Billionaire by Design (A BWWM Romance)
Read Billionaire by Design (A BWWM Romance) Online
Authors: Tiana Cole,Bwwm United
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #United States, #African American, #Romance, #Women's Fiction, #New Adult & College
Published By Tiana Cole, 2016
© 2016 Tiana Cole
All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.
Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.
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Table of Contents
“What’s going on?” Zane Talbot leaned forward and asked his driver as the limousine suddenly coasted into the parking lot of the fast food joint. A stop at
Family Burger
definitely wasn’t on the agenda, and he was already running late as it was.
“Friggin’ thing just died on me,” Carl, his chauffeur of ten years, muttered as the vehicle rolled to a stop. “Check engine light’s on,” he added in his familiar grizzled voice.
“Shit,” Zane sighed as he sank back into his seat. He suspected the giant pothole Carl had cruised over with reckless abandonment only moments earlier was to blame, but knew that reprimanding the aging man wouldn’t help their current situation. Carl had always served him well, but it was abundantly clear that his eyesight had taken a turn for the worse in recent months.
Zane, a strikingly handsome man in his mid thirties, stole a glance at his wristwatch with his piercing blue eyes. His gold Rolex confirmed what he already knew: there was no way he was going to make this meeting. Without hesitation, he pulled his cell phone from the breast pocket of his black Armani suit and dialed his secretary. As the founder and president of
Enterprise Marketing
, he recognized that his presence wasn’t truly required for this meeting. An old client wanted to discuss a new business strategy, and as much as he would like to be there he was fully aware that Phil Miller, his right-hand man and trusted confidant, would manage just fine without him.
“Enterprise Marketing, Mr. Talbot’s office. How can I help you?” his secretary’s chipper voice answered after the third ring.
“Sheryl, it’s Zane,” his deep, commanding voice sounded into his phone. “Do me a favor and shoot Phil a message. Tell him the company car’s on the fritz and I won’t be making it to the Eegee’s meeting today.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Sheryl said apologetically. “I’ll pass the message along to Mr. Miller. He just headed into the conference room.”
“Yeah, I figured he was about to get started which is why I didn’t bother texting him. Tell him I’ll be back when I can,” Zane replied as he watched Carl pop the hood of the car and step outside to take a peek underneath it.
“Okay, Mr. Talbot. Anything else I can assist you with?”
“No, but thank you, Sheryl,” he responded politely despite his frustration.
Eegee’s
was a popular local restaurant chain with plans on expanding, and he knew a lot hinged on this meeting. He reminded himself of Phil’s competency and assured himself that the
Eegee’s
account was in good hands. He’d hired Phil fresh out of college five years earlier, and the guy have proven to be a valuable asset to his growing firm. Tucson was a big city and he was still twenty minutes away from the office. Phil, his client relations manger, would have to field this one on his own.
Ending the call and placing his phone back in his jacket pocket, he glanced out the windshield where Carl was no longer visible thanks to the limousine’s raised hood. He turned his attention out his tinted window to the parking lot they‘d stalled out in, letting out a faint chuckle as he realized where the wounded car had died.
“I’ll be damned,” he grinned as he rolled his window down slightly.
Family Burger
was another local restaurant chain that had managed to accrue a loyal following over the years, but they hadn’t expanded their business in quite some time and this location was showing its age. The building looked run down, and the storefront window signage was mostly done by hand — something Zane Talbot had always been quite vocal against. He believed it cheapened the appearance of a business, and had urged his clients to steer clear of it in favor of professionally printed signs. These signs, however, were adorned with artwork that was actually quite impressive. Somebody had painstakingly drawn cheeseburgers, fries, and fountain soda cups on them in what must have taken many hours. The degree of effort sunk into these pieces was not lost on him.
Stepping out of the car and into the dry, desert heat, Zane used a big hand to shield his eyes from the bright sky as he looked up at the
Family Burger
logo that was decaying on the building’s roof.
The lettering, now yellowed from years of abuse by the powerful Tucson sun, felt like an old friend. Not only had he grown up in this sprawling city and had many a childhood meal at this family-owned burger joint, it was also one of the first businesses his marketing firm had scored when he’d launched it twelve years earlier.
He’d been only twenty-two-years-old at the time, and numerous newspaper and magazine articles had referred to him as a savant with an uncanny ability to create marketing strategies that people could relate to. He had a natural ability to visualize creative logos and concoct catchy slogans that were pleasing to both producers and consumers. Through persistence and hard work, he’d managed to secure fifteen impressive clients by the time he was only twenty-five, and as the numbers grew he was forced to hire additional staff. Now, a decade later, his firm employed fifty people and boasted close to one hundred and twenty clients ranging from small to large.
As he surveyed the worn building, it occurred to him that his firm hadn’t taken many meetings with
Family Burger
in recent years. It pained him to see the restaurant looking so beaten, since the excellent food and service had helped the business achieve a moderate degree of local success over the decades. With ten locations across the city, they’d become a staple of Tucson but their growth had seemingly fizzled out through no fault of his firm.
A string of profanity returned his focus to the limousine where Carl was bent over the vehicle’s engine with a look of anger.
“Goddamn thing!” he growled as he shook his head.
“No luck?” Zane asked flatly.
“I got no idea what’s wrong with it!” Carl shot back as he threw up his hands in defeat. Zane once again found himself staring at the run down restaurant with its handwritten promotional signs taped to its windows.
“Call a tow,” he replied calmly as he headed towards the building, “and I’ll have the company send another car.”
“Where you goin’?” he heard Carl ask from behind him.
“To grab some lunch!” Zane laughed as he continued towards
Family Burger’s
entrance. “You want anything?” he offered in afterthought.
“Hook me up with some fries!” Carl hollered as the restaurant’s door closed behind him.
“What’s the status of order fifty-seven?” Jenna shouted as she mindlessly wiped down the restaurant’s front counter.
“Coming right up!” a male voice answered from the back.
Michael, who’d been scheduled to man the grill that afternoon, rushed to the front to hand the waiting customer a brown bag containing two piping hot cheeseburgers. He shot Jenna a friendly smile on his way back to his station, and she returned it as she continued cleaning the counter.
At twenty-four years old, the last thing Jenna Parker ever envisioned was working at a fast food joint in Tucson, Arizona. Originally from New York City, she’d made the long move to the desert four years earlier in hopes of building a better life for herself. It was hard leaving her family behind, but she’d been told countless times that the Southwest’s wide, open space and dry air would be much better for her asthma. That had actually proven true, but she’d had other reasons for the move as well. Having grown up in a rough neighborhood in Brooklyn, she’d watched all three of her brothers succumb to gang life. One had been gunned down outside of a club eight years earlier, one had been sentenced to ten years in prison for armed robbery, and the other… well, it was just a matter of time before he also wound up dead or in prison.
As the youngest of the four, her father had skipped out on them just after she was born. Her mother rarely talked about him, but Jenna suspected he may have left her for another woman. Unlike her brothers, she avoided trouble at all costs by keeping her nose buried in either a book or her sketchpad. Reading and artwork were her escape, and from an early age, she dreamt of someday moving far away from the neighborhood she’d watched suck the life out of so many people.
It was a sinkhole of negativity, but it was the best her mother could do having been left on her own to raise four children. More than a few times she’d heard murmurs that her mom had resorted to prostitution to keep food on the table, but she chose to believe that couldn’t be true.
Most of her female friends had dropped out of high school after allowing themselves to be smooth-talked and subsequently knocked-up by the wrong men, but Jenna vowed that would never happen to her. She’d never allow herself to become another inner-city statistic, and kept her focus aimed at her studies. She’d proudly graduated at the top of her class, and she planned on using the scholarship she’d been awarded to further her education. Straight out of high school, Jenna took a full-time job at a local bodega knowing that every penny she saved would be going towards her inevitable move. In her downtime, her cheap tablet took the place of her sketchbook as she developed a penchant for graphic art.
Although it pained her to do it, she used some of the money she’d stashed away for her move to buy herself a desktop computer. She justified it as an investment since it was essential to continue pursuing her digital artwork. She spent her evenings teaching herself Photoshop and honing her skills, relieved by how supportive her mother was of her new-found passion.
In the two years she worked at the bodega, the small store got robbed by gunpoint on three separate occasions, two of which she’d been present for. After having a masked assailant shout demands at her while waving a pistol in her face for a second time, she collected her final paycheck and called it quits. She would have liked to have saved up a bit more money, but knew she had enough to finally move out of the city if she budgeted just right. Having heard nothing but good things about the Southwest’s climate and scenic views, and after a fair degree of research, she enrolled at The University of Arizona to major in graphic design. She packed all of her belongings into her beat-up 1992 Ford Tempo and prayed that it had enough life left in it to get her across the country. With a heavy heart, she said her goodbyes to her mother and remaining brother before setting off to start a new, and hopefully better, chapter in her life.
For as smart as she was, she kicked herself for believing her old car could make the 2,400 mile drive without issue. Along the way, she had to replace its starter, alternator, one headlight, four brake pads, and a blown tire.
She hadn’t accounted for such unexpected expenses, and by the time she rolled into Tucson, she had less than two hundred dollars left to her name. She had to fight back tears as she pawned the sterling silver necklace her grandmother had given her shortly before her death, and she only managed to score eighty dollars for it.
She had slept in her car the first two nights, having spent her days scouring the help wanted section of the
Arizona Daily Star
newspaper and calling as many places as she could. When she stopped by
Family Burger
on her third day hoping to find a cheap meal, the “Now Hiring” sign taped to the back-lit menu behind the counter seemed like an act of divine intervention. Fast food wasn’t her first choice, but given her circumstances, she couldn’t exactly be picky. Not many places were chomping at the bit to hire a poor young black girl from the ghetto.
As luck would have it, the manager happened to be on duty and was able to interview her on the spot thanks to business being slow. He was a short, friendly Mexican man and the two took an instant liking to one another. She was completely honest about her situation, and when he learned that she could begin work immediately, he welcomed her aboard and scheduled her to start the very next day.
At 5’9” with long legs, ample breasts, and a toned body, Jenna had grown accustomed to being told she was beautiful. She remained modest, however, and was always dismissive of the compliments.
She certainly didn’t feel very attractive after traveling for days and having slept in her car for two sweltering nights. The summer heat had been brutal, and even if her clunker of a vehicle had air conditioning, she couldn’t have afforded the gas needed to enjoy it. She was surprised
Family Burger
had been so quick to hire her and counted her blessings as she checked into the cheapest model she could find to take a much-needed shower and rest on an actual bed.
Family Burger
was meant to be a stepping stone; a temporary job to tide her over until something better came along. Yet, they treated her so well that she found herself still under their employment four years later and had worked her way up to assistant manager.
The pay wasn’t great, but enough to scrape by, and she’d settled into a small apartment with a fellow employee nearby. Her schooling was going quite well, and the restaurant had been very accommodating in working around her academic schedule. Her coworker and new roommate, Leigh, had become a close friend and the only real support system she had out West.
In the four years she’d worked for
Family Burger
, she’d never seen anything quite like this. Hearing the restaurant’s entrance chime, she looked up to see a strikingly handsome man in a solid black business suit striding across the lobby towards her.
She guessed his height to be around 6’4”, and he radiated a confidence that attracted her like a magnet. As he drew closer, his baby blue eyes took her breath away and not a single strand of his long, black hair was out of place. Over his shoulder, she could see a stretch limousine in the parking lot and it didn’t take much deduction to figure out who it belonged to. This exemplary man definitely looked out of place in a fast food joint, and he seemed as though he’d be much more comfortable in a posh five-star restaurant. His content grin, however, suggested he felt right at home in this second-rate establishment.
As he stood before her at the counter, his perfect smile widening and kindness in his eyes, she realized with embarrassment that she’d be staring at him since the moment he’d stepped foot in the restaurant. She quickly tossed aside the rag she’d been using to wipe down the counter and regained her composure.
“Welcome to
Family Burger
, where you’re part of our family! What can we make you?” she asked, returning his smile.
“Ah, let me see…” he trailed off while staring up at the menu. After a few seconds, he added, “Sorry, I haven’t been here in a while.”
“You don’t look like you’ve
ever
been here,” she chuckled as she ran her eyes down his expensive suit. Her comment clearly caught him off guard, and after a momentary pause, his eyes widened as he patted his jacket.
“Ah, yes,” he laughed as he also looked down at his outfit. “Believe it or not, I used to come here quite often when I was a kid.”
“You a lawyer or something?” she prodded, trying her best to hide her urban patois from this well-spoken and obviously successful man.
“No. Even worse. Marketing,” he joked.
“Well, you must be damn good at it,” she shot back while once again admiring his attire.
“Eh, I have my moments. My staff really deserves the credit,” he replied as his eyes returned to the menu.
“You run your own company?” Jenna asked, fidgeting with the corners of the register. She couldn’t help but be intrigued by this man who exuded wealth and power, and he was undeniably easy on the eyes.
“I do. Enterprise Marketing. This place is actually one of our clients. Oh, and I’ll have a number four with a Diet Coke… to go.”
“You mean you make commercials for Family Burger?” she questioned, raising her brow as she punched in his order.
“Some, yes. I actually created the whole ‘Welcome to the Family’ campaign many years ago,” he replied as he pulled his black leather wallet from his back pocket.
“I love that slogan! I thought you said you weren’t good?”
“As I said, that was many years ago. Is Family Burger a national chain yet?” he laughed.
“Good point,” Jenna giggled in return. Family Burger had opened their tenth restaurant six years earlier and hadn’t expanded since.
“Oh, hell, can you add on an order of medium fries for my driver out there?” he asked as he pointed over his shoulder.
“Sure thing.” She smiled as she keyed in the addition, and for a fraction of a second, she thought he might actually be checking her out.
Stupid, stupid, stupid,
she scolded herself.
The guy probably has some model wife at home.
She stole a quick glance at his hand but saw no ring on his finger.
Or model girlfriend at home,
she corrected herself. With her hair pulled back and a silly
Family Burger
hat resting snuggly on her head, she couldn’t help but feel a bit self-conscious around this successful entrepreneur. Her shirt, also sporting
Family Burger’s
logo, had seen better days.
“That’ll be $6.78,” she said politely as she snapped back to reality. Of course he hadn’t been checking her out, she chided herself. The lack of sleep due to school and work was clearly affecting her judgment.
“Thank you,” he replied as he opened his wallet. In a modest move that didn’t go unnoticed by her, he kept it facing himself as not to flaunt his wealth. Despite this humble effort, she could see him flipping through a number of bills that she could only assume were large denominations. He finally landed on a twenty and handed it to her with a warm smile.
“And what do you do?” he asked with a look of genuine interest. “I mean, aside from working here. What do you do?”
She was a bit surprised by the question and the sincerity in which he asked it. After a brief pause, she answered, “I’m going to school, actually. U of A. Getting a degree in graphic design.”
“Oh?” he responded, his eyes widened in fascination. “I have a group of graphic artists working for me at my firm. Are you any good?”
“I’ve been told I am, but I’m really critical of my work, so it’s hard for me to judge,” she replied with a shrug.
“Trust me, nobody understands that better than me,” he chuckled under his breath.
“This is my fourth and final year, and then I’m hoping to get out of this place,” she said as she looked around the restaurant.
“Ah, bachelor’s degree, I take it?” her suited mystery man asked, once again showing an earnest curiosity in her.
“You got it,” she returned without hesitation. “Been a lot of work, but totally worth it.”
“You’re an interesting young lady…” he trailed off as he leaned in closer to read her name tag, “…Jenna. Pretty name.”
“Thank you,” she blushed, shyly averting her gaze by staring down at the register.
“I’m Zane. Zane Talbot,” he introduced himself with a smile as he extended a big hand towards her, his other still gripping his thick leather wallet. “Nice to meet you.”
She returned her eyes to his as she shook his hand, feeling his strong yet gentle touch and hearing herself say the words, “Nice to meet you, too.” Her heart fluttered in her chest as his hand engulfed hers, his pale skin contrasting with her dark complexion as their eyes remained locked for a second too long.
“So,” he cleared his throat as he shook the moment off, “do you have anything I can see?”
“Any artwork? Not on me, but I have some on my Facebook,” she replied as the cooks in the kitchen behind her scrambled to put the order together.
“I’m a bit too busy for Facebook, unfortunately,” Zane sighed. “Anywhere else I can go to check out your stuff?”
“Umm…” Jenna began hesitantly. “Well, I did do the artwork on those signs, but it’s not very good,” she answered timidly as she pointed at the storefront signage.
