Serving the Billionaire(31)

He looked up as I came into the room. He didn’t smile; his expression didn’t change at all. “Regan,” he said, face smooth as the surface of a pond. “I didn’t think you would be awake so soon.”

My heart sank. So it was like that. “I should be going,” I said. I wouldn’t linger and embarrass myself.

“Have a cup of coffee, at least, before you leave,” he said, and my heart rose again, to rest somewhere right beneath my ribs. “It’s cold outside.”

I hesitated and glanced at the clock on the wall. It was only 10. I still had time, but I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to stay and drink coffee with him. It seemed so domestic, and I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. I didn’t want myself to get the wrong idea. We’d had sex, and it had been fantastic, and now we would both go back to our separate lives.

“Blue Mountain, roasted yesterday and ground half an hour ago,” he said, and I took a step toward him without meaning to. I liked coffee, and I never got to drink the good stuff, just whatever swill was on sale that week at the grocery store. Carter probably had his coffee flown in directly from Jamaica. I would be an idiot if I turned down this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to drink a billionaire’s swanky coffee.

It was kind of terrifying how easy it was to justify my decisions. Or else it was just that Carter kept making it easy: first the money, then the hot sex, now the hot coffee. I hadn’t been able to say no to him yet. I wondered if I would ever be able to.

“A cup of coffee sounds good,” I said, and watched as one corner of his mouth curled into that familiar half-smile.

He disappeared into the kitchen, and I draped my coat over the back of the chair across from his and took a seat. He had a stack of papers resting beside his laptop, and an open file with some sort of official-looking document inside. It surprised me that he was working already, so early; didn’t he have people to take care of paperwork for him? But maybe that was the difference between being a millionaire and being a billionaire. Carter hadn’t gotten where he had by being lazy and outsourcing grunt work.

He returned with a mug and set it down in front of me. “I don’t know how you take your coffee,” he said. “There’s creamer in the fridge, and sugar—”

“Black is fine,” I said, even though I usually drank my coffee with a generous pour of creamer. I didn’t want to cause him any trouble. He was obviously busy, and I was interrupting. I was keeping him from his work. I just wanted to drink my coffee and leave.

He sat down and immediately directed his attention to his laptop. I raised my mug and blew on the steaming coffee. It smelled incredible. I took a hesitant sip. Still too hot to drink, but rich and full-bodied in a way that supermarket coffee never was. It was too bad that I wouldn’t be able to linger and fully enjoy it.

He glanced up at me and gave me a rueful smile. “I’m sorry for ignoring you like this,” he said. “I have a conference call with the president at 11, and I need to review these files before I speak with him.”

“The president of your company?” I asked. I didn’t know anything about business, but I knew that companies had presidents. I was pretty sure.

His mouth did something that I couldn’t interpret. “The president of the United States,” he said.

I didn’t have anything to say in response to that. I curled my shoulders forward and sipped my coffee. What was I doing here with this man who had the President on speed-dial? I was a waitress. I was an ordinary person. I had nothing to offer Carter; I could only hold him back.

The realization washed over me in a flood of embarrassment. My face went hot. I couldn’t believe I had indulged a single fantasy, however far-fetched, of dating him, of getting to know him, of somehow becoming a part of his life. We were from two entirely different worlds. I had nothing to offer to Carter beyond sex.

We sat in silence for a few minutes as I sipped at my coffee and he typed at his laptop, brow furrowed in concentration. I wondered what he was going to talk to the President about. I couldn’t imagine a world in which I was important enough to talk to the leader of the free world. What would I even say? I wondered if Carter ever felt nervous, talking to the powerful, important people he knew. Probably not. He was a powerful, important person too.

Just as I was sinking into the benthic depths of self-pity, he shut his laptop with an authoritative snap and pinned me with a searching glance. “So, I suppose this is when we’re supposed to make stilted morning-after conversation.”