Bound by the Billionaire Read online

  Just then the captain came through the door inside. “Excuse me, sir. We’re heading into a slight storm ahead. I advise that we head back to shore.”

  “Yes, that’s fine.”

  They finished dinner as the yacht headed back to the city. Robert stood up after they finished their dessert of panna cotta and strawberries.

  “I wanted to show you something.”

  Kim followed him back to the passage where the bedrooms were, and he opened the door at the end. From earlier she knew it was his bedroom. She hoped he hadn’t assumed that they would be having sex, but she entered the room anyway. He left the door open behind him, and that made her feel better.

  Kim sat down on the recliner near the windows looking out on the lake, which had become much rougher than it had been earlier. Robert took something from the drawer and handed it to her.

  “It’s the painting!” she said. “It’s amazing up close. Sonya told me you bought it.”

  “Yes… and stole it too.”

  “You stole your own painting? What kind of person does that?” Kim laughed out loud at how ridiculous that was.

  “A confused person, I guess. Like I said, I was looking for excitement.” He smiled at her. “Little did I know I would find it in a janitor’s closet.”

  They both laughed at that.

  Kim couldn’t take her eyes off the painting. Robert sat on the edge of the chair, watching her. “She looks a bit like you.”

  Kim laughed. “Do you think so?”

  “Yes, even at the opening when I saw you I thought that.”

  “Is that why you came over to me?”

  “Maybe. You’re not so caught up in all of the games like those rich women, occupied with looking beautiful, trips overseas, their next Botox appointment. You were different, I could see that, more natural and real. Not worried about money. ”

  Kim wasn’t sure how to take that. He didn’t know she worried about money nearly every minute of the day. Yes, she was poor. Her parents were working-class, and she was too. Was that why Robert was attracted to her? Was that any better than the people who crowded around him because of his money? Was she just going to be one of his many artefacts, to own because she was so strange and different—the poor working-class woman—to put on show at his apartment in London for his rich friends to ogle over?

  She looked around the impressive bedroom. Everywhere she laid her eyes, she saw fittings and bedding and artwork that she and her mother would never afford in a million years. This was no place for her. What was she doing here? Suddenly she felt awful. She felt out of place and used in some way she could not quite define. She needed to leave.

  She stood up and handed the painting to Robert. “I… I think I left my scarf up on the deck. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  He stood to put the painting away, and Kim dashed out the door and up the stairs. The boat had just docked, and the deckhand was tying the yacht to the moorings. The steps were not yet in place, but with a short leap, Kim was on the pier. She ran down its length and then through the buildings of the private yacht club. There was a guard at the gate, but he opened it for her and she continued running back into the city. She found a cab and made her way home—home, the place she was meant to be, not on some fancy yacht owned by a man who saw her as little more than an interesting anomaly, not a real woman, not someone he could respect as an equal, because she could never be his equal. Ever. They could never be together. Kim would not put herself in another situation like that again.

  Chapter 9

  Robert put the painting back in the drawer and then went to the window and looked out at the lake. Though this room was looking out on the far side, he knew they must be back at the city as the boat was still except for the slight rocking from the increasingly rough water.

  He waited for Kim, but she seemed to be taking a long time. Perhaps her scarf blew overboard. He would buy her a new one. He would buy her anything she wanted. He was taken by her; he knew this even more so after this evening. He needed her in his life.

  He decided to go and look for her. He went up on deck and to the back where they had eaten dinner, but she was not there. He searched the upper deck, and she was not there either. He found Debra with the chef discussing the menu for a party on the yacht the next week.

  “Debra, did you see where Ms. Davidson went?” Robert asked her.

  “Ms. Davidson? Yes, sir, she disembarked. I thought you knew.”

  “She left?” he asked, confused.

  “Yes, sir. Can I be of any assistance?”

  Robert rushed out to the pier without answering, but Kim was nowhere. He called her cell phone, but it rang unanswered. What had happened? He went back to his bedroom. What had he said to upset her so much to make her leave?

  Robert lay back on his bed. He had thought they might spend the night together. Nothing crazy like what happened in the closet, but just being together. Slowly getting to know each other. Now he was alone. He knew he was messed up, so messed up he couldn’t even see clearly what he had done to chase Kim away. He was so used to people accepting all of his bad behavior, he didn’t know when he was saying or doing inappropriate things anymore. The women he’d been with in the past asked nothing of him. They didn’t care if he called them back after sex, if he saw other women—in fact, many expected it. They held him to no standards. They wanted to be with him and be around his lifestyle, and nothing else mattered. He’d done terrible things in the past, things he regretted now. He’d be drunk from breakfast, taking one woman on his jet to LA for a concert, having sex on the plane on the way. Once there, he’d drop her for a different woman, giving the first one a commercial flight ticket home, and instead fly back with the new woman on his plane. The new woman would hang around for a few days of partying and sex, and then she’d be gone too, replaced by another and another and yet another. None of them cared what he said to them. They probably didn’t even listen to him.

  When his parents were alive he understood things. They taught him right from wrong like all parents did. He never wanted to disappoint them, and so he always tried to do the right thing. But the randomness of the plane crash seemed to make the entire world and the fraught lives we lived seem futile. When Robert lost his parents, he seemed to have lost his humanity too. The crash had broken him.

  Now, when he met this amazing, upright woman, he couldn’t even remember how to be respectful and humane. He felt sick he had said something that upset Kim. That she was somewhere thinking him horrible and ill-mannered. He wanted her only to think of him in good terms. The crazy, uselessness of his current life had mixed him up completely.

  All of that was what led him to the other night, the stealing of the painting. Even he thought it was stupid madness. It was as if since Kim came into his life, he could only now see things properly—see them for what they truly were. His life before was meaningless. He valued the wrong things, spent his time on useless activities. Wasted his parents’ money as if the hard work they used to earn it was nothing. Kim reminded him of how decent people thought and behaved, and reminded him of what his parents had tried to instill in him.

  Robert thought back to his parents. They both came from modest backgrounds. His father went to university for business, and his mother was a music teacher. They met on the subway in New York where they both grew up. They married and started a business selling pianos. It was successful and they bought a hotel, which became four and then a chain. They both worked in the businesses. They were honest, hardworking people. They had integrity and always treated people fairly and with respect. And they loved each other deeply.

  They had been married over twenty years, but when they walked together they still held hands. Whenever one of them went away and returned, the other stood to kiss the returnee; it was so obvious they missed each other when they were apart. They always respected each other. When one talked, the other one paid absolute attention to what was being said. They each thought the other one was the best person in the wor
ld in every way.

  Could Robert ever find that sort of love? He knew he’d never find it with the women that he normally dated. He thought he’d never find it at all, and that had broken his heart in a way on the day some months ago when he accepted that the love his parents had had for each other, that amazing sort of relationship, would never be his. But something about Kim ignited a new hope in him.

  When she spoke about the importance of being a mother, of raising her son to be a good man, something opened in his heart. Kim knew the things that his parents knew and she practiced them. She could separate the important bits of life from the unimportant. He wanted her to teach him those lessons again, the lessons his parents had tried so hard for him to learn. He wanted to be a good person, a person of integrity, a person who gave and deserved respect not because of his bank balance, but because of the man that he was.

  He had such a strong sexual attraction to Kim, but it was more than that. Now he had been stupid in some way, had offended her somehow, and he felt awful about that. He would make it up to her. He would try better. He would try to be as good a person as she was. He only hoped she would give him another chance.

  Chapter 10

  “Kim, how about a refill?” Mr. Washington said from the counter. Kim took the coffeepot over and filled his cup. He was a regular at Joe’s, and Kim was always happy to see him when he came in during his lunch break from the meatpacking plant across the road. That was Joe’s clientele: meatpackers and cops.

  “What’s a pretty girl like you working in a dump like this for, Kimmy? You need to get you a fancy-girl job downtown, where you can wear those short skirts and pantyhose, a pair of shiny high heels,” Mr. Washington joked.

  “You know I don’t like high heels, Mr. Washington,” Kim teased.

  “No woman likes high heels; it’s us men who like you in them.” They both laughed at that.

  Kim checked the clock. An hour more and she’d be off. If she caught the train in time, she might to be able to get home for two hours and spend some time with Derek before heading off to the gallery for the night shift.

  It had been two weeks since the dinner on the yacht with Robert. For about a week, he kept calling her cell phone, but she never answered. She feared he’d come into gallery, but he never had. He disappeared from her life just like she had wanted him to do. That was all a bit of nonsense, she thought now, a dream that would never come true. Kim had learned dreams were made-up things; real life was never like that. She needed to forget about all of it. She needed to forget about Robert. She needed to concentrate on what was important, taking care of Derek and her mother. Those two were what was important. Dreaming about fairy-tale lives on yachts, eating shrimp, and drinking champagne in limousines was not what a sensible woman like her wasted her time on. With the three jobs, things were looking up. She just needed to keep her head down and stay on task.

  Sometimes, though, when she was alone, she remembered the feelings she had when she was with Robert. She remembered what happened in the janitor’s closet, how alive she had felt. How had she run away from something like that? She doubted she would ever feel like that again with another man. How could she walk away from that? But she knew for her sake and her son’s sake she had to. Robert was too different from her, and when she was with him, she became too different from herself as well, which was frightening. Robert would never understand her life and what was important to her, and that meant they could never be together.

  ***

  She sat with Derek as he “read” her his favorite book. Her mother had read it to him so many times that with the help of the illustrations he was able to appear as if he was reading, but he really had only memorized the story. The book was about a naughty monkey who got up to all sorts of mischief—mischief Derek found inexplicably hilarious.

  “Look now, Mommy, what Bonzo is going to do. He’s riding on the elephant. Look how angry she is.” He laughed. “Bonzo is crazy.”

  “I’d be angry too if someone jumped on my back,” Kim said.

  “Me too. Bonzo is so naughty.”

  Kim didn’t like having to leave Derek, but she’d be late for her cleaning job if she didn’t leave now, right in the middle of Bonzo’s funniest part. “I’m sorry, honey, we’re going to have to finish Bonzo’s story later. I need to leave for work.”

  “You’re always at work. Teddy’s mother stays home with him. Why can’t you stay home with me?”

  “I wish I could, D. But your mother has to work. You always have Granny,” Kim said.

  “But I want you to stay. I want you to hear me read the rest of Bonzo.” Derek began to cry.

  Kim’s mother came over and picked him up, and he cried into her shoulder. “You know what, D, how about you help Granny make some bread? Would you like that?” she asked.

  Derek nodded his head against Kim’s mother’s shoulder. Her mother indicated that Kim should just slip away while Derek was distracted with the bread making. She grabbed her purse and slipped out the door without saying goodbye. As she walked to the bus stop, she couldn’t stop the tears from coming. She felt like a failure as a mother, and that was the only thing that really mattered to her, so she guessed that meant she was a failure at everything.

  ***

  “Hey, sexy,” Frank said when she arrived.

  “Hey, Frank. What are you doing there?” Kim asked as she arrived at Rive Gauche.

  Frank held up a tablet. “My wife bought me this. It was my birthday on the weekend. My son put a football game in there. I’m the coach for the Chicago Bears today. How about that?”

  Kim smiled. “Good luck with that. Maybe they’ll win the Super Bowl this year.”

  “With me as their coach, it’s a sure thing.”

  Kim collected the vacuum cleaner and got to work on the floors. Something about the rhythmic routine of cleaning calmed her troubled mind. The putting things back to right was satisfying too. She finished the three floors, emptying the garbage at the back dumpster. It was a lovely night; it reminded her of that time on the yacht. The air was calm and warm after the stuffy hotness of the day. She stood a bit. She was feeling better. She knew Derek didn’t mean what he said; he didn’t understand how things were. He would when he was a bit older. He would see she was never leaving him—she was going to work, going to work for them, but always returned to him again.

  Kim went back inside to collect the cleaning cart for the bathrooms. She got inside the janitor’s closet and started loading up the cart with all of the things she would need, but then she heard a noise and looked to the back of the closet to find Robert standing there.

  “I… I needed to see you,” he said. “You won’t answer my calls.”

  “Yes.” What could Kim say? She didn’t feel right in his world? She felt unstable being back in the same place where everything had started. She suddenly didn’t trust herself.

  “Whatever I did, I’m sorry,” Robert said. “I think about you constantly.”

  “It can’t work, Robert, can’t you see that? We’re too different. Our lives are too different. The way we think about the world is too different.”

  “No, I can’t accept that. On the surface maybe, but for what matters? The real things? No. Don’t you remember that first night at the party? The gallery was full of paintings, all sorts of gorgeous canvases, but you chose my painting, the one I’d already bought, as your favorite. And you explained why you loved it, and it was exactly why I loved it too. You see? We have things in common, the things that are important.”

  “Yes, perhaps, but I told you, I can’t have a man in my life now. I need to be a mother to my son, and I don’t even seem to have enough time to do that properly anymore.”

  Robert came closer to her. He pulled her to him and kissed her passionately. Her words left her, and her reasons for saying no seemed to not be reasons at all. His kiss already set her body on fire.

  “God! Can’t you feel that?” Robert asked. You must be feeling that too.”

&
nbsp; “Of course I can—you know I can. That’s part of the problem.”

  “You know, that night on the yacht, I felt like Prince Charming. I felt like you were Cinderella suddenly needing to flee before your ball gown turned to a simple dress and your horses to mice. Are you my Cinderella? Can I be your Prince Charming?”

  Kim kissed him and couldn’t believe what she was hearing herself say. “Yes,” she whispered in his ear.

  He pushed her to the back of the closet. It was as if a storm had suddenly grown between them, something uncontrollable, something that would happen no matter who tried to stop it. He pulled her to him.

  They were desperate for each other. Robert tore at her blouse, pulling her breasts from her bra. His warm, wet mouth on her nipples drove her crazy. His tongue flicked back and forth, sending sparks everywhere around her body. She wanted him. She had to have him no matter what her brain told her.

  She felt him hard against her, and she rubbed her hand along the length of his cock still in his pants. He groaned with pleasure. She slipped her hand inside and cupped his balls, massaging them as her other hand rubbed his perfect cock up and down. Robert moaned against her. He kissed and bit at her neck, cupping her ass in his hands and pushing him into her.

  But then he stopped. He reached to one of the shelves and pulled a cloth down. He tore a strip off and grabbed Kim’s hands, pulling them behind her back and tying them there. She allowed him to do it because it was what she wanted too. That first magical time had showed her what it could do to her, and she wanted it. She’d wanted it again ever since the last time had finished.

  He kissed her roughly and moaned against her. He kissed and bit at her neck, her ears, her breasts. He was untamed, uncontrollable. The bounding had changed him, had changed her. They were unhinged with untapped ferocity. She willed him to dominate her completely. Only then would she feel what she yearned for.

  He yanked her jeans down and reached under her panties. His fingers slipped smoothly over her clit and into her wetness, his fingers deep and probing, searching for the spot to release her. Her first orgasm was quick and sharp, and she groaned into his neck as it went through her body, rocking her back and forth into his hand. Her wetness spread over his fingers, and they slid in and out, prolonging her ecstasy. He kneeled down and sucked her pussy into his mouth, and she came again, gripping him with her strong thighs. He devoured her and she rocked against him.