Don't Toy with My Heart, Mr. Billionaire novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Toast

Reginald reads her shop catalog aloud at dinner and Lilia turns it on him in front of the whole table; in the car Leon tells her that was not in the contract.

The older man was Reginald Merrick, and he had brought a wife and two friends to look at me.

They stood in the living room in their coats.

Reginald was sixty-one, with silver hair, a red face and a gold watch he kept turning around his wrist.

His wife was thin and pearled and hadn't been introduced.

The friends were board members, he told me, in the tone you'd use for the word hostages.

"So you're the bride," Reginald said.

"I'm Lilia."

"Of course you are."

He had a folder in his hand.

He held it up.

"Leon didn't tell me the name of the business. I had to hire a man to find out. Do you know what I learned?"

"That I have good reviews?"

He opened the folder and read aloud.

"The Velvet Hour Starter Kit. Includes one wand, one bottle of warming oil and a card with eleven ideas for beginners."

One of the friends coughed.

"The Executive. Quiet motor. Ten speeds."

Reginald looked up and smiled around the room.

"My nephew has married a woman who sells these. Out of a shop on Milwaukee Avenue. That's who will sit at our table at Christmas."

Nobody laughed.

His wife looked at the carpet.

I felt Leon move beside me, a slow shift of weight.

I put my hand flat on his chest before he got there.

"Mr. Merrick," I said, and I smiled with everything I had. "Can I see that?"

He handed it to me, surprised.

"Page six," I said. "Thank you. The Executive. Quiet motor, ten speeds, and a travel case."

I turned the page to him.

"It's our best seller to men over fifty-five."

His face went a darker red.

"I'd be glad to put one aside for you," I said.

"Not for you, of course. For the person who has to listen to you at breakfast."

One of the board members made a noise.

I turned to the wife.

"Mrs. Merrick, I'd give you my professional discount. Twenty percent. It comes in a plain box."

She looked up.

Something moved in her face, small and fast.

"What color?" she said, very quietly.

"Whatever you like."

"I'll come by the shop," she said.

Reginald turned his head and stared at her.

She did not look at him.

The second board member put his hand over his mouth.

"That's enough," Reginald said. "Leon, your wife thinks this is funny."

"She's not my wife yet," Leon said.

His voice was perfectly even.

"She'll be my wife on Wednesday. You'll be at the courthouse at ten."

"You'll bring your notary, because you won't believe the paperwork unless a person you hired stamps it."

"And you'll be polite to her the entire time."

"Or what?"

"Or you can wait for the vote in the street."

Reginald held his stare for three full seconds.

Then he took his folder back out of my hands and started for the door.

"Eighteen days," he said over his shoulder. "Your birthday. The board votes."

"If you don't have a real wife in a real marriage by then, the shares come to me."

"I know when my birthday is."

"You'd better."

The door shut behind them.

I heard the car start in the drive.

The housekeeper had appeared at the end of the hall holding a tray, and now she turned around and left again.

I could swear she was smiling.

"A real wife in a real marriage," I said.

"It's a phrase in my father's will."

"You didn't mention that part."

"You didn't ask."

I looked at him.

He was standing very still, with both hands in his pockets.

I hadn't noticed before how tired he looked.

Not in the face.

In the shoulders.

"He read my catalog," I said, "to my face, in your living room. And you stood there."

"I stood there until you put your hand on me."

"Why?"

"You looked like you had it."

He said it flatly, like a fact.

Something in my chest did a small, stupid thing.

I took a step back.

That was when I saw Reginald's driver outside, at the end of the drive, with a camera up to his face.

"Your uncle's driver has a camera," I said.

"He'll send more men to watch the house."

"Public affection when anyone's watching."

"Yes."

"Is that what this is?"

"Yes."

He crossed the space between us in two steps and put one hand along my jaw.

His palm was warm.

His thumb stopped just beside the corner of my mouth.

"The camera is for him," he said.

"Then give him something to look at."

He kissed me.

It wasn't polite and it wasn't a performance.

It was slow, and sure, and a little rough.

His other hand slid into the small of my back and pulled me flat against him.

I forgot about the camera.

I forgot about Clause 14.

My fingers closed in his shirt and I kissed him back so hard I heard a sound come out of him, low in his chest.

When he lifted his mouth I was holding on to him with both hands.

"That was in the contract," I said, a little breathless.

"The second half wasn't," Leon said, and he didn't let go of me.

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