Personal Delivery: A Billionaire Secrets Story Read online

  I pull her close and brush my lips against the curve of her ear. “There is no drama in my life that will touch you. I wouldn’t put you in that position.”

  “No supermodel exes?”

  “Two of them. I don’t think either of them will be there, but there definitely wouldn’t be any drama. One of them is pregnant with her second kid and very happily married. The other is very happily unmarried and living in Paris. Neither of them thought I was that great a boyfriend, to be honest.”

  “Well, they’d be wrong.”

  “Would they?” I like the fierceness in her voice.

  “You’re smart and sexy and full of surprises. What’s not to like?”

  “You bring out the good boyfriend in me.”

  “You didn’t make the supermodels coffee?”

  I didn’t have the supermodels stay over at my place. “They weren’t serious relationships.”

  She bites her lip, I’m sure to keep from pointing out that coffee in the morning is not a marker of a serious relationship. It is for me, though. Or it was. I’ve got bigger plans up my sleeve.

  I drag her into the shower with me, where we both get a bit of a workout that she’s definitely agreeable to, then we head to Starbucks.

  It’s warm, so once we have our drinks, we head into the park. It’s busy this morning. Lots of runners, people out with their dogs, and lots of people with kids. Central Park is like having the most amazing backyard, full of history and pleasant strangers.

  It wasn’t always that way. I grew up here. This was my backyard, in a very different way. New York in the Eighties was a very different place. The park was dangerous at night, and not much better during the day.

  “Want to see where I used to play baseball as a kid?”

  “Uh, yes.” She laughs. “Yes! Of course I do.”

  “It’s a bit of a walk.”

  She slides her fingers through mine. “I’ve got all the time in the world. Show me your childhood.”

  I tell her about the park conservation program that turned Central Park around through my later childhood, and how my mother made me volunteer with the gardeners when she caught me smoking. “That was the most mother-like thing she ever did.”

  Jana doesn’t say anything. She hasn’t met my mother yet, because the day after I told Mother I had a girlfriend I wanted to introduce her to, she flew to Italy for a so-called retreat I hadn’t heard anything about.

  It’s possible the two aren’t related, but I’m not holding my breath.

  We curve around the back of the Met and I point it out. “We’ll walk back down Fifth so you can see the front. They’re probably putting up the tent for the covered entrance today.”

  A pair of runners sprint past us, and Jana watches them for a few seconds before asking me why I don’t ever run through the park.

  “I do, all the time.”

  “Not when I’m at your place.”

  “Because you’re at my place. The treadmill is faster and I can multitask work, and get both out of the way faster so I can rejoin you in bed, or on a walk.”

  “This view is incredible,” she says as we reach the path around the lake. On the other side, the apartment buildings of Central Park West rise above the trees. “Maybe I’ll take up jogging. Or walking briskly.”

  “Are there any great parks in Baltimore?”

  She snorts. “No. We’re more like New York, circa 1982.”

  Ah, well, there’s always my treadmill. “Because I bought a building yesterday. In the Inner Harbor.”

  She trips over her feet and spins around. “My Inner Harbor? Baltimore’s Inner Harbor? That—”

  “Yes.”

  “What sort of building?”

  “A tall one. Good for business-ing and things like that.”

  “Jake!”

  “What? You said you like it when I’m full of surprises.”

  “I meant showing up in Vermont for an afternoon of sex.”

  “We can have many afternoons of sex if I work in Baltimore. Middle of the nights, early mornings…”

  “Only a billionaire would think the solution to us being apart is for you to move your entire company to me.”

  “Not the entire company. Just a division. The CEO’s office. The rest of the building we’ll lease to other companies.”

  A breeze picks up and she pushes an errant strand of hair off her face. Her eyes are bright and wide, and her cheeks are flushed.

  I love you. I really shouldn’t say that just yet. I should let her process.

  “This is…you just gave me a key to your place. I think the next step is a drawer, not a real estate transaction.”

  “You don’t think that’s a logical solution?”

  “It would make way more sense for me and the cats to move closer to you.”

  “Closer?”

  “I was thinking New Jersey.”

  New Jersey? I love you. Maybe it is time to say. I tug her to the side of the path as another group of runners storms past. They’re loud. Maybe this isn’t the right place. I don’t know, I’ve never done this before. I love you.

  It’s pretty easy in my head.

  She searches my face. “Don’t worry. I’m not inviting myself into the penthouse or anything.”

  “You should. I love you.” It turns out, it’s easy to say out loud, too. I grin. “And that’s why I bought a building in Baltimore. Because I love you.”

  “Buying a skyscraper isn’t romantic.” She laughs. “Except it is, sort of. My heart’s all fluttery over it,” she whispers. “Oh, Jake.”

  I pull her into my arms and kiss her. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “We can fight about where we’re going to live when we get to the East Meadow.”

  “What’s that?” she breathes, her voice all husky.

  “Where I used to play baseball.”

  “That doesn’t sound private.”

  “It’s not, you’ll need to contain yourself.”

  “But you love me,” she whispers, wiggling closer. “That feels like we should celebrate with dirty sex.”

  I take her hand and pull her toward the next exit out of the park. Grass show-and-tell time can wait.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Jana

  The make-up artist does a final swipe of nail polish. “How does that look?”

  “Perfect.”

  “Okay, now it’s Nina’s turn.”

  My bestie took the day off work to come and be pampered at Jake’s apartment with me. She’s not going to the Gala, but that’s no reason why we can’t take advantage of the pampering and make it for two instead of one.

  We even get Daisy on a video chat and promise her she can come up for the next one.

  “I wasn’t expecting quite this much…fuss,” I admit to them both when the stylists are steaming my dress in another room.

  “Get used to it,” Nina says with a pleased smile.

  “Stop taking credit. You thought Jake was a delivery driver,” I point out.

  “And so did you. I swear you fell in love with him from the first delivery.”

  “Second,” I say. “The first one I was on the phone with the cable company and I didn’t really notice much other than he was hot.”

  “What happened during the second delivery?”

  He’d gotten down at cat level and had a serious hello-nice-to-meet-you moment with Trick and Jared. Larken had hidden, of course. “He was sweet to my cats.”

  “Awww.”

  And now they were going to move here. Kitten, too, although she isn’t much of a kitten anymore, but that’s her name now for good.

  Kyra and Nikki emerge from the never-used second bedroom and pronounce the dress ready to put on.

  I stand up and tighten my robe around me. Beneath it I’m wearing a push-up black silk body suit that’s basically a bra and panties with a silk panel in between to hold my “adorable tummy” in, as the stylists said. I was skeptical, but it’s actually
seriously sexy, and I can’t wait for Jake to peel me out of my dress at the end of the night.

  I excuse myself to go check on my boyfriend, who’s in his office, working.

  I find him on the phone, but he catches my eye and holds up his finger. He ends the call, then stands and prowls toward me. “What do you have under that robe?”

  “That is for me to know and you to discover later tonight. How much time until we need to leave? Should I put on my dress now?”

  He tugs on the soft cotton of the robe and holds me close so he can kiss me. “We’ve got enough time for me convince you—” An alarm sounds from his phone. He groans. “No we don’t. Well played.”

  “I like surprises, too.” I stick my tongue out at him. “Do up your bow tie, Mr. Aston. We have a gala to attend.”

  He catches my hand and brings my fingers to the black bow tie hanging loose around his neck. “You do it.”

  Heat swirls in his gaze as I take the two ends of the tie and…do nothing. “I don’t know how to tie a bow tie.”

  “Oh, I can teach you.” He smiles, slow and lazy. “Take the left hand side, and cross it over the right hand—no, your left. My right.”

  I fix it, then rest my knuckles against the hard planes of his chest. Jake in a tux is eye candy. Touching Jake in a tux is foreplay. “Got it.”

  “Now loop the top one around the bottom one and bring it up through the loop around my neck. No hanging jokes.”

  “Never.”

  “Now you’re going to fold the hanging bit up and to the right, so it makes a bow, with the loop pointing to the right. Good.”

  “My right, your left,” I tease him, and his muscles flex beneath my fingers. I want to stroke the smooth cotton of his dress shirt, but my hands are full of black satin tie.

  “Now drop the top tail down, so the skinny bit covers the middle of the bow, and…”

  “I see it,” I whisper, carefully folding it up and sliding it behind the first bow before I pull it tight. “It’s a little lopsided. Should I do it again?”

  He stills my hands. “It’s perfect.”

  “I want to do it again.”

  He grins. “Okay.”

  He walks me through the steps again, faster this time, and going quicker makes the bow neater. And when it’s done, I smooth my hands down his chest.

  “That was really hot,” I whisper.

  “Hot enough to earn me a peek under the robe?”

  “Nope. I don’t want to get stuck waiting behind Beyoncé. Get your butt in gear, mister.”

  I spent the morning pouring over coverage of previous years’ Galas, and I’ve decided the best time to arrive is before the live streaming coverage begins. The chairs of the event arrive just after six, so I want to arrive at quarter after the hour, and even if our driver gets stuck in traffic, it’s only four blocks.

  Only four blocks, and yet it still takes half an hour to get there because we need to loop around and come down Fifth Avenue, and then we get stuck in a queue of stretch SUVs.

  Jake squeezes my hand. “Can I distract you by guessing what’s under your dress? Is it lime green? Bright pink?”

  I smile. “Basic black.”

  “Interesting switch up.” He winks.

  “I considered wearing bright pink stockings, but they didn’t go with my open-toed shoes.”

  “I can arrange for another gala event for us to go to. Or you could just wear them for me.”

  “I could do that,” I whisper. “But I like galas, too.”

  “You say that now. You haven’t heard the din of noise when we get out of the car.”

  He’s not wrong. It’s deafening. When our driver pulls up at the spot where we get out, there’s a solid security presence keeping paparazzi at bay, but nothing can muffle the roar of more than a hundred photographers hungry for just the right shot.

  “Get out of the way! Get off the carpet! Motherfucking asshole, you’re blocking my shot! Taylor, turn around! Turn around! We can’t see you!” It wasn’t just one person screaming it, but the noise all runs together into one screech.

  “Ignore them,” Jake murmurs in my ear. “It’s all a game. They’re trying to get people to react. Slip, pull a face, something like that. Or maybe they actually will get the perfect shot. But they don’t have press access, and what they want isn’t my concern.”

  My heart beats fast in my chest as I nod.

  We snake forward in a line to get to the red carpet area. A publicist with a walkie-talkie at the top of the line is controlling who can move forward, and when we get to her, she recognizes Jake. “Mr. Aston, welcome to the Met Gala. You can move up the stairs on the right-hand side. Please stay a few paces behind Ms. Bellevue ahead of you.”

  He murmurs his thanks and sets his hand on my arm, just behind my elbow. “Ready?”

  “Sure, whatever, no big deal,” I say breathlessly. Then I totally reveal my inner dork because I squeal. “The carpet isn’t red!”

  He laughs. “They went blue this year, I guess.”

  I tip my face up to beam at him, and flashbulbs explode to our right.

  I don’t care how ridiculous I look in that photo, I’m going to frame it.

  He gives me a look of infinite fondness. “Let’s go. Four flights of stairs, then we’re done with the gauntlet.”

  On each landing, we stop and he’s photographed. Sometimes they ask who I am, and he always replies the same way. “My girlfriend, Jana.” He doesn’t give them my last name. It’s none of their business, he’s insisted over and over again when we’ve discussed how to handle this.

  He swears he’ll destroy anyone that invades my privacy. I’m not sure he has that power—I’m not sure anyone does—but I can handle some curiosity because of who I’m dating.

  It’s a small price to pay for the way he looks at me.

  At the top of the stairs, he laces his fingers through mine, and we leave the public spectacle behind.

  Inside, there’s a receiving line. I feel faint as Jake air-kisses Anna Wintour, then she turns to me. “Lovely to meet you,” she says.

  “It’s an honor to be here,” I whisper, and then we’re moving on down the line, greeting the other hosts of the evening, including the designer being honored this year, Rei Kawakubo. She’s wearing sneakers, but she tells me she loves my shoes, and I proudly say I chose them myself.

  Then we move into an exhibit hall where an installation details Kawakubo’s early work, her most popular period, and then most recently, the pieces where she’s almost left fashion behind except for as a purely artistic expression.

  It’s incredible, and we spend a full hour exploring that before we find our seats for dinner.

  Ben is standing next to the table Jake leads me to. Unlike Jake, he’s not in a classic black tux. Instead he’s wearing a jacket covered in a black and white geometric pattern, and he gives me a wicked look as we approach.

  “Now we match, Jana. Promise me a dance.”

  Jake growls at him.

  “My dance card might be full,” I say, and Ben rolls his eyes.

  “We’ll distract him with business deals. This is happening.” He gestures to a woman deep in conversation behind him. She’s wearing an avant garde outfit that can only be one of Rei Kawakubo’s pieces. “My sister, Elana. I’ll introduce you properly once she’s done talking to the exhibit curator. She picked out my jacket, so she’ll be pleased at our coordination.”

  “I’m also wearing black and white,” Jake points out.

  “Sure, sure,” Ben says with a wink. “Okay, I’ll be good.”

  As soon as I meet Elana Russo in person, I realize I’ve seen her many times on the pages of Vogue.

  “I think I follow you on Instagram,” I blurt out, and she laughs.

  “That’s awesome. I really love what they’ve done for cosmetics. I’m not as on top of it as some of the up and coming designers, but it’s a lot of fun. Do you find it useful as an illustrator?”

  “My Instagram account is mos
tly my cats,” I admit. “I never thought about using it for work. I’m kind of hopeless with the business side of things.”

  “Oh, cats are great. What you want is to find a way to be authentically you and leverage it.” She twists around and looks at a man a few tables over. When he catches her eye, she waves him over. “You want to talk to this guy.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He oversaw the Facebook buyout of Instagram.”

  That’s a bit above my level. Before I freak out, Jake smoothly intervenes. “Elana, chill out. We’re here to have fun tonight.”

  She sighs. “Oh, Jake Aston. Now that you’re in love, it’s like I hardly even know you. Have fun?”

  One corner of his mouth quirks up. “I know. I’m trying something new.”

  Dinner passes in a blur, then there’s an incredible performance by an R&B singer before everyone takes to the dance floor.

  For all his teasing, Ben doesn’t ask me to dance, and that’s for the best, because Jake isn’t letting me go. He even holds on to my hand during faster songs, but it’s the slow ones I like best, because he wraps me in his arms and holds me right against his body, hard and solid. It’s magical and sweet and sexy, too, with heat and want building between us as the night spirals on.

  There’s talk of going to an after party, but when Jake calls for his car, and he pulls me onto the dance floor for one more slow spin, I decide I just want to go home.

  When he strokes his fingertips up my spine, settling his hand in the bare spot at the top of my back, I lean in to his touch and shiver. “Maybe we should—”

  “Head straight home?” His eyes glitter. “I agree.”

  “Oh, good.” I sway back toward him and he leans in, pressing his forehead against mine as we turn slowly, then he kisses me.

  I’m sure it looks gentle and romantic from anyone else’s vantage point, but I can feel him tighten up around me as his lips part mine. I get the rough swipe of his tongue against my skin, between my teeth, then up against my own tongue, hot and demanding.

  “Now,” he says, and I nod.

  Right now.

  We hold hands in the elevator up to the penthouse.

  Neither of us says anything, and we don’t kiss or grope or anything like that. But with each passing second, my nipples grow tighter and my smile curves wider.