Serving the Billionaire(17)

“That’s it,” he said. “And I’ll give you five thousand dollars.”

I looked at him. He was so good-looking, and so absurdly rich. He could have any woman he wanted, any socialite, any actress, anyone at all who appealed to him. He would just have to look in her direction and she would come running. I couldn’t figure out why he would spend money to have me, some working-class nobody, stroll around topless for a few hours. What did he get out of it that he couldn’t get elsewhere?

It had to be some sort of kinky sex thing. Maybe he was in a long-distance relationship and could only get his jollies vicariously. Maybe he’d had his heart broken, and was too deeply wounded to let another women close. That sounded like the plot of a bad romance novel, though; not like real life.

Maybe he just liked feeling powerful.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

He smiled. “Good. Tomorrow night, then.”

I went back out into the main room, feeling a little like I’d been bulldozed. Mr. Sutton had such a forceful personality that even being in the same room with him was exhausting. I’d never experienced that kind of personal charisma before. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with wealth or power, because none of the other clients made me feel like that. Only Carter.

Not Carter. Mr. Sutton. I had to maintain some sort of distance.

Otherwise I was going to lose myself completely.

I waited tables in a daze, but managed not to completely screw up anyone’s order. Beth was still limiting me to two, and keeping a close eye on my every move, but at the end of the night, she said, “You’re getting there. I’ll move you up to three tables, next time. Don’t turn away so quick after you take their orders. You want to linger a bit, like it’s hard for you to tear yourself away.”

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. Beth was a nit-picking micro-manager, and I was more grateful for her advice than I knew how to convey. I listened carefully to everything she told me and took detailed mental notes. By now I was sure that she was the best waitress in the club, and I was determined to learn everything from her that I could.

I made close to a thousand dollars in tips that night. Every night at the club was like Christmas, and I was like a kid with so many presents I didn’t know what to play with first. I stuffed the money under my mattress, where it would stay safe until I had a chance to deposit it, and slept soundly and without dreaming for ten hours.

When I arrived at the club the next afternoon, Mr. Sutton was waiting for me in room 4, just as he’d done the first time I served for him. He was wearing gray wool slacks and—a change from his usual shirt and suit jacket—a navy blue shawl-collar cardigan. I wanted to touch it to see if it felt as soft as it looked. Groping Mr. Sutton’s chest would be a side benefit.

He looked up from his phone when I came in, and said, “Bring five bottles of the usual whiskey. I doubt we’ll need that much, but I don’t want you leaving this room once my guests have arrived.”

He certainly knew how to cut to the chase, and that answered a question I’d been afraid to ask. If he’d expected me to go out to the bar half-naked, I would have done it, but I wouldn’t have been happy about it. “What time do you expect your guests?” I asked.

He glanced at his phone. “I told them 5:00, which means that Johansson will be half an hour early, and the rest of them will be half an hour late. You have time.”

I went out to the bar and brought in the bottles of Scotch that Mr. Sutton had asked for, along with several pitchers of water and enough glasses to go around. When I came in for the last time, to set out drinking glasses and napkins, Mr. Sutton set his phone aside and beckoned to me.

Suddenly nervous, I went to the couch he was sitting on and stopped just short of his bent knees. “Is there anything else you’d like me to bring?” I asked.

“No, you’ve taken care of everything,” he said. He gazed up at me, unspeaking, and I got even more nervous. His eyes seemed to stare straight through me. I wanted to drop my gaze before he searched out all of my embarrassing secrets, everything I’d tried to hard to conceal from other people or simply to forget.

Desperate to break the charged silence, I said, “I could bring some more water, or—”

“No,” he said, cutting me off. He looked at me for a few more long moments, while I did my best not to fidget. Then he said, “Unbutton your shirt.”

I swallowed. I knew, intellectually, that at some point I would have to undress, but I hadn’t expected it to happen like this, with me standing in front of him, exposed, and him staring up at me so calmly, like he told girls to take off their shirts every day of the week.