Shopping for a Billionaire 4(28)
Author: Julia Kent

My life is one big repeat, isn’t it?

And here I am, all twitterpated because the ex-boyfriend who inexplicably dumped me is giving me some attention.

My life is one endless loop.

I can stop this, though. I can make choices that don’t let other people do this—whatever this is—to me. Declan thinks he can waltz in to my hotel room dressed in uniform and smile and make me go weak in the knees and I’m just going to take the table scraps he’s throwing my way like a good little doggie.

Ruff ruff.

“Why are you dressed in that uniform and responding to my service call?” I demand again.

“Because Amanda suggested that as part of measuring and following customer service standards to aid in marketing pushes with conventions, I perform some small version of that reality TV show, Meet the Hidden Boss, and go undercover in my own company’s property.”

I frown. “Didn’t some CEO here in Boston do that recently?”

He nods. “Mike Bournham.”

Bournham. Playboy. A sex tape that went viral. Something about a poor, naïve administrative assistant.

Utter disgrace and a resignation from him.

“That went soooo well for him, didn’t it,” I say with as much sarcasm as I can.

Declan shrugs. “Amanda was convincing.”

I get the feeling she didn’t have to push much. A flicker of emotion in his eyes shifts the tenor of the room, the bathroom instantly small in the blink of an eye. I’m washing my arm now—both arms—and all I want to do is get him out of my room so I can take a shower and cry.

BZZZZZZZ. As if reanimated by Dr. Frankenstein himself, the damn vibrator goes into high gear. I stomp across the bathroom, nudge Declan aside, and kick the damn thing as hard as I can.

When I was in middle school, for three years, I played goalie for my soccer team. Haven’t done anything more athletic than that in a decade, but my feet must remember how to point the toe and scoop up for a serious drop kick, because that vibrator catches my toe and grabs some serious vault and air, sailing across the room, high over the bed, and flying through the open sliding glass doors, over the balcony railing and—

Down fourteen stories into the street.

We can hear the screech of tires and men shouting, then a few blares of horns.

Declan and I must look like a pair of owls, eyes wide and blinking.

I am speechless.

Declan’s not.

“Good that you don’t have a dog.”

“Huh?”

“Because that could have been one game of fetch gone terribly, terribly wrong.”

“You’re making sick jokes after that just happened?” I point to the balcony. People are screaming at each other in the distance.

“Is there a more appropriate time to make sick jokes?”

“Why are you here?” I demand in a voice with more munition in it than I thought possible. I’m shaking with overwhelm, adrenaline, embarrassment, and excitement.

He starts to answer me. Repeatedly. Four times, in fact. I count each one, and with each new false start I feel a tiny rosebud, tight and contained, start to unfold inside me. One millimeter.

Just one tiny budge.

“I told you,” he says in a rush, clearly flustered now, arms crossed over his chest, eyes hooded again. His hair is longer—like in my dream, but still fairly short. Not the rakish, hedonistic man I conjured in my subconscious. In my bed.

Bed.

My eyes flick over to the enormous king bed in the middle of my room, covered in more pillows than a sultan’s sex den.

Declan’s eyes follow mine. His arms drop. He blinks rapidly, focused on me now entirely, still maddening. Still not answering.

“Surely you haven’t changed your name to Alfredo and taken up plumbing,” I joke, regretting the intrusion instantly. 

He gives me a wan smile. “Maybe I’ve become a mystery shopper.”

I shrug, trying to hide how my heart is trying to break free and go hug his. “I’ve worn plenty of uniforms before during evals. You wouldn’t be unique.”

“So I’m not special?”

I measure my answer carefully as a cloud of calm coats me. He’s here, and I want him so much, but I can’t bridge that gap without an apology. Or even an explanation. Letting men waltz back into my life and resume as if there aren’t pieces of broken, bloody glass made up of my soul isn’t working for me lately.

Isn’t working for me ever.

“If you mean are you like all the other men I’ve dated? No.”

He flinches, guarded eyes showing a series of quick snapshots of hurt, confusion, atonement.

“No? I’m on par with Steve?” He says his name like a curse word.

I can’t do this. I cannot have this conversation with Declan right here, right now. Who does he think he is? My mind scrambles to come up with a pithy comeback, witty repartees that will make him regret what he’s cast aside, but instead I fall back on the one approach that comforts me most. That makes me feel real.

The truth.

“What are you doing, Declan? I’m not playing games with you. I don’t play games. You chose to break up with me because you didn’t know who the ‘real’ Shannon is. Because you thought I was using you to get ahead in business. Because—”

“Because I’m an idiot,” he interrupts, taking one resolute step forward, bridging the gap between us by half. A thick gust of wind billows the stiff curtains inward, the sun flashing off some piece of glass on the desk, and the scent of seawater, the rush of cool air makes the moment seem so ripe with possibility.

“Idiot?”

“Idiot.”

One more step. Please take one more step, I think. The Shannon inside me that knows I can’t be walked all over is fighting with the part that wants him to kiss me, that wants to lose myself in his touch, our lips, a joining of bodies that banishes the clashing of minds.

Does it have to be either/or?

Declan’s own struggle is reflected in his eyes, one strong hand moving to his hip, the other reaching up to push through hair I wish I could stroke. I still don’t understand what happened a month ago in the hallway outside that meeting. Probably will never understand. But if he could just give me one reason, one tiny sliver of—

And now he’s kissing me.

Good reason.

Very good reason. I arch into him, absorbing his warmth, lips parting to let him taste me. As my body softens against him I feel the pull of my heart toward his, like a magnet gathering iron shavings, as if his touch could summon the disparate parts of me and bring them together, whole.