Page 112 of The Billionaire's Wake-up-call Girl

“You think you’re the boss of me?”

His lips twist. This is one of our sexcapade lines. “I don’t have stuff for cocoa,” he says finally.

“I do. In my bag. From the caterers.”

He touches the lip of his bottle to the underside of my chin, tips my head up. “You just want more of my savage and uncivilized loving.”

And just like that, we’re back on familiar ground. And we both pretend that sex is what my visit will be about, or at least, I do.

Because it’s easier than acknowledging the significance of us.

Thirty-One

Lizzie

Theo livesin an ultramodern building with giant windows and large balconies. “Which is yours?” I ask.

He points to the top. Penthouse. Of course.

The doorman lets us into a lobby that could double as a mod lighting showroom. A woman in a uniform—some sort of concierge, I suppose—comes out from behind the desk with a silky black garment bag for Theo. He groans when he sees it, then he takes it and thanks her, and we make for the elevator.

The black bag has some sort of European-style crest on it, and when I look closer, it’s the name of a dry cleaner.

“Do just you despise dry-cleaning?” I tease as we head up.

“It’s a tux for a ridiculous banquet. I despise ridiculous banquets.”

“Tookumbayahfor you?”

“Pretty much.”

The elevator opens into a small, sleek foyer. He hangs the dry-cleaning bag on a hook, and we head through an archway into a huge, airy space.

I spin around, taking it all in. It’s as cool, severe, and utterly gorgeous as Theo, a somber mix of natural wood tones with browns and blacks and whites, and some crystalline lighting. And the black-and-white photography. The sand he told me about. The only actual color in the room is the bright blue sky out the window.

I go look down over Central Park. You can see a faint haze of green on the sea of brown trees. Spring is coming. “I’ve never seen it from so high and near like this. The paths look even curvier.”

He comes up beside me. “They made them like that so there wouldn’t be horse and carriage races,” he says.

“Doesn’t slow the bikes.”

“No,” he says, sliding my hair over my shoulder.

We head to his kitchen, which is lots of steel and crisp white tile. I find the kettle. “You can’t blow off the banquet?” I ask.

“No. It’s one of the hoops I have to jump through for the Locke Foundation partnership.” He takes the kettle from me and fills it with water from a special drinking spigot.

“I thought you and Henry Locke were friendly.”

“We are, but it’s not just him. He has a whole board. They want to ensure that I’m good in public. Not an asshole and all that. Apple pie and smiles for everyone.”

“Oh, you are so apple pie and smiles for everyone.”

He sets it on the burner and turns on the gas. “I can be when I have to be,” he says, eyeing me. “When I want something.”

“Because you always get what you want.”

He smiles.

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