Mister Moneybags Read online

  She looked extremely relieved when she shouted, “Thank you. Thank you so much! Please keep us posted.”

  “Will do.”

  I, on the other hand, wanted nothing more than to stay in this confined space with her. I needed to get to the bottom of why she hated me, but a part of me was also really enjoying playing Jay, the everyday guy whom she likely had no fucked-up, preconceived notions about.

  “What do you do, Jay?”

  It was the only thing I could think of based on my attire. “I own my own bike messenger service. I’m headed to the twenty-sixth floor.”

  “Oh, that explains the package.”

  “Because I’m well-endowed?”

  She blushed a little. “No, the envelope there.” It pleased me that she was finally going along with my sense of humor.

  “I know. Just messing with that pretty little head again.”

  Bianca was still blushing. The lights coming on seemed to have been a game changer. She was definitely attracted to me. Sometimes, you just know. When she caught me staring at her, she batted her eyelashes and looked down at the ground.

  Oh, yeah. I was definitely having an effect on her.

  “How did you get into this field? Interviewing men you hate?”

  “Well, I used to work as a trader on Wall Street.”

  “How does that lead to reporting?”

  “It doesn’t. It leads to a near nervous breakdown, which, therefore, leads to reporting. I figure, at least I’m still utilizing my degree somewhat, working for a business magazine.”

  “How long do you think your interview will take?”

  “Well, I’m already late. So, who knows if it’s still happening.”

  “I’m sure he’ll understand, given the circumstances.”

  “For all I know, he knew I was coming up and rigged this whole mechanical issue. Maybe he got cold feet about doing his first interview.”

  “I think that’s a bit of a stretch. He would’ve just called and cancelled rather than tampering with elevator wires. I think you’re a bit paranoid, Georgy Girl. But lucky for you, I think I have the cure for that.”

  “Does it involve your package?”

  I bent my head back and chuckled. “It involves neither my package nor your balls.”

  “What’s the cure for my paranoia?”

  “Cronuts.”

  “Whose nuts?”

  “Cronuts.” I laughed. “They’re these half-donut, half-croissant thingies.”

  “Oh, I think I saw them on the news, from that bakery on Spring Street?”

  “Yup. They’re so friggin’ good. Want to get some for breakfast after your interview?”

  Bianca nodded. “I’d like that.”

  Fuck yeah.

  She added, “If we ever get out of here.”

  Almost as soon as she’d said it, the floor swayed a bit before building maintenance came on the intercom to let us know the elevator had been fixed.

  I pressed the buttons for our respective floors and, lo and behold, we were moving. It was bittersweet.

  When we arrived at my fake destination, I stood in between the doors to keep them from shutting. “How do I get in touch with you when you’re done?”

  Bianca squinted her eyes at me. “Why don’t you carry a phone, anyway?”

  “Long story. Maybe when you tell me your Mister Moneybags dirt, I’ll let you know why I don’t carry one.”

  The truth was, I’d stupidly left my phone at Caroline’s last night. I wasn’t going to tell Bianca that my phone was at the apartment of my long-time, casual fuck buddy.

  “I’ll meet you out front,” I said.

  “How will you know when I’m finished?”

  “I’ll just wait for you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. I can browse some of the magazines in the stand out there. Maybe I’ll see what Bianca George has to say in the latest issue of Finance Times.” I winked.

  “Okay.” She smiled. “See you soon.”

  When the elevator closed, my heart was pumping. I immediately made my way to the front desk of this random company and flirted with the receptionist just so she would let me borrow her phone.

  I used it to ring my secretary.

  “Hi, Josephine. As you know, there’s a Bianca George from Finance Times coming to interview me this morning. I need you to keep her waiting initially for about forty-five minutes. When the time is up, then and only then, please inform her that I will no longer be able to make today’s interview. Let her know I’ll be in touch via email to reschedule.”

  “Why have her wait at all? I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t need to understand, okay? You just need to do it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Despite the fact that I’d left my personal cell at Caroline’s, I had a business phone I kept in my office.

  “Can you also have someone run my phone down to the twenty-sixth floor right away? I’ll be waiting outside of the elevator. It’s charging on my desk.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Needing to make the most of those forty-five minutes, I first had to find me a fucking bike. What good was a bike messenger without one?

  “One more thing, Josephine. Can you please Google the nearest Manhattan bike shop located closest to our building?”

  She gave me the name of a place about ten minutes away. My driver wasn’t in range, so after my phone was delivered, I cabbed it over there and purchased a bike that the salesperson swore would befit a bike messenger, except I doubted a messenger would need the tandem version I’d purchased. I’d figure out how to explain that to her when the time came.

  Wearing my newly purchased helmet, I anxiously waited outside my building. When I saw her emerge, she looked downright pissed.

  “What happened?”

  “The asshole stood me up.”

  “He didn’t give a reason?”

  “Nope. They made me wait only to tell me he had to cancel. He’s supposedly going to reschedule, but I don’t buy it.”

  Handing her the second helmet I’d bought, I said, “You know what? Fuck him.”

  And I do mean that literally and figuratively.

  “You’re right. Fuck him.”

  “Do you have to be back to work?”

  “No, I’m blowing off the rest of the day after this crap,” she said.

  I nudged my head. “Get on the back.”

  She examined the bike. “Why do you drive a double-seated one?”

  “I have multiple bikes. This is for when I need a helper. Luck just had it that my normal bike blew a tire, so I happened to be using this one today. Seems like fate to me. Because today you’re my helper, Bianca George. Now put that helmet on.”

  She positioned herself on the back, and we began to pedal away in unison.

  I spoke behind my shoulder. “First stop, Cronuts.”

  She spoke through the wind, “What’s the second stop?”

  “Wherever the day takes us, Georgy Girl.”

  “Did you see that?”

  “What?” I was having difficulty focusing on anything but the erect nipples peeking out of her thin shirt, if I was being honest.

  “Those two guys,” Bianca pointed to two suits sitting on a park bench along the paved walkway about forty feet from where we were sitting on the grass. It was the first time I’d stepped foot on the Great Lawn in Central Park since I was a kid. Although I had a spectacular view of it from my apartment, on most days I didn’t find the time to look out at it.

  “What about them?”

  She lifted her chin in the direction of an old lady who was several feet on the walk past the two men. “That lady almost tripped and fell on her face.”

  “And it’s their fault?”

  “The one on the left has his legs stretched so far out, there’s barely room to pass. That walk is only about three feet wide, and his legs are taking up thirty inches of it.”

  “He’s tall. I doubt it was his
intention to trip an old lady.”

  “Maybe not. But that’s the trouble with that type of guy. He doesn’t have common courtesy for the people around him. He’s only aware of things that have a direct impact on him. I bet if a woman with tight yoga pants and a big rack walked by, he would’ve moved his legs because he was interested in the view.”

  “I think you might be a bit pessimistic of the entire suit-wearing population.”

  “Nope.” Bianca unwrapped her lunch as she spoke. We’d picked up burgers and fries at some deli I’d passed a million times and never stepped foot into before today. “There is a direct correlation between the net worth of a man and his manners. The higher the tax bracket, the worse his etiquette.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating. Where’s your research to support such a bold conclusion, Ms. Finance Times?”

  She reached into her cardboard cup of fries inside a small white bag and pulled one out. Waving it at me, she said, “I’ll show you my research. You up for a bet?”

  “That depends on what I stand to lose?”

  She took a bite of her fry and smirked. “You already know you’re going to lose, huh?”

  “I didn’t say that. But I like to know all the facts before I jump into anything.”

  “Sure you do, chicken.”

  I laughed. “What’s the wager, smart ass?”

  “I bet I can make that suit move his legs without even asking.”

  “And how do you propose to do that?”

  “Is it a bet?”

  I was intrigued. “Tell me the prize.”

  She thought for a moment. “If I win, you have to drive me back to my apartment on the back of your tandem bike with my feet up.”

  “And what happens if you lose?”

  “I’ll pedal, and you can sit in the back and relax.”

  I was six foot one and a hundred and ninety-five pounds. She couldn’t have been more than one-ten soaking wet. There was no way I was going to let this woman pedal me around town. “I’ll tell you what, if you win, I’ll drive you wherever you want to go with your feet up. But if you lose, you have dinner with me. And I’m taking you to a nice restaurant filled with men in expensive suits.”

  She seemed to like that bet. Holding out her hand, she said, “You’re on. Be prepared for a good workout this afternoon.”

  I wanted to give her a good workout, but it had nothing to do with a damn bicycle.

  She stood and dusted off the grass from her hands. “Can I borrow your sweatshirt?”

  I’d had a hoodie with me when I went to the gym. Since it was beautiful out, I tucked it into one of the two carrying bags on the back of my new messenger bike. Her purse and heels were in the other one. She’d exchanged her sexy sandals for a pair of flip flops that were in her bag before she’d hopped onto the back of the bike.

  Bianca pulled a ponytail holder from her purse and tied her long hair back into a knot. Then she proceeded to slip on my sweatshirt and zip it all the way to the top before pulling up the hood.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to walk past those suits and show you they won’t even notice that I almost trip.”

  “And you need to be incognito for that?”

  She pulled the sweatshirt all the way down so it covered her ass. The thing hung to her knees. “I’m covering up my assets.”

  “You do have some pretty distracting assets.”

  With a dark sweatshirt four sizes too big covering her body and a hoodie pulled tightly over her head to hide her beautiful face, she took off, jogging back a bit and then entering the concrete path. When she reached the two suits, she pretended to trip. One guy looked up for a brief second and then kept right on talking. Damn if they weren’t making the rest of us look bad.

  Smiling like she’d already won, Bianca strutted back to where we were sitting. She immediately began to take off the sweatshirt as she spoke. “See. Rude. No manners. The one who didn’t even look up, probably has a view of the park from his living room.”

  It probably wasn’t the time to mention I lived on Central Park West and had a view from my living room and bedroom. Which reminded me, where the hell would I even take her if she told me she’d come home with me later? Jay, the bike messenger, wouldn’t be able to afford the closet in my place.

  Once Bianca had my sweatshirt off, she began to unbutton a few extra buttons on her own blouse. While before, I had to imagine what was beneath the silk, now she was flaunting perfectly tanned skin and a healthy amount of cleavage. I wondered if she was wearing a push up bra or her tits were that perfectly round.

  “That’s stacking the deck a little, isn’t it?”

  She pulled her hair out of the ponytail and fluffed it up, then reached into her bag and pulled out a bright red lipstick. “It shouldn’t matter who walks by.”

  When she was done, she took off her flip flops and grabbed her sexy heels from the bag, putting them on. Then she turned to me. “Ready?”

  I leaned back on my elbows to enjoy the show. I didn’t really give a shit what the two suits did, but I was liking watching Bianca strut her stuff a hell of a lot. “Go for it.”

  Just like before, she walked a bit down the grass before entering the walkway. Her hips swayed from side to side as she placed one foot in front of the other. Right before she reached the suits, she dropped the elastic band that had been in her hair to the ground. She turned, bending dramatically at the waist, and gave the two men a perfect view of her very fine ass. The one with the outstretched legs definitely noticed. Bianca stood, turned to look my way with a cheeky grin on her face, and took a few more steps. About three feet before she reached the bench, the suit pulled his legs in so she could pass.

  He also followed her ass the rest of the way as she walked back to where we were sitting.

  “Cute. Very cute.”

  “I think I need to make a few stops on the way home and pick up some things,” she gloated.

  “Let me guess. Bricks?”

  She laughed. I loved that she just slipped off her shoes and sat in the grass without giving a shit that she might get dirty. I was pretty sure the last time Caroline’s feet touched the grass, it was for a photo shoot, and she probably made one of the cameramen carry her.

  My cell vibrated in my pocket. It had been doing it the entire time we rode around the city and picked up lunch, but Bianca hadn’t noticed it from the back of my tandem with the sounds of the city all around us.

  “Is that your phone?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “I thought you didn’t have a phone on you? That’s why you couldn’t give me any light to find mine when I’d dropped it?”

  Shit.

  “I didn’t have it on my person because I’d forgotten it in the messenger bag on my bike when I went up to do my delivery.”

  “Oh.”

  My phone buzzed again.

  “Don’t you have to answer it?”

  “It can wait.”

  “Are you the only messenger? Or is it a big company?”

  “There are a few of us.” Pick up shovel, dig yourself deeper, Jay, you dick.

  She squinted. “You’re being vague. Most men jump at the opportunity to talk about their success.”

  “Maybe my company is extremely successful, and I don’t want to scare you away thinking I’m one of those rich men you seem to dislike so much.”

  “I don’t dislike people because they have money. I dislike them because of what having the money does to them. It seems to cause a warp in priorities and make them think the world revolves around them.”

  “So you wouldn’t necessarily eliminate an extremely wealthy man from your list of potential suitors just because of his wealth, then?”

  “Potential suitors?” She chuckled. “Now you sound like the assholes I went to grad school with at Wharton.”

  “You went to Wharton?”

  “Yes. Don’t sound so shocked. Girls with brains use obscene four letter words and their bodie
s to win bets, too, you know. How about you? Did you go to college?”

  I couldn’t very well tell her I’d gone to Harvard, so I added another lie to the growing pile. “I went to state school. It was what my parents could afford.” It wasn’t a total lie. My parents could afford state school—to buy one…the grounds, the professors, the entire university, for that matter.

  We sat on the grass for another hour eating our lunch and shooting the shit. The woman intrigued me on so many levels, and I wanted to know more about what made her tick. “So what do you do in your spare time, aside from hustling men in bets on the Great Lawn?”

  “Well, I work a lot. You already know I’m a writer for Finance Times, but I also freelance for a few other business magazines. So sometimes I’m traveling on weekends for assignments. When I am home, I’m usually out. I’m a foodie. I like to try different ethnic places to eat with my friend, Phoebe. We’ve been on a Vietnamese kick lately. The last place we went to, I have no idea what I ate because we were the only two who weren’t Asian in the place, and no one really spoke English. Other than that, I volunteer at Forever Grey on most Sunday mornings. It’s a nonprofit that rescues retired greyhounds that their racing-obsessed owners discard when they can’t run fast enough anymore. The dogs are beautiful and smart and need to be exercised, so I take two out for a run whenever I can.”

  “That’s very nice of you.”

  She shrugged. “It’s good therapy for the dogs and for me.”

  “Do you have a dog yourself?”

  “I’d like to, but my building doesn’t allow dogs over ten pounds. And I’m not really a small dog kind of person. Plus, with all my travel, it wouldn’t be fair to have an animal cooped up in my small place. Since I left the stock market, my lifestyle has taken a hit—starting with a reduction in my square footage. My old place had a closet bigger than where I live now. What about you? What do you do for fun?”

  My life for the last six months pretty much consisted of working eighty hours a week, going to mundane social engagements that my work required, and occasionally fucking Caroline when she was in town. All of which, Jay, messenger boy extraordinaire, could not reveal to Bianca. And so—I dug even deeper.