The Billionaire Date

“Friends. Two of mine are announcing their engagement tomorrow evening. The party came up rather suddenly, and—”

“And you want to know what to take as a gift? I’d suggest a bottle of champagne. That’s always appreciated.” Susannah flagged the waitress. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m starving.”

“Thanks, darling, but I can figure out a gift,” Alison said. “The trouble is, I’m also supposed to attend a convention banquet for one of our clients. It’s not critically important, I suppose—I mean, I’ll stop by the convention during the day, and it’s not as if we’re in charge of the arrangements for the banquet itself. But I think Tryad ought to be represented, so I was wondering if one of you—”

Susannah shook her head. “Sorry, but I’ve already made plans for the whole weekend.”

“I’ll go,” Kit said. “Tell me where and when.”

“You’re a love, Kitty. I owe you one.” Alison passed an envelope across the table. “Here are the tickets. It’s at the Englin Hotel, main ballroom, eight o’clock.”

“Tickets?” Susannah said. “Plural?”

“Too late, Kit’s got dibs. And you’ve already got plans, remember?”

“I didn’t mean I was volunteering to take over. I just couldn’t help thinking of who Kit might take. As long as there’s an extra ticket—”

“I can’t think of a soul I want to spend the evening with,” Kit said firmly. “At least, not one I could invite to a banquet featuring rubbery chicken and a roomful of strangers.”

“That’s a curse of modern life, you know,” Susannah announced. “Somebody ought to start up a singles club.”

“I hate to burst your bubble, dear,” Alison said, “but someone already has.”

“No, I mean a real singles club—not a dating service, but something to deal with the honest-to-goodness problems of unattached life. The woman who needs a companion for a dull evening at a business banquet, the man who doesn’t know how to do his own laundry—”

“I think you’ve just hit on the reason it won’t work.” Kit tucked the envelope into an inside pocket of her handbag.

“I didn’t say she should actually wash his shirts, just teach him how.”

“I told you Susannah’s a very conservative type, underneath it all,” Alison murmured. “Next thing we know, she’ll be starting up a Laundromat.”

Kit tried not to laugh at the indignant look on Susannah’s face. I do love these two, she thought. And I can’t let them, or Tryad, down.

Kit spent a restless night, and as dawn approached, dreams disturbed her. Aware enough to know she wasn’t awake but unable to pull herself from the nightmare, she lay rigid as one weird scene chased another through her mind. Finally, just as Jarrett Webster triumphantly put Tryad out of business and began to personally auction off everything from desks to copy machines to drawing boards to the calico cat who lived in the top-floor production room, Kit woke with a snap.

She lay flat on her back, her heart pounding painfully. A couple of tears had slipped from the corners of her eyes and lost themselves in the soft brown hair at her temples. But she felt more anger than fear.

She pushed herself upright and went to the kitchenette. While she waited for her coffee to brew, she relived the dream, analyzing each unrealistic element in the hope of banishing the emotional hangover it had left behind. She still felt half dazed.

It was only a nightmare, after all, she told herself, the aftereffects of contact with an arrogant, insufferable, egotistical male.

“I’d like to auction him!” she said, and the coffeemaker sighed as if in agreement.

She started to fill her cup and stopped, holding the pot in midair. And why not? she asked herself.

She stood frozen in place, not seeing the stream of coffee that ovenflowed her cup and pooled on the kitchen counter.

There were women who’d love to spend an evening with Jarrett Webster. Kit recognized the attraction he posed, even though she didn’t understand it. He wasn’t to her taste, but there was no question he was devastatingly good-looking, and that aura of power was no doubt a turn-on for a lot of women. Add his money and his fame....