The Billionaire Game 2 Read online

  The Billionaire Game 2

  By L I L A M O N R O E

  Copyright © 2015 by Lila Monroe

  The Billionaire Game 2

  Cover Design: British Empire Designs

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including emailing, photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  To all the precious children whose incessant chatter and demands motivate mothers to write- alone. Mama loves you, darlings.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  ONE

  Asher ran his fingers reverentially along the blue silk of my brassiere, stroking the finely woven violet lace with a look of concentration on his face so deep that it approached wonder. I blushed with pleasure and delight at his appreciation, feeling my breaths come harder and faster and my heart speed up as he squeezed the ample cup, his lips parting slightly in a wicked grin that told me he liked what he felt.

  Oh, he liked it a lot.

  “This is exceptional workmanship,” he said, placing the brassiere back on the shelf. “You’ve really outdone yourself.”

  “Thanks,” I said, trying to sound offhand and not like I’d been up half the night going over the stock to make sure it would meet with his approval.

  We were back in my workshop, trying to re-establish our sense of the space after a week of being banned while contractors put in the floor—beautiful reclaimed hardwood planks with a clear finish over the light oak to let the natural distress show through. It was gorgeous. Even Asher had to admit it had been the right decision.

  I’d vetoed his choice of black marble, reminding him that I wasn’t going for that flashy-trashy boudoir look of glossy black and hot pink and lipstick red. Instead, I envisioned a clean, fresh space with lots of natural light and neutral colors to allow my handmade lingerie to draw the eye. Think wildflowers in crystal vases, a big mason jar server of mimosas for customers, and plush, elegant furniture in the dressing rooms with just a touch of industrial steel thrown in for balance.

  He’d reluctantly agreed with my design ideas, but there was no way I would have let him tell me how to decorate the lingerie store I’d been dreaming about for the past million years or so. And after realizing how uncompromising I was going to be, Asher gave in pretty quickly to my demands, putting up just the littlest bit of fight for show.

  Getting the workshop both up to code and visually on-point had been an exhilarating challenge, and I could only wish it had been the only one. For some reason, Asher was really cracking the whip on the business timeline.

  I’d told him again and again that as long as we were done in time to get into the fall fashion shows I’d be happy, but he’d just laugh and shake his head and utter some platitude about it how it was impossible to be too early. Tell that to someone who didn’t get sent home for showing up a week early to a Josh Groban concert, I’d told him, but he’d just laughed again, and hey, he was the billionaire, so I decided to leave it up to him.

  And so I was little loopy from lack of sleep that morning as we went over the samples I’d brought and tried to decide what to use on our opening day in three months.

  In addition to the latest all-nighter, I’d been working like a madwoman organizing my ideas into separate themed lines with names ranging from Sweetie Pie to Synful, ordering materials from every source I knew was reliable and a few that I didn’t, sewing and pricing them, and interviewing and hiring seamstresses—that last one had almost given me an aneurism after she’d admitted that she “didn’t, like, actually know sewing or whatever, but I’m just so into fashion, you know?” And then once I found an applicant who actually had something resembling qualifications, I still had to train them on the standards I expected for my lingerie.

  You’d think all this would have made a dent in my to-do list, but nope, it was still a mountain that would have given Sir Edmund Hillary pause.

  “How are you coming along with that mission statement?” Asher asked offhandedly. “I need it to show around at the banks today, and since you’re not busy at the moment, if you wouldn’t mind running me up five hundred words or so…”

  “Bite me,” I said eloquently.

  “With pleasure,” he replied with a smirk.

  I just rolled my eyes and jotted down yet another note to myself on the back of my hand. Don’t get me wrong—I was beyond grateful that Asher had appeared like a knight in shining armor to save my dream of a lingerie store with his investment, but that didn’t make his incessant flirting any less irritating. He just couldn’t help turning on the playboy routine the second he saw a skirt.

  It was maybe a little more irritating because I wouldn’t have minded him taking me up on my offer.

  Focus, Kate! Don’t look at those luscious biceps stretching the sleeves of his shirt tight, or the way those slacks cling to his ass, or those full pouty lips that—

  That are speaking. Right now. Oops. Pay attention!

  Asher was ticking off a list of details on his long, elegant fingers. “We still need to get this space completely renovated and set-dressed, finalize the last hirings of additional people to produce your designs, finalize your launch collection, register trademarks, and establish the company on paper.” He frowned. “I feel like I’m forgetting something. Oh yes! Contact the press.”

  Meanwhile, my lust had been completely overridden by blind panic.

  “Slow down, Flash Gordon,” I tried to joke, doing my best to keep my hands and voice from shaking with anxiety as I responded.

  Usually making a reference to Asher’s secret geekiness was good for about a half hour of him condescendingly explaining how I’d mangled or misconstrued said reference, but today he just laughed, leaning back against the wall in an unfairly relaxed posture. “Feeling the pressure?”

  There were deep sea divers who were feeling less pressure than I was. “Oh, only every second of every day. Dammit, Asher, I’m up to my eyeballs in work and I don’t have the first idea how to go about doing half the things you just said!”

  It cost me to admit that, but I couldn’t endanger my dream for the sake of my pride.

  “That’s what I’m here for,” Asher said with a smile so smug it seemed to think the rest of Asher was just a convenient place for it to rest. “I’ll handle the business end of all this; you don’t have to worry your pretty little head about a thing.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?” Swallowing my pride was one thing, but having it shoved down my throat was something else entirely.

  “What?” he asked, spreading his hands, all innocence.

  “I thought you were going to be a silent partner,” I said pointedly. “But I’m hearing a lot of awfully loud condescension right now.”

  “Maybe I could have phrased it better,” Asher admitted. “But you do need help, don’t you? Your expertise is more in the…artistic arena.” He stretched, and I momentarily forgot all my objections, and also all words in the English language, as the hem of his maroon T-shirt lifted to reveal tantalizingly sculpted abs.

  Oh yeah, I need your help, Asher. I need your help locating the nearest flat surface so I can bang your brains out. Got any suggestions?

  Unfortunately, that’d be the fastest way to torpedo this whole business. My
second favorite fantasy after having sex with Asher was telling him to take his money and stick it where the sun didn’t shine because I could do this all on my own; realistically, I saw that solo venture playing out about as well as Custer’s Last Stand.

  “Yeah, I need some help,” I muttered begrudgingly. “I guess.”

  A buzz sounded, and Asher pulled his cell from his pocket, scrolling down through his menus until he came to his texts. A wicked grin dashed across his face before he could stifle it. He straightened up. “Well, I’d better jet. Time is a harsh mistress.”

  “I’m guessing she’s not the only one,” I snarked. “Hot date?”

  “Always,” Asher said with a self-satisfied smugness that made me want to punch that perfect face, or kiss it—anything to get him off his balance.

  I remembered the night of our first kiss, the way that smugness had dropped away for just a moment, and in its place had been a strange and vulnerable sweetness, as though he really saw me. I remembered the way his hand had traced up my arm, so slowly, so gently, as if I were made of some precious and fragile material. I remembered how his eyes had darkened with passion, how he had pulled me closer—

  “I have very high standards, after all,” Asher went on. “Space and time are finite, and I can’t waste either of them on someone who isn’t up to par.”

  My happy memories crashed and burned. Right. Time was finite, and Asher wasn’t going to waste any of it chatting with me when he could be groping his latest blonde supermodel clone.

  “Well, don’t let me detain you,” I said. “After all, every minute you spend here is a blonde you’re not talking into the backseat of your space-car.”

  “Oh, I’d never let them into the Whomobile,” Asher said offhandedly. His devil-may-care grin widened. “But other than that, you’ve hit on the essentials of my life philosophy.”

  I managed to get the words “see you later,” out of my mouth instead of “try not to trip on your boner on the way there,” and he left, leaving me with an empty shop and a sackful of worries.

  I looked around at the wall, only half-filled with shelves and stock; they seemed to all of a sudden loom impossibly high above me. I felt small, minuscule, microscopic. How had I ever dared to think I could do this?

  “Get your game back in the game,” I chided myself, shaking myself out of the funk. I grabbed my notebook and started working on my sketches. I needed these finalized by tonight, and thanks to my hard work and Asher’s time management, I was on track to do just that.

  The stakes were high, and it was a deal with the devil, but at least the devil was keeping up his end of the deal.

  …if the devil looked like he just stepped out of the pages of a men’s underwear catalogue, with a voice like honey and lips that were burning hot as he kissed—

  Note to self: look into possibility that Asher is the literal devil.

  He certainly was tempting me enough to fit the part.

  Would it really be so bad to give in?

  “Of course it would!” I snapped at myself, my graphite drawing pencil breaking in half as I applied too much pressure. I took a deep breath, and then another. I could do this. I could. I could finish everything that needed finishing, and I could resist Asher, and I could show everybody who had ever doubted me just what I was made of.

  There was still a pang, though, suspiciously close to my heart, when I thought about Asher and his hot date. When I thought about him smiling with her and laughing with her and touching her arm, pulling her close and kissing her lips.

  “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” I muttered under my breath, and went to find a pencil sharpener.

  I had work to do, and time and space were finite.

  TWO

  “Oh my God, this is actually happening!” Lacey’s squeal was so high-pitched I was surprised it didn’t summon a pack of dogs. Still, even with my possibly perforated eardrums, I couldn’t help but grin at her enthusiasm. It reminded me of how I had felt when I first entered my new studio, and rekindled that excitement inside me.

  “It is pretty sweet, huh?” I said. “It’s still not exactly the Ritz, but I’m going to grab Asher by the ankles and shake him upside down to see how many bearskin rugs I can make fall out of his pockets.”

  Lacey chuckled, and we both turned to survey the space again, breathing out a perfectly synchronized sigh of contentment.

  Significant progress had been made in the back workshop of my studio: no bearskin rugs, alas and alack, but some top of the line sewing machines with more speeds than a bicycle and more stitches than someone who’d fallen through a plate glass window.

  We’d already been through the fitting rooms, where I’d hung up a few lingerie samples on the walls, and Lacey exclaimed in each one as she marveled at the way the natural light kept the colors of the products vibrant—exactly as intended, Asher’s opinion be damned.

  “You could almost open this place without any furniture, it looks so sleek,” Lacey marveled. “The standing salon! A new trend!”

  “That would give Asher a heart attack,” I said. “And believe me, I am well on my way to setting the trend of Asher Young heart failure. Working at it night and day. But I think I’ll forgo this opportunity; I do actually want some things for people to sit on, or lie down on.” I gestured back towards the fitting rooms, getting excited. “Imagine a velvet chaise lounge, or a deep plush angora wool carpet—or a throw made of cashmere! Stepping into one of these rooms should be like stepping into someplace comfortable and indulgent, where you can throw off the shackles of your preconceived notions about what you can wear—”

  “—and about what you can spend?” Lacey added slyly.

  I gave her a look so innocent I could have been exonerated of murder with eyewitness testimony and a video recording. “Well, if people want to shower me with money, who am I to stand in their way? Let them pursue their dreams!”

  “Spoken like a true businesswoman,” Lacey said, slinging her arm around my shoulders. “Oh, Kate, this is all so exciting!”

  “And terrifying,” I admitted. “I feel like a little baby bird trembling on the edge of the nest, with Asher standing behind me ready to swat me forward to see if I can fly.”

  “Wait, Asher is the mama bird in this scenario?” Lacey asked, snickering. “Oooh, please tell him that in front of me so I can see his face. I want to take a picture with my iPhone of his face when you tell him that and carry it with me always for whenever I need to laugh.”

  “Your wish is my command,” I told her.

  Lacey wandered over to the sewing machines and fussed with an assortment of bobbins in a way so carefully casual that I immediately became suspicious.

  “So, how are you getting on with Asher?” Lacey asked in a tone she apparently thought was innocent. “I have to say, I never would have seen your…partnership…coming along this way, but you guys do seem to be making it work...” She trailed off suggestively.

  “Whoa, let me stop you right there,” I said. “I mean, you’ve got it right that it’s a weird partnership. It is weirder than a very weird thing from Planet What the Hell is Gillian Anderson Even Wearing On the Red Carpet This Year, but it’s not a smirky-smirky-eyebrow-raise-finger-quotes ‘partnership.’ It’s strictly business.”

  “Uh-huh,” Lacey said, totally deadpan. “Sure. That mouth-to-mouth session in the cabin was just, what? You guys signing your contract?”

  “It was a mistake,” I stressed.

  I hoped I sounded more convincing than I felt convinced. Asher could blow so hot and cold sometimes, and there were nights I still awoke twisting in the sheets, remembering the heat of his embrace, the strength of his arms, the warmth of his lips…

  “A sexy mistake, I will give you that, and girl, you know that a sexy mistake is my very favorite variety of mistake, and one that I usually try to make as often as humanly possible, but that? That was a one-time sexy mistake. Coupon expired, offer no longer valid. And Asher knows that.”

 
“Uh-huh,” Lacey repeated, her skepticism as unwavering as granite. “Asher knows that and has totally backed off, which is why he’s calling you day and night, and doing approximately six thousand little favors for you, and showing up at all hours to give input on your side of the work. That definitely seems legit and not at all like he is crushing on you.”

  “Please, I have seen his modus operandi in action and this is not it,” I protested. I wouldn’t have minded if Lacey’s insinuations were true, but it was obvious that Asher had already moved on to yet another blonde-of-the-week. “You’re seeing things, girl. Weird-ass nonexistent things. Companies work with investors all the time—”

  “Not hot, eligible, fun investors,” Lacey put in with a grin.

  I sighed. She wasn’t going to let up. “Is your idea of fun obsessing over the color of bathroom wall tiles?” I asked. “Because in that case, yes, Asher is incredibly fun, we have been having so much fun working together.”

  I forcefully pressed a mental fast-forward through the memories of laughing and joking on the helicopter ride to the ranch. Those weren’t relevant. Not really. It had all been just another piece of the standard Asher ‘oh look, someone with breasts, I should hit on her’ charm.

  I went on, “Oh, also, is your idea of ‘eligible’ being a desperate man-slut? Because Asher is definitely ‘eligible’”—I did the finger quotes—“to anything with two legs in a skirt, though you definitely get a fast-track pass if you’re blonde, a supermodel, and have an IQ even lower than the calorie count in the box of rice crackers which are the only thing you’ve eaten that day.”

  “Well, if you say so,” Lacey acquiesced. “I just thought, it seems like he’s into you, and you could use a pick-me-up since you’re so stressed about the business, and if something were to happen between you two…”

  “Girl, I swear, nothing is going to happen,” I said. I forced myself to sound nonchalant, though my voice wanted desperately to waver and crack. “We’re partners now, it is totally out of the equation. Nothing to see here, Isaac Newton. Dr. Einstein, Dr. Hawking, move right along.”