Closer Read online

  She smirked at the thought of herself in a ballet tutu. “Art history.”

  “Ah, yes…your knowledge of Mies van der Rohe and the fact that you visited a somewhat obscure architectural exhibit at the Art Institute. I should have gotten that one. An oversight on my part.”

  “Next time, Billions,” she sassed back.

  It just came out. She couldn’t help it. She didn’t want the job—whatever the hell it was—so at this point, she was free to insult him as much as she thought she could get away with.

  “And so, you don’t need tuition money because Northwestern gave you a free ride to study whatever you wanted, so where does that leave us?” He tapped his fingers along the sleek surface of his desk. “Credit card debt? However, you sound far too exacting to have frivolously gotten into credit card debt. Wedding?”

  She snorted, then covered her nose and tried hard to compose herself.

  “Ahhh, I see,” he replied. “No boyfriend.”

  He registered her silence with a smug smile.

  “Maybe I just need a job, like everyone else.”

  “I’m sure that’s true.” He smiled, like he finally had figured her out.

  “You’re kinda into acting like Hercule Poirot, aren’t you? You’ve even got the same quirky accent.”

  “Poirot was Belgian. I’m Dutch.”

  “Ah, I assumed German.”

  He huffed, like she had finally succeeded in insulting him. “Hercule Poirot—that’s another unusually obscure reference for a young woman of your age. Agatha Christie isn’t something most girls read widely anymore.”

  “Maybe I’m older than you think.” Inez shifted in her seat. He hadn’t moved his gaze from her face since she sat down in his two hundred thousand dollar Barcelona chair.

  “You’re twenty-seven. Perhaps twenty-eight,” he replied.

  “You’re good,” she conceded.

  He nodded and continued with his interrogation. “What are your table manners like?”

  “I generally try to eat with my hands as much as possible.”

  He ignored her. It unnerved her.

  “What about your cursing?”

  “My what?” For a moment, she was certain she misunderstood the lilt in his accent.

  “Cursing,” he repeated. “Right now, you’re on your best behavior because this is an interview. But in your real life, how much do you curse?”

  “Never.”

  He shifted his unpatched eye onto her. They both knew it was a lie.

  “Okay, a whole fuck load.” It was the first honest thing she had said all interview.

  “Yes, that’s more likely the truth,” he mused. “And what about your posture?”

  “Worse than Quasimodo.”

  “That will have to change.”

  Inez started to sit straighter in her seat, and then realized she wanted to do the exact opposite of what he wanted. A whole fuck load of opposite.

  “First tell me whether or not I’ve got the job.”

  He fell silent and leaned back in his chair. “I’m not sure.”

  “About what?”

  “About you.”

  “Yes, I got that, but which part?”

  “Well…you’re clearly verbal.”

  “Geez, thanks.”

  “And sufficiently intelligent. Certainly smarter than the last five girls that the agency sent me.”

  “Somehow, I doubt that’s saying much.”

  “But you’re sarcastic.”

  “Can’t handle it?”

  He stared her down. “Sarcasm is a sign of weakness.”

  “I like to think of it as my best asset.”

  “It means you don’t have the confidence to say what you honestly think.”

  “Trust me,” she insisted. “Get me going, and I’ll be more than happy to tell you.”

  He leaned into the edge of his desk and folded his hands across its gleaming surface. “And you’re a bit too cocky and I’m not sure why.”

  Inez tempered her urge to smile and slouched deeper into her seat—her two hundred thousand dollar chair. “Because I know whatever this job is…whatever weird fetish office tasks you need me to perform, like balancing your coffee mug on my head because you like watching me take orders, or taking dictation while you’re getting your nose hairs trimmed, or reading aloud pages and pages of painfully boring legal memos while you ignore me and then ask me to re-read them again, but this time, in Pig Latin, I know I can do it. I can do any of it.”

  “I need you to pretend to be my girlfriend,” he said flatly.

  Busted. Inez felt her sassiness slide off her face.

  “Yes, I’m not sure you’re up for it either,” he confirmed.

  As a general rule, Inez never let anyone tell her they didn’t think she could do something without serious ramifications. But this time, she had to admit it: Billions had pegged her.

  “On the other hand, you may have a certain…potential.” His unpatched eye scanned the details of her face.

  “You mean I’m not ugly.”

  He reclined in his chair. It was exactly what he meant; she didn’t need him to confirm it.

  “You realize it’s kind of illegal,” she said.

  “Hiring you to pretend to be my girlfriend?” The suggestion caught him off-guard.

  “Yeah, it’s kinda an awkward form of prostitution.”

  Billions laughed and swiveled in his chair.

  “Don’t worry. I don’t want to fuck you. You’re far too opinionated for my tastes. I prefer women who—”

  “Have one brain cell?”

  His mouth spread into a sly smile. “Talk less and obey more.”

  “Sorry for them.”

  Billions eyed her, silently, gauging whether or not to proceed. It was a familiar moment during all her interviews—the moment when the man across the desk was sizing her up, calculating whether or not he wanted to hire her to be his whipping girl, and whether or not she would happily go along with it.

  “So why would you need me to pretend to be your girlfriend, anyway?” It seemed like the most natural question in their whole interview.

  “Because the fact of the matter is… I’m losing my sight.”

  She glanced at his eyepatch. It wasn’t a masterful revelation, Billions. “Well, you are wearing a pirate patch.”

  “You’re right,” he acknowledged. “That’s an obvious confession. I’ve already lost my sight—in my left eye, my pirate eye,” he clarified with subtle amusement. “The eye beneath my patch has nearly zero vision. I can register shades of light, but not much else, so I wear this patch to cut out all light and reduce all distractions. It helps me focus all my attention on my right eye—my good eye—good being highly subjective because ‘good’ implies a relatively high level of functionality. And unfortunately for me, that is not the case at this point in my life.”

  “But you knew I wasn’t wearing heels?”

  “Because I heard how quietly you crossed the room. All the other girls clicked like exotic dancers. You were silent like a mouse.”

  “Or a ninja.”

  He relaxed in his seat. “Preparing for my execution,” he confirmed, almost charmed. “Now, the problem is that I’m fighting a deadline. I’m losing my sight in a way that I never expected. I can see you now, but not very well. I can see that you’re young, younger than me by almost ten years. I can see that you have long black hair and red lips. I can make out that you’re fairly well-dressed. Conservative, like an uptight Northwestern graduate, but still well-dressed. But I can’t see much else, although I did make out the way you scowled at me when I confessed I didn’t want to fuck you.”

  “Indigestion,” she countered.

  “Of course.” He confirmed with a nod, betraying a hint of amusement. Then, he hesitated, the first time the entire interview. “But the reality of the situation is that the doctors cannot tell me my fate. They cannot explain why I am losing my sight in my right eye. Unlike my left eye, it was not damaged
in the…incident. And so, they tell me it is a problem with the way that my brain is receiving the optical image—or rather, choosing not to receive it. I could fully regain my sight tomorrow or I could awake and find myself completely blind. And while everyone knows that I’m sightless in my left eye, no one suspects that I’m losing my vision in my right eye as well. I’m an architect. My sight and my ability to design buildings are paramount to both my career and my reputation. Complete blindness is not something I can endure without severe consequences. I’ve become quite proficient at maintaining this extraordinary charade, but now I must admit that I need…” he paused and hesitated again.

  “A seeing eye dog.”

  “Yes.”

  “Basically a really attractive, but capable bitch.”

  He nodded. “Crudely put, but yes.”

  Inez peered down at his hand. No ring. “Why can’t you just get your real girlfriend to help you?”

  The expression on his face hardened like stone. “You have your reasons for interviewing for the job, and I have my own reason for offering it. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  She had dug into him so many times before, but this time was different. This time was the first time that Billions betrayed discomfort. “This is all kind of weird…you know that, right?”

  “Unfortunately, I do. We will have to work as a team. I’ll have to…depend on you. And I’m not used to that dynamic in my life. I’m used to being the boss and getting exactly what I want whenever I want it.”

  “Boy, you really know how to sell a job, don’t you?”

  He paused, underscoring the gravity of the situation with the intensity of his gaze. “I am willing to pay five thousand dollars a day for the next four days, including the opening night gala of The Spire. It’s one of the most important buildings of my career and one of the most important new additions to Chicago’s cityscape.”

  “The Spire?” Inez heard the question escape from her lips.

  “Yes,” he confirmed.

  “Are you telling me you’re Sven van der Meer?” It wasn’t a question. It was a revelation.

  “Yes.” He repeated, as if he enjoyed the fact that she obviously knew exactly who he was.

  “Well, then…it’s impossible. We can’t work together.”

  He arched his brow. “Why not?”

  “Because I hate that building.”

  “Well, that’s not particularly original. Most of Chicago hates The Spire.”

  “Because it’s a garish eyesore on our skyline.”

  “That sounds like a stolen quote from Architectural Digest.”

  “Urban Art Gazette,” she clarified.

  “Yes,” he said with a faint smile. “Chicagoans don’t like it when you change their city. Especially as a foreigner. Nor do they like it when you change their city’s history. The Spire is thirty stories taller than the Willis Tower, which makes it the tallest building in the country.”

  “Chicagoans also don’t like it when you refer to the tallest building in their city as anything other than the Sears Tower,” she snapped with hometown pride.

  “It’s not the tallest building anymore,” he corrected her.

  Inez pursed her lips. Clearly, he was the kind of man used to living an ambitious life of achievements and having the upper hand whenever possible.

  “So you’re offering to pay five thousand dollars a day for the honor of being your fake girlfriend, just so nobody finds out you’re going blind. That’s the deal, right?”

  “Yes. I will hire you officially as my office assistant through your temporary agency, but everything else is between you and me. I will pay cash at the end of each work day and our agreement remains one hundred percent confidential.”

  “That sounds almost criminal.”

  “Which is why I haven’t confirmed that you have the job.”

  “Oh, yes you have,” Inez laughed, reveling in the fact that she was now the one with the upper hand. “Because I can guarantee you that I’m your best and only option.”

  He fell silent, as if he had no interest in affirming what they both knew was true. “You’ll have to make yourself available to me every day this week, including Saturday night—the opening night of The Spire.”

  “Only until midnight,” she pushed back. “Then I’m off the clock.”

  “Does your carriage turn back into a pumpkin at midnight?”

  She ignored his condescension. “I’ve got places to be in the morning and I need my beauty sleep.”

  “Then you’ll have to be available every day by noon.”

  “Four.”

  “Two.”

  “Deal.”

  He nodded. She nodded. It was the first thing they had agreed on and it felt like an unexpected peace treaty.

  “So…should I just show up here tomorrow?”

  “No, I prefer you to start immediately.”

  Inez floundered. She wasn’t expecting “immediately,” but she sure as hell wasn’t going to turn down her first chance to make five thousand dollars.

  “Stand up,” he directed her, as if he knew he was making the decision to alter their fates.

  Inez obeyed, absorbing the surreal absurdity of possibly earning twenty thousand dollars in one week. Slowly, he circled around from behind the broad desk and approached her.

  “Don’t move,” he said in an even tone, edging his intimidating build into her personal space.

  It was her first test. Twenty thousand dollars, twenty thousand dollars, twenty thousand dollars…she chanted it over and over in her mind. Take a deep breath. It’s only four days. Suck it up and do what he says…

  Cautiously, he held out his fingertips to her chin and angled her face towards his good eye like an appraiser examining a fine painting. It was the only way he could see her, she told herself, from this close of range. Inez parted her mouth to speak, overwhelmed by her need to diffuse the awkward silence until he spoke first.

  “You’re Caribbean.”

  She stared at him. Almost everyone assumed she was Mexican.

  “Yes, my father was from Cuba.”

  “Was?”

  “Yes. He’s dead now.”

  “And your mother?”

  “Irish. But dead, too.”

  Sven shifted his unpatched green eye onto her. It arrested her with its clarity. There was zero hint that it was failing him except for the way it lingered on her, longer than normal.

  “Come closer,” he commanded.

  She didn’t want to obey him, but the authoritative magnetism in his voice edged her forward. The seam of his suit coat grazed against the curve of her breasts. He was even more attractive than she thought. Absurdly attractive. Strong jawline, Alpine nose, chiseled cheeks and dimpled chin. And that barely-there European accent—a lilt of aristocracy beneath his smooth pronunciation—charmed her into submission.

  His fingers tilted her chin, coaxing her to straighten her posture while he gauged her true height. He was tall, so much taller than she had expected. The oversized mahogany desk had made him seem average in size, but now, his domineering build overpowered her. His unpatched eye traced an invisible line across her neckline down to her waist. Inez tried hard not to indulge in the scent of his cologne, but it was one of her favorite blends—musk with a hint of cedar.

  “Five foot, five inches tall. Size eight.”

  “Six,” she whispered, flustered by the tender pressure of his fingertips on her chin and his ability to tame her.

  “Eight,” he reiterated.

  Damn, he was good.

  His lingering green gaze shifted onto her mouth. Inez suddenly remembered her lipstick shade—“Roxanne Red.” For a moment, she feared, then anticipated the sensation of his lips against her own.

  “Average,” he finally said, dropping his hand from her chin and moving back around his desk.

  The weight of a frown sagged the corners of her mouth. Then, a flare of aggressive anger inside her chest replaced the ridiculous way he suddenly made
her feel inadequate. Twenty thousand dollars…twenty thousand dollars…asshole.

  “Gather up your things,” he snapped at her. “We’ll need to get you dressed.”

  Chapter Two

  Inez stood on the pedestal and gazed at herself in the three-way, full-length mirror. The seamstress tugged down her measuring tape from around her neck and curled it around Inez’s bustline, hips, and backside. Inez noted the seamstress’ black backless top, revealing the massive dragon tattoo snaking down her neck and across her shoulder blades.

  “I expect that you’ll be able to do something with her, Ebony,” Sven said to the seamstress. “She’s smaller than I would have liked.”

  Inez glared at Billions in the mirror. With legs crossed at the knee, he leisurely reclined on the black leather reception sofa positioned along the windows of the clothing boutique. He occasionally tapped his silver-tipped cane against the white tiled floors. Click, click, click…like the impatient tick of a pendulum clock.

  “Just pretend I’m one of your other dolls that you keep stashed away in your secret fetish cupboard, and I’m sure you’ll be just fine.”

  The seamstress snorted past her nose ring.

  “Small,” Sven insisted again. “But her attitude clearly makes up for it.”

  “I’m in the room, you know,” Inez shot back at him.

  The seamstress smirked and slipped the measuring tape around the girth of Inez’s cleavage again, checking her measurements. “Hips—36 inches. Waist—30 inches. Bust—43 which translates into about a 38DD. Hardly small, Sven. Much more like the perfect figure to me.” She winked at Inez in her defense. “You’re almost completely blind, Sven. I doubt you’re the best judge of these things, anyway.”

  Surprised, Inez shifted her attention to the seamstress. “So you know, too?”

  But Sven answered for her. “Bee and I have known each other a long time. She’s my own personal tailor and the only other person who knows that I can’t see as well as I should. I trust her implicitly.”

  “Why don’t you make her your girlfriend then?” Inez challenged him in the mirror.

  Ebony snorted again and measured the vertical lines of the back of Inez’s thighs. “Because I already have one.”