Alpha Billionaire Obsession (2 page)

“I think he’s coming into the office
on Monday,” said Susan. “You’ll get to meet him, Anna. I mean, if
he goes out beyond the conference room to talk to us.”

Anna felt a little nervous throughout
the weekend. She still hadn’t stopped thinking about those piercing
blue eyes and that mysterious half-smile. None of her coworkers had
made any comments about Brian’s looks though. Was his personality
so bad that nobody even noticed how attractive he was? And would he
really come into the office without even talking to most of the
people there? Did he really not care about the people who worked
for him?

Anna tried to push these thoughts
aside and just enjoy her weekend. She hung out with Macy and her
parents, went on a few long runs on her favorite trail, did some
reading, and got caught up on her favorite TV shows. She still
wasn’t quite used to being single; after all, she’d been in her
relationship for three years, but she was enjoying having some time
to reflect and just do what she wanted.

Yet on Monday morning, Anna knew deep
down that when she woke up extra early so that she could have
plenty of time to perfect her hair and makeup, she wasn’t doing it
just for herself. No, she had to admit, she had a certain CEO in
the back of her mind.

It wasn’t until nearly 4:00 that Brian
came out of the conference room and into the main office. He’d
arrived that morning, but had gone straight into the conference
room to take phone calls and meet with a few of the managers, and
Anna had barely even caught a glimpse of him all day.

But now he was quickly walking towards
her, and he didn’t look very happy. His blue eyes were icy and
there was no trace of the mysterious smile from his picture. Don’t
be nervous, Anna told herself, and stood up to shake Brian’s hand.
“Hello, I’m Anna. It’s nice to meet you.”

Brian shook her hand firmly but
briefly. His hand was freezing. “Anna. Why did I just get an email
from David Owens saying that I missed a phone conference with him?
In your email to me you said the call wasn’t until 4.”

Anna, taken off guard, stammered, “Oh,
I’m not sure, David told me 4…”

“David lives in Denver! Mountain Time!
That’s 3 Pacific!” Now Brian just looked frightening. He’d raised
his voice, and Anna could feel everyone’s eyes on them.

“I’m sorry, it won’t happen again,”
she said, her face flushing with embarrassment.

“It better not happen again. That was
an important meeting.” And with that, Brian turned and stormed out
of the office, the door slamming behind him.

“Anna? Can I see you for a moment?”
Julie called, walking towards the break room. Great, thought Anna,
I was just humiliated and now I’m about to be fired after only a
week.

“You’re not in trouble,” Julie assured
her as they sat down. “Don’t worry. I just wanted to make sure
you’re okay. Brian can be… harsh.”

“I’m okay,” said Anna, but the moment
she said it, she felt tears well up in her eyes. “That was just so
embarrassing. Why did he have to say it like that? And in front of
everyone? It was an honest mistake!”

“I know it was, and I’m so sorry he
reacted that way,” Julie said sympathetically, handing Anna a
tissue. “Believe me, this isn’t the first time something like this
has happened. Brian’s just under a lot of stress and he doesn’t
always handle it very well.”

You can say that again, thought Anna.
But she thanked Julie for her concern and returned to her desk to
wrap up her work for the day. As she was packing up, her other
coworkers came up to her and repeated Julie’s sentiments, telling
her not to worry. Anna did her best to smile and shrug it off, but
as the initial humiliation and shock she’d felt started to wear
off, she realized how angry she was.

“How dare he speak to me that way?”
she muttered to herself as she stomped down the stairs,
“Asshole!”

In the days that followed, Anna didn’t
have to interact with Brian at all other than emailing him about a
few meetings, which was a huge relief. She wanted to talk to him as
little as possible after Monday’s incident. And by the end of the
week, although she obviously hadn’t forgotten about it, she at
least wasn’t dwelling on it anymore. After all, everything else was
going well: she really liked her coworkers and the clients she
talked to on a regular basis. In fact, she was on great terms with
some of the clients she emailed frequently, and they’d even send
each other articles and jokes back and forth.

But the following week, Julie called
Anna into the break room once again. “You’re not going to like
this,” she started, and Anna’s stomach immediately dropped, “But
Brian has a meeting this Friday with AMH Co. at their Chicago
headquarters.” AMH Co. was one of Fisher Holdings’ biggest clients,
and one of the ones that Anna was friendly with. She dreaded what
Julie was about to say next.
“Brian has to give a big presentation to extend their contract for
hopefully another three years. He needs someone to go on the trip
with him. The team members who would usually go are tied up at a
conference for the rest of the week. And since I’ve noticed that
you’ve developed great rapport with AMH, I think you should be the
one to go.” She paused, “And Brian agrees.”

Brian agrees? Anna’s mind was racing.
Why would he want her to go with him, since he clearly thought she
was an idiot? Was Julie just saying that to get her to go?
Regardless, she didn’t really see any way around it. “Alright,” she
sighed, “I’ll go.”

“I can’t believe you have to go on a
trip with that asshole!” exclaimed Macy, holding up one of Anna’s
dresses, and then laying it out on her bed. She was over at Anna’s
house that Wednesday evening helping her pack for the business
trip. “You shouldn’t have to help him at all after the way he
talked to you.”

“Macy, I’m his assistant, my whole job
is to help him,” Anna replied glumly, tossing a sweater onto her
bed. “I don’t want to give up on this job just yet. I mean, I just
started. Plus, I feel like I need to prove to myself I can do this.
I can stick up for myself. Stand my ground.”

“I know you can. I just hate how he
gets away with it,” said Macy. “Well, you know you can call or text
me any time when you’re there. You know, if you need to vent or
anything.”

Anna nodded. They finished packing and
Macy went home. Anna could hardly sleep that night. They were
flying out to Chicago the next day so that Brian would have time to
prepare and meet informally with some of the AMH stakeholders
before his presentation on Friday. They were staying at a hotel on
Thursday night and then flying back Friday evening. Anna was
dreading practically every moment of it. She could hardly bear the
thought of even sitting next to Brian on the plane.

It turned out that Anna shouldn’t have
worried about having to talk to Brian, because he was nose-down in
his laptop the entire time they waited at the airport and even
throughout the flight. He’d bought first class tickets for them, so
they didn’t have to squeeze in, and Anna was happy to stretch out
and read her book. They probably spoke less than ten words to each
other all the way to Chicago.

She’d emailed their two main contacts
at AMH, Sarah and Mike, before leaving to tell them she was coming
to the meeting with Brian, and as their plane landed, Anna pulled
up her email on her phone to find a new message from them. They
asked her if she and Brian wanted to go out with them for dinner
and drinks. Sarah and Mike were both really nice and Anna wanted to
go, but she was reluctant to tell Brian. She didn’t want to spend
any extra time with him.

“Really? That’s good news,” said Brian
when Anna finally brought herself to tell him. She was surprised to
see his face light up a little. “Tell them we’ll go. It will be a
good opportunity to talk about the contract before the meeting
tomorrow.” Of course, Brian was all business as usual.

Anna responded to the email as they
exited the plane. Brian called a taxi to take them to their hotel.
Just like the first class airplane tickets, Brian hadn’t skimped on
the hotel either. It was way fancier than any hotel Anna had ever
stayed it, but she tried her best to stay cool and not gape in
front of Brian.

After putting their suitcases in their
respective rooms, Anna and Brian met in the lobby and called
another taxi to take them to the AMH headquarters. There, Brian had
several meetings, and Anna tagged along to take notes. She enjoyed
meeting Sarah and Mike in person and finally putting a face to the
many emails they exchanged back and forth, but other than that,
taking notes was boring, and she was glad when 6:00 rolled around
and it was time to go to dinner.

They went out to a pizza place, and
Anna was relieved to see that it was very casual. Sarah and Mike
both ordered beers, so she did too. Brian didn’t. Instead he
started, “So how are you feeling about a three-year agreement
versus two years?”

Sarah and Mike glanced at each other,
and Anna could tell they didn’t want to talk about work. So after
they gave Brian a brief answer, Anna jumped in, “Sarah, you have to
tell us more about your trip to Europe! So far you’ve only sent me
the photo of your husband by the Eiffel Tower, where else did you
go? What did you do? Tell us everything!”

Sarah immediately brightened up and
launched into stories from her trip to Europe a few weeks ago with
her husband. She was very funny and soon they were all at ease,
even Brian, who even ordered a beer. “It was all so amazing, but I
have to say, Italy was our favorite country we went to. It’s so
beautiful and of course the food is AMAZING.”

“I’m so jealous!” said Anna, “I’ve
always wanted to go to Italy!”

“Really?” said Brian with a hint of a
smile, and he told them about a family trip to Italy back when he
was a teenager. It was funny, even though Brian was young, not too
much older than her, Anna couldn’t imagine him as a teenager. But
from his story he sounded like just a regular kid, enjoying hikes
with his brothers and taking advantage of the lower drinking age in
Europe. He’d been to some of the same places as Sarah, and they
excitedly compared stories.

When that conversation started to die
down, Anna asked Mike about his kids. “Did Robbie have a soccer
game last night?”

“He did!” said Mike, pulling out his
phone to show them a picture. “It’s hilarious watching kids play
soccer, they all just clump around the ball and are practically
tripping over each other.”

They were all laughing and having such
a good time that they ordered another round of drinks, and another,
before finally calling it a night. Anna was delighted that the
dinner had gone so well, but also shocked at Brian’s sudden change
in behavior. Maybe Julie was right that he was just under a lot of
stress, and he wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

In their cab ride back to their hotel,
Brian surprised Anna even further when he said, “You were so great
at dinner. How did you know all that about them? About Sarah’s trip
and Mike’s kids?”

“Just from talking to them. We email
back and forth all the time.” She paused, feeling bold, perhaps
from the alcohol, “You learn a lot about people if you just take
the time to get to know them, and ask them questions about things
other than work.”

“Alright Anna,” Brian said, still
smiling slightly. They were getting out of the cab and entering the
hotel. “I’m going to have one more drink at the hotel bar here
before going up to bed. If you’d like to join me, I suppose I could
ask you some questions about things other than work.”

Anna met Brian’s piercing blue eyes.
Paired with his smile and the slight flush of his cheeks from the
night air, Anna couldn’t say no. Her heart fluttered in her chest
just looking at him, but she couldn’t tell if she was excited or
nervous.

They sat down next to each other on
bar stools. Brian turned to Anna, his eyes meeting hers again and
his knees slightly brushing up against hers. Anna felt her legs
turn to jelly. “Anna, first of all, I know I owe you an apology.”
Once again, Anna was shocked, and she couldn’t help but gape
slightly as Brian continued, “I shouldn’t have gotten so upset the
other week. And I really shouldn’t have addressed you like that, in
front of everyone. I’m sorry.”

“I accept your apology,” Anna managed
to squeak out awkwardly. Maybe she’d completely misjudged Brian
after all.

“Now for those questions you love so
much,” Brian said with his mysterious smile, slightly teasing.
“Tell me about yourself, Anna.”

“That’s not a question!” Anna laughed,
but regardless, she began telling Brian about herself. She started
by telling him about her previous job and why she left, but that
quickly led to her talking about her past relationship and recent
breakup. She definitely hadn’t meant to go there, but she was
actually starting to feel at ease with Brian. Well, not quite at
ease, as the butterflies in her stomach reminded her, but at least
more comfortable talking to him. The man who’d raised his voice at
her seemed to have disappeared.

“I can relate to that,” said Brian,
catching Anna off guard for the hundredth time that night. “About
your breakup,” he clarified, seeing the confusion on her face. “Try
six years, though.” He continued, explaining that he’d met his now
ex-girlfriend, Melissa, when he was 26, and for a while, everything
was perfect. “It all went south last year, when I took over the
company. My father had been the CEO for my whole life, but last
year, he fell ill and I had to step up. With all this new
responsibility at work and all the added stress, Melissa and I
started to grow apart. We both had busy schedules so we couldn’t
spend as much time together, and when we were together, we’d fight.
We met when we were younger, and we both changed so much over time.
We wanted different things.”