Irresistible Billionaires by Summer Brooks
Rhett
“Iam agreeing with you, Philip,” Leslie sighed, rubbing her forehead in annoyance. “I’m also saying that I don’t believe that’s necessarily the best investment to make for the company right now, especially when we have such a large bill looming over our heads.”
“Well, once we pay out the taxes to the IRS, the bill will be gone,” I pointed out, slumping back in my chair, equally as annoyed as Leslie was right then.
It wasn’t that she and Philip were bad accountants, but it was just that…
No, actually, they were pretty bad accountants. Somehow, I ended up paying millions of dollars in taxes each year, while people like Jeff Bezos virtually got off scot-free. Not that I wanted to quit paying taxes at all, but I had to admit, the fact that neither one of my accountants was able to find the loopholes that very clearly existed was rather annoying.
“And then we won’t have the money to invest anymore,” she replied evenly. “I’m merely saying that if Philip drains this account in order to make a gamble on this property and it doesn’t turn out the way we want it to, we will be deep in the hole with the government. And trust me when I say that is not a hole we want to be anywhere near.”
That was the last thing I heard either of them say, truthfully. I know they were going back and forth, snapping at each other as they tossed idea after idea out there, trying to make it all make sense.
Money. Sometimes I loved having tons of it, and sometimes I couldn’t care less. I knew I put on this whole facade of the rich playboy who loved two things- money and women- but that was really all for show. It was all because I happened to have an Instagram account for my realty business in Miami, just before it became really popular as a social media platform, and happened to run into an extraordinarily famous and well-loved basketball player while I was just starting out in the business.
And then everything had bloomed from there. I’d gotten a T.V. show all about the rich celebrity clients I would sell houses to in Miami, and suddenly I was on the cover of all sorts of magazines and featured all over famous social media accounts.
All of that had come about when I was in my mid-twenties, which meant I was still a young, stupid kid. But part of the appeal of my show and my Instagram account was the pure idiocy I’d displayed, so I kept it up even when I was past that phase in my life. I’d become accustomed to the fancy cars and the big houses and the way that people smiled at me when they walked by, blushing just a little bit because I was such a famous face.
I couldn’t give all of that up now, so the facade stayed caked on like day-old frosting.
My mind wandered as Leslie and Philip continued to go back and forth, trying to figure out which decision was the least idiotic.
That morning had been one of the more stressful ones since I’d moved here to the Bay Area. Normally, I was afforded relative quiet in comparison to the treatment I received in Miami, L.A., or New York. But Tom Cruise was in town to shoot a new movie. The streets were abuzz with paps in a way they generally weren’t, which meant I got the brunt of it whenever I stepped outside and made my presence known to the public.
I used to love that, all of the pomp and circumstance that surrounded me, but recently, I’d grown tired of it. It felt shallow and fake.
There had to be something more to life, like epic romance and pure happiness.
Just as the thought crossed my mind, like some sort of subconscious trigger, Sarah’s face popped into my head.
She hadn’t been the least bit swayed by my celebrity. In fact, for a moment there, I’d almost been convinced that she didn’t even remember me from Logan and Bella’s wedding, which would have been sad. The two of us had gotten along so well there. However, I’d still been pretending to date Nicki Ritter, one of the most famous YouTube stars of all time, so I couldn’t really pursue anything.
Actually, that was a lie. I could have if I’d really wanted to, but that would have meant dealing with a huge press scandal and all of the blowbacks I would receive, and truthfully, I just hadn’t been in the right headspace for that.
But today was a completely different story. Nicki had announced three weeks ago that our fake relationship was over because she wanted to “pursue new and different opportunities as a single woman,” which was perfectly fine with me.
It also meant I was free and in the clear to date whomever I chose to date. Not that I was cocky and believed that Sarah would just fall down on her knees and thank me for choosing her. This morning had shown me that she was hardly that type of woman.
But I wanted to at least give it a shot. Even now, when all I was doing was thinking about her heart-shaped face and her frizzy blonde hair, I couldn’t help but smile. I’d watched the entire exchange she’d had with the man on the street, and seen the way she’d slammed into that glass door and then walked inside as if nothing at all had happened.
She didn’t care about the glitz and the glam. She didn’t care about the celebrity. She wasn’t vapid and shallow.
That was the kind of woman I needed in my life. One who would help me usher in this new era of Rhett and help make me the man I wanted to be.
And hopefully, I could do the same for her.
Abruptly, I stood up, shocking both Leslie and Philip, who had frozen mid-sentence.
“What is it?” Leslie demanded.
“I think we’re done,” I replied with a shrug.
“But we—“ She started to protest, but I cut her off with a single hand raised in the air.
“I have to go take care of something,” I replied. “Hash this out amongst yourselves, and just tell me what your decision is.”
For the first time since I’d started my real estate business, I left a meeting. I didn’t involve myself in every single aspect of every single thing that went on.
I was a little bit proud, in a way. Even though this was all because my mind was too focused on Sarah to actually think any business decisions through, I hadn’t walked out of a meeting in nine years.
Maybe it was time to start being a little less hands-on with my company. Maybe it was time to reap the benefits of all of my hard work and see what the next phase of my life had to offer me.
I stepped through the long, glossy halls of my company, which sat on the eighth floor of one of San Francisco’s finest office buildings, and entered my very own private sanctuary.
When I was at work, that is. My entire home and office had been turned into lovely, relaxing spaces, thanks to the talents of Bella, Logan’s new wife.
The office in question was dimly lit, with a massive glass window against the back wall. The shades were drawn right now, giving the space an almost romantic ambiance. Whenever I wanted a little more light, I could simply yank them open, and the office would be bathed in the warm yellow glow of the San Francisco sun.
The floor was soft, plush carpeting that I sometimes sank my bare feet into whenever I was having a particularly hard day. There was a massive oak desk in the center, with a wingback leather chair directly behind it, and more drawers than a guy could possibly use in his entire lifetime.
And I absolutely loved it. The moment I saw what Bella had done with the place, the two of us had struck up a working partnership. Now, she handled all of the decorating needs of some of my biggest clients from here to Los Angeles.
I padded over to the chair and plopped down, listening to the little whoosh of air as I sank into the padding, and then put my feet on the desk to stretch out my knees. The right one popped a little bit, a holdover from my college football days, when I’d given myself one too many injuries and taken far too little time to recover from them.
I opened up my computer, browsing casually through the emails there and checking to see if there were any major developments.
One of my rapper clients was insistent that I put in a lowball offer on an Oakland mansion, no matter how many times I tried to explain to him that no one would take it. Bay Area real estate was a beast of its own, which was why I’d been so keen on tackling it. The housing prices here were insane, which meant the commissions were equally insane, but the business was absolutely cutthroat.
Add to that the fact that I was competing with Henrietta Lin, who, although she wasn’t nearly the sort of famous face that I was, had cornered the market up here years before and still had a pretty strong foothold.
But I was working on that. Soon enough, I’d be a serious competitor, taking even the older, more well-established clients, and working to bring in the tech guys who currently resided in tiny apartments in San Francisco. My plan was to convince them to branch out, to buy some of those four million dollar homes down in Los Gatos, and to start planning for their future with a family.
None of the other emails were in the least bit compelling, which left me to sit back with my thoughts, thinking about the little encounter I’d had that morning with Sarah. I kept seeing her face in my mind, floating past as she glared at me.
And then, the way her expression had softened when I’d said her name and she realized that I did, in fact, remember her from the party, and I wasn’t a total asshole.
Something about her was sticking with me in the strangest way. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I knew one thing.
I needed to get to know her.
I didn’t have any way to contact her, unless social media counted. But I also didn’t want to be that creepy guy who stalked her friends’ social media accounts just to find her and send her a completely out of the blue message. I knew that was how a lot of people communicated these days, but it had always struck me as such a strange thing to do. It took away the true connection of everything, like in the world of dating before technology. If a guy ran into a woman like I’d run into Sarah and wanted to figure out how to contact her, he’d have to go through her friends.
So, that was exactly what I would do.
Not Bella, of course, but Logan would probably be open to helping me out. Of course, I had to remind him that I wasn’t such a big player anymore in order to get him to do so.
It was something I admired about Logan. He was protective of his friends, and I knew he’d be extremely careful about letting anyone get close to Sarah.
I was just about to pick up my phone when there was a hard, frantic knock on my door. Before I could say anything else, Javier, my personal assistant and all around do it all guy, burst into the room, with his hair messed up and sweat pouring down his face like he’d just run a marathon.
“Leslie quit,” he gasped out, doubling over as he tried to regain his breath.
“What?” I demanded, knowing what I’d heard but hardly believing it with my own ears.
“Leslie… quit,” he repeated.
Now, if I had been in Miami and had an accountant of Leslie’s relatively low caliber, I wouldn’t have cared. In fact, I probably would have let her go months ago when I realized she wasn’t at all up to the task.
But San Francisco was a different story. I’d arrived here only to discover that the world of finance was absolutely cutthroat. All of the best accountants had already been snatched up by massive, well-established clients who offered them things like work from home options and nap pods to use at any time during the day.
I didn’t offer any of that. Call me old fashioned, but I believed that people needed to be in the office, working, while they were at work.
So, that meant I was stuck with accountants who were far more desperate for a job. The problem?
Those accountants weren’t always the greatest. And yet, I still couldn’t stand to lose one of them, because even a sometimes incompetent accountant was better than no accountant at all. I was absolutely useless with numbers, and there was no way in hell I’d ever be able to do all of the work for my real estate and development businesses.
“Crap,” I groaned, leaping from my desk and racing to follow Javier back out the door. For now, Sarah would have to wait.
Leslie was at the end of the hall, stumbling out of her office with a heavy-looking box filled with all of her things.
“Leslie,” I called out, marching up to her and using my firmest, most bossy voice. “What are you doing?”
“I… am… quitting,” she replied, running out of breath as she attempted to shoulder the weight of the box and simultaneously close her office door.
“Why?” I demanded, not stepping forward to help her. As rude as it may have been, I was hoping that my lack of interest in being chivalrous might make her drop the box altogether and give up this strange idea of quitting that she had.
“Because,” she huffed, finally setting the box down on a nearby table and rounding on me with her hands on her hips, staring me down with angry brown eyes that were so dark they were almost black.
I waited, fully expecting some sort of explanation would follow that answer, but none came. Like always, Leslie was speaking in partial sentences.
“Because what?” I prompted, casually setting my hand on top of the box in hopes that it would discourage her slightly.
But unfortunately, it did no such thing.
“Because that man in there will not do a thing to hear me out,” she replied in annoyance. “He is mansplaining everything, and I can’t stand it anymore. This is the twenty-first century! I am done being treated like a complete imbecile just because I’m in possession of a vagina, and he’s got a penis!”
“Mansplaining?” I responded, catching Javier’s vigorous head shake when it was far too late.
Leslie’s eyes popped wide open, and she gasped in indignation as if it should be a federal crime that I was unaware of this term.
“How dare you!” She replied angrily. “Yes. Mansplaining. And I can’t take it anymore. So I won’t. Have a good day.”
And with that, she snatched her box back and stampeded out of the office.
Leslie was gone. And I was down a barely decent accountant in a city in which accountants were basically gold.
“I cannot deal with this today,” I groaned. I turned to look at Javier. “Find a replacement. Please.”
“Yes, boss,” he replied quickly.
I disappeared back into my office, taking a calming breath as I reentered the space.
Thank God Bella had designed such a perfect sanctuary for me to relax in.
I went back and sat behind my desk, putting my feet up once again, but this time, I didn’t turn my computer back on. I needed to take a breath and focus on myself.
Logan. I’d been about to call him and ask about Sarah and, more specifically, what he thought about the two of us exploring some type of relationship. Hopefully, the conversation would go well, and I’d end up with her phone number.
I picked up my phone and clicked on his contact, waiting for a couple of rings before he picked up.
“Hey, what’s up?” He asked with a laugh. “I saw your picture splattered all over Twitter this morning.”
“Yeah,” I groaned. “Those damn paps, dude. They really are not great people.”
“Really?” He replied with a hint of smugness in his voice. “Because from those pictures, it looked like you were having a damn good time.”
“Posing for them,” I shrugged. “I have to make it look real, you know? It’s great for business.”
“Uh-huh,” he replied. “Sure.”
Despite the fact that I could hear the disbelief in his voice, I decided to barrel forward with my request.
“So, listen, I called you because I’ve got a bit of a favor to ask,” I started, attempting to be delicate.
“If you want Bella to redecorate your house, I guarantee you she’s going to say no,” Logan chuckled.
“Uh, no, nothing like that,” I reassured him. “I told you, man, she did everything perfectly. I don’t want to change a thing.”
“Good. So, what’s up?”
“I ran into your friend Sarah this morning, down at the bagel shop near the park,” I told him. “And, you know, she looked pretty. So, I was wondering if you might be able to give me her phone number or introduce us somehow?”
I was met with dead silence.
“Look, dude, I’m not trying to say that you have, you know, bad intentions, or anything,” Logan started awkwardly.
I could hear the hesitation in his voice and knew what he was thinking.
“But you think I’m a player, huh?” I offered, attempting to both make the conversation less awkward and show him I already knew what he was thinking.
“Yeah,” Logan sighed.
“That’s not me anymore, though,” I told him earnestly. “I haven’t been that guy in a long time.”
Logan let out a sudden, abrupt laugh, which quickly devolved into a full bout of belly laughter.
“Okay,” he gasped out in between hollers.
“No, I’m serious,” I said quickly. “I’m not. I haven’t been that guy in a really long time.”
“Dude, no offense, but I just saw you on T.V. this morning,” Logan said kindly. “I saw what Nicki was saying, about how you got her pregnant and just up and left. You know I’m never going to judge you in the slightest, but I got to admit that that’s not the kind of guy that I think should be around Sarah. She doesn’t need that sort of drama in her life. She’s got way too much going on for that.”
I hardly heard anything he said past “Nicki.”
“Shit,” I gasped, settling back in my chair and rubbing a hand down my face, trying to wipe away all of the memories of that woman.
Nicki, my stupid ex-girlfriend who I hadn’t even slept with in about two years. It was awfully convenient for her to suddenly claim she was pregnant in front of all of the press, making it seem like I was the bad guy, the one who had a problem.
When, in reality, it was her all along.
“I know it sucks to have your business out there like that, but it was pretty bad,” Logan sighed. “I know there are two sides to every story and all, but I just think even that is a lot to try and put on Sarah. And honestly, she might not follow the news, but I know she wouldn’t want that in her life if she knew about it.”
“It’s not true,” I sighed, trying to come off as casually defensive as possible.
The entire situation was a mess. The truth was that Nicki had loved using our relationship to constantly catapult herself into the spotlight. The moment it had stopped working- when I’d finally admitted I was done pretending and that I deserved something more than a facade- she’d spun it around for the press in order to make me seem like a monster and pressure me into making child support payments to her.
I knew how she expected it all to play out. She’d fake a pregnancy for nine months and secure a baby somehow. Then the three of us would be some sort of happy trio as she and I co-parented, and I paid her all sorts of impossibly large sums.
And then the American public would never get enough of her.
“You’re saying she’s lying?” Logan asked in shock. “What kind of a woman would lie about something like that?”
“A truly awful one,” I replied. “I’ve been talking to my publicist, trying to figure out how to handle this in a way that doesn’t make me come off as a big asshole. You know, I can’t exactly call a press conference and accuse her of lying. Especially if she did manage to somehow get herself pregnant. The public’s opinion of me would tumble, and with it, my entire career.”
“That’s a damn rock and a hard place,” Logan sighed. “Well, I’m glad to know it’s not true, at least.”
“It’s not,” I insisted, perking up a little bit at what I hoped was a change of opinion on the whole Sarah situation. “So, now that you know that, what do you think about my earlier request?”
Logan paused for a moment, thinking about it. Normally, I’d want to jump in, to keep talking and explaining why it was a brilliant idea, but today, I held my tongue. Logan was already hesitant, and I didn’t want to do anything that might drive him away completely.
I had no idea why, but I wanted to do things differently with Sarah. I wanted to take this seriously from the very start, to really get to know her in a way I had never known any woman before.
I wasn’t sure if it was my rather newly changed personality or something about Sarah and her essence that made me feel that way. Whatever it was, I liked it.
“Alright, I’ll ask her,” Logan finally said, after a pause so long and pregnant that I was almost certain I was going to burst apart with anticipation.
“Seriously?” I gasped. “Thanks, dude. This is great. Really great.”
“You owe me,” Logan chuckled. “Just remember that when I get ready to cash in.”
“Absolutely,” I replied, too excited to even bother coming up with one of my usual, far more snarky replies.
“Hey, man, before we hang up, there’s something you should know,” Logan said. The heaviness in his tone made my stomach turn over, and for a moment, I imagined the worst things possible. Maybe Sarah was secretly a serial killer or a jewel thief.
Or a con artist, just like my faux ex.
“Yeah?” I asked hesitantly.
“She’s going to Thailand in a week.”
“Oh. Geeez. Okay. I mean, everyone deserves a vacation,” I replied, completely unsure what this had to do with the conversation. I’d never been to Thailand myself, being more of a Monte Carlo type of guy, but I wouldn’t judge her.
“No, Rhett, you don’t understand,” Logan pressed. “She’s leaving for good. Or, I should say, for an ‘undetermined amount of time.’ I think she feels like she needs to find herself out there, or something.”
I really wished he’d said she was a serial killer. At least then I could decide whether or not I wanted to take a chance on dying with that one.
“Oh.” It was all I could say. I couldn’t even figure out why I was so upset at this over a woman I didn’t even know.
I guess the problem was that I didn’t know her yet. And I desperately wanted to.
“I just thought I should tell you before you went any further, you know?” Logan replied. I could practically hear him grimacing into the phone. “Do you still want me to talk to her?”
“Yeah,” I replied, nearly automatically. “I do.”
“Okay, then,” Logan said with a light laugh. “You’ve got my word. I’ll let you know what she says.”
When Logan and I hung up, I actually punched my fist in the air.
That beautiful blonde beauty who didn’t give a damn what anybody thought was soon going to be aware that I had been thinking about her.
And hopefully, she had been thinking about me, too. That was all I had to deal with right now. If things went well, then we could get to that whole deal with Thailand.