serious … like a man properly interested in a woman, wanting a real date.

‘I could get your number from your personnel file, but that seems underhand. I’d rather you give it to me willingly, Jess.’

Give it to you willingly …

For a flash moment, a hot, vivid image rocketed into her brain. Herself, with Ellis, giving something willingly. Something she wanted to give. Oh God, how she wanted to give it. And, if she was going to, why not with him? A fabulous, beautiful, once in a lifetime man.

Snatching up the pen, she scribbled her mobile number and her home number on the back.

He beamed. ‘Anything to get rid of me, eh?’ Pocketing the card and the pen, he stood up.

‘Yes … anything to get rid of you … Ellis.’

Laughing softly, he waggled his fingers at her in a mock wave, then, just before he turned and walked away, he murmured, ‘I’ll be in touch, Jess. I mean it. Enjoy your lunch.’

And then he was gone, leaving a hum of conversation lingering behind him … and Jess wondering what the hell she’d just done.

I’ll be in touch, Jess. I mean it.

Yeah, right. And pigs might fly.

Back home that evening, Jess twirled Ellis McKenna’s card between her fingers. She wasn’t going to call his number because she didn’t think he’d intended her to, and he most certainly wouldn’t call her. It’d just been him going through the motions. Kindly perhaps, to make her feel special for a moment, but probably hoping she knew the score, really.

What a day. Probably one of the strangest of her life, and although Jess would have liked to discuss it with Cathy, in one way she was glad her friend was out with her boyfriend, and possibly not back for the night.

It was an ideal opportunity to review her encounter with a billionaire, and try and make sense of it. Especially as Cathy had left a note telling Jess there was half a bottle of white Zinfandel in the fridge that needed drinking up.

Why did you come to Windsor Insurance today, Mr McKenna? Because you were bored? Because you really are an eccentric weirdo, and you enjoy doing unexpected things and wrong-footing people, women and employees in general alike?

It had been a whim, really, she supposed. Windsor wasn’t the biggest insurer in the country, but its share in the market was growing. A nice profitable plum to be harvested by the McKenna group. And Ellis McKenna had probably thought it was a bit of a wheeze to drop in on the staff of its main northern HQ, simply because of the coincidence of him having a house in the area … which he probably didn’t visit much anyway.

You
are
weird, Mr McKenna.

Ellis
, he’d insisted.

You’re weird, Ellis. Gorgeous but decidedly strange.

Maybe it was the loss of his wife that had affected him? It must have been devastating, enough to throw the hardest head off kilter. Or maybe he’d always been capricious, and into playing mind-games?

She could clearly picture him nodding in agreement, imagining him right here in her bedroom with her, in a way that was far clearer than her hazy erotic fantasies about Dream Lover.

Even though the wine had been open a day, it was still cool and delicious from the fridge. Jess set her glass aside, not wanting to swig it down all at once. She’d bathed and changed into her pyjamas early, and was in bed, with the sound turned off on the telly, and all her ‘stuff’ spread around her on the bed.

A pristine new drawing pad. Freshly sharpened pencils and a proper putty eraser. Some snacks, although she’d have to be careful not to get crisp grease on the paper. Her old laptop, with Firefox open at Google search.

She’d told herself not to get involved in finding out about Ellis McKenna, and that it was better just to remember today as unusual, interesting and, yes, sexy. The day a billionaire had kissed her feet, and got her in such a kerfuffle she’d told him she was a virgin. But she couldn’t help but be curious about him. The bloody man had had an unprecedented effect on her and she just couldn’t sweep that aside. It had to be acknowledged.
He
had to be acknowledged. And known, if only a little.

The next half an hour was both fascinating and frustrating. How could there possibly be so little information about Ellis McKenna in this no-secrets digital age? Oh, she found business statistics about the McKenna group, some background about his extended family, who seemed to be spread all over the world, but mainly in the States, Australia and also in the UK … She also found pictures of what must have been the ‘old’ Ellis, clad in razor sharp suits and with a razor sharp haircut. One full length shot even showed ‘proper’ shoes, hand-made no doubt, in gleaming leather, rather than the footwear he wore now, that looked as if he’d walked right off the beach.