Girl Meets Billionaire

by Brenna Aubrey et al.

  “Then perhaps this will work out.” She pursed her lips and tapped a finger on them as she considered her next move. “I am surprised you didn’t choose yourself to be the groom, Donovan.”

  “We’d never get along,” he scoffed. “And who would be the alpha?”

  The two of them laughed, and I did too until I realized that the joke was at my expense.

  Instead of growling, the instinctive method of showing off my own alpha skills, I took control with more civilized means—steering the conversation another direction. “And what are you planning to do with the company when you take over, Elizabeth, since Darrell’s the current CEO?”

  “Not as CEO, but as an officer. I’ll have to fire Darrell and everyone on the board, since they are all his followers. They were loyal to my father as well. I’ll need a fresh start.”

  “Um.” I looked to my fellow businessmen in the room. Was she for real? “You’re going to fire everyone who knows what they’re doing and then lead the company to greatness with a board full of newbies?” I knew she was young, but this was Business 101.

  Her confidence wavered; her forehead knit into little wrinkles of concern. “Oh. Good point. I’ll start by hiring just a CEO then, one who can lead them in another direction.”

  I couldn’t believe it. She had no plan. No direction.

  I was going to stake our company’s future in Europe on this girl? What on earth was Donovan thinking?

  I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help it—she was insane. “Do you have someone in mind already for this position?” Finding that kind of talent, someone willing to take over a board of disgruntled officers…? That wasn’t a role I’d want to play.

  “Are you laughing at me?” she bristled.

  “I’m just saying the idea needs some work. Where did you go to college anyway?” I was curious now. More than curious. I’d found an opening in which to press my advantage, to show her that I wasn’t just an inferior bank account, an interchangeable fake husband. Besides, I would have to know this stuff if we were getting married, right?

  “Penn.” She threw her shoulders back, announcing her alma mater proudly.

  “And they taught you nothing at the University of Pennsylvania?” I was being a dick. Sometimes that happened. People around me learned to live with it.

  “I didn’t major in business,” she said coldly.

  “You have your MBA though, right?” Lots of people got their bachelor’s degree in something else before they got a master’s in business.

  But Elizabeth shook her head.

  Jesus. I was afraid to ask, but now I had to know. “What did you major in?”

  “Poli-sci,” she said timidly.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Donovan.” How did he find her? A twenty-five-year-old spoiled little brat, planning to take over the Dyson empire with a political science degree? I couldn’t have laughed harder.

  Turned out there was a good reason dear old dad had been keeping the reins of the company from her. She needed to grow up before she even thought about playing with the big boys.

  “I’m sorry, honey, but this is ridiculous,” I told her. “We might be able to convince the world, we might be able to convince your cousin. But you will take over that company and it will fall apart in five seconds flat. Is that really what you want to put seven months’ worth of fraud into achieving?”

  “Weston,” Donovan warned.

  “I’m sorry, D. I’m just being honest here.” What a shame—she would have looked so good in a boardroom, too.

  “I’m grateful for your honesty, Weston.” Elizabeth shifted to face my partner. “He’s right, Donovan. This won’t work. I don’t need your help after all. I was wrong in thinking that I did.” She stood, and smoothly picked up the purse that she’d dropped on the floor beside her, pulling the strap onto her shoulder as she held her hand out to shake Nate’s.

  “It was nice to meet you, Nathan.” She nodded to Donovan, “And good to see you again, Donovan. And you, Mr. King. I’m grateful to have escaped marrying you.” She smiled brightly. “Good afternoon.”

  She spun on her heels and that was that. My engagement over and done with before it began.

  Which was a good thing, I reminded myself.

  The door had barely shut behind her when Donovan roared in my direction. “Weston.”

  “I am not wrong here,” I protested. Surely they could see that. “Everything that she’d just laid out is—“

  “I don’t care, Weston. She will make this takeover happen with you or without you. With Reach or without Reach. We want to be there when it happens so that we can at least benefit from the fallout. Fix it.” He pointed a long, demanding arm toward the door.

  I glanced at Nate, who shrugged, but his expression said that he was firmly on Donovan’s side on this one. Which made sense. I’d been kind of a prick. I looked around the room, but that was it. It was just us, and I’d been given my marching orders.

  Yes, there was nothing left to do but suck this one up and fix it.

  Chapter Four

  I hurried out of the lounge so quickly that I got myself turned around in the offices of Reach, Inc. The open floor space brought lots of outside light in and all the glass front offices looked the same. I passed several people sitting at desks who looked up at me as I walked by, but I was so near to tears that I didn’t want any of them to ask if I needed help. I wouldn’t have been able to hold it together.

  So I threw my shoulders back and put my chin up and walked past, even though that just made me even more lost. Weston’s statement, this is ridiculous, kept replaying in my mind, but I heard it in my father’s voice. This is ridiculous. You can’t do this. Who do you think you are?

  He never said it to my face, my father, but he hadn’t needed to. He’d said it by never letting me into his life. He’d said it by giving his company to his nephew instead of his own daughter. He’d said it loudest by thinking that whatever man I married would be more worthy of running his empire than me.

  And wasn’t he right? Wasn’t Weston King right?

  I was no one and I didn’t know anything. I was just a spoiled girl with a lot of money. I might have a good head on my shoulders, but I didn’t know the first thing about business.

  I was such a fool to have thought I could walk into that meeting and take control.

  I wiped a stray tear from my cheek as I turned down the hall and the elevators came into sight.

  Thank God. Escape.

  But then I heard the rush-and-click of shoes running toward me across the marble floor. I turned, expecting to see Donovan. He was the one who’d wanted this scheme to work out the most, and he was the one who would care enough to come after me, but instead... Weston?

  I sucked in a breath and willed my emotions to hide inside me, in the deep-seated place that I buried most every feeling of mine that mattered. I’d rather it have been Donovan who’d come after me. It would have been easier to remain stoic and confident in front of him, because while he was admittedly good-looking and sexy as hell, he didn’t make my knees weak and my palms sweat in the way that Weston did.

  Weston, with that killer face and those panty-melting dimples. With that wicked grin and a body that wore a suit better than any other man in the room. When I’d realized he was the one who was volunteering to be my groom, I didn’t know if I was overjoyed or in over my head. It had taken everything I had to give him my coolest look while inside I was drowning in butterflies.

  To be honest, though I’d decided to approach the meeting with backbone, it was Weston who’d given me the added boost of confidence I’d needed when I’d first walked in the room. His electric blue eyes had sparked energy in me, evoked passion that I knew I owned but hadn’t been able to wield until his gaze first crossed mine. He looked at me and made me feel not just like I was beautiful, but that I was worthy of being listened to. He looked at me like I deserved to be there.

  How ironic that he was the same man who made me real
ize that I didn’t belong.

  Based on everything he’d said, I was pretty sure he hated me even though he was coming down the hallway after me. Even though he was now calling out my name, asking me to wait.

  I reached out and hit the button for the elevator anyway.

  “Just give me a few minutes,” he said, slowing his trot to a walk as he neared. “I know I don’t deserve it, but I’m only asking for two minutes. Please.”

  I scowled, wishing the doors would open. I might have been wrong about the meeting, might have been wrong about what I would do with the company, but I wasn’t wrong to try.

  And I wasn’t going to let him make me feel like it again.

  It hurt too much coming from a man I inexplicably wanted to impress.

  “I don’t need you,” I repeated. “I don’t need Reach.”

  “You don’t. You definitely don’t.” His left hand went behind his neck, rubbing the muscles there. “Honestly, we don’t really need you either. Which is why there’s nothing on the line right now if you’ll just come talk to me for a minute. Let me show you something.”

  He was right again. Reach really didn’t need me. Sure, they wanted my advertising company—Darrell’s advertising company—but they were doing fine without it. Reach still had massive holdings even without the merger. They would be just fine even if they didn’t go after this one market. They didn’t need me, and his remark was more than a bruise to my ego.

  Because it meant I really wasn’t holding any cards.

  It was further proof I was clueless and out of my league.

  The elevator doors opened with a ding. I closed my eyes momentarily and let out a low, quiet breath.

  Then I opened them again, and turned to meet Weston’s piercing blues.

  “I’ll give you five minutes,” I conceded. Because I was curious. Because I had nothing to lose. Because he was so goddamn cute with that half-smile and that dimple.

  “Come this way.” His grin had widened, the dimple deepening. He walked backward to make sure I was following him, then, when he was certain, he turned around and retreated into the office space. This time he didn’t lead me to the lounge, but toward the opposite corner.

  We passed the desk of the woman who had escorted me in—Roxie, she’d said her name when she introduced herself, and then we were inside a corner office that I could only assume was his own. He shut the door behind me and I tensed slightly.

  He didn’t notice.

  How lucky for men to not have the constant worry about being in close rooms with the opposite sex, but I needn’t have worried either because the walls to his office were glass and anyone could see in.

  But then he moved behind his desk and pushed a button, and suddenly the transparent glass went opaque, and we could no longer see out. And, I assumed, no one could see in.

  “Wait a minute,” I said hesitantly. “I just met you.” Ironic, considering I had been about to marry him.

  He raised a brow in question, not understanding my meaning.

  Then both brows raised as he got my drift. “Don’t worry. The door isn’t locked—go ahead and check.”

  I did so and found he was telling the truth.

  I remained by the door and watched him, as next he walked over to the cabinets that ran along the side wall and opened two up. They were the kind that usually hid a TV screen behind them or a safe. When he opened them, I was shocked to discover a dartboard waited behind.

  And stapled to the middle of the dartboard was a black-and-white printout of a man’s face.

  I squinted and took a couple steps forward, examining the face. “Is that... Nash King?”

  I didn’t know a lot about business, but everyone knew who Nash King and Raymond Kincaid were. Anyone who had any sizable investments had a relationship with Weston and Donovan’s fathers in some form or another. Nash was one of the financial kings—har har, the pun—of the United States. He and Kincaid owned so many banks that together they were one of the leading financial institutions of the world.

  Why was Weston throwing darts at a picture of his father’s face?

  I turned to look at my almost-groom. His hands were shoved casually in his pockets and his eyes were cast down, embarrassed.

  He shrugged. “It’s kind of an old picture now,” he said. “I just printed something from the Internet. It would have been even more awesome if I’d brought in an actual portrait, but I’m lazy.”

  I felt the whisper of a smile on my lips. “Weston King. Do you have daddy issues?” Was that what he’d brought me here to show me?

  “I didn’t say I had daddy issues,” he said defensively. Evasively. “But it blows off a lot of steam to throw a dart at people’s faces every now and then. I’m not going to say that I have or haven’t occasionally placed Donovan’s face in that spot, but I am telling you that it works. Hold on.”

  Suddenly, he was in motion. He jiggled the mouse on his computer to wake it up, and then typed something on the keypad. He pushed a few buttons and a moment later, I heard the printer spitting out a piece of paper.

  He ran over to it to retrieve the document, and then, snatching up his stapler, he walked back to the dartboard and pinned a new picture up over the one of Nash King.

  When he stepped back, we were looking at the famous profile picture of Dell Dyson. It was on his website, on his Wikipedia page, on the book he’d written, on any sort of byline. He’d always thought it made him look powerful, but I only ever saw his arrogance in that expression, in the tilt of his head. I had hoped to see it next as I removed it from the wall of my new office, but here it was.

  This was what Weston meant to show me.

  Oh, boy.

  Weston stepped back from the cabinet and held both his hands out to display the dartboard, Vanna White style. “Go ahead.”

  “No way,” I scoffed, but I did spin around, surveying the room for something to throw. “I don’t even have any darts.”

  He was already scurrying back to his desk. “What was I thinking?” A moment later he’d pulled a handful of darts from his top drawer and was handing them over to me.

  I laughed, a small chuckle, mostly to myself as I regarded his offering. Talk about ridiculous.

  But then, there I was, taking a red dart from his palm and setting up my stance, lining up my aim. It wasn’t a fantasy I’d ever had, but the second it showed up before me, I couldn’t imagine why I hadn’t tried it myself.

  I’d never thrown darts before. That was probably reason number one.

  I’d taken archery in school, though, and been fairly good at it. Still, nothing, not even that class, had ever made me feel quite as much like I was Robin Hood taking an arrow from Little John as I did right now.

  I pulled my body back, rocked forward, let the dart go, and watched it smack right into Dell Dyson’s tie. It quivered directly in the middle of his perfect Windsor knot.

  Man, did it feel good.

  “Wasn’t that fantastic?” Weston whispered, as though he knew that admitting it might feel dangerous. “Do another.”

  This one didn’t take any encouraging at all. I grabbed a green one.

  I drew back and let it go. It sailed with a whoosh and landed in the corner of the paper, not hitting any of his face or body at all.

  “Ah. Shit throw. Try again,” Weston encouraged.

  I did. Again and again. A yellow dart and blue and another red. Another blue. Each time thinking of a new offense.

  This one is for the company that completely blocked women from holding executive positions—including your own daughter.

  This one for the seven consecutive years you landed on the worst places to work list for people with families.

  This one for the thirty-seven percent difference in pay rates between men and women that exists at Dyson Media.

  This one for the summer that you invited me to stay with you in Paris and then left me alone with the nanny, while you entertained at your other houses.

  This one for every bi
rthday you forgot.

  This one for every Christmas gift that was picked out by your secretary.

  And this one for every time that you said you would visit, that you said that you would show up, that you said that you wanted to be there, and you never, ever were.

  I was shaking when all the darts were gone.

  “Bullseye,” Weston said beside me, oblivious to the ragged state of my emotions. “Literally. Bull’s-eye, as in, you got that one right in between the eyes.”

  He went to gather the darts off of the board, and while I was staring at his long, lean backside, perfectly sewn into his tailored suit, I found words spilling out that I never meant to confess. “I thought I had more time,” I said quietly.

  “Huh?” Weston seemed appropriately confused. “Oh, you can go again after I get them all. I don’t own that many.” He turned back to pulling out the rest of the darts.

  But I didn’t mean what he thought I did.

  I swallowed and strengthened my voice this time. “I thought I had more time,” I said again. “I thought that it would be years before my father died. I traveled after college. I spent time in Europe. I was enjoying my youth. I didn’t know he would have a heart attack in the middle of the night. He was only sixty-one and was fairly healthy—or so everyone thought. Nobody expected him to...”

  I trailed off, remembering how I’d found out he’d been rushed to the hospital by hearing it on CNN. I’d reached his secretary easily enough, who informed me that I’d been “on the list,” but “further down,” and she just hadn’t gotten to calling me yet.

  I was in the air flying to France to be with him when he’d officially died.

  I shook off the memories of his death and funeral, a whirlwind of commotion where I’d been made to feel insignificant and inadequate at every turn. The memories were still too fresh and unprocessed, too near the surface to think about without turning into a sobbing mess. Truly, they might always be.

  “I was already registered for a master’s degree this fall in business at the University of New York. I had planned to learn...” My voice trembled. I swallowed again before going on. “It just took me by surprise.”