Shopping for a Billionaire 4 (2 page)

“Good play, Ms. Jacoby.” He leans forward on the table. “I know from Declan’s glowing descriptions of you that you’re about as gay as I am poor. That tells me you held on to your assumed identity quite thoroughly so that you could perform the function assigned to you by the client.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Declan’s voice could cut diamonds.

“It means she’s the perfect candidate for corporate espionage.”

Chapter Two

Greg’s turn to do a spit take. “Is that business guru speak for mystery shopping these days?”

James laughs. How can the man laugh when he’s managed to alienate and/or piss off every person in the room except for Andrew, who appears to be trying to decide whether to be alienated, pissed off, or to ogle Amanda’s low-ish-cut silk blouse?

For the record, his penis appears to win.

Family trait.

Wait a minute. James knows I slept with Declan in the limo and in the helicopter, and what the hell, let’s throw in the lighthouse part, too. He knows about the credit union mystery shop and me and Amanda. He knows about Jessica’s Twittergate mess. What the hell
doesn’t
this man know?

“No, Greg. Corporate espionage means I’d like for Ms. Jacoby to be assigned to evaluate The Fort—”

Amanda’s sharp intake of horrified breath makes Andrew perk up as her chest lifts.

“—and also Le Chateau.”

Now she shrieks. It’s a fairly professional-sounding shriek, but still. “Le Chateau is your competitor! Why would she mystery shop—oh…” She closes down to neutral as fast as she ramped up to livid. It’s impressive, and I’d appreciate it more if Declan weren’t shredding my heart. 

Scribbling furiously, her next words come out like machine gun bullets. “By having the same person evaluate both high-end properties, you get an even sense of the failings and mastery in each.”

“Indeed. And we need someone who can hold their cover,” James says with a cordial tone that makes me question my sanity. Wasn’t he just being an asshole? How am I supposed to keep track of the villain in here if he keeps changing his personality?  

“
I
held my cover,” Amanda mutters. Greg gives her a dirty look. Amanda gives him double back. He blanches.

“Yes, you did,” James notes. “And after Shannon successfully finishes both properties, you can be the next evaluator in three months’ time. Your own mastery did not go unnoticed.” 

“But
you’re
not really gay, right?” Andrew blurts out, his eyes on Amanda’s breasts.

Awkward.

James rolls his eyes. “My sons need to retake their sexual harassment training, I see.”

“It’s not sexual harassment,” Declan and I say in unison.

Oh, thank God. He understands. He understands! I close my eyes and inhale slowly, then open them to give him a big, friendly, warm, loving grin.

He stares back with green ice cubes.

Uh.

“The mess is unconventional, I’ll admit,” James adds, pushing contracts to Greg. “But Ms. Jacoby isn’t a known entity in the circles we inhabit—”

Translation: I’m a nobody, so he doesn’t have to worry that I’ll be recognized at a competitor’s luxury property even though Jessica has been tweeting about me to all the cyberspace rubberneckers in Boston.

“—and I trust the evaluations will give us valuable insight into gaining a competitive edge.”

“In other words, you’re giving me more responsibility, and expanding the contract with Consolidated Evalu-shop?” I ask, and this time it’s my eyes that are on Declan while asking James the question. 

“Yes,” Declan answers me. Not James. “You’re very good at living a double life and are quick on your feet when it comes to lying.” He cuts his eyes away. “That will suit you well in business.”

No.
No no no no no
.

Amanda pivots and coughs, the strain getting to her. Andrew’s eyes ping between me, Declan, her chest, and his dad. Greg just looks constipated, eyebrows bunched like a caterpillar in heat as he reviews contracts that have been read so many times they might as well be the Bible. 

“And,” James adds, stuffing folders into his briefcase, clearly done, “how’s business?”

The spear aimed from an icy stretch of glacier that is his heart right now hits its target with pinpoint precision. That’s what Jessica tweeted to Declan.

“May I speak with you in the hallway?” I hiss at him, grabbing his forearm. He turns into a marble statue, though emotion flickers in his eyes. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, and his stiff muscles radiate mixed signals.

“If you wish.” He shakes off my hand, though not with an angry movement. More with a cold precision that somehow is worse.

“We’ll finish negotiations,” James says, eyes twinkling, as if he’s accomplished something. “And it’s good to see you walking around, Ms. Jacoby. Last I heard from Declan, you were bed bound.” 

Another sex joke? Are you kidding me? My tongue loosens in my mouth, ready to lash him, when even the venerable James McCormick has the decency to turn red with embarrassment and backtrack.

“I meant your allergic reaction to the stings. That you were in the hospital. In a hospital bed,” he stammers. “My son was very worried.”

“Your son was the only reason I’m here,” I say gently. The amusement is gone from his expression, replaced by a kind of sad intrigue, his body uptight and loose at the same time as if it can’t make up its mind. 

But control and authority prevail as his mask reappears and he turns away from me with a dismissive wave. “I’m glad Declan could do what he needed to do in a crisis. That proves he’s matured.”

Andrew’s neck snaps toward his dad, a red fury pouring into his skin so fast it seems he’ll burst. I turn toward Declan to find him in the threshold, one hand curled into a gripping claw on the door’s trim, close to snapping the wood in half.

What the hell is going on? This conversation suddenly has nothing to do with me and Declan, or with Twitterhead Coffin, or with my credit union shop. There’s a subtext here I don’t understand, and it stings.

Declan lets go of the door with a loud smack of his palm against the wood and slowly, with a little too much control, moves out. I can’t even admire the undulating grace of his anger or ask him why he and his dad are speaking in Angry Man Code, a language that seems designed to neuter the other man and stuff his balls down his throat.  

But this isn’t just macho bullcrap. James’ comment about Declan and crises and maturing resonates somewhere inside Declan, but he’s wound so tight, and I’m skating on thin ice already.

There’s no way to be open and just ask what’s going on.

He spins around so abruptly that I stagger and fall against the wall, banging my hip on a piece of trim. “What do we need to discuss?”

How could the same man who told me I was beautiful, who put his mouth in places where only speculums have gone, look at me like I’m a gnat that should be swatted out of existence?

“Can we have coffee and talk?” I can’t think of what else to say.

He just blinks. No answer. I stare back, unyielding, even as my mind screams in childlike sadness. Something is broken, and it’s not just me. I didn’t break it. He’s not telling me something and it’s between us, without shape or form, taking up all the known room, and yet it has no name.

“Coffee?” He makes a strangled huffing sound. “How about at one of my stores?” His voice is acid. “I hear we’re testing a new peppermint mocha with wasabi syrup. Oh, wait—you would know better than I do.” 

I actually flinch and pull back as if he’s slapped me. If he had, it would be easier. “I-I-I just want to talk. About the pretending to be gay thing, and the Jessica Coffin thing, and—”

“I know you’re not gay.” His voice carries a bit as he punches that sentence out with a tongue made of steel, his face so tight you could turn it into a drum. 

“I guessed as much. It shouldn’t have been hard to figure out.”

He makes a sour face and glances at an imaginary watch he isn’t wearing. Either he really does have another meeting or he’s in a hurry to be done with me, and the latter feels like ice picks in my gut.

“Shannon, I don’t know what your game is. Maybe the other night was all acting—”

“No! I swear! No game!” An ominous layer of straight-up terror begins to cover me like a blanket that brings no comfort. 

“You’re paid to act,” he says viciously. “
Act
. You’re paid to pretend, right? To go into a business setting and pretend to be something you aren’t, all while observing every nuance, every detail. You’re a chameleon who changes to meet the expectations of the people in that setting, with the ruthless efficiency of an international spy.” His breath is heavy and full of anger. “You’re quite proud of it.” 

“But not with
you
,” I plead. “Never with you.” 

“How am I supposed to know? You’re a bit like the boy who cried wolf, honey.”

My head ricochets back. Honey. That’s what he called me in the hospital.

“You told that blowhard’s mother you’re just dating me to close a deal. Well, you did.” He motions toward the closed door. “My dad just gave you a plum new assignment. Your company makes more money, we get a crack corporate spy, and everyone goes home happy and satisfied.”

He’s baring his teeth now in a smile that is so ferociously barren of compassion or caring that it mesmerizes me. I can’t turn away, but at the same time I want to curl up into a ball and cry.

“You really think that about me?” I whisper quietly. Mercifully, the tears are behind a wall of summoned self-righteousness. I need it right now. I know every word he says is dead on in its own twisted way, but I can’t let it be true, because there’s a larger Truth with a capital T right next to his smaller truth.

“What else am I supposed to think? You told me yourself in the lighthouse that you’re ‘shopping for a billionaire.’ You told your ex-boyfriend’s mother that you’re dating me to close a business deal, and some screwed-up game of grown-up telephone ends on Twitter with a high-society wannabe trying to embarrass me on a social media platform so silly it uses bird metaphors.”

I snort nervously.

Pity fills his eyes. Oh, no. This is end game. I know this look, because it’s the same expression Steve had when he dumped me.
No. No. No.
 

“I can’t do this, Shannon.” 

No. Please.

“You’re just too…much.”

Great. So he lied to me about loving my abundant body.

“Too many layers to tease through, too many what-ifs, too many half-truths and un-truths—”

Wait!
He’s not slamming my curves. He’s slamming my integrity! Hold on there, buddy. You can make fun of my fat (which he didn’t), but— 

“That is bull,” I thunder back. A receptionist at a desk at the end of the hall cranes her neck forward, peering at us. Like a turtle, she snaps it back, hidden. 

When Steve dumped me I just sniffled and took it, curled into myself on a park bench near my apartment, sitting on the lawn of a local college. No way am I cowering now. If this is over, it’ll be over on my terms. Or, at least, I won’t go down without a defense. A fight. 

Words
.

“There’s bull here, all right.” He’s breathing hard, and if this were a sitcom or a Nora Ephron movie this is the part where we’d shout at each other and then he’d grab my face, hard, and kiss me like I’ve never been kissed before, until my muffled protests are drained out of me by the sudden clarity that only hot lips can provide.

“You spend your life trying to get everyone else to believe you’re something you’re not, Shannon. And when you’re not play-acting, you’re begging for validation. You change yourself to become whatever it is you think everyone wants you to be.” He runs an angry hand through his thick hair, the dark waves spreading across his forehead as pained eyes finally show me a tiny bit of the tempest inside him. 

A mail clerk trundles by with a squeaky cart. We’re blocking the hall. He stops and waits, staring dumbly at us, one finger in the air like he’s about to interrupt in the geekiest way possible. He reminds me of Mark J., and that? THAT fact is the one that makes the tears almost pour out, because it reminds me of the day I met Declan, of how Mr. Sex in a Suit looked that morning, so crisp and unknown, and how in the short expanse of one month I could go from hot, liquid lust for a guy I don’t know to this.

Arguing in a hallway at work about whether I’m sincere or not.

“You don’t know me.” It’s the only sentence I can form right now. 

“You didn’t give me a chance! I took a chance on you, and you just—” Some primal emotion without name blinds me. “Which Shannon am I supposed to date—the one lying in the men’s room, the one lying at the credit union, the one lying about her allergy?” His voice breaks.

Screech
. The mail dude nudges the cart, then jumps, like he’s scared himself.

I scooch out of the way and the squeaky cart rolls on by.

“I didn’t lie about my allergy! And what the hell do you mean you ‘took a chance’ on me?” I can think of
plenty
of ways to interpret that remark, and not a single one is good. 

His voice feels like a sharp blade being dragged just gently enough across my throat to leave a scrape. “You lied by omission.”

Declan’s lips are tight and his eyes are anywhere but on me. There’s nothing I can say, is there? He’s decided in his own rat brain that he’s done with me. All this “which Shannon are you?” crap is just that—crap. He’s hiding something, and it’s pretty damn obvious. To me. 

I was good for a screw in the limo and the lighthouse and…well, for that, but I’m not good enough to date in front of Daddy. He’s just like Steve, only the stakes, and dollar signs, are bigger. 

Did I mess up? Sure. But his reaction is so utterly out of proportion with the facts.

Plus—I’m done. Done explaining myself to irrational people who seem to care only about proving they’re right. If who I really am doesn’t fit into his image of who I am, then he can go suck it.

“I can’t make you believe me,” I say with a voice that is surprisingly even. “I don’t want to.”