Wicked Billionaire Page 9

  My life isn’t working out gloriously, but I’m avoiding significant pitfalls at least.

  And hey… I have a great job. I could get ahead in life if I could concentrate on my new career and manage to forget about Declan Blackwood and his magic dick.

  I decide to splurge on a glass of wine, knowing there’s an open bottle of Pinot in my fridge. Dropping my purse on the couch, I cross my living room and into my tiny kitchen. Just as I’m reaching for the handle, my doorbell rings, which is a surprise.

  Because I work so much, I don’t know my neighbors. I haven’t been able to do more than wave while pulling in or out of my driveway. My parents rarely venture out, and they’d call me if they needed something. Past that, there wouldn’t be a reason for anyone to be at my door. For safety’s sake, I look through the peephole first.

  Going to my tiptoes, I place my eye on the glass-covered hole. It takes a moment to register who stands on my doorstep, only because I can’t believe what I’m seeing.

  Dressed in the same business suit he’d worn to work is none other than Declan Blackwood. Hands casually tucked in his pockets, he glances around my neighborhood, which is not the safest after the sun sets. He’s been here before, of course, on the night we visited The Wicked Horse, but I doubt he cared about his surroundings, given he thought he’d never be here again.

  Which begs the question… what in the hell is he doing here?

  I unlock the door and pull it open. Declan’s head whips my way, his expression looking awkward and uneasy.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Miss Robbins,” he returns but doesn’t say anything else.

  “Um… what are you doing here?” I ask, looking past him to his Porsche sitting at the curb.

  He follows my gaze, glances around again as if having second thoughts about leaving his car out there, before turning back to me. “We need to talk. Can I come in?”

  Well, shit. He’s here to fire me again. To say this isn’t working.

  But… I’ve stood up to him before, and I’ll do it again. I don’t move to let him in. Instead, I cross my arms over my chest, widening my stance in a protective gesture. “If you’re here to try to fire me again, forget it. I don’t deserve it.”

  “Not here to fire you, Miss Robbins,” he snaps, then runs his fingers through his hair with a sigh of frustration. “Can I come in?”

  “Sure you want to leave your fancy car out there unattended?” I mock slightly.

  His expression darkens until it’s slightly scary, and well… my attitude could be a fireable offense, so I backpedal a bit.

  Turning sideways, I sweep my arm, indicating he should enter. He moves past me, close enough his arm brushes against mine, leaving a lovely tingling sensation in its wake. I grit my teeth, hating my body’s reaction, and shut the door.

  Declan stops in the middle of my living room, looking around at the sparse furnishings and complete lack of decor.

  I feel compelled to explain. “I… um… haven’t had much of a chance to decorate this place yet.”

  “How long have you lived here?” he asks, turning to face me.

  “Over a year,” I reply with a shrug. “Pretty much got rid of anything that I owned jointly with my ex-husband—”

  “You were married?” he asks, brows drawing inward.

  “Um… yeah,” I reply hesitantly. I never told him because it wasn’t pertinent to a damn thing.

  But he doesn’t delve further into that, his glance moving to the couch. “Do you mind if we sit?”

  I jump into action, realizing my boss is in my home, and I’m being a terrible hostess. “Of course,” I say as I rush to the couch and fluff the two decorative pillows that came with it. “You want something to drink?”

  He shakes his head, moves around the end of the couch, and takes a seat. I follow suit, choosing to sit on the loveseat opposite of him instead, the wobbly coffee table I’d also picked up at a thrift store in between us.

  Sitting solidly in the center of the cushion, Declan leans forward slightly and rests his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands lightly. “First, I want you to know that while I’m not here to fire you, I want you to know I’d be well within my right. When there is a personal issue between an employer and an employee, there is nothing wrong with cutting that employee loose.”

  I keep my mouth firmly shut since he said he’s not here to fire me. No sense in engaging in an unnecessary battle, even though I take slight offense at the insinuation that I’m the problem between us.

  “I want to talk about this issue between us,” Declan says directly. “To see if we can put it to rest.”

  I’m not sure he could have surprised me more. I had expected him to propose transferring me to someone else in the company where I could keep the job, and the tension between us would be eliminated since we wouldn’t see each other. In a million years, I never thought he’d want to hash it out.

  “Okay.” I drawl the word out in two long syllables.

  “I want to fuck you again,” he says.

  And I reel. Actually, I jerk backward until the rear cushion of the loveseat catches me from behind. “What?”

  “I want to fuck you again,” he replies simply. “And I can’t stop thinking about it, and I bet if you’re honest, you think about it too.”

  I swallow hard, my eyes practically bugged out of my head, but I refuse to acknowledge that statement. He might be all for talking this out, but I don’t have to admit to anything. My job is at stake. I’m not about to get my ass tossed out of this company.

  Declan doesn’t seem to be bothered by my lack of response. He continues on, what appears to be a rehearsed oratory. “I thought I could fuck you just that once and I wouldn’t think about it anymore. That’s usually how it works, but then I thought, that probably works because I don’t typically see a woman more than once. But with you—working with me and seeing you day in and day out—I figure it’s just keeping the memory of what we did in the forefront, you know what I mean?”

  I do indeed, but I refuse to admit nor deny that either. I just stare.

  “So my solution is that we should fuck again,” he says, and that definitely makes my girlie parts start to tingle and throb. “And it might be that one more time is all we need to finish scratching that itch. Or maybe it will take a few times. Who knows?”

  My wanton side, which wants to give in to all base instincts, has to dig my fingers into the cushion to keep from whipping off my clothes. The prudent side, which wants to protect my job, cautiously asks. “You’re proposing we have sex again? Like right now?”

  A muscle in Declan’s jaw pops as his body stiffens. “No. Not right now. I want to be careful that we keep the personal and professional separate, because if we can’t, then you can’t work for me. It’s that simple.”

  “I don’t understand,” I murmur.

  “The Wicked Horse,” he replies, his eyes boring into mine. “We go there. Together. Whenever it’s convenient for us. We get it out of our system, we come into work the next day, and we focus on work. It’s a good plan.”

  Is it, though?

  I genuinely don’t know one way or the other, but I do like the knowledge Declan is affected by me. It’s nice to know he didn’t escape our first encounter unscathed. It means I’m not being silly in my continued obsession about that night together.

  I tip my head to the side. “And you’re positive this is not going to affect our working relationship? Because I need this job.”

  Declan rises from the couch, eyeing me from across the coffee table. “You’re incredibly good at what you do, Miss Robbins. I’ve decided I’d like to preserve this working relationship if we can. This is our best chance.”

  “That doesn’t quite answer my question,” I mutter. “And you can call me Bailey. I think we’re past formal names now.”

  Declan actually grimaces at that suggestion. “I can’t say whether this is going to work. I just know I need it for my sanity.”

  I
should take some time to think about this. It’s complicated, sticky, and a bad idea all around. My job is paramount, yet I find myself willing to believe this is the best way to preserve it. I know my willingness to believe it has everything to do with the fact I want the man standing before me.

  Badly.

  “Then I agree to your proposal,” I say, waiting for a stab of uneasiness to tell me I made the wrong decision.

  It doesn’t come.

  “Are you planning on going tonight?” I ask hesitantly.

  “As much as I would love that,” Declan replies, sounding a bit regretful, “I have plans tonight. Besides, we’re going to have to draw up a legal agreement first.”

  “A legal agreement?” I exclaim with surprise.

  “That our relationship inside The Wicked Horse is separate and apart from our professional relationship. That I’m offering you no inducement or holding your job over your head in exchange for your agreement to go to the club with me. It’s to protect both of us.”

  “Sounds more like it’s to protect you,” I muse, but I also don’t blame him. He’s in dangerous territory pursuing a sexual relationship with an employee. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why a man—who is clearly intelligent and successful—would ever put himself in such a position.

  The only thing I can deduce is that he must have some level of trust—even if he doesn’t even recognize that’s what it is—in me. He knows inherently I’m not the type that would use this against him, because I’m not. I don’t operate that way. If I did, I would have taken my husband to the cleaners, rather than silently, if not bitterly, help him pay off our marital debt that he accrued.

  “I’ll sign your agreement,” I finally say.

  And for the first time tonight, I realize just how tense he’s been since he stepped foot in my house. His entire body visibly relaxes. While it’s not quite a smile on his face, it could possibly be called triumphant joy.

  “I’ll have it on your desk in the morning,” he says as he heads for my door. Not a backward glance either. “Then plan on attending The Wicked Horse with me tomorrow evening.”

  “Yes, sir,” I can’t help but chirp in an exaggerated tone.

  He raises an eyebrow. I probably crossed some professional lines, but I don’t care. I’m too psyched about the opportunity to explore more of my sexual boundaries with this enigmatic, gorgeous man. He merely smirks wryly before walking out the door.

  CHAPTER 13

  Declan

  “Seriously, though… how are you feeling?” I ask Leonie for the third time this evening. The first two times she refused to answer, instead fawning in delight first over the bottle of wine I’d chosen, and next over the shrimp scampi she’d ordered.

  She makes a low growling harrumph deep in her throat, a sound she always makes when she’s irritated with me. “Honestly, Dec,” she admonishes. “I’m doing great. Leave it alone.”

  I settle back in my seat as she scoops a spoonful of crème brûlée into her mouth and sighs in delight. The woman could always eat a full-grown man under the table, and she usually held onto those delightful calories in her wide expanse of hips and plump bosom. She’s lost some weight over the last six months. It worries me, although she assures me it’s because she’s been extremely active lately, taking advantage of the warmer weather here in Nevada.

  “You’d tell me if something were wrong, wouldn’t you?” I press.

  She glares.

  “Damn it, woman,” I growl at her. “I’m paying for a damn fine meal for you, the least you could do is answer my questions.”

  “You watch your tone with me, mister,” she growls right back. “I’m still spry enough to take you over my knee.”

  I roll my eyes. For the eighteen years she was my nanny, she never once raised a hand to me, but the same cannot be said of my parents. Of course, I don’t blame them. They sucked at parenting, and didn’t know how to deal with the least bit of disrespect or rebellion from a young boy. When they got easily frustrated, they would often lash out with a hard whack across my backside.

  Not Leonie, though. She was smart, patient, and loving enough to attempt to redirect me first. That often succeeded, but if it didn’t, she just had a look she leveled my way that would make me snap to attention.

  Then she’d say in her barely-there German accent, “I’m going to blister your butt, young man.”

  It was always an empty promise. I knew it, and she knew I knew it. I’d reply rather cheekily, “Really?”

  Her shoulders would sag, and she’d admit, “No. Not really.”

  And that would make me laugh like a loon, and see what she did there? Totally redirected me.

  Leonie Schmidt served the Blackwood family, having first been hired to raise my father and his two brothers. She’d stayed on and ended up as a nanny to my older sister, Marissa, and then me.

  Sadly, her age—she claims it’s a youthful seventy-six—is a preventative now with Marissa’s children—who are three and six. At least that’s what Marissa says. My parents agree, so Leonie has been living out her golden years in a retirement community. I moved her to Vegas so she would be close to me. The little desert village she lives in keeps her active, but it has constant support and care if she needs it. Someone comes by to check on her daily, which is something I can’t often do, to make sure she’s okay. Still, she’s a responsibility I take seriously, given she’s my closest family member. Yes, I consider her family.

  Despite her lifelong devoted service to the Blackwoods, they cut her loose without a backward glance once she was of no more use to them as a nanny. Granted, they gave her a generous severance and a healthy pension, but it was the quiet disconnect from our family that hurt her. Even after having raised them from babies and then their babies, they’d essentially turned her out in the cold and slammed the door in her face.

  Not by me, though.

  Never by me.

  And when I move on from the Vegas resort to the next big project, wherever that may be, Leonie will come along with me.

  “How are your parents?” Leonie asks, a diversionary tactic to move the questioning off herself.

  The question bothers me deeply because my parents never ask about her. Neither does my sister, for that matter. But Leonie always wants Blackwood news, so I fill her with silly details that will make her happy, but which boil my blood because they mean nothing to my family.

  I prattle on about my parents’ plan to take a winter holiday in Paris, where they own a luxury apartment, my sister serving on the boards of numerous charities, and her kids being well… spoiled the same way Marissa and I were.

  Our meal ends, as it usually does, with Leonie getting a little drunk on wine. She becomes contemplative, and her worries come out. “You take such good care of me, Declan. You know you don’t have to.”

  “I do nothing,” I assure her.

  She waves me off with another guttural sound from her throat. “You watch over me, you help ensure I have the finest of places to live, which I can’t afford on my own, and you cart me around from location to location with you, so I’m never alone.”

  “You do like traveling around, don’t you?” I ask, wondering if perhaps I’m doing a disservice to her by uprooting her.

  “It’s an adventure, and I love meeting new people,” she reassures me. “If I ever feel strong ties to a community when you’re ready to leave an area, I’ll tell you. You know I have enough confidence to do that.”

  Yeah, that I know. My parents taught me how to wield power by coercing an ego bordering on the vapid side out of my impressionable mind. Any ounce of decency I have in the decisions I make with the immense power backing me are strictly from Leonie and the moral compass she helped instill. One of those traits was teaching me how to be confident without being too much of an asshole.

  I’d like to say I mastered that trait, but alas… I know I’m still an asshole some of the time, particularly with women.

  “What about you?” Leonie as
ks, sitting back in her chair and holding her wineglass up for a small sip.

  “What about me?” I tease, also leaning back and crossing my arms over my chest. I always relish in making her work for the slightest bit of personal information about me. It’s a game, no more, because Leonie is the only person who could ever get me to just let go and talk.

  She rolls her eyes. “How’s work going? Have your next project lined up?”

  I smile at her, wondering just what she’d think of me wanting to open up a resort—outside of the Blackwood name, of course—that focused on a sex club? She’d probably blister my butt for sure, but on the other hand, she’d celebrate me wanting to do something for myself. She’d always encouraged me to find my own path in life, including some of the darkest days of my life just a few years ago when I needed her guidance more than anything.

  “I have some solid ideas I’m working on,” I say vaguely. “I’m looking at investors right now, but I’m considering a smaller, boutique type of resort.”

  Leonie nods thoughtfully. “What about your next Blackwood project? Where might that be?”

  “We have it narrowed down between Miami and San Francisco,” I say.

  Leonie gets a gleam in her eye, holds up her wine glass. “Being nearer to the California wine country doesn’t sound all that bad.”

  Laughing, I tip my head back. She may be seventy-six, but she has a lot of damn living left within her. Part of me loves that she moves everywhere with me, but the other part wonders if she’s not missing out on settling down in the few remaining years she has. She’s never been married and always insists she never had any desire to do so.

  “I’ll put in a word to Father that I’d prefer the San Francisco project then,” I say, gladly willing to give her time there. At this point, we don’t know how much time she has left.