Billionaire Bad Boys of Romance 1(10)

I signaled the bartender and settled back in my chair, preparing to forget this stressful night ever happened, with the help of my good friend alcohol.



My bid to contract amnesia didn't work, sadly. It only made me wake up at ten the next morning with dread and bile in my stomach, last night's clothes on, and one of my false eyelashes stuck to my forehead. Looking at the clock, I realized I had to be clean, presentable and preferably not sick in slightly less than six hours. I didn't know if I was going to make it, so I did what I always do when I wake up with a terrible hangover and guy problems: I took a cold shower and dragged myself over to Felicia's house.

“So,” I said, when Felicia opened her door to my incessant knocking, “what do you know about Malcolm Ward?”

Felicia crossed her arms, and through my hungover haze I realized she was wearing only a waist cincher, a garter belt and some stockings. I clapped my hands over my eyes and lurched forward until I was well inside the house and she closed the door behind me. “Must you?” I demanded blindly from the middle of the foyer. “Must you insist on destroying my brain with your perversions?” It was mostly faux-outrage by now, but man. She and Anton just did not let up.#p#分页标题#e#

“Oh, come on,” she said, “you know I do it all for you.”

“Put a robe on. I can't look at your tits and think straight.”

“I'm glad I have that effect on you,” she said, and I heard her waltz off and ascend the stairs.

With a sigh, I lowered my hands and staggered into her kitchen for coffee. By the time she came back down wearing a black silk robe, I was feeling a little more chipper and ready to assess my contracted modeling gig-slash-date with her. She sat down across from me at the breakfast table, propped her chin in her hand, and grinned at me.

“So,” she said, “you like Malcolm Ward?”

I glared at her. “I didn't say that. I asked you what you knew about him.”

She shrugged. “Not much besides the stuff he does to get himself in the news and on the gossip blogs.”

“But... he was on the list for your party,” I said. “And you must know him well enough to have asked for him to participate in the auction... right?” Given my level of idiocy regarding the current state of who was in and who was out in the worlds of business, finance, and high society, Anton left the invitations to Arthur and the organizing to me. I had assumed that Anton would know the guy, and that Felicia, by virtue of being married to Anton, would sort of absorb the information by osmosis.

Felicia waved a hand. “Oh, you know, I don't have a lot of control over that stuff. I hate those functions. If you want to ask someone about Malcolm Ward, ask Arthur. He clearly thought Ward was a big enough player in the business world to invite him.”

I groaned. “I don't want to ask Arthur. He hates me. Or likes me. I can't tell with that guy. He's always smiling.”

Felicia laughed. “I think he's a really nice guy.”

“That's because he has to be nice to you. You guys pay him lots of money to be nice.”

She pursed her lips. “I suppose that's true.” Abruptly she stood and walked across the kitchen to where her cell phone sat, plugged in and charging. Turning it on, she selected a contact and held the phone to her ear.

“Who are you calling?” I asked her.

“Arthur,” she said, though in a chirpy voice, and I knew that was my cue to lie low. “Hi! Sorry to call on a Saturday, but I was wondering what you knew about Malcolm Ward and why you invited him last night.”

She listened as Arthur spoke on the other end of the line.

“Well obviously I'm concerned about Sadie,” she said. “She's my best friend and she got sold off to him.”

She listened for a while, nodding occasionally, then rolling her eyes at me. Finally she said, “Okay, well, that's all I wanted to know. Yeah, see you on Monday,” and hung up.

“So?” I said as soon as she set the phone down. “What did he say?”

She shrugged at me. “Not much. Malcolm Ward is a self-made billionaire. He's thirty five. Comes from a good New England family, all that jazz. Before this past year he was known for being very severe and withdrawn, though he took insane risks with his businesses and he was a really brutal taskmaster for himself and his employees. That stuff paid off, which was good, but over the last year people have been saying he's going a little... crazy.”

Ferret-crazy, I thought. “Yeah?”

She nodded. “He's still insanely rich and an incredible connection to have, so Arthur put him on the list and solicited a donation. He didn't actually expect Ward to show up, much less put something on the auction block. I think Arthur was hoping he was crazy enough to spend a stupid amount of money on something at the auction.”