All That He Demands (The Billionaire's Seduction Part 3) by Olivia Thorne

industry in America where the accounting isn’t regulated by federal law?”
    “I did not know that.”
    “They keep four sets of accounting ledgers – one for the IRS, one to show the investors, one that ‘proves’ the movie is still in the red in case you’re the writer or any other poor bastard who agreed to backend profits instead of upfront money… and then the real books, which they keep locked in a safe and which never see the light of day.”
    “Sounds like you’ve done your homework.”
    “I have. I thought about getting into it as a hobby a few years back.”
    “A hobby,” I said with equal parts disbelief and amusement.
    He shrugged. “I don’t play golf.”
    “I guess the answer was no, huh?”
    “If I wanted to get into a business where you try to fuck everybody else for a buck, I’d go into porn.”
    “What about creating something artistic?”
    “I wouldn’t be creating anything artistic, I’d be footing the bill.”
    “Well, you could still be part of making something people love.”
    He stared off into the distance as though seriously pondering that – and then shook his head like Naaah . “I’d still go into porn.”
    I leaned in close. “You’d be good at it.”
    He chuckled, and his hand slipped down to my rear end. “You could be my costar.”
    I slapped it away playfully. “You’re not in porn, remember.”
    “Not yet… but we could get a camera, and go back to the hotel, and – ”
    “NO.”
    He laughed and hugged me closer.

28
    We entered another room where two bartenders were mixing drinks at a full bar. I suppose Connor had just been playing the odds when he made the crack about being there for the food, but there was indeed a spread that would have made the Dubai Hotel jealous. Mildly, anyway. Displays of exotic fruits and tiny pastries, more decadent desserts than I had ever seen in my life, and a small army of waiters walking around offering people bacon-wrapped scallops, chunks of seared ahi, bits of filet mignon, and the usual hors d’oeuvres and canapés.
    “You were right about the free food,” I marveled. “We should have skipped dinner and eaten here.”
    “I liked eating with the person I had dinner with.” While I beamed, Conner turned around. I followed his gaze to the corner of the room, where Lewis Vonder smiled widely and toasted us with a glass of champagne. Connor gave a fake smile back and muttered between his teeth, “Here, not so much.”
    “You afraid it’s like fairyland?”
    He looked over at me. “Huh?”
    I realized I’d been thinking out loud. “Never mind, that was just… never mind.”
    “No, what?”
    “Well, in fairytales, if you went into fairyland and ate or drank something, you got trapped there.”
    “Whereas here, you wind up having dinner with a greedy troll and having to hear about his three-picture deal,” Connor said. He scanned the room. “Hold on, I see somebody I should say hello to. I’ll be right back.”
    I felt a combination of emotions – fear that he was leaving me, suspicion why he wasn’t taking me along, and embarrassment that maybe he didn’t want to introduce me to anyone he knew.
    Connor must have read my mind, because he smirked at me. “I’m trying to save you from listening to the tribe of trolls surrounding him.”
    I blushed, and tried to cover it up. “I’d like to meet your friends.”
    “They’re not my friends. He barely qualifies – he just gave me some good advice about getting into the motion picture industry.”
    “Which was…?”
    “Stay far, far away.”
    “Where is he?”
    “Over there,” Connor said, and pointed to a thin guy in a suit surrounded by a bunch of not-very-attractive men who were all sipping glasses of amber liquid and laughing. “Entertainment lawyers at his firm. Nobody famous, all pretty boring.”
    “I don’t mind.”
    He sighed. “You don’t realize what I’m doing, do you?”
    “No, what?”
    “You’re my ‘out.’ If they start