The Billionaire Game (5 page)

“Uh, I call this ‘research,’”
I said. “For my lingerie company? That I run on the side?”

Because that’s what it was. Sarah
must have done her internet monitoring when I was working on my plus
size line designs, because the pictures in front of me showed larger
women of all races and a variety of weight distributions, each
modeling sporty, frilly, or sexy underwear. Man, looking at all these
brought it back. I could see now where I’d been making my
mistake—I’d been trying to use the underwear to convey a
look of slimness, when for this range I should have instead been
emphasizing the curves. Oh, man, as soon as I got out of this meeting
I was going to grab my design notebook and—

Oh right, this meeting. Where I still
had to convince my superiors that even if I was wasting company time,
I wasn’t doing it to look at porn. And that I definitely
wouldn’t ever do it again, at least not in a way where they
could catch me.

“I’m sorry, am I supposed
to be getting off on this?” I said, trying to laugh it off.
“Because there’s nothing sexy about an inaccurately sized
shoulder strap.”

“They are scantily clad,”
Sarah hissed in the shocked tone of voice most people would reserve
for
they are having a blood orgy and worshipping the devil while
listening to Nickelback CDs.

“Yeah, scantily clad
ladies
,”
I said. “Like, what, am I supposed to be imagining the dudes in
these pictures?”

Sarah opened her mouth to say
something, checked herself, glanced backwards at the silent HR golems
for support, and then tried again. “Devlin Media Corp prides
itself on being an open, supportive, and tolerant workplace. We do
not discriminate based on race, class, gender, or…other
things. Nonetheless, we cannot tolerate use of company time and
resources for your own titillation. This has nothing to do with
your…proclivities, or preferences, but—”

And then the penny dropped.

And I started to get mad.

“Are you allergic to the word
lesbian?” I asked.

Sarah sputtered like a malfunctioning
water fountain. “What—I didn’t say—I assure
you—don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“Lesbian,” I said, slowly,
just in case she hadn’t understood me the first time. “You
have heard of those, right?”

Sarah’s face was turning red, and
even the HR goons were looking everywhere in the room but at me. “I
really must protest the implication that I insinuated—”

“This isn’t about
insinuation. This is about harassment.” An idea occurred to me,
one that wasn’t exactly playing fair but which could save my
ass. “You know, it is illegal to discriminate against an
employee for—”

“This is not discrimination!”
Sarah looked like her body couldn’t decide between a heart
attack and apoplexy. “This is strictly about company policy,
which you have violated repeatedly. We’re not interested in
your—”

That little ray of hope died, and I
could hear the funeral march starting up. I may have gotten
defensive. “You’re not interested in anything I have to
say, are you? You do seem super invested in this being porn, though.
Which it is not. Do you get a pay raise every time you catch
someone?”

Sarah was propping herself upright with
one hand now while she fanned herself with the other. “That’s
not what’s happening!” She took a deep breath. “Kate,
you’re deliberately getting this conversation off course.
Regardless of whatever we’ve discussed—which has been
closely monitored by my colleagues here, and will not be ammunition
for you in any sort of civil suit—this is inappropriate
material for you to be looking at on your workplace computer.”

And she had me there. I mean, I thought
the really inappropriate part was the third picture from the left,
because whoever had the idea of making a bra out of polyester should
have been burned at the stake. Preferably while wearing polyester
themselves.

“You’re right,” I
said. “I didn’t think, and I misused company resources,
and I’m very sorry. I’ll sign whatever stuff I need to
and take the appropriate punishment—”

“That won’t be necessary,”
Sarah interrupted. There was a hard hateful gleam in her eyes. I
began to regret some of my less professional word choices during this
conversation. Whatever this punishment was, it was going to be a
doozy, probably a pay dock or maybe even a suspension—

“You’re fired.”

“But—” and then the
argument withered on my tongue. But what?
But my best friend is
running this company, and how dare you deign to fire me? But I will
get Grant Devlin on your ass if you think you can treat me this way?
I’d be just as much of an entitled asshole as any other
entitled asshole if I thought I had a right to pull anything like that.

Dumped and fired, all within the same
week. So basically I was batting one hundred, right?

Don’t tell anyone, but I don’t
actually understand baseball.

(And who needs to, am I right? The way
those socks grip those calves, I understand all the things I need to.
Dear Santa: please send me Derek Jeter, and a spoon to eat him all up
with.)

Some girls wallow with chocolate ice
cream. Some girls wallow with soppy romantic movies. Normally, I like
to wallow with a sexy ex-boyfriend of mine named Jorge, but
unfortunately he got an investment banking job back home in Brazil,
so booty calls were not an option.

I did the next best thing and wallowed
by clicking through fabric websites and binge-buying every bolt of
cloth that had the word ‘decadent’ in the product
description.

Thankfully I had a fitting on Monday,
so after two days of pouring my bank account into the black hole that
is the Internet, I turned off my computer, dragged myself out of bed,
and began to make both myself and the apartment presentable for
clients. Oddly enough, this actually made me feel better than
anything I had done—or more like, not done—all weekend. I
was moving around, being active, accomplishing things! Okay, so the
things I was accomplishing were on the scale of ‘getting that
nasty stain out of the bathroom tile,’ but still. It was
something. It made me feel like I might be able to do even more.

The bell rang just as I put the
finishing touches on the living room, the black babydoll draped just
right over the mannequin. “Coming, Julie!” I called.

And I opened the door right in the face
of Asher Young.

#

I am nothing if not a smooth
professional, and I responded in a classy and accommodating manner.

“What the hell are you doing
here?”

Well, for a certain value of classy and
accommodating. A low one.

Asher looked startled for a second, but
then, when you’ve got a face that looks like the real project
that Michelangelo was slaving over while he knocked off the Pieta as
a fun distraction, you probably don’t get a lot of people
angrily demanding that you explain your presence. When he showed up,
most people probably took one look at him and decided, you know what,
life is short and this guy is beautiful, let’s just not
question it.

“I’m here to see you, of
course,” Asher said. He looked my body up and down slowly
through those knee-weakening eyelashes. “Somehow, you just keep
pulling me back.”

“Don’t quit your day job to
join Comedy Central,” I shot back, trying to keep my knees from
knocking together. “Dove isn’t due for two more days.”

“And yet here I am,” he
said with a maddeningly sexy smirk, and strolled into my apartment
like he owned the place, sprawling on the couch so that his T-shirt
stretched up and revealed those deliciously rock-hard abs, and just a
hint of dark hair trailing down. “I know you like detective
stories. Deduce this, Sherlock.”

I looked out the window and saw the red
convertible I knew belonged to my client Julie—and there was
Julie herself, climbing out of the car, her long blonde hair whipping
in the breeze—

Ah. Blonde. And thin. And with the IQ
of a walnut. It all became clear now.

“Well, you certainly have a
type,” I told Asher. “Are you starting a singing group?
The Two-Timer’s Trio?”

“I’m going for a barbershop
quartet, actually,” he said with a lazy grin like a jungle cat.

My heart sped up without my permission.

Julie blew into the room like a
particularly glamorous storm, and for a little while I was able to
ignore Asher, setting her up behind the changing screen and slipping
her into the babydoll for her final approval. I’d wanted to go
for blue to match her eyes, and I still mourned that missed
opportunity, but classic black looked good on her too, and maybe
after she saw how well it fit, she’d come back and we could
revisit the issue.

“This is so adorbs!” she
squealed, when she looked at the finished product in the mirror. “Oh
wow, this is literally the best thing that has ever happened to me!”
She shimmied out of the lingerie and back into her jeans, peeking
over the screen. “Asher baby, I gotta jet to this shoot. Can
you pay the nice lady? I left my wallet in my other car.”

Great. More time with God’s gift
to the blonde and bereft of brains.

As Julie blew him a kiss, Asher counted
bills into my palm. I tried to take my hand back as soon as he was
done, but he closed his fingers over mine, caressing my skin. “Any
particular reason you’re so grumpy today?”

I raised an eyebrow and yanked my hand
away. “Any particular reason you’re going for blondes?
Entering a dog show later, maybe?”

Asher just chuckled, leaning against
the wall in a way that accentuated the muscular ripple of his
shoulders under his tight T-shirt. I licked my lips without meaning
to. “I hear they have more fun.”

“Well, gingers have plenty of fun
too,” I shot back, silently cursing myself for not managing a
better comeback.

Asher leaned in. His voice was a low,
intimate rumble. “Well, you’ll have to show me sometime.”

We were just a few feet from my
bedroom…I would just have to drag him in there, and throw him
down on my bed, running my hands under his shirt and across that
broad chest, letting his elegant fingers unbutton my skirt, our
passion letting me forget his girlfriends and how terrible I felt
about Stevie and the job and my whole life…

No. I was not going to be just another
one of his conquests. Not even the sole redhead.

“Not a chance,” I told him.

He shrugged, nonchalant. “If you
don’t, I might just assume you’re blonde after all.”
A wicked grin split his face. “After all, how do I know that
the carpet matches the drapes?”

“Dude, if your lady’s
ladyhairs look like a carpet, then I think you have bigger concerns.
Like, maybe a shampoo.”

“Why are you so obsessed with my
girlfriends?” he said, lounging against the wall in a way that
would have incited riots if he’d been in public.

“I’m not obsessed! You just
keep bringing them around here and throwing them in my face!”

“You should be happy,” he
said. “I just recommended you to another girl last night! Your
designs are the best I’ve ever seen—and I’ve seen a
lot of lingerie.” He winked. The nerve.

“I’m surprised you have
time before they kick you out the door,” I shot back.

“Are you in stores?” he
asked, suddenly serious. “I know a hundred more women who’d
love to wear them.”

“Gee, only a hundred?” I
rolled my eyes, ignoring the compliment. “Dude, if you haven’t
already, maybe think about getting an STD check.”

Asher looked nonplussed for a second,
as though he’d been startled out of a pose. “You never do
let up, do you?”

“It’s one of my most
sterling qualities,” I snarked.

“It is,” he said. He caught
my gaze and held it, and for a moment—

And then he pulled out his card and
pressed it into my hand along with the money, and took the
opportunity to slide close enough to me that we were breathing the
same air, and I realized it was just another move in his playbook.

“If you ever want any…business
advice…” he murmured, maintaining eye contact.

“Business advice?” I
chirped. “Wow, thanks. You sure are sweet to offer that to
little old me—”

He leaned even closer, encouraged. “We
could meet up sometime and…talk. I know a nice little Italian
place…elegant, intimate…”

“—who definitely didn’t
found this whole business herself without no help from anyone or
anything,” I finished. “What an altruist!”

And smiling as sweetly as apple pie,
still keeping eye contact, I tossed his business card right out the
window.

You could have framed the look on his
face and sold it for a million dollars.

“Goodbye, Mr. Young.”

As he slunk away, I went back to my
designs with a vengeance. So he liked them? Well, that meant they
needed to be even better.

Ha, ‘business advice!’ Not
if he were the last man on earth.

“No freaking way!”

Lacey slammed her appletini on the
table in disgust, and then shot the waiter an apologetic look as he
rushed to mop up the results of her indignation. Then she got right
back to being indignant.

“That’s just completely
unnecessary!” Lacey said. “It’s a complete
overreaction! I can’t believe they fired you, I’m calling
HR right now—”

She actually managed to get her cell
phone out of her purse and the number halfway dialed before I could
grab her wrist. That girl is a like a do-gooder ninja.

“Whoa whoa whoa! I mean, I was
looking at lingerie,” I said soothingly. Lacey’s
intensity was starting to unnerve me a little bit. I love that girl,
but sometimes she gets this noble crusader look in her eye and there
are not enough chill pills in the entire universe to get her down off
her high horse and back into the real world. I didn’t need a
knight in shining armor; I could take care of myself.