In the Billionaire's Lair

Chapter Two

ANNA

FOR THE second time that day, my heart was pounding like a b***h. I worked as a waitress in a café. I was walking towards the man that visited me every night, dreams that were getting worse and worse.

I didn’t know anyone like him. His handsomely rugged looks, even in an expensive suit, only made me wary. There was no valid reason for him to visit the shop often. It wasn’t an expensive shop. It wasn’t the kind of place a man with an expensive, shiny car and bodyguards would frequent. And it certainly wasn’t enough reason for him to visit because of me.

He wore almost all-black today – blazer, tie with a pin, pants and shiny leather shoes. The only thing that’s not black was his white shirt and his skin, which was tanned. I stopped myself from thinking if the tan was a fake or he did go out to sea in a yacht and lay naked under the sun. Drat, there it went. His thick hair was dark, a little longer than I would have expected with the way he dressed. He was like an inky blotch fallen upon the fabric of reality.

I don’t know him.

I didn’t want to know the hot, handsome blotch that didn’t complement my kind of reality.

His name was Alanzo Dumas.

Even his name was hot.

He was filthy rich and one of the biggest catches in the state. I didn’t know how true that was, since I was too busy working and surviving my life to be aware of big catches, but that’s what everybody’s saying. I didn’t want to look him up. Whatever was left after bills would not be used to buy glossy magazines that featured the elites and the famous, nor time in the library to search for him on the web. I needed to work. I wanted to get Billie back from the system. I promised Rose I’d take care of him. I have to get him back.

But whenever Mr. Dumas came to the coffee shop, the force of his presence overwhelms the quiet, convivial atmosphere normally present here – and my peace of mind. It also provided fuel to my almost nightly dreams. It wasn’t like I totally did not know him. I’d seen his handsome face in some business content on the net. I didn’t try to read much about him. It was all just PR, most probably. No one could be that perfect. But that face could make even sirens go crazy. He’d been one of those I fantasized in earlier years. He was just one of those faces.

But then, one day he came through the door. And he suddenly became the hero to my wet fantasies. How could I know it wouldn’t be just a day? He came back the next day. And the next. And the next. His eyes followed me as I worked, and made me self-conscious up to the last second of his leaving.

I didn’t like it at all. And yet, his c**k becomes the fodder to my reaching out to Mr. Beefy at night, before I fall asleep, and after I wake up.

As I approached his table, his posture changed. He pulled his legs inward and sat straighter in his chair. His shoulders squared, and it made his silhouette neat and trimmed. His gaze became soft, like he had just seen someone he was genuinely fond of.

Honestly. What the hell was he up to?

“Hello. What can I get you today?” I asked him when I finally reached his table. I suppressed a shiver, fighting not to show any outward signs of discomfort or weakness.

He answered me with his usual deep, skin-tingling voice. “Coffee. Black.”

I scrawled his order on my notepad. “Yes, thank you. We’ll have it ready for you shortly. Anything else?” I asked, even though I already knew he wouldn’t order anything else. He never did. But he would leave a whopping tip that never failed to make everyone give a whooping ‘weeeeee’ after he’d left.

“Just coffee. Thank you.”

I felt his stare burning into the middle of my back as I walked back to get his order. How would it look if I run, like I felt compelled to do? s**t. He was just one man. But the way he looked at me, those eyes could uncover every fact and secret of my existence. Who wanted that?

My gay co-walker Toni was standing by the bar waiting for me. “Let me guess,” he said. “Coffee. Black. Right? Did we at least get a hello or something more today from our Anna? Or just the usual ‘anything else?’”

I opened my mouth to speak and then closed it again. I knew he was still watching because of the way Toni preened. Even while Toni poured fresh coffee into his cup since he just came in and we just opened, I could feel his eyes behind me. I felt heat going through my body as though someone had thrown me into the middle of a raging bonfire.

Except it was delicious fire. He was too magnetic. Too much.

No. Don’t mind it. Don’t.

I know I keep going on and on, but I really feel confused about his attention. I couldn’t even talk about it to anyone. My co-workers did not care about why it mattered. They enjoyed the whole hour Alanzo Dumas spent in the shop every day, drinking his coffee, watching me struggle under his unrelenting scrutiny, up to the huge tip on the tip jar afterwards.

It started two weeks ago.

I could still remember the moment his eyes locked with mine that first day and the heat that rose up when I caught him staring at me later. Since then, he came every afternoon, ordered his black coffee, and stayed for an hour.

Not about or more or less an hour. But an exact hour. He had it timed, as Toni and the others watch the clock. Sometimes he would be on his tablet, or on his thin and elegant laptop, and he would appear working with something. But there would be moments he would stop and look up, his eyes zooming to exactly where I  was at, as if he never lost track of me at all. At precisely one hour since he arrived, he would look at his expensive watch, then gather his things, stand up, his eyes would go for me, and he’d  nod a little and then leave.

Everyone would be craning their necks watching him. When he moved, he gave off the aura of a panther at rest who’d stretched out its muscular body in a fluid yet graceful motion. It was delicious to watch. Makes you want to imagine how he moved in bed.

Or what they said. I wasn’t thinking that at all. Trying not to.

His bodyguard would open the door to his car… and that would burst the bubble for me.

He was rich that he had that kind of security. The black suit kind of security. His car, top-of-the-line according to the cook, would drive him away. And he’s gone back to his billionaire life.

Rich. Magnetic. Enigmatic.

It was scary to have someone like that stalk you.