Redeeming the Billionaire Playboy Read online

  How dare he call James a playboy? When he, himself, fucked every single hot woman at the office. I shot him a look. “Like you have room to talk.”

  “What? I come to work every single day. While my brother is gallivanting in Egypt on a camel, I’m running board meetings and working twelve hour days.”

  “I was referring to the ‘playboy’ part. Don’t think I didn’t hear you banging that blonde on your desk.”

  He blushed for a second. “I’m nothing like my brother. I don’t screw as half as many women as he does. And that’s a fact.”

  James lifted his eyebrows slowly, just as surprised as I was that his brother was so bold and rude. The words echoed harshly in the sudden silence, but Robert was quick to amend them.

  “I’m sorry. Listen, I’m going to work. The market never sleeps, you know.”

  James rolled his eyes. “It’s the weekend, Rob. Lighten up.”

  Robert shot his brother a look. “It’s always the weekend to you.”

  For an exaggerated moment, in the charged silence, the twins simply stared each other down, with all the intensity of a gunfight at some old Western corral. I was convinced if either had a pistol, there might have been a quick-draw contest, and I wasn’t sure who would have won.

  Finally, Robert flashed a tight smile and gave the door a tug, allowing a ray of sunlight to spill in. “Good to see you, James. It’s been too long. I’ll call you later, and we’ll set something up.” He stepped out into the elevator without so much as a glance my way, but he did throw a cold “Della,” behind him, without even adding a proper goodbye.

  The door slammed shut, and the room was drenched in silence once more, but it was far more comfortable than the prior. There was a curiosity to it, a sense of relief. It broke apart entirely as James stepped into my line of vision with a little smile.

  “So, Della, should we heed the doctor’s advice and get some food in your system?”

  “Doctor’s orders are doctor’s orders,” I said with a shrug and a smile.

  Chapter 2

  THE MEAL CONSISTED of takeout, delivered right to his front door. Jet-setting playboy that he was, James seemed rather content to stay in his little fortress above the city. As we walked toward the kitchen table, I wondered if he missed the place when he was away. He claimed it was his home, but I had to wonder if he had ten more estates just like it.

  “Do you mind if we eat on the balcony?” he asked, cocking his head toward the sliding-glass door. “It’s such a nice day.”

  “Not at all,” I said and followed him.

  Calling it a deck would have been an insult, as it was the most magnificent place I’d ever seen. It was rather sparse, except for a table and two small chairs, but it offered a million-dollar view of London. A tiny gasp escaped my lips as I took a step closer and realized we were so high. I was terrified to look down, but I couldn’t resist taking in the skyline. As I tightly gripped the railing as I chanced a peek, I almost threw up, even if I hadn’t eaten yet.

  A blizzard of questions flew into my head: Does he get altitude sickness all the way up here? Does he have to take special pills and monitor his heartrate? How long does it take the elevator to get up here anyway? It’s gotta be at least ten minutes to the top.

  “What would happen if I dropped a penny?” I murmured to myself, trying to make out the little ant-like swarms of people scurrying below.

  James grinned as he started unloading boxes onto the table. “You’d be a penny poorer.” He sprinkled a handful of condiments to the side. “Also, you might be convicted of homicide.”

  I took a deliberate step back, turning around to examine the rest of the deck. Stairs climbed the side, and I looked at them curiously. I couldn’t imagine a higher level, but there obviously was at least one. “Where does that lead?” I asked, pointing curiously to get his attention.

  James glanced over briefly, then returned his attention to unpacking the food. “Roof,” he said, a word that seemed to have an accidental profound effect on both of us. His hands froze in place, hovering over the utensils, and my blood boiled in my veins. His lips parted uncertainly as his eyes flashed up to mine before he forced his face quickly into a charming smile. “Hotdog or pizza?”

  I laughed before I could stop myself, taking a mental snapshot of the adorable image. I didn’t realize when he placed the order, since I was too busy reminding myself to talk in complete sentences, but he opted for plain old street food, all the junk no one should ever eat, except at a fair or festival.

  “Gee, does someone regret missing the London Carnival?” I said, staring at the greasy feast of paper-wrapped corndogs, popcorn, churros, and pizza. I settled into the closest chair and snatched a bag of hot, buttery popcorn from the heap.

  James settled across from me with a grin on his face. “I asked the mayor to throw it earlier next year. He’s considering it.”

  Unable to be shocked anymore, I couldn’t tell whether or not he was joking. “That’s very nice of him,” I said with a smile, then threw two salty kernels in my mouth.

  The two of us settled into a thoughtful silence, munching on deep-fried bites of sugary goodness and washing it all down with melted milkshakes.

  Finally, the tension boiled over in the form of my inevitable inquiry: “Why didn’t you tell me who you are?”

  James sighed, set down his pizza, licked a glob of mozzarella from the corner of his mouth, and glanced over the balcony. “See them?”

  I squinted and took notice of a little swarm of paparazzi in a frenzy below, flashing their cameras here and there. “Yeah,” I said. “What about them?”

  “That’s my life. But you...” The breeze swept his hair across his forehead as he stared at me with bright, thoughtful eyes. “You are not part of that. As long as I was with you, I didn’t feel like part of it either, at least for a little while.”

  It was such a sad statement, quite ironic coming from a prince who lived at the top of the world. I stared back at him, lost in thought, falling further and further under his spell. When I noticed a little red smear on the other corner of his mouth, my lips curled up in a sudden grin, and I reached out a tentative hand. “You have, uh... I think it’s pizza sauce. May I?”

  His eyes shot up to mine, and he leaned forward with a little smile, then held purposely still as I wiped the tomatoey goop away with a brush of my finger. The slightest touch sent electric shockwaves shooting up and down my spine, and for a split second, we both froze.

  Finally, I found my senses and pushed my chair back and hurried to my feet in what felt like one single motion. “I should get going.”

  The speed of my movement seemed to surprise him, but he needed only a moment to collect himself. A second later, he was following me inside, handing me my purse as I crossed the floor. “Where? To meet Robert?” he asked lightly.

  I paused mid-step, keeping my eyes on the door, but my heart was still out on the balcony. “No,” I said quietly. “You saw how things are with your brother.”

  James looked at me quizzically, his eyes staring deeply into mine. “How are they? Over?”

  I blushed at the tinge of hope in his voice and tucked my long waves of hair behind my ears. “They never really got started.”

  “But something happened between the two of you.”

  “No, I never slept with him. Just made out with him because I thought it was you. It didn’t get too far. The second I saw he didn’t have a tat, I left. I officially knew it wasn’t you.”

  “So you never dated him?”

  “No. But I did try to jog his memory. He had no idea what the hell I was talking about.”

  “Well, he knows the truth now.”

  “I’m glad. Because he probably thought I was some office sleut trying to seduce him to get up the corporate ladder. But trust me, things never got started. I can guarantee you that.”

  He stared for one more moment, then nodded. He seemed so cool, calm, and collective. I wasn’t sure whether or not it was an ac
t, some sort of defense mechanism, but everything he said was damn believable—even more so when he bowed his head, smiled politely, gestured to the front door, and even held it open for me to walk through it.

  “I did try to find you, you know,” he blurted suddenly.

  I whirled around in surprise and saw him just staring at me again, with his fingers in a white-knuckled grip around the doorframe. “You did?”

  “Yes. A couple days after we, uh... Well, a couple days later, I went to the apartment where I dropped you off that night, but no one was there. I talked to the owner and she refused to tell me anything, no matter how much I bribed her. She said your privacy was way more important than some stalker getting your new address. I tried the neighbors, but they didn’t really know you.”

  My mouth fell slowly open as the realization hit me: Of course no one was there, because when my apartment flooded, I had to leave the very next day. It had never occurred to me that he might come back, that he was looking for me just as hard as I was looking for him. A sudden warmth rushed through me at the thought, one that began deep inside my chest and settled somewhere in my smile. “Well, you found me after all,” I said, beaming.

  “Yes, I did, didn’t I?” he said, his eyes glowing with anticipation, as if something wonderful was about to happen, some spectacular event I didn’t yet understand. “I guess there’s no stopping fate.”

  Chapter 3

  THE WEEKEND SEEMED to drag by, and I didn’t hear one single word from James the whole time. He didn’t have my cellphone number or know where I was staying, but as corny as it was, I felt sure that a man like James would have no trouble getting in touch with anyone, because trivial details like contact information would be easily at his summoning. I just had the feeling that if James wanted something, he would make it happen, no matter what.

  Of course, just because James wasn’t looking in on me, that didn’t mean I wasn’t googling up on him. For the next day and a half, I locked myself away in my room at Madison’s and kept my eyes glued to the computer, immersing myself in the world of James Lysander Cross IV.

  It was like reading a work of fiction, so fantastical and out of this world that it couldn’t possibly be the truth, couldn’t possibly have really happened. From the winter he trekked across the northern icecap with a labradoodle he affectionately named Balto to the summer he tried to re-create Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days on nothing but a pair of camels and a dilapidated hovercraft to the parties and premieres. From the film cameos to a ten million-dollar poker championship in Montenegro and tribal dances to royal tea, from Coachella to a month of silence at the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, James’s life was, in fact, reality stranger than fiction.

  Nicholas Hunter, the son of a billionaire I considered Manhattan royalty, had even invited James to be his best man in the wedding that practically shut down the entire state. That twin I knew officiated the fucking ceremony, but even more than that, he apparently swooped in for a helicopter rescue at sea to save the bride and groom from their ceremonial duties and whisk them off to a more intimate celebration farther upstate.

  My original diagnosis on the rooftop was correct: James is a child of whimsy, of music, of dancing. No wonder those natives thought him a god, because he is, one who wanders the Earth, a spirit of adventure personified, finding freedom in the glorious body of a perfect-looking man.

  As for the women, I couldn’t even begin to fathom it. It went way beyond the typical hot playboy dating supermodels. There were actually queens on his list of former flames, as well as notorious virgins and heads of state. One reporter wrote that he spotted James at a party with the highest-paid lingerie model on the planet, but he spent the entire night dancing with the wife of the host before going home with a caterer no one had ever heard of, a lowly caterer who went on to become one of the most sought-after actresses in all of Hollywood.

  The man was a legend, a god, a deity, the kind of superstar others wrote stories about. The whole world watched him from afar through the eyes of the paparazzi who flocked around him like sharks in bloody water. They sought his inspiration and wanted to know everything about how and whom he loved.

  The type of person my roommate shoulda told me about!

  “Della, are you coming?” Madison’s voice echoed up the stairs, buzzing with that anticipatory energy she always had at the start of a new work week, as if espresso naturally flowed through her veins on Monday mornings. “We’re going to be late.”

  I glared in the general direction of the door but didn’t respond. At that point, I was sure she didn’t expect me to, since we hadn’t been on speaking terms since I’d returned home Saturday morning.

  There was a brief pause, followed by a light flutter of footsteps as she made her way up the stairs. Instead of knocking on my door, she burst right in, and her eyes instantly performed a full sweep of the perimeter before coming to rest on me. “I said,” she continued, her lips twitching as she tried very hard not to grin, “are you coming?”

  Unlike me, Madison found the twin topic to be highly amusing. Also unlike me, she deemed herself innocent, completely and resolutely free from any blame in any part of the tumultuous situation.

  “Go back to hell, she-witch,” I muttered, never taking my eyes off the screen. “Also, take all that Monday-morning pep with you.”

  She smiled in spite of herself, cocking her hips to strike a comical pose in the doorway. “Oh, so it’s going to be another one of those days, is it?”

  “No one loves you. Your life is meaningless.”

  “My life? Dear, I’m not the one who wasted my weekend cyber-stalking my one-night stand, with a bottle of wine and a bag of cheese curls my only company. Why, you’re one step up from one of those teenage boys who lives in his mum’s basement. You just need a videogame headset and you’ll be—”

  “Doritos,” I corrected flatly.

  “Excuse me?”

  “There is a huge difference between Doritos and cheese curls, Madison. Do not test me on yank junk food.” My eyes flickered to hers with a withering glare. “Did Lucifer send you into my life with any specific mission, or did he just tell you to go crazy?”

  She laughed loudly, tossing back her white-blonde hair to reveal the stunning designer dress beneath. “I’m no longer given marching orders, seniority and all.”

  This time, I said nothing and just continued scrolling through the endless James fan fodder.

  Frustrated by my unresponsiveness, she stomped firmly on the floor with one of her expensive heels. “Come, Della! Surely you can’t remain angry at me forever. I didn’t know! It isn’t as if I fibbed to you. I had no idea he had an identical twin brother.”

  “I can’t?” I said, knowing full well that Girl Code permitted me to be pissed at her as long as I wanted. “Let’s see. Shall we discuss—” I began with my eyebrows arched in surprise that she had such audacity to feign naiveté.

  “I knew he had a brother. Not a twin. But a brother. And I never connected him as your long-lost lover. After all, the entire world thought he was in South America,” she cut in. “Every journalist in the northern hemisphere was sure of it,” she insisted. “What was more likely? That Robert had his hair cut shorter or that every media parasite in the upper half of the globe was correct?”

  For an answer, I tossed a handful of Doritos in her direction.

  “Nice, Della. How very mature. Now I have cheese all over me.”

  “Cool Ranch,” I corrected with a smirk, then tossed another handful as she struggled to dust off the first.

  Chapter 4

  BY THE TIME WE REACHED the office, I had to shamefully admit that we’d somehow managed to make up. Ideally, I would have loved to hold out a while longer, if only on principle, but I knew I was in way over my head, and since she was my new best friend in that foreign country of hers, Madison’s immediate guidance was required.

  Fortunately, she quickly found a way to guide her rage elsewhere, toward someone who literally ha
d no idea what we were talking about but inadvertently opened his office right in the middle of the shit-storm.

  “How the hell could you do this to me?!”

  Caleb leaned back as far as his chair would go, blinking warily between the two of us. For a second, it looked as if he might consider making a run for it, but he was held prisoner by the important client on hold, and we were roadblocks between him and the door. With no other option, he ventured forward and took a tentative stab at the usual pleasantries. “Uh...good morning?”

  We glared back at him in one accord but each for our own reasons: I needed an irrational scapegoat on which to unload all my pent-up frustration and Madison was simply amused by the uneasiness etched all over his face.

  “Don’t you ‘good morning’ me, mister!” I snapped. “Tell me, Caleb, how is it fundamentally possible that after watching me stumble through week after week of confusion and stress, you didn’t make the connection that the magical man I was talking about wasn’t Robert, that guy who didn’t recall anything I talked about, but was, in fact, his twin brother?!”

  A look of dawning comprehension spread across Caleb’s handsome face and crept the corners of his lips up into a slow smile. “Ooh, right. I guess that makes some sense, but—”

  Before he could finish his excuse, he was forced to raise his hands to shield himself from the onslaught of five pens and an empty stapler that sailed his way.

  “Ow! Stop that!”

  I had let Caleb in on the secret about two weeks prior, around the time he started asking why I was routing all my work communications to Robert through his computer instead of my own. I briefly explained the one-night stand, downplaying it as much as was possible, and I even tried to decipher the confusion that followed regarding Robert, like the dessert incident in his office, as well as the landslide of little inconsistencies that soon followed.