The Billionaire’s Hotline(14)

At last, as if by mercy from heaven, she was chatted up by a broker from Louisiana whose honeyed drawl made her wish for a do-over on some of her dialogue loop from the southern movie. She basked in the attention pitifully, thinking that at least she no longer looked like the old broad playing with her phone because she couldn’t pull a man. She liked his accent but he talked too much about exchange traded funds and she didn’t have any spare capital to invest.

The flat vowels of a New Englander assaulted her trained ear after she brushed off the broker. She wondered what grade she had been in the year he was born… she guessed ninth or tenth by the looks of him, surfer tanned and unabashedly youthful in a robust way that made her feel wrinkled, pale and elderly. This one was called Luke, and looked remarkably like a Ken doll. She guessed from his accent that he’d been on the rowing crew at Princeton and amused herself with teasing the truth of it out of him. When he offered her a ride, she declined. She knew she needed to put herself out there, but it had only been a few weeks, and she just wasn’t over Jasper.

“Can I at least have your number? Make it another night?” Luke offered. Hannah shook her head, once again amazed that her hair remained securely coiffed and no one was assaulted by flying jeweled hairpins breaking loose from their appointed stations.

“No. Thank you. Here, you can finish this.” She handed him back the repulsive melon-flavored drink he’d bought her and tried to remember if she had enough mouthwash at home to rid herself of the wretchedly artificial taste. She was fairly sure he was old enough to drink, she mused, wincing as her hip popped when she slid off the barstool.

When she tracked down Becca, dancing with a group of girls, she told her she was leaving.

“Stay! There’s supposed to be another crowd coming later. A bunch of people aren’t even here yet. And they’re doing s’mores at three,” Becca protested.

“You stay, honey. You’re having fun. It’s just too soon for me. And I’m not sure I could stand a bigger crowd. I’ll catch a cab. I love you.” They hugged and Hannah took off for the blessed silence of the street outside.

Once she’d gotten home and removed all that eye makeup, she thought she’d feel better, but it was a bone-deep misery that even a hot bath couldn’t reach. She flipped listlessly through a catalog and reached for her phone to call the noodle shop.

An alert was flashing on her phone, informing her that she had a voice mail message. She flicked it onto speaker, assuming it was a client.



I want to see you. I tried to put you out of my mind. I nearly had sex with a gymnast… at least that’s what I think it was. It could have been a new Cross Fit routine with all that equipment. I told Miss Hollingford the shred the list from the phone project. I’m done with that. Anyway, I’ll be back from Hong Kong tomorrow. If you’ll talk to me, if you’ll sing to me, I won’t leave again, Mockingbird.



Hannah threw the phone across the room and started to cry. It had been a week and a half since she’d burst into tears over Jasper and the bastard had just ruined her record. When she mopped up her face and managed to take a drink of water, she picked up the phone from where it had landed and listened to the message again. Only Jasper would mention his freaky foreplay with a gymnast in an apology…the man had no communication skills whatsoever. He was a hopeless case. He had practically no redeeming qualities, she reminded herself sternly.

Giving up the phone project, calling her Mockingbird, promising not to leave her—none of it added up to a good long-term prospect, probably. The man was a fucking emotional train wreck. But she’d seen what he could do with a cello and couldn’t help thinking what it would be like to have her body under his hands like that.

They’d made mistakes—her panic and throwing away the phone, the drunk dial, his early morning departure without a word, the silent weeks that followed. She might never admit it to anyone but herself, but she loved him. She’d loved him since he refused to take a bite of her sausage, and every moment since.

Hannah squeezed her eyes tightly shut and thought back to the night she’d burst into the Blake Bar in her painting clothes, shaking the phone at him and warning him away from Becca. His amusement, his intransigence had caught her attention, had infuriated her beyond the telling of it. When he had tried to charm her, a tiny part of her had considered giving him the phone because he was that charismatic when he wanted to be…and he had turned it on full force to persuade her. It seemed like such an awfully long time ago. Her life used to feel like so many empty rooms, with work in one and the rest a hollow blur. Then, with Jasper in her life, it had felt crowded and colorful and full of infinite possibilities. Noodles had no longer been the only thing she had to look forward to.

Now that was over and he was fornicating with gymnasts and probably increasing his dial-a-blonde list instead of pulling the plug on the ridiculously misogynistic project. She found obtusely that she couldn’t stand the thought of him with someone else, nor could she prevent herself from fixating on the idea. It made her feel restless and crazy. She wanted to dye her hair or move to California or get a pet snake—something, anything to take her mind off that man.





Chapter 9

Jasper



Jasper kicked the pile of Hannah’s presents to the back of his closet. Their existence, their presence there, haunted him. It was like she herself lurked in his apartment, watching and analyzing him…how many times he washed his hands, how many times he checked his email. He took up his cello again, picking out from memory the opening notes—not Bach this time, but Nina Simone.

His buzzer rang and the third time it interrupted him, he stomped to the intercom and barked, “What!”

“Delivery for you,” the doorman said.

“I didn’t order anything.”

“Your name on it. I’ll leave it here.”

Jasper waited until the man was gone and looked outside his door, where a small shipping box awaited him. He tore it open, exasperated, and took out a disposable cell phone with a sticky note on it.



You’ll receive a text with the location and time.



It had to be Hannah. Or else Miss Hollingford had a sick sense of humor that was about to get her ass fired. He hoped it was Hannah.

While he checked his email, while he reviewed spreadsheets and assigned projects, he had the phone in front of him, propped against the screen of his laptop so he wouldn’t miss a message. He went for a run with the phone tucked in the armband that normally held his MP3 player. He checked the ringer to make sure it was turned up, made certain it was fully charged. He had officially paid more attention to the wellbeing of that disposable phone in the last five hours than he’d spent on all previous girlfriends combined.

When the screen lit up with a message, he caught his breath with a jolt.



The Blake, room 1890, one hour. Black tie.



His heart raced. If this were Miss Hollingford’s idea of entertainment, she would find herself unable to get work at a convenience store. If it were Hannah, she’d be the making of him. Before he unzipped his tux from its garment bag, he texted the secretary.



Did you send me a phone?



No, Mr. Cates, I ain’t some hard-up pervert who needs to give out disposable phones. Have a nice weekend.



Relieved, he allowed himself a tight chuckle and got dressed. It was only a five-minute walk, but he had no intention of being late. He straightened his cuffs, pushing in the reddish brown jasper links he’d bought in Thailand, and pocketed the phone, realizing he was already sweating through his shirt. Jasper dragged the presents out of his closet and put them in a bag.

Jasper strode in to the flower shop and bought calla lilies, stopped by the coffee bar for espresso with double whipped cream, and made it to the room at the Blake with ten minutes to spare. He shifted the flowers to the crook of his elbow so he could knock. He heard the chain slide free and she opened the door. He took an involuntary step back just to look at her; gorgeous, in the ugliest purple dress he’d ever seen.

He held out the lilies and she took them, raking him up and down with a gaze he could only describe as filthy. She deposited the flowers in a glass of water on the bathroom sink and led him in. Votive candles flickered along a path to the bed, champagne chilled in a silver bucket of ice. The curtains were flung open so the city lights below gave an unearthly glow. She sipped the coffee and set it aside.

“I—” he began, but there was no explanation he could give that would satisfy either of them.

He dropped the bag to the floor, let the door shut behind him and went to her, kissing her, backing her up to the bed. She tasted of sweet cream and bitter coffee and weeks of loneliness and fear. She pushed the jacket off his shoulders and threw it onto a chair. He unpinned her hair and let it fall in loops and twists across his fingers. He rucked up her dress and whipped it over her head, narrowly missing a lit candle when he tossed it aside. When he had her bare beneath his hands, he kissed her forehead, her temples, her jaw, dragging his mouth down her neck and across her collarbone, catching a shell-pink nipple in his lips and drawing on it. She moaned and yanked his shirt open, sending the buttons skidding across the room.