“Whatever.” She pushed at his shoulders and he obliged her, stepping back. “Thank you. I assume you’ll send a car to collect me?” She said the last in a mocking tone.
“If you desire.”
“Have your people send over the contracts first. Once I’ve had a chance to go over them, I’ll let you know when and if you can collect me.”
“Oh, I’ll be collecting you, Ms. Rutger. It’s simply a matter of when.”
She allowed him the last word, but the arch of her brow and her expression of disdain told him he’d won nothing.
Perverse bastard that he was, he liked it.
Chapter Two
Randi Rutger strutted out of Blake Woolven’s office with much more confidence than she actually possessed.
Why had she told him he had pretty hair and big shoulders? Dumbass.
She hadn’t expected him to be so…big.
Randi had only ever seen him at a distance before and, while he cut an impressive figure, didn’t all young billionaires in custom-tailored suits?
But up close and personal was… up close and personal. Damn it, but he’d addled her brain. There was something about him, some hard edge of danger.
She shook her head. He wasn’t dangerous, at least not in that sense. He’d been born with a silver spoon up his ass and he had everything he wanted handed to him on a platter. Or he just took it. That wasn’t dangerous—it was spoiled and entitled. He was a rich playboy who’d never done a hard day’s work in his life.
Randi was disappointed in herself and not just a little bit ashamed—especially by her body’s reaction to him. But she brushed it off, it was just biology. Her urge to mate and continue the species was only a chemical response because he embodied the resources to ensure survival. That was it. There was nothing special about Blake Woolven.
Even though he was taller than her 6’1 height.
Even though he could probably bench press her.
Even though he had this perfect hair that…
No. She wouldn’t think about any of it. She would only think about ways to bring his company down.
Randi didn’t know what kind of game he played—she wasn’t even sure about her own motives. She didn’t know what possessed her to apply through his company’s website, further to hack the damn thing and make sure her resume ended up in his inbox like a big, fat, middle finger. Probably the bottle of Captain Morgan she’d swilled in her father’s empty home office factored into it, but she’d wished she could find something, anything, to ensure his death hadn’t been in vain.
She’d been a sad sight that night—clutching her laptop and a bottle of rum, alone in an empty house, and sobbing ugly over losing her father, her education, and her future. She had nothing left to lose, no goal remaining except revenge. So she’d submitted her resume and, when human resources called to schedule an interview, she’d been too stunned to think better of showing up.
Her gamble paid off. He’d offered her a position, a good position, though part of her wondered if he wasn’t luring her out to Den Hollow to kill her. Corporate espionage resulting in murder wasn’t unheard of.
Of course, that could be her overactive imagination. Even though she’d threatened the man to his face, it wasn’t likely he planned to murder her. When she’d promised to bring him low, she’d gotten the strangest feeling her threat turned him on.
Sick fucker.
She’d do whatever she had to do to find out what was going on at Woolven Industries. What that bastard did to cause her father to hang himself and leave nothing behind but a scribbled note that read, “Blake Woolven.”
Randi hated that she was secretly glad he’d offered her Aphelion. She didn’t have anywhere else to go. Her father emptied their accounts before his death and she could only assume it was because the money was tainted somehow. Blood money.
Or something worse.
Bright girl that she was, she’d just flung herself right in the middle of it. She scrubbed a hand over her face and sighed. Maybe she should’ve thought it through a bit more carefully. Of course if she had, she wouldn’t have gotten this far. For better or worse, she had to know.
Randi just couldn’t believe her father would do something like this. He’d never been unstable, depressed, or afraid. Everything had always been an enigma to him, a new puzzle to solve. Even when her mother died.
No, he loved her too much to leave her alone in the world without him or a dime to her name. Something ugly must have happened, something awful. Randi would find out what and bring down Woolven if it was the last thing she ever did.
She took a cab back to where she was staying, at her friend Jessa’s place.
Randi and Jessa Rain had been roommates freshman year at KU, but Jessa dropped out to pursue her music with her band Right As Rain. She was currently on a Midwest tour of small venues and had allowed Randi to stay until she figured things out.
She could hear Jessa now: Have you lost your damn mind?
Most likely.
She’d gotten herself in deep, and there was nowhere to go but forward.
A voice in the back of her head said she didn’t have to go forward. She could just come to a full stop and take the fork in the road.
Only the fork in the road left her father dead, whatever he’d been trying to tell her lost to the ashes of the past, and let his murderer go free.
That wasn’t something she could stomach.
She thought about Blake Woolven again and wondered at the sanity of a man who’d make a woman like her a VP of anything. She hadn’t finished her degree, had no practical experience aside from helping her father.
Although, she could hack with the best of them.
He could watch her all he wanted, but he wouldn’t stop her from unearthing every nasty little secret he wanted to keep buried.
She’d only been back to the apartment long enough to Google search/stalk Aphelion and found it had somehow been blocked from the satellites. An image came up in the search, but it was the same, static image. She guessed money could buy everything.
Shortly after her discovery, the bell rang.
Eying her guest through the peephole, she saw it was a man in a suit. He flashed a Woolven Industries badge. “Ms. Rutger. I’m from Legal and I have your employment contract, as requested.”
That was fast. That was so fast, that he’d already had the contracts drawn up. He’d known exactly how their encounter was going to play out. The logical part of her brain told her that she should fear him, fear his power. He knew what she was going to do before she did.
There was another part of her, a more primal part, that wanted to outdo him, surprise him, top him. She wasn’t generally competitive by nature, but something about Woolven brought that out in her—along with several other undesirable traits.
Randi would blame him for those while she was at it, too.
She opened the door and accepted the packet. “Thank you.”
When he stood there, making no move to leave, she asked, “Was there something else?”
“Mr. Woolven awaits your pleasure in the car.”
She arched a brow. “I haven’t had time to go over the contract or have my legal representative do so.”
“Mr. Woolven was led to understand it was already agreed.” He nodded to the envelope.
Randi opened it. Two sheets of paper, surprisingly. One was her employment offer with a number and benefits that were staggering. The other was the non-disclosure agreement. Straightforward. She’d expected sheaves and sheaves of sub-paragraphs and headings, legalese language to trip her up… there was none of that. One paragraph that stated she wouldn’t speak of anything related to Woolven Industries upon pain of death and she owed him her firstborn if she did. Basically.
Well, she sure as hell wasn’t going to let that lull her into any false sense of security.
She signed them. He knew she would, hence him waiting outside in a car.
“I need to pack a bag.” Not that she had mu
ch anyway. It only took her a few minutes to gather everything together. She was half-packed living out of a suitcase anyway.
His goon picked up her bag and carried it for her. When he tried to take the laptop, she declined by way of raised eyebrow and a scowl.
“As you like it,” he said and escorted her to the car.
She couldn’t help but feel every step forward was another step toward her own undoing. But she’d already come too far to turn back. Randi found her way in and she wasn’t going to let it slip through her fingers.
As she exited to the street, she saw Blake Woolven spared no expense. He’d picked her up in his personal limo. People on the street stopped to look, taking pictures of him waiting for her like this was Pretty Woman or something and he was Richard Gere to pick up his hooker.
She would never watch that movie again.
Woolven held the door open to her carriage to hell himself, but that would make sense since he was the devil.
Randi brushed past him and scooted all the way against the far window. That didn’t stop the sparks from lighting under her skin at their casual contact or how her body reacted to the way he smelled. He smelled like…she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what, other than wild. Like the crisp bite of fall wind and pine. Her instincts were to cocoon herself in whatever made the smell—too bad it happened to be Blake Woolven.
And why did he keep touching her? His knee brushed against hers and the casual caress shot fire straight to her clit. She despised her reaction to him, but she wasn’t about to pull away. She’d already made the mistake of fleeing and cowering in her corner like a frightened mouse.
She wasn’t going to be the mouse.
Randi was determined to be the wolf.
When his knee pushed against hers, she pushed back, pretending to be reading something on her phone.
The one thing she took away from the exchange? His legs were really powerful. If he wanted to, he could win this game with ease. So why bother playing? Was he letting her think she could win? Was he building her up only to crush her? The last presented the safest explanation.
Either of the other two were utterly unacceptable.
Unacceptable option one being that they weren’t even playing a game; it was all in her head because she was inconsequential.
Or he didn’t force his advantage because he liked touching her.
Why did he have to be Blake Woolven? Why couldn’t he be any other man? Why did she have to be attracted to him would be a better question. She needed to get herself spayed or something to get her head back in the game. She wasn’t going to win if she did all her thinking with her vag.
She had four hours in the car with him like this.
“I’m glad the package was to your liking,” he said finally.
Package. Dear god. Oh, she hated him so much in that moment. She’d have given anything to wipe that superior look off his beautifully sculpted face.
“Yes, it was satisfactory.”
“Satisfactory?” He seemed insulted. “I’ve been told Woolven offers the biggest package. If you’ve seen better elsewhere, let me know, yeah?”
“Rutger Tech offered longer paid maternity leave and on-site daycare.”
“Employees at Aphelion are a bit different than those in the city. You’ll see. Then maybe your opinion of our package will change.”
“Perhaps.” She looked out the window, trying her damnedest to act unaffected. Not only to act unaffected, but to actually be unaffected.
“Since we’re in such close quarters now, perhaps you’d care to tell me why you think your father’s death is my fault.”
His words killed the slow burn in her belly. “One would think that when you find a person hanging and a note that reads Blake Woolven, that one Mr. Blake Woolven had something to do with that choice to end their life.” She shrugged. “Isn’t that what a reasonable person would assume, anyway?”
“Is that your only evidence?”
“It’s not damning enough?” She swallowed hard.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t damning, but the note could mean a lot of things.”
“Are you trying to tell me you’re innocent?” She practically spat the words because they tasted sour.
He laughed. The bastard fucking laughed. “Oh no, little lamb. I’m anything but innocent. But I didn’t kill your father.”
“No, he killed himself because of something you did to him.” Then she slapped his leg. “Stop touching me. I don’t like it. Go to your side, and I’ll stay on mine.”
“I wasn’t aware I’d encroached upon your territory.” He shifted so he wasn’t touching her.
She seethed. She’d been playing the little game all alone in her head. Now she felt stupid, and it burned her face in what she was sure was a blush. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe it wasn’t me?”
“We’re done talking about this.”
“Are we? I wasn’t aware we’d decided that.” He pulled out a bottle of water and opened it carefully, putting the lip of the plastic bottle to his mouth and watching her over the rim as he took a long pull.
She refused to watch the way his mouth worked the bottle, the way his throat… no. Just no. Rebellion surged and she seriously considered telling the driver to pull over. She’d walk back to the city. It wasn’t far.
Well, it wasn’t too far if it would put some space between her and Blake Woolven.
She bit her lip and turned to look out of the window.
The rest of the ride passed in blessed, if not awkward, silence.
She couldn’t help but wonder why he’d let the subject drop when it was so obvious he wanted to talk about it. She wasn’t naïve enough to believe that she was actually a worthy opponent—yet.
But she would be.
Randi let the thought comfort her. She wrapped it around herself like armor.
When Aphelion came into view, it almost pierced her hard won exterior. It looked exactly like the picture, but bigger. Why did everything Woolven have to be so much larger than life?
She supposed one didn’t get to be where the Woolvens were on the food chain without devouring a lot of little fish. They had to be big. They had to be impressive.
The gates alone were enough to make her want to turn tail and run. Huge, black things which belonged in hell—an impression she supposed was fitting.
When the limo came to a stop, the doors were opened on both sides, and the face that met hers was nothing short of a train wreck.
Obviously related to Blake in some way, he could only be described as huge, with hands like paws, shoulders like Atlas. His face and neck… he looked like he’d tangled with a sabre-toothed tiger and lost. Five deep scars, like slashes from unholy claws, started high in his hairline and dragged down past the collar of his shirt. She couldn’t see how far down.
But that wasn’t what scared her about him. No, it was his eyes—they were a shade of amber, like a timber wolf. Beautiful, cold and hungry.
When he offered her his hand, she didn’t think twice about taking it.
He leaned in close to her when she stepped out, almost as if he were…smelling her, those cold eyes never leaving hers.
“Warner—” Blake began.
“This one,” the scarred man said.
“Yes, I know.” Blake nodded.
Randi didn’t care for what passed between them, as if they spoke a secret language, shared some hidden knowledge. Something about her.
“Hey, I’m right here. I can hear you.”
Warner’s attention flashed back to her. “Yes, you are.”
His low voice, lower than she’d ever heard a human voice, rumbled through her, striking terror in its wake.
She realized the scars had cut into his throat, and she forced herself to be calm. He wasn’t a horror because of how he looked, he was a horror because he was a damn Woolven.
Randi met his gaze evenly, and he laughed. “Oh, I think I like you. You’ll be good
for my nephew.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” she swore.
Instead of leaping to Blake’s aid, he laughed and paused to study her again before laughing some more.
“Glad my vows of vengeance amuse you.”
He led her around the car, still laughing, then wandered toward the trees on the other side of the estate.
“Where is he going?” she asked Blake.
“War is his own creature. He spends a lot of his time out on the grounds, more comfortable there than with all the people who come and go from Aphelion.” Blake watched her for a moment. “He liked you.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
“Come, let me show you inside.” He offered his hand.
She looked at it like it was covered in dog shit. “Keep your pretty manners with your pretty hair. Don’t want it, thanks.”
He shrugged. “As you wish.”
Randi narrowed her eyes. “Don’t be cute.”
“I can’t help that, little lamb.” He smirked.
“Stop calling me that. I see where you’re going with that. I’m neither small nor helpless. If you want to call a woman lamb, maybe you should give the blond a ring-a-ding?”
“What blond?” He seemed genuinely confused. “Oh, Marchessa? No, I’m done with that liaison.”
“It must be nice to go through people like Kleenex.”
“She’s not a person; she’s a viper. She’s got fangs longer than her legs.”
“Yet you were going to fuck her. Or did.”
“Did. Past tense, as in not anymore and didn’t today.”
“You keep telling me that, like it matters to me. I don’t care where you stick your di—” The words died on her tongue when she suddenly found herself face to face with two more damn Woolvens.
Chapter Three
After he’d turned Randi over to Mrs. Westwood, their housekeeper/nanny/resident witch to get her settled, he prepared to face his brothers, Drew and Parker.
As if on schedule, as soon as he was alone, they cornered him in the large drawing room they’d converted to a general meeting room.
Big Bad Billionaire (The Woolven Secret Book 1) Page 2
