The Bad Boy Billionaire: What a Girl Wants by Maya Rodale Page B

your driver?” I asked as we stood on the corner of Sixty-third and Madison with our hands in the air, trying to hail a cab.
    “The Tesla is in a lot downtown and my driver can’t get into the city from his place in Queens.”
    “Don’t you have a backup car and driver? Aren’t you a billionaire or something?”
    “Not yet,” he said through gritted teeth, after glancing at the time on his phone again. “The backup car and driver are also stuck in traffic.”
    “What about Citi Bike?”
    “Good idea, Jane.” He gave me a quick kiss on the lips, grabbed my hand and we rushed over to the nearest docking station, in front of the Plaza Hotel at Fifty-ninth and Fifth Avenue, just south of the park.
    “Aw come on!” Duke shouted at the empty docking station. “My luck has fucking run out.”
    I winced. That was my fault. Maybe. I looked around, hoping to spot a cab. Everyone was unavailable or off duty. Oh hell and damnation. He couldn’t miss this! And then my gaze landed on something unexpected: the Regency answer to transportation. A horse and carriage, empty, and awaiting a customer.
    “Excuse me, sir, can you take us down to Wall Street?” I asked.
    The driver laughed in my face. “I can’t leave the park, lady.”
    “Please,” I begged. “He’s got to get down to Wall Street by 9 a.m. to rig the opening bell. His company has a $20 billion IPO this morning.”
    The carriage driver looked over at Duke, with his disheveled hair, Project-TK T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. He burst out laughing. Again.
    “I’ve seen plenty of fat cat business men and he ain’t it, honey. Cute story, though.”
    “I know what you mean,” I said to the driver. “When I first met him, I thought he was an out-of-work actor tending bar at some hovel in Brooklyn. But it turns out, he’s the founder and CEO of Project-TK. Which, as we mentioned, is about to have a $20 billion IPO this morning.”
    The driver eyed me and Duke.
    I turned to Duke: “Can’t you offer him stock options or something?”
    “If he’d believe me,” Duke muttered.
    I glanced around, hoping for something to just . . . work. My gaze settled on an old man on a bench reading a copy of the New York Post . Duke’s picture was splashed across the front with the headline declaring him the Brawling Bad Boy Billionaire. The accompanying photograph showed Duke throwing a punch at Sam. I snatched the paper out of the old man’s hands, apologized profusely, and held it up next to Duke’s face.
    “See! He’s about to be a billionaire and he’s very generous.”
    “And dangerous,” the driver muttered.
    “Jane . . .”
    “No, this is your moment,” I said. “I can’t let you miss it. And neither can this driver who I will immortalize in my next book as either a hero or a villain, depending on if he’ll drive us downtown or not.”
    For a moment, he thought about.
    “You’ll cover the fines I’ll get?”
    “And more ,” Duke said. He held out his hand to shake on it.
    “Climb in, kids,” he said gruffly. We did.
    Before we could get comfortable on the red velvet upholstered seats, the driver cracked the whip and the black horse burst into a trot and pulled us out into traffic. We rode down Fifth Avenue, past Tiffany’s, the Prada Store, the line outside the Abercrombie store (Or more to the point: the line of girls waiting to have their picture taken with the scantily clad model with his six pack abs and low slung jeans). We passed Saks, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, the New York Public Library where I would have to work a few hours from now, and then down past the Empire State building.
    Around Madison Square Park we got caught in a snarl of traffic. The police cars and fire engines I saw suggested we might be parked here for a while and time was running out. I drummed my fingers along the side of the carriage, trying to calculate how many blocks we’d have to run in order to make it on time. I looked over at Duke; his