The Billionaire Game 2(12)

Oh, but I wanted to wipe that sneer off his face, and I almost didn’t care if it was with a punch or with a kiss. I tried to keep fighting past my cloud of hormones and the sinking feeling that maybe he had the ghost of a point: “You said I had a vision—”

My voice came out plaintive and distressingly breathless; somehow without my noticing it, he had taken another step closer to me. Our eyes met, and for a moment his softened, and I thought I saw something there in his gaze—something like guilt, and regret, and desire, and something even stranger, something like—

Then, with that trademark Asher timing—Now With Bonus Dream-Crushing Action!—he ruined it.

“The difference between a vision and a hallucination is the ability to make it come true,” he said. He sighed. “This isn’t achieving anything. This arguing—back and forth—” Then he stepped back, my body protesting even as my mind sighed in relief that he wasn’t pushing the point. He ran his fingers through his luscious dark locks distractedly, ruffling them in a way I longed to imitate, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen and one of his business cards, scribbling something onto the back. “Can you please meet me here this evening? We’ll finish this discussion then.”

I took the card grudgingly. “What, you can’t budget any time into your schedule to be wrong?”

He was already beating a retreat. “It’s not an issue that’s ever come up before!” he called over his shoulder as he departed. The momentary weariness that had passed over his features when he backed down from the fight was gone, and his usual cocky arrogance had taken its place.

“Asshole,” I told the card.

It didn’t disagree with me, so technically, that means I won, right?

For what felt like the hundredth time that day, though, I wondered what the hell was going on with Asher. One moment dismissive, the next soothing. One minute raring for a verbal scrap, the next backing down and disappearing. What was he keeping from me? Did it have anything to do with the address he had written down? What about the change in location made him think I’d see his side of the argument better there?

I gripped the card tight enough to crumple it in my fist, and swore to myself that even if the address was in goddamn Narnia, I wasn’t going to let him distract me from what I knew was right. This was one fight that I was going to win.

For the sake of my dream, I had to.





FOUR



The address was a dock.

A business office, a swanky restaurant, a workhouse for bankrupt former businessmen and businesswoman—I don’t know where exactly I had expected Asher’s address to lead me.

A dock was definitely not it, though.

“Huh,” I said out loud. It was hard to sustain my anger in the face of such weirdness. Was that Asher’s strategy? Gaining the upper hand through sheer confusion?

…considering how wrong-footed I was at the moment, it was probably actually a pretty sound strategy.

“Somebody looks like they took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.” Asher voice’s drifted on down, and I looked up and to the right, trying to find him.

“Over here.”

His voice seemed to be coming from one of the largest yachts, all gleaming fiberglass and polished wood, its hull bearing the name ‘Leela of the Sevateem’ in flowing golden script. I circled it, and spotted Asher with a martini in his hand, relaxed into a red deck chair as he watched the waves come in.

Well, hellooooooo, sailor! Asher wore tight khaki pants, a loose linen shirt, and a sexy smirk that sent dangerous thoughts tumbling through my brain. Thoughts in particular about how transparent those trousers might become if he were to, say, accidentally tumble over the side; thoughts as well about what he might or might not be wearing underneath. I licked my lips unconsciously.

“Well, you look ship-shape,” he said.

I shifted awkwardly in my blue dress and heels, aware of how bargain-basement they looked next to this floating castle. “Did you call me here to finish our discussion, or to make puns at me?”

“The first,” he said. “But only after you’ve joined me up here for a drink. All aboard!”

“That’s for trains,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “This is definitely not a train. What the hell is this?”

“A boat?” Asher asked innocently.

“You know what I mean,” I said in a warning tone. “What, is this the part where you put me in concrete overshoes and toss me overboard before I sink your billions into a failed venture? ‘Cause I gotta say, that is making the point way more forcefully than I thought you had it in you to make.”