Read Babysitting the Billionaire Online
Authors: Nicky Penttila
Babysitting the Billionaire (4 page)
“I’ll do whatever you need. Won’t you need maps and
guides for the expedition?”
“We could farm those out.”
“Probably to me,” said May, hearing a trace of dejection
in her voice. “That would be cheaper for you.”
“I don’t want that. You are valued, and not just for
your art skills. Nobody else knows the technical end of our site, and that’s
golden.”
Any clever intern could do what she did on the site, May
thought, though thankfully she kept her mouth shut in Sadie’s office.
And here she was, taking out her frustration on the
goose that was planning to hand them a golden egg. Or, rather, the gander.
She would be more compliant with Mr. Kurck. It wasn’t
his fault he was a too-rich asshole, and he certainly wasn’t worse than her own
Mr. Edmondsson, with his “back when we were at the pole” and “I take my coffee
with a half-teaspoon of sugar. One half.”
When Markus Kurck next came into the living room, May
gasped. Newly shaved, hair glistening, he perfectly filled an obviously custom-made
charcoal suit, pants fitted at the back and knee as it they’d been sewn onto
him. His blue
his hand and his suit jacket over his arm.
“Help me with these,” he said, and dropped a pair of
cufflinks in her hand. He sat next to her, bumping her hip and dipping the
overstuffed sofa so much she trampolined up an inch. She scuttled half a foot
down the sofa and leaned back toward him, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
He didn’t seem to, his expression a thousand miles away
as he held out a hand toward her, wrist up. May pressed the two cuff-holes
together and slid the tiny link in. She clicked the link into place, and then
looked at it. A tiny cartoon penguin.
She looked up at him, startled. He shrugged, a little
sheepish. “They’re good luck.”
“Mine’s a Hello Kitty bracelet.” May cringed inside. Why
had she said that?
“Hello Kitty has no personal meaning,” he said sententiously.
“H.K. has whatever meaning a person chooses to give her.”
“I see I’ve hit a nerve.” He raised an eyebrow at her.
How did he make them triangle like that? “Other sleeve, please.”
He shifted toward her, dropping his shoes on the floor.
She clicked the cufflink on, then, belatedly remembering her promise to herself
to be nicer, ran her fingers across his pulse point.
He jumped, or she did. He lifted his wrist to inspect
it. “Static electricity in June, May?”
Trying to cover the shock of what she’d just felt—it
could not possibly be lust—May went for the easy joke. “Just the excitement of
being here with you, Mr. Kurck.”
“Excitement, little May? Then by all means, call me Beau.”
He was all joviality in the elevator, but his mood grew
cooler and more introspective with every block closer to the restaurant they
walked. May’s mood did the opposite. The day was beautiful, with the bright
blue sky and mild weather that lulled one into thinking that DC summers were
weeks of this, tops, before the muggy-swamp weather took over for the rest of
the summer. She wanted to soak in this wonderfulness, since it would not last.
Now in the restaurant, their moods were reversed. Beau paced,
and May stood calm as a yogi. Neither touched the pitchers of ice water and
margaritas on a shiny platter at the edge of the table for eight. There weren’t
any place settings, so May expected it would be a short meeting.
Beau stopped short. “Why no cutlery?”
He didn’t expect this to be a short meeting? May vamped.
“This restaurant makes a big deal of the silverware; they bring it out special
for each course.” He wasn’t really listening to her, obviously, because he fell
for it.
She’d seen Jane Lindell in photos and news video, of
course, but when the senator breezed across the threshold, May had the feeling
she’d never seen anything like this.
It could have been the power suit, the power posture, or
the perfect fake-sun-streaked hair, but May suspected Sen. Lindell’s secret was
her amazing face. Not beautiful, not perfectly symmetrical even, but the
combination of strong jaw, pert nose, eyes somehow both sharp and round, and a
generously wide mouth stopped you in your tracks. Even Beau Kurck, allegedly
familiar with the face and the person, was taken aback for a moment.
“Who is this handsome man, Sadie?” The senator shared an
odd sort of glance with Sadie, who simpered—really, that was the word for it—and
shut the door. They must have left the senator’s staffer out at the bar.
The senator turned back to Beau, drinking him in. May didn’t
blame her. Beau’s beautifully cut suit completely covered but somehow also
enhanced his beautifully cut body. But for some reason the senator’s gaze slid
too quickly past him to May, standing at his side.
“Cute cut. Pageboy suits you.”
May struggled to come up with an answer. No one in power
had ever noticed her before, much less said anything to her. While she’d railed
about it to her friends, it turned out she now saw that she really did feel
more comfortable as one of the anonymous and unmentioned.
But before she could get even a simple thank you out,
the senator’s genial, glad-handing expression froze.
She looked back at Beau, and her almond eyes widened. “Boris?”
“In the flesh.”
The senator, that power player, seemed to involuntarily
take a step back. A chill settled at the edges of her eyes. May fought the urge
to step closer to Beau, protect him. As if she could offer any protection.
The senator looked him up and down. “You look fantastic,
Beau.” Somehow she made such an extreme compliment sound back-handed, and his
nickname an epithet.
“I’ve done everything you said.” Beau’s voice had a
quality May hadn’t yet heard. Firm, yes, determined, yes, gorgeous, yes. What
was it?
Honest.
He was speaking from his heart.
“I need a drink,” The Senator moved around the table,
away from them, and sat down.
May picked up a glass and looked at the pitchers.
“Water? Margarita?”
Lindell shot a startled glance at her. Beau interrupted.
“You like margaritas.”
“Liked. Ten years ago. Bourbon on ice, please. Now.”
Sadie jumped into action. She pulled May by the arm
toward the door, opened it and pushed her through. “I’ll get the drink. End
every sentence with ‘senator,’ remember?”
The senator called from behind them. “Girl. May, right?
Come sit next to me. We’ll start with water.”
Sadie pushed her back into the room, and May poured
three glasses of water. Placing one at the seat directly across from the
senator, she brought the other two with her as she went to sit as invisibly as
possible beside the politician.
Lindell drank down half the water in one gulp. May was
rather glad they’d started with the water and not the bourbon.
“Sit, Beau. It’s been a long time.” She sighed, as if
she’d rather it had stayed in the past.
He sat, loosening his tie a bit as if it helped him
clear his throat. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me privately.”
“I agreed to meet Sadie’s secret funder.”
Beau Kurck took a breath in, and changed in front of
May’s eyes. She could have sworn he was three inches taller, his eyes steely
determined, and stranger still, that his smell and taste had charged the air
with something. Electricity? Power?
“You told me I wasn’t marriage material. I was frail,
unambitious, not living up to my potential, weak. Looking back, I have to
agree. Let me finish. I’ll be short.”
“I changed my body, my mind, and my career. I run a
multi-million-dollar company that brings work to my hometown and joy to
millions. I’ve done something with my life, as you put it. Still, something is
missing.”
He leaned in, arms resting on the table. “You’ve done so
well, Jane. I was so proud when you ran for your late husband’s House seat, and
to be the youngest senator, how marvelous. But something is still missing in
your life, as well.”
May saw that gaping hole in her own life. If only
someone like Beau Kurck wanted to help her fill it. She was melting for him,
and he wasn’t even talking to her.
“So, Janey, I’m back. I haven’t been faithful, but
that’s probably an advantage. I know what I’m doing now. I can love you better.
I want to love you better.”
He paused. Now was the time to ask, and May was sure he
didn’t want to ask. He wanted to tell Jane Lindell to say yes. May wanted to
tell her to, as well.
Beau reached halfway across the table, palm up. “Jane
Lindell, will you marry me?”
Yes, yes, May said silently, pulling her own hands in to
cover her heart.
How blasted romantic!
She pulled her gaze away from that outstretched hand and looked at the woman
beside her.
Sen. Jan Lindell’s back was pressed into the back of the
chair. Her hands were clasped on the edge of the table. Her eyes spoke pity.
Shit.
“Boris. Beau. I am so proud of what you’ve done. I knew
you could do it, and if I was the prod that booted you in the butt, I’m glad.”
He pulled back his hand, sliding it under the table.
“But.”
“But I never felt the same way for you as you did for
me. We were in high school, for heaven’s sake. You know, that fumbling attempt
at sex when we were seventeen, it was actually good for me.”
May’s ears were burning. Where was Sadie with that
drink?
“So you could reject me with no qualms?” His voice was
flat, but with an effort.
“Sweetie.” He winced. Even May hated to be called
sweetie. To call a man that—ouch. “Listen. This is the thing. It’s not known,
outside a few, but I’m gay. My time with you, that’s what finally forced me to
admit it.” She turned her hands, palm up, and shrugged.
May made a noisy show of reaching the pitcher of
margaritas. She did not want to see his face. She concentrated on the glasses,
pouring out two, making sure the ice didn’t splash too loud. She pushed one
across the table and took a big swig of the second.
He didn’t touch it. “But you were married.”
“A beard. He liked men; I liked women.”
“So the bereaved widow, all an act?”
“I did love him, and I still miss him. But I didn’t fuck
him.”
May watched his glass rise as he lifted it, as he took a
small sip, and lingered on his mouth as she heard the glass clink back onto the
table. He was pressing his lips so tightly together she was sure they’d have a
crease.
“I see.”
She raised her eyes to his. He was concentrating on the
glass. Then he looked up but past them, to his left. Remembering?
Sadie’s entrance did not faze him, but the senator
sighed her relief. Sadie’s gaze flicked across all their faces as she stepped
past May to hand the drink to the senator.
Lindell took the drink, and grabbed onto Sadie’s hand
with her other hand. “You didn’t tell me it was Boris Kurcki.”
“Boris?” Sadie’s gaze flashed across the table, to the ruggedly
handsome, abstracted man who sat there. “But he’s not coltish at all.”
“Not anymore,” the senator said, draining her drink.
“Get me another.”
Sadie frowned. “You have a dinner speech later.”
The senator leveled a chilling glance at her, and after
a long moment, Sadie slipped back toward the door.
May followed Beau’s gaze following Sadie to the door,
settling on the door as she closed it again. Flashing back to the senator.
“The penguin’s flack?”
“I had no idea it was you behind Cranky Penguins.
Brilliant. Kurck is the common spelling?”
He passed a hand across his eyes.
The senator turned to May. “He’s all yours, sweetie. And
I don’t need to remind you, do I, that this conversation is confidential? Sadie
would not be pleased if anything were to leak.”
“Of course. Senator,” May remembered to add at the last
minute.
“Think I’ll take that drink at the bar.” Lindell pressed
her hands on the table to push to a stand. Beau, too, pushed up to stand,
swaying slightly. May scrambled to her feet and out of the way.
The senator held her hand out across the table. Beau shook
it, a pitiful shadow of what May knew he’d wanted.
“I am proud of you, Beau. I wish you all the best.” Jane
Lindell’s step grew firmer with each step toward the door. May held it open for
her, and by the time she was through it she was The Senator again.
May heard her assignment slump back into his chair.
“You want to be alone for a minute?”
“No. Come, sit next to me, like you did for her.”
With one more longing look at the outside, happy world,
May shut the door on it. She grabbed her glass and pushed the platter of
pitchers closer to Beau. He lifted the margarita pitcher and refilled his
glass. He held it up for her, and she set her glass on the table for him to top
hers off.