Chased by the Billionaire 1 Read online

  I saw the moment resignation made his expression drop, so I threw him a bone… so to speak.

  I reached over and pulled my purse to me, deftly finding my emergency stash of cash and handing him two fifty dollar bills.

  “To make up for your lost time,” I said and tucked the bills into the waistband of his jeans.

  Franco reluctantly pulled himself off me and started putting his t-shirt back on, shaking his head the whole time.

  “Sorry about this.” I was more than sorry. This hot stud should have blown right through my little problem.

  Hell, he should have been banging me up against the wall by now!

  Franco pulled my order from the heated bag and gave me another long look. I pretended to brush the nonexistent wrinkles from my skirt.

  “This is the first time a woman has paid me not to have sex with her.”

  Jesus…

  I grabbed my suit jacket and started pulling it on as he unlocked my office door and swung it open.

  As if on cue, Lance was standing there, hand up as if he were about to knock. His eyes went wide, and an evil smile slid across his face.

  Franco said, “Hey, dude,” and bumped his knuckles with Lance’s as he walked past him.

  Lance watched as Franco left, his gaze running over him like he was scanning him for weapons.

  When he turned back to me I had myself pulled together and was reaching into the box with Lance’s Italian hoagie in it, going for my half.

  “Where’s Franco?” he asked, his voice heavy with innuendo.

  “That was Franco junior.” I took a huge bite of the hoagie.

  Lance closed the door behind him, pulled up a seat and grabbed the rest of the sandwich.

  “So?”

  I looked at him with no expression on my face, simply chewing my sandwich.

  “Don’t be a bitch!” he crooned, and took a dainty bite of his half of the hoagie. “Tell me everything. Did he end your curse?”

  Curse? “That’s a hell of a way to say it.” God, I needed a cigarette!

  But I quit six months ago.

  I reached for my stash of Milk Duds.

  I know, not the most appealing of names for candy… but damn, they were good.

  Just not good for your figure, sweet cheeks…

  Shut. Up.

  “Well?” Lance scooted his chair closer, the look of excitement on his face was priceless.

  I sighed and ‘fessed up. “No, nothing was ended, slapped, or penetrated.”

  Damn it…

  His face fell like a house of cards, his lip sticking out in the most adorable pout.

  “Stop that,” I scolded, throwing a Milk Dud at him. “It’s not like he didn’t have sex with you! I’m the one not getting laid here.”

  Lance caught the Milk Dud and stared at it for a moment, lost in thought.

  So unlike my mighty gay assistant.

  “Lance?”

  He blinked and then popped the sultry little chocolate morsel in his mouth, faking a smile. I know Lance, and he was giving me his best faux smile.

  “Is there something wrong between you and Churchill?”

  He shook his head, “No, everything is great.”

  I gave him my Don’t bullshit me glare.

  He sighed, reached across the desk and stole the box of Milk Duds out of my hand.

  “I love him,” he said, shoving a handful of the gooey candy in his mouth. “Mut… mee affen ad ex et.”

  I blinked. “I’ll wait for you to swallow that load before I ask you to repeat yourself.”

  Lance gave me the finger, and kept chewing. When he finally swallowed he grimaced and then sighed again.

  “We haven’t had sex yet.”

  I laughed.

  Lance shot me a scathing look.

  I laughed some more.

  “Oh come on.” I leaned over the desk and stole back my Milk Duds before he ate them all. “I thought sex on the first date was like the gay standard. Like a hand shake.”

  “That’s stereotyping.” He reached for the Milk Duds but I clutched them protectively to my breasts. “I thought you were above such things.”

  I threw a Milk Dud at his head and he deftly caught it in his mouth.

  “I live for stereotypes.” I upended the box of Milk Duds—empty. “So how many sexual partners have you had?”

  Lance’s eyes widened.

  “Including blowjobs and hand-jobs.”

  He pursed his lips and sat up straight. “How many have you had?”

  He knew how to play dirty.

  “Fine, we’re both born again virgins. So how is it you and Churchill haven’t done the deed? It’s been, what—six months?”

  “Seven…”

  Oh…

  Lance took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling.

  “Okay, but you have to promise not to let Churchill know you know!”

  “I promise.” I placed one hand over my heart and one up in the air, as if swearing it.

  Lance bit his lip, looking so young and naïve.

  “Churchill can’t get it up.”

  I shrugged.

  “And he’s too ill to try… artificial means.”

  “Oh…” I didn’t need to know that.

  And yet you asked, didn’t you?

  “His physician says that the surgery to put in an implant would surely kill him, if not the act of having… you know, having sex at all.”

  I got the picture. If poor… well, if rich-as-sin yet old-as-the-hills Churchill wasn’t healthy enough to take the erection pills, or to undergo penile implant surgery, he certainly wouldn’t last long while having sex.

  I gave Lance an appraising look.

  Everything firm, if not bulging—and I knew he was a yoga devotee.

  Yep, five minutes of Lance would certainly send old Churchill to the grave.

  I nodded vigorously, trying to get the picture of the two of them out of my head.

  “So,” I said, trying to hit the forward button on our little heart-to-heart, “Now you want to go out and… get some? Well, I can understand that, sweetie. Seven months at your age.”

  Hell, I was only a few years older than him and I was ready to climb the walls after only half that long.

  Lance sobbed.

  Sobbed.

  His eyes were brimming with tears as he slowly shook his head.

  “I don’t want to be with anyone if I can’t be with Churchill.”

  Dear god…

  “I had no idea you felt like that. I’m so sorry.”

  Lance tried to take in a breath, but kept on gasping. Just when he looked about to explode, he cried out, “He wants me to sleep with other men!”

  He melted into tears, his pretty green eyes turning a watery bloodshot, his aquiline nose turning puffy and red. He sniffled, looking about to wipe his nose with his sleeve.

  I couldn’t let my best gay ruin his fine fashion standards. I reached in my bottom drawer for the boxes of tissues I keep for clients—and Susan—and held one out to Lance.

  He took three and swiped his eyes, ending in a very dainty, elegant blowing of his nose.

  “So he wants you to go out and find someone to…”—How to word this?—“To satisfy your urges?”

  “No…” Lance grimaced as if he’d bitten into rotten fruit. “He wants me to bring someone home so he can watch us fuck.”

  Big oh…

  “So, Churchill is a… voyeur?”

  Lance crossed his arms over his chest, looking so beautifully lost.

  “He feels I can’t keep this no sex thing up, and wants me to stop it. But he also wants to see me happy.” Lance gave me a beseeching glance. “Literally see me being happy.”

  I walked over and sat on his side of the desk and took his hand in mine.

  “And you can’t go through with it because you love him.”

  He nodded, sniffling. “Plus, I’m afraid that he might get excited and have a heart attack just watching.”

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sp; I looked over at my window for a minute, gazing out on Hyde Park Boulevard.

  “I’m not qualified to advise you here.” I looked back to him.

  Lance sniffled. “No shit.”

  We both started laughing. I dropped into his lap, entwining my arms around his neck, and then kissed his blotchy, beautiful face. He wrapped his arms around me and we sat there for a moment, just holding each other.

  “Aren’t we a pair?” I said.

  “I can fuck anyone, just not the one I want…” He kissed me on top of the head. “And you can’t get laid to save your life.”

  I elbowed him in the ribs. “Asshole!”

  He held me tighter. “Okay, I’m sure if it was the fate of the world in the balance, you would pull a Hail Mary orgasm out of your yoohoo.”

  “You do remember I’m your boss, don’t you? I think a bit of respect is in order.”

  Lance scoffed. “Do I hafta?”

  I spied the lovely Howard Miller wall clock I’d bought the last time I was in San Francisco and saw I was indeed late. I had a meeting with a representative of the Chicago Arts Council, and he wanted to meet at his office across town.

  “I have to run, so you watch the store while I try to get old musty pants to add us—finally—to the council’s charity ball invite list.”

  Lance coughed. “That guy smells like rotten cabbage doused with Brut.”

  “But he’s the only member of the council that’s even returned one of my phone calls.” It was my turn to sigh. I’d been a major art dealer in this town for four goddamn years, and yet I couldn’t get invited to their twice yearly charity ball.

  The list was so select that almost no one on the outside of it knew who was on it.

  Like freaking Fight Club.

  I had to get on that invitation list! The contacts, the mingling… the future sales to filthy rich gajillionaires…

  I hopped off Lance’s lap and grabbed my purse and cell phone. “Call me if there’s a problem. I’m going to go home right after, so lock up…” I thought of the collection of zombie turkey oils hanging on my gallery’s exquisitely designed walls, like road kill in a Rockwell canvas. “Or torch the place, your call.”

  I walked toward the door to the now tainted gallery.

  “Don’t forget about tonight,” Lance said.

  I stopped in my tracks. “Tonight?”

  I looked back and Lance was standing there with a miserably dejected look on his face.

  “You know, dinner with me and Churchill at La Pampillon?”

  Christ! Could this day get any worse?

  Not that I wouldn’t enjoy myself—Lance and Churchill were two of my favorite people… even with my new personal knowledge of their sex life. Or was it their non-sex life?

  Ah fuck it! I would probably need cheering up after meeting with old musty pants.

  “Of course! We agreed on eight, right?”

  “The reservation is for seven.” Lance had a wary look on his face.

  “That’s it, seven. I’ll be there, dressed to the teeth.” As I went through my office door I saw the puppy dog look on Lance’s face.

  “I promise!”

  “Swear on your shoes.”

  I stopped again. “What?”

  “Swear on your shoes that you’ll be there.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” I cocked my head at him, hands on my hips. “I like these shoes, but they’re hardly swear-worthy.”

  Lance matched my pose exactly, and the pissy look on his face was fierce.

  “Swear on all of them.”

  All my shoes?

  I could just see him “letting himself” into my apartment and kidnapping all my heels. There had to be close to a hundred thousand dollars worth of Italian leather in my walk-in closet. He’d need a U-Haul to transport them, but he was a well-trained assistant. I put nothing past his skill set.

  “I’ll swear on my Prada mules and my Dolce and Gabbana pumps,” I countered.

  “The lace and jewel bow ones?”

  Damn, he did know my closet inside out.

  “Yes, those pumps.”

  He smiled. “Fine, I believe you. No get out of here and charm the pants off old musty pants.”

  Chapter 3

  Carson Gibson III (aka old Musty Pants) not only kept me waiting in his reception area for nearly an hour, but then had the nerve to tell me, once I was in his office, that he only had five minutes to spare for me because he had “an early tee time” at La Grange.

  I siphoned every drop of energy I had into making my smile and voice as sunny as possible. I just kept thinking, I really, really want on this invitation list! I do, I do, I do!

  Even when he decided to open his closet and pull out his golf clubs and practically take off my foot when he dropped them beside me—a none too subtle hint.

  The man was as rude as he was smelly.

  He kept picking something in his teeth, and interrupted me twice by placing phone calls to his golf cronies.

  The third time he interrupted me he said, “What is it you’re getting at, Miss Hartford?”

  My hands clenched into fists in my lap, well out of his line of sight.

  You rude, disgusting asshat!

  “It’s Hamilton. Liz Hamilton. And I own and operate New View Art Gallery on Hyde Park Boulevard. My gallery has been featured in the Sun Times, the Tribune, and Chicago magazine. I think I would be a valuable addition to the Arts Council—”

  Old Musty Pants laughed: a rancid string of guffaws falling from his wrinkled, chapped lips.

  “Miss Hamill.” He did it again! Was I an Olympic figure skater now? “I’m sure your little shop is… well, a quaint little venture. But here at the Chicago Arts Council we strive to include only those who have left an authentic mark on our beautiful city.”

  “But Mr. Gibson, I’ve shown major artists for four years running.”—not including the upcoming zombie turkey showing—“And I’m sure that if you call around—”

  “I don’t need to ‘call around’ Miss Hamill,” he cut across me. “I have never heard of you, other than your persistent, desperate attempts to get me to let you on the council’s charity ball invitation list.”

  My face warmed, as if he’d slapped me.

  He opened his mouth to continue but I stood up and stopped him with a raised hand.

  “I won’t waste anymore of your time then, Carlton.”

  His wrinkly mouth pursed in disdain.

  “My name is Carson Gibson the third. And if I were you—”

  I should have been nice. I should have been diplomatic and tactful.

  Screw that!

  “If I were you, maybe you’d remember my name. It’s is Liz Hamilton. Not Hartford, and certainly not Hamill. And I’d love to stay and listen to you pontificate on why I’m not Arts Council material, but I have a business to run, and actual work to do. So good day, Mr. Gibson.”

  As I marched out of his office I received a thumbs up from his assistant.

  Smart or not—well, it had been pretty damn stupid of me to have told the old goat off—at least I felt better.

  And I’d feel better until later tonight when it sank in that I’d not only burnt my Arts Council bridge but ripped out the still smoldering support beams as well.

  I walked about ten blocks to cool off, and then stopped at a Baskin Robbins for a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough double scoop. Calories be damned; I needed some comfort food.

  I ate my cone as I took a cab to my apartment building.

  Quincy, the doorman, greeted me with his usual mischievous smile. He was in his early fifties, over a foot taller than me, and was a native Chicagoan. He knew everything about the city and its sports teams. And he had lifted my spirits many times in the last six years I’d lived here.

  He took one look at me and said, his smile only dimming a fraction of a degree, “You didn’t get it, did you?”

  I shook my head. Misery dropped on me like a hunter’s net, and I felt my heart sink.

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p; He placed his huge hands on my shoulders and squeezed them in a fatherly way. My own father had always been too busy to do the fatherly things, so moments like this always made part of me swell with happiness.

  “I know what will cheer you up,” he said.

  “I already tried ice cream. Next will be vodka.”

  He chuckled, shaking his head. “No, no, no. Nothing like that.”

  He looked over his shoulder at the front desk area, and a shiny red wrapped box.

  “You have a present, from Mr. Walker.”

  A present from Churchill?

  I followed him to the front desk and he handed me the package.

  There was a hand written note: For tonight.

  I pulled the black ribbon from the box and lifted off the lid. After some tissue paper I found what was in the box.

  A dress.

  It was no ordinary dress: Blood red silk, exquisite beading around the throat and bodice—vintage Dior most assuredly.

  There was also a matching silk clutch bag, and a to-die-for pair of red velvet Chanel cork heel pumps.

  Quincy was right. I felt better just thinking how wonderful I was going to look tonight.

  “Can you do me a favor and call me a cab at six-thirty?”

  It was official. I was going out tonight.

  “Of course, Miss Hamilton… where to?”

  “La Pampillon. I have a dinner date.”

  Chapter 4

  The cab pulled up to the Lincoln Park based restaurant. A valet opened my door—sighed as he watched me slip out of the cab—and ushered me into the restaurant.

  I never feel out of place. Ever.

  I’m always dressed to the nines and feel comfortable in any setting, whether it be at a biker bar or a five star culinary marvel like La Pampillon.

  But tonight, in this dress, with these shoes on my feet, I felt like the queen.

  When I walked into the lobby I heard a few gasps from the ladies seated on fainting couches, and a few coughs and low whistles from the male clientele.

  That made me smile as I walked with a swing to my hips to the maitre d’.

  I dropped Churchill’s name and was magically whisked into the restaurant proper and to the best table in the house. Churchill and Lance stood the instant they saw me coming, and I felt like a fairytale princess when Churchill kissed my hand.