Irresistible Billionaires by Summer Brooks
Rhett
Did I feel bad about the task that I’d given Sarah? A little. Was I going to change my mind?
Absolutely not. There was a part of me that felt like this was a test of her in some way. Like, even though I’d virtually forced her to take the job, I needed to make sure she could handle me as her boss.
Which meant that what I said went. When I made a decision, I expected my employees to follow it, no matter what their personal opinions on the subject were.
Which was why it surprised me, so when Sarah strode back into my office, not ten minutes after, I’d given her the marching orders and slammed the binder back down on my desk.
“Do you really think it’s okay to just walk out the door after ordering me to do something like that?” She demanded, glaring down at me with bold blue eyes.
“Uh, yes?” I replied, a little confused. “I’m the boss, after all. Isn’t that how it works?”
“Oh my God, you’re one of those!” She gasped, spinning around angrily. She came full circle before she made eye contact with me again, and I was left a little confused as to why she’d just spun around in the first place. But then again, I supposed I should be used to the often strange things she did by now.
“One of what?” I responded curiously.
“One of those bosses who acts like his word is the Bible or something,” she spat, pointing an accusatory finger at me. “I don’t want to go pay off your ex-girlfriend and make her stop spewing gossip about you in the press, alright?”
I could see this was her breaking point, so I decided now would be a good time to appease her. I didn’t want her to decide to quit right then and there over something like this.
“Okay, fine, you don’t have to do it,” I said quietly.
“I— wait, I don’t?” Clearly, that was not what she had been expecting me to say.
“Nope,” I shook my head. “Now, would you mind going to find your desk and getting to work? You’ve got a lot of reading to get through today.”
I glanced away from her and back to my computer, where I had about a thousand emails from the construction company sitting. I knew my mood had shifted- I could feel it- and I knew that Sarah was thrown off by it, but I didn’t have the energy to try and explain it all to her.
The very thought of Nicki just pissed me off. I couldn’t believe she’d had the gall to do what she was doing right now.
Sarah stared at me for another long second before she finally backpedaled and made her way out of the office, shaking her head and muttering under her breath as she went.
The moment she was gone, I clicked out of my email and back to the YouTube clip I’d been watching.
It was another lovely broadcast from TMZ all about my supposed baby mama drama. I could not wait until they found out the truth.
A few hours later, Sarah was finished with her reading, and I was forcing Francesca to show her around and teach her the ropes. Truth be told, I hadn’t even come up with an official position for her just yet, since she couldn’t be a full-time accountant here without drawing far too many questions. So instead, I decided that she was going to be the all-around office assistant, which meant she would not only be dealing with me but the rest of the office as well.
All that talk of Nicki had completely thrown off my day. I was even more infuriated because I’d thought I was going to spend time with Sarah during all of this and make an attempt to get to know her and see where the two of us might lie together.
But that wasn’t working out the way I’d hoped. Instead, I was stuck trying to write a check to Nicki without feeling like I was going to throw up every time I added another zero on the end of it.
So far, it had three zeroes. And I knew Nicki.
She wouldn’t take anything less than five.
“And after you’ve brewed a fresh pot of coffee, you need to come over here to check all of the waste bins,” Francesca’s slightly nasally voice floated by as she continued to give Sarah the grand tour.
I’d hired the woman to be the face of my office back when I was still very much a playboy. And despite the fact that I could still appreciate the perfections of a woman’s body, I no longer saw the need to have the world’s most beautiful woman sitting in the front of my office for every new client.
Especially since many of them in San Francisco were single women, and I doubted Francesca presented quite the same level of appeal to them.
“I’m sorry, but shouldn’t that be the janitor’s job?” The hint of annoyance in Sarah’s voice had me choking back a laugh. I hardly knew her, but I could already imagine that she was scrunching up her thin, high nose and tilting her head in a way that was meant to be innocently curious but could often come off as annoyed and calculated.
I didn’t think she ever meant it like that, though. She was nothing like the Botoxed, gold-digging women I used to run around with. She wasn’t quite so underhanded.
“We don’t have a janitor for during the day,” Francesca replied. “It used to be my job, but since you’re the new girl around here, I figure I should probably pass you the torch.”
“Gee, thanks.”
I don’t know what it was about that moment. Maybe the sound of Sarah’s voice floating in through my partially open office door, or the view of those three little zeros sitting on my check, waiting for company, or maybe even the combination of both of them happening at once.
All I knew was that I needed to get out of there. What I would have liked to do, get on my private jet and fly off somewhere fabulous, like Bora Bora or Hawaii, I couldn’t exactly do right then. I had too many clients to speak with and too many contractors to holler at.
But there was one thing I could do, and that was get the hell out of that office.
I sprang from my seat and grabbed the pressed, navy blue jacket from the back of my seat, marching out into the main part of the office, where Sarah was now bent over a waste bin wrestling with the little plastic trash bag while Francesca sat on her phone, her fake pink nails tapping away as she typed out a rather rapid text.
Every single agent looked up, staring at me over the tip of their fancy Macbooks, eyes wide.
I hardly ever got up from my office in the middle of the day like this.
Sarah was the only person who didn’t seem to notice, in fact. That ticked me off just a little bit, but not because I was the sort of man who felt the need to be noticed at all times.
It was because I wanted to be noticed by Sarah.
I cleared my throat, glancing around as she looked up, making sure it didn’t appear as if I was actually waiting for her.
“Yeah?” She asked, slightly breathless from her little tiff with the plastic garbage bag.
“I need you to come with me.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could recognize how harsh they sounded, and I instantly inwardly kicked myself as her blue eyes narrowed and her face went hard. Here I was, trying to make her feel included, and I was doing nothing but pissing her off.
“Can I finish this?” She asked, trying as hard as she possibly could to inject a little bit of kindness into her voice.
It didn’t work.
“Francesca can do it,” I replied. “Follow me.”
God, I had to be the most emotionally awkward man on the planet. Before I knew it, I was off, racing across the room and toward the elevator like my life depended on it.
Sarah’s footsteps came after me, and I pretended like I didn’t hear the annoyance in them.
“Where are we going?” She asked, coming to a stop in front of the elevator, arms crossed.
“To one of my developments,” I replied. “You need to learn some things.”
Every word that came out of my mouth made me sound like an ass. I was about two seconds away from sewing my mouth shut so that I didn’t accidentally make Sarah think I was the world’s biggest jerk.
But I couldn’t help it. I was used to speaking to people like this- I was the boss. I could tell Sarah didn’t appreciate it, though, and the last thing I wanted was for her to quit her first day on the job.
And move to Thailand.
…For an undecided amount of time.
“Great,” she responded. “Please educate me.”
Call me a fool, but I had a feeling that wasn’t a genuine request.
Minutes later, we were in the parking lot, headed for my favorite car as of late, the Tesla Model X. I figured that if I was going to be a bona fide San Franciscan, I might as well drive like one, too.
“What, no driver?” Sarah asked, genuinely surprised.
“I have a license, you know,” I told her.
For the first time since she’d walked into my office that morning, I actually saw a flicker of a smile. I knew she’d only taken the job because of the admittedly ridiculous salary I’d offered her. However, I still relished the idea that she was smiling while working for me.
Sarah was something else. And I had no idea why I thought that.
* * *
An hour later, after a car ride that just didn’t seem to go well, no matter how many times I tried to ask what I thought were kind, interested, yet appropriately distant questions, we’d arrived at the destination.
My newest property development, in the hills just outside of San Francisco. A luxury apartment complex with all the amenities of the city and a feeling of seclusion, just like the countryside.
Of course, right now, it was nothing more than a plot of empty land and a couple of holes in the ground where we planned to put the swimming pools.
“What is this?” Sarah asked skeptically, getting out and wandering toward the plot of land. It was just under thirty acres altogether, set right up against the scenic rolling hills of the Bay Area.
Personally, San Francisco was becoming one of the best places I’d lived so far. Never before had I been able to get to nature in such a short, quick ride.
“It’s my newest development,” I replied. “Didn’t I tell you that’s what we were doing?”
“Yes.” Sarah rolled her eyes. “But I mean… what is it? Are you building a ranch? A theme park?”
“Apartments,” I replied proudly. “Luxury ones, too.”
I assumed Sarah would be impressed. Women were always impressed when I told them about my plans.
But, once again, I was reminded that Sarah was not like the women I was used to.
“Oh,” she replied flatly. “So, why do you want me to see this, exactly? I’m just the assistant, right?”
Sarah spun around to face me, her expression unreadable.
“You’re a part of the company now,” I said, glancing away from those icy blue eyes in an attempt to make myself a little more comfortable. “You need to learn the ropes and, uh, things. What if I needed you to come down here and oversee the development for a day? Or talk to the contractors?”
I was pulling things right out of my behind at that point. I had never in my life needed an employee to do either one of those things for me. Sarah was staring at me with such intensity that I was beginning to feel overwhelmed.
“Come look over here,” I said, re-directing her attention before she could say another word. “This is going to be the first swimming pool, the main one. I’m going to put a hot tub here, and a waterfall over on that end. Maybe even a water slide. And back there, I’ll be putting cabanas with Wi-Fi connectivity so that the residents can come down and surf the web by the pool. All of the great places in Miami had that, so I want to recreate that for San Francisco residents.”
I turned, expecting to find Sarah at my side. However, instead, she was still standing at the very edge of the property, staring out over it with an expression that I could only describe as baffled.
“Walk with me,” I instructed, surprised that she hadn’t already been doing that. I had assumed it was implied when I began walking away from her.
“Hold on,” she said, shaking her head. “Let me just make sure I have this straight. This morning, you had me come down here for a job interview, for what I assumed would be an accounting position. And then I get here, and realize that it’s going to be some sort of all-around office assistant with an outrageous salary, but, hey, I’m going to go with it because why not. It’s not like I can’t use the money. And then Francesca has me changing out trash bins and making coffee, which wasn’t in the job description at all. On top of that, you wanted me to go pay off your alleged baby mama to keep your name out of the press even though she was lying about it in the first place. Now you want me to learn the ropes of development because I might have to come down here sometimes. Am I getting that right?”
“Yes,” I replied casually.
I quickly realized that was the wrong response.
“You are unbelievable,” she sighed, whipping around to head back to the car.
“Uh, I still have more to show you,” I called after her in confusion. “There are the tennis courts, and the fitness center, and the horse stables—”
“Horse stables?”
It wasn’t until that moment that I realized all of my attempts to show her the ropes and make her feel more at home than I’d ever made an employee feel had failed.
Terribly.
“Yes,” I nodded, feeling like I was saying that word far too much today. “The horse stables. It’s going with the whole countryside theme that I was telling you about.”
“Okay, look, let me explain something to you,” Sarah muttered, stomping right back to me.
I was starting to understand how she stayed so thin. The woman stomped around so much it would have been impossible for her to gain any weight whatsoever. “San Francisco is not some big city full of doe-eyed dreamers who miss their hometowns out in the middle of Kansas. You want that, go to L.A. I’m sure there are plenty of people who would love that. What San Francisco is is a city full of tired business people who have had enough of men and women like you swooping on in here and taking over our orchards and our houses and building your massive apartment complexes with their tennis courts and their swimming pools and their freaking horse stables and—”
I had been so intent on watching her brilliant blue eyes flashing with anger, despite the fact that it was directed at me, that I hadn’t even been paying the slightest bit of attention to where she was going.
Which proved extremely detrimental when her entire leg sank into a massive pile of mud. It was like someone had come over and stuck a hose over a two-foot circle, letting the water drip down until it created quicksand.
“Oh my God, are you kidding me?” Sarah demanded, turning her head up to the sky like she really was yelling at the big man himself.
In the back of my head, I knew this was the absolute worst time to laugh. In fact, if I had any sense at all, I would have stuffed a hand in my mouth and rushed over to help her.
But I had long ago established the fact that I hardly had any sense.
A snort bubbled out of me at the sight of the pretty blonde, in the nice outfit that she had picked out specifically for this interview, with her leg stuck in the mud all the way up to her knee, and her other one bent at a strange angle as she attempted to keep herself from falling.
“Do not laugh at me, Rhett,” she growled angrily. “None of this is funniest in the slightest, do you hear me?”
“Of course,” I nodded earnestly, but it did me no good when it was followed by another amused snort.
“Listen,” Sarah stuck her pointer finger out like an angry schoolteacher, “I came here and took this job with you because I thought it would be a nice change of pace, for once. But all you’ve done is humiliate me right from the very first minute! And you know what? That almost makes me want to quit!”
“Almost?” I replied, raising an eyebrow. “You haven’t even accepted the job yet. How can you almost quit a job you haven’t even said yes to?”
“You sure made it seem like I’d said yes!” She snapped. “Parading around and showing me things like this developmental property!”
Sarah was waving her arms too much. I knew what was going to happen before it even did, but there was no stopping it. With her foot stuck in the mud, she had no balance left.
SPLAT!
Mud burst out from all around her as she slammed backward, kicking both of her legs out for balancing and coating her entire body in mud. A tiny little droplet landed on my face, but I didn’t have the good sense to wipe it off before I burst out laughing.
“That was perfect!” I guffawed, bending over with my hands on my knees so I could try and catch my breath. The laughs were turning into hiccups now, and it was all I could do not to fall over myself.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Sarah demanded, trying and failing to stand up. The mud was too slippery.
Remembering that I was, at times, a gentleman, I ran over and stuck out my hand, but the angry blonde just slapped it away. Her hair stuck out at a million different angles, and there was a streak of mud running down her right cheek.
And, of course, the rest of her body was just coated with the stuff.
“Is this how you treat all of your employees?” She demanded, finally managing to right herself and springing to her feet in a tizzy.
“No,” I chuckled. “Just the cute ones.”
In an instant, her expression went from fiery angry to completely confused. “You think… I’m cute?”
Her voice was so timid she sounded like a nervous college girl at orientation.
“Yeah,” I shrugged. “I thought that was obvious.”
“No, it wasn’t.” She shook her head, hard, flinging mud bits all around us.
Sarah was so close I could smell the mint on her breath. It was a Listerine strip, I was pretty sure. I loved those things.
I didn’t even know what I was doing. All there was was the scent of Listerine and those big blue eyes. I was leaning forward, completely unaware of what I was even doing, and our lips touched before she could pull back.
If she wanted to pull back.
The kiss was like magic. The world froze around us. The mud didn’t matter, the ever-present San Francisco wind didn’t matter, none of it mattered. All that existed was Sarah and me, lips locked in the middle of a field. I could feel the wet mud against my cheek, rubbing up and down with every move she made, grinding itself into my skin like a mud mask.
She was soft for someone who had such a hard outer shell. Her lips were moist and pillowy, latching onto me like we were made for each other.
I don’t even think I was breathing.
Then, suddenly, she pulled away, taking all of the magic with her.
“What. The. Hell?” She demanded, reeling backward and touching the tips of her fingers to her mouth.
I did the same, immediately missing her warmth. I couldn’t believe I’d just kissed her.
And it was even harder to believe that I desperately missed the feeling of her lips on mine. I wanted it back immediately.
“Sarah,” I started, prepared to offer some sort of explanation.
“No.” She whipped around, not willing to make eye contact with me anymore. “I should go. I’ll uh, call an Uber. Down the street.”
And with that, she was off, disappearing just as she had the other morning at the little deli shop.
I should have stopped her. Should have run after her and attempted to offer some sort of explanation for my absolutely unprofessional behavior. But, as I’d been discovering more and more, there was no explanation for the way I behaved when I was around Sarah. I couldn’t even understand it myself, let alone attempt to make it logical.
First, I offered the woman a job that didn’t even exist. Then, I took her out to a development for absolutely no reason, and now, I kissed her.
Something was wrong with my head.
Before I could delve further into the twisted psyche that seemed to have taken up residence in my mind, my cell phone rang, the chime echoing off the empty hills.
I glanced down at it, groaning when I saw my attorney’s name on the caller I.D.
I definitely shouldn’t tell her about that kiss, I thought. She’ll think I’m going to get sued for harassment next.
So, I put those invasive thoughts of Sarah out of my mind and attempted to answer the phone in what I hoped was a smooth, casual voice.
“Jessica,” I grinned into the receiver. “What is up?”
I sounded way too much like an air-headed Youtuber at that moment.
“Nope,” Jessica snapped instantly.
This was one of the things I loved about her. She was about as no-nonsense as they come, and that was something I definitely needed a lot of in my life.
“Okay, done with that,” I grimaced. “Why are you calling me in the middle of the day?”
“Well, if you were expecting good news, I hate to break it to you, but I’ve got none,” she replied. “What I do have is a problem. A big one.”
I sucked in a breath, glancing down the road and secretly hoping that Sarah was coming back. But it was still as empty as a ghost town.
“Alright,” I said. “Give it to me.”
“You’re being sued for defamation.”
Dumbfounded. That was the only thing I felt for a moment. Then, I instantly transitioned into attempting to decipher which of my many statements to the press could have fallen under the umbrella of defamation.
But there were none. I was very careful about it at all times. I didn’t want to end up like The Sun when they’d called Johnny Depp an abuser, only to turn around and realize two years later that they were wrong.
And then get sued. Which was exactly what was happening to me anyways.
“What happened,” I demanded, already on my way to get back into the Tesla and drive… somewhere. I just needed to think.
“Tony Gibbons is claiming that video you posted, uh, I have it here somewhere…” Jessica went quiet for a moment as she shuffled papers around, looking for the right one. “Oh, yep, this is it. A video titled “Confessions of the Real Estate World: Which Gurus are Lying to You?” Does that sound familiar?”
“Yeah, sure,” I nodded. “It’s my most viewed series. It’s where I expose the gurus who are lying to the public. I never said anything untrue.”
“Apparently, Tony thinks otherwise. He’s stated that your claim that he received money from his parents is patently false and has caused him to lose respect and money on his own social media channels.”
“Shit,” I groaned.
This was not good. I had barely even researched that statement before making it. In fact, it was never supposed to make it into the final video. Before I could tell that to my editor, the entire shit show with Nicki had happened, and I’d gotten a bit distracted.
And now, it appeared I was going to have to pay the price.