Page 1 of The Billionaire Submissive
Chapter One
Donovan Morgan stared out at the panoramic view without really seeing the skyline of downtown St. Paul. His corner office was mostly glass, giving him an unimpeded view of the world he’d supposedly conquered. He’d just closed another million-dollar deal, yet he felt nothing. No joy, exhilaration, or the rush of competition he’d thrived on his entire life. It was like he’d been left outside in the frigid winter to freeze solid, just another ice sculpture in the wintry park.
Never mind it was full-blown summer in Minnesota and the winding river below was crammed with boaters enjoying the warmer temps.
His secretary buzzed him. “Mr. Morgan? Your ten o’clock appointment is here?”
Miss Wruthers never managed to sound very sure of herself, even when she knew damned well he was expecting this meeting.She’s only been here a week.He smothered a sigh.Hopefully she’ll gain more confidence. Assuming I don’t bark at her and terrify her to death.Without looking, he reached down and pressed the intercom. “Send him in.”
He heard the door open and shut, but he delayed turning around to greet his guest. He didn’t want to appear too eager. Or God forbid, desperate.
“I have the file you asked for, Mr. Morgan.”
He’d used Andy Wells many times in the past when he needed dirt on the competition in order to gain some leverage. The man was a pit bull when it came to tenacity and fight, with the nose of a bloodhound and the speed of a greyhound. If there was any secret to be uncovered, Andy would find it, carefully peeling back layer after layer until the ugly truth was bared, and if he couldn’t find it, no one else would either. Donovan kept him on his personal staff and paid the man extremely well. To ensure Andy never had cause to go digging into Donovan’s own secrets.
Without replying, he turned and accepted the manila file. It was disturbingly thin and light. If this was all the dirt Andy’d been able to dig up on this prospective…
What could he call her?
Client?
Date?
Trick?No. That would be me.
Sitting down, he laid the file open on his desk and let his gaze linger just a moment on the picture paper clipped to the inside of the file. Lilly Harrison wasn’t exactly a gorgeous woman but she was quite attractive. Long, coppery-brown hair fell in a curly tumble about her shoulders, pretty face, light blue-gray eyes, lush, curvy body. Perhaps a little too short for his personal tastes and certainly not the model-thin slip of a woman so popular in the media, but her curves suited him perfectly.
She had an easy, open smile and a light in her eyes he instinctively mistrusted, even while his instincts told him that spark was the key to hooking her interest. Light implied warmth and sweetness, even innocence, and if there was anything he’d learned about Lilly Harrison before he’d hired Andy to dig deeper, innocence was the last thing in her mind. But he could certainly use that spark of curiosity to his advantage.
The next page listed the basic overview of her background. Age twenty-nine, single, self-employed as a stained glass artist in Oakdale after bailing on her white-collar job five years ago. Doing well enough to purchase her own townhome, though she owed a considerable amount on the mortgage yet. She had a sick younger brother with a ton of medical bills. He could use that to his advantage. Her parents were still alive, living near the brother on the other side of Minneapolis. Comfortable but not well off, and from the suburb they lived in, conservative and possibly even Catholic. Even better leverage.
He turned the page and scanned the list of her male “acquaintances”. A.K.A. the men she hired herself out to. The johns.
Is that what I’ve come to? Just another john trying to hire a prostitute to get what I need? Like a junkie on the street?
He forced himself to read every single name, even though he didn’t recognize any of them. At least she wasn’t involved with high-up politicians. Andy had even taken a few pictures, although none of them were compromising. Lilly and her gentleman getting into a car, getting out of a car, going into a restaurant. Evidently she occasionally did couples too. They were dressed to the nines as if they’d been to the opera. She wore a gorgeous slim-fitting black gown that hugged every wicked, sweet curve and strappy bright red platforms adding four inches to her height. The stilettos made him drool. The red made him insane, tantalizing him like a bull in a ring.
Ridiculous. Some poor sap actually paid for her services and took her out to eat? Andy had also included the names of each hotel she’d gone to with her clients. All upper-class hotels, certainly not the scary, cheap one-night-stand sort of places he’d expect a woman like her to use.
A woman like her.
He ran a hand over his face, rubbed his eyes, and then gripped his head like he had a headache.What the hell am I doing? Am I actually this desperate?
“She’s real careful, Mr. Morgan. She always uses her name to check into the hotel and it’s always booked and paid for in advance. By her. She’s seen these men in public before, and there’s not a single trace of anything suspicious or scandalous. Two of them are married, all of them are pretty well off. I mean, they’re nothing like you, boss, but they’re wealthy enough to pay her a grand a night.”
“That’s all she charges them?”
“As far as I can tell. She doesn’t do random guys, either. She takes them out to dinner first. Only then do they get to go to the hotel with her. They never go to her house and she uses a different hotel for each man. I don’t have any idea how they hooked up with her. I couldn’t connect any kind of web presence to her name or credit cards at all. All of the men are regulars. I clocked Mr. Smith seeing her once a week. Mr. Hamilton even hit her twice last week.” Andy chuckled. “She must be damned good at what she does.”
Donovan pinned the man with a glare that made Andy gulp like a teenager caught smoking weed in the stairwell. He didn’t say a word, just kept a steady, critical eye contact until Andy dropped his gaze and rushed to fill the heavy silence.
“No criminal record. She got a bachelor’s degree from St. Cloud though she doesn’t use it. Accounting. She has a savings account but it’s not huge. Just twenty grand. Her brother’s bills are five times that. She’s been making regular payments to her parents to help them out. She has a small retirement account left over from her corporate job but no other investments.”
Donovan turned his attention back to the file. She’d never been married. No children. A single woman on the verge of suffering the strident call of her biological clock. Ordinarily he’d run like hell in the opposite direction, but Lilly wasn’t the typical woman. He wasn’t interested in dating or marrying her.
I’m interested in hiring her. That’s all.
He smothered a wry laugh and shut the file, though he couldn’t drag his gaze away. It sounded so simple. So clean. So basic. Nothing as dirty as what he really wanted from her.
