What Matters Most: The Billionaire Bargains, Book 2 (14 page)

Reese looked up at him. “You do understand how to play this game, right?”

“I do. I’m quite good.”

She tipped her head. “So you’re losing on purpose.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I want
you
to take my money.”

She sighed. “You always get your way, huh?”

“I do. Eventually. But I’m willing to work for it.”

She laughed. “I’m not sure handing your money over to Marcus two hundred at a time counts as working.”

She had a point.

“Mr. Steele?” Marcus asked.

Tony put more money down.

“What do I need to do, Reese?”

“This is blackmail.”

“Hit me,” Tony told Marcus.

He lost again with twenty two.

“More specifically, it’s coercion,” Tony said to Reese.

“It’s not very nice.”

“Wanting to give you money to spend on your charities and make the world a better place isn’t nice?”

Reese pressed her lips together, looking very irritated. “I don’t like being manipulated.”

He moved in close and lowered his voice to a husky growl. “Remember, you said yes last night. I’m just trying to keep what’s mine. No one would blame me.”

She drew in a shaky breath.

“I’m a lot of things, Reese, but one of them is incredibly intelligent. When I see something good and have a chance at having it for myself, I take that chance.”

She took another deep breath and shook her head. “You so don’t need money to get your way. That voice is potent enough.”

Pleasure hit him hard. “So that’s a ‘yes, Tony, I’ll stay married to you’?”

“You’re going to keep blowing money down here until I say yes?”

“Money you could be spending on something else.”

“You are so stubborn.”

“Mr. Steele?” Tony never took his eyes from Reese’s face as he put more money down and turned over his cards. He had twenty.

“Yes, ma’am, I am stubborn.”

Reese’s gaze flickered to the blackjack table and then back to Tony. “Six months.”

“Hit me,” Tony told Marcus.

“Twenty five,” Marcus told him as he lay a five down.

“Tony,” Reese said, gritting her teeth slightly. “Stop.”

“I told you no negotiating on the time frame.” No way was he giving her an out.

“But you said you’d negotiate what the arrangement included?”

“Right.” But he suddenly thought that was going to bite him in the ass. He moved in close to her again. “Don’t say no sex, Reese. Don’t say it.”

She shook her head. “I should. I should make you suffer.”

“But?”

“I’d suffer too.”

“Exactly.” But relief flooded through him. Then he had to know. “What do you want?”

More sex he could do. More money. His complete, undivided attention on her twenty-four seven. He could do all of that.

“Mr. Steele?” Marcus asked.

Tony lifted an eyebrow at Reese. “Mrs. Steele?”

Her cheeks flushed again at the name. “Stop.”

“I’m out,” Tony told Marcus.

“Have a good evening, Mr. Steele.”

Tony passed over a tip and turned to Reese. “Are we negotiating?”

She nodded and he took her elbow and steered her away from the blackjack table to a corner just behind the roulette wheel.

“What do you want from me, Reese?” Tony asked, putting plenty of not-very-subtle innuendo into his tone.

“I want you to go to work with me.”

“You want me to go to work with you,” he repeated. “Like to your office? You have a sex-on-your-desk fantasy?” he asked with a grin.

“Actually, I do,” she admitted.

That was all it took to get him ready to go again. “Reese—”

“But I don’t spend a lot of time in my office, so I want you to go with me for some of my…projects.”

“You want me to see what you do every day with the downtrodden of our great city,” he summarized. She should definitely never play poker. Her thoughts were all right there for him to see.

She nodded. “Exactly.”

He shrugged. He had nothing against that. It would probably make him a better person, and he was the first to admit that he could use a little of that.

“Fine.”

“For instance, I want you to see what your downtown renovation project is doing.”

He shrugged. “Okay. But I know all about the project. I’ve been down there.”

“You’ve seen the front, the renovation, how good it looks.”

“Yes.” He was proud of that project. The city had come to him for help with beautifying a portion of the downtown area so that they could attract businesses back to downtown and entice people into leasing the condos and renting the apartments in the area.

“But did you know that one of the buildings you renovated was the site of one of the youth sports groups? It was an older building, had certainly seen better days, but it had basketball courts, racquetball courts and a pool with locker rooms. It was one of the few places in town where the low-income kids could play for free, and it’s also where the wheelchair basketball team worked out.”

He did actually know that. “My niece Emily is involved with the wheelchair basketball.”

That caught Reese’s attention. She looked at him with interest. “Really?”

He nodded. “Emily lost the lower portion of her leg to cancer when she was fourteen. She uses a prosthesis now and walks and dances and everything. You’d never know the difference. But when she was going through rehab, my sister-in-law, Jaden, was her therapist. She got Em involved in the wheelchair basketball program.”

“Your brother is Adam Steele,” Reese said, almost to herself. “Of course. And Jaden…”

She trailed off as if she’d been trying to figure something out and finally had.

“Do you know Jaden?” Tony asked.

“We’ve met,” Reese confirmed. “I’ve been involved with some families that Jaden has worked with.”

Jaden was the wife of a billionaire but continued to work as the head of the department because she truly loved it.

“I think I’ve met Emily as well,” Reese said, seeming amazed by the realization.

“Emily has stayed involved with the wheelchair basketball program ever since,” Tony told her. Emily’s successes and involvement in the program was all about her. She was a great kid who had turned into an amazing young woman. “She’s twenty now and finishing up her MBA, planning to come back and work with her dad.” Tony was very proud of his niece. She and Tony’s brother, Adam, hadn’t had it easy, that was for sure, but they were the dynamic duo who had turned into a triple threat when they’d met Jaden and brought her into the family.

“Yes. She dated Chad Owen for a while, didn’t she?”

Tony was amazed that Reese clearly had some interactions with his family. “They’re still together.”

“I know Chad,” Reese said. “He helped with some fundraising we did for the youth sports complex.”

“What do you do for a living exactly?” Tony asked. Already it seemed that Reese had a lot of connections in his life. That was a good thing. Hopefully. She would see how well they could fit together. Unless she hated all of the people she’d met from his circles.

But he could get new friends. It’s not like he thought any of them would give him a kidney or anything. Okay, Adam, Jaden and Emily would, but he wasn’t worried about Reese liking them. She would. She and Jaden and Emily had a lot in common. They were softies underneath and sassy on the outside.

“Basically, I’m a professional fundraiser,” she said. “I ask people like you for money all the time.”

“Then I just won,” Tony said triumphantly. “No more asking. All the money you could want or use.”

She sighed. “My
calling
in life is helping people in need, Tony. I can’t move into a mansion, drive a Ferrari and sit at a desk and write checks all day.”

“Would the checks help people?” he asked.

“Well, yes, but—”

“Someone’s got to write the checks, Reese.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Of course it is.”

“And
that
is why I can’t stay married to you,” she exclaimed.

“Because you’ll feel guilty?” he guessed.

“Because you
don’t
feel guilty!”

“Why should I feel guilty? I made the money honestly. I’m willing to give it away. I’m not the
cause
of any of these people’s problems.”

Reese looked completely frustrated. But she wasn’t walking away. Tony counted that as a positive. Or maybe it was because her stuff was still up in the suite and he had the key card.

Well, whatever it took.

She crossed her arms. “How does Emily feel about you taking away the building where they met and worked out?”

“She was pissed,” Tony admitted. “Which was why I built a new building out west for them to use.” He knew he sounded smug, but he couldn’t help it. He had stepped up when Emily had come and chewed him out about the very thing that Reese was on him about.

Yes, the renovations looked great and had worked to attract more businesses just as planned. But, yes, it had also displaced some areas of storage and other things, like groups that had used the buildings for low rent with no upkeep.

However, Tony’s objective had been to fund the renovations. He assumed someone was in charge of relocating what had been there before.

“And how do the people get to the new building? It’s ten miles away—not really walkable—and we’re talking about kids who aren’t old enough to drive in many cases. The closest bus route drops them off a mile from the new building and with a wheelchair, that’s an issue.”

Tony peered down at her. “You’re involved with the wheelchair sports program?”

“I know of the wheelchair sports program,” Reese said. “But they’re not the only program displaced, Tony. There is a group of young moms who ran a daycare and helped each other out while they each went to school and worked, there was a community greenhouse project and there were a few people who slept there at night.”

“Homeless people.”

She crossed her arms and nodded. “Yes.”

“There’s a shelter down there.”

“That is often full.”

“Can’t these people all just use one of the new buildings?” he asked, feeling already that this conversation was not going to go his way. Okay, maybe the homeless wouldn’t be able to get into the new buildings. He knew for certain that the security systems were top of the line.

“The new rent is way too high for the daycare and greenhouse and the startup music and theater group.”

A start-up music-and-theater program. Great. “Can they find another building?”

“Temporarily, maybe,” she said. “But your renovations are going to go through most of the buildings down there.”

“You can’t really tell me that helping to renovate the buildings is a bad thing,” Tony said, letting some of his exasperation seep into his voice. “The buildings were falling apart. They needed the work done.”

Reese cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not saying they were fancy, but the buildings they’ve renovated so far were up to code, Tony. They just look nicer now. The group hasn’t done any major structural changes.”

“But they…” He trailed off. Then he sighed. Reese was not the type to say something that wasn’t true. He was sure she was right. “They went with the easiest to renovate first.”

She nodded. “The ones that would take less time and money.”

“I gave them plenty of money.”

“I’m sure you did. And I’m sure they’ll use it. There are buildings that need major work and improvements. But it would have taken longer to get new businesses in.”

Tony huffed out a breath. Dammit. He didn’t doubt it. It made sense for them to start with the ones that needed less work. But he hadn’t known that. He honestly hadn’t checked on it. He’d listened to the proposal, given them the money and then shown up for the ribbon cutting.

“And the nicer buildings were the ones being used,” he said

“Of course. You can’t put a daycare in a dump.”

“Got it.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Will.

“Hi, Tony.” Will answered on the third ring, his voice scratchy.

Tony assumed he’d been asleep. Tony didn’t know what time it was, but he paid Will very well, and it was understood that his job was to be available twenty-four seven. Tony also knew that Will had a special ring tone just for him—the theme from
Rocky
. Tony wasn’t sure if it was serious or sarcastic, but he loved it. “In the morning, I need you to call Paul Metz. Tell him that the next building to renovate is the one on fifth and Jackson. And tell him I’ve already got a use for it, so I want it done well and fast and that he’d better not put anyone into it.”