The Billionaire's Secret: A BWWM Romance Mystery (6 page)

Chapter
Twelve

My breath hung in a frosty white
wreath around my head. The parking lot was packed with groups of people, lumpy
in their winter jackets, picking their way carefully across the ice-littered
pavement. I figured we were meant to follow them.

Darius fell into step several yards
behind us, those damn aviators still obscuring his eyes, even in the dead of a
wintry night. He was unnerving me tonight, that strange familiarity he had was
even more apparent. I wondered if I had passed him in the street once, without
realizing. Or maybe I had dreamed him. He gave me a strange sense of deja vu,
made worse by how be behaved. He didn't act like a deferential staff member.
There was an air of authority about him, and though he worked for Liam, I got
the feeling that Liam wasn't always in control. Mysterious Darius -as I now
referred to him in my head - did what he wanted.

Like staring me down right now. The
heat of his obscured eyes was enough to make me flush in misguided embarrassment.
Distracted, I stumbled on the ice.

Liam took my arm, firmly,
protectively. "Thanks," I smiled. After the heat of the kiss we had
shared, and now Darius's burning glare, the icy air felt good on my face.

I reached up and loosened my scarf a
little, allowing the air to bathe my neck.

"Oh, don't do that," Liam
murmured in my ear as we walked up to the entrance of the gardens.

"Do what?" I asked.

"Show off your neck like
that," he said playfully. "You're going to get in trouble."

I laughed out loud as he held open
the door for me. "I think I already am in trouble when it comes to
you," I smiled, stepping through the door. His chivalry made me feel
cherished and queenly.

That is, until he licked his top lip
and eyed me up and down as I walked past. "I like your tits in that
coat."

I glared at him. "You're an
interesting juxtaposition, you know that? Half gentleman, half dog."

"Woof," he smiled, and took
my arm again.

I blushed a little and tried to
distract myself from his stormy eyes. "Why are we at Longwood Gardens? The
Christmas display is over."

"You'll see," he said,
looking proud.

I held my breath, remembering the
magic of the butterflies. They seemed to have transferred to my stomach.

Liam paid at the window - no private
event just for us tonight - and then held me close as we gave our tickets to
the usher. "Enjoy," the old man smiled as he tore them in two and
handed him the stubs.

"Thank you sir, we absolutely
will," Liam smiled back, and once again I was struck by his odd mix of
old-fashioned chivalry and potty mouth.

We walked out into the frigid
gardens, under the dark winter sky. It was clear and very cold, with no moon to
dim the light of the stars overhead. We were far out from Philly, which was
only a faint orange glow on the eastern horizon, and for whatever reason it
felt colder out here in the country. Liam slung his arm around me. "Too
cold?"

"A little," I said
truthfully.

"Here." He stepped off of
the path. "Come this way."

A few feet off the main path was a
little concession stand underneath a heating fan. Liam squeezed my hand.
"Two hot chocolates please."

They were watery mixes in Styrofoam
cups, but at least they were warm. "Hold this for me?" Liam asked,
handing me his cup.

I dutifully held both of them as he
reached into his pocket and pulled out a deeply engraved silver flask and held
it out to me with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows. I giggled and nodded
eagerly. He glugged about a shot's worth into each Styrofoam cup and replaced
the cap on the flask. "Cheers," he said, lifting his cup.

It tasted like whiskey and burned all
the way down my throat, but the warming was instant. "Umm," I moaned
as the shivers subsided. "Good thinking."

"Always be prepared," he
said. "Boy Scout motto."

"You were a scout?"

"A bit," he said. "I
really liked it, but Dahlia got bored with having to pick me up from meetings,
so she pulled me out before I could start Eagle Scouts."

My nose twitched in spite of myself.
I was starting to hate this woman, and I had never even met her. "Well
it's a beautiful flask."

"Thank you." He took my arm
again and we stepped back out onto the path. We were headed to the main greenhouse,
an old brick mansion - an imposing Victorian pile that sat at the crest of a
small rise. I had no idea what we were coming to see, so I turned my curiosity
to Liam.

"Is it old? It looks old,"
I said. Maybe the flask meant something to him.

"It might be," he said.
"I don't really know."

"Did your mother give it to
you?"

He nodded. "Twenty-first
birthday present. She said it was something I should have gotten from my
father...if he had stayed around."

I startled. This was the first I had
heard him mention his father. "Did you know him?"

He shook his head, exhaling a puff of
condensation into the air. "No. Dahlia...well she kind of made it clear
that he was not a subject she was willing to discuss. After a while, I finally
learned to let it go."

"Like everything else?"

He looked at me, long and hard for a
moment, his penetrating gray eyes even darker in the night. "Like
everything else," he agreed, like he was considering it for the first
time.

I leaned against him, feeling the
warmth of the liquor opening me up. Feeling like he was opening up too.
"You're making it hard for me to ever want to meet her," I sighed.

His silence spread out long and
hollow. He still held me, but seemed stiff and far away.

Okaaay, maybe I misjudged. Maybe he
wasn't opening up to me the way I thought he was. Or maybe he
had
been until I mentioned meeting his
mother
. I jumped the gun too soon,
frightened him off. Dammit, Shay!

From up here you could look out over
the dark, snow-covered courtyard. The topiary that usually graced the lawn was
nothing more than a random series of lumps and bumps under the white blanket of
snow. It was beautiful and eerie at the same time and I felt like there was
some meaning to it, I just couldn't put my finger on it.

Liam interrupted my spiral of self-doubt
by rushing to open the door to the greenhouse. "We're here," he said
beckoning. "After you."

I turned away from the cold and
stepped into the warmth of the greenhouse...and a riot of color.

"Tulips!" I gasped.

They stood in rows, proud and tall in
shades of red, orange and yellow. They were everywhere, bursting forth in the
profusion of colors my winter-deadened eyes craved. I couldn't believe it.

"They forced the bulbs,"
Liam explained. "I heard about it on Channel 6 and knew you needed to see
it."

"Oh my gosh," I babbled. The
joy of the colors bubbled up in my heart until there was no room for anything
else. I gasped and laughed like a child, running up and down the walkway,
touching the flowers, inhaling the delicate scent, and feeling the soft petals
against my fingers...my cheeks.

All the while, Liam was watching me
with a delighted look on his face. When I caught his eye, he nodded and shoved
his hands in his pockets, looking like a bashful schoolboy with that dimple.
"Are you happy?" he asked eagerly.

"Yes!" I shouted. The warmth,
the colors, the flowers - the whiskey - were all a swirl of excitement in my
head. I laughed out loud.

And then threw myself into his arms
and kissed him.

"Oof," he grunted. I could
hear the smile in his voice and feel his lip curling in amusement under mine.

But when I pressed up against him,
his amused peck became harder, rough and insistent. He pulled me closer,
backing up so that we moved into a more private alcove. His tongue found mine,
flooding my mouth with the taste of him.

Whiskey...and sex.

There was nothing polite, or
gentlemanly about this. He cupped his hands to my ass and pressed me close,
making me feel it. Making me feel him. The whole length of him. I moaned in
spite of the people milling about us. Appearances be damned, I only wanted one
thing.

More.

"Shay." The way he rasped
my name set every nerve ending alight. "Let's go."

I rocked against him in answer. No
second guessing the meaning this time. No, this was the moment we had both been
waiting for. I needed him, needed all of him. Everything he had, I meant for
him to give it to me. I was greedier than I have ever been...but I had never
wanted something so much.

I slid my hand into his pocket, on a
quest for for the object of my desire.

Something buzzed against my hand and
we both froze.

I pulled out his ringing cell phone.
His face crashed down into a thunderous frown. "Ignore it," he
commanded.

But I had already looked.

I swallowed and stared at him.
"Who's Lily?"

His eyes widened in alarm. Without a
word, he snatched the phone from my hand and stalked into the crowd. I couldn't
hear what he was saying, but I could see it on his face. Anger, concern...and
guilt.

No.
No no no no no!

I watched him hang up, and then poke
his head up from the crowd, scanning the edges of the greenhouse. Then he
gestured, pointing to me.

Darius appeared next to me.
"I'll take you home, Shay," he rumbled, taking my arm.

I shoved him back. "Don't touch
me." My heart couldn't accept it, my brain refused to believe it.
 
"What the hell just happened, Darius?
Who is Lily?" I demanded. I whirled around, shouting for him, "Liam!"

But Liam was already gone.

Chapter Thirteen

"That sounds shady as
fudge," Kiki declared in her preschool teacher version of potty mouth.
"He just cut out like that? Right after kissing you?"

"Right after. Like...seconds
after," I muttered darkly. "He was kissing me, I was kissing him, and
things were getting pretty intense...."

"Is he a good kisser?"
Jasmine interjected, with a clinical air. She looked like she wanted to take
notes.

"The kiss was..." I waved
my hands, at a loss for words. "Amazing, incredible. I was fucking married
for a year and never got kissed like that, not once. But that's not really the
point."

"The point is the phone
call," Kiki said patiently, like Jasmine needed that cleared up.

Jasmine looked thoughtful. "Okay,
well let's review the facts as I understand them." She began to count on
her fingers, her researcher's mind in overdrive. "One, you met him when he
was buying a bouquet for a woman." She raised her eyebrows meaningfully. "A
very special,
thoughtful
bouquet."
She let that hang in the air for a moment before continuing, "Two, he
takes you on these impressive and thoughtful dates, but leaves you hanging
afterward." I felt like I was attending one of her lectures. "Three,
he'll drop you like a hot rock when a woman named Lily calls him." She
rested her hands in her lap. "That's what we know, right?"

I knew what Jazzy was trying to do.
Concentrate on the facts to slow my descent into wild speculation. It would
have worked too...if I wasn't already so far gone. But after last night's
debacle, I was too miserable for sense. I was in the mood to let my friends
pick at my wounds, to count them and cluck over them while I drowned in self-loathing.

"And her name is Lily!" I
moaned piteously, ignoring Jazzy's attempt to derail my pity-train. "In
flower language, it means
beauty
. I
bet she's some skinny blonde white chick with no ass, you know?" I grabbed
my thick thigh and grimaced. "And,
and
,
what's even worse, his mother's name is Dahlia!" I laughed hysterically.
"I should have known from the start. You know what those me? Instability!"
Kiki rubbed my shoulders sympathetically as I slumped forward. "Aside from
everything else, those should have been the biggest warning signs?"

"Red flag city," Kiki
nodded. She began to work on my neck.

I leaned forward and cradled my knees
to my chest, and closing my eyes. "I feel like I'm swimming in a sea of
red flags," I sighed, leaning into her digging fingers.
 
"But I was somehow hoping that if I
kept swimming the water would clear." Kiki's thumb found a tight spot and I
gripped my legs tighter. "I'm making the same mistakes all over again,
aren't I?" I moaned into the room. "It's right there in my face. I'm
his other woman and I swore I would never do that." I turned and punched
the sofa. "Dammit. Poor Lily."

Kiki patted my shoulder
sympathetically and Jasmine slid the salsa bowl in my direction. Neither of
them said what I should do next. I already knew.

But what was so strange was how much
I was rebelling against doing it. He had proven my worst fears correct. Why did
I still want to believe him when he said there was only me?

What was wrong with me?