by Ellie Danes
Dirty Business
A Billionaire Romance
The Ironwood Billionaire Series
By
Ellie Danes
www.EllieDanes.com
Copyright
First Edition, August 2018
Copyright © 2018 by Ellie Danes
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and situations are the product of the author's imagination.
All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written consent from the author.
License
This book is available exclusively on Amazon.com. If you found this book for free or from a site other than an Amazon.com country specific website it means the author was not compensated for this book and you have likely obtained this book through an unapproved distribution channel.
Table of Contents
Dirty Business
Copyright
Book Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
For Super Fans
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More From Ellie Danes
Book Description
Billionaire Jace Cooper lives in the Ironwood, the prestigious Manhattan skyscraper
which is home to the wealthiest people in the world. He could have it all, but when crosses paths the gorgeous Marie Benton money and business aren’t the only things on his mind.
Marie Benton has worked for everything she has and has been fortunate enough to learn business from the best and brightest. She doesn’t have time for the games of the arrogant and wealthy. When she meets the newly minted billionaire, Jace Cooper, she’s caught off guard by the fact he’s everything he shouldn’t be.
But when the two get together it puts everything in Jace’s life in jeopardy, including his company. Will he risk it all for a chance at love or will the family he has cherished for so long destroy him?
Dirty Business is a stand-alone billionaire romance novella with a HEA, no cheating and lots of twists and turns and is also part of the Ironwood Billionaire Series
Chapter 1
Marie
I stared at the computer monitor, feeling like I was gazing right through it, as if it weren't even there. The numbers and symbols splayed across the spreadsheet, melting into indecipherable hieroglyphs. I felt like I was floating up out of my office chair, out over New York, which stretched out across the horizon visible through my floor-to-ceiling window, shrouded in a misty fog on this cold fall day. And as I floated, I drifted, pulled by some unseen current over the water, out toward the endless blue of the Atlantic.
And holding my hand was a handsome man. A no-nonsense handsome guy who couldn’t care less about business or numbers—all he cared about was me.
“Marie.”
Somewhere beyond the clouds, a distant voice called my name, but I couldn't quite hear it, as if it had just been an echo coming from the ground below, so far below that skyscrapers looked like dollhouses and people like ants, and—
“Marie!”
I snapped out of the daydream, yanked back to reality by the harsh voice.
“Uh yeah, Mack?” I asked, looking up.
Mack was in his fifties, and while some guys that age could still look good if they took care of themselves, Mack hadn't taken care of himself. Ever. He had a shiny bald pate, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair (far more pepper than salt) that still clung tenaciously to the sides of his round head.
He was unattractive and kinda creepy, but he had a great nose for investments. He had helped my father make a lot of money over the years.
“Your father wants to see you,” he grunted. “Something about the Meyer file, I think.”
“Thanks, Mack.”
He just kept standing in the door, staring at me.
“Is there anything else?” I asked.
He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but then promptly closed it and shook his head. He turned and shuffled off.
Suddenly, the message alert tone sounded on my phone. I got it out and saw that it was a Quickchat notification from my younger sister.
“Oh Alice, what is it now?” I muttered under my breath. My sister was a lot younger than me—she was still in her teens—and she seemed to spend all her time on this new Quickchat app which was taking the country by storm. The big appeal was that you could talk about something in the short ten or fifteen second video, and just from what you said, clickable links would appear on your screen.
With a sigh, I opened her Quickchat message.
“Marie,” she said in her short video, “you won't believe Shiny K's new Instagram photos! She's trying to break the internet again! Check 'em out! Soooo crazy, yo!”
A link popped onto the screen, obviously to the new photos. I had no interest in clicking on it. Man, my sister really needed to find more productive ways to occupy her free time.
I put my phone away and stood up, relieved to have a break from work for a while, because today things had just felt really mind-numbing. I had hardly gotten anything done, and it was already eleven in the morning.
I walked briskly out of my office, heels clicking on the slick tiled floor, and walked to the end of the corridor where my father's office was. There was the familiar sign on the door reading “Fred Benton, CEO.” I had to walk past this door every time I headed to the bathroom, and was thus reminded multiple times a day that my father was head of the company I worked for. Hell, every time I printed something with our letterhead—Benton Inc—I was reminded of this fact.
I had initially been grateful that my father had arranged a position for me in his investment company right after I had finished grad school. I had hoped to have gained some valuable experience and insight into the world of investing, which had always been my passion—and I had, in a sense, but it hadn't been the stepping stone I had hoped it would be.
No, instead I had been stuck here, dealing with old people's conservative, safe investments into established industries and companies.
I sighed, feeling like I was stuck in a rut, and knocked on the door.
“Come on in.”
While we had been in New York for most of my life, my father was a Texan, born and raised. Despite his decades of living in New York, he still retained his Texan accent.
“Hi, Dad,” I said as I walked in.
He smiled warmly at me. Even though we disagreed on business strategies, I loved him, and he loved me dearly. However, in here, business came first.
“Have a seat, Marie,” he said, pointing at the chair in front of his desk.
“What's up?” I asked as I sat down.
He stared at me for a while. It was unsettling, almost like looking into a mirror, because he and I had the same brown eyes. The facial structure was of course very different—I had inherited my mother's slender, petite build and bone structure, while my father was broad-shouldered and heavyset—but I had gotten his large brown eyes and strong eyebrows.
“You aren't happy
here, Marie, are you?”
The directness of his question shocked me—he was usually very diplomatic, and talked around issues before getting to them, but today he was cutting straight to the chase.
“Well, no, Dad, I'm not. And you know why.”
He nodded sagely, still smiling. “You and I, we see things quite differently when it comes to investing. I'm from the old school, and you—you're a young, driven risk-taker, ain't you?”
“I just want to try to venture into something a little less safe. You know this.”
“I do, and I've been thinking about it. You've been here for two years now, and you've worked hard. You've done well, even though the cases I've assigned you haven't been ones you would consider exciting, risky, or even interesting.”
“Well Dad—” I began, but he held up a hand to silence me.
“I ain't done yet, Marie,” he said, his tone stern but gentle. “Hear me out, will ya?”
I nodded.
“I knew that you weren't interested in those cases I was assigning you,” he said. “But do you know why I did it?”
“You wanted to see if I could handle responsibility? If I could work hard and put in the hours and effort required to handle a prudent investment, even if it really wasn't in the field I was interested in?”
The corners of his mouth curled up into a broad, proud smile.
“That's it,” he said. “I'm sorry that you've been doing something that you're not interested in all this time, and I'm sorry if you've felt that I was holding you back. You know that wasn't my intention.”
“I know.”
“But you do understand the value of the experience I've given you? You know why I did what I did, don't you?”
I thought about this for a bit. He had given me valuable experience, that much was true. I had certainly learned a lot about the world of investing while working with him, even if it wasn't the side of the investment world I really wanted to be in.
“You know what I enjoy doing most, besides working,” he continued.
I nodded. “Playing guitar.”
My father was a very accomplished musician. Whenever he wasn't working, he was playing guitar, and as busy as he was, he nonetheless managed to squeeze in some guitar time every day.
“That's it, Marie. You know how much I love my music. And I've told you how old I was when I first picked up a guitar, haven't I?”
“You have, Dad. You were in seventh grade, and your dad gave you a guitar for your thirteenth birthday.”
He smiled. “Best damn gift I ever got. Wait, no, second best. The best gifts were your mother's hand in marriage, and then the gifts of you and your sister.”
I had to smile.
He glanced across his office at an electric guitar mounted in a glass case. “You know who played that, don't you, Marie?”
Of course, I did. I had heard the story a few hundred times. “You know I do, Dad. Stevie Ray Vaughan.”
“One of the greatest, Marie. And you know what makes a great guitar player?”
“Uh . . . practice?”
He nodded, still smiling. “It ain't glamorous, it ain't exciting, it ain't fun. But if you don't sit in that basement, playing your chords and scales over and over and over again for hours on end, you'll never be great. Do you get what I'm saying?”
I did. My two years here had been my practice. This had been my hours of strumming chords and picking scales in a basement. But why was he bringing this up now? I was halfway through a case. And while progress, admittedly, had been slow, there was at least progress being made.
“I understand,” I said. “And don't get me wrong, I'm really, truly grateful for this opportunity. I have learned a lot here. And I'm glad that you noticed my hard work.”
“I always notice hard work and efficiency, Marie. That's what has made this company a success over the years.”
“Well, thanks, Dad,” I said, still unsure of what the whole point of this meeting was. “I appreciate that. I do try my best.”
“Yes, you do. You always have, really. And that's why I called you in here this morning.”
“Okay, great. But, why exactly?”
He smiled again at me.
“Because I'm firing you, Marie. You're done here.”
Chapter 2
Jace
“Jace! Hey, Jace, you in there?”
I looked up from my desk and sighed. I knew who was banging on my office door, and while I loved him—he had been my best friend since we were twelve years old—I was busy and didn't want to be disturbed. However, knowing Matthew as well as I knew him, I was certain that he wasn't going to go away any time soon, or accept the “I'm really busy with work” excuse. And he was only following orders—my own.
“Yeah, I'm here man, just chill for a minute, there's some code I'm working on that—”
“Dude, it's ten forty. I've been waiting for you for ten minutes, and we agreed on this. You agreed to do this.”
I glanced again at my trio of 4K 56-inch monitors, arranged to the front, left, and right of me, my brain furiously calculating and analyzing the endless lines of code. I was in the zone, and it was flowing beautifully from my brain through my fingertips to the screens. I wanted to keep going, because the state of flow was so electric, so stimulating, so intense . . . But I didn't want to let Matthew down, and I didn't want to break my own rules.
I sighed, saved my work, got up, and then walked over to the door and opened it. Matthew was already dressed in his white Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Gi—the thick, strong karate-style suits we wore while practicing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, or BJJ. I was still in my work suit, having gotten so caught up in my coding that I had lost track of time.
Matthew, the same height as me—six feet two inches, but with a slightly stockier build—weighed in around two hundred and twenty-five pounds, while I was two hundred and five. He had the usual goofy grin on his broad, soft-featured face. Even though he was the same age as me, Matthew had more of a baby face that made him look like an awkward teenager instead of a thirty-two-year-old man. This, combined with his very light blond hair and thin dusting of facial hair—which meant he couldn't grow much of a beard—still led to him regularly being asked for ID whenever we went out to bars and clubs. I, on the other hand, hadn't been carded since I was actually underage. My dark hair, harder features, and the profuse growth of stubble across the length and breadth of my squared jawline made it easy to tell my age.
“Jeez, bud, I guess you were really getting stuck into that coding, huh?” he quipped. “You haven't even got your damn Gi on! Come on, I'm not gonna roll with you in a business suit. And hell, why are you coding in that damn suit, anyway? What happened to the casual dress code we agreed on?”
I chuckled. “I told you man, I've got a meeting with Samantha later.”
He grinned mischievously.
“A meeting…or a date?” he asked.
“Come on, dude, you know I'm not ever going back to her.”
“Well, everyone can see pretty damn clearly that she's very into you,” he countered.
I shrugged. “She's just not my type.”
“She used to be,” he said with a shrug. “Then again, even though she was a swimsuit model for a while, looks aren’t everything, I guess. She did a number on you. Still, I’d go back to her in a hot second.”
I sighed. “And that, Matthew, is why I'm the CEO and you're not. And you and I both know that,” I joked, but it was the truth.
I didn't mean it as an insult, and Matthew knew that as well as I did. We had started this software company together, and while we did have equal shares, Matthew's short attention span and his impulsive nature, compared to my level-headed, strategic way of thinking and my ability to be calm and rational through moments of crisis, meant that we both agreed that I would head the business side of things, while he would focus more on software development, even though we both still personally wrote a lot of the code for the apps we developed.
“I know, I
know, buddy, I'm just pulling your chain. As hot as Samantha is, she really wrecked you.”
“I’m not wrecked,” I said. “I just think she always has an ulterior motive.”
“Like what? You think that she's got some sort of nasty scheme that she's cooking up or something?”
I shrugged and shook my head.
“I'm really not sure. And that's why I agreed to this meeting.”
“I know for sure that she wants a piece—a big piece—of this company if she can get her hands on it. And to be honest, I'm not sure that would be such a bad thing. She has a serious knack for investing and getting share prices to explode, especially when companies first go public. We could make a lot if we allow her to work some of her magic,” Matthew said.
I nodded. “I'll see what she has to say. But like I said, I'm suspicious of her intentions, and I don’t want to get back together with her. Ever. And then I have another meeting after that.”
“With your great-aunt, what's her name again?”
“Barbara Ameson.”
My great-aunt Barbara was eighty-four years old, but sharp as a tack. She was a self-made billionaire, and I'm talking many, many billions here. Even at eighty-four, she still had a hand in running the company she had started as a young woman.
“She really is keen to mentor you, isn't she?” Matthew said.
I nodded. “She has taken a very strong interest in me and this company ever since she heard that we were planning to go public.”
“Well, it's a huge move for us,” Matthew said. “And all thanks to Quickchat, huh?”
“You did most of the coding on it,” I said. “Don't forget that.”
“It was your idea, your brainchild. I just helped bring it to life. And you did plenty of coding for it too.”
“It's weird, isn't it?” I mused. “This little app we made, how it just took off. We knew it would be good, and we thought a few people would get into it, but I had no idea that it would blow similar apps right out of the water the way it has.”
“How could people not go nuts for it? Twice the resolution of the competition’s max, you simply have to say the name of a product or talk about an article and it'll come up with clickable links simply from what you say? We made something revolutionary. It's about the best thing I've ever done.”
