Shopping for a Billionaire's Wife (25 page)

The limo halts in front of a dark building with blue, glowing LED rope lights around the perimeter. We get out. Geordi, the limo driver, smirks at me.

“Have a lovely evening, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Geordi. I’m sure whatever Declan has picked out for me will leave me sated.”

The men exchange an inscrutable look as Declan sweeps me toward the door.

The restaurant is smoky, but everywhere allows smoking in Vegas. I need to get used to this. A slow, twisting Euro technobeat fused with jazz pounds through the speakers. There’s an enormous stage with tiny lights along the bottom, but no one’s on it. We’re seated at a large table with a cream-colored leather sofa in a semicircle around it. Two bottles of my favorite white wine are already there.

As Declan scooches in next to me, we center ourselves in the horseshoe-shaped booth. A server rushes over.

Wearing no top.

Okay. That’s unexpected. 

It’s fine. I don’t react. I can be sophisticated. Maybe this is a tapas place that emulates the Spanish Riviera beaches. In Europe, women go topless all the time in the sun. No big deal. I avert my eyes and focus on Declan, who is, mercifully, watching me. He pours some wine and the server comes back with a menu, offering it to me. 

Forced to make eye contact, I look up and catch a big old view of two nipples pointing up, like
You Are Here
signs. Well, now. 

Music volume increases, the song fading, replaced by a deep, intense vibration that builds anticipation. A tapas bar with a show. Unexpected. Then again, this is Vegas, right? 

 I smile at Declan and widen my eyes, grinning and bringing my wine glass to my mouth.

I look at the menu.

No tapas.

Huh?

The stage lights explode with blinding white spotlights, and sparks fly as a show begins. Eight women wearing nothing but little jewels glued to their bare mons and feathered hats come pouring out from backstage, a ninth woman in Middle Eastern dress—which means she’s wearing a beaded necklace and a big ruby in her navel—belly dancing her way to a platform that is three feet from my face.

She crouches.

I bury my head in Declan’s shoulder.

“What’s wrong? She’s the closest I could get to...” his voice fades out for a minute and I don’t catch what he’s saying, because I’m trying to claw my way into his pocket to get away from the naked clam in front of me. “....on short notice. I called ahead to make sure they sent the right one!” he murmurs in my ear, his voice low and shrouded enough by his suit and my hair for me to hear. “Exotic enough for you?”

I look up.

And hello....kitty. Glitter and all.

I open the menu and shove it in front of my face, so close I can’t read it. Two inches back and I can make out the words. Appetizers. Entrees. Salads. Desserts. Beverages.

But no tapas.

“See anything you like?” Declan asks, his eyes glued to me. There are nine mostly-naked women up there gyrating and he’s looking at
me
.

“No, not really,” I say faintly. When I was in college, some friends convinced me to go to Boston and check out this “all male revue,” like Chippendale’s. Mom is really into male strippers. I’m not. I mean, I’m not a prude. I’ll watch porn here and there. I had strippers at my bachelorette party. I don’t judge.  

But having a real, live, mostly-naked woman in front of my face while I try to eat dinner isn’t my idea of fun, especially when it’s a surprise. 

I chug my wine and stand up. “Excuse me,” I say, scooting out the side of the booth.

“What’s wrong?” Declan asks, frowning.

“Nothing,” I lie. “Just need to use the bathroom.” I grab my purse and rush over to the solace of a toilet where I can sit down and not be eye level with a vertical taco.

OMG HELP
, I text to Amanda.

Please answer. Please answer. Please answer.

What’s wrong?
she texts back.

Declan brought me to a topless stripper joint for dinner
, I text back.

WUT?
she replies.

I know. Help
, I answer.

How can I help? Rush over with coats to cover the women?
she types, adding a smiley face.

You suck
, I reply.

Need more ones and fives? Now that’s a topless bar emergency
, she answers.
LOL.
 

I hate you
, I reply. LOL my ass.

“What was he thinking bringing me to a topless bar?” I mutter.

I stop, my entire body flushing.

“Topless bar,” I repeat, the words echoing off the steel stall walls.

Oh, no.
No, no, no, no, no.
 

“Topless bar,” I say again, louder, my breathing growing raspy, hyperventilation a few minutes away.

“Yeah, lady,” the bathroom attendant says. “You’re in a topless bar. Congratulations for figuring it out. How drunk are you?”

Bzzzzz.

I look down at the phone. Amanda has texted back:

OMG, Andrew’s begging me to let us join you

WUT?
I type back.

Declan’s texting him and going on about how enlightened you are and how you asked to go to dinner at a topless bar and asked for a Moroccan stripper and now Andrew’s pestering—

I stop reading, shove the phone in my purse, and rush back to the table.

I do not sit down.

The music number halts just as I look at Declan and shout:

“TAPAS BAR! I SAID TAPAS BAR!”

His smile wavers. Hoots and hollers from other tables dot the wall of sound behind me, but I don’t really hear because all of the blood in my body has rushed to my face from embarrassment.

“That’s right. We’re here. You said you liked Moroccan. She was the closest I could get on short notice—”

“T-A-P-A-S. Tapas,” I clarify, drawing out the letters as I spell the word. “Tah-pas.” 

Even in the dimly lit nightclub I can see Declan go pale.

“Oh, God,” he mutters, draining his glass of wine and not bothering to refill it. He just starts drinking the rest straight from the bottle. People begin to cheer. Someone throws a casino chip at him. It bounces off his collar and clatters to the floor. 

The belly dancer comes over and whispers in my ear. “Hey, honey. Your sweetie bought you special dance from me in one of the back rooms. I’m Amina. Heard you like Moroccan melon.” She licks the outer edge of my ear and cups her ample breasts, heaving them up so they’re inches in front of my mouth. “And you like to share.” She winks. 

Declan’s jaw drops.

I give him a death scowl. I am also unexpectedly aroused, and the combination of embarrassment and simple biological reactions makes the room spin. 

Bzzzzzz.

That’s his phone.

“If you,” I say through gritted teeth, “actually think that I am going to hang out at a topless bar with you, Andrew and Amanda, you’re delusional.” I look at Amina’s rack. “And besides, my boobs are
way
better than hers.” 

To his great credit, Declan immediately stands up and turns to the dancer, handing her a couple hundreds he’s pulled out of his wallet. “There’s been an enormous misunderstanding,” he says to her, throwing more money on the table and grabbing me so fast I stumble, unable to keep up with him, but somehow I figure a way out. 

He bursts through the doors to the street and stands there with such a pitiable look on his face that I burst out laughing, the sound part horror, part hilarity, and part shock. 

“You—you thought I wanted you to take me out to dinner at a
topless
bar?” 

“That’s what you said!” He throws his hands up, flinging them toward the heavens, as if the God of Pasties will come to his rescue.

“When have I ever asked to go ogle strange, naked women with you as a form of dining entertainment?” 

“Never. But there’s a first time for everything, and we’re in Vegas, and you clearly said ‘topless’ bar.”

“T-A-P-A-S. I said TAPAS!”

“You were going on and on about savoring the exotic, and licking melons, and sharing whatever we both liked—”

“And you thought that suddenly meant I wanted to hang out in a meat show with you? And—” I shudder “—share?”

He stops and goes quiet, looking down at the ground, hands planted on his hips, nodding slowly. Declan looks up, his face half-hidden in the shadows of a street light.

“Well, yeah. It did seem a little too good to be true.”

Our phones ring. Simultaneously.

“Don’t you dare answer that,” I growl as I fish my phone out of my purse.

“You can answer yours, but I can’t answer mine?” He ignores me and takes the call. I answer mine. 

“What’s going on?” Amanda asks, breathless.

“I said TAPAS!” I scream. “T-A-P-A-S!”

“Oh.” She almost sounds...disappointed? “Well. I guess we really shouldn’t join you, then, if, um, it was all a big misunderstanding.”  

“Ya think?”

I hear her whispering in the background, then a man’s groan of frustration. She comes back to the line and asks, “Just, you know, out of pure curiosity, what’s the address you’re at?”

Click.

Declan ends what is obviously a call with Andrew and gives me a wild look. “I gave the table to Andrew. Texted Geordi. He’ll be here any minute. We can go back to our suite and pretend this never happened.”

My stomach growls.

“If you think,” I say in a menacing voice as I walk slowly toward him like a mother lion going after a hyena eyeing her cubs, “that we can pretend this never happened, you’re certifiable.”

He winces, his mouth going tight.

I kiss it.

He rears back in shock.

“What?” My kiss muffles the end of the question, his mouth softening fast, responding to the sudden connection. My body is pounding from adrenaline and I wish I had more wine. He tastes like grapes and sweetness, and he’s covered in a fine sweat, his scent all male and hot and
what the hell just happened in there?
 

“You hired a special dance for me from a woman who can bend like a pipe cleaner with two watermelons attached,” I fume, turned on and furious at the same time. I’m not sure whether to slap him or spank him. 

Maybe both.

“I’m so sorry.” He looks bewildered and confused, contrite and simultaneously really turned on, and it occurs to me that I have the upper hand here. In a big way.

“You should be!” I slap his ass, hard. His hand is on my wrist in a flash, and I’m imprisoned by his grip. He moves me closer to the building and cages me with his arms, his hot, wine-soaked breath sending intermittent chills and heat waves through me.

“That kind of play is private,” he murmurs as he drags his lips along my collarbone.

“You were happy to have us ogle topless strippers in public.”

“The only body I want to ogle topless is yours, Shannon.”

I make a noise that clearly indicates I don’t believe him.

“Think back,” he whispers, his lips skimming my skin at the hollow of my throat. “Was I drooling over them?” 

I can’t quite breathe right any more, the chilly night air making my skin ripple with goose bumps, Declan’s seductive moves leaving me weak-willed.

“No,” I say. He’s right. He kept looking at me the entire time. “Why did you watch me watching them?”

“Because I wanted to please you.”

“You took me to a nightclub where there were more bare boobies than a La Leche League meeting to please me?”

“I thought you were into it.”

I pause. I unpause. “Let me understand this. If I have a sexual...taste, let’s say, you want to fulfill it.”

“Of course.”

“So if I wanted you to whip me—”

“Oh, God, anything but that. Please don’t turn me into a billionaire cliché.”

“—or wear a chipmunk suit—” 

“A what?”

“—or play The Fireman and the Dalmatian—”

“You’re veering into sick territory now, Shannon.”

“Hiring a belly dancer in a topless bar as a delicacy to meet your perceived notion of my sexual tastes isn’t sick?”

He groans. It’s the sound of my victory. “I’m never going to live this down, am I?”

“Nope.”

“How can I make it up to you?”

“I need to think about it.”

“That means you’re going to drag this out forever.”

He knows me so well, doesn’t he?

My stomach growls again. Geordi pulls up in the limo, confusion in his eyes, but he wouldn’t dare ask why we only spent fifteen minutes in the nightclub. We pile into the back of the limo and as the driver takes off Declan turns to me, gives me a wicked grin, and folds in half, laughing so hard I fear he’ll pass out. 

I join him.

It feels great.

“Geordi?” I ask as Declan gasps and belly laughs, chortles and grunts.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Can you find us a tapas bar? T-A-P-A-S.”

He makes a little sound of surprise, as if he suddenly had a flash of insight. “Yes, ma’am,” he replies, his voice a little lower. “I certainly will. May I suggest Platos Pequeños?” 

I brighten. That’s the one next door to Litraeon!

“Is it new? I haven’t heard of it,” Dec asks, his voice neutral.

“Well rated.” He names a celebrity chef.

“Sounds good.” And with that, we’re on our way.

On our way to coffee nirvana.

I mean, er, a good tapas meal.

As Geordi slows the limo at the light in front of the resort and makes a left turn, Declan lets out a sound of surprise.

“Wait a minute,” Declan says with a low, grunting sigh, turning to me with the deliberate, prowling look of a predator. “This is the resort next to Litraeon.” 

I’m so busted.

“Geordi,” he asks evenly, “where is Platos Pequeños?” 

Geordi’s answer is a simple right turn and a finger point. “Right here, sir.”

My beloved crosses his arms over his chest, his body curving away from me on the seat, his shoulders widening as he fills his lungs with air designed to fuel whatever outrage he’s feeling.

And it’s all pointed at me.

I’ve lost the self-righteous advantage, haven’t I? All it took was one left turn and—