The Bad Billionaire's Seven Kiss Negotiation novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Terms

In his car Jo rewrites the offer as a contract and spends the first kiss, until Lila texts that Roland has taken her phone and moved up a wedding.

"Pull over," I said.

"It's raining."

"Then pull over somewhere with a roof."

Ansel Hawke turned into the loading lane of a parking garage on Michigan Avenue and put the car in park.

The wipers kept going for a second, and then he cut the engine.

"Seven kisses," I said. "Explain."

"You get your stepfather off your sister's back. I get seven kisses."

"From me."

"From you, yes. I'm not interested in the other options."

I looked at his hands on the wheel.

They were large and still, and there was a silver ring on the right one, a plain band with nicks in it.

"I've said no to you for three years," I said.

"You've said no to my flowers. I'm not sure you've said no to me."

"I said no to you at the Children's Hospital auction two years ago."

"You weren't there. You were in the coat room on the phone."

"Because someone bid forty thousand dollars for a dinner with me," I said.

"The auctioneer said my name into a microphone, and two hundred people clapped."

I had not meant to say it aloud.

He was quiet.

"I didn't know you heard that," he said.

"Everyone heard that."

"Jo."

"Don't."

I took out my phone and turned it over.

Eleven texts.

Roland: "You're upset. Come home and we'll talk."

Roland again: "Lila is asking where you are."

Conrad: "Please call me. This got away from him."

Chantal had sent a single laughing face.

I turned the phone back over.

"Here are my terms," I said. "You can say no."

"I'm listening."

"One. Seven kisses total, and not one of them is collected. I choose the time and the place. You never start one."

"Agreed."

"Two. Mouth to mouth. Hands where I say. I end each kiss, not you."

"Agreed."

"Three. Anything that isn't a kiss isn't in the contract."

His eyebrow, the scarred one, went up slightly.

"I'd like that last one in writing," he said.

"It's going in writing. Four. You keep Roland away from Lila. Not just tonight. Until I say."

"Done."

"Five. I turn thirty in twenty-four days."

I watched his face.

"On that day my mother's share of Amesbury Freight stops being held by my stepfather and becomes mine."

"He knows it. That's why Conrad was handed to me tonight."

"Until that day, you're my date, in public, wherever Roland can see us."

"And you stay at my place," Ansel said. "You can't go home. He'll be at your door by midnight."

I said nothing for a moment.

He was right, and I hated that he had worked it out before I did.

"The guest suite," I said. "With a lock."

"With two."

"Six. You tell me why."

"Why what?"

"Why a man with your money wants seven kisses from a size 20 lawyer who sent your flowers to a hospice."

He looked at me then, and the look was not a joke.

"Because I've wanted to kiss you since the first day I saw you," he said. "And I don't take what isn't offered."

It sounded true.

It also sounded well prepared.

"That's not a reason," I said. "That's a line."

"It's the reason I'm willing to say tonight."

I had cross-examined enough witnesses to know a true answer with a piece missing.

I let it go.

For now.

There was a pen in the console.

He took a paper napkin from the glove box.

I wrote it all out in my own handwriting while the rain came down on the roof.

Seven kisses, my choice of time and place, mouth only, and I end each one.

He keeps Roland off Lila, and I stay twenty-four days.

Anything else is outside the contract.

I signed it with my looped J.

He read it twice, which I noticed.

Then he signed under me, in a hard slanting hand, and he did not say anything about my signature.

"Now," I said, "the first one."

His hands went tight on the wheel.

"Now?"

"I spend it when I want. I want it here."

I didn't know why I'd chosen that moment, except that he had said the word want so plainly, and I wanted to see him flinch.

He didn't.

He sat completely still, and he waited.

I unbuckled my seat belt and leaned across the console.

I put my hand flat on his chest, over the black suit, and felt how hard his heart was going.

That was my answer to the line.

Then I kissed him.

It was slow at first, a test, my mouth against his.

He kissed me back slowly and thoroughly, and he did not hurry a single second of it.

His lips were warm and a little rough.

When I opened my mouth he made a low sound in his throat, and I felt it go straight through the green silk and into my stomach.

I slid my hand up behind his neck.

His hands stayed on the wheel, white at the knuckles, exactly where I had put them.

I bit his lower lip, softly, and he breathed my name against my mouth.

I kissed him until my own breath ran short and my thighs pressed together under the dress.

Then I sat back.

"One," I said.

My voice came out lower than I'd planned.

Ansel Hawke opened his eyes slowly.

"That," he said, "was worth the three years."

"Don't flatter me. It's six more."

My phone buzzed on the seat.

I looked down, expecting Roland.

It was Lila.

"They took my phone. This is the housekeeper's. Roland says the wedding is next Saturday. Please come."

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