Seducing the Billionaire: A Billion Dollar Contract Story (The Billion Dollar Contract) by Cynthia Dane

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Seducing the Billionaire
     
    Jasmine stepped out of the elevator with a plan formulating in her head.
    It had been a long week. Bills to pay, cats to bathe, and floors that needed scrubbing while bed linens hanged up to dry in the fresh sunshine. Nothing she couldn’t handle, but with so much going on in a short amount of time, she needed more than a drink. Jasmine needed an adventure.
    The soft lights, the plush carpet, and the slightly perfumed air of the classy bar were her first signs that she came to the right place. Nothing like some relaxation at the ritziest joint in town. All right, it wasn’t the “ritziest.” However, it was damn near close, and when Jasmine formulated her plan she knew it had to be enacted in The Royal Luxury’s bar and cocktail lounge.
    The hour was late. Not so late that they would soon start shooing people out, but late enough that the post-dinner rush was over. The guests here were those who had nowhere else to go, or at least didn’t want to go where they were supposed to be. Most of them were alone, like the man in a booth who read a book on his tablet while sipping a glass of brown. He was older, wrinkled. A few gray hairs that added character but detracted from sex appeal. Besides, he had a ring on his finger.
    He was far from the only lonely man in the bar. There were a few more, each of them seated far away from the others and reading newspapers, cell phones, and paper books. One man had a binder full of charts and graphs that he studied with a sigh here and a head scratch there. Someone has a big presentation in the morning. Jasmine thought about wishing him luck as she walked by, but thought better of it.
    She was distracted anyway. Distracted by the devilishly handsome man sitting at the bar with a glass of scotch and an oversized phone.
    The man was one of the younger ones in there, with a smooth face and hair as dark as it was ten years ago – no hair dye in sight. His stature would shame a meditating monk. Fifty years ago a man like this would be smoking an expensive cigarette or cigar. No, he was a modern man. Liquor was his late-night mistress.
    Him. Jasmine decided it in an instance. That man. He was the one she would seduce that night. A hard working girl deserved her fun once in a while… it helped that the man’s hand was bare of any rocks or gold. Not that it means anything these days.
    The scent of money overcame her as she stepped closer to the bar. The cologne, the mild aftershave, the liquor that oozed more poise in one glass than a model could achieve in a Vogue photoshoot. Jasmine pulled out her compact mirror and checked that she had no errant hairs and nothing stuck in her teeth. She didn’t know about other women, but so far her track record of looking like a mess while seducing a man was a big fat mean zero.
    “I’ll have an apple martini,” she told the bartender as she slipped onto a seat only one away from Mr. Dreamy.
    She kept her eyes on the young man tending the bar, but kept a close lookout for how the businessman in a suit responded. He barely did. Jasmine got one glance before he went back to his phone. Guh! Not gonna offer to pay for my drink? She picked a tricky one. Luckily she was wearing her sexiest red dress. She had it on good authority that she was “positively radiant” in it, although that last guy could have been spinning webs to catch her in his trap.
    “That’ll be eight dollars.” The bartender placed the small glass on a napkin before scooting the whole thing toward Jasmine. She looked at it, looked at the bartender, and then looked at the man sitting near them. Really? Eventually Jasmine was forced to pull out her wallet and slip the man a five and three ones. This was going to be harder than she thought.
    Of course, she liked it hard.
    “Thank you.” Jasmine waited for the bartender to step away before taking her first sip. Sweet. Subtle. The alcohol in it soothed the first of her worries at