CATCHING THE BILLIONAIRE

Chapter 3

Okay, how do I look?” I turned away from the mirror over the sink and struck a pose.

Beny's expression was carefully neutral. “Truthfully? Like a kid in his dad’s suit.”

The post fund raising dinner was themed, black&tie, and I unfortunately didn’t have one, so I’d borrowed Beny's. Not completely grasping the impact of Beny being six foot six and an athlete. When I was pretty much the opposite of that. “What if I rolled the sleeves up?”

“Don’t you f*****g dare. That’s my best tux.”

As I walked across the room, the trousers slipped ominously down my hips. I tightened the belt I’d hidden under the cummerbund and managed to stave off disaster.

Beny winced. “Do you really want to meet important people looking like that?”

“It’s not that bad.” My hair was having a small rebellion of its own. I’d quiffed it in one side but the whole thing had fallen sideways like a drunk on Saturday night. But f**k it. Matthew Bloomberg wasn’t coming anyway.

He’d probably forgotten about me the moment he’d put the phone down. And I wasn’t going to be…sad or disappointed about it. Nope. Not even a little bit.

He wasn’t all that. Okay, I admit he was good-looking, but he wasn’t photogenic, really. He never smiled. Always the same flat stare, as though he regarded the camera as an enemy.

“I’m telling you,” Beny was saying, “it is that bad.”

I waved a hand, implying that I really don't give a damn, and picked up the bow tie he’d laid out for me. Turning up the collar of Beny’s dress shirt and slipping the silk around my neck, I abruptly remembered I had no idea how to tie the damn thing. The last time I’d had to do this had been matriculation and it hadn’t gone well. Maybe because I’d still been drunk from the night before. Or maybe because bow ties were bullshit.

I messed with the ends, crossing them over each other and moving them about randomly, as if this would miraculously make a bow appear under my chin.

Beny sighed. “You don’t know how to do that, do you?”

I shook my head.

“Come here.”

I went there and Beny stood up, pushing my hands out of the way. And then, just like that, his confidence seemed to desert him. We’d always been fairly snuggly, but this was different somehow: my eyes turned up to Beny’s, him frowning down at me, a piece of black fabric twisted between his fingers, so close to my throat that it felt like a promise or a threat. “s**t,” he muttered, “it’s hard to do it backwards.”

There were about sixty-four million jokes I could have made. Instead I closed my eyes. Tilted my chin to make it easier for him. “I trust you.”

He fiddled, the touch almost aggressively impersonal. “Left end lower than right, bring it over, make a loop, up and through…fuck.” A knock on the door and Beny jerked away from me, the ungainly knot he had created unraveling instantly. “Um, yeah?” he called out.

Noel stuck his head in, gingerish curls flopping haphazardly. “Message from the Lodge. You’ve got a visitor.”

Beny looked startled. “Me?”

“Nuh-uh”—he pointed at me—“that one.”

It couldn’t be…could it? “Who?” I asked, like a disingenuous fuckwit.

“Bloomy somebody? No. Bloomberg. Yes. That's right. He’s waiting for you.”

“Oh my God.”

Reality hit me. Matthew f*****g Bloomberg. Not just a name on a list, a picture on a screen, a voice on the phone. He was here. He had come. To see me. And he was waiting. I'm not even asking how the hell he knew where I'm staying. My mind was just full of thoughts of him.

Oh f**k.

Oh s**t.

One minute I was holding a fallen-apart bow tie and the next it was on the floor. As I bent to pick it up, I realized my hands were sweating. What a totally fabulous impression I was going to make.

“I…uh…I guess I’d better be going.”

“Yeah, man.” The way Beny matched my casual tone ruthlessly revealed it as the lie it was. “Might be a good idea.”

Deep breath. “Right. Well. I’m going.”

I had to squeeze past Noel, who had no sense of personal space and was right in the doorway.

“Hey, Niel?” Beny’s voice followed me into the corridor. I turned and he gave me a two-fingered salute. “Be careful.”

It was our cheesy…joke, routine, whatever. I couldn’t remember when we’d started but it was a thing. The more banal the activity the funnier it got. Right now, even though I wasn’t exactly going off to fight aliens or sacrifice my life in service to my country, it was hard not to take it a bit seriously.

Which made no sense because…I was going to meet a guy, we were going to have a polite conversation, he was maybe going to donate some money to St. Mary's, and then I was never going to see or think of him again.

That should not have been a big deal.

Although if I kept him waiting much longer, I probably wouldn’t meet him at all. The man who didn’t have time to read letters was unlikely to have time for disorganized undergraduates.

He would cast an irritated glance at the empty quad and then get back in his chauffeur-driven who-knew-what and that would be that. St. Mary's would probably slip right to the bottom, fall into financial ruin, and eventually be overrun by zombies. All because I couldn’t get my s**t together.

I whooshed to the staircase, holding up my trousers as best I could and still clinging to that damn bow tie, telling myself there’d be time to fix it later.

Down to the first floor, ground floor, then I'm outside.

It was a typical late spring evening, powder-puff pink and gold, and I sprinted over the flagstones, heading toward the front quad and the Lodge.

My mouth was tangy with copper, as though I could taste my own too-fast beating heart.

The lawns of our College, were pretty much sacrosanct, but I cut across through it anyway because it was a legit emergency.

And that was when I saw him.

Initially with a faint sense of outrage because, instead of black tie, he was dressed in a midnight blue three-piece suit. And also because my mind was not prepared properly.

Fairly good-looking my arse.

Those Google images had lied. They had actually lied to me. Damn it! I'm gonna sue them!

The man there, was f*****g beautiful.

So ridiculously beautiful it was hard to get your head round it somehow. He looked like a film star. Not the modern sort—not one of your amiably shaggable Chris Pines or Charlie Hunnams—but a screen idol from a lost age, all perfect symmetry and effortless poise, the remote and overwhelming splendor of a temple cold and ancient gods.

I hadn’t let myself waste a single thought on what would happen if he actually came to the dinner. Of how I might greet him or what I might say. But I was starting to wish I’d planned and practiced. I could have stepped up to him, just as self-assured, holding out my hand for him to shake like that was totally the sort of thing I did.

Mr. Bloomberg, I would have purred, a pleasure to meet you.

Unfortunately, I caught my foot on the KEEP OFF THE GRASS sign and fell over instead. Face-planting right in front of his polished shoes.

Not the worst place I could ever have imagined being. But not just then.

He made a startled noise and then eased himself to his haunches, giving me an up-close-and-personal view of just how top class his tailoring was. It was all I could do not to follow those crisp creases all the way up his thighs to his—

“Are you all right?” he asked.

What I wanted to say was no. Seriously. I’d fallen over like a flailing toddler. In front of a man I desperately, desperately wanted to…not fall over in front of. I lifted my head and peered at him.

God, he was so elegant. Everything about him is flawless. From his graceful, long-fingered hands to that stern mouth, its unyielding curve touched by the faintest hint of sensuality. And those gray-blue wolf’s eyes, all ice and savagery. And it's focused in me.

“Niel?” His voice sounded different in person, somehow more. “Niel Thompson?”

“Nope,” I mumbled. “Definitely not. He’s someone else. Someone really attractive and totally vertical.”

“Come on.”

Oh God. He was touching me. Helping me up. And, thankfully, while it wasn’t my most agile ascent, Beny’s trousers stayed in place. If they hadn’t, it would have been the clincher on whether I had to commit suicide pretty much immediately.

But now I didn’t know what to do. It had been easier on the phone when his beauty wasn’t burning my eyes like magnesium and my capacity to make a fool of myself was somewhat lessened by distance.

He held out a hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Niel.”

We shook hands and I was sure I was limp and sweaty and slightly grassy. “That’s not fair. I was planning to say that.”

“Likewise.”

“You what?”

“Likewise. I find it a useful word in such circumstances.”

“Oh right.” I smiled at him. I couldn’t help it. He was just looked like he needed to be smiled at. “Likewise, Mr. Bloomberg.”

I thought he might smile back but instead his eyes darkened, and then his attention flicked away from me. “Matthew is fine.”

“Okay.” I followed his gaze, but he didn’t seem to be looking anywhere in particular. Just away from me, which wasn’t exactly a good sign. “Um, thank you for coming. I didn’t think you would.”

“I wasn’t sure I would have time.”

“Yet here you are.”

“Yes.” Whatever had troubled him before had passed and he was perfectly composed as he met my eyes again. “Here I am.”

“Am I…I mean, is it what you were expecting?” Oh wow, classy, Niel. Not blatant at all.

But his mouth finally yielded up its smile. And, like his laugh, it was unexpectedly shy, as though he wasn’t used to doing it. It disordered the harmonies of his face, but I liked him better that way, a little bit messy, a little bit realer. God, the man was killing me. Actually killing me. “I’m not sorry I came.”

“How does it feel to be back?” I asked.

“I’m afraid I’m not given to sentiment.”

I peeped up at him from under my lashes. Yep, it was official: I was flirting. “What? No sudden rush of nostalgia for these dreaming spires?”

He shook his head.

“But the Town's beautiful, isn’t it? A lot of things had changed.”

“Yeah, I saw from the way here. A lot of things really had changed,” he said, melancholic.

Awkward silence.

God I shouldn't have said that.

Clearing my throat a little, I change the topic. “Um, I think I’m supposed to take you to this reception thing? It’s in Galvin.”

“And you’re going like that?”

It wasn’t really an encouraging sentiment but the slide of his eyes down my body made me embarrassed. “Well, I was going to wear my bespoke suit like you but then I remembered I don’t have one.”

If I’d been hoping to win another smile, I was disappointed because all I got in response was, “Turn around.”

It was a phrase that had come my way often enough and I was pretty fond of it. But the way he said it, oh God the way he said it, turned my insides to honey. Not bossy or rough but implacable.

A command.

If he did it in a voice like that—all steel and velvet and the promise of his approval—I would have done anything he told me.

No matter how slutty or degrading.

Actually.

Strike that.

Especially if it was slutty or degrading.

I turned around, trying to shut down the porno in my brain. We were in a public place, and I was fully dressed, but I felt vulnerable.

His arm came around me from behind. And the heat of it, the pressure. The tightening muscles of his forearm made me a bit delirious. I leaned back and his body was right there, all hard planes and angular curves for me to nestle into. I tilted my hips, wriggling my arse until I was tucked in against him, pinned and protected at the same time, at once safe and overwhelmed.

I tried to breathe and an excited little moan happened instead.

Matthew tugged me in tighter still. No humiliatingly inappropriate noises from him. But his heart was thudding hard and fast against my spine. He pulled the bow tie out of my hand and straightened my collar. A finger touched me lightly under the chin and I tipped my head back against his shoulder, exposing my throat. That was when I heard him growl. Softly enough I almost missed it, but there it was. This sound of deep, primitive pleasure that shivered all the way down my back and headed off in a few other directions as well.

As he leaned over me, his breath grazed the top of my ear and that insubstantial caress felt so ridiculously intimate it made my knees go weak. Like I was supposed to be on them. At his feet. His other arm came around me as he did whatever you have to do to make a bow tie happen. He didn’t fumble at it the way Beny had. His movements were swift and assured. And, just for a moment, I felt a brush of warmth across my pulse point, like a touch that wasn’t.

I only noticed he was done when he gave me a little push. Too busy swooning into his neck and shoving my bum into his crotch like the wanton hussy I was. I turned, stumbling a little, discovering too late I was basically jelly, and just about managed not to end up on the ground again.

“Um, thanks.” I lifted a hand instinctively, wanting to feel the shape of the knot, but then stopped. I’d only wreck it.

He just nodded, his eyes slipping away from me again. I wished he’d stop doing that. Was my face that boring? But his color was up, his breath a little unsteady. And, y’know, there’d been movement back there. When I’d been doing my thing. So maybe he was just…embarrassed?

“That’s some good tying,” I heard myself say. “Is it practice or natural talent?”

That got his attention. And, for a throat-clogging second, I thought I’d f****d everything up already. But Matthew’s mouth softened into that nearly-smile of his. “What if I told you it was a little of both?”

“Then I guess it’d be my lucky night.”

He cleared his throat. “Aren’t we supposed to be going to a reception?”

We. “Oh yeah. But, honestly, if you’d rather wile away the evening adjusting my clothing, I’m game.”

He reached out, fingers stroking lightly over my lapels as he tried to settle the tux less lopsidedly across my shoulders. “I know a lost cause when I see one.” He was right, but I must have looked hurt, because he went on with the same uncertain gentleness I remembered from our telephone conversation. “Did you shrink in the wash?”

“Hah! No. I’m naturally pocket-sized. These aren’t mine.”

“Who do they belong to? A gorilla?”

“My best friend. I don’t have a set of my own. Don’t like wearing the stuff.”

“Neither do I.”

I gazed up at him, so pristine and exquisite, this sleek, shining Lamborghini of a man. In other words: a ride way beyond my budget. “Yes, but you can get away with it.”

“It’s quite simple, Niel.” He stepped past me, gold-edged by the last of the light, the softer hair at his brow and temples gilded into tempting little curlicues. “Don’t give people a choice. If you want to change, I’ll wait for you.”

“But you just fixed my bow tie.” A swift tug from his fingers and there was that problem dealt with. “Ah.”

“Go.”

“But…what if everybody looks at me funny?”

“Why do you care?”

“Um, just because.. "

He raised his brows and looked at me sternly, "You have five minutes,” and he spoke in That Voice. The one I wanted to hear telling me to do utterly filthy things, just so that I’d do them. I felt a drift of air, the suggestion of heat, at the small of my back, as though he’d been about to rest his hand there but had changed his mind.

“Seriously?” It came out a squeak. “You’ll really wait?”

“Yes. For five minutes.”

“Shit.”

I ran, ripping off the tuxedo as I went, like I was the Incredible Hulk or something. Apart from the hulky bit, anyway.

Noel was still lodged in our doorway, talking about, oh, who knew what, as I pelted past. Beny made a c***k about Clark Kent as my shirt fluttered over my head but I didn’t have time to stop.

I knew, in some distant way, this was ridiculous, but I couldn’t deny I was enjoying it. Feeling silly and eager and panicky all at the same time.

I had no idea how long I’d taken, so I didn’t dare linger over my choices. I just shucked the rest of the formal wear, pulled on my skinniest skinny jeans and my favorite DREAM BOY T-shirt. Then I grabbed my red velvet jacket from the armchair and sprinted back to Matthew Bloomberg.

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