The Billionaire & I

35.

"I look forward to our partnership Will."

"Me too, I believe it'll yield great results." William accepted the handshake from the older man.

"See you at the gala tonight and you two have a wonderful day." The older man, Steven Pharaohs–owner of a fortune 500 company that dealt in electronics–smiled at William and I before leaving the boardroom with his team. Illston tech had just successfully secured a partnership deal with Steven's company.

"Got everything down?" William asked as I gathered the minutes and jottings from the two hour long meeting.

"Yup," I placed everything in a folder and held it up.

"Good," he smiled then headed out of the room with me following behind. Staring at the folder containing the minutes, a memory randomly popped into my head. The night William fired me.

"Why were those minutes so important?" I asked aloud.

"What minutes?" He glanced at me as we entered the elevator.

"The ones you fired me over months ago." I rolled my eyes.

"You say fired like it wasn't justified."

"Justified?" I laughed humourlessly. "It was way past midnight when you called and I was busy at that moment. You can't expect me to be available 24/7." The elevator opened, showing the dark expanse that was the underground parking lot.

"You're literally my personal assistant." He expressed mirth.

"How long do Heather and I have to be your PAs for anyway? Lilian seems more than capable of handling it all. She could probably run a country." I finished and he chuckled. I paused seeing we'd already reached the car.

"Already tired of seeing my handsome face daily?" His expression was smug.

"It has a whole lot more to do with the handsome pay than your face."

His hand came up to my face, tucking some strands of hair that'd fallen out of my half up half down do, behind my ear.

"Mmhm?"

"Mmhm," I nodded and he smiled. His hand moved again, his thumb tracing my lower lip. I had the sudden urge to bite down on it.

"How many hours do we have until the gala starts?"

"About five," I roughly calculated.

"Perfect." His grin, before walking over to the driver's side, gave me the same feeling being on a rollercoaster about to descend would. I smiled as well.

As I did my seatbelt seconds later, something occured to me and I looked at William. "You didn't answer my question about the minutes."

"They were just very important," he dismissed.

There he went, being all mysterious and shady again. He turned to me and I smiled but it was barely half.

"I can't-" he started but I cut in.

"You can't explain, that's fine. I don't want any explanations remember?"

I decided I didn't need them. This, us was purely physical. Working out residual sexual tension. That was it. This was the option I chose and explanations would mean something much more than that. The ride back to the apartment was mostly silent, the exception being the radio. When we got to the top floor, he held my arm, stopping me from moving. He looked like he wanted to say something, or not.

His dark eyes seemed to search my face but he didn't move or say anything. So I did. "We have exactly four hours, thirty nine minutes left now." Gently pulling him by his tie, I brought him closer to me. He must have found what he was searching for because his head dipped and our lips connected. The kiss was slow and almost bittersweet.