Come and Get Me: The Magister Series, Book 2: A Billionaire Romance Read online

  She’d meant it as a joke, but then she found herself picturing it, and her face heated. She was pretty sure her eyes glazed over too.

  Seeing this, Charles raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know if I like being reduced to a sex object.”

  Sandra tried to get her composure back. It was tough. She cleared her throat and said, “Uh, the shower’s all yours.” She hadn’t meant to sound so hopeful.

  “Hmm.” He leaned back in his chair and tapped his chin. “Maybe later. I still smell like your cunt. I’d like to enjoy that a little while longer.”

  She opened and closed her mouth, but her brain couldn’t catch up fast enough to give her any words to match.

  “Would you like a drink?” he asked, gesturing toward his sideboard.

  “God, yeah.” Sooner or later, he’d make her blush to death. How was that possible, when she’d literally begged him to fuck her in a stairwell? “What’ve you got?”

  “Pretty much everything. What do you like? Single malt?”

  “Fruity cocktails.” He looked appalled. “What kind of mixers do you have? Pineapple?” She made sure to wear a perfectly straight face. He looked at her in disbelief, until she couldn’t keep it up anymore and laughed.

  He shook his head as he rose to his feet. “I thought you were a young woman with taste.”

  Sandra thought about her perfectly coordinated closet full of tasteful clothes, shoes, and accessories. Kristen called her anal-retentive. “I can’t be sophisticated all the time. I hate whiskey, and cocktails are fun.”

  Charles sighed as he headed to the sideboard, obviously a suffering man. “What’s your second choice?”

  He’d said he had everything. “Gin and tonic?”

  He seemed relieved. “That’s more like it.”

  She glanced around the office while he fixed their drinks. She’d only been here once before, and she’d been sort of distracted—first, by how badly she’d wanted to jump his bones, and second, by the way she’d almost done it.

  On the first occasion, she’d noticed how large it was, with floor-to-ceiling windows that provided a gorgeous view of the city. She could even see the Brooklyn Bridge from here. The second thing she’d noticed was how isolated it seemed, cut off from anyone else, even his brother on the other side of the lobby.

  Well, maybe it wasn’t isolated all the time. She’d heard enough from Bradley to know that people came to Charles, not the other way around. At the time, she’d thought of him as a spider at the center of a web, spinning schemes and ready to devour anyone who came too close.

  Then she’d met him, and now she didn’t think about spiders anymore. Lions, maybe. Wolves. The head of a pride or a pack, and a carnivore all the same.

  Tonight, without all the fraught tension of her previous visit, Sandra took more time to check out her surroundings. She rose from the sofa and wandered toward the opposite wall, which was covered with framed photos. As she got closer, she saw that the photos were mainly of various Magisters meeting various important-looking people. In one, Charles was shaking hands with a man in a keffiyeh. In another, he and Stephen were sitting at a table on either side of another man, one whom Sandra found vaguely familiar.

  Then she blinked as it came to her. He was a former prime minister of Great Britain.

  “It was awkward,” Charles said. Sandra jumped a little, and turned to see that he was approaching her with two glasses in his hand.

  “Awkward?” she asked.

  “The Magisters fought on the American side in the Revolution. There was tension. We knew right away that we wouldn’t get to meet the Queen.”

  Now she really couldn’t tell if he was kidding. Maybe it was payback for the pineapple mixer thing. “Uh, so what’s it like, meeting people like that? In general, not just him.”

  Charles gave her one of the glasses. He’d even stuck a wedge of lime on the rim. “Hard to explain,” he said. “I’m not easily awed, and if someone’s power or rank doesn’t impress you, you’re likely to find that he’s unremarkable in other ways.” He blinked at her, looking oddly surprised by something. “But I grew up around that. I suppose I take it for granted.”

  “I suppose,” Sandra said dryly. She squeezed the lime into her drink and took a sip. “Mmm. Thanks.”

  “Any good?” He sipped from his own glass, which held amber liquid. The single malt, maybe.

  “It’s delicious,” she replied. “If you’d flunked out of billionaire school, you could have been a bartender.”

  He tugged at the lapel of the bathrobe. “Sassy.”

  “Apparently.” She rolled her shoulders in the thick terrycloth again and wiggled her bare toes against the plush carpet. She ached in her knees and between her legs, but it felt good too.

  God, tonight had been exactly what she’d needed, after two long days at work and two solitary evenings at home. She’d needed a hard fuck and a strong drink, in that order.

  “Are you sassy only with me?”

  Sandra blinked. Charles’s voice was mild, almost indifferent, but there was a glint in his eyes. The hair on her arms stood up.

  “I…guess so?” she said uncertainly. “I don’t really joke around a lot.” Or tease people, or laugh. He was special. “Does it bother you?”

  He seemed to relax a little. “It delights me.” Then he stepped closer, into her space, and gently rubbed one large hand up and down her back. The glint in his eyes vanished, replaced with something warmer.

  Sandra grew warmer too. She smiled up at him. “Rosalie said you guys came over in the 1740s or something. From Britain, right?”

  “York, specifically. My grandfather was convinced we could trace our ancestry back to the Norman Conquest. I have my doubts.”

  Sandra blinked. He hadn’t sounded like it mattered much. But wasn’t he concerned with family and legacy more than anything? “That seems like it would be kind of cool, though, right?” she tried. “If the Magisters really are an old family—wouldn’t you want to know?”

  He shrugged. “‘Old’ doesn’t mean ‘noble.’ Whatever the Magisters did in England wasn’t important enough to keep them there. We made our fortune and established our lineage here.”

  In other words, they’d left the loser Magisters behind, and good riddance. “Jeez,” Sandra said. “No wonder the Queen didn’t like you.”

  He looked offended. “I didn’t say she didn’t like me, I said—” Sandra raised up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Oh.”

  “Sassy,” Sandra repeated, and rested her head on his shoulder.

  He grunted, but tucked her close into his side and pressed a kiss into the top of her hair. “What about you?” he asked. His voice rumbled in his chest. “Where do the Danes hail from? Well, Denmark, I suppose.”

  “There and other places, yeah. We’re mutts,” Sandra said. “Mostly Danish on my dad’s side. Irish on my mom’s, though she’s got some Polish too.”

  “Irish.” He tugged lightly on her red hair. “You get this from her?”

  “Yep. That and my eyes.”

  “And she’s the CFO of your family’s company.”

  “Yeah.” Sandra didn’t know why she was surprised. “You remember that?”

  “I remember most things. That, and you want to start your own design firm. Will they help with that? Give you some capital?”

  Sandra blinked. “I don’t know. Probably? They’ve always been very supportive of me.” And they’d barely been able to hide their relief last night when she told them that she’d broken up with Bradley, even though she hadn’t said why. She probably shouldn’t mention that to Charles. “But that’s at least five years away.”

  “That’ll pass before you know it.” He took a swallow of his drink. “Just something to keep in mind.”

  What was that supposed to mean? Sandra opened her mouth to ask, but yawned instead. “Oops, sorry. What time is it?”

  Charles looked at his watch. “Nearly nine fifteen.”

  “Oof. I should go.”

&
nbsp; “You should.” He kissed her forehead and tightened his grip.

  Sandra chuckled ruefully. “If I get home in forty-five minutes, I can make my usual bedtime. Then I’m up at five to go running, and at work by seven thirty.” Wow, didn’t she sound so exciting? “Gah. I shouldn’t have been in such a hurry to grow up, if this is what it’s like.”

  Then she took a sip of her drink to hide her wince. She hadn’t meant to say anything that would touch on their age difference. Charles was twenty years older than she was, although he sometimes seemed like a thousand. She couldn’t point too many fingers on that account. Kristen had always jeered that Sandra had been seventy when she was born.

  But he wasn’t a thousand, and she wasn’t seventy. He was in his forties, and she was in her twenties, and the world was…what it was. People like them got laughed at. It would be even worse considering how they’d met.

  Charles didn’t sound too perturbed when he said, “It’s not so bad. You also get the chance to do your taxes.”

  “Oh, boy. I feel better now.” She kissed his cheek again, and repeated, “I should go.”

  “You’re not riding that subway again without underwear,” he said firmly. “I’ll call a cab. Wait with the guard at the gate until it arrives.”

  “I’m paying for it,” she said. His eyes narrowed. Maybe teasing would work. “Hey, you’re buying me some clothes. No need to spend all your money.” Teasing obviously wasn’t working. She said more seriously, “I came to see you. That’s my thing. I can afford a cab, it’s not like I’m flying across the country. It’s okay. I want to.”

  Charles reached for his wallet in his back pocket. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Sandra went very still. “Okay, Charles? If you try to hand me money while I’m mostly naked and we just had sex, I will throw you out of a window.”

  He blinked at her, his face oddly expressionless. She realized he was deciding whether to be amused or angry. How far could a man like him be pushed? She could stand her ground, of course. Or she could try something else.

  Sandra sipped her gin and tonic, batted her eyes, and said, “Just make it a nice coat.”

  That made his lips twitch, and her knees trembled a little, both in relief and excitement. This was a dangerous game—in some ways she felt as if she’d known Charles all her life, but in other ways he was a complete mystery.

  “Mink, then,” he said. “Or do you object to fur?” He glanced at the rabbit fur trim on her burgundy coat. “Is that fake?”

  “I was kidding!” Sandra said quickly. “I’m getting that dry cleaned. It’ll be fine. I seriously do not need you to buy me a fur coat.”

  “Of course not,” he said, as guileless as could be, even while his eyes glittered. “I’m kidding, too.”

  “You better be,” Sandra muttered, and raised her face to his again. He touched her chin and met her lips. It wasn’t a hungry kiss this time, but something gentle and lingering. It spread a generous, gorgeous warmth through her that she happily returned in her own kiss.

  If pressed, she would have said it was almost like a mutual thank-you note.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Charles had learned early on how to strategize. His mother had died when he was sixteen. At the time, he’d been sure that he would buckle beneath his grief and rage—it didn’t make any sense, the cancer had taken her so swiftly, she hadn’t even smoked that much. He hadn’t known what to do. At the time, he was sure he’d never know what to do about anything again.

  Stephen and Rosalie had it worse, though. And by the time Charles had left for Yale when he was eighteen, he’d already learned to grow up fast and endure the unendurable. For their sakes.

  Growing up wasn’t just about endurance, though, or about gritting your teeth. It meant learning about your options and choosing wisely, knowing when to wait and when to be swift. By the time he was ready to wrest control from Father, he’d gained enough influence to make a show of force—and enough experience to know he didn’t have to.

  So he knew not to shower Sandra with fur coats, jewels, penthouses, and all the rest. Not yet. The time would come.

  She was bizarrely skittish about the whole thing. Many young women in her position would love expensive gifts. Or cab fare, for that matter. Charles supposed she had her reasons. They probably had something to do with Bradley. Whatever they were, he would wait, and when the time was right, she’d find herself up to her elbows in whatever pleased her most.

  A broken dam started with a single crack. He would content himself with small gestures, for now. Two silk blouses, as per request, and two other items she couldn’t possibly object to.

  She’d better not. It was Friday evening, his siblings and nephew were due to arrive any minute, and the only thing that would get him through the evening would be the anticipation of her arrival.

  The whole day had felt off. He’d been impatient, out of sorts. Violet had even raised an eyebrow at him this morning.

  Violet. If she hadn’t guessed something was up on Tuesday, she certainly knew by now. Buying a replacement barrette was one thing, but even Charles didn’t have the nerve to tell Violet to buy intimate presents for his secret lover. Instead, he had told her to contact the concierge service provided through his Palladium card.

  Without asking further questions, she had done so. Charles was satisfied with the results. Yesterday he’d estimated Sandra’s measurements and given a courteous man named George a general description of what he was looking for. This afternoon, a box had been delivered to his apartment in plain brown wrapping.

  George knew what he was doing. Charles had opened the box, seen the wisp of Chantilly lace and sky-blue silk, and immediately closed the box again so he could get his head back together. He didn’t know who Carine Gilson was, but he wished he could thank her personally.

  Few pleasures in life could rival licking a woman’s cunt through the finest silk. By the end of tonight, he was sure Sandra would agree.

  He just had to make it that long without killing anyone in his own family.

  Stephen arrived first, at 7:45. Charles had set the meeting at eight. That meant Rosalie would be here at 8:10, with Bradley showing up around 8:20 or so with some excuse about traffic.

  The maid, Emilia, ushered Stephen into the sitting room, where Charles sat in his favorite armchair. “Have you eaten yet?” Charles asked.

  “Yes, and I have to admit I feel rather sick to my stomach.” His brother ran a hand over his thinning but still dark hair. “It’s not going to be pretty, is it?”

  “Bradley’s involved. Of course it’s not. Drink?”

  “Please,” Stephen said feelingly as he sat down in another armchair.

  “Scotch on the rocks, for both of us,” Charles told Emilia. She yes-sir’d and left them. “I didn’t see you this afternoon. How did it go with Textiles?”

  Among his other duties, Stephen was the CEO of Magister Textiles, where the family business had begun over a hundred years ago. It had been Charles’s territory once upon a time. After their father had fallen from grace and Charles had stepped in to the top spot, it felt right for his brother to take the reins. It was no longer the most profitable of their subsidiaries, but it was the most symbolic.

  “Well enough,” Stephen said. “We teleconferenced with Washington. EPA liked our emissions reductions, so we’ll see a tax benefit and dodge some fines. And save the whales or something.”

  Charles quirked his lips in a half-smile as Emilia returned with their drinks on a silver tray. “Or something.” Stephen took his Scotch with a grateful smile at Emilia. “Monday is Dale, isn’t it?”

  “You know it is.” For some reason, Stephen’s voice was a little sharp. Charles looked at him in surprise as he took his own drink from the tray. “Ah, sorry. I was…”

  Stephen glanced at Emilia. Taking the hint, Charles nodded in dismissal, and she left without a word. Stephen resumed, “I was talking to Craig on the way here.” Craig Winslowe, Stephen’s boyfriend, was
assistant VP of finance at Dale Petrochemical, a company Magister Enterprises had bought five years ago. “We’re going to that party tomorrow night, the one Christopher Sumner’s throwing. As Abbott and Costello.”

  Charles tried not to wince. He didn’t care much for Halloween—it was the holiday he and Eleanor had agreed not to throw parties for—and couples costumes made it even worse. “Oh? I don’t think you’ve told me that before.”

  Stephen gave him a wry look. “No, I haven’t. Anyway, we were looking forward to it. But now Craig’s told me there are more and more behind-the-back comments about him dating the boss.”

  “Mm.” Charles withheld any further comment. He’d thought the same thing himself. Dating an employee could open the door to all kinds of lawsuits, even though Craig wasn’t in Stephen’s chain of command. Charles would never let it come to that, but Stephen would be badly hurt nevertheless.

  “Er,” Stephen said, looking with great determination into his glass of Scotch. “I’ve been thinking, you know, it would be a very different thing if he married the boss instead.”

  He took a long drink. Charles stared at him.

  Then he managed, “Congratulations.”

  The look Stephen gave him in return was so shocked that Charles almost felt insulted. “Really? I mean, that is, I haven’t actually asked him yet. I don’t know if he’ll say yes.”

  “He will.” Charles only hoped it was for the right reasons. He liked Craig just fine—he was a well-spoken man and a passable squash opponent. But he’d have to be a lot more than that if he meant to join the Magisters for good.

  “You think so?” Before Charles could reply, Stephen rushed on: “There’s so much to think about, isn’t there? You know, he—he says he doesn’t want children. Neither do I, you know that, but what if he changes his mind?” The ice cubes in his glass rattled. “Do men have a biological clock?”

  Just like that, Charles found himself plunged into a conversation where he’d have to talk about feelings with his brother. Maybe he could escape it by mentioning a prenup. “I, er, couldn’t say.”