The Virgin and the Billionaires: The Complete Series

by K. J. Diamond

  The Virgin and the Billionaires: The Complete Series

  by K.J. Diamond

  Copyright 2012-2013 K.J. Diamond

  ARe Edition

  Table of Contents

  Part 1: Meeting Alexander

  Part 2: Facing Alexander

  Part 3: Indulging Alexander

  Part 4: A Complicated Situation

  Part 5: An Irresistible Opportunity

  Author’s Note: Thank you for purchasing this eBook. For updates on future installments and other new releases, please sign up for the K.J. Diamond E-mail List (external link).

  ###

  Part 1: Meeting Alexander

  Dana Jacobs got barely an hour of sleep the night before the first day at her new job. The sun was finally creeping in through her window, and Dana knew she had arrived at the moment she’d been waiting for since she got the congratulatory phone call three weeks ago. Her stomach was doing flips into her throat, and Dana knew that her standard hearty breakfast of bacon, blueberry pancakes, and home fries was out of the question this morning.

  She’d spent three months sending out 20 job applications a day from her old bedroom in her parent’s house. With no job prospects after graduating from UC Davis that May, she had no choice but to move back in with her parents until she found work in her field. She was beginning to question her decision to major in photography when she finally received a phone call from a regional fashion magazine in Los Angeles, Southern California Style. They had seen her resume and wanted to bring her in for an interview.

  One trip to LA and a successful job interview later, 22 year-old Dana Jacobs was the new assistant photographer at SoCal Style magazine. Not one to turn down an opportunity to break right into the fashion world, Dana packed up her car and made a hasty move from her parents’ house in calm, suburban Chico down to huge, sprawling LA.

  Dana had barely settled into her small Burbank apartment since she arrived only five days earlier, and now she was running late for her first day at SoCal Style. She’d spent too long making sure she looked presentable in her most flattering black skirt and top. Wear a slimming color, highlight the waist, and mask the belly fat with a cardigan.

  She was anticipating receiving the condescending stares at her new office that she was used to receiving from strangers every day. To expect any less would be crazy. After all, she was throwing herself into the line of fire: a fat girl working at a fashion magazine? She hadn’t been there yet, but she knew that LA fashion types were infamous for turning skinniness into a competition. She practically bolted out the door of her apartment, down the stairs to the door of her Honda Civic, praying that she would make it to the magazine’s Beverly Hills office on time.

  Dana had only driven a few blocks before she ran into rush hour traffic. She had heard about the horrible reality of LA traffic from everybody she knew who had been there. She’d even had the foresight to allow herself ten extra minutes to get where she needed to go.

  Ten minutes came and passed in stop-and-go traffic. Dana consulted her iPhone and saw that most of her trip was still ahead of her. Her stomach continued to do flips, getting more intense with each minute spent driving below 15 miles an hour. She’d already felt pangs of homesickness inside her empty apartment, but this traffic really made Dana long for Chico’s quieter streets in a way she never had before. She knew she’d arrived in a different world.

  She realized ten extra minutes wasn’t going to be enough. As if her leaping stomach wasn’t already bad, now she felt her heart pounding in her chest. She finally pulled into the parking lot behind the building 10 minutes after she was supposed to. She rushed in through the back door of the building, sauntered self-consciously into the office (Don’t look rushed, don’t look rushed she thought), and announced herself to the receptionist.

  The clean, cold-hued office and most of the faces in it looked vaguely familiar from Dana’s interview a few weeks earlier. Everybody there seemed aware of, but unconcerned with her presence. The receptionist motioned for Dana to follow her. She took Dana back into a small, sunlit room where a tall, tan woman stood, looking a bit perturbed.

  This was Graciela Collins, the senior staff photographer and person who oversaw Dana’s hiring. She looked Dana dead in the eyes and extended her hand.

  “Good morning, Dana. Trouble coming in?” Graciela shook Dana’s hand firmly.

  “Yes, I’m very sorry. I gave myself extra time to get through traffic, but I underestimated how bad it was.” Dana replied.

  “That’s something you’re going to have to learn to deal with. I’ll let it go with a warning today, but you should probably give yourself an extra half hour to get here from -”

  “Burbank. And I assure you it won’t happen again.”

  “Yeah, definitely. Alright.” Graciela placed her hand on her hip and a finger on her chin, thinking. “There are some assignments and information for you on your desk.” Graciela pointed at Dana’s desk in the corner of the room. “So get to work.”

  “Okay. Thank you.” Dana sat down at her desk. The nervousness she had felt earlier began to dissipate.

  Far from what she imagined she’d be doing on her first day, Dana looked down at a Post-It note with instructions to write scheduling emails to all of the names on an existing spreadsheet. You think they’d have a secretary for this, she thought.

  After she had settled in, two young-looking girls came over to Dana’s desk. One of them, a pretty redhead with glasses, extended her hand to Dana first.

  “I’m Amy and this is Emily,” she said, pointing to the stylish young black-haired girl to her left. “We’re the photography interns.”

  “I’m Dana, the new assistant photographer. It’s nice to meet you both. Can I ask you guys a question?”

  The girls nodded.

  “Does our department have a secretary?”

  Amy and Emily looked at each other and exchanged a look of confusion. “No,” they replied in unison.

  Dana sighed and began typing her first email of the day. Calming down, she realized that she hadn’t seen a single person give her one of those nasty stares she hated so much. I can’t believe it, she thought.

  ***

  Dana didn’t notice Graciela standing above her desk until Graciela cleared her throat to get Dana’s attention. Dana immediately looked up from her work and was slightly startled by the looming presence above her.

  “The department meeting starts in five minutes. Let’s head over to the conference room. I think you’re going to like your first assignment.” Graciela smirked, but it looked like she was trying to smile.

  Dana nodded, grabbed her iPad, and got up to follow Graciela to the sunlit conference room. She took a seat at the oval table, shaking hands and making small talk with the people next to her until Graciela stepped to the head of the table and began the meeting with a loud clearing of her throat.

  “Alright. I’ve just received the shortlist of articles for this month’s issue, so let’s get down to assigning these.” There was quiet shuffling around the table as people directed their attention away from each other and toward Graciela. “First, I’m happy to introduce our new assistant photographer, Dana Jacobs.”

  The room turned to Dana and applauded politely. Dana was pleased. No nasty stares, no eyes up and down.

  “Dana joins us fresh out of UC Davis. I’m confident that she’ll make a fine addition to the department. Please help her to get acquainted with the SoCal Style way.”

  SoCal Style ‘way’? The way Graciela said that made Dana more nervous than she already was.

  “Anyway, assignments.” Graciela loaded a spreads
heet onto the projector screen and handed out drafts of articles individually. Dana looked at the headline of her article, “Downtown’s Newest Trendsetters”. Skimming the short article, Dana discovered it was about two successful young hedge fund managers working Downtown:

  If you’ve been walking around the Financial District on any recent weekday, you may have noticed the suited young women (and men) swooning at the presence of the area’s hottest new ingénues, Alexander Price and William Levy. Together, the two founded Price-Levy Investments, a fledgling hedge fund that has taken the West Coast financial world by storm and created many happy investors.

  These young, handsome, dangerously charming billionaires may work hard during the day, but the Financial District is abuzz with stories of the business partners’ wild nights and legendary parties. Alexander and William agreed to let us in on their workaday life (and lend their amazing figures to help us show off some of the hottest new menswear from trendy Southern California designers).

  On the top of Dana’s article, Graciela had written ‘Be careful with these guys! Big dollar, big egos, small feature. 1-on-1 3:15-3:30’. Dana’s appointment was right after the meeting was to let out. Dana was uncertain what to think. Was this a big article or wasn’t it?

  The room spent the next 20 minutes talking about themes and ideas for the look of the new issue. Dana couldn’t help but feel like she was in a dream.

  ***

  “Alright, Dana.” It was 3:15 and Dana was sitting on the other side of Graciela Collins’ desk. “This is a three-page spread. You’ve got your first real chance to prove yourself here, to me and the other photographers. We’re putting it toward the end of the magazine, so if it’s bad your ass is partially – partially - covered.”

  Dana couldn’t believe what she was hearing. A three-page spread for her first issue? Even if it was an afterthought, Dana was thrilled.

  “Your subjects are Alexander Price and William Levy, owners and managers of Price-Levy Investments. They’re young financial whiz kids who’ve caught some major traction in the financial world. The writing staff tells me they’re both intense, charismatic guys. Keep an eye on Amy and Emily – they’ll be your assistants for the shoot. I don’t want them getting swept up in these guys’ charm.”

  And what about me? Dana thought. Was Graciela implying she’d be overlooked because of her size?

  “We want to capture the guys ‘at work’ and ‘in action’. Make sure you get some good shots of the office. I hear it’s exquisite. Your shoot is scheduled for the 20th at 8am. Don’t bother coming into the office that day.” Graciela stood up. “Good luck. It should be a fun assignment, but remember what I said about keeping the interns away.”

  “I will; thank you,” Dana replied as she got up to leave.

  * * *

  Dana was watching Access Hollywood and eating Chinese takeout on her couch, currently the only thing in her living room other than the television mounted on the wall. She was feeling particularly sad after a week of the same routine every night: fluffy pajamas, Chinese food, bad television, being alone. Dana didn’t know anybody in town, had no idea where to go to meet people, and was feeling more homesick for Northern California than she’d ever felt in her life. Her loneliness was even more crushing when Dana thought about the general loneliness of her life before moving to LA.

  Even in college, Dana had only had a few close friends. She’d never had a boyfriend and had never even hooked up with a guy, let alone had sex. She couldn’t even remember a time that a guy was even interested in her. Dana was ample and curvy, a size 18 with large breasts, a round and prominent ass, thick legs, and a pretty and round face with delicate features. She knew there were plenty of men who loved women with bodies just like hers, so why had she never been able to find one to love her?

  The feelings that arose when she thought about her loneliness and bad relationship luck were made even worse by the fact that she now had a demanding job that took sucked away most of her free time. In the week since she had started, Dana’s hours had become progressively longer, and she found that ten hour days were becoming normal. Fortunately, tomorrow was the photo shoot at Price-Levy Investments and that was all she was set to do that day.

  Dana had mapped out her route in advance and factored in time for traffic, so she was quite confident that she’d be showing up to this shoot on time and making a good impression. It was late and Dana was starting to fall asleep on her couch, so she took the cue from her body and walked back to her bedroom, thinking about whether coming to LA was the right decision.

  ***

  The next morning, Dana woke up 20 minutes before her alarm went off, full of nerves. She wanted to make the best impression she could on these powerful men, so she pulled the nicest dress she had out of her closet. After a hot shower, a blow dry for her soft brown hair, and a nice breakfast of waffles with whipped cream and strawberries, Dana slipped on the gently pleated pink chiffon dress that she’d worn to her college graduation.

  The knee-length dress fit tightly around her large breasts and showed a little bit of her generous cleavage, which Dana accented with a stylish gold pendant on a handmade chain. She tied a black sash around her middle to accentuate her waist and outline the shape of her pillowy rump. Finishing the look with a pair of black patent leather pumps, Dana neatly applied matching makeup to her face before rushing out the door and to her car to make the long trek Downtown.

  Dana’s palms moistened the steering wheel as she impatiently made her way through the traffic. She had done some research of Alexander Price and William Levy on the internet. She knew they were both impossibly handsome and worried that she would be distracted and somehow embarrass herself. Stay professional, she thought. She worried about the impression she would make on these fabulously successful men, wondering if she would ever be anything more than an insignificant speck on their saturated radar.

  After a surprisingly smooth ride Downtown, Dana found the address and parked her car in the garage of a 30-story building. She pulled her equipment from her trunk and walked toward two glass doors. Inside, she looked at the building directory and saw that the Price-Levy offices were on the top floor. The elevator arrived. She pressed ‘33’ and shot up to the top floor, nearly frightened by the elevator’s speed and as nervous as she’d ever been.

  The doors opened directly into the beautifully lit wood paneled lobby of the office, where a calmness and stillness greeted her. She found herself looking into the face of a beautiful blonde woman whose sleek black dress concealed the long, lean figure of a supermodel.

  “Good morning!” She chirped. “Welcome to Price-Levy Investments. You must be Dana?”

  Dana was impressed that the receptionist knew her name. “Yes, from SoCal Style. Has anybody else arrived yet?” She was really hoping that Amy and Emily had already been in. It was already five minutes before they were scheduled to start and she hadn’t heard a word from them.

  “No, but the gentlemen are running over in an early meeting. It’s not a problem. My name is Jessica, by the way.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Jessica.” Dana felt an immediate sense of relief. She picked up a magazine and began to flip through it. After a few minutes of silence, Jessica initiated some small talk.

  “So how long have you been working for SoCal Style?”

  Dana looked up from her magazine. “Just a couple of weeks. They just hired me. I actually have only been in LA for about two weeks.”

  Jessica looked surprised. “Wow. So how do you like it so far?”

  “The weather is beautiful and I found a nice apartment in Burbank. I really don’t know anything about the city, though. I’d like to get out to some cool bars and figure out what’s fun to do after work, but I just have no idea where to start.”

  Jessica nodded sympathetically. “It’s easy to feel that way here. I’ve been in LA for two years and I still feel that way sometimes. It really helps to have someone who can show you around.”

  Dana lo
oked down at the floor awkwardly.

  “I live pretty close to you. I’m in Studio City. If you’d like, we can go out sometime and I could introduce you to a few people. My sister lived here when I first moved. Without her, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything in LA. Let me help you out!”

  “That would be great,” Dana said, taken aback by Jessica’s forward kindness. “Thank you. I’ve basically been living on takeout and watching a lot of TV. It’s getting pretty old.” She felt relieved – finally, somebody who could possibly be a friend.

  By the time the interns showed up, Dana and Jessica had exchanged phone numbers and had been chit-chatting for a half an hour. Jessica had given Dana several suggestions for good places to eat, drink, and hang out around West LA.

  Dana didn’t want to berate the interns about being late since the partners themselves still hadn’t emerged from their meeting. Nevertheless, Amy and Emily practically tripped over each other, apologizing profusely as they entered the lobby with their arms full of equipment and clothing racks.

  “We’re so sorry. The traffic was just a nightmare, and then we got lost, and I told Emily to go the other way but –”

  The loud unlatching of a door cut Amy off. Out from the door emerged two tall and jaw-droppingly gorgeous men. The first man to walk out was classically handsome. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a neatly manicured crown of wispy, blonde hair. His light brown eyes and calm demeanor gave the impression of a calm seriousness.

  The blonde man was the first to approach Dana and extend his hand. “William Levy, at your service.”

  Dana smiled at this line. “Dana Jacobs, SoCal Style. Thank you for having us and posing for our magazine.”

  William smiled at Dana, who found his smile quite charming. “It’s our pleasure. We’re looking forward to the publicity it will bring us. We’re both pretty big fans of nice menswear, too.”