Free Mr. Black's Proposal (Part One: A Billionaire Erotic Romance) by Aubrey Dark

I’ll see you when you get to France!”
    I hung up and gave a quick fist pump. I don’t know if it was just because she was more of a challenge than the other girls, but it gave me a thrill to know that I was going to get a shot to win her over.
    It was Paris, the city of love. How could she resist?

Chapter Nine
    Steph
    The jet plane was totally empty except for me, the pilot, and the flight attendant. I stared out the window at the Atlantic Ocean dropping away below and ticked off the checklist that I’d left for Andy.
    Cupcakes for all twelve of the coffee shops. Two birthday cakes that had to be iced and delivered. Three sheet cakes for the corporate gig I’d landed. The health inspector was supposed to be showing up sometime this month; I hoped it wouldn’t be on the one day I was gone.
    I couldn’t believe that Jake was going to propose to Lacey. That had to be the reason he was flying her whole family out. I had to say, I was a little bit jealous. Lacey had always asked me for tips on dating. I’d been the savvy one, the experienced one. And now she had a boyfriend, and he was going to propose to her.
    I shouldn’t have been jealous, but this was insane. She had only been dating him for what? A month?
    I wonder how long it would take Lucas to propose.
    Insane. Absolutely insane. Lucas was a bachelor for life. And anyway, I wasn’t going to get involved with him.
    The flight attendant was dressed in the absolute cutest pencil skirt, a sleek charcoal wool fabric that wrapped snugly around her waist. When she came back to my seat to bring me a glass of champagne, I raised my eyebrows in surprise.
    “A present from Mr. Black,” she said. Her expression was politely blank, and I smiled back with an equally fake look.
    Of course. Lucas had probably fucked her, along with every other woman he had working for him. That was what billionaires did, right? At least, that kind of billionaire.
    I spent the rest of the flight going through the customized designs I’d created for Lucas’s party and sketching out some new ideas. It was a great theme—black and white—and the hours flew by as I worked through my plan for the presentation.
    When the plane banked, I blinked hard. The sky outside the window was gray. Had I fallen asleep?
    I peered out over the plane’s wing. We were going through clouds, and then—
    The Eiffel Tower! It stuck out from a sea of gray buildings sprawling across the ground. The lines of the main roads were arranged in a spoked circle. The Eiffel Tower wasn’t quite at the center, though, it was set apart a little ways.
    The plane bounced once, then twice, rolling through the fog with a low roar. When we finally rolled to a stop, I stood up excitedly. We were here! I was in Paris!
    “Where should I wait for a cab?” I asked the flight attendant. She raised her eyebrows at me.
    “Just down the stairs,” she said. “You won’t need a cab.”
    I frowned but made my way down the stairs carefully. I was wearing heels and a simple dark skirt, and the wind was blowing so fiercely outside that I took my time getting down the steps. Then I saw a black car roll up on the tarmac.
    The back door of the car opened.
    “Stephanie!”
    My lips parted in surprise, then I snapped them shut. It was Lucas.
    He was dressed in gray pinstriped suit pants and a white button-up shirt. It looked like he had just come from work. And god, he looked even hotter now than he had back in New York City. He came over with a jaunty bounce in his step, his arms swinging at his sides. I remembered his arms, the way he’d wrapped them around me— No. You’re not getting involved with this guy.
    “You didn’t have to come pick me up,” I said.
    “Of course I did.”
    He leaned down and kissed me first on one cheek, then the other. I was too surprised to even push him away, but he saw the shock on my face.
    “It’s the traditional French greeting,” he said. “Get used to it.”
    “Oh. Oh!” I said,