Mr. Big: A Billionaire Romance (2 page)

Mia’s eyes lifted to look into Ava’s. She set her glass of wine down. “No, I’m not.”

“Would you mind if I do?” Ava asked, tucking her chin and grinning wickedly, but just a little.

Mia shook her head and smiled back, pulling her phone out of her bag. “Not at all honey, here’s his number. Call him. He’d love to take you to bed and spoil you a bit.” She set her phone down and Ava copied Will Carter’s contact information out of Mia’s phone.

“How did I meet him?” she asked curiously as she typed.

Mia narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. “Let’s see… We will say that you met him at the Foster’s yacht party. He was pretty well hammered at that one, at least from what I heard, so he wouldn’t know if he had met you or not, or given you his number.”

Ava mumbled quietly as she typed on her phone. “Foster’s yacht party. When was that?”

“Two weeks ago.” Mia answered.

“Lovely!” Ava grinned, handing her phone back to her. “I can’t wait to see him again.” She winked at Mia and Mia laughed softly at her.

“So,” Maddie looked around at them with an anticipatory light in her eyes and smile on her face, “I’m up for a promotion. My boss is considering making me a VP. There are two other people up for the spot, but I have it on good authority that it will be me. Here’s hoping!” she said, raising her glass, and the other three lifted their glasses to meet hers and encourage her onward.

“Good luck!” they chorused happily.

Liam leaned toward her slightly. “How long until you know? I can’t stand waiting. I’m so bad about being patient. I love instant gratification, and having to wait can be delicious, but it just drives me crazy.” He laughed.  “I can’t imagine how hard it would be to have to be you and waiting, Maddie.”

Madeline laughed back a bit. “I know… it’s difficult for me to wait as well, but I’m going to have to. I think they’re making the decision in a month.”

Liam’s mouth fell open, as did Mia’s. “A month?” they exclaimed. Ava was smiling at an older gentleman who was seated a few tables away from them, giving her a friendly eye. She turned back to her friends suddenly and grinned.

“What are we waiting a month for?” she asked with wide eyes.

Maddie tipped her head to the side and sighed. “I’m waiting a month to see if I will be promoted to VP, you’re all waiting a month to hear whether or not it happens.”

“Well good luck!” Ava said, lifting her chin happily. “I know you’ll get it. You’re the smartest woman I know, and that’s saying something!”

Maddie blushed a little and smiled, looking down at her martini. “Thanks, Ava.”

Mia looked at Liam. “So what about you, Liam, what or who have you been up to this week?”

Liam grinned and looked around at them as if he was hiding a national secret that he was about to share with them. “Well, I’ve been up to a little mischief. You remember that designer I met at the spring fashion fling party I went to?” he asked with a gleam in his eye.

Ava leaned in closer to the table, her eyes locked on him. She loved fashion as much as he did, though their tastes and styles varied somewhat. “Wait, was this the guy from London?”

Liam nodded knowingly. “Yes,” he gushed happily and looked up at the ceiling, grinning and breathing deeply for a moment to calm himself before he looked back at the ladies around him. “Well, you know how I thought he was indifferent to me, and how I was just sure that he wasn’t going to even remember me?”

The ladies nodded back. “Yes!” they said almost in unison.

“Well, it turns out that he’s just very shy, and he liked me quite a bit. He said I have ‘exquisite taste’ and he had his assistant move heaven and earth to find me so he could ask me out for cocktails. We met up last Tuesday night.” He blushed a little and swooned, and the ladies laughed. “We had a very good night… My god, the man is built like a Greek god, and he almost burned my sheets off of the bed, he’s such a good lover. Then we had a good time last night, and he stayed over again… Woo! Honies… I just can’t even begin to tell you. I thought it wouldn’t be as good the second time. It was so much better!”

He looked at each of them pointedly. “Word to the wise with a shy lover, you have to break them in. Once they get comfortable with you, the sky is the limit. My god. I don’t think I’m ever going to be the same again!” he blushed and giggled, and all three of the ladies giggled at his naughtiness again with him as Mia reached an arm around his shoulders and hugged him from the side.

“That’s our Liam. Hot and lucky!” she winked at him and he nodded and winked back.

He turned to look at Ava. “Here’s hoping our blondie gets hot and lucky with Mr. Carter.” Then he turned to look at Maddie. “What about you? Who have you been after this week, you little vamp?”

Maddie smiled slyly and winked at him. “You know me so well.” She was straight laced when it came to business, but outside of her career she was hotter than a volcano, and she had almost no inhibitions or barriers to speak of.

She leaned in close to them all, her gaze meeting each of theirs in turn. “I was meeting one of my clients for business and he had another meeting going on when I showed up. The hottie in the other meeting stayed around to meet me and we wound up going out for cocktails, and then we wound up going to his place. He was the most fun I’ve had in weeks. You might have heard of him. Ryan Browning? He was a handful, but he was a hot, good time.”

Ava stared at her. “Wait, doesn’t he own Browning, Keller, and Mason?”

Maddie grinned slowly and nodded. “Yes. We went over his briefs with meticulous attention. The man has got a tongue that will take you to another world. I may have to go out with him a few more times before I let him go.”

All of them giggled and she raised her eyebrows at them naughtily and popped the olive from her martini into her mouth.

They talked a while longer, their conversation moving from men and sex to business, fashion, and family. After enjoying a light dinner, they said goodbye to each other and went on their ways. Mia caught a cab again, and took it to her apartment several floors up in a high rise that overlooked Central Park.

Closing her front door behind her, she leaned against it for a moment and sighed, leaving the day behind her as she looked around her living room and felt her body relax in the sanctuary of her home. A long sigh escaped her and she pushed herself from the door and stepped forward into the room. Mia strode the length of the living room and pulled her heels off along the way, sinking down into the sofa beside the floor to ceiling window that overlooked the teeming city below. She looked up at the shelf beside the window, her gaze drifting over the series of framed photographs there. They were all different sizes and shapes, each one of them holding a memory or a person precious to her.

She paused at the image of her older sister sitting in the grass at a park, holding her younger daughter while her two-year-old son played happily beside her. Serena was happy living in the country with her husband and two children. She loved a simple life, focused on family and peace.

She was so different from Mia. Mia craved the fast paced beat of the city and a life centered in the thriving heart of near chaos. She loved all the buildings, the stores, the business that she did, and the knowledge that at any time she could walk out of her door and something would be going on somewhere. It was never a dull moment. No quiet family life for her, and she preferred it that way. Serena and she had come to terms with their differences years before, and had cherished those differences in each other, staying close as their shared days of childhood faded away and they grew into adulthood.

Mia was grateful that they hadn’t grown apart while growing older. She knew she had a friend and a confidant in her sister; one that she would have all of her life, and she wouldn’t have traded Serena with all her differences for anything or anyone in the world. She loved having a niece and nephew, especially since they were likely to be the only children she would have in her life. She had no interest in having her own children, and being able to spoil her sister’s kids was an indulgent delight of hers.

She wasn’t even sure she wanted a permanent or serious relationship in her life. She was so busy having fun, making memories with her friends and making money, that she had no real interest in anything long term with any man she knew, and that suited her just fine. Her friends; Liam, Ava, and Maddie, all felt the same as she did, although she suspected that Ava would want to settle down someday, no matter how much she played around with men until that day came. She seemed to have such a romantic side that settling down with some great man at the end of her wild days would be the perfect scenario for her, although Mia would never say it to her.

Maddie was too independent, strong-willed, and adventurous to settle down. Mia could see her spending her life making money and traveling the world, taking lovers as she went and leaving them behind when it was time to go. She could see Maddie keeping her friends close, but no one else. Liam wasn’t much different; changing lovers often and enjoying his free lifestyle, but that seemed like a typical standard for the gay men in his circle of friends. None of them were really the marrying kind.

Mia looked at the photograph of her parents. Her father was holding her mother with his arm wrapped around her at his side. They were smiling pleasantly. She had always remembered them as happy, before he passed away. Her mother lived in a retirement community, and spent all her time with her friends there, or visiting Serena and the kids.

Her parents had enjoyed a long and loving marriage, and Mia knew that Serena would as well. Sometimes she wondered if she might be doing things wrong or outside of her family’s expectations, although they accepted her lifestyle with no judgment and no argument. As a younger woman, she wondered if she would meet a man she would want to spend the rest of her life with, but she had met so many of them over the years that she had come to realize that there couldn’t be one she would want to spend all of her life with. She liked too many different things about too many different men, and there had never been a single man who had all of the qualities she admired most. She was certain that she would never fall in love deeply, and that forever with one love was not in her future, and the realization of that gave her a peace of sorts. She knew it, and she took comfort in it. She, like Maddie, loved living her life on her own. It was her comfort zone, and nothing and no one would ever change that.

*

Sunlight filtered in through the light blinds in Mia’s bedroom and she saw the light in her dreams just before she awoke and opened her eyes. She curled her arms up over her head and lengthened them, arching her back and pointing her toes, pushing out the stiffness of sleep.

Pushing herself from the bed, she walked to the shower and twisted the knob in it, sending a thick spray of hot water downward, and billowing steam upward. She pulled her nightgown off and hung it on the back of the bathroom door and moments later she was standing with eyes closed as streams of hot water coursed over her dark body. She pushed her face up toward the showerhead and felt it wash away the dreams and sleep from the night before.

Mia thought better in the shower than she did anywhere else. It was quiet; there were no distractions, there were no noises, there was nothing tugging at her attention and she was able to let her mind wander over all that she had saved up to think about later. She had a meeting that morning with a new client. Logan Parker had been referred to her and she had agreed to an initial meeting with him at his office. She was always glad to get new clients if they were good clients. She pursed her lips in frustration for a moment over Will Carter. She would have to take on at least two new clients to be able to compensate for dumping him from her clientele, but she was seriously considering it.

By the time she patted her body dry with a thick yellow towel, she was smiling and ready for the day to bring her whatever good it would. She readied herself, pulling her hair up into a twist once more. She felt it was best to look professional for her clients, especially new ones. Fingering the hangers in her closet, she moved her hand over several outfits until she came to a light lavender dress that bespoke spring and femininity as well as professionalism. Slipping it on, she paired it with a white jacket and heels with a silver necklace, and gave herself a cursory glance in the mirror. Smiling, she picked up her bag and headed out the door.

Forty minutes later, she was stepping out of the elevator at Logan’s office. She glanced around at the natural wood and clear glass design of the reception room, and immediately liked the warm and welcoming feel that it gave her. There were potted plants set around in subtle places, giving the area a much more natural feel.

Mia walked up to the reception desk and announced herself. She was surprised to see a young man at the desk rather than a woman of any age. It was rare to find a male receptionist. He was polite, offering her coffee while she waited to see Logan. She declined his offer and sat in one of the deeply-cushioned chairs. It was obvious that if Logan had anything to do with the design of his office, he had good taste as well as money, and that was a combination she felt she didn’t find as often as she would have liked to.

She wasn’t waiting long. Five minutes after she sat down, a tall, well-built man strode out from the hallway and walked to her, greeting her with a smile and a handshake as she rose up from her chair. His blond hair was cut short and his clean-shaven face was more than nice to look at, with evenly placed features and soft brown eyes shining down at her from his six foot height. She smiled up at him as he spoke her name in his deep voice.