Page 1 of Dirty Nasty Billionaire: Part 3

Chapter 1

I need you. Sending a car.

The text comesat around 9pm. Elise has arrived back home after a long-overdue drinks date at a hole in the wall pub down the block. I’m about to slip into sweatpants when my phone chirps. I don’t recognize the number at first, but as soon as I read the text, I know.

My heart starts pounding like someone is playing bass drum in my chest. Nixon has never summoned me outside of work. It has always been stolen moments in the middle of the day, or a secret meeting before leaving. For him to ask for me this late at night — for him to reach out on my personal cell — that’s next-level. How did he even get my number? I never gave it to him. Of course, when you create the world’s most powerful search engine which grew into the world’s most powerful company, I’m sure getting a phone number isn’t that hard. Hell, he’s my boss, he probably just had to run a search in HR.

My fingers hover over the keys, trying to figure out what to send back. A thumbs up emoji? Or maybe the eggplant? Ugh, this is so fucking weird, I don’t even know how to be. But luckily, I don’t have to decide, because Elise knocks on my door.

“Uh, D? There’s a guy at the door says he’s got a car for you? Are you dating European royalty and you failed to mention it?”

My mouth drops open. Damn, he works fast. But that means I need to work fast, too. I still haven’t said anything to Elise about what’s going on with Nixon. I don’t know if I could make her understand. She’d point out that he’s my boss, and then she’d say he’s using me for sex. And while all that’s true, there’s also so much more to it. Hell, I don’t even understand it myself.

And I definitely don’t have time to unspool and untangle all that right now, especially not with a car on the street and a driver at my door, and Nixon god knows where waiting for me. So instead I grab my work bag and grimace.

“Yeah, I just got a text. Some kind of disaster at work? Everyone’s being called in. I gotta go.” I gather up my work bag and make a big show of putting my laptop in it. Gotta commit to the story, right?

“Please tell me Scour isn’t melting down,” Elise groans. “I haven’t backed up my cloud storage, and if I lose all my grad school application essays, I’m murdering Nixon Blake myself.”

I laugh as I rush out the door past her. “I’m sure it’s not that big. I’ll fill you in tomorrow. Don’t wait up!”

And hopefully by tomorrow I’ll have come up with a plausible story for her.

The driver is waiting by the shiny black Mercedes when I run out onto the sidewalk. He smiles serenely in his black suit and opens the rear passenger door for me. “Ms. Masterson?” He asks, and I nod, sliding onto the buttery soft leather seat.

The drive gives me ample time alone with my thoughts to wonder what caused Nixon to send that text. I most often see him after he’s had some kind of trying experience, like the crowd at the gala or the sit-down with the reporter. I know today he had some kind of executive board meeting, and a bunch of investors were in house to take tours. Could that have been it? Did the meetings go long? How could someone like Nixon Blake, who built the world’s most powerful tech company, spiral into a panic after meeting with investors? Isn’t that something he does regularly?

We take off, winding through the streets of Cambridge until we merge onto 93. At first I think we’re headed to Scour, but when we exit the interstate, we pass the Summer Street bridge and head towards Downtown Crossing.

I lean forward in my seat. “Excuse me, where are we going?” I ask the driver.

“Mr. Blake is waiting for you at his residence,” the driver replies.

His residence?

Which turns out to be a glass high rise near Downtown Crossing in the Financial District, the dense part of the city that comes closest to resembling New York. It’s the only place you’ll find skyscrapers, unless you count the Hancock and the Pru in Back Bay. And Nixon’s building turns out to be the biggest of them all.

Of course.

The car pulls into an underground garage, and for a moment I get nervous, because it looks like the kind of place where a young woman might be taken to be murdered. And no one would know where to look for me, because I just lied to my roommate and haven’t told a soul that I’m fucking Nixon Blake.

The car pulls to a stop in front of an elevator bank, and the driver gets out, opening the door for me.

“Penthouse,” he says, pressing the elevator button for me. And when the mirrored doors slide open, I see that “Penthouse” is one of only three destinations, the other being “Lobby” and “Gym.” A private elevator? I didn’t even realize these existed. I’ve just arrived in luxury beyond my wildest dreams, apparently.

I press the button, and the mirrored doors slide closed, leaving the driver and his snazzy car back in the garage. The elevator begins to rise, smoothly, but at a pace so quick it makes my stomach jump. I instinctively reach out and grab the side of the elevator, trying to hold on to some sense of equilibrium.

In seconds, we’re at the top. The door slides open, and I’m standing in a small vestibule. It feels like the waiting room before you get the pearly gates. Everything is so white. White marble floor, white walls, and a while metal door. It’s cold, and when I step forward, my feet echo in the frozen, hermetically sealed room. I press a button next to the door that I think is a doorbell. After a beat, a low buzz emanates from the door. I glance up and see a small white security camera perched over the door, pointing directly down at me.

Apparently the buzz is my greeting.

I step forward and open the door, and am greeted with even more white, this time with a polished concrete floor, just like at Scour. I think I’m in an apartment, but it’s hard to tell, because there’s almost no furniture to be seen. No couch, or television. No dining room table or chairs. The open-concept kitchen is all white cabinets and stainless-steel appliances, one giant white marble island in the middle that looks like a tomb. But there aren’t any dishes or packages of food. It hasn’t even been staged, like how realtors do. It looks like the construction crew just finished in here this morning. It doesn’t even have a homey smell, like an actual person lives here.

The rest of space is expansive, with ceilings that must be at least twenty feet high. Across from me, the entire wall is made up of floor-to-ceiling windows that look out across Boston, from the Harbor to the East, around downtown, the Common, and off towards Back Bay. I can see the Hancock and the Pru, I can see the illuminated gold dome of the Statehouse, and I can see the Charles River and Cambridge across it, headlights zipping up Memorial Drive in the inky black night. It’s breathtaking.

I hear footsteps, and Nixon strides into the room, still in the clothes he was wearing at work today: a pair of dark wash jeans and a slate gray cashmere sweater, the sleeves pushed up.

But he looks like hell.

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