Love Unbound (A Steamy Billionaire Romance) Read online

  It makes no difference. He burned his bridges there. He must think I dropped in from a distant planet if he thinks he has any chance with me now.

  I hear the tumult of applause from the audience. Jessie has made them happy showing them her tits again. I pull on my jeans and T-shirt and take the pins out of my long hair so I feel like me again, back to Victoria—not Vix—and I wait for Jessie to appear. Her eyes are shining, the adrenaline still running through her.

  “Lively bunch tonight,” she says. “Did you see that guy?”

  Oh was he looking at her too? It wasn't just me then. I don't like how disappointed I feel about that. “The guy in the suit? Looked like he took a wrong turn from Kensington Palace and wandered in?”

  “Yes. He was hanging around when I came off stage.”

  Jessie and her bare breasts! Guys flock around her like dogs at a barbeque. Just as well she keeps a robe at the side of the stage to cover up after her act. She might never get out alive.

  I might have known Mr. Sultry Eyes wasn't any different from the usual crowd as far as that goes. Guys are all the same.

  “Though I wouldn't have said this one was all that upmarket,” Jessie continues. “He was just a blond guy in a suit. Could have been a doorman or driver or something. Nice looking though and great taste in paper goods. He gave me this to give to you.” She hands me an envelope. It's heavy paper with a linen-like texture. I flip it over—three initials embossed on the back. I'm reluctant to open it for some reason in front of Jessie.

  “You should go out with him. No sex in like forever is not good for a girl,” she says.

  “It's only six or seven months since I split up with shit face Jimmy. Hardly forever.”

  “Exactly—six months without sex.” She makes a slashing motion across her throat and starts to smear cream over her face to get rid of the thick stage make-up. “You’re only twenty-one not eighty-one. You need to live a little.”

  “Are you going out with Dirk, tonight?” I ask her.

  If she's going to bring him back to the apartment tonight, I'm going to have to get to sleep before they get back. Last time the racket they made kept me awake half the night. Jessie has no inhibitions. At all. Sometimes I wish I was more like her.

  “He's taking me to The Crazy Duck for dinner.”

  “Great place—see you at work tomorrow then.”

  Jessie is a waitress at the coffee shop too. She got me the job.

  I grab the envelope and my bag and get out of the dressing room.

  “Aren't you going to open—”

  I'm out of there before she finishes her sentence. The note can wait until I'm home.

  ***

  The traffic screams below at street level but it's relatively calm in the apartment, at least as calm as it ever is with the worldly goods of two girls crammed into a place that's both a little too expensive and a little too small. Even this seedy part of London is not cheap, so I'm happy to have this place to share. I pour myself a glass of wine—my reward after a long day and a performance that went well—and sit on the couch toying with the envelope, my heart pounding. I know it's from him. I just know it. Or have I got it completely wrong? It could be from some slime-ball I didn't even notice. That would be the kind of thing that usually happens to me.

  I use a knife to open the envelope. That paper is too good to shred. There's only a card inside with a number and a call me message in beautiful script handwriting and real black ink. That figures. If it's from him, a guy like that wouldn't have just grabbed an old leaky ballpoint like the rest of us.

  I hug the card to myself. Did he write this? The guy in the suit? Or is this just me and my over-active imagination hoping it's from him? I run my finger over the initials embossed on the envelope and imagine tracing the guy's strong jaw. Who is AJL?

  I don't want the let-down of finding out it isn't him and it's late now. He can't mean for me to call him now. No one wants a call at eleven at night. I'll call in the morning.

  Jessie is right I need to get laid but not by just anyone, not by anyone like Jimmy—but I lie in my bed unable to sleep, remembering how those eyes, AJL's eyes, seemed to go right through my body stocking and see everything below as if there was nowhere to hide.

  And the image of him in his suit, his dark hair and piercing eyes watching me dance naked on the stage for the first time in a solo performance just for him are all I can think of as my fingers reach below the covers and between my legs. Rubbing lightly at first and rocking against my hand, I imagine how it would feel to have his lips on me there, his stubble rasping my inner thighs, and then my movements get more and more frantic, my legs spreading under the sheets, my thumb on my clit and my fingers sliding deeply inside as I make myself come with abandon, in a way I never have with Jimmy or any of the few boyfriends I have had.

  I'm late going to sleep but I nod off before Jessie gets back because the apartment seems blissfully quiet.

  ***

  In the morning, I'm almost late for my shift at the coffee shop, and because Jessie doesn't show up at all—she was probably awake most of the night with Dirk—I get bawled out by the owner and have no time to slip away to make a call. So I don't get a chance to dial the number on the card until I finish at three.

  “Ashton Lynch.” A smooth deep voice as rich as ground cocoa beans takes me aback as if I wasn't expecting anyone to be on the line.

  “Victoria Bronson. I got your card.” I don't know what else to say. I can hardly say, “Are you the guy in the suit with the strong chin and sexy eyes I imagined as I gave myself an orgasm in bed last night?”

  And then in case he doesn't recognize who I am, in case he leaves cards everywhere, I say “I was dancing at the Tempest last night. I'm known as Vix there.”

  “Yes, I know who you are Victoria. I gave my driver a card for you and I expected your call...oh about sixteen hours ago. Do you always keep everyone waiting?”

  “I wasn't aware I needed an appointment to call you.”

  “I'm a very busy man.”

  “And I'm pretty busy myself, Mr. Lynch.”

  “I'm sure you are, but I was impressed by your performance. I have an opportunity right now that might be suitable. Could you come to my office at five?”

  My heart drops. Whoever he is, his note isn't personal at all. He is probably on the lookout for hostesses for a night club or something, or he's another in a line of strip joint owners trying to get me on board. Or a porn movie producer. I've had enough approaches by the likes of them over the couple of years I've been dancing in clubs. I thought that guy, the guy in the suit, was different. He looked different. But I'm not a great judge of people. You only have to look at Jimmy for that. And maybe it's not the guy in the suit at all.

  “I don't want to waste your time or mine Mr. Lynch. If you're looking for some kind of bunny girl, porn actress or strip tease artiste, I'm not interested.”

  “Do you think I run that kind of operation? I suggest you look me up and I'll see you here at five—call me if you want a car.”

  He rattles off an address near Leicester Square and drops the call. My heart is pounding. Irritating man but intriguing. Who the hell is he? I look up the guy on my phone—he's the guy in the suit alright. I take a sharp intake of breath as I see him again and those piercing eyes look out at me from my phone screen. He's twenty-seven and the head of a talent agency that represents a bunch of stars even I have heard of. The guy must be loaded. What can he want with me?

  I know there's a small chance this could be my lucky break, but for some reason I'm gutted. I wanted this to be about me, not my work. I can't resist going to meet with him but I don't give him the satisfaction of calling him back. Even though he hasn't got a clue he was doing it, he has wound me up so much since I first noticed him, I want to keep him guessing.

  CHAPTER 5

  Ash

  What the fuck was I even thinking writing this girl a note? And then waiting for her to call like a teenager in need of a prom d
ate? I must be out of my fucking mind!

  In any case, I'm wasting my time with this one. The girl is never going to follow instructions. She doesn't call me back to arrange a car. Will she even turn up? No one has ever failed to show up for an appointment at the Lynch Agency but she might be the first. That riles me more than it should and I get onto Cameron to get his ass in gear because I'm in that kind of mood today.

  Cameron is in love again and not fully functional. It must be the third time this year some guy has turned his head and he's floating around, his head everywhere but on the job. Just as well he's good at what he does most of the time, and the stars love how good he makes them feel. Maybe I should cut him some slack because I don't think he's ever going to learn how much love sucks.

  I’m done with the whole fucking thing. I just hope he gets his head off his new guy and back on the job. That would be something.

  I examine the paperwork from the New York office. The changes I negotiated in the terms of the contract with the Hollywood agency look good to me but I know I'll need to go over them again, when I'm less...distracted. Christ I have it bad. I'll be turning into Cameron next. I never gave a fuck if an actress or dancer showed up or not before. She'll be like all the rest. Of course she'll show up. They all want the same thing—stardom—and they'll give anything to get it. Why would she be any different?

  And my reasoning doesn't let me down. At five, Sofia is showing the girl into my office.

  ***

  Victoria looks around, her eyes wide. My interior forest is having the usual effect. She is bundled into a thick winter coat, a scarf coiled three times around her neck, her cheeks pink. From the cold outside or from excitement? It's hard to tell.

  I hold out my hand with what I hope is a reassuring smile. I don't want to intimidate her and have her flee in panic. But she seems reasonably calm as she takes it. She's freezing though and her hand is so small in mine. I want to scold her for not wearing gloves but of course I don't. I just know, if she were mine, there'd be a price to pay for forgetting her gloves. But at least she’s not wearing a ring.

  “Can I take your coat, Miss Bronson?”

  She seems to hesitate as if taking off her coat might make her more vulnerable, as if I might strip every thread from her body. I'd like to do exactly that, but how can she know that? She unbuttons the shapeless monstrosity and hands it to me and I hang it in the closet. That’s when I see why she might have been reluctant to give up the coat. I'm guessing most women I ask to see in my office spend an age getting their image right.

  She looks down apologetically. “I just finished my shift at the coffee shop. I didn't have time to go home and change.” I catch a slight New York accent I didn't detect on the telephone, perfect for the role I have in mind and I want to say if you'd accepted my offer of a car you might have managed to dress properly, but I don't.

  She's wearing some kind of uniform that skims her shape and fits her in all the right places. Whoever designed those uniforms made them just for her. It's in some disgusting man-made fiber and the coffee color is not the best but there's no mistaking the body under it from the one in the body stocking last night. For a moment I forget my manners and just want to look at her. I imagine peeling that disgusting uniform off her, very slowly.

  “You mentioned an opportunity,” she says, pulling me out of my reverie.

  “Yes, an audition that might be right for you.” I can't talk to her about the kind of opportunity I really want to explore with her. It's much too soon for that. The girl standing in front of me looks like she might run for the hills or slap me if I broached the subject. She holds her head high but it feels like her courage is forced.

  She is no Vix, brash burlesque artiste, nothing like her stage persona allowing the crowd to follow every movement of her almost naked body. It's as if she took off the artist's shell of glitter and make-up and there's this girl underneath, pure and wholesome, less show and more substance. Yet, gut instinct tells me there's a quiet confidence there as if she doesn't suffer fools gladly. For some reason I’m determined she will think well of me and not judge me on the side of the fools.

  “An audition?” she says. I haven't given her much to go on to be fair.

  “For a movie coming up. It's set in a dance studio. After I saw you dance, I wanted to see if you might be suitable. The auditions are on Thursday next week at the Applewood studios in Windsor.”

  “Applewood!”

  “Yes, I assume you've heard of them?”

  “Of course.”

  “Have you any acting experience Miss Bronson?”

  “Only in high school.”

  “Here?”

  “No in the states.”

  “You're American?”

  “On my father's side. I lived in New York until I was fourteen. My mother is English.”

  “How good were you at acting in school?”

  “Okay, I think but dancing was my thing, not acting.”

  “You seem very different from your stage persona. Aren't you acting in a way every night you perform?”

  I can see her thinking about that.

  “Vix is an act, yes.”

  I want to ask how being tied in the ribbons makes her feel, how she likes showing off her body to the crowd but I hold back. “She's not part of you?”

  She blushes then. “We're very different.”

  “Are you sure of that? Perhaps you just haven't found the Vix in you yet?”

  “I'm not looking for her,” she says. “I'm just doing a job.”

  But I can see I have her rattled.

  “What kind of movie is it?” she asks.

  “A suspense drama with romance.” When I tell her the writer and director, she gasps. Both are well-known in the arts world, though not household names. It's a low budget movie, a passion project for the director and writer but I think it could work out very well from what I've heard.

  “Don't worry, I'll make sure you're prepared for the audition, if I decide to put you forward. I wouldn't send anyone to an audition who I didn't think was perfect for a role.”

  This is where the wannabes often get that look and say “What can I do to help make up your mind” or something to that effect, but she doesn't. For some reason that makes me feel warm inside.

  “And the role?”

  “The leading female love interest, a dance teacher who's in danger from a stalker. Have you ever been stalked?”

  “No.”

  I resist the urge to tell her I followed her to the club and about the background checks I have had done on her since. She has no obvious skeletons in the closet. And no topless dancing at the Burlesque show to worry about. Thank the fuck for that.

  “Ever been in love?” I ask, holding my breath for her answer, hoping there's no one on the scene now.

  She has to think about that and then she says “No” quietly as if she only just realized it's something she hasn't experienced and it upsets her. I want to tell her she's better off without it. I've seen what loving someone can do first hand. It's not always pretty.

  “But you can imagine, right? You can imagine what it's like to be either or even both of those things?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  She doesn't say much but her voice is as polished as her dancing. So many fall at that hurdle—just one of the things I had to check before I put her forward. Her voice on the phone was smooth and warm, sexy not squeaky and it's just as enticing in person. A grating voice would have been the ultimate disappointment.

  “If you sign up with this agency that means the end to your burlesque work. Do you have an agent?”

  “Just my manager Jimmy, he owns the Tempest, but sometimes he finds other venues for me too.”

  “Are you under contract?”

  “Nothing official.”

  “Good. I suggest you look over the contract with my agency I have had drawn up for you and if you decide to sign, you let your manager know right away you won't be working for him. No more burlesq
ue, Miss Bronson.”

  “There's a show tonight. I can't just let everyone down.”

  “Your professionalism is admirable, but if you do that show, all bets are off. I need to know you're serious. Can I have your assurance on that score?”

  CHAPTER 6

  Victoria

  “If those are the terms then yes. But my manager is not going to be happy.” It looks as if I have no choice but to agree to whatever contract I'm supposed to sign if I want the agency to represent me. I dread to think how the conversation will go when I tell Jimmy.

  Ashton Lynch calls his assistant Sofia to bring the contract.

  He guides me over to the group of chairs in one corner of his vast office, his hand on my back, causing a tingle through the fabric of my uniform. I imagine his fingers on my bare skin instead and have to stop myself from getting carried away with that thought. This is strictly business for him.

  The place is palatial. Who else has a palm tree oasis growing in their office in London? It makes me want to laugh but I suppress the urge. I don't think laughing at his office would go down well and I don't want to get on the wrong side of him at the start. Not when he has my career in his hands.

  While I read the contract, he works at his desk though I catch his eyes on me more than once and quickly look away, his gaze unnerving me, yet his eyes are such a deep shade of blue it's difficult not to be drawn to them.

  “You might want to get your lawyer to look at the contract before you sign,” he says after I've read a few pages. “But you'll need to get back to me by tomorrow at the latest for me to set up the audition.”

  It's just as well the contract is in plain English rather than unintelligible legalese and printed in normal sized writing on thick paper. (Does the man have shares in a quality stationery store or something?) I have no money for lawyers and I'm well aware Ashton Lynch holds all the cards. At least, I understand the terms enough to know there's nothing underhand or sneaky in there before I sign.

  ***