Free Claimed (The Billionaire's Command #2) by Victoria Villeneuve Page B

up and started unpacking some books, sliding them haphazardly into my bookcase and being thankful that of all my quirks, caring about books being sorted alphabetically or however wasn’t one of them.
    Three hours later, we were done. Empty boxes lay flattened in a pile, to be taken to my little storage locker downstairs. We collapsed onto the couch together, both of us exhausted by now, finishing off the rest of the now-cold pizza.
    “Welcome to San Diego,” Mark told me, and we toasted with our slices since we didn’t have any champagne.
    “Thanks for coming.”
    “Hey, no problem. It’s not easy moving to a new place, and I appreciate that you’ve done it for me, the least I could do was come over and help you get settled in. And speaking of settled in...” he continued, leaning over and planting one of those perfect kisses of his on my lips. My body immediately reacted, knowing what was coming next, wanting more. Pulses of pleasure began to run through me, a small moan escaped my lips and my hips pressed against Mark involuntarily.
    The next few hours were easily the best welcome I’d ever had to a new apartment.
    * * *
    Two days later I started at Mark’s company. He introduced me to my new boss, Danielle, himself. She was an older, stern woman, with a bit of an old librarian look about her, but she was actually quite nice. I had my own office once more, and I immediately set about learning how everything worked at the company.
    No one knew Mark and I were dating, to my relief. It wasn’t something I wanted to be known publically. Everyone just knew I was a new hire, and that was that. I picked up the work pretty quickly, filled out a number of forms for human resources to take care of, and just as the clock was about to strike five, my phone rang.
    “Hey, I was thinking, you probably want to stay in and buy things like groceries tonight, but would you let me take you out on the town tomorrow?”
    “That sounds good, definitely.”
    “Awesome. Listen, I want to take you somewhere nice. Go down to Elizabeth’s Boutique on Market Street tomorrow and pick something out. They know to expect you.”
    “Are you sure? I have a couple nice things in my wardrobe now.”
    “I’m sure. I want to do something nice for you, consider it a gift for coming all this way.”
    “Wow... thanks!” I replied. I was lying when I said I had some nice things, I had never bought anything that wasn’t from a sale rack. It wasn’t that I didn’t make any money in Minneapolis, the job there actually paid pretty well. It was just that I wanted to get rid of my student loans as soon as possible.
    Maybe dating a billionaire had its little perks after all!
    The next day on my lunch break I walked down to Market Street and found Elizabeth’s Boutique, a cute little designer dress shop. As soon as I walked in the attendant was all over me.
    “Oh you must be Caroline, Mark told us you’d be in today,” she told me as she brought over racks and racks of dresses. “I’m Andrea, I’m here to help you pick out your dress for today.” I wasn’t used to being treated this way in a clothing store, most of my clothes came from shops where there was one person, maybe two people during the peak times to help customers, it certainly wasn’t one on one service.
    “Now, do you have any preferences in terms of style, or color?”
    “Umm... not really, no, I hadn’t really thought about it. I guess, I kind of like blue, I think it goes well with my eyes, or maybe green?”
    “Fantastic, I love the idea of green. Let’s get you into an emerald dress.” Andrea looked me up and down, and I could feel myself starting to blush. I wasn’t used to salespeople looking at me so openly like this.
    “I think we’re going to start of putting you in something form fitting. You’re hiding it there somewhat, but I suspect there’s a great shape under that suit, and you’ll look amazing if you show it off.”
    Half an hour later we had the