by Paige North
Dirty Rotten Billionaire (Part One)
Paige North
Favor Ford Publishing
Copyright © 2018 by Favor Ford Publishing
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Contents
Want To Be In The Know?
Dirty Rotten Billionaire (Part One) by Paige North
1. Ajax
2. Ellie
3. Ajax
4. Ellie
5. Ajax
6. Ellie
7. Ajax
8. Ellie
9. Ajax
10. Ellie
11. Ajax
12. Ellie
13. Ajax
14. Ellie
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Dirty Rotten Billionaire (Part One) by Paige North
Ajax
I am everywhere.
The New York press has always been vicious, and especially toward me, but with my big new real estate deal it’s all gone next level. I flip through the evening news channels to hear what they’re saying now, just days after my latest, and biggest, deal.
“…estimated four billion dollars, although other sources say as high as six…”
“…gambled on the prime real estate property in Manhattan’s midtown, but can he turn a profit with the market’s current saturation…”
“…young renegade, known as much for his rotating door of young women—specifically models—as he is for his real estate deals…”
“…Las Vegas odds on his imminent bankruptcy are now being placed…”
“…finally gone too far…”
“…a gamble that is unlikely to pay off…”
“…may ultimately be Ajax Remington’s downfall.”
I finally cut off the TV in my new office. I look at the collection of newspapers and magazine covers spread out before me and it’s the same thing—every single one of them touting my latest real estate purchase as my most irresponsible deal yet.
I’m used to being questioned and doubted. My career has gone at lightening speed, and I’ve made it to the top of this game at the age of twenty-seven by taking risks, investing well, and generally knowing what the hell I’m doing. But this latest purchase is definitely my riskiest yet.
When the bidding war began for this high-rise, on this prime spot in midtown Manhattan, I simply could not lose the deal. I was up against investors more than twice my age—one old-timer was three times my age—and I know what they all think of me. Despite the magnitude of my success so far, the whole real estate scene here in New York—the toughest in the country, one of the toughest in the world—all thinks I’m a joke. They’re all waiting for me to crash and burn into bankruptcy.
No way was I losing this deal. So I did something I’d never done before: I scraped together cash and assets, everything I could, and I paid cash for this building.
Four billion dollars in cold, hard cash. And they still think I'm a joke.
This building is now and forever called Remington Plaza. It is mine, every square inch of it.
Well, almost.
“Mr. Remington?”
I turn to the doorway of my new tenth-floor office, the showpiece of what the other offices on this floor will look like when the full-gut renovation is complete.
“Yes, Patrick?” I say to my first assistant.
“I just wanted to let you know that, as of today, construction is still on schedule.”
“Thank God for that.”
“And Corrine has secured two more retail tenants.”
“Perfect,” I say. Little things like this do help ease a fraction of the enormous pressure I feel, but it’s still not enough. Not even close.
“But there’s been a delay with the materials for the hotel rooms on fifteen through thirty. The warehouse in New Jersey—”
“Just fix it,” I say. The last word I want to hear is “delay.” Delay means no money coming in, and if I don’t start making back the money I spent buying this place, my entire fortune, not to mention my legacy, will be sunk. I’ll become the joke they all want me to be. “Call Sigmund out there in Jersey and tell him if we don’t get our materials in two days we’re going with someone else.”
“Who else will we go with?” Patrick asks.
“Just tell him,” I snap. “What else?”
Patrick looks at his notes. “The city still hasn’t gotten back to us on the permits for the pool, and—”
“Call Cynthia at City Hall. She’ll help expedite it. What else?”
“That’s about all for today,” Patrick says, and I can hear the weariness in his voice. He thinks his job is hard? Christ.
“Good night, Patrick.”
“Um, there is just one more thing,” he says. “The apartment down the hall—10F.”
If my blood pressure weren’t already at 140, it is now. This freaking apartment…
“We can show the floor to prospective businesses,” Patrick begins, “but it doesn’t make much sense considering that one apartment right in the middle of the floor is still occupied.”
“I’m well aware,” I say through gritted teeth. Warehouse delays I can deal with. Permits I can get. But this one pesky tenant is about to send me—and my project, fortune, and legacy—over the edge of this eighty-six-story building.
The buy was the thrill. Snatching this prime bit of property away from all those developers who have decades, lifetimes of experience on me was one of the greatest moments of my career. But now that my accounts are wiped out from the purchase, the reality of the situation is sinking in. I need to get this place up and running and fast. And what I can’t have is one random apartment in the middle of someone’s office.
I take a deep breath. It’s late. Another fourteen-hour day on the books, and I’ll go upstairs to my new penthouse—which still needs a little renovating to make it perfect—and then work for another four or five hours. I send Patrick home.
The elevator whisks me up to my new home on the top floor. The view is of city lights sparkling with the darkness of Central Park in the center. That black spot is like the tenth-floor apartment—the one issue we still haven’t resolved. But I didn’t come all this way to let one tenant take me down. There’s a way around everything, and I intend to solve this issue, one way or another.
Ellie
I slowly shift and squirm in bed, the sheets tangled around my legs. More work to do today, and it’s never anything good. I need coffee to even begin to focus.
Coffee is essential to the existence of life. Must. Have. Coffee.
I pad across the well-worn floors to the kitchen—small but efficient and it’s all I want or need. The morning sun crosses in through the large north-facing windows that I love looking out of. I’m only on the tenth floor so my view is mostly of buildings, but through a strategic break in the buildings I can see part of Central Park, and also the hustle and bustle of New Yorkers below on the streets, going about their busy days.
More than the view, this apartment is full of memories of my dad. Although the last several weeks of his life were truly a living nightmare, and I moved in with him to care for him full-time as his body was consumed by the inoperable brain tumor, there is definitely more life than death in this tiny apartment. Pictures of us line the wall
s, his favorite chair still has an indentation of his back, and I love drinking my morning coffee out of his favorite SUNY Purchase coffee mug.
Dad loved this apartment. It was the first thing he bought when Mom took off for Florida with some guy half her age, leaving us both devastated. It’s tiny, needs updating, and is really nothing special except that it is all his—well, now mine, and is paid off and owned outright. He’d bought at a lucky time in the housing market and when no one actually lived in this part of Manhattan. But now, things have certainly changed. Dad is gone, the market is hot, and the douchebag who bought this entire building wants my home. But he could offer me the moon and I’d never sell. It’d be like selling a final memory of Dad, a piece of him. I could never do that, no matter what kind of money Remington’s underlings throw at me. And thrown they have. Enough so that I wouldn’t have to worry so much about getting back to work after I had to leave my job to take care of Dad.
But I don’t care. My dad is still here—I can feel it. And as long as I can feel him here, I won’t leave.
I fill up my coffee, pick up a magazine and nestle down in Dad’s chair. This is the best part of my day, the bit where I can relax and not focus on the fact that my dad is no longer alive.
I’ve just settled into an article I’ve been meaning to read for a week when there’s a knock on my door. Knock is probably too subtle a word—more like banging. Persistent banging. I haven’t gotten dressed yet but I shuffle across the floor on bare feet and my slip nightie and look through the peephole. I’m shocked at what I see.
Ajax Remington himself. He’s leaning on the doorframe and looking down, his dark hair covering his eyes. But I recognize him. All I have to do is look down at the magazine in my hand and I’ll see the same man on its cover.
I unlock the door and open it a crack. “Yes?” I say. “Can I help you?”
“We need to talk,” he says, and then he puts his hand on the door, and literally pushes his way inside as if he owns the place.
“Hey!” I say. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He may own the building, but he has no claim to the six-hundred-and-eighty square feet of my apartment.
“It’s gone far enough,” he says, standing in the center of my living room. He’s wearing a T-shirt and long shorts, and looks like he just came from the gym. His chest is broad, and I can see the strength in his arms from across the room. He turns his steely blue eyes on me and says, “I’m Ajax Remington, and I’m here to buy your apartment.”
“I know who you are,” I say, my eyes roaming down his body. I focus back on those eyes. “Your minions keep calling me with offers and I keep telling them no. I’ll tell you the same and then you can kindly get the hell out of my home. No, and get out.”
“Listen. We’ve been more than patient with you,” he begins, as if we’ve been having intense meetings for weeks. “We’ve offered you more than this place is worth. Just sign the deal, Ms. Taylor, and let us all move on.”
“No.”
“What will it take?” he asks. “Give me a number. I’m here to negotiate.”
“Oh, is this how you do business?” I ask. “You come banging on my door unannounced and all sweaty and you expect me to take you seriously?”
“I do my best thinking at the gym,” he says, and with definition in his arms, and the way his T-shirt lays flat against stomach, it looks like he does a lot of thinking. “To be fair, it’s not all that easy to concentrate when you barely have any clothes on at all.”
I look down and realize I’m standing there in my tiny little slip, no bra and little to the imagination. I quickly cross my arms over my chest.
Obviously I know Ajax Remington, but I’ve certainly never met the guy. Like any other New Yorker, and most people in the country, I’ve seen him all over the news because of his female conquests—oh, yeah, and his real estate deals. But having him standing here in the middle of my apartment, wound tight with the knowledge that he can’t have something he wants (my place) is more intense than I would have ever thought. Yeah, he’s hot, but I always thought him far too narcissistic to ever find him attractive. Then again, I’ve never had him looking at me like I’m the only thing he wants. Those eyes of his have an intensity that should be bottled and sold.
“Listen,” I say. “I know you want it, but you can’t have it.”
He smirks. “I always get what I want. Besides, everything has a price. Tell me yours.”
“You don’t get it,” I say calmly, even though my insides are spinning nearly out of control. I’ve never been in a room with another person whose mere presence fills up the air so intensely. I’ve heard about people who have “presence” but I’ve never felt it. There is definitely something magnetic about this guy. “I know you buy and sell properties for a living. It’s all just a transaction to you. But this place means something to me, and I’m no looking to sell.”
“All you have to do,” he says, “is give me a number.”
It’s like he can’t hear any words but yes. Un-freaking-believable. “Are you listening? I said I won’t sell. That means no.”
“Do you even know what the market value of this place is?”
What a condescending asshole.
“It’s two-point-five million,” he informs me.
“I’m aware.”
“That’s more money than you’ll ever see in your life.”
“Excuse me?” I say, indignant. Who does this asshole think he is? Oh, right, I remember: Playboy Remington, who jets around the world with lingerie models. “Listen, I'm not one of your dumb blondes who is dazzled by your money. This might shock you, but not everyone in the world is motivated by wealth.”
“Everyone needs money, so don’t act like you’re better than me,” he says. He takes a step closer to me, his eyes on mine the entire time. When he’s two feet from me, his eyes drift down my body. “Fine. I’ll double my original offer. Five million. I’ll have the paperwork to you before you can put some clothes on.”
The mind-boggling amount of money he’s offering isn’t the only reason my heart is pounding. The cool way he looks at me as he rubs his palms together as I’m a juicy treat—or more likely, my apartment. He cocks his head. “So? Do we have a deal?”
My throat has gone dry, and it takes effort to swallow. I don’t trust myself to speak, so I slowly shake my head no. He takes another step closer.
“Ellie,” he says, all formalities of Ms. Taylor gone. Now we’re old friends, I guess. His voice is low and soft as if we’re having an intimate conversation. “Think carefully about what you’re doing. This floor is to be an office. Do you want to have your front door in the middle of an office?”
Obviously that’s not what I want. I’d like to live in the friendly building with giving neighbors like my dad had all those years ago. Benny in 10D used to bring over leftover lasagna on Sundays, and Dad always helped Louisa in 8F with her groceries. When Margaret’s husband, both of 10G, died, everyone rallied together to help her through that difficult time, taking shifts just being with her. But now? Now everyone has taken that Remington money and moved on. But to me, moving on feels like leaving Dad. He wanted me to live here, and it’s the only place I want to be.
“I will give you six-point-five million for this apartment,” Ajax says. “This six-hundred-and-eighty square feet apartment. I don’t think I need to tell you, Ellie, that the offer is far above market value. What do you say?” A smile plays on his lips, and there’s a shine in his eyes. “Do we have a deal?”
The money on the table just became absolutely life changing. We’re talking independently wealthy, retire now kind of money.
I could easily buy another, bigger, newer apartment in the city with that kind of money. I could travel the world for the rest of my life.
I look around the small space, thinking. But how can I think when all I see are memories and experiences of my father’s life, and my life with him? The photos on the walls, the old-fashioned glass door
handles we both loved, the books on the shelves that we both read. For the millionth time (make that the six-point-five millionth time), I remind myself: this is not just an apartment. This is a home.
I don’t want another apartment. I want this one. If I give it up, it’ll feel too much like selling out my dad. My heart just won’t let me do it. And I’m not going to let this arrogant (if hot) guy bully or trick me into it.
I can earn money. I don’t want or need to retire.
“Sorry,” I say. “It’s a lot of money, but my answer is still no.”
Quick as that, the shine in his eyes darkens. “Why are you being ridiculous? You’re making a terrible decision. I’m handing you a pot of gold and you’re saying no?” He shakes his head like it’s the dumbest thing he’s ever heard, and maybe it is. “Tell me why. Really, I want to know. Are you trying to shake me down for more money? Because let me tell you, that’s the last offer you’ll ever get from me.”
“That’s fine,” I say.
“You will regret this. This money could have set you up, made a huge difference in your life. And you’re turning it down.” He leans in close enough for me the feel the flutters of his breath on my face. “Before I walk out that door, just know that, Ellie. This is a critical moment—with the decision you make right now, your life is at a critical fork in the road.”
My breath is coming in short rasps, but I keep my voice calm when I say, “Money doesn’t impress me.” And I don’t just mean the money—I mean his attitude too. His swagger, his arrogance, his looks. I don’t need any of it—or so I tell myself.
The other thoughts racing through my mind are the fact that, if he takes one more step toward me, we will be touching. His hands could be on me. My eyes flicker down to his lips, full and slightly parted. With our bodies so close, and that pull toward him I can feel deep in the pit of my stomach, I lean in a fraction of an inch. He moves his head closer to my face, and soft as a butterfly’s wings, he says, “Fine.”
