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    BILLIONAIRE
    Part
6
    $
    by
Juliette Jones
     
     
    Copyright © 2013 Juliette Jones
     
    All rights reserved.  No part of
this work may be reproduced, distributed or scanned in any electronic or
printed form without permission. 
     
    BILLIONAIRE is a work of fiction. 
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious.  Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales are entirely
coincidental.
     
    Cover art photo used under license
from Shutterstock.com
     
    First Edition: September 2013
     
    $
     
     
    BILLIONAIRE (Part 6)
     
    Lila
     
    We
were back in New York.
    After
the night flight and the cocooning extravagance, time was loose, almost
lyrical, like my life had become a particularly sweet song that I had to stop
and just appreciate every now and then.  Two weeks in Paris had bonded me to
Alexander irrevocably.  Our connection was forged, deeply and sublimely, by a
mutual need that had taken over every aspect of my days, and my nights.  He
rarely left my side.  His presence had become my compass.  His touch drew me
like nothing I had ever experienced.  And his dedication to my every whim was a
luxury I knew was dangerously addictive.
    I
had no need for a watch or to even be aware of the day or the hour.  The
schedule my former life had been ruled by seemed petty and distant.  All I
could comprehend now was the comfort I was still adjusting to.  I opened my
eyes to unshadowed late-morning light, stretching like a cat, naked under the
plush quilted mounds of the duvet and the Egyptian cotton sheets whose thread
count was probably in the six-digit neighborhood.  I let my hands search the
cool, unoccupied half of his California king-sized bed.
    “Alexander?” 
I sat up, and the covers fell to my waist.
    He
was lounging in a leather chair next to the floor-to-ceiling windows, dressed
only in jeans, his feet propped onto a zebra-patterned ottoman.  His MacBook
was perched on his lap and his black hair fell in half-curled fronds over his
forehead.  Something about the disheveled state of his too-long hair, the tanned
hue of his muscled torso and the safari theme provided by the
what-I-could-only-assume-was-authentic animal skin furniture made him look
rugged and edgy.  Despite his riveted concentration to the screen of his
computer, his eyes swiveled to me slowly.  To my face, and the mussed mane of
my blond hair.  To my naked breasts.  Back to my face.  His expression was
laced with that lazy, arrogant manliness I loved about him.  A stranger would
have construed the look as unapproachable, almost cold.  I knew better.
    “You’re
working?” I asked.
    I
was mildly peeved by this.  After the uninterrupted hedonism of Paris, I was
used to having him all to myself.  To his undivided attention.  The minute we’d
cleared the Charles de Gaulle runway, he’d started stealing moments to check
emails and read stock reports.  I’d been happy enough to catch up on some sleep
and leave him to it, but now, I was well-rested.  And he looked too delicious. 
All those burnished muscles and shadowed stubble.
    Alexander
paused before giving me an oblique reply: “I’ve been away for almost two
weeks.”
    “I
know,” I said, hearing the churlishness in my voice.  He heard it too and his
mouth twitched as he stared at me.  Then his attention returned to his computer
screen.
    It
had been a topic we’d avoided almost completely.  I’d tried to bring it up once
when we’d first arrived in Paris, then again in some romantic little bistro on
the Left Bank.  Both times, when he’d dismissed my question, abruptly changing
the subject, I’d silently agreed: it hadn’t been the time or place to get into
the nitty gritty of our work schedule, once we finally returned to reality.  In
those halcyon days, reality had seemed a million miles away.
    But
now, reality was upon us.  It was shining its blue light onto the planes of Alexander’s
sculpted