4. Bryan
My heart clenches at the sight of Jane’s tears. The way her face contorts as she glares at me hits me right in the gut. I want to pull her into my arms and comfort her, but she’s holding that key between us like a weapon.
“Can we please talk?” I reach a hand out instead.
Jane slaps it away. “Fuck off, Lord Bryan.”
I can’t help it that her reference makes me grin.
Jane’s scowl deepens, and she unlocks the door to her little house.
“Jane, wait,” I order as she steps inside. When I realize she plans to slam the door in my face, I stick out my foot to block it.
The wood slams painfully on my dress shoes, which makes me wish I’d had the foresight to wear boots. But what sort of man wears boots with a three-piece suit? If I made a habit of showing up to meetings dressed that way, there would be a whole lot fewer robots in the world than there are now. Which, judging by the expression on Jane’s face, would be a good thing.
She scowls down at my foot. “Really? You feel so entitled you think you can force me to talk to you?”
Yes, I think. I didn’t get this far in life by walking away from what I want. And right now, I want her. I just know better than to admit it.
Jane clearly thinks she knows me, but she only knows my reputation. She knows what I want the world to see: the reclusive billionaire whose latest invention, the DocentDroid—a robot that leads tours at museums, art galleries, and zoos—just made headlines all over the world.
I straighten my shoulders with pride. I can’t help it. I worked hard on that prototype. And all the others, too.
My mansion may not be overrun with bots fulfilling my every need, the way one viral video some teenager posted seems to suggest, but it’s still pretty damn epic. I have five bots, all of which are custom designed and run my code. But the one I truly care about is Byron 2.0, which I use to keep my personal library organized.
Jane doesn’t know that. Yet. But I plan to show her. Once I figure out how to convince her to keep filming her videos.
I know her. Really know her. Even though I’ve never ‘hearted’ a single video, or commented in a single thread, I’ve watched every one of her Book Talk with Byron videos a dozen times.
For the past six months, I haven’t taken a meeting between 9:30 and 10:00am, since I know she posts right before the library opens. I want to spend those spontaneous video minutes with her… which I won’t be able to do if she stops filming. And I know that’s not what she wants, either. The way she smiles in those videos—I know they make her truly happy. And—I suddenly realize—I will do whatever it takes to put that smile back on her face.
“Hello? Are you even hearing me?” Jane kicks my shoe. “I said let go of my door.”
“Jane, please. Just listen?—”
“No. You listen. You need to leave.”
I feel a twinge in my chest at her words. Almost like… desperation, which is a feeling I’m not used to. But I can’t walk away and never see her again.
I don’t just watch her videos. I laugh at her jokes. I listen to every bookish word she has to share with my robot. I always feel like she’s talking to me. And I suddenly get the urge to tell her all the things I wished I could have said while I’ve watched her talk.
“You know I didn’t originally name the shelving robot Byron? It was Bryan, prototype 1.0—named after me—but some dyslexic librarian mixed up the label.”
Jane doesn’t look the least bit fascinated by that tidbit of information.
“I was going to contact the library and have it changed, but then I saw your video on Lord Byron’s poems…” I shrug. How could I ask her to change it when she’d said she was reading them as a respectful way to get to know her new coworker?
“You mean you saw the free publicity,” Jane fires back.
“It’s not about that. It’s about you.”
“Sure it is.” She bites her lower lip, and I can’t seem to look away.
I’ve never reacted to a woman like this before. Never had this urge to pull her into my arms. I have to ball my hands into fists just to keep myself from touching her, because there’s something about Jane that hits me straight in the gut.
She isn’t just the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. She’s also hilarious and sweet and has amazing taste in books. Well, fine, not all books. Sometimes she picks things I would never read—but her commentary more than makes up for it. And I’ve read everything on her list—even the romance novels—just so I could be in on the jokes.
The mere thought of her reading those particular books makes my cock hard. I want to do every single thing I’ve read with her, and then some. And damn, she was sexy that one time she quoted from Outlander. When Jane read Jamie and Claire’s foreplay scenes to my soulless stand-in, I swear… if robot steel could get any harder, all of Byron’s bolts would have popped. I know mine did.
I drop my free hand in front of my traitorous cock. “I’ll leave you alone, but on one condition; you let me show you my library.”
“Is that a euphemism for something?” she demands.
“What?” I stare at her blankly. How could the word library ever be misinterpreted?
She scoffs. “So what? You want to rub salt in my wound?”
I’d like to rub something in you, but it’s not salt and it’s not in any wound.
I shake my head. “You have the wrong idea about me. I never thought that donating Byron to the library would lead to you losing your job.” And, because you’re mine, whether you will it or not, my inner Scottish highlander growls in my head. “I don’t regret donating him, or I wouldn’t have—” I’m about to say ‘met you,’ but she doesn’t let me finish.
“Let go of my door. Now.”
I hesitate, but bullying Jane into talking to me isn’t the way I want to earn her trust.
I take a step back and try to recite the words she’d read to Byron yesterday from an alien romance, hoping against hope that they’ll keep her from slamming the door in my face. “She fought, but it… it wasn’t the struggle of a woman trying to tell a man no… no, it was an inner battle…” For a split second, my mind goes blank. “An inner battle of a woman who knows she wants something, but can’t give in for fear she might lose herself in more beauty than she believes she deserves.”
I know I’ve probably butchered most of it, but Jane stands there slack-jawed, her door still ajar. “How did you… that’s from… I don’t understand.”
“I watch your videos. I read everything you read. Okay, that sounds a lot more creepy out loud.” I rub the back of my neck, suddenly feeling like an awkward teenager, and not the self-made billionaire women typically throw themselves at. “What I meant to say is that I read all the books you post about.”
Jane barks a disbelieving laugh. “Bullshit! What’s your game?”
“No game.” It kills me that my reputation—and the fact that my robot unintentionally got promoted to library assistant—has given her such a poor impression of me. “I can prove it. I have a whole shelf in my library that only holds books you’ve read and talked about on Book Talk with Byron.”
“Yeah right.” She rolls her eyes at me. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. And let me tell you, it was a huge pain to reprogram Byron 2.0 not to shelve the books where they’d normally go. You realize I had to create a call number in the Dewey Decimal Classification System just for you?”
“You did not!” To my delight, she laughs. I think it’s primarily disbelief, but her smile is real.
“Come with me and I’ll show you. If you still want to hate me after you see my library, then I’ll accept it and leave you alone.”
Jane doesn’t say anything. My fucking palms actually start to sweat while I wait. But then she finally nods.
I lead the way back to Main Street, where my SUV is parked a short walk from the library. I would have parked directly in front of it and easily paid the ticket, but I’d have to be a monster to block a fire hydrant in front of a building filled with books.
Jane allows me to open the car door for her and watches me as I get behind the wheel. “I kind of expected you to have a self-driving car.”
“I like driving.”
We don’t speak again on the short drive up the hill to my home—but it’s a comfortable silence. At least for me. It feels right.
Jane seems to relax in the seat next to me, and I keep sneaking glances at her. I just can’t help it.
I’ve always had a thing for librarians, and Jane’s modest take on the sexy librarian look makes it all the more hot. The way her cardigan hugs her curves, pulling my eyes where a more cultured man would be polite enough not to stare. The way her skirt falls just below her knees gives me a deeper appreciation for men’s obsession with bare ankles in the historical romances Jane has had me read as part of her Book Talk with Byron videos. Her hair, up in a bun, makes my fingers itch to free it, while my cock twitches at the thought of taking her exactly the way she looks right now.
I should have acted on my attraction to her sooner; introduced myself before she had a reason to hate me, other than my reputation.
I pull up in front of my mansion, open the door for Jane, and lead her up the front steps. The door slides open automatically when the security camera registers my face. I glance over at Jane to see her reaction but can’t decipher her expression. Is she impressed or disgusted?
“Shoes off at the front door, please. My cleaning robot gets cranky when I don’t make an effort to keep the floors clean.”
Jane rolls her eyes. Definitely disgusted.
“This way.” I place my hand on her lower back and guide her down the hall.
She shivers. Or maybe I transfer a shiver from my palm to her. Because this close, Jane is absolutely irresistible.
There is an unmistakable energy between us, and an attraction I know she feels, too. It takes all my self-control to casually lead her to the library at the back of the house. We reach the door and I inhale a long breath. I’ve never invited a woman into this room. Never shared photos of it on my feed.
I’m letting her into my private sanctuary, which is a risk, but one I want to take. One I wish I’d taken before Jane lost her job—something I will fix, I promise myself.
“Welcome to my happy place.” I push open the oversized, fireproof metal door and gently nudge Jane inside.
The outside wall is all glass so I can read in natural light for a few hours each day. Nothing dusty or antiquated in my sacred space. Shelves line the walls on both sides, stretching all the way up to the ceiling, and Byron 2.0 waits to retrieve whatever book I request—an upgrade I’d planned to one day donate to the library. Though, based on how things went with Byron 1.0, maybe I should just keep it to myself.
I have a small coffee table in the middle of the room, in front of a large, plush velvet couch, as well as other furniture I’d bought specifically for reading. Beanbag chair in the corner. Leather recliners by the wall. Daybed by the window. Not to mention a hammock outside for those hot summer days.
“Oh. My. God,” Jane breathes.
I make note of the way her eyes widen and jaw drops. That is what she looks like when she’s impressed. That is the look I need to find a way to recreate.
“This is the shelf I was talking about.” I take her hand and lead her to a row of books that have no right to be shelved beside each other. The only thing they have in common is that they are all the titles that Jane has talked to Byron—to me—about. “This is where your DDC number goes.”
“You weren’t lying.”
I shake my head. “024.04.”
“You put my book recommendations in non-fiction?”
I nod, wondering if I’d made some sort of librarian faux pas. “I can change it if?—”
“No. Don’t. It’s perfect. 020s is library science.”
I nod. “Librarians and libraries… and any books recommended by Jane on Book Talk with Byron.”
Jane walks toward the shelf and runs her fingers along the spines. “They’re all here.”
“Every single one. Sometimes I have to read them a day or two after you, since, even with my resources, I can’t always have them shipped in time.”
“Why not get the ebooks?”
I shake my head. “Wouldn’t be the same.”
“And you read them? All of them?”
“Every last one.”
“Oh my god, I am so wet right now,” she whispers. Then she covers her mouth. “I did not just say that out loud.”
“Yes, you did.” I start to smile. “And hearing you say that makes me as hard as the Encyclopedia of Molecular Science.”
It’s something I’d usually think and not say out loud, but I feel like I can be myself with Jane. I stride toward her, and she looks up at me, eyes wide.
“Prove it.” She exhales the words.
“Are you sure?” I cup her cheek with one hand and grab her ass with the other, pulling her against the encyclopedia in question so she has absolutely no doubt about how much I want her.