An Accidental Date with a Billionaire

She trailed her hand over the wooden hutch against the wall. It was so smooth against her fingertips, despite its rustic, harsh appearance. More than likely, it was repurposed wood. “What’s Tuesdays?” she teased.

“Pizza,” he answered immediately.

She blinked, touching the vase on the hutch. It was old and probably very valuable. “Do you seriously have it all planned out to the day?”

“It started more as a habit than a plan, but now it’s pretty firmly etched into my life, so I guess, yeah.” He crossed his arms. “You make it seem like that’s a bad thing, having a plan.”

“What if you want pizza on Monday?”

He cocked his brow. “Then it tastes even better when I finally get it on Tuesday.”

She laughed.

“I told you, I’m a patient man.” He uncrossed his arms and walked back into the kitchen. “I’m perfectly willing to wait for what I want, especially when I know I’m going to get it in a day.”

She swallowed hard. He’d made them wait a day for sex, and the anticipation was killing her. “Good to know,” she managed to say.

The apartment was pretty open, so she could still see him despite his retreat—and that’s what she was calling it. Every time he was close to doing something, to making good on his promise to have her, he backed off. The man clearly had a plan, and just as obviously, she wasn’t privy to the details. Had he put a time limit on his satisfactory completion of this first date of theirs? Two days? A week? “Steal any pens at the meeting?”

Chuckling, he came out with a bunch of menus. “Not this time. Here. Pick whatever you want.”

Rifling through, she found the Chinese one at the bottom. “I’d hate to deviate from your patterns. I’m not that kind of girl.”

“You can be, with me, if you’d like.” He tucked her hair behind her ear tenderly, the movement intimate. “You can be whatever you want with me.”

One hand stayed on her hair, the other fell to her waist possessively.

“I’m not going to fall for you.”

He touched her neck, teasing her. “I won’t, either.”

She laughed. “I know.”

“Why the laugh?” he asked, frowning.

“Because the idea of you falling for me is funny. If you knew me and my background, you’d see how impossible that was.” If she were to actually get serious with him, there was no way someone in the Chicago society wouldn’t do their research and find out her past.

There was nothing a jilted society girl loved more than taking down a newcomer—especially one with her background. And she had no doubt that it would come out.

Her whole sordid past, aired like dirty laundry for all to see.

“Your past and social identity have nothing to do with my not falling for you,” he said stiffly. “I choose not to fall for anyone because I don’t want to.”

“No big dreams of love, marriage, and having the stereotypical two-point-five kids?”

“Marriage is bullshit,” he said.

She choked on a laugh. “Go on.”

“It’s nothing more than an overly emotional business contract.” He leaned forward. “Think about it. You meet a bunch of people every day, but then you meet one you like, for some reason or another, and you offer to buy them a drink, or dinner, and you do it again, and again, until you finally merge your name and your bank accounts and split all your bills and save money. It’s all one big transaction, rolled into one.”

Her jaw dropped. “That’s a bleak description of marriage.”

“Does it make it any less true?” he asked honestly.

Well, at least she didn’t have to worry about him falling in love with her.

That was a relief.