Billionaire Completes My Bucket List novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: What the Money Buys

Jasper explains the board vote and signs her rules, including one he writes in ink; Dinah eats three desserts first, and Lyle sits down two tables away.

We took his car to the Holloway Grand, which was across town and the nicest building I had ever walked into.

His office was on the top floor, and the whole west wall was windows.

There was a desk, two chairs, and a framed photo of a very small old woman holding a cane with a duck on it.

"My grandmother," Jasper said. "Adelaide. She'll want to meet you by tonight."

"Why do you need a fiancée by Saturday?" I asked.

I stayed standing, because I had learned in six years of client meetings that the person who sits first loses.

He did not sit, either.

"There's a board vote on November nineteenth," he said. "It decides whether I keep the chair permanently."

"And you're losing."

"My uncle Leopold says a man who can't keep a person can't keep a company."

"Can you keep a person?"

"I've been engaged twice," he said. "Both ended, and the papers have decided it was my fault."

"Was it?"

"Mostly," he said, and he didn't look away, which I liked more than I wanted to.

"My grandmother holds the swing shares. She likes people who aren't afraid of me."

He paused.

"She's been telling me to bring someone home for two years."

"So you'll pay for my list, and I'll wear a ring."

"Until the vote. After that you owe me nothing."

"I have rules," I said.

"I assumed you would."

I ticked them off on my fingers, the way I do in contract meetings.

"One, I can stop any time I want, without a reason."

"Yes."

"Two, you never lie to me, even when the truth is rude."

"Yes."

"Three, I owe you nothing. Not an hour, not a favor, not an explanation."

"That's already the deal," he said.

He pulled a page from a printer behind him, and I saw it was already half written.

He signed the bottom in blue ink.

Then he stopped, and turned the page toward himself, and added one more line by hand.

I read it upside down.

"Nothing in this buys her body."

I looked up.

"That's the part you were worried about?" I asked.

"It's the part I'm sure about," he said. "Everything else is business."

I picked up his pen and signed under his name, because I wanted to.

My signature looked small and steady, and I didn't know where the steadiness came from.

He opened his desk and took out a ring in a plain white box.

It was a small old sapphire in a thin gold band.

"It was my grandmother's mother's," he said. "I'd rather not have her find out it's a prop."

I slid it on and it fit.

"Dessert first," I said.

He blinked.

"Item two. Eat dessert first, and three of them. I'd like to start tonight."

"The Grand has a pastry chef who would die for this," he said, and for the first time he almost smiled.

The dining room was on the second floor, all dark wood and low gold lamps.

The maitre d' straightened when he saw us, and then straightened more when he saw the ring.

Jasper told him I would like the dessert menu first.

The man did not blink, which is the sign of a professional.

I ordered the chocolate soufflé, the lemon tart and something called a burnt-sugar custard.

"All three," I said. "Before anything else. It's on my list."

"Of course, Miss Larkin," the maitre d' said.

They came out together on a silver cart, steaming and glazed.

I picked up my spoon and looked at the soufflé for a long time.

"I haven't done anything on purpose in years," I said.

"You quit your job this morning."

"That was a reflex," I said. "This is on purpose."

I broke the crust, and the middle came apart warm and dark.

It was so good that I laughed out loud, and a woman at the next table turned to look.

Jasper watched me eat the tart with his chin on his hand.

He didn't say anything, which I was beginning to understand was his way of listening.

"Try the custard," I said. "You look like you haven't tasted anything since March."

"February," he said, and took the spoon.

He ate one bite and closed his eyes.

I thought, I could do this for nine months.

Then the maitre d' led two new guests to a table by the fountain, two tables from ours.

One of them was a gelled-hair man in a quarter-zip.

The other was a woman in red flats, and her hand was in his.

Lyle looked up, and he saw the ring.

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