The Billionaire's Wife (A Steamy BWWM Marriage of Convenience Romance Novel) (2 page)

I nodded, listening
to the resulting verbal outbursts. My eyes flitted from suit to suit, observing
their collective fury. It appeared that they had temporarily forgotten me, and
I took the time to inch towards the door.

These people
didn’t strike fear into my heart, like they did to my coworkers. That’s because
they took this job with every intention of making it their professional career.
Sure, upward mobility was in full swing, and with time-tested reliability and
talent, one ascended the ladder at Andrews Enterprises comparatively quickly.

But this was
just like every other job I had ever had, and every coworker I’d ever enjoyed
working beside.

They were expendable.

These
executives didn’t intimidate me because they were just as little to me as I was
to them. Of course, this didn’t mean that I came to work and did an awful job
by any means – I was every bit as professional and fluid as an employee
could be. My work spoke for itself, and I had made enough ripples for at least
one executive to recognize me on sight.

While they
continued their rowdy, indignant argument over this perceived gap in their
intelligence, I decided that I had seen enough of this. “I’m afraid I must
return to my work,” I cut in, chin held high. “Thank you for your time.”

“Dismissed,”
a spry, Irish suit with thick fiery hair nonchalantly waved, never pulling his
eyes from his verbal combatant.

I embraced
the order and let myself back outside…but not before I noticed Cole Andrews
looking directly at me, a confident, panty-drenching smile across his lips.

(
Back to Table of Contents
)

Chapter 2

Cole

Running a pair of fingertips through
my thick hair, I let the rest of the quarterly revenue and projections meeting
continue on. It only took a few minutes for the fracas to settle down as
fingers were pointed and accusations thrown. In the meantime, I deduced
approximately how long it would take me to reach the street level, walk into
one of the clothing stores, completely change, and then outpace the gridlocked
traffic down to the park.

Personally, I
didn’t give a rat’s ass about these reports. I had already built the company,
moved the correct people into upper management, and seen that the tight-belted,
well-oiled machine ran well without me. All I needed to know could be answered
in two simple questions:

“Are we still
in the green?”

“Will we
still be green in three months?”

For all my
desire to ignore the business, I couldn’t just step away. If I did, I’d miss
all the little things that inevitably drew my attention by being so
interesting.

And lately, I
found myself
interested
in Kiona
Walker.

Yes, I knew
exactly who she was. My extensive background checks pulled up almost everything
I could want to know about her – including the fact that the
clever
girl had not only fabricated her
entire resume, but had also passed three interviews with some of the most
competent people I’ve ever met. I hadn’t believed it until I personally
reviewed the tapes. She was confident, presentable, and knew her material.

The only
thing I couldn’t figure out was who sent her.

Kiona was
brought to my attention when the checks all came back and legitimized that the
marketing positions she had previously worked in were almost completely
inaccessible. Sure, her references gave her stellar reviews, but the inability
to reach the companies themselves had given HR enough reason to bring me into
the loop. Of course, I knew better. They just wanted my final approval to cover
their own ass. After all, you can’t be blamed for making a potentially negative
hiring decision if the founder of the company signed off in things, right?

Of course,
Kiona had pre-emptively supplied reasons why her job history might have a few
gaps, and they made total sense. One was a small, off-the-books agency in
England, and relatively hard to reach; another company had been a small, offline
agency that handled local businesses. On any other day, I’d have put my
signature on her file and sent it back to HR without a second thought… But
something caught my eye.

The third employer
was not like the others.

She claimed
she’d held a position at a recently closed and bankrupt company that had fallen
into some ongoing legal troubles. That particular company had suffered a
suspiciously convenient server fire just prior to going under, and there was no
way in the world anyone was going to retrieve the records, much less talk to
the notoriously secretive management. That was especially true now that they
were under indictment for securities fraud. I’d sooner be able to call up Elvis
than get those idiots on the phone. It was all very convenient.

And that was
her
big
mistake.

While the
first two companies were fabricated and her references nothing but sock puppets
paid to give glowing praise, the third company was very real. Someone hadn’t
done their research, because the CEO of that particular company was a particularly
vile and racist asshole and I’d had the displeasure of working with on more
than one occasion. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he would have hired
a beautifully dark skinned and almost stunningly intelligent woman like Kiona.

This made
Kiona
interesting
. I signed off on
her paperwork without saying a word about any of this to HR, and I paid for my
own background checks to be done in private. There’s a saying in business; keep
your friends close and your enemies closer. I wanted to keep Kiona very close
until I knew her secrets.

My own little
investigation pulled up something puzzling: her
real
job history. There were a string of bizarre jobs that made
pinning down her professional career a nightmare. Kiona had managed a small
sandwich shop, a fitness gym, worked freelance for a temp agency, and after
that
, she had been a corporate trainer
for a national restaurant chain. From there, she went off the grid entirely. No
employment, no identifiable method of paying her bills. She had become a ghost.

And now she
was working for me, bursting into board meetings she had no business walking
into, and making it clear that she had been keeping a keen eye on the most
intimate financial and operational details of this company.

While the
rest of the meeting went on with only my scarcest attention, my mind was
constantly drawn back to her. It wasn’t entirely a professional interest, of
course. Kiona was remarkably beautiful, and absolutely impossible to pin down.
She was just as talented as she claimed, but catching simple mistakes well
beyond her scope. Her subtle derailing of my entire boardroom was evidence
enough of that, but I knew that she was still going to be trouble for me if I
let her… How much longer could I tolerate a viper in my midst?

And where does that leave me now?

“Cole?”

I pulled my
eyes from the window. Half the boardroom was staring directly at me, waiting for
my answer on some question. I didn’t have the patience for this. I took a
moment to glance thoughtfully at the darkened screen on my cell phone.

“Ladies,
gentlemen, something has come up. Continue this without me.”

The
executives shared concerned glances as I stood up, buttoning my blazer.

“Sir…we need
you here to decide on–”

“That’s what
I have you lot around for, right? You decide. I’ve hired or promoted all of you
with the expectation that you don’t need me around to sign off on every single
decision. As usual, pass everything requiring my direct attention through
Kylie.” I motioned to my executive assistant, seated beside me. She was the
only one not openly gawking at me, instead reserving a measure of veiled
disappointment. I knew that she hated being left as my proxy, but that came as
part of the job after five years of shadowing me…and if she wanted to earn my
trust, she was going to have to accept responsibilities like this.

“Now, if
you’ll excuse me…”

I strolled
out the door, towards the elevator. Briefly, I was taken with the idea to
follow through with the fantasy – to just spend the day at the park,
pretending I was anybody else in the world. It would be so easy to do.

Sadly, the
chains of responsibility bind.

I made a
quick phone call, and when I stepped out onto the roof, my helicopter was
ready. My pilot, Patrick, was reading something on his phone when I approached,
having already primed the engine and opened the door for me.

“Early
departure, sir?” He cheerily asked, pocketing it.

“Boring as
always. Take me home.”

“Right away,
sir!”

I relaxed in
the back as he closed the door, then climbed into the cockpit. After he ran his
quick diagnostics, we were lifting up above the building, then coasting over
the traffic-congested city.

It was
probably a bad idea to leave the conference room without proper oversight. Half
of the men and women in that meeting had become dear to me, but there were
sharks even among my closest friends. I had learned to trust only myself even
before
my company had fiscally
catapulted me into the ranks of the esteemed billionaires.

Comparatively
young, I was a prime target for sabotage and excessive tabloid scrutiny; all
the more reason to keep everyone out. I hadn’t gotten this far by relying on
other people in my personal life – all that I needed were the right
people in the right roles, and I could let my business life run on autopilot.

I could buy
myself some time…

It wasn’t
that easy, unfortunately. As much as I wanted to brush it all aside, I now had hundreds
of employees relying on me to keep their families fed. I had every intention to
give them proportional cuts of the buyout, but that hinged on there
being
a buyout at all. The Megami
Corporation loved our numbers and tenacity, and they could do great things with
the castle I’d built – all I needed was to hand them the keys.

Unfortunately,
the elderly Alphonse Megami was somewhat of a traditional man, and he liked to
do business with
traditional
people.
Much to my amusement, he’d mistakenly thought I was gay. That was the tabloids
fault. Some asshole of a photographer had done an almost hilariously bad
photoshop job that made it look like I
might
be holding hands with another man. The scandal barely made waves, but it was
enough for Alphonse to bring it to my attention. I thought a few
real
paparazzi shots with a sexy supermodel
on my arm and a libel lawsuit against the seedy little news rag would dispel
that illusion.

To do proper business,
Alphonse needed more. Part of it was his talk of ‘traditional values’, but I
knew the other half was a desire to express his control over the negotiations. When
billionaires clash, influence is more important than money. It’s fun to see
what silly hoops you can make a powerful man jump through, and Alphonse was the
one with all the power in this particular arrangement. His stipulation was
simple and he stated it clearly. For this deal to go forward, I had to do one
little
thing.

I had to get
married.

Settling down
had never been part of the plan, and I detested the idea of putting anyone through
what would come of that. Mr. Megami was providing a way out of all the responsibilities
I’d caged myself into. This was the first legitimate offer I’d been made since
privately painting the crosshairs on my own corporation. It was too tempting to
pass up.

Some would
undoubtedly wonder why I did it, when the ink dried… After all, I was a
billionaire on paper when you added up the assets of my company. Why sell out?
A few weeks later they would understand…
 

I regretted
that I couldn’t do it alone. I’d built this whole business on the back of brash
and impossible decisions. People used to joke that I was running my company as
if there were no tomorrow, but that didn’t mean I could act freely. For
example, I could never sell even a fraction of my stock without crashing the
company’s value on the market. As the largest shareholder, they would see any
movement of my position as a sign of weakness. The losses would be staggering,
and could put the entire future of the company in jeopardy. Worse yet, the
declining value would leave me with too little in liquid funds to accomplish my
life’s work.

Megami
Corporation was only answer. They had the cash reserves to liquidate my
position instantaneously. My paper wealth would become real over night. Unfortunately,
his offer came with a hard deadline, and my rendezvous with Alphonse drew ever
nearer…

It was the
right move. I knew that much. I could handsomely reward everyone who had stuck
it out with me over these years, cut my ties, and move on with enough
accumulated resources to last the rest of my life
and
support a charitable organization with my name on it that would
help people for generations upon generations. That’s what I wanted now more
than anything. A legacy, and time to take a walk in the park. The pieces were
all in place…all but one. I still needed a
wife
.

My thoughts
drifted back to Kiona Walker. A panderer I was not, but it wasn’t lost on me
that a prominent African American businessman like Alphonse Megami might look
favorably on Kiona. Surely, he would take steps to ensure our relationship was
real. Thankfully, the mystery woman had completely and continuously fooled my entire
company – and importantly, she’d won over my assistant in less than a
half an hour.

Kiona was
many things. Clever. Opportunistic. Adaptable.

Someone had
paid her well to infiltrate my company and gain my respect. That much was
certain. She was an actress worthy of my grudging respect.