The Billionaire and the Virgin

  Eventually, she nodded. “Well, if you’re sure,” Brontë said. “We’ll miss you.”

  Logan pulled her against him and gave her a tender kiss. “I’m sure, love. Call the girls. Go enjoy yourselves.” His eyes gleamed. “Business calls.”

  ***

  Tucked away at a desk in Smith’s room, Rob lost himself in work. His inbox was endless. Lawsuits, tabloids, ratings drops, ratings increases, advertisers, unhappy advertisers, people wanting to advertise . . . he should have been able to concentrate on it. To tear through things as he normally did.

  But he kept thinking about Marjorie. How she’d been waiting for him, radiant . . . and he’d stood her up like a coward and was now in hiding.

  What a fucking chicken he was.

  He knew it, and yet, if the other option was hurting her, he’d be a goddamn chicken if he had to. Anything to avoid hurting Marjorie’s feelings and ruining her time on vacation. So maybe it was cowardly of him, but he had a reason, and a purpose.

  “Sir?” Smith asked, interrupting him from his work-slash-mooning.

  Rob looked up, removing his headphones and closing his laptop. “What is it?”

  “Gortham is staked out on the fourth floor, and he says that Logan Hawkings is hovering at the doorstep to your old suite. He’s making calls trying to locate you.”

  Ah, so Logan had come sniffing after him after all. Figured. The asshole just couldn’t resist, could he? “I’ll go up and say hello.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise, sir?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s not, but it needs to be done.” Plus, he wasn’t a coward. Logan wasn’t the one he was hiding from, not really. It was Marjorie, and the knowledge that he really, really wasn’t good enough for her and wanted her anyway.

  So he headed up the elevator, back toward his old room—the one Logan had kicked him out of so politely—and strolled down the hall.

  Logan was still there, phone to his ear. He turned, spotted Rob, and hung up his phone. He stalked down the hall toward Rob, a contrast from his own strolling, forced casual steps. “I might have known you were still here, you piece of shit.”

  “Hawkings,” he said broadly, extending his arms in a fake hug. “Come on. You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

  “I thought I told you to leave,” Logan snarled. “But no, you decided to play like a dirty dick when you didn’t get your way.”

  Irritation sparked, even though Rob knew it shouldn’t have bothered him. He’d been called worse. “Actually, not at all—”

  “Going after a sweet, innocent girl just to worm your way into a meeting with me? Don’t you think you’ve gone a little far with that?”

  “Now wait just a goddamn minute—”

  Logan threw his hands up, just as furious as Rob. “You want a meeting with me? Fine. I’ll meet with you, but you need to leave Marjorie Ivarsson alone.”

  Rob clenched his jaw, rage blinding him. “You fucking leave her out of this. She’s mine.”

  “You’re the one that needs to leave her out of this,” Logan roared. “She’s an innocent woman and you’re fucking trash to use her like this.”

  “‘Use her’?” Now Rob was yelling. “Fuck you, Hawkings. I’m not using anyone.”

  “Bullshit,” Logan said. “You win. You get your meeting, but you leave that girl alone.” He clenched a fist. “We won’t tell her about any of this. She’s a sweet, sheltered girl, and it’d break her heart. I’m not about to stomp on her feelings. I happen to give a shit about them.”

  “Fuck. You.”

  “Like I said. You win. We can meet tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want your goddamn meeting. So you can tell me no? Go fuck yourself.”

  “Get out of my goddamn resort.”

  “If you kick me out, so help me, I will make the biggest fucking scene you can imagine.” Rob gave him a cold smile. “Your wedding is in what, two days? Hate to have a scandal show up on your doorstep just in time for it. The missus would probably be mighty upset.”

  Logan’s shoulders heaved, and for a moment, Rob thought the man might punch him. Instead, Logan’s nostrils flared, he gave Rob one last simmering look, and then he stormed away.

  Rob maintained his cool until Logan turned the corner. Then, he moved to the nearest wall and put his fist through it, leaving a gigantic hole in the drywall. His knuckles split, but the pain only momentarily dimmed his rage.

  Fuck him. Fuck Logan if he thought that Rob was dicking around with Marjorie’s feelings. What kind of lowlife bastard did they think he was?

  Worse, what kind of lowlife bastard was Marjorie going to think he was, once they told her the truth?

  He punched the wall with his other fist. Great. Now both of them hurt, and he was still pissed.

  Chapter Nineteen

  When midnight passed and Marjorie didn’t call him, Rob started to get concerned. Surely they weren’t out to dinner this late, were they?

  When one A.M. slid into two in the morning, Rob decided to go to Marjorie’s room and talk to her. If she was hurting, he wanted to try to fix it. He knocked on her door, but there was no answer. He texted her. Still no answer. He waited outside of her room for ten minutes, impatient, and then when no one came by, he slipped a credit card into the lock and jimmied it. If she was in her room and ignoring him, the latch would be flipped and he wouldn’t be able to get in.

  But a moment later, he was able to get in, and the door swung open. The room was empty. Marjorie wasn’t in.

  Where the hell was she?

  A twinge of worry cut through him, and he shut the door quickly again, then headed to the elevator.

  She wasn’t in the lobby. He searched the gardens, and she wasn’t there, either. The restaurant was closed due to the late hour, and the bar was empty of all but a few booze hounds. He didn’t really think she’d be there—after that one bad evening, she hadn’t drunk a drop.

  There was only one place left to check.

  Rob headed out to the beach, took off his leather Bettanin & Venturi wingtip shoes, and began to walk the shoreline, looking for a huddled figure and blonde hair.

  Sure enough, at the far end of the beach, almost a mile away from the resort, he saw a lonely woman walking the waves and staring out into the distance. From where he stood, she looked fragile and sad, not the strong, smiling Marjorie he was used to.

  And he knew in his gut that he’d hurt her tonight. That thought weighed on him like a stone around his neck. His sweet, sensitive Marjorie had been wounded by his callousness. God, he was such a dick.

  He walked up to her and waded out ankle high to where she was standing. She didn’t speak, so he looked out on the horizon with her, trying to see what she was regarding. After a moment, he teased, “I hope you didn’t lose your top again. If it’s out that far, we might never find it.”

  She didn’t laugh. She just looked over at him with sad eyes. “Why are you here, Rob?”

  He tossed his shoes down on the sand behind him and shoved his hands in his pockets, like a guilty kid. “I came out here because I was worried about you.”

  “Really? You didn’t seem all that worried earlier tonight when you blew me off.”

  “Something came up.”

  Marjorie gave him a look that told him she knew he was lying.

  “I swear, I never meant to hurt your feelings, Marjorie.”

  “Then why did you?” She crossed her arms and finally looked over at him, and he realized she was still in her dress from earlier that evening, all long-legged and beautiful. Her shoes were nowhere to be found, her feet bare as the water rushed over them. “Why was it that after spending all day telling me you couldn’t wait to see me, you suddenly had some ‘issue’ that came up and made you cancel on me? In front of my friends?”

  “Oh, is that what the surprise was?” He asked, feigning a grimace. “Man, I’m sorry.”

  “You’re not sorry!” She glared at him and then looked away quickly, dashing her hand to the corner
of one eye in a movement that made his heart squeeze. “I mean, if it was something I did, at least have the guts to tell me—”

  “Something you did? What do you mean?” When she didn’t look at him, Rob moved in front of her and held her by the arms, trying to get her to look at him. She avoided his gaze. “Marjorie, what do you mean, something you did?”

  She swallowed hard, her throat working, and kept her head ducked. “It’s just . . . last night was my first night . . . for a lot of stuff. And I thought it was great and that there was no shame in the room, right? But then today, you avoided me, and I couldn’t help wondering if it was something I did or didn’t do—”

  “What? No, no, no. Not at all.” His hands rubbed her arms and he tried to draw her against him but she pulled away stiffly. “Marjorie, I don’t even know how you can think that. You were fucking amazing last night.”

  “But not so amazing that you wanted to see me today?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I? I came out looking for you. And to me, you were so goddamn amazing that I wanted you to sleep next to me all night last night. I didn’t want you to leave. Do you know how rare that is for me?”

  “No,” she answered honestly, and he was dumbstruck again. Of course she didn’t know. He hid so much shit from her that she’d be appalled if she ever found out who he really was.

  Well, fuck. “Something . . . something just came up,” he said lamely.

  This time she looked at him. “Just stop it, Rob, okay?”

  “All right. I’m fucking lying. Nothing came up. I just freaked out tonight, but it had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me, all right? I’m a selfish fucker and I shouldn’t have blown you off. I didn’t want to, and I know you don’t believe that, but it’s the truth.” He grabbed her hand and pressed both of his around hers and held it against his chest. “The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you. I know you don’t believe me, but I swear to God and Jesus and Buddha that it’s the truth. You’re the first person that has been genuinely happy to know me in fucking years, and you have no idea how good that feels and how scared I am of fucking that up.”

  “How can I believe you?” she asked in a soft voice.

  “Ask me for something,” he said quickly. “Tell me what to do to make it up to you, and I will.”

  “The rehearsal dinner is tomorrow night,” she told him. “Dewey’s my date, but—”

  “Wait,” he said, a surge of jealousy roaring through him. “Who the fuck is Dewey?”

  Her mouth curled in a reluctant smile. “He’s an eighty-year-old man I met playing shuffleboard. He’s lonely, so I introduced him to Agnes and Edna when we started spending time together.”

  “Oh.” His heart slowed down a little. Just a little.

  “But I want you to be my date instead,” she told him. “I’d love if you went to the rehearsal dinner with me.”

  Ah, fuck. The moment he showed up, Logan Hawkings would lose his shit, and Rob’s presence would ruin things for everyone involved. “I . . . can’t.”

  She tried to pull her hand from his grip, flinching backward.

  “Marjorie,” he began.

  “Let me go.” He could hear the tears in her voice.

  “It’s not what you think—”

  “I think you’re ashamed to be seen with me,” Marjorie told him, her voice thick. “That’s what I think. That it’s perfectly okay to date Big Bird when no one sees you with her, right? But the moment someone will, all bets are off.”

  “That’s not it at all.”

  “No?” She tried to yank her hand out of his again.

  “No. I’m not ashamed of you at all. I don’t know why you would think that—”

  “Because I’m six foot one, Rob. And because no one has even given me the time of day before I met you. So how am I supposed to think that twenty-four years of nothing is somehow magically changed after a week of your attention?”

  “You’re also gorgeous as fuck and my dick gets hard every time I look at you,” he told her. “Don’t believe me? I’m hard for you right now because you’re so fucking beautiful.”

  To his surprise, she reached down and grabbed his junk. She looked a little startled to see that he was, indeed, sporting wood. Then she quickly snatched her hand away again. “That could be anything. You could get hard for any woman you saw here.”

  “That’s not true. I’ve seen lots of women here and you’re the only one I’m interested in. I haven’t dated anyone seriously in three years—maybe longer—because when they open their mouths, they no longer interest me. But you? You eat up my thoughts all day long. You make me wonder what you’re thinking even when you’re not around me. I’m fucking crazy about you, Marjorie.”

  “Then go to the rehearsal dinner with me,” she said in a soft voice.

  Fuck. He was cornered, wasn’t he? There was no escaping this trap. “Will nothing else make you happy?”

  “No,” she said, and her voice was stubborn. “That’s what I want. I want us to go to the rehearsal dinner together.”

  “Then I’ll go.” And put the final nail in his coffin. “For you. If that’s what you want.”

  “It is,” she said, and a hesitant smile returned to her mouth. “Is it truly so terrible to go out with me, Rob?”

  “It’s not terrible at all.” He pulled her against him, and this time she yielded, putting her arms around his neck so that her body pressed against his. “Like I said, I’m utterly fucking crazy for you, Marjorie. I haven’t felt this way about a woman, ever. It’s probably insane to be thinking about love and relationships after a week of spending time together, but the thought of you leaving me in a few days is like a knife in the gut. I don’t want you to go home to Kansas City. I don’t want you to go to New York. I want you to come to California with me. Come live with me and let us spend time together. I don’t want to be apart from you a single day.”

  “Rob,” she said softly. “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “You don’t have to answer it today. Or tomorrow. Just know that the offer stands. That the thought of you leaving me and returning to life without me makes me want to punch something with misery. You’re the only good, decent person in my life.”

  “That’s not true,” she protested. “You’re a wonderful person.”

  “I’m not,” he said bluntly. “I’m a dick and an asshole and I worry constantly that the moment you see who I really am, you’re going to regret ever knowing me.”

  “Never!”

  “Never say never, sweetheart.” He cupped her jaw. “I can call you sweetheart still, can’t I?”

  She nodded, her eyes shining in the moonlight.

  “I missed you today,” he told her in a soft, husky voice. “Felt fucking endless because you weren’t at my side.”

  “Today sucked,” she agreed. Her hand moved down the front of his shirt, and to his surprise, she reached down and cupped his dick again. “However . . . tonight has potential.”

  “Marjorie,” he groaned. Had he thought he was hard before? That was nothing compared to how he was now. Her gentle touch turned his dick to steel.

  “I want you to make love to me, Rob.” Her mouth hovered near his, a teasing, almost-kiss.

  Ah, fuck. That sounded like the best idea—and the worst ever. If he fucked her tonight and she hated him tomorrow, she’d hate him even more. “We can’t, sweetheart.”

  “We can,” she told him again, and rubbed her hand up and down his shaft, her touch so good that he had to pause and pull her hand away or else he’d start humping her leg like a fucking dog.

  “You’re a virgin. We should wait so you don’t make any rash decisions.”

  Her fingers moved to his collar instead, and began unbuttoning his shirt. Christ, was his little virgin seducing him? She was far too fucking good at that and he was having a hell of a time resisting. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think twenty-four years seems slow enough for me.”

  Damn, she had a point. “I don’t wan
t to rush you.”

  “I wish you would. I’ve been waiting for you to pounce on me.” She pressed her fingers inside his shirt, against his skin. “It makes me feel sexy to know I can drive you crazy.”

  This was pretty much every man’s dream . . . so why did he have that sense of looming disaster? He wanted Marjorie, she wanted him. This should have been ideal. But again, Rob felt trapped. If he didn’t sleep with Marjorie now, she’d think he was lying about finding her sexy. Her fragile ego would be crushed, and the relationship would be in ashes.

  As opposed to tomorrow, when it would be in ashes for completely different reasons.

  She leaned in, pressed a kiss to his neck, his collarbones. “I don’t want to leave this island without completely knowing you, Rob. And I don’t want to leave a virgin. I’ve found the man I want to be with.”

  And really, there was no choice for him after hearing that. Marjorie was his. She wanted to be his. He wanted her, too.

  “If you’re sure—”

  She kissed him. Open mouth, tongue seeking his. It wasn’t a virginal kiss—it was a kiss asking for more.

  Well, all right, then. He grabbed her and hauled her against him, picking her up. Just like he’d dreamed so many times, those long legs went around his waist and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, not breaking the kiss.

  “Let’s go to my room,” he told her. “I have condoms up there.”

  Chapter Twenty

  He didn’t carry her all the way back to his room. As much as he’d wanted to, Marjorie had blushed and insisted otherwise. They’d walked back, hand in hand, instead. They were quiet, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable quiet. Rather, it was an anticipatory one.

  When they got into the hotel, Rob looked over at Marjorie. “Did you want to go back to your room to get anything?”

  She shook her head, eyes shining. She looked so goddamn thrilled. Why couldn’t he shake the feeling that he was doing something incredibly dickish? He was cornered either way. He was going to either lose Marjorie tonight, or lose her tomorrow. This way he at least made her happy, right?