The Billionaire's Boyfriend Page 7

  I let out a long sigh of relief… then I let out a long sigh of disappointment.

  Cal had gone.

  I cast my mind back to last night. We had made love and it had been sensational. Cal was sexy and sweet and a little bit naughty. His tongue had tasted every inch of my body—my neck, my nipples, my thighs, my balls—and when he was done tasting me, he filled me with his hard, cut cock.

  We came at the same time, his searing hot fluid filling the head of his condom while my seed spilled over my belly and run down my sides and onto the sheets.

  After that he spooned me.

  He fell asleep first, his slow, rhythmic sighs warm against the back of my neck.

  It was like a wordless lullaby that eventually sent me off to sleep too—

  —until Mr. Banks crawled out from my subconscious mind wearing monkeys and bananas.

  As the dream slowly wore off, I climbed out of bed and retrieved those pajama pants, pulling them on as I looked hopefully around the bedroom for a note from Cal. Surely, he didn’t leave without some sort of goodbye message.

  That’s when my phone on the bedside table beeped with a new text message.

  I smiled when I saw it was from him.

  Hey Matt, thanks for an amazing evening. Sorry I had to leave, I’ve got an early morning meeting with some architects. We’re renovating the building, it’s chaos at the office right now, I really need to be there. You were sleeping so soundly when I left, I didn’t want to wake you. Please don’t think I’m the kinda guy who sneaks away in the dark. I’m not. At least not with you. In case nobody’s ever told you before, you’re something special. Cal x

  “Oh my,” I whispered to myself, my heart soaring.

  A second text suddenly appeared.

  Btw, I think someone from the media may have spotted me leaving your place this morning. If you see any photographers hanging around, just ignore them. They’ll go away soon enough. I’ll call you later to check in. Cal x

  “Soon enough?” I read again out loud. “That implies longevity. Which implies commitment. Which implies… what the hell am I getting myself into?”

  * * *

  I paced the floor of the flower shop while Mrs. Mulroney put the final touches on a bouquet that was almost ready to be delivered. As she clipped away the excess leaves and unspooled a purple ribbon, she impatiently tried to get her head around my anxiety.

  “I don’t know what all your fuss and bother is about, Matthew. Things are going swimmingly. He’s handsome, charming and clearly likes you. And you’d be an idiot not to like him. So why the hell are you wearing out my perfectly good floorboards?”

  She took a break from her floristry for a quick swig from her hipflask.

  “Don’t you think things are going a little too swimmingly? Like any minute now the weather will turn and everything will be go drowningly.”

  “Drowningly is not a word.”

  “I know that, I’m a writer.”

  “A romance writer, to be precise. And you’re coming to me for advice on love? God help those readers of yours, they’re in for the shock of their lives.”

  “All I’m saying is, don’t you think he’s a little too perfect? Don’t you think he’s steering us into a relationship a little too quickly? And don’t you think it’s a little too early to be drinking?”

  “Not in Ireland, it’s not. Besides, haven’t you ever heard of the hair of the wolf?”

  “No, funnily enough I haven’t.”

  “Hair of the dog is for two-pot pissheads who can’t handle their booze. Hair of the wolf is for those with a real hangover. It’s got fangs and claws and will rip your head off if you’re not used to it. Not surprisingly I’m rather fond of the stuff.”

  “What exactly is in that flask?”

  “Whisky… to begin with.”

  “And what else?”

  “Something that’ll keep your silverware clean for a year. Don’t worry, it’s legal in Siberia, but that’s another story. Right now, I’m busy telling you to pull your head out of your arse and let this little romance of yours blossom.”

  “What if I’m too scared to let it blossom?”

  “Are you daft? What’s there to be scared of?”

  “I don’t know. Being with someone. Not farting in bed. Falling in love?”

  “Matthew Darcy, are you telling me you’ve never farted on someone in bed?”

  “Not knowingly. And certainly not intentionally.”

  Mrs. Mulroney took another sip. “There’s nothing that tests a love more than the unexpected vibration of a fart against your leg. If a romance can withstand that, then it’s stronger than a marriage vow, truer than a nun’s virtue, and warmer than an open fire on a cold winter’s night. At the end of the day, that’s what relationships are built on. Farts.”

  “You make it sound so… romantic.”

  “Are you telling me you’ve never been in a serious relationship? Ever?”

  I shrugged. “Not really. I mean, I’ve had boyfriends. But I’ve never really been a fan of commitment with guys. I have to admit, I kinda like the other C word.”

  Mrs. Mulroney gasped in shock. “Don’t tell me you’re giving up the gay and swinging the other way!”

  “No, not that C word. I mean convenience. I’ve always gone for guys who make things convenient for me. They’re the sort of guys who take you out on convenient dates, they give you conveniently re-gifted birthday gifts, they make convenient excuses when they’re losing interest, and in the end, they break up with you conveniently via text message. Relationships of convenience are much safer than committed relationships. Nobody ever goes out of their way for the other person and nobody ever gets their heart broken.”

  “That’s because nobody takes a risk,” Mrs. Mulroney said, clearly annoyed. “How can you write romance when that’s how you practice it?”

  “I don’t know. I guess what I put down on paper is such a dream, I don’t even try to turn it into a reality.”

  “You’re just afraid of getting your heart broken, Matthew Darcy.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Everything! If you don’t get your heart broken, how else will you ever learn what real love is?”

  I stopped pacing. “I know what real love is.”

  “Do you now?” Mrs. Mulroney challenged.

  I nodded. “My parents were in love. Real love. I saw it every minute of every day till the day they died. Who can compete with that kind of love? Who can expect to ever know something that true?”

  “We all can. And we all should. We all deserve that kind of love, Matthew. But we’ll never find it if we don’t take a chance.” She took another gulp from her flask and added with a light-headed blink, “And that’s not just the hair of the wolf speaking. That’s the truth.”

  I sighed in frustration, or perhaps even defeat, knowing deep down she was right. “Is that bouquet finished yet or what? I’m late with my deliveries.”

  “Oh, hold your horses, I’m nearly done. One last little sprig of lavender here, and little bow there, and viola… another elegant masterpiece from Mrs. Mulroney’s Little Flower Shop.” She celebrated with one last swig of the hair of the wolf, draining the flask.

  I took the bouquet and the delivery address from her and was ready to christen my new bicycle which was propped against the front door, waiting for me.

  I loaded up my delivery and swung one leg over the bike.

  “Try not to think about mounting the billionaire when you ride that thing,” Mrs. Mulroney advised ever so helpfully. “You may be on the road to romance but you need to focus on the road out there. This city is full of garbage trucks, you know. One lapse of concentration and—”

  “I’ll be fine. Thanks for the tip.”

  I hurried out of the shop, wheeling my bike along the pavement and toward the curb when suddenly I heard from the nearby corner—

  “That’s him! Over there!”

  I turned to see a throng of photographers and
reporters gathered on the corner, as if waiting to ambush me… which is exactly what they did as soon as the first member of the paparazzi spotted me.

  As the small horde of media stampeded toward me, I panicked and blew my escape, my heel spinning off the pedal before I lost my balance.

  Gracelessly I fell into the gutter, just as the snappers started snapping pics. The bike fell on top of me and Mrs. Mulroney’s bouquet came undone. Apparently crashing to the ground covered in flowers was my look. But whereas last time only one piece of footage emerged from the incident, this time it seemed like hundreds of photos were being taken. They were accompanied by a barrage of questions from the reporters as they pushed and shoved their microphones into my face.

  “How does it feel to be the hero of the moment?”

  “Is it true Mr. Croft has seen you again since the accident?”

  “Are you the billionaire’s new boyfriend?”

  I clambered to my feet, towing my bike alongside me as I tried to push and weave my way back to the flower shop. Flashes went off in my face. More and more questions were being shouted at me. I felt blood running down my shin and I looked down to see I’d torn my jeans. A photographer tried to make me turn for a better shot and ripped the collar of my shirt as he yanked on it.

  “Leave me alone! I’m not a hero… and I’m not the billionaire’s boyfriend. I’m just a nobody! Please, just leave me alone!”

  I made it to the flower shop door, dragged my bike inside then slammed and locked the door behind me.

  Mrs. Mulroney looked up to see me and the commotion outside. She gasped, horrified.

  “Sweet Jesus at a Black Friday Sale! Matthew, are you all right? You look like you’ve been molested by a pack of meerkats.”

  I panted for air, frantically trying to catch my breath as photographers continued to take photos through the window. “I think this road to romance just took a bumpy turn. I’m gonna need a bigger pep talk.”

  * * *

  Mrs. Mulroney put a Closed sign on the door and called an emergency meeting, pulling in the big guns—her and Tilly. Together they were a formidable force. There was nothing they couldn’t convince me of, no argument I could win against them, and no excuse I could give that was ever acceptable. When I had to call the phone company and query my last bill, they were both right there beside me telling me to ‘Stand up for yourself’. When I had to visit the bank to apply for an increase in my credit limit, Tilly was my moral support cheering ‘Stick it to the man’. And when I had to confront the guy at the pretzel stand who short-changed me two dollars and accused me of scamming him, Mrs. Mulroney was standing right behind me telling me to ‘Shove a damn pretzel so far up that fat bastard’s arse he’ll never be able to sit down to piss ever again’.

  I’m not saying I shoved a pretzel up the guy’s ass, but I did get my two dollars back.

  The point was, there was nothing I couldn’t do after a pep talk from those two.

  “I can’t do it,” I told the pair of them, now wearing out the floorboards in my own apartment.

  Tilly and Mrs. Mulroney were sitting at my dining table for the emergency meeting, ready to break down my doubts over whether or not a schmuck like me could be stupid enough to go into a relationship with a billionaire like Calvin Croft.

  “After all, we’re talking about a man who owns his own Learjet!” I pointed out.

  “Not only that,” said Tilly, who had been on her iPad—presumably gathering evidence for the Affirmative Team in this debate—for the last ten minutes. “He also owns three tea plantations in Sri Lanka, two whisky distilleries in Kentucky and a gold mine in Australia.”

  “Ooh… tea, whisky and a shitload of money,” cooed Mrs. Mulroney. “Three of my favorite things. If you’re done whining, Matthew, you might want to step aside and give me a go at him. I reckon I could turn him if I wore that little red number of mine.”

  “Can we just focus on the current scenario of me dating him first? Crazy as that sounds.”

  “He also owns a luxury yacht in the Mediterranean, a jewelry store in Paris and an ice hockey team in Switzerland,” added Tilly.

  “He owns an entire hockey team? Statistically speaking at least one of them is gay. Why isn’t he dating his Swiss hockey player? He already owns him, after all.”

  “Hockey teams must roster at least twenty players per game,” said Tilly. “Which means statistically speaking two of them would be gay.”

  “Great! He can have his own hot hockey threesome. The question I’m asking is, why would he want me when he’s got all that?”

  “Well you’re certainly different to his previous boyfriends,” said Tilly. She spun her iPad around so that Mrs. Mulroney and I could see. “These are the last three guys that Calvin Croft dated.”

  Tilly swiped her screen to reveal a photo of Cal with his arm around a dashing, dark-haired man in the pit stop of a race track.

  “First up we have Brazilian race car driver Enrique Duarte,” she said. “Three times world champion and notorious party boy.”

  “Brazilian?” I asked meekly. “Cal told me he’d never been to the Amazon.”

  “Matthew, you can go to Brazil without setting foot in the Amazon,” Tilly said. “It’s a big place. In terms of land mass, Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world, sitting behind Russia, Canada, China and the United—”

  “Skip the geography lesson,” said Mrs. Mulroney trying unsuccessfully to swipe the screen. “Show us the next hottie on your list.”

  Tilly rolled her eyes and swiped the screen to reveal a photo of Cal hand in hand with a handsome man in a tuxedo on the red carpet of the Cannes Film Festival. “Next, we have French actor Olivier Baudelaire, winner of two Oscars and a humanitarian award for his work with the orangutans of Borneo.”

  Mrs. Mulroney pointed excitedly to the man in the picture. “Oh, he’s the fella from that movie about the doctor who rescues all those orphaned animals in the jungle. I loved that movie!” She cupped her mouth like she was going to cry. “He saved every one of those little orange monkeys. God bless his heart.”

  “He didn’t really save those animals, you know,” I said, not even trying to hide the jealousy in my voice.

  “Yes, he did. He won that award.”

  “That’s just somebody in a PR agency earning their next promotion.” I swiped Tilly’s iPad screen myself. “Next boyfriend!”

  Unfortunately, the third picture was the most gut-wrenching of all, revealing Cal in mid-kiss with a buff, half-naked blond on the slopes of an icy mountain peak.

  “Last but by no means least,” said Tilly, “this is Russian supermodel Alexander Markov, a former ski champion who turned to modelling after winning three gold medals at the last Winter Olympics.”

  “Why is that man half-naked?” I asked, outraged by how ridiculously sexy the photo was. “They’re on a mountain, for God’s sake. In the snow! Who takes their shirt off in the snow?”

  “Who gives a toss?” said Mrs. Mulroney, ogling the picture of the chiseled supermodel in front of us. “I’d dunk him in a hot cuppa tea and suck the end off him any day!”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be keen on Mr. Dellucci?” I asked, clearly annoyed.

  “I am. But just because I’m having Brussels sprouts for dinner, doesn’t mean I can’t look in the window of the candy shop on my way home.”

  I planted my forehead into my palm with a loud smack. “Don’t you see? Cal is out of my league, I’m batting above my weight, I’ll never hit a home run with him. Worst of all, I’ve just reduced my entire love life to a bunch of baseball metaphors! This will never work. I hate sports. Can we please close the chapter of ‘Boyfriends Past’ right now before I start measuring the oven to see if my head fits?”

  Tilly shut off her iPad and looked me squarely in the eye. “Listen, Sylvia Plath. You’re looking at this all wrong, like you’re some kind of half-glass-empty kinda guy. Which you’re not. The fact is, you’ve simply become a victim of the love virus.”
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  “The love virus?”

  Tilly nodded. “True love gets in your head like some computer virus and re-wires all the confidence and happiness inside you and turns it to doom and gloom. Don’t let it get to you. In my mind, our mission today is clear. We need to take what you would normally write into one of your romance novels… and make it your life. Complete with a happily-ever-after that’ll have the readers laughing and cheering and crying with joy.”

  “That’s never gonna happen,” I said.

  “Why not?” Tilly challenged, her hands on her yet-to-be hips.

  “Because Cal and I… we’re completely different people living completely different lives.”

  “Correction,” Tilly said. “I think you’re the completely same people living completely different lives.”

  “Tilly’s right,” Mrs. Mulroney said. “For whatever reason, Cal’s previous relationships didn’t work. The champion race car driver, the award-winning French actor, the god-like Russian supermodel with abs you could hammer a horseshoe on—”

  “Not helping.”

  “—those men are gone for a reason. And here you are.”

  I took a deep breath. “What if I’m just the next rejection waiting to happen?”

  “Then we’ll all sit here and eat ice cream together till the hurt goes away,” said Tilly, standing beside my chair and wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “But take away all the money... take away the headlines and the parties and the billionaire label… and maybe you’ll see that Cal’s just the same as you. Now that he’s found you, are you really going to run away and ruin this one true chance at love, just because you’re scared?”

  At that moment, my phone rang.

  We all looked at the caller ID.

  “Sweet Jesus sitting on a telephone wire,” gasped Mrs. Mulroney. “It’s Cal. Romance has come to the rescue. Quick, pick it up!”

  “And say what?” I asked desperately.

  “And say ‘hello’, for heaven’s sake. I swear to God, if somebody up there doesn’t give me strength soon I’m going to up the ante from booze to crystal meth.”