Rescued By the Billionaire by Lisa Kaatz

3

I’d forgotten what a bitch job hunting was. It had been ten days since I’d been fired from Grindz, which meant that my money had completely dried up and I was now running on fumes.

It’s not that I ever meant to live paycheck to paycheck. It’s just that there was always something else coming up.

Like my car. Nobody with half a brain would lend me money because of my credit score, which left me no other option other than cash. I’d never been able to save up enough at once to buy another car in cash. So I kept making repairs.

$600 here. $200 there. One time, a $1200 repair that I had to beg the shop to let me put on a payment plan. It took me five months and a lot of overtime to pay that off. But I did it. To its credit, the Honda wasn’t a bad car. But anything starts to break down after you’ve put, oh, something to the tune of 210k miles on it.

Then there was my landlord. An older man who’d given me the creeps since I’d first met him. For some inexplicable reason, he’d offered me the flat for nearly $500 under market rate. When I moved in, I noticed that nearly all of my neighbors were female, and rather young, too. Few male tenants, and absolutely no families.

The first time I couldn’t make rent, he invited me to his office to talk about it. He leaned over into my chair and put a hand on my thigh. Said we could “work something out.” I bolted from the office and called my friend Mara, begging her to see if I could put in some time at the cleaning company, tears streaming down my face. I worked 95 hours that week and stuffed the money in an envelope, shoving it under the door to my landlord’s office.

I wasn’t about to talk to him face-to-face ever again.

Unfortunately, the company Mara worked for didn’t have any open shifts - they were booked solid, a side effect of the recent economic downturn. It seemed like everywhere I turned, nobody was hiring.

I was beginning to feel desperate. Rent was due in two weeks, and at this rate, even if I got hired tomorrow, my first paycheck wouldn’t be in before rent was due.

Why the fuck hadn’t I gotten a roommate when I’d moved to this godforsaken city?

Oh yeah. Because I wanted to be left alone. Wasn’t that the reason I moved here to begin with? So the vastness of the city could swallow me up, make me invisible?

I gazed at the corner of my room, where a stack of half-filled sketchbooks served as an end table next to my second hand sofa. I was so exhausted from working, sometimes I couldn’t even remember why I’d come here to begin with. I’d had a dream. Some stupid notion of becoming an artist. And foolish determination that I could leave behind country living and reinvent myself into something else.

Had I been kidding myself?

The buzzer sounded at my door.

“Who is it?” I sighed into the speaker.

“Lincoln.”

“Who?”

“Lincoln...Lincoln Taylor,” the deep, familiar voice repeated.

I backed away slowly from the speaker as though it had burned me, then ran to the window, looking straight down. Sure enough, there he was. Head of thick, dark brown hair. Broad shoulders. He was looking at the door, pressing the buzzer again and talking into the speaker system. I heard his muffled voice from behind me.

“Just wanted to see if I could come up,” he said.

He pushed the buzzer again, the backed away. Suddenly, he looked up.

I ducked under the windowsill.

“Shit,” I muttered. Had he seen me?

Slowly, I got back up and peered out the window. He was gone.

I sighed in relief - at least, I’m pretty sure it was relief. Although now that I thought of it, I thought I felt a pang of disappointment when I looked down on the street and didn’t see him there.

Snap out of it Abby, I told myself. He was cute, but he was basically best friends with the woman who fired you by the time you left.

Just another uptight rich guy who thought he was too good for me. Who needs him?

I sighed and walked to the kitchen, looking for something to do. I noticed the trash - overflowing due to neglect for the last week, and decided to take it out. May as well be productive around the house while I’m waiting for calls back from applications, right?

If they ever called back.

I hoisted the trash bag out of the can and tied it in a knot. Pulling open the door, I found myself face to face with -

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I blurted out. And again, immediately regretted it. Why couldn’t I seem to keep myself in check around this man? Was there something about him that just caused expletives to fall out of my mouth?

“I came to see you,” he said.

He was out of his usual uniform of a black suit and tie. Instead, he wore a light gray hoodie and jeans. Still, a silver watch was shining on his wrist. I didn’t know watches at all. But that one looked like the expensive kind. Another item he owned that was worth more than my Honda, probably.

This made it easier to dislike him. Which I was determined to do.

“How do you even know where I live?” I asked, questions jumping to mind faster than I could ask them. “How did you even get in here?”

“Must have gotten lucky,” he said with a shrug.

“And do you mind explaining how you know my address?” I snapped.

“Yellow pages is online these days,” he said, tapping his temple.

“And you knew my name to look it up?”

“Well - ”

“How do you know my legal name?” I asked him with narrowed eyes. “My name badge at Grindz said Abby. You somehow found me in New York City with just the name ‘Abby’ to go by?”

He shifted his weight uncomfortably from foot to foot.

“Well - ”

“I’m calling the police,” I said, backing away and beginning to close the door. “You’re clearly some kind of psycho stalker.”

“Fine,” he said. “Melissa - your old boss - she told me.”

I opened the door again.

“Melissa?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I told her I wanted to send you an apology note and a new sketchbook to make it up to you, and she gave me your name and where to send it to you.”

I bit my lip. That didn’t sound like something Melissa would do at all. Maybe Adam talked her into it. Or maybe her crush on Lincoln got the best of her.

Yeah, probably that.

“Well, that doesn’t really explain why you’re here,” I said. “You could have just mailed a new sketchbook to me and called it a day.”

“I felt like you deserved an in person apology,” he said.

“It’s just a sketchbook, Lincoln,” I sighed, starting to close the door again.

This time he stuck out his hand, catching it.

“I’m not apologizing about the sketchbook,” he said. “I mean... I’m sorry about that too. But I’m also sorry about getting you fired.”

“Not your fault,” I said. “And not your problem.”

“It is, though,” he insisted.

This was the most I’d ever heard Lincoln talk. It was odd. In fact, before last week, I don’t think I’d heard him say anything other than his drink order - when he wasn’t on his cell phone talking to other people, anyway.

“Look, I owe you a job,” he said. “I want to help you find one. Can I do that for you? Please?”

“Why do you care so much?” I asked. And then, the same question I’d asked him a week ago at Grindz. “Why are you being so...so nice to me?”

The question made Lincoln pause. Almost as though he wasn’t quite sure why he was being nice to me, either.

“I believe in fairness,” he said finally. “In making things right. That’s all this is about. I lost you a job. So I’ll get you another one. A better one, probably.”

“I liked my job at Grindz,” I lied, folding my arms across my chest.

He raised a brow.

“I did,” I said. “Free coffee. I didn’t have to talk to people - usually. And it had a good view.”

“Good view?”

“Of Avery,” I explained. “It was built over multiple different time periods, so it has the most diverse architecture. And one of the architects had a thing for gothic architecture. The math lab building has the most amazing flying buttresses.”

Why was I explaining this to him?

“Flying...buttresses?” a smile played at the corner of his mouth. A smile I didn’t want to admit I found unbelievably sexy.

“It’s like a supportive arch type of thing,” I snapped. “ It’s hard to explain.” I dropped the trash bag on the floor beside me and ran my hands through my hair.

Now that I’d calmed down and gotten over the shock of seeing Lincoln at my door, I’d become keenly aware of how disheveled I looked right now. I hadn’t washed my hair in three days and my dry shampoo was hanging on for dear life. Last night, I’d slept in my makeup and couldn’t be bothered to wipe off the raccoon eye smears this morning. I was wearing an old thrift find - a sweatshirt that read World’s Greatest Grandpa in blue letters across the front. And a pair of old pajama pants with Snoopy and Woodstock patterns.

“Listen,” he said, leaning against the door frame. “I’m not leaving until you let me help you find a job. Trust me, I’m good at this stuff. I can help you.”

“It doesn’t matter anyways,” I sigh. “It’s too late. I couldn’t afford a lapse in income, I was barely making it already. At this rate, I’m probably just going to have to move back home.”

“Move back?” he asked, eyes widening. “Where is home, exactly?”

“Maine,” I said.

“So far from here,” he replied.

“Yeah,” I said, looking away. “That was kind of the point.”

We were silent for a moment.

“Let me help you,” he said. “Some jobs come with signing bonuses. So you wouldn’t have to wait on the first paycheck to come in, if that’s your concern.”

“No offense Lincoln,” I said. “But I really doubt that I’m qualified for the type of job that would come with a big signing bonus.”

“We can talk about that,” he said. And then he held up a shopping bag from an office supply store that he’d been hiding from behind the door frame.

“That doesn’t look like a sketchbook,” I said, eyeing it.

“I brought one of those too,” he said. “It’s in my car. If you come with me and let me write your resume, it’s yours.”

“So, let me get this straight,” I said. “You came by to apologize to me, and repay me for the sketchbook you ruined.”

“Right,” he said.

“But instead of just giving me the sketchbook, you’re now using it as a bribe - ”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it a - ”

“And then,” I said, talking over him. “You’re now demanding that I get into your car with you - you, a perfect stranger - and allow you to take me somewhere unknown - ”

“Not really unknown,” he muttered. “I can pull the address up right now and show you - ”

“Where you will force me to write my resume in the hopes that some fucking miracle job with a big fat signing bonus just happens to exist for me.”

“Not a miracle job,” he said. “Abby, I am telling you, you can do this. You can get another job - a better job - and stay in the city.”

I stared at him. Lincoln, with the BMW and the fancy watch.

“Look,” I said slowly. “I know how it must seem to you. Everything came to you so easily, and so you think it must be that way for everyone else. But it’s not like that. You don’t know me. And you don’t know the shit I’ve been through, or what it’s like out there. You and every other trust fund baby that came in and out of that coffee shop over the last year are so far removed from reality that you’ve gone insane. You are seriously out of touch, do you know that?”

My voice rose with every word that I said, until I was all but shouting at him. I knew if I continued, the creepy landlord’s wife would be upstairs soon, asking me what the fuss was about and making threats about noise violation fines.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. In and out.

“You’re wrong,” he said quietly.

“Yeah?” I said, looking back at him.

“I don’t know what you’ve been through,” he said. “But I’ve been through some shit too, Abby Walker. You’re right - I don’t know you. But you don’t know a goddamn thing about me either, and I think it’s pretty fucking presumptuous of you to think I don’t know what your life is like.”

I stared.

“You’re judging what you can see on the outside - which isn’t much. You’re no better than people like Melissa, who judged you based on your hair and your clothes and the fact that you lived in a shelter,” he said.

“Fuck you,” I said. “So Melissa told you all about that, too, huh? Guess you guys are just best buddies. I saw you after I went back inside to turn my name tag in. You looked pretty fucking cozy.”

“You’re insane.”

“Did Melissa put you up to this too? To continue her very generous and charitable act of hiring me?” I snarled. “You know what, I worked my ass off for that woman and didn’t get paid near what the others did. She thinks I didn’t know that. That woman is them most foul - ”

“Look, I will pay you five hundred dollars to let me help you with this,” Lincoln said, squeezing the bridge of his nose.

“No,” I said automatically. The offer barely registered in my head. Now he was offering to help me, and pay me for it?

“Six hundred?” he said pleadingly.

“Why?”I asked.

“If it helps you, then think of it as doing me a favor,” he said. “Ever since you got fired, I can’t stop thinking about that. I feel guilty. If you would let me help you find a job, I could release the guilt and move on. Really, it would be you doing me a favor.”

“Right,” I said.

“Seven hundred,” he said. “Last offer.”

I hesitated, weighing the options. Go back home to Maine, with my dad and my stepmom. Or get into this stranger’s car and go somewhere with him.

Both seemed equally dangerous. But only one had the potential outcome of me staying in NYC.

“Make it a thousand,” I said finally.

“That’s a little steep,” he said, raising a brow.

“One thousand and you can pick out my interview outfit, too,” I said sarcastically.

He raised his brows.

“Deal,” he said.

We shook on it, and I wondered if I should clarify that the interview outfit thing was a joke.

“Go get changed,” he said. “We’re getting dinner.”

He reached inside the door and grabbed the trash bag.

“I’ll deal with this while you do that,” he said.

“Don’t think you can work off your fee, though,” I said.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said. And then he gave me a wink, and my heart did that weird somersault thing again.

“What kindof person has never had sushi food before?”

I shrugged.

“I don’t know, when I was younger, it always seemed sort of...gross. Plus my dad isn’t exactly adventurous with food. He’s more of a meat and potatoes kind of person.”

“The All-American diet,” Lincoln said.

I fumbled with my chopsticks again. So far, I’d dropped three pieces of on the ground, and I’d had to swap out my chopsticks with a clean pair after - in a maneuver that had Lincoln rolling with laughter - I flicked them over my shoulder and into the lap of another diner.

“You want help?” Lincoln asked, looking at me.

“No,” I muttered, looking over at his hand for reference. He made it look so easy. So graceful. Like the chopsticks were just an extension of his body.

I’d never master this.

I nearly dropped another piece on the ground but caught it just in time.

“Here,” Lincoln said, reaching across the table and repositioning the chopsticks in my hand. “Hold your hand like this.”

He showed me and I mimicked him.

“Close,” he said with a smile. “More like this.”

He took my fingers and moved them over the chopsticks and I forgot to breathe. I tried to focus on the instructions he was giving me, but all I could think about was where his skin had brushed over mine, leaving white-hot sensation behind afterwards.

“There,” he said, smiling up at me. He seemed completely unaware of what he was doing to me. “See how you have a firmer grip that way? And more control?”

“Yeah,” I said numbly. I was relieved when he leaned back in his chair and focused on his own food again. At least the lighting in this restaurant was low. Maybe then, he wouldn’t notice how my skin had flushed red when he touched me.

Lincoln’s undivided attention, I was learning, was a force to be reckoned with. Did he have this effect on all women?

“So,” he said, going back to the topic of finding me a job. “You said you’re interested in art. Why have you never tried to do that for a living?”

“I did try. Am still trying,” I clarified. “Most jobs require formal training. And there’s a lot of competition here. So many art students and new grads…”

“What about an internship?” he asked.

“Aren’t those unpaid?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, blinking. “A lot of them are, I guess.”

“Plus,” I continued. “Most internships are for junior and senior level college students. Not...well, people like me.” I finished lamely. He didn’t need to know that I’d dropped out of high school and gotten my GED just recently. Some things were better left not talked about.

“Oh, I forgot about that,” he said, thinking.

“Lincoln, I apologize for what I said about you being a trust fund baby earlier,” I said, looking at him carefully. “But...are you sure you know what it’s like out there? I mean, when was the last time you had to look for an entry level job?”

He thought about it.

“I guess it’s been a while,” he said.

“Right,” I said, rolling my eyes. “What do you do, anyway?”

“I’m in software,” he said, taking a drink.

“Software,” I repeated slowly. “That could be almost anything. Like...Sales? Marketing?”

“Programming, mostly,” he replied.

I sat back in my chair.

“You’re a programmer,” I said incredulously.

“Is that surprising?” he asked, looking around uncomfortably.

“It’s just...you dress like a hotshot finance guy,” I said, waving at his appearance. Even his tee shirt looked designer. “I mean, come on. Is that a Rolex?”

He covered the face of his watch with his hand.

“I’m high up in my department, I guess,” he said defensively. “And I like to spend money on myself. So what?”

“And others,” I pointed out, looking down at the meal he’d bought me. Not to mention the thousand dollars I was promised for accepting his help.

“I told you,” he said. “This isn’t charity. This is me evening the score so that I can sleep at night again without feeling guilty that I got someone fired. I’m just buying some piece of mind. This is you doing me a favor.”

I snorted.

“Speaking of,” he said. “We got off topic. Art. So maybe the gallery and museum jobs are taken. Have you ever thought about advertising and marketing?”

“That’s all digital,” I wrinkled my nose. “Computers and stuff.”

“You’ve got a problem with computers now?” he asked.

I shuffled my feet under the table. I wasn’t about to admit to Lincoln that I didn’t own a computer - or even have wifi in my apartment. Before I moved to New York, I’d sold my old laptop - the junker netted me only $100, but that was enough to pay for meals for the first month.

“Computers are fine,” I said, poking at my food. “I’m just...not really into that sort of thing. Technology, and all that. I still read paper books. I get my news through the newspapers people leave behind in coffee shops. And I prefer to draw on paper, not on electronic tablets. Sorry.”

“Right,” he said, snapping his fingers. “I’ve got it.”

“You do?” I raised a brow.

“Yeah,” he said. “Illustration. Like, watercolor and stuff. My brother is a designer, he’s always talking about that stuff. You can make a killing if you get the right clients.”

I rolled my eyes.

“And so we’re back to square one,” I said. “How do you expect me to get a bunch of fancy clients when I have no experience and no connections?”

“Leave that part to me,” Lincoln said confidently. “I know some people.”