How to Seduce a Billionaire Read online

  ‘You idiot. It’s obvious he likes you. Couldn’t you just give him a chance? Use him for sex? God knows you deserve to let your hair down.’

  Jess had umm-ed and ah-ed. Cathy was right. It didn’t make sense to turn her back on him, even if there was only a fling on offer.

  But you know what’ll happen. You’ll get addicted.

  And when the end came, she’d probably wish that there’d never been a beginning.

  The ominous thing though, was that it might already be too late to avoid that.

  Then, the basket came. An overflowing hamper of edible goodies from a local luxury food store. Hot chocolate, probably the same brand she’d drunk that first morning, along with cookies and cakes and unctuous confectionery, along with speciality teas and coffees.

  ‘I guess you’ll have to send it back,’ Cathy had said, almost visibly drooling over the abundance, and already pulling open a package of triple choc cookies.

  ‘I think that would be ungracious, don’t you?’ Jess had grabbed a cookie and taken a heavenly bite.

  Both women had laughed. And it was right. Ellis had been kind and it would be rude to reject that kindness. But the thank you note would have to be very carefully worded. Perhaps a proper old-fashioned card, sent to the address on the business card he’d given her?

  Life seemed to go on as normal, when in fact, it was totally different.

  Jess was different. Ellis McKenna had changed her. Physically, almost infinitesimally, but in every other way the transformation was massive.

  She felt different. And her mirror told her she looked different; a vague, discreet change, but there all the same. Something in the way she held herself was new.

  I’m not a virgin any more. A beautiful and sophisticated man desired me, and gave me pleasure, and I gave him pleasure.

  It was like that ‘aura’ phenomenon she’d once mocked, an inner glamour. At first when men had looked at her with curiosity, appreciation and interest, she’d thought it was due to Ellis’s performance at Windsor that first morning, dragging her upstairs. But the changes were apparent in locations other than her workplace. Men giving up seats for her in cafés and on the bus, suddenly restored to old-fashioned chivalry. At art class, several male classmates who’d previously kept themselves to themselves began to chat, comparing notes and techniques, and to compliment her fulsomely. One newcomer, Josh, had suggested ‘coffee’ some time, no pressure.

  He was actually quite nice, and not bad looking too, and if Jess’s metamorphosis had come about in any other way, she might even have capitalised on her new poise and self-confidence, and made a tentative move herself. Who knew where and when Mr Right might appear?

  But unfortunately, the quest for Mr Right had been completely derailed by the arrival of Mr Sex in her life!

  Despite the strangeness of her week, she still felt good about it. Sort of. Every unoccupied moment, she thought about Ellis.

  She was thinking about him when her sister Mel rang one evening.

  ‘You sound a bit distracted, sis, are you okay?’ her sibling said after they’d done a bit of catching up, mainly Mel’s news about her life as a young professional, and her relationship with Simon, the man she lived with and adored. Mel was bubbly, and their chats always made Jess smile, even though there was often probing about her life, and the third degree about any potential men in it.

  Well, there’s one now, sister dear, after a fashion.

  ‘I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Just same old, same old, you know?’

  She could almost see Mel narrowing her eyes. The younger Lockhart was perceptive.

  ‘It’s a man, isn’t it? You’ve met someone … What’s he like? Do I know him?’

  ‘No, it isn’t … well, yes, sort of. Just someone I met through work. It’s nothing serious. Just casual. I probably won’t see him again.’

  There was a pause. Mel was probably shaking her head now. ‘You don’t do casual. You’re not a casual person.’

  ‘Well this is very much a ships that pass in the night situation, Mel. Nothing more than that.’

  ‘Give him a chance, Jess. Please … I know you’re choosy. But give him a chance. Is he nice? Good looking?’

  Like a god …

  ‘I don’t know … It’s tricky. He is very good looking indeed. And nice … in a way. But he’s not a prospect, if that’s what you want to know. There’s no future with him, and that’s a fact.’

  ‘If you say so … but still, maybe you should give him a chance? Have a good time, if only on a temporary basis? You know I don’t pry … but I worry. But … well … I know you’ve missed out on a lot, Jess, and for my sake too. I want you to have fun. Stretch your wings. Have a life.’

  ‘But I’ve got a life!’

  ‘You know what I mean.’ The sisters didn’t discuss intimate matters, but Jess had a shrewd idea that Mel knew how things were with her … on that score.

  ‘I’ve got a life, believe me.’

  Mel laughed, and said warmly, ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it! Good for you. Now get out there and live it, making a start with this good-looking and nice in a way guy, whoever he is.’

  To Jess’s relief, Mel didn’t push things further, and turned the conversation to questions about Cathy, whom she also knew, and other mutual friends.

  But her sister’s words stuck in Jess’s mind, long after Mel had rung off, a counterpoint to the vivid presence of Ellis there.

  So, now I’ve finally got this ‘life’ I was so desperate to have, what do I do? she asked herself when riding home on the bus on Friday. Only live half of it? I’ve held back from relationships, chasing some impossible ideal, and now that I’ve been gifted a chance for something really exciting, thrilling, and insanely mad and wonderful, what do I do? I dither and consider turning away from it …

  Reaching into the pocket of her bag, she fingered Ellis McKenna’s card. And her phone. But just as she drew it out, ready to call, a rather disapproving looking woman with blue-rinsed hair, and a meticulously co-ordinated beige casual outfit took a seat beside her … and frowned pointedly at Jess’s phone.

  Okay, I’ll call him when I get home.

  She didn’t need to. When she turned the corner into her road, the Blue Whale was parked outside their house.

  Oh hell! Oh hell …

  There was a big difference between resolving to do something, and having it forced upon her, but there was no way around confronting him now, because he’d clearly spotted her. He was out of the car, and strolling towards her already. A beach bum sex god in his pale linen suit and another of those questionable flower-patterned shirts.

  ‘What are you doing here? I thought we agreed … not a good idea and all that.’

  So gracious, Jess, especially when you were on the point of changing your mind.

  Ellis gave her a sunny grin, and before she could elude him, he leant forward and gave her a kiss on the cheek, before tucking her arm in his. Jess almost tripped. Inside she was whirling, and all the hormone reactions she’d convinced herself were wildly exaggerated by recollection were now firing on a thousand pumping cylinders.

  He felt so good. He smelt so good. Dear God Almighty, he looked utterly divine!

  ‘I thought I’d try again to win you over. I know you like me a little bit, and we’re great together in bed …’ He waggled his dark eyebrows at her like an inveterate Lothario. ‘I didn’t think there was any harm in trying to persuade you to change your mind.’ He paused as they reached the gate, and he opened it for her. ‘And … well … it’s the weekend, I’m up here on my own, and I’m lonely.’

  Jess looked at him sharply. There was such a keen note in those last words. They were stripped of all the rakish joviality that he was so prone to. She could almost imagine him in agony, remembering family weekends, joy, companionship, now all lost.

  The losses from her own life rose up and stabbed at her. She knew some of his pain, even if the particular quality of it was different, and company at lea
st helped a little bit. Whatever he was going to suggest, she decided that she’d probably go along with it, even if she had to nominally drag her toes a bit, for form’s sake. He mustn’t be allowed to think she was easy. She wasn’t easy. Well, not with anyone else but him.

  ‘You assume a lot,’ she said, opening the door and letting them in. The thirty-second warning on the alarm beeped out, and she cancelled it. Cathy was out this evening, and possibly for the rest of the weekend, and had clearly already left. ‘What if I had plans?’

  Ellis followed her into the living room, and when she turned to him, he gave her a long, old-fashioned look. Okay, so he knew without having to be told that she didn’t have any plans.

  She flung down her bag. ‘So, what are you proposing? Let’s hear it.’ Holding his gaze was difficult, as wicked lights danced in his eyes now, the moment of sadness gone.

  ‘I thought we might spend the weekend together. Fling a few things in a bag and I’ll whisk you away to Bluebeard’s Castle with me, well, until Sunday evening at least. We’ll have the place to ourselves. My housekeeper has left me an abundance of food and wine, and I’m very good at reheating her delicious concoctions.’ He moved close to her, and laid his hand on her waist as he looked down at her. ‘And in between all the indulgent eating and drinking, we can satisfy our other appetites in privacy and comfort. What do you think?’

  ‘So it’s a sex weekend.’

  ‘Not necessarily all sex, although as far as I’m concerned, that’s not a bad thing.’ He kissed her for the first time. A quick, teasing peck, but it almost made her sway with desire. ‘You could bring your art materials. Windermere Hall has some beautiful gardens – not that I know anything about horticulture – and if you get tired of sketching flowers and stuff, you can always use me as a model for a bit of life drawing.’

  I’ve been using you as a model all week.

  Which was true. At life drawing class, the tutor had remarked on the fact that what she’d produced was some of her very best work, even though it didn’t look a bit like the model they were working with.

  ‘But what about Cathy? I can’t just swan off …’

  ‘Can’t you? Where is she now?’

  ‘With her boyfriend.’

  ‘And where will she be most of the weekend?’

  ‘With her boyfriend. But you’re not my boyfriend. You don’t do relationships.’

  ‘Very true.’ His long, elegant hand curved around her cheek. ‘But I do excel at nice sexy weekends. Especially with a woman I both admire as a person as well as have the horn for. Will that suffice?’

  Yes. No. Stay. Go. Exist … or live a little!

  ‘Yes, it will. But I’ll need a quarter of an hour or so to get my things together and quickly check if there’s anything needs doing that I should have done.’

  ‘Anything I can do to help?’

  ‘Not really.’ Any help with packing would involve him going up to her bedroom with her, and that might mean starting the sex weekend straight away. She wanted him, boy how she wanted him, but she was curious to see Bluebeard’s Castle aka Windermere Hall.

  ‘Okay, I’ll watch TV.’ Without further ado, he flung himself down in an armchair, and in time-honoured man style grabbed the remote and started flicking through channels. ‘Glad you liked the flowers and the other stuff,’ he added over his shoulder, nodding to the roses, in pride of place in a vase on the sideboard.

  ‘They’re gorgeous. It was all gorgeous … is all gorgeous,’ Jess answered, flustered. ‘You’re very kind.’

  ‘And you deserve gorgeous things.’ With a wink, he returned his attention to the television and, half apprehensive, half elated, Jess raced up the stairs, wondering what the hell one generally packed for a two-day erotic marathon.

  ‘How come you have a house up here? I’d have thought you’d have lived in a luxurious pad in London or some honking great mansion in Gloucestershire or some posh county like that.’ They were gliding along a country road, out in the green belt, but only about ten minutes from where Jess lived. ‘This seems the last part of the world where a globe-trotting billionaire might live.’

  ‘You’d be surprised, Jess. This part of the world is actually billionaire corner. I know of two others who live not ten miles away from here. I’m not sure they’re both billionaires in their own right, but probably not too far off.’ Ellis took a remote out of his pocket, as the car slowed before a set of imposing wrought-iron gates with a coat of arms in the centre of each one. The McKenna crest? When he pressed the button, the gates swung open.

  ‘You’re kidding!’

  ‘No … God’s honest.’

  They cruised up a short drive, flanked on either side with well-manicured turf. Jess managed to tear her attention away from Ellis, whom she’d been discreetly ogling throughout the whole journey, and focus on the smallish but nigh-on perfect Queen Anne house that stood at the end of it. It was a poem in creamy stone, red roof tile and narrow, immaculate, white painted window frames.

  ‘It doesn’t look a bit like Bluebeard’s Castle,’ she said, already loving the symmetry and harmony of Windermere Hall. It looked so calm, yet so elegant. ‘It’s far too refined and genteel for a den of iniquity.’

  ‘Oh dear …’ Ellis stopped the car on the gravel out front. ‘I hope the refined ambience won’t put you off rampant sex.’ He winked, then leapt out, shooting around to open the car door. ‘There’s a rackety old stable that hasn’t been renovated though … We can indulge our animal passions there, if you prefer?’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  Ellis laughed as he took her bag from the boot, then escorted her indoors.

  The entrance hall boasted a mosaic floor and a wide sweeping staircase, and there were a number of doors leading off in all directions.

  ‘Not all the rooms are decorated,’ said Ellis, dropping her bag for a moment. ‘The place has been in the family for a long, long while, but nobody did anything with it. The branch of the McKennas that lived here fizzled out, and it just got left.’ A shadow crossed his face. ‘After my wife died, I didn’t want to live in America or Australia, in the homes we’d shared. I wanted a bolt-hole that was really out of the way, and when I found out about Windermere Hall, it seemed liked the perfect spot. So I had it fixed up, but just enough for a sort of country bachelor pad.’

  To bring your women here, I guess. The ones you fuck for a few weeks, trying to forget the life you once had.

  It was sad, but not pathetic. He’d found a way to endure, to go on with his life in the face of deep loss. If sexual pleasure helped him deal with emotional agony, who was she to criticise his choice of therapy?

  ‘It’s beautiful … really beautiful …’ she said as he led her into an airy, comfortably furnished sitting room. It was an elegant space, just like the hall, but not intimidating. The deeply upholstered sofas, covered in gold and umber brocade, were inviting, and unbidden. Jess imagined making love there, in front of the fire, when darkness fell.

  If we wait that long!

  Turning to Ellis, Jess knew she couldn’t. Wait, that was. Pent up yearning almost made her sway. Throughout the week, she’d done so much fantasising about him, and replayed what they’d done together that first night so often, that she thought she might explode if something, anything, didn’t happen between them almost immediately.

  From virgin to sex fiend, do not pass go.

  Had he read her eyes? He gave her a long, considering look. ‘Would you like something to eat? A drink maybe? Perhaps a nice, long, relaxing bath?’ He was going through the motions, trying to be a gentleman, bless him. But something about the way he stood, a coiled, alert quality, told her he didn’t want to wait too long either.

  ‘No … no, thanks. I …’ She swallowed, then dropped her shoulder bag on one of the chairs, and walked over to him. ‘I want something else.’

  ‘Oh Jess, my lovely Jess. I was so right about you.’ He cupped her cheek in that delicate yet strangely predatory way he was so good
at. ‘You’re a quiet storm, woman. A hurricane of hidden sensuality, just waiting to let rip.’

  His outlandish words nearly made her giggle, but almost immediately he took her lips in a deep, ravishing kiss, consuming the laughter from her mouth before she could utter it. Mastering her with his tongue, he slid his strong fingers around her head, digging into her hair, holding her at the base of her skull, while his other hand travelled the length of her back and settled on her bottom, gripping there too.

  When he pushed her pelvis against his, he was as hard as a rock.

  She ground herself against him, body on autopilot, knowing exactly what to do. Her own hands journeyed beneath the jacket of his lightweight suit, clutching at his gorgeous, muscular bottom through the thin layers of linen and underwear.

  He was everything wonderful. Dream Lover made flesh, and given a face. A handsome, angelic yet powerful face that looked down on her with unfettered hunger when he broke the kiss.

  ‘What do you want, Jess?’ His fierce expression gentled into a grin. ‘What do you want to try first, beautiful sex pupil?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’re the expert.’ It was hard to think straight when his crotch was still pressed against her and his cock seemed to be getting harder and hotter by the second.

  ‘Well, what do you fantasise about?’ He slid his fingers around to her face, tracing her jaw, playfully outlining her mouth, thumb on her lower lip. ‘Vanilla or kink?’

  ‘Both … a bit … but vanilla stuff mostly. Not being very “advanced” and all.’ He was squeezing her bottom, fingertips pressing the crease through her light, silky skirt, and it was hard to concentrate. She’d swiftly washed and changed into something a bit more alluring while he’d been waiting for her: the short, flirty skirt and a fine knit cotton cardigan, in a matching turquoise.

  ‘Do you read erotica?’ His hand settled on her throat, then travelled down her chest, fingers spread warm and deft in the V of her cardigan.

  ‘Yes … sometimes … I mostly read crime or horror, or biographies, but I have read some erotic novels.’