by Claire Adams
BILLIONAIRE BABY DADDY
By Claire Adams
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Claire Adams
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Chapter One
Lexi
I pushed back from the computer for a moment, taking a deep breath as I stared out the window. At some point, the sky had gotten overcast, a perfect reflection of the turmoil that had been building within me over the course of the morning. Now, my presentation for Orinoco was almost finished, and I was practically vibrating from how nervous I was.
It wasn't as though Albright was asking me to sell our company to Orinoco, that was the thing. They were simply asking me to put on a presentation and to state the facts. That shouldn't make me this worried. But a buyout by Orinoco, this huge online retailer that was snapping up its competition piece by piece, was a huge deal for us.
As though summoned by my roiling thoughts, Chuck knocked on the edge of my doorframe. “How you doing, trooper?” he asked, using his nickname for me.
Most people in the building didn't make the trek over to my office very often, but Chuck always swung by with muffins or a bit of advice. At first, I'd thought he was hitting on me, but he'd never asked me out, and I'd come to accept that it was just him being friendly and welcoming to his coworkers. I appreciated that.
I rolled my eyes and gestured towards the computer screen. “Almost done with this thing, at least. Then I'll just have to present the thing without looking like a total idiot.”
“I'm sure you'll do fine,” Chuck said, smiling warmly at me. “Do they know who Orinoco is sending as its representatives?”
“That's just it,” I groaned. “They've decided that this is too big an acquisition for them to send representatives. Instead, they're sending none other than their CEO!”
“Andrew Goldwright is coming?” Chuck asked sharply, looking suddenly even more interested.
“Yeah,” I said miserably. “Do you know him?”
“I know of him,” Chuck said cautiously. He whistled lowly. “That's big. Goldwright hardly ever deigns to talk to mere mortals. I wonder what it is about this deal that's got him so interested.”
“Oh, I don't know,” I said sarcastically. “Maybe something to do with the giant bonus that he'll be taking home if he manages to merge our companies? You haven't seen the numbers, maybe, but we're talking big.”
“Hmm,” Chuck mused. “I still think it's strange that he's involved.”
“What do you know about him anyway?” I asked. “I've done a little bit of research, once we knew that he was coming, but I didn't have time to do much in-depth digging. There seems to be a lot of anger around his rise to CEO, but I'm not really sure what the underlying cause is.”
“There's a lot of mistrust there,” Chuck said, looking as though he was choosing his words carefully. “And I share in the distaste that some people have for him. Orinoco has a reputation for being a ruthless company, as I'm sure you're aware, and Andrew Goldwright is viewed as just another of the guys in the company who have absolutely no moral scruples. And beyond that, the guy's business sense leaves something to be desired.”
“How so?” I asked. “I wasn't able to find any record of failed takeovers or scandals or anything else that we could use as leverage against them.”
“Maybe not, but that doesn't mean there isn't a heady amount of nepotism at the core of the company,” Chuck said grimly. “Goldwright only got his position because Daddy Goldwright was ready to retire to the Bahamas with some bimbo half his age. This all happened a few years ago when Goldwright Jr. was barely even out of business school.”
“I read about all of that,” I said, frowning. “But still, Andrew Goldwright has clearly had a positive impact on the company. Sure, his father created the company and made it a sizable player in the online retail industry. But it wouldn't be where it was today without the shrewd, and sometimes ruthless, tactics of the son.”
“Maybe so, but underneath it all, I have a feeling that Goldwright is exactly what you'd expect from someone with his upbringing: a spoiled and petty brat. Some rude guy who would never have been able to cut it if he'd had to start at the bottom and schmooze his way up.”
I grinned at Chuck. “Is that what you're doing here?” I asked teasingly. “Just trying to schmooze your way to the top?”
“Isn't that what we're all doing?” Chuck responded, his tone equally teasing. But then, his look turned serious again. “You know I'm here because Albright feels like a family,” he said. “I chose this job because I interviewed with Melinda, and she made me feel like I would be a valuable asset to the company. Because she made me feel like she valued my time and valued me as an individual. I'm afraid we're going to lose all of that, if Orinoco takes over.” He paused. “Scratch that, I know we're going to lose all of that if Orinoco takes over.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “To be honest, I haven't thought through what the buyout means for the company,” I admitted. “My job is just to give them the facts of it. It's for my higher-ups to make the decisions on what's best for the company.”
Chuck frowned. “It's rare that a buyout doesn't result in some sort of reorganization, and reorganization tends to mean that people lose their jobs.”
“True,” I agreed. “But I have a pretty specialized position as an insurance analyst. They can't replace me with just anyone. And what's more, there's no real reason for them to want to replace me. I don't get paid all that well, so it's not like I'm sapping up company resources, and I do my job well and turn in my reports on time. That's all they could be looking for, isn't it?”
“It's all about loyalty,” Chuck insisted. “Besides, you can't tell me that you don't like the relatively laid-back corporate culture that we currently have. Being able to wear whatever you want in the privacy of your office. Having an office where, for all your higher-ups know, you could be browsing social media all day. Knowing all your higher-ups by name and going out with them for drinks on Fridays. Things like that. None of that is going to exist with Orinoco.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because that's not the way companies like that operate,” Chuck said, shaking his head. “I used to work for a company that was similar to Orinoco in some respects. Very cutthroat. Every man for himself. It's not a fun place to come to work in the mornings. I can tell you that much.”
I laughed. “Chuck, we work in an office. And sure, we may both love the people that we're working here with, and it might not be the harsh office environment that some companies promote, but at the same time, it's not all about fun. Do you honestly think Orinoco is going to change us that much? They probably won't even care what the company workplace is like, as long as we keep increasing our bottom line profits.”
“I wouldn't be so sure.” Chuck sighed. “As much as I'd like to believe that they won't care about anything more than the profits, I think that it's precisely because they care about the profits that they'll care about the company. They'll view it as modifying our work ethic. Streamlining things. Promoting company loyalty.”
“Well, even if that eventually does happen, that's nothing that I need to worry about today,” I said, wishing I could sound
as firm as I wanted to. “All I have to worry about today is giving this presentation and getting all the facts across.”
“Watch out for Goldwright, though,” Chuck advised.
I rolled my eyes. “Watch out for what?” I asked. “Sure, his business practices may be ruthless, but that's something for the supervisors to consider when they're thinking about the trade. It's not like he's going to get up in the middle of my presentation and do something. I'm more worried that I'm going to say something stupid or mess something up with one of my slides.”
“Just, remember that Andrew Goldwright has something of a reputation,” Chuck said slowly, and from the look he was giving me, he was trying to hint at something more than the man's business reputation.
I laughed. “Relax,” I said. “I appreciate your looking out for me, but I'm sure Andrew isn't going to do anything that could jeopardize this takeover. He's not stupid, no matter what you seem to believe.”
“I never said he was stupid,” Chuck muttered.
“Lacking in business sense, then, or whatever it was you said.” I smiled a little at him. “Chuck, don't worry about me. I'm a big girl. I'm sure I can handle whatever it is that he throws at me. As long as he doesn't ask me to stand on my head and recite the last ten years of tax returns or anything like that!”
“I doubt he'll do that,” Chuck said, finally cracking a smile. “I'll take you out to lunch afterward. How does that sound?”
“We're having lunch catered in during the meeting,” I said apologetically. “But maybe we could get drinks later this week?”
“Sure, sure,” Chuck agreed. “Break a leg, trooper.”
I smiled and turned back toward my presentation. “Thanks,” I said, even though I was already typing in the final section of text.
Chapter Two
Andrew
I rifled through the paperwork one more time, glad that I'd had Jenny, my secretary, postpone my meeting with the Albright girl until later in the afternoon, rather than the early-afternoon meeting that had originally been scheduled. Orinoco was most likely going to take over Albright. I just needed a bit more information about all the various implications of the buyout before I could sign it. And one of the implications that I needed the most information about, at the moment, was the potential insurance implications.
Orinoco had made a name for itself as one of the premier online retailers, but if we successfully bought out Albright, we would become something more than that. Not only did Albright carry its own portfolio of products that it sold online, but it made its deliveries using drones. If we could corner the market on drone deliveries, we would really be head and shoulders ahead of the competition.
The problem was, I didn't know what would happen if those deliveries went bad. There was too much potential for drones to crash or deliveries to be lost or damaged. I wasn't sure that Orinoco was prepared to absorb those risks.
Hence, why I needed to talk to Albright's main insurance analyst.
Jenny knocked lightly on the door and poked her head inside. “Mr. Goldwright, your three p.m. meeting is here,” she informed me.
I waved my hand. “Send her in,” I said, shuffling my papers into order on my desk.
The woman who entered my office was nothing like I would have expected. I didn't deal much with the insurance analysts that worked for Orinoco, but I had assumed they were all frumpy, older women who had gotten bored working in the finance department and decided to lone-wolf it in the insurance department.
But this woman was young, maybe a few years younger than me, and she was far from frumpy. She wore a neat gray suit with a bright, silky purple shirt that emphasized her pale skin and dark hair. And those legs, wow. They went all the way up.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Ms. Jordan, or may I call you Lexi?” I asked.
“Mr. Goldwright,” she said in response, her tone clipped and her gaze frosty. “Thank you so much for agreeing to see me today.”
Ah, so she was upset about the change of time and change of venue, then. She had to realize that my time was more valuable than hers, though. Surely!
I nodded towards a chair. “Can I get you something to drink? Water, or perhaps something stronger?” I placed my finger over the call button on my phone, ready to have Jenny bring whatever the woman wanted.
But Lexi didn't sit down like I had expected her to. Instead, she narrowed her eyes at me. “Mr. Goldwright, I'm here on business,” she said, in that same holier-than-thou tone that she'd used before. “I have a presentation for you, and I'll need a projector screen for it. So, unless your office is hiding something that I'm not seeing, I suggest that we adjourn to your nearest conference room.”
A pity: she had the frumpy attitude, even if she didn't have the looks to match it.
I probably wasn't going to be able to convince her to have a quick fuck right there in my office, as much as I'd love to bend her over the nearest surface and have my way with her, but I wondered if I could get her into bed with me regardless.
“I've read over most of the information you sent already,” I said, waving a careless hand. “I don't care much about your presentation, although I'm sure it's very informative. But I have some questions for you, and I'd like to hear you answer those rather than just read off slides for me.”
At that, she looked uncertain, and I wondered what sort of company Albright was that she was so afraid to go off-script. It didn't really matter, though. Once we bought their company, we'd have the ability to change whatever we thought needed to be changed, up to and including the fundamental structure of the company.
She shook her head, though. “Sorry, I thought I was going to be presenting to a group of Orinoco’s executives, or else I would have tailored the presentation to your specifics.” She sounded nervous and uncertain, and I couldn't help but laugh.
I stood up and went over to the mini-bar in the corner of my office. Normally, the wine inside was reserved for close friends or celebrations, but just this once, I'd make an exception. “Here,” I said, handing her a glass of wine. “You sound like you could use this.”
She sputtered, a faint blush staining her cheeks. “This is a work meeting!” she hissed.
“Of course, it is,” I agreed. “But we're not going to get any work done if you're tripping over your tongue for the entirety of it.” I smiled at her, hoping to charm her into relaxing.
She stared at me for another moment and then slowly reached out to accept the glass of wine. Equally cautiously, she folded herself into a seat.
Normally, I'd take the seat behind my desk and play up my position of power. Today, I chose to sit next to her, dragging the second chair close enough that our knees were almost brushing when we leaned in to look at the paperwork that she'd brought over.
“You were originally supposed to be meeting with some of my executives,” I told her offhandedly. “But this deal with Albright could launch both of our companies into the forefront of the industry, and I decided it was too important for me to pass it off on some of my lackeys.” I grinned over at her. “To be honest, I have a tendency to micromanage.”
“Oh,” Lexi said, looking at a loss for words.
“But there's a good reason for it,” I continued, boasting. “Under my leadership, I've taken Orinoco from being just a player in the online retail industry to being one of the forerunners in developing new technologies in said industry. Orinoco wasn't even a publicly-traded company before I came along, and now it's one of the most massive companies in the world.”
“Right,” she said.
She didn't sound impressed. In fact, if I had to gauge her, I'd say that she sounded disgusted. I suppressed a grin, wondering if she knew she was that easy to read. She probably thought I was arrogant, just another dim-witted dude whose dad had placed a bit too much trust in him. Or maybe she just wanted to go home. But what she said next surprised me.
“Orinoco has had a string of good luck,” she agreed, nodding her head. “But no one can stay on top
forever.”
I stared at her for a long moment, watching as she fixed her challenging eyes on me and took a cool sip of her wine. Suddenly, I wondered who was judging whom here.
I shook my head, feeling almost shaken, and turned towards the papers she had brought. “What I'm really concerned about, if I'm being honest, are drone crashes and liabilities,” I told her.
“I figured as much,” Lexi said, nodding sagely. “We have reports on all of the issues that we've faced over the years. They should have been included in the documents that were sent over prior to this meeting.”
“They were,” I told her. “But what I really want is some sort of projection on what Orinoco can expect if we are to put your technology to use with our company.”
Lexi leaned back, studying me for a moment. “Well, that would depend on what exactly you were planning on using our technology for,” she said, a smile playing over her lips. “To be honest, you haven't really been clear on what you're hoping for. You know what we can do, but we have no idea what Orinoco's plan is for the next year or for the next five years.”
I frowned at her. “Obviously, we're hoping to incorporate drone deliveries into what we already do,” I said.
“Obviously,” Lexi said sardonically. “On all deliveries, though? On most deliveries? Until I know numbers, I'm afraid I can't really give you any sort of estimate on what you could expect this technology to cost your company.”
“So, what you're saying is that you're unprepared for this meeting,” I said, deliberately pushing her. It wasn't really a business tactic at this point. I just wanted to see what would happen when she snapped.
But instead of the rage that I was expecting, she just gave me a frosty look. “Perhaps if you hadn't waited until the last minute before changing everything to do with this meeting, I could have tailored it to better suit your needs,” she said. But that was the end of the cool confidence from her. In the next second, she was clapping a hand over her mouth and looking scared. “Sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful. I'm just a bit nervous, that's all, and when I get nervous, I have a tendency to speak without thinking.”
