Billion Dollar Stranger - Stephanie Brother Page 0,4

but I carry on. “Just for two days.” He nods and leans forward, pressing his leg against the inside of mine more firmly.

“I was at the conference,” he says, nodding to where it must have taken place in the hotel. “You’re not married?” he asks, reaching for my left hand and running his thumb along my ring finger. I flinch slightly, more at the intrusive question than his assumption that caressing me is fine after we have exchanged such limited conversation.

He doesn’t let my hand go, though, and I don’t make him.

“No.” I watch him as he looks at my hand, still stroking my fingers.

What the hell is happening? Who is this man, and more to the point, who the hell am I?

The way I’m behaving is so unlike me. I don’t like talking to strangers, and I certainly don’t appreciate them taking the liberty of touching me. But I find that I don’t want to move away from his gentle caress. The stranger looks up at me again, and I swallow involuntarily. Is this what it feels like to be prey? Does a rabbit look into the pretty but menacing eyes of a fox with anything other than surrender? My heart skitters, and my breathing speeds. I have to do something to break the intensity between us. When I reach for my drink and knock it back in one gulp, he smiles.

“What was it?” He nods at the empty glass.

“Gin and tonic.” The stranger nods again and slips out of the booth to the bar. I slump back into my chair, exhaling long and slow. What the hell?

Whoever he is, he walks with purpose. He carries himself as though he owns this room and everything in it, including me. He’s different from any man I’ve ever met – a king amongst princes and paupers. I don’t really understand any of it.

Rubbing my sweaty palms onto my skirt, I note that he hasn’t turned to check I’m still here. He doesn’t need to; such is his confidence. Shit. If Maya were here, she’d know exactly how to deal with Mr. Cocky. She’s been a personal assistant in the City for long enough to be proficient in rejecting unwanted male advances. She’d bat him away with a roll of her eyes and a flick of her wrist at the location of the nearest door.

I touch the place where he stroked my finger. It’s bare of a ring that would denote I’m taken, bare of any commitment. That stroke of his finger still echoes between my legs. The ice clinks in the glasses as the barman prepares drinks, and I know I’m running out of time. I can get up, head to the door to retire to my room of impersonal décor and loneliness, or I can sit here and see where this is going. I can let this man who walks like he holds the world in the palm of his hand try his best to seduce me.

Sex is a physical function. That’s what the article said. Can I think of it that way?

Jessie did. She confided in me about her Cinderella story. How Ryan offered her $50,000 for her company for a month. How they fell in love. An unconventional fairy-tale beginning.

That isn’t what this feels like, though.

As I gaze at the masculine silhouette of the most powerful man that I’ve ever found myself in the presence of, I think maybe I should try. Tying sex to love hasn’t been that successful or pleasurable if I’m honest.

Maybe it’s time to do this differently.

The stranger returns with another drink for us both, setting them on the table with precision. He takes the seat opposite me, pressing his leg back against mine as though that is where it is meant to be.

“Thanks,” I say, and take another big mouthful, relishing the cool sensation against my gums and down my throat. I take another, gulping it into the pit of my nervous and hollow stomach. The cold burn is shocking and then numbing, and all the time he watches me like a hyena just waiting for the right time to pounce.

“Drinking to forget?” he asks quietly, still so serious, as though he can see inside me to the gaping hole in my chest, and the loneliness I feel seeping from every pore. It’s disconcerting to realize how badly I conceal how I feel. Just those three simple words strip me bare.

I shrug my shoulders, not wanting to go where the answer might lead.

“I’ll