Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
A ubrey
They wanted to send me home in a limo.
That fact alone should tell me that Madi and I live in completely different worlds now.
And she’s not coming back to mine. Even if things don’t work out with her marriage–which I couldn’t imagine–she recently discovered her paternal grandmother is also a billionaire who wants her to take over the cosmetic company when she dies.
So Madi’s never going to be like me again.
Maybe I should just grieve the ending of what we had and move on.
Taking a painting job with a douchebag I can’t stand just to stay close to her seems absurd now that I’m out on the street.
And fuck a cab.
They think the subway is dangerous?
I’ve been riding it alone since I was twelve. I grew up in Brooklyn. Why should I be afraid of public transport?
I walk to the subway station and board the train.
I snag a seat as my phone rings. It’s Jamie.
I’m not sure why she’s calling me rather than Jan, but I pick up.
“Hey Jamie.”
“Don’t use my name,” she utters urgently into the phone.
I have to press my ear to the receiver to hear her over the noise in the train. “What’s going on?”
“We can’t text anymore. I think I’m being watched.”
Alarm bells go off. No wonder I got a weird vibe earlier. “Shit,” I mutter. “What makes you think that?”
“I saw a guy across the street just sitting in his car. I can’t meet in person again. Listen, I looked through the hard drive, and it has all the pirated artwork still in the folders, but the email chain where we were ordered to pirate the artists’ work isn’t there.”
I wish Jan were in this conversation. “Well…it still might be enough, right? Have you talked to Jan?”
“No. I know where to find the stuff on the server. I have a hacker friend. If he can get access to the server room, he can install a backdoor entryway for me.”
“A what?” I’m imagining a back door carved into the side of the Sentience building.
“Like…a way into the servers.” Jamie sounds like she is too impatient to explain the technical details of the plan. “He’s willing to break into the server room to do the job, but it’s on the lower level–sub floor 3, and he’ll need a keycard to get in there.”
“You gave me a keycard–”
“Mine won’t work anymore. I need a new one.”
A new key card. This is getting complicated. I don’t like that she’s involved another person in our conspiracy, even if he is a hacker willing to help us. And now I have to steal another keycard?
“I finished the mural already. I mean, we have the grand opening gala, but I’m not there after hours anymore.”
“Can’t you say you have to put a top coat on it or something?”
I swallow, hard. My heart thuds as if I’m the one being watched. “Um, maybe. But even so, how will I get this new keycard?”
“I don’t know. But without the email chain, they could just say I was the thief. The risk you already took would be for nothing. If you can just get a keycard, I can take care of the rest.”
Fuck.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll arrange to get back in there this week.”
Except it’s midterms, and I’ve now agreed to paint two murals in a billionaire’s penthouse.
Well, Billy White can wait. I’m fighting for justice here.
When I get off at my stop an hour later and climb up the stairs, a sleek cobalt blue electric Porsche is double parked across the street. It’s blocking traffic and cars are honking at it.
“Move, asshole!” a taxi driver yells out his window.
Some guy is behind the wheel looking my way. I remember what Jamie said–that a guy in his car was watching her.
Am I being watched, too? My heart rate kicks up again.
I stop walking and stare, and the car suddenly zooms off, making gooseflesh rise on my arms.
Except the guy looked like…Nah.
Couldn’t be.
Someone bumps into me from behind, and I start walking toward our…I mean, my apartment, shaking my head.
Of course, that wasn’t Billy. I just have billionaire bullies on my mind now. One second you don’t know any billionaires, the next minute it feels like they’re everywhere because they’re in your consciousness. You’re thinking about them.
There have probably been expensive cars parked in my neighborhood before, but I just didn’t notice.
I walk the few blocks it takes to get to my place and enter the building, trying not to think about Billy White the Third.
The next time I touch you, I’ll ask first. His words rattle around in my head, causing my nipples to stiffen in my bra.
Um, excuse me?
Who says there will be a next time?
As I walk up the stairs, I recall the way his hands felt on my waist when he picked me up. Searing hot. Large. Deadly strong.
I usually think of Wall Street guys as thin, pasty-white, and too manicured to be manly, but under that five thousand dollar suit, Billy White might be a beast.
No. I shouldn’t think that.
Why would I be turned on by that thought? It’s all wrong.
Except I’m suddenly imagining that cut-throat businessman getting rough. Tearing my clothes off. Tossing me in the center of his bed. Ravishing me.
I’m flushed with heat by the time I reach my door and not just from the exertion of climbing the stairs. I open the door and grab ice from the freezer. I walk over the window, rubbing it along my forehead and neck to cool down.
There, across the street, is the same flashy blue Porsche. The driver’s side window is down, and his face is angled in the direction of my window.
Fear flashes through me a split second before I identify the driver.
It’s not a fixer from Sentience.
Not unless they hired Wall Street tycoon William White III to do their dirty work.
What in the actual fuck?
The adrenaline from thinking I was being tailed morphs into anger, and I whirl and storm back downstairs. I’m flying out the door as his car pulls out. “Hey!” I yell. “Stop.”
The car on my side of the road stops and honks at me as I rush in front of it. Billy also throws on the brakes, causing the driver behind him to lay on the horn.
“What in the hell are you doing here?” I shout, reaching his window as he swiftly backs into the parking spot he’d snagged along the road.
His window is down, and he narrows his eyes at me, his mouth screwed into a tight scowl. “You said you’d take a cab,” he snarls back.
As if that makes any sense.
“So?”
His nostrils flare, and his eyes glint light grey under the streetlight. He gives a quick look around, like he’s in the secret service checking for snipers. “What are you scared of?”
I look around as well. Do I look scared? I’m pretty sure I shook that off the moment I realized my tail was this billionaire bro. “I’m not scared.” The slight catch in my voice makes it sound like a lie.
“Were you scared of me ?” Billy sounds pissed.
“I saw a car following me. So yeah. That was scarier than anything that happens on a subway ride.”
Billy shakes his head and hits the window button, causing it to roll up.
I catch the top of the glass with both hands, trying to stop it. “Hang on a second.”
He reverses the window. “Are you trying to break my window?”
“Seriously. What are you doing here?”
Billy’s expression is inscrutable. He stares back at me for a beat, then looks pointedly down at my fingers, still covering his window to keep it from closing.
I persist.
“Did you actually follow me to make sure I made it home safely?” It sounds crazy when I say it out loud.
Billy’s gaze deadens. “You are my worst punishment.”
A slow smile spreads across my face.
Wow. I’m his punishment. I love this.
Torturing Billy White is going to be even easier and more satisfying than I imagined.