Banking the Billionaire (Billionaire Bad Boys, #2)(28)

"Well, as you can see, Mila is dressed to impress, but I'm kind of lacking," I hinted. "I'm a sad excuse for a Directioner."         

     



 

He raised a sharp brow. "Who told you?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I lied. "I just felt like maybe you had some gear I could borrow."

Dean definitely had the goods. A few years back, One Direction had had a  tour stop in the city, and there was a pop-up store for fans inside  Madison Square Garden. Georgia might have told me homeboy had cleaned  out on anything and everything Brit boy-band themed.

"Don't ask questions and follow me," he said, striding out of his  office. Mila looked up at me excitedly and pretended to zip her lips.

A few turns through back hallways I'd never been privy to venturing  later, he ushered us inside a storeroom on the other side of the floor.  Once he switched on the light, the entire room looked like a teenage  girl had vomited up her fandom. The walls were lined with posters. There  was not one, not two, but three racks cluttered with clothing. And  cardboard cutouts of the band stood in the corner.

"Omigod! This is so cool!" Mila jumped up and down.

"I know," Dean agreed. "This is my favorite place in the building."

"I'm shocked Kline lets you use this for your undying One Direction  love." I glanced around the room, while Mila helped herself to the racks  of clothes.

"We have an understanding."

I raised an eyebrow, and it pulled one corner of my mouth up with it involuntarily. "You have an understanding?"

He flashed a secret smile. "Yeah, he understands that whatever he doesn't know won't hurt him."

I smiled full out. "Kline Brooks would lose his shit if he saw this."

A hand went to his hip. "Well, good thing he'll never know, right?"

"Cool it, diva," I teased. "I won't spill the deets on your shrine to One D."

He feigned offense. "Oh, no, honey. You did not just call me a diva."

"Oh, but I did," I said, walking over by Mila.

"You're lucky I refuse to corrupt the young and innocent. Otherwise, you'd be dealing with a full-on catfight, Cassandra."




"Knock, knock," I announced as Mila and I opened the door to Thatch's office.

He glanced up from his computer, and a giant smile consumed his face.

My chest grew tight at the sight of his radiating affection, and I inhaled a cleansing breath to ease the discomfort.

Man, I probably needed to see a doctor. No one under thirty should be  experiencing chest pain. Well, unless they dabbled in cocaine and  attended drug-fueled raves on the weekends. Which, obviously, I didn't.

Although, I could probably make good use of glow sticks with a naked  Thatch. I'd rave all over his Supercock, minus the drugs of course. That  man didn't need any performance enhancers. Any increase to his stamina  and my pussy would need a cane to hobble herself onto his dick.

Mila let go of my hand, ran around his desk, and hopped up into his lap.  "Hi, Uncle Thatch!" she greeted and placed her hands on each side of  his face before kissing his nose. "Ready to go?"

He nodded and kissed her forehead. "What's on the agenda today, sweetheart?"

She jumped off his lap and handed him a T-shirt and hat out of her  backpack. "You have to change your clothes first so everybody matches."

He tilted his head to the side and glanced up at me. His eyes made the  circuit down my body and then back up again-paying particular attention  to my T-shirt that read, Liam is my spirit animal. They were fully  amused by the time they met my gaze again.

"I'm supposed to wear these?" he asked Mila.

She nodded. "Yep. You're gonna look so awesome!"

Five minutes later, Thatch was walking out of the en suite bathroom in  his office and lifting Mila up to carry her piggyback style. He looked  outrageous with a Niall is my boyfriend T-shirt stretched tight across  his huge chest and a One Direction baseball cap worn backward on his  head.

"How do I look, Mila?" he asked.

"So cool!" Mila said, resting her chin on his shoulder.

His eyes met mine and he grinned. "Next time, Aunt Cassie and I are going to switch. I like Liam more than Niall."

"No way," I disagreed, running a hand across the words on the front of my shirt. "You'll have to fight me for this dreamboat."

"I have no issues with wrestling you, Crazy." He winked.

"Can we go?" Mila asked impatiently. "I'm hungry."

Thatch grabbed his new wallet, keys, and phone and slid them into his  pockets and managed it all with Mila still hanging from his back. "Let's  hit it," he said and grabbed my hand, leading us out of his office and  toward the elevator.         

     



 

As we rode the cart down to ground level, I couldn't stop myself from  smiling as I looked at Thatch, decked out in One Direction fan gear,  with Mila on his back. No man in his right mind would subject himself to  this willingly.

But Thatch wasn't a normal kind of guy.

He was different.

And I really liked his kind of different.





"Call on line one from Mr. Sanchez," Madeline buzzed in as I closed the  first-quarter financial statement for Hughes International. They were a  relatively new client, so I'd been scouring the details of their money  management and hiring expenses and comparing it to their investment  portfolio in an attempt to map out a new system of checks and balances.  They'd had a plan in place, but they obviously hadn't been making  optimal financial decisions for a while. In fact, the best one they'd  made was paying me to get them back on track.

"Thanks, Mad," I responded after saving my spreadsheet. I kept backups  for backups, but I wasn't particularly keen on having even a chance of  losing weeks' worth of work.

"Hey, Carl," I greeted one of my longtime clients as I clicked on to the line. "What can I do for you?"

"In a hurry to get me off the phone, Thatch?" he greeted, his voice amused.

"No way. Just a man with many tasks and know you're the same. I also  have a feeling you're calling to invite me on an all-expenses-paid  vacation, and the sooner I get off the phone with you, the sooner I can  get a tan in the Southern California sun."

He laughed and I smiled and rubbed at the edge of my desk. He started  talking about a new plant in Encino and all of the questions they had  about what that kind of long-term investment would do to their long-term  financial goals, so I picked up a pen and doodled on the edge of my  calendar as he ran through the particulars.

Squiggles turned into a sun, and before I knew it, a stick woman with a  fantastic rack appeared with a bouquet of roses next to her. I scribbled  it out and dropped the pen before I ended up dropping Carl's  financially motivated ball.

"I know it's short notice, but I've got the projections team creating a  mock plan, and this is the only date our contractor can walk the  property for the next six months."

"When did you say you needed me there again?" I asked, knowing I hadn't been paying enough attention to hear it the first time.

"Tomorrow. I went ahead and put a hold on a ticket for you out of JFK at  noon, but I can have Ashley change it if that doesn't work for you. We  walk the plant on Thursday morning."

I glanced back at my scratched out doodle and the clock on the wall.  Just about twenty-four hours away. The trip actually sounded like a nice  reprieve from my uncharacteristically empty apartment.

I'd lived there alone for nearly seven years, and now, two days without  Cassie while she was on a shoot in Las Vegas, and the place seemed  hollow. We'd transitioned into a different place in our relationship  sometime during the last week, coexisting in the same apartment so  naturally, it was almost scary.

Our mornings always started with a cup of coffee together, after an  initial superficial battle over having woken her up, and our nights  ended with Cass cuddled inside my arms whether we were watching TV or  catching our breath after orgasms-or both. We filled the time in between  with frequent texts and phone calls and making plans for dinner or  something to do for the evening.

Cass had even taken it upon herself to pick up my dry cleaning on Monday  afternoons, and I'd found myself in the checkout line at the grocery  store with a cart full of random, girly bullshit that she'd added to our  list more than once.

Sure, we still pushed at each other with pranks and surprises, but I was  really fucking enjoying it. It made things interesting, and I couldn't  seem to get enough.

We'd even started a little joint prank of our own, texting Kline from  her number with the same kind of bullshit subscription messages she'd  sent me what seemed like a lifetime ago. She was seriously gifted at  coming up with different shit to say, and when I found out over dinner  one night that Kline didn't know her new number yet, the opportunity to  mess with him was too good to pass up.

"I'll be there. I'll expect donuts and coffee on Thursday morning, though. No industrial tour is acceptable without them."