Babysitting the Billionaire (3 page)

“You’re staying?” He didn’t even turn his head.

“Do you promise to stay here until I come back?”

“When?”

“Seven.” She had to get back to work and finish that four-color
brochure for the party.

“Five.”

“Five? The restaurants don’t open till five-thirty.”

“Five-thirty, then.”

She’d never be done by then. She’d have to go back and
do more work after.

“Go ahead and sigh it out, little May in June.” He
turned around and gave her one of those movie-star grins.

May loudly sighed out the breath she hadn’t realized she
was holding. She shuffled in her bag again, and stood up. On her way out, she
dropped one of her personal cards on the desk, just outside his reach. “In case
you need me sooner.”

****

The Darth Vader theme sounded in May’s dreams, and then
she realized it was her phone.

Kurck. At one o’clock.

She pulled the phone closer and tapped it on. “Reed,”
she said, trying to sound officious.

“Room service stops at midnight. Who ever heard of
that?”

“What do you need?”

“Something. Muesli, granola, yogurt. Most of all,
coffee. A gallon of it.” He sounded as rough as she felt. She was glad of it.

“There’s a coffee maker in your kitchen.”

“Those pods? That’s not coffee. You should have bought
supplies. You knew I had to work. Get them.”

“What time is it?”

“Twelve forty-five. I have a conference call in fifteen
minutes.”

“Vamp. I can’t be there before one-thirty.”

She didn’t realize a person could slam a cell phone.
Hoping her hearing would return in that ear sometime soon, May lurched out of her
bed. She’d left him at the damn hotel at seven, staring at his little screens
like he had all though supper, but she hadn’t gone to bed until eleven. This
was going to be a long, hard day.

Pulling on a long knit tunic over her cami and capris,
she shuffled into her kitchen. Yogurt she had, but no cereal; he’d have to
settle for fruit. The closest grocery closed at ten. He was right. She should
have thought about stocking the fridge. But Sadie should have thought about
that, too. This was May’s first time.

She packed the yogurt, fruit, her French press, grinder,
coffee beans, power bars, and two apples into a reusable shopping bag. She was
cleaned out, except for the package Indian dinners in the freezer.

Taking an extra minute to run down the list of things
she needed for the day, she headed for the door.

When she got off the hotel elevator, the first thing
that hit her was the smell of burnt plastic. Smoke was coming from the kitchen.

She ran to the stove, but it wasn’t there.

“It’s the damn pod-thing.” Beau Kurck stood across the
countertop from her, glowering at the sink. He was naked from the waist up. The
sight slowed her already sluggish powers of mental processing, and she didn’t
respond to his words for a full five seconds.
Whoa.

Then she snapped her head toward the sink. The failed
coffeemaker lay on its side, coffee detritus spewing from the heating element
at its top. She ran some water over the mess, first checking that it was
unplugged, and then turned the stove fan on.

“That’s a new way to do it.”

“Where’s your coffee?”

She set a large black drip from the donut shop on the
counter. “Here. To tide you over. You don’t take milk, do you?”

He swept it up in a surprisingly large hand and turned
away, touching his ear, or rather the phone bud in his ear. “No! I said a dozen
new levels, not three, not four, a dozen.”

She tuned him out as she rummaged around the kitchen.
The kettle was way in the back of the lower cupboard. She had to practically
crawl into the cupboard to reach it. She hit her head on the edge of the shelf
as she pulled it out, and heard a snort. Great, now she was a road show, too.

She ignored him and filled the kettle.
 
Bullfrog-headed
early-morning asshole
. While it heated, she cut up a peach and set it on a
plate next to a bowl of yogurt.

When the water boiled, she poured it into the French press
and counted one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand to
four-hundred-eighty-one-thousand. She’d forgotten the timer. As the coffee pressed,
she caught the eye of the Titan of Penguin Playtime and waved at the spread.
She added the three protein bars from her pack, and left for the spare bedroom.
Not five minutes later, she was fast asleep again.

****

This time when the Darth Vader theme sounded in May’s
dreams, Vader’s helmet lifted off, and it was the head of Beau Kurck. She
rolled onto her back and held the phone to her ear.

“What time is it now?”

“Lunchtime, in
Finland
.” His voice sounded way too
boisterous for five in the morning Eastern time. And it echoed in an odd way.

May sat up and shook her head. “Power bar.”

“We’re out of coffee.”

“We’re not.”

“You didn’t show me how to make it.” The sense of
parallel sound was eerie. She rolled to her feet, taking a second to regain her
balance. The cobwebs were taking a while to clear from her mind.

“Three cups of water, three or four scoops of coffee,
four minutes and push.”

“What is a cup of water?” How was he making that stereo
sound?

“Where are you?” She pulled the door open blearily.

“Here,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb.
Appallingly bright-eyed and looking suspiciously like he’d been grinning just a
moment ago, Beau Kurck pulled his mouth down into the cutest hangdog mope.
“Show me? Then I’ll be able to do it by myself next time.”

Blasted handsome
special assignment, single-minded, pig-headed man.
She pushed his shoulder, barely dislodging him from the doorway, and scooted past
him.

“Your hair is sticking up in the back, like an aircraft
carrier.”

She marched away from him.

“It would lay flat better if it were longer. Just
saying.”

He hadn’t even dumped the grounds out. She turned back
to him, accusation in her eyes. “You didn’t even try.”

He shrugged, all innocence and unshaved god-like man.
“You saw what happened the last time.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and flattened her mouth.
But that wasn’t getting her back to sleep any faster, so she went to the sink.
She dumped out the dregs and rinsed the carafe.

“One.” She filled it to the line she’d painted on the
side. She held it up to show him. “Three cups.”

She poured the water into the kettle and turned the
stove on. “Heat to nearly boiling.”

“How nearly?”

Was he making fun of her? She would not look at him to
find out. “As long as you can stand. Or first whistle. Meanwhile,” she picked
up the large soup spoon.

“Three, or four?”

“Yes,” she said, enjoying the truculence in her voice.
“For you, four.”

He was staring at her. She felt his gaze on her
shoulders, her back, her ass. “You’re staring at my butt, aren’t you?”

“Miss Reed, you libel me.”

“It would be slander, not libel, if it were not true.”

“You said it. In fact, I was plotting the potential
trajectory of a Kurcki on that slope of hair of yours.”

“That’s penguin? I thought it was Kurck.” He would not
confuse her, despite the early hour.

“Crane, really. I shortened it after I left school.”

“Like how you shortened Boris?”

“Didn’t work for me. Some tennis player my Mom crushed
on.”

“We need your phone.”

“I can do the physics in my head.”

She shook her head, wishing she’d brushed her stupid
hair so he would shut up about it. “No. To set the timer for four minutes.”

“Ah. Step Five. I’m on it.”

Blessedly soon, the kettle burbled, and she poured the
water back into the carafe. “Now, put the cap on, but don’t push the plunger
down.”

“Don’t want to go off too early.”

She made the mistake of looking at him, at that
schoolboy-innocent look on his rock-hard handsome face. She broke into a ripple
of idiot schoolgirl giggles. A smile exploded across his face. Damn, he was even
handsomer when he smiled.

Enough.
She ran a hand through her hair, noticing that it did slope nearly
straight across in the back.

“That’s not going to help.”

“Did you press four minutes? Good. When the timer goes
off, you press, and then pour. And then don’t call until dinner time.”

He called out after her. “So you’re a ‘Star Wars’ fan?”

“Only for you,” she said sweetly, and shut the door,
locking it this time.

****

Somehow, Sadie had done it. As much as May needed job
security, she could never have figured out a way to get a
U.S.
senator,
even a junior one, off of Capitol Hill and into the Source Restaurant, just off

Pennsylvania Avenue

,
on a day’s notice. And nearly on time, six-thirty, when the happy-hour crowd
was thinning out and the dinner crowd hadn’t sauntered in yet.

Kurck was blessedly quiet as they waited in the small
private room in the back. May wondered how many of these rooms the restaurant
had. All of the tables in the public room stood empty. Maybe the restaurant
should build all private rooms.

When May had finally gotten up on her own, around eight,
the Assignment had been relatively docile, too. Jet lag was catching up with
him, he said, despite the equivalent of six large coffees. He went back to bed,
leaving May a spare half-hour to hike back home, shower and change and make it
to work, late as usual. But once Sadie had the meet set up, she had sent May
home with orders to get back to her man before he woke up.

But May had gone to the Whole Foods instead, having
forgotten to eat breakfast herself. So the blasted phone rang while she was
carrying two full bags of groceries and her computer tote. She let it go to
voicemail, which earned her only a five-minute respite. She was fighting with
the key to her flat when Sadie’s tone, “The Ride of the Valkyries,” rang.

“Get to the hotel, now.”

“On my way, chief.” May clicked off, and then went in
and put all her groceries away. Then she watered all three of her plants,
looked through her mail (all junk), and waited for his next call.

On cue, the march thundered again. She answered. “Four
minutes. Were you using the timer?”

“I’m out of coffee. And we have to be at the
restaurant.”

“In three hours. I think we can make it.”

“I need to be sure.”

May rolled her eyes. “What else do you want from the store?
I’ll pass by on my way to the hotel.”

“Whatever you eat. Coffee. Crisps.”

Crisps?
“I’m on it.”

She took her time during her second trip to the grocery,
and was rewarded by a mildly ruffled Beau Kurck, in a ratty Green Lantern
T-shirt and sweats.

“How was the gym, Mr. Kurck?”

“Why isn’t your GPS turned on?”

Her chin dropped in her surprise. She snapped it shut.
“And you know I’m not turning it on now.”

“You do want to keep your job?”

“Look, crispbread.” She tossed it at him. He caught it
easily.

“Finn Crisps?”

“Sounded right to me.”

“You’re forgiven.”

Fuck you, too, she said to herself, taking the rest of
the groceries to the kitchen. “So,” she said out loud, “we have to be at the
restaurant at six-thirty.”

“Six-fifteen. I want to make sure everything is ready.”

May was about to say something smart, but the sight of
his face stopped her. “You’re worried?”

He glared at her. “Of course not. It’s a clean
transaction. I’ve met the requirements. It should be no trouble.” But his face
took on that abstracted look again.

May couldn’t help digging herself in further. “If it was
no trouble, why did you spend a billion dollars to arrange it?” She immediately
regretted asking. How rude could she be? But, to her surprise, he answered.

“Touché,” he said, sighing. “I’ll go get ready. Do not
touch anything on the table.”

Which she hadn’t. She’d actually cat-napped on the sofa.
There was nothing she was worried about at the restaurant. Although work was
starting to be a problem.

The brochure was done and at the printer, thank the
stars. But the recent economic downturn hadn’t shown signs of abating in the
nonprofit sector, at least in the penguin portion of it. Next time the board
met, Sadie had told her, if the investments still looked as peaked, people’s
hours would be cut. Since May worked only 35 hours a week already, even a small
cut might lose her her health insurance. And she sure as hell couldn’t let that
happen.