The Billionaire's Boyfriend Page 8

  The phone kept ringing.

  “Why don’t I answer it?” Tilly suggested excitedly. “I can pretend I’m your secretary.”

  “I think it’s pretty obvious I don’t have a secretary.”

  “I’ll call myself Penelope Pilkington. That’s a great secretary’s name.”

  Tilly reached for the phone.

  I snatched it before she could grab it and held it close to my chest. “No, Tilly. It’s a bad idea.”

  “Why?”

  “Because… well… because I don’t think secretaries even exist anymore. I think they’re called personal assistants, or executive assistants, or something like that now.”

  “You’re stalling,” Mrs. Mulroney accused, her eyes narrowing. “Answer the damn phone.”

  “He’s been calling all day. I’m not going to answer it now.”

  Mrs. Mulroney’s eyebrows lifted in shock. “What do you mean? Matthew Darcy have you been ignoring his calls all day?”

  The phone continued ringing.

  “Maybe,” I admitted guiltily.

  “How many times has he called?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Nine? Maybe ten?”

  “Give me that phone!” exclaimed Mrs. Mulroney and Tilly at the same time.

  They both lunged for the phone.

  I clutched it to my chest as tightly as I could, but they clawed and pulled at my hands until the phone slipped from my grip—

  —bounced across the table—

  —and thudded to the floor with one final ring before cutting out.

  We all leaned over the edge of the table to see the phone lying face-up on the floor, text on the screen declaring: Missed Call.

  “Oh, that poor billionaire,” Mrs. Mulroney said with a shake of her head.

  “I think that’s an oxymoron,” I said sheepishly.

  “The only oxymoron here is you, Matthew. Stop playing games with this man’s heart. He likes you. Perhaps someday he may even love you, and you, God forbid, might actually learn to love someone back.”

  “How is that even fair coming from you?” I asked Mrs. Mulroney. “You’ve been stringing Mr. Dellucci along like a kite for months. Then suddenly last night you have a few drinks and you’re all over him. What’s the forecast for today? Hot or cold?”

  For that I received a clip across the ear. Quite rightly.

  “That’s called a woman’s prerogative. Besides, straight men are like little Jack Russell terriers, you can give them the run-around all day long and they still want more. You, on the other, are a gay man. You’re not supposed to be over-analyzing or fretting about anything at this stage of your relationship. You should just be shagging like rainbow-colored rabbits at a leather pride parade right now.”

  “Great, now all I can think about is bondage bunnies.”

  Mrs. Mulroney took my hands firmly in hers. “All I’m saying is, let things unfold naturally. See where love leads you. Don’t over-think this, Matthew. If you do, you’ll end it before it’s begun.”

  I paused a moment. “You’re right. You’re both right. I’m being ridiculous.” I took a deep breath. “I just need to let this… happen.”

  “Yes, you do,” Tilly said. “But first you need to take control.”

  “Seriously? Can’t I just take this one step at a time. I just said I was happy to let things ‘happen’.”

  “You need to do more than that, Charles Dickens.”

  “Good grief, falling in love comes with more instructions than an Ikea bookshelf.”

  This time it was Tilly who took my hands. “At this point, you need to steer the plot forward. You’ve denied Cal’s efforts to do so by ignoring his nine—”

  “Ten.”

  “—ten phone calls. He may never try calling again after that kind of Cold War tactic. You need to be the one to make the next move.”

  Mrs. Mulroney nodded. “The twelve-year-old is right. You need to grow some balls, Matthew.”

  “But you need to do it in style,” Tilly said.

  “How do I grow balls in style?”

  Tilly screwed up her face. “Ew, inappropriate! Be serious for a moment, would you? Your next move can’t look reactionary. It must be proactive, yet personal. He’s always been a gentleman to you, so you need to do the same. Your move needs to be something classic yet classy, simple yet sincere.”

  “I know what you should do!” exclaimed Mrs. Mulroney. “Take him a beautiful bunch of blooms from Mrs. Mulroney’s now world famous Little Flower Shop!”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Yes,” nodded Tilly approvingly. “It’s exactly what you should do. If you weren’t delivering flowers the day of the garbage truck incident, the two of you might never have met. Flowers are what brought you together. Flowers will determine whether you should stay together… or part ways forever.”

  “That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

  “I prefer to think of it as poetic,” said Tilly. “But the big Shakespearean twist is yet to come.”

  “It is? Oh God.”

  “You need a disguise. The world knows you, the press is after you. We need to cloak your appearance so that nobody knows it’s you.”

  Mrs. Mulroney gasped with excitement. “I have just the thing!”

  * * *

  “Are you positive this is the right move? It seems a little… extreme.”

  “Extreme would be dressing you like a street walker,” said Mrs. Mulroney. “I have a pair of leopard print leggings if that’s what you’d prefer.”

  “No, no, no. This is just fine.”

  I looked dubiously at my reflection in the full-length mirror in Mrs. Mulroney’s bedroom as she and Tilly put the finishing touches on my disguise.

  “I look like Mrs. Doubtfire.”

  Tilly beamed. “Then we have succeeded in our task!”

  Indeed, standing in the mirror looking back at me was a sixty-year-old woman wearing an unflattering overcoat, knee-high stockings, flat sensible shoes and a floral headscarf tied under the chin.

  “I have facial hair,” I pointed out.

  Mrs. Mulroney winked. “That just makes things all the more convincing for a woman your age.”

  “Don’t forget these,” said Tilly, handing me a pair of pink retro sunglasses with fake diamante flowers set into the frames.

  “And this,” said Mrs. Mulroney, sliding an oversized Harrods shopping bag onto my arm. “It’s a good-sized bag, that one. We can sneak a beautiful bouquet of flowers in there and nobody will know.”

  “At least I know the real me is under there somewhere.” I opened the overcoat to reveal my normal clothes—a T-shirt and shorts—reassured by the fact that before handing Cal the flowers I would ditch the disguise altogether.

  I took a deep breath.

  I began to muster some confidence.

  I began to think I could actually pull this off.

  I began to—

  “Now, let’s get you some flowers and throw you to the lions,” said Mrs. Mulroney.

  I began to wonder what the hell I was doing… yet again.

  Chapter Four

  With a bouquet of flowers in my Harrods bag, I clutched the lapels of my overcoat tightly together and stepped out of Mrs. Mulroney’s Little Flower Shop.

  A small group of paparazzi remained. Obviously, these were the desperate stragglers who couldn’t be bothered chasing Beyoncé around town… so they settled for the guy dressed up as a sixty-year-old Irishwoman.

  One of them turned to see me and shouted to the others, “Hey, someone’s coming out of the florist shop.”

  As they began to rush toward me, I walked determinedly right through the middle of them.

  “Nah, forget it. It’s only the woman who owns the shop,” I heard one of them say.

  I grinned and said in my best Irish accent, “Top of the mornin’ to ya!”

  “But it’s the afternoon,” another photographer mumbled.

  “Not in Ireland,” I replied, before
trotting merrily on my way.

  I hailed a cab on the corner, reluctant to take the subway for fear of a wardrobe malfunction in front of a subway car full of commuters. Within seconds a cab pulled up and I jumped in.

  “Where to, miss?”

  “Croft Tower, if you please,” I replied, staying in character. “And don’t spare the horses!”

  I’d never really taken notice of Croft Tower before. Paying particular attention to a certain building in New York is a bit like noticing a single tree in a forest. There’s lots of them and after a while they all look the same. But as I paid the driver and stepped out of the cab, I craned my neck and realized for the first time how impressive Croft Tower really was.

  I felt my stomach twist with nerves.

  Calvin Croft didn’t just own an office in this building. He didn’t just own a floor of offices. He owned the whole fucking skyscraper.

  And here I was dressed like a crazy cat lady.

  Fear suddenly took hold.

  Immediately I turned to get straight back in the cab, but as I reached for the passenger door handle the taxi took off, leaving me stranded there on the sidewalk.

  “You can do this, Matt,” I told myself. “All you have to do is find the right floor, look for a quiet place to change clothes, figure out where Cal’s office is and give him the flowers. It’s not Mission Impossible. More like… Mission Ridiculous.”

  With that, I walked bravely toward the revolving glass door.

  Inside the bustling lobby, men and women in business attire moved with clockwork precision to and from a set of six elevators which pinged constantly, delivering professionals up and down the tower.

  But what caught my eye was the construction worker with a hardhat and tool box heading toward what was clearly a workers’ elevator in a far corner of the lobby. I remembered Cal mentioning a renovation in one of his text messages. I hurried after the construction worker, catching up with him as he pressed the button to call the elevator.

  “Excuse me, does this elevator go up to the office of Mr. Croft?”

  The construction worker looked me up and down then gave me a smile. “It sure does, pretty lady.”

  “Oh,” I replied, not expecting a compliment. Or was that sexual harassment? I wasn’t quite sure. “I have a delivery of flowers for the gentleman. Would you mind if I take this elevator up with you?”

  “Not at all.”

  The doors pinged open.

  “After you,” said the construction worker, gesturing for me to enter the elevator first.

  I did so and he followed me in, pressing the button for the second highest floor in the building.

  “You know, there’s a lot of construction work happening up there,” he told me. “Walls are coming down and Mr. Croft is planning to open up the whole office. He says he wants to introduce hot-desking, whatever that is.”

  “Oh, that sounds… interesting,” was all I could think to say.

  “I think you sound interesting. What’s that accent? Irish? I love a hot-blooded Irishwoman.”

  Before I knew it, the construction worker pinched me on the ass.

  I gave a startled shriek and slapped his hand away. “Sweet Jesus in a strip joint! Keep your filthy paws to yourself or I’ll spray you with mace till your eyes melt! Do you hear me?”

  “Yes ma’am.” He answered promptly, taking a step back. “Like I said, hot-blooded,” he added with a grin.

  I glanced down to see him trying to hide a hard-on with his hardhat. If only he knew.

  When the elevator doors opened I hurried out into what was indeed a construction site. Workmen were everywhere, drilling and hammering and pulling down sections of walls. Amidst it all, a woman with an iPad in one hand and a phone in the other was busy giving orders and signing off on plans until the moment she saw me.

  Instantly I recognized her as the woman who had literally stepped over me to help Cal up off the street the day the garbage truck almost ran him over.

  I prayed she didn’t recognize me in return.

  “Excuse me, who are you? What are you doing up here?”

  The coward in me wanted to back straight into the elevator behind me, but the doors had already closed.

  Briskly the woman stepped toward me, pushing past several construction workers and waving her hand at me. “I don’t know who you are but you can’t be up here. Do you have permission from the foreman to be here? God, look at you in those ludicrous sunglasses and that cumbersome coat. You’re a workplace accident just waiting to happen.”

  “My name’s Mrs. Mulroney, I’m here to deliver some flowers to Mr. Croft.”

  “And my name’s Lydia, Mr. Croft’s personal assistant. I’m here to tell people like you that unless you want to be crushed by a falling wall or decapitated by a swinging construction beam, you can’t be here. All deliveries need to be left with the concierge in the lobby. He’ll sign for them and bring them up to Mr. Croft’s office.”

  She glanced over to a door beyond the construction area at the mention of Cal’s office.

  A-ha, I thought. That was where I needed to get to. Now all I had to do was find a way to sneak past Lydia.

  With a surprisingly firm grip she took me by the forearm and tried to steer me back to the elevator. “Now away with you. Before I call security.”

  “Oh, but I’d really like to give these flowers to Mr. Croft in person,” I said, resisting her not-so-gentle nudging and budging.

  “I’m sorry but the answer is no. Besides, Mr. Croft is out of the office at the moment and won’t be back for at least another ten minutes.”

  “Perhaps I could just leave the flowers in his office for him.”

  “Perhaps you could just do as you’re told and take the elevator back down to the lobby.”

  With a jerk, she hauled me to the elevator door and pushed the button, jabbing at it several times with a determined thumb.

  At that moment, the doors opened and none other than Calvin Croft himself stepped out of the elevator talking with two architects over a set of unfurled blueprints.

  Lydia released my forearm instantly, as though she forgot I even existed the moment her boss arrived, and quickly swooped for Cal’s attention. “Mr. Croft, if I could just get you to look over these documents ASAP we can get this deal signed, sealed and delivered this afternoon.”

  As Cal walked past me I turned quickly away, hoping he wouldn’t see me amongst all the chaos.

  Thankfully he didn’t. Flanked by the architects and distracted by Lydia’s demands, he simply sailed straight by me. Together the four of them walked not in the direction of Cal’s office, but over to a wall that was being torn down, evidently to discuss the new office layout.

  I let the elevator doors close once more then shot a glance over at Cal’s office.

  Moving behind flapping tarpaulins and load-bearing beams, I swiftly made my way to the door of Cal’s office. I tried the handle, praying it wasn’t locked.

  The door opened.

  I slipped inside and shut the door behind me.

  Suddenly I found myself in Calvin Croft’s vast and impressive office.

  At the far end of the room was a wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling window overlooking Battery Park and the Statue of Liberty beyond. In the center of the office was a sprawling mahogany desk with a white marble inset on top. A small pile of parcels sat on the desk, obviously already delivered by the concierge downstairs. I walked over, drawn not to the sealed documents and brown paper parcels in the pile… but to the box of fortune cookies sitting on top.

  Desperately I fought the urge to open it, to crack apart one of those cookies and see if my fortune told me that Cal and I would be together forever.

  But I had more urgent things to accomplish on my Mission Ridiculous.

  First, I had to shed my disguise.

  Quickly I pulled off the sunglasses and scarf. I threw off the overcoat, kicked off the shoes and peeled off the knee-high stockings. I pulled a spare pair of sneakers out my
Harrods bag, along with the flowers. I shoved Mrs. Mulroney’s clothes back into the bag, wriggled my feet into my sneakers, then picked up the flowers, ready to surprise Cal the moment he walked through the door.

  That’s when the phone in my pocket started to vibrate.

  I fumbled to get it out and switch it off. I didn’t realize at the time, but as I yanked my phone out, my wallet came with it.

  It fell to the floor beside my foot and stayed there.

  I didn’t even notice, I was too busy looking at the screen on my phone to see Mrs. Mulroney’s name appear. At first, I was going to ignore it, but the thought that it may have been something important that might jeopardize my mission forced me to answer it.

  “I’m kinda busy at the moment,” I whispered into the phone. “Is everything all right?”

  “Matthew, it’s me.” For some reason, Mrs. Mulroney always shouted into the phone, as though the sound of her voice wasn’t quite going to make it down the length of string connecting the two tin cans together. “Can you hear me, Matthew? It’s Mrs. Mulroney.”

  “Yes, I know it’s you. Your name comes up on the caller ID.”

  “Oh, of course it does. Phone’s are clever like that, aren’t they? I remember a time when you used to have to dial the operator just to—”

  “Why are you calling?”

  “Oh, we’re just seeing how it’s all going? Did you deliver the flowers yet or did you get arrested on the way for loitering in a public place? Tilly thinks you made it okay but I’m betting the farm that you’re sitting in a holding cell with a drug pusher named Guido. I hope for your sake he’s handsome. Or at the very least, disease-free.”

  “Can we have this conversation later?”

  “Blink twice if you need me to call a lawyer.”

  “That’s really not going to help.”

  “Just don’t squeal like a piggy, it makes them want you even more. I saw a documentary on it once. Oh wait, maybe that was The Deer Hunter.”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  “Okay then, take care and hopefully we’ll see you tonight. Tilly sends her love.”

  With that I hung up the phone, and not a second too soon.