The Billionaire Dating Game: A Romance Novel Page 4

  He put his hand on his chin and stroked. Although he must have been freshly shaved from this morning, a bit of shadow was already starting to show on his chin. And his strong fingers looked the same as they had before, caressing his strong jaw. It made my body flush hotly and remember the way those fingers had kneaded the small of my back. How they had threaded through my hair—

  “I have a plan,” he said.

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Alright, what?”

  He unlocked the door and ducked his head out into the hallway, looking back and forth.

  “First, give me your blouse,” he said.

  “What? No!”

  “Come on. It’s not like it’s covering anything right now.”

  I frowned, but he had a point. I unbuttoned the front of my shirt and shucked it off. As I looked up, I saw him staring at me. I flushed as I handed over my shirt. He tossed it out into the hallway and closed the door again.

  “Now,” he said, “hand me your bra.”

  “What?!”

  “Damn,” he said, grinning. “Thought I had you there.”

  “Wha—what was your plan?”

  “To get you completely undressed, for one,” he said. “Then I’d probably get undressed myself, and then—”

  “Stop!” I cried out. “Give me back my blouse!”

  “No,” he said firmly. “You’ll catch a cold in wet clothes, and I won’t be responsible for that.”

  “Fine! I’ll get it myself!” I said. He didn’t move aside for me, and when I reached for the doorknob, he caught my wrist.

  I stopped in my tracks, my protests catching in my throat. His hand was hot against my skin, and firm, and it sent my entire body into the memory of two nights ago.

  I felt my insides loosening as his thumb stroked the inside of my wrist, just below my palm. The air in the break room turned stuffy, and shivers of desire ran through me. His kiss—the way his lips had seized mine—the way his hands had gripped me the same way—

  His face was only a few inches from mine, and I could feel his heat radiating against my bare skin. The scent of his cologne filled my nostrils, and I felt myself growing dizzy.

  “Please—” I managed to choke out.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go through with my plan?” he asked. His thumb rubbed insistently, sending a spasm through my core.

  How could a man do this to me? A single touch of his hands was enough to melt me, and I felt as though if he let go of my wrist I would fall plain over. I had always laughed at how easily ladies in Victorian novels fainted, but now I felt as though I could faint at any moment. There wasn’t enough air, and his thumb was stroking, stroking…

  Yes, I wanted to say. Take off all my clothes, lay me down on the break room table, and fuck me until I forget why I came here in the first place—

  I blinked. The interview. I was late for the interview. So late. The time slot was probably almost over by now.

  “I’m sure,” I said, yanking my hand away from his quickly. “Please—please let me get dressed.”

  He unbuttoned his suit jacket and pulled it off.

  “Wait,” I said. “No. Not your plan—”

  “Like I said,” the man said, smiling as he swung the jacket around my shoulders, “I don’t want you to catch a cold.”

  His gaze burned my face red hot as he buttoned up the front. Embarrassed, I clutched the jacket together to cover my cleavage. Not like he hadn’t seen it all anyway, I told myself.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Anytime,” he said, grinning. “I mean that. And if you—”

  A knock on the door cut his sentence short. He bit back his words and opened the door. A woman wearing a wire earpiece seemed relieved to see him. She held a clipboard out to him expectantly.

  “We’re ready to start the auditions now, Mr. Letocci.”

  “You’re— you’re Piers Letocci?” My jaw dropped as I turned to the man with light blue-green eyes. The pieces clicked together in my head like a puzzle I should have figured out long ago. The accent. How gorgeous he looked. Why he’d looked at me like that when he raised his mask—he must have expected me to recognize him.

  “I take it you’re the interviewer who never showed up?” the woman asked. She dropped her eyes to my chest and I pulled the jacket even tighter. “Well, I hope you made the most of your interview time.”

  “I didn’t—We weren’t—”

  I turned to Piers for backup, but he started to laugh.

  “You’re supposed to interview me?” he said, when he finally stopped chuckling. “Oh, my. What a bloody mess.”

  “And you’re British!” I said incredulously. “He’s British!”

  “Of course he’s British.” The woman looked at me like I was nuts.

  “Of course,” I said weakly. “Of course he is.”

  “We need you on set in five, Mr. Letocci.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  She turned on her heel and murmured into the wire mouthpiece. Piers began to follow her down the hall.

  “Wait!” I cried.

  They both turned to look at me.

  “What about my interview?”

  Piers grinned.

  “I should think you have enough of a story in all this to write up for your magazine. What was it again?”

  “Moi.”

  “Right. Moi. Trust me. It’ll go over great.”

  “I can’t write about this! Are you crazy?”

  Piers raised his eyebrow. The woman gave an exaggerated glance at her watch.

  “Why don’t you come in for the auditions?” he asked. “And if I have some free time afterward, we can do the interview.”

  “Mr. Letocci—”

  “It’s fine,” he said. He waved to me. “Mrs…ah…”

  “Forrester,” I finished for him. “Miss Forrester.”

  “Miss Forrester here adheres to a strict journalistic code. You agree not to leak any news about our contestants, yes?”

  “Yes. Absolutely no leaking of any sort.”

  “Except coffee.” His eyes sparkled.

  “Right,” I said, clenching my jaw. “I just want to get this interview done with.”

  “Then follow me, Miss Forrester.”

  The set was more sparse than I could have imagined. In the middle of a low black platform, two red backdrops were propped behind a white leather couch. A potted fern stood at one end of the couch.

  Around the set, though, there was a lot going on. Three stationary cameras were set up in different angles to the stage. Each one had multiple people working behind it, all dressed in black. Another camera was being wheeled across the stage in back. Two large microphones hung from black stands over the couch. Wires ran everywhere on the floor, with colored duct tape keeping them in place.

  At a small table in the back of the room, there were two men and a woman sitting with clipboards in front of them. I edged their way. Were those the producers? Or were they—

  “Stay here,” the woman ordered me. I stood in the spot she pointed to, which was unfortunately distant from the table of producers.

  On the other side of the set from me, there were twenty young women sitting in folding chairs. They looked like they were dressed for a fashion shoot. One of them, a really young blonde woman, twisted her fingers between her knees nervously. I realized that they were the potential candidates for the show.

  And every single one of them was staring, transfixed, at Piers Letocci.

  Piers skipped onto the stage and clapped his hands together once.

  “Alright, people, are we ready to go?”

  A bevy of black-suited crew members were around him in an instant. One of them touched up his makeup. Another one combed back his hair and fixed what looked like a tiny wire under his shirt buttons. I realized it was a microphone when his voice came booming through a speaker near me.

  “Check levels,” he said, and immediately the speaker lowered in volume. “Check, check.
Rubber baby buggy bumpers.”

  “Sounds good, Mr. Letocci!” a voice called out.

  Someone appeared with another suit jacket for him, identical to the one I was currently wearing, and he slipped it on easily, adjusting his cuff links.

  “Ready, Dave?”

  A man holding one of those clicky chalkboard things stepped in front of the foremost camera.

  “Billionaire Dating Game, Episode One,” he said in a bored tone. “Auditions. Take one. Action.”

  The cameras started rolling.

  “Welcome back!” Piers said, standing with both hands out to what I realized must be the main camera. “It’s time to find out who has what it takes to be a contestant on… The Billionaire Dating Game!”

  He turned sideways, and I saw that a crew member was leading one of the girls up to the stage. She shook hands with Piers meekly and they both sat down on the couch. The camera on wheels adjusted a foot to the left.

  “What’s your name?” Piers asked.

  “Melinda,” the girl said.

  “Let’s do that again,” Piers said, not unkindly. “First and last name, please.”

  “Oh—oh, okay,” the girl stammered.

  “What’s your name?” Piers asked, with exactly the same rhythm and intonation as before.

  “Melinda Reed.”

  “And why do you want to date a billionaire, Melinda?”

  “I just want to find a man who’s responsible,” she said, swinging back into what sounded like a memorized answer. “I don’t care if he’s a billionaire, but if he’s good at business, I think he would be more mature than most guys. And I’m an independent woman, so I need a mature man!”

  “Not sure if you have the logic quite right there,” I muttered. The woman with the earpiece turned to look at me and I pretended like I hadn’t said anything.

  I edged back as the interviews went on. The producers were taking copious notes of all of the contestants. I glanced over and saw that one of them had a clipboard with the contestant’s picture on it. Underneath was written Southern Bitch. So that was how they were judging the contestants? I bet they chose the girls with the maximum potential for drama. The woman with the earpiece noticed me looking over at the producers and ushered me away, explaining that I needed to stay well away from the judges’ table. One of the producers, the woman in the middle, eyed me with a suspicious glance.

  The interviews went on in the same vein. I was surprised at how young most of the contestants seemed to be. Some of them could have been seniors in high school. For each one, Piers asked the same questions. Why do you want to date a billionaire? Where are you from? What do you do? What’s the most important thing you look for in a man? Do you think you’ll win The Billionaire Dating Game?” Occasionally he would ask a follow up question, but they went through all twenty contestants pretty quickly. After a girl was done, a crew member would lead her out the back of the set.

  After the last chair had emptied out, Piers waved me up. It was already past four. I did the mental calculations in my head. If I ran back home, I would have fifteen or twenty minutes to type up the interview answers. It wouldn’t be my best work, but Clarence should know not to expect great work in such a time crunch.

  “So, ready for the interview?” I asked, plopping down on the set couch. I pulled out Jessica’s list of questions. It was hard to see anything past the glare of the set lights. I hadn’t realized how bright they would be on this side of the cameras.

  “First, the audition,” Piers said.

  What? I blinked into the bright lights.

  “Audition? Are you kidding me?”

  “Not at all,” Piers said, and I made the mistake of looking up into his charming smile. I knew now why every woman in America was in love with him—that smile, those eyes, with that accent? He was unbelievably charming. “What’s your name?”

  “I don’t want to audition for your show.”

  “Play along, love.”

  Love. God, the way he said that word made a shiver go through me, and it wasn’t just the cold coffee still damp on my skin. I stared intently down at the question sheet.

  “If I play along, will you answer my questions after?”

  “Of course, love.”

  My head snapped back up. Those blue-green irises twinkled with pleasure. He knew exactly what that word, in that accent, was doing to me. Well, I wasn’t going to play along. Not the way he had in mind.

  I beamed my best Broadway-quality dazzling smile and tossed my hair, ignoring the fact that I was wearing only a suit jacket over my bra. I wasn’t the kind of girl who ever got in front of cameras. That was Jessica. But if he was going to force me, I was going to act my little introverted heart out.

  “My name,” I chirped, “is Lisa Forrester!”

  “Lisa,” he said. It was the first time he had said my name. I didn’t know which was worse, him saying love or him saying Lisa. Both words made the skin on the back of my neck tighten up.

  “That’s right!” I said, glancing down at my watch. Four fifteen. Not too bad. “Next question?”

  “What do you do, Lisa?”

  “I’m a journalist. I interview very important celebrities.”

  “Important celebrities?”

  “Well, maybe not very important celebrities. Very sexy celebrities. Some of them are more arrogant than important.”

  Piers was suppressing a smile.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Right here in New York City.”

  “And why do you want to date a billionaire?”

  Piers leaned forward, and again the scent of his cologne floated across the air. I swallowed hard.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” I asked brightly. “I’m totally in it for the jet ski vacations and sunset sails in the Caribbean.”

  Piers bit his lip. He was trying so hard not to let me get to him, but my ditz impression was spot on after years of working next to Jessica, a true California valley girl if ever there was one. And it was starting to work.

  “Nothing else?”

  “Oh, and rides in his red Ferrari. He has to have a Ferrari. A red one. If he doesn’t have one, I’d ask him to buy one. Not for me to drive, of course. I don’t like driving.”

  “You don’t like driving?”

  “What New York girl does?” I laughed like an airhead and tossed my hair again. “Anyway, we’d only be driving upstate to our private ski cabin.”

  “Sounds lovely. What’s the most important thing you look for in a man? Whether or not he has a Ferrari?”

  He was joking, but there was a serious note in the question that I couldn’t miss. He was asking me what I wanted. And I wasn’t going to pull any punches.

  “I want a man who’s real. Someone who won’t lie to me. Someone who doesn’t wear any masks.”

  Piers narrowed his eyes and leaned forward even farther. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the camera wheel a bit to the side.

  “And that’s why you want to date a billionaire?”

  “Every guy wants something,” I said. “Every guy out there is working an angle. But if I’m dating a guy who already has everything he wants? He’s not going to play games with me. He’s not going to pretend to be someone he’s not.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest, dropping the ditziness for a moment.

  “You see, I’m not going to sit here and lie and say I just want a nice guy. There are a million nice guys out there. I want someone who’s already figured themselves out. Someone who doesn’t want anything from me… except me.”

  “And you really think a billionaire is the best kind of man for that?”

  “Well, all of the non-billionaires I’ve dated haven’t worked. So I’m open to trying new things.”

  Piers suddenly leaned back, like he realized how far off-track we were going with the audition questions.

  “Great!” he said, back to his normal charming self. “Last question. Do you think you’ll win The Billionaire Dating Game?”

&nbs
p; “If I make it onto this show,” I said, almost laughing at the absurdity of the idea, “I’ll be the worst sore loser you’ve ever seen.”

  Piers chuckled. His fingers, I noticed, were stroking the arm of the couch idly. They mesmerized me.

  “Is that a wrap?” The voice came from off set.

  “Good over here.”

  Piers nodded off stage. I saw a red light blink off.

  “Wait,” I said. “Were you actually taping that?”

  “Don’t worry,” Piers said, his fingers still moving idly. “You did fine. That was a great audition.”

  “Hah. Great audition,” I said sarcastically. “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

  The cameramen and other crew members began breaking down the set as we sat. The bright light snapped off, and for a moment I saw nothing but white spots in the darkness. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. The lights had been giving off a lot of warmth, too, and with them gone, it was chilly. I shivered a bit as I clutched the list of Jessica’s questions.

  “Are you cold?” Piers asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You can have my jacket, love. You can put it on top of my other one.”

  “Stop calling me love,” I said, my insides twisting at the word.

  “You got it, darling.”

  “Ugh, fine. First question,” I said, blowing back my bangs. “When did you pick up a British accent?”

  Piers squinted at me.

  “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

  “I was just curious why sometimes you have an accent, and sometimes—”

  He leaned forward all the way, so that his face was nearly touching mine. Startled, I drew back.

  “I get recognized everywhere I go,” he said. “That’s the only reason I lose the accent when I go out. I didn’t mean to lie to you, or whatever you think that was.”

  My lips dropped open in surprise. He actually sounded sincere, and his features were drawn in hard lines.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Do you know how hard it is, to not be able to do anything without a thousand cameras descending on you?”

  “Right,” I said, blustering into sarcasm. “It must be terrible to be a famous celebrity.”

  “Yes,” he said, in complete seriousness. “Sometimes it is.”

  “Alright,” I said, giving up the fight and moving onto the next question. “What kind of contestant are you looking for on your new show, The Billionaire Dating Game?”