Irresistible Billionaires by Summer Brooks
Sarah
“Ijust want to make sure I have the facts right,” my father said.
Again.
In fact, it was probably his favorite sentence to say. I’d heard it countless times growing up, mostly whenever I made a mistake, and he was attempting to make me see what I’d done wrong before he had to spell it out for me.
I’d heard it a thousand times when I told them that I was dropping out of college since I didn’t want to have to take on loans to pay for the next three years.
And now, I was going to hear it a thousand more times, I could already tell. This absolutely befuddled me, since I figured they would have fallen to their knees and thanked the gods above when I informed them that I wasn’t planning on going to Thailand anymore, and had instead found myself a very well paying job right here in the city.
But unfortunately, nothing was ever able to satisfy my father. He wasn’t a bad guy, of course. He was just vastly different than me. Katy was like his twin in most respects, including the fact that they both shared a strange love for learning that I could never quite wrap my head around.
My dad leaned forward and steepled his hands on the kitchen table, allowing a tiny lock of his salt and pepper hair to fall across his forehead. He scrunched his nose, pushing his glasses up as he did so, and then leveled me with an icy blue gaze that was identical to my own.
Across the table, my mom sat back, biding her time to figure out who’s defense she would need to jump to. My mom was like Switzerland- if Switzerland had jumped into the fray but constantly switched sides.
“You’ve got the facts right, Daddy, I’m sure,” I told him, even though I knew he’d lay them out for us all anyways.
“But I just want to make sure,” he replied. “You lose your job at that big real estate firm, drain your savings to buy a ticket to Thailand, and announce that you will be going there indefinitely, in order to find yourself. Which, I’ll admit, is something that I believe college was for, but I digress. We come to terms with that decision, and now you are informing us that you have reversed it. You will be staying to work as the office assistant to some celebrity real estate agent at a firm that I have never even heard of.”
“Do you know all of the real estate offices that exist within the borders of San Francisco?” I asked, picking at semantics. It was really the only way to communicate with my dad, though. You had to speak his language.
“Fair enough,” he nodded, tilting his head to one side. “I do not. But that doesn’t negate the fact that I don’t see what benefits this job brings to you.”
“Uh, money, for starters,” I replied, not able to keep the annoyance out of my voice.
My parents weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, but they’d never been broke, either. They’d gotten married straight out of college, right at the beginning of the tech boom here in the Bay Area. And since my father was an engineer and my mom was in marketing, they both had fantastic jobs straight out of the gate.
Of course, that was before a decent college education cost an arm and a leg, even if a person opted to go to community college for two years, and before the market became absolutely inundated with every Tom, Dick, and Harriet with the same fantastic degrees from the same schools, and the ability to intern for years for free because they lived on their parents’ money.
In short, my own parents had no idea how hard it was to grow up a millennial in the Bay Area.
“Well, money isn’t everything,” my mom chimed in, completely betraying me and siding with my dad when I’d been absolutely convinced that she would be on my side.
Dammit.
“No, it’s not, Maggie, thank you,” my dad nodded in her direction.
“To you, maybe,” I replied. “But for me, right now, it is. I don’t have a husband or kids to take care of. And how am I supposed to afford a house in this market on a minimum wage salary? At least this way, when I do find that special someone, I won’t have to worry about scraping together a down payment from my two thousand dollar paychecks.”
“And besides, her boss is awfully cute,” Katy chimed in, completely unaware that she was being outrageously unhelpful.
I glared at her while giving a well-placed kick to her shin. I felt myself make contact and settled back in my seat, satisfied.
“Ouch!” She screeched, bending down to rub her leg like I’d just chopped the whole thing off.
“Girls,” Mom warned, using the same tone she always did whenever she was just a little too fed up with our antics.
“Look, Sarah, all your mother and I want you to understand is that we don’t think being an assistant or a wife is all you’re meant to do,” my father said, changing the conversation easily.
“And we’re back to this again,” I sighed, rubbing my temples to try and stave off the headache that I already knew was coming. “Look, I love you guys, but I really hate it when you question every single decision I make like I’m some idiot who can’t take care of herself. I know what I’m doing.”
“Al, maybe we should put a pin in this conversation?” My mom asked, swiping a piece of auburn hair out of her face.
“That sounds good,” I told her. “As long as the pin is actually a bomb, and it explodes the moment we tuck away this tiny little tidbit. Because I am so tired of having the same conversation over and over again.”
I hunched over my plate of roasted chicken, picking up the knife and sawing away at the lump of white meat, attempting to take all of my frustrations out on the meal so I didn’t end up accidentally blowing up at my parents again.
“That’s not how the expression works,” Mom pointed out.
I sighed and stood up, knowing that if I sat there any longer, I would start saying things I regretted, thanks to my complete lack of a normal adult filter over my mouth.
“Look, I appreciate you guys trying to help, but I could really do without it tonight,” I said. “I’m going to take a breather on the patio.”
I knew they wouldn’t argue with that. It was one of the first coping strategies I could remember them teaching me. Taking a breather was code for needing space, and it was meant to be respected in my household.
Which was really helpful when I did not want to have a certain conversation.
I folded my napkin next to my plate before I slipped off through the kitchen and out the back door, plopping down in the hammock that was strung between two trees. It had been there for as long as I could remember, and I loved to lay in it and look up at the stars, imagining what was out there.
Sometimes, it was helpful to feel small.
“So, that was fun.” Katy’s voice interrupted my star gazing after a few minutes, and I turned casually toward her. She sat down, cross-legged, on the ground in front of me, playing with a fallen leaf.
“Your definition of fun is very different than mine,” I replied, rolling my eyes.
“Yeah, that’s what happens when you’re the favorite,” she chuckled. “You don’t get to have fun things, like a sense of humor.”
“Give me a break.” I picked up a little twig and tossed it at her, but I couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of me.
We both knew there were no favorites in our family. But she definitely was the easy daughter.
“I don’t think you’re making a mistake, for the record,” Katy said, looking at me with such levity my heart nearly stopped. Some days, I forgot that she was a fully functioning adult and not my baby sister anymore.
“Oh, yeah?” I laughed. “I’m glad someone’s in my corner.”
“We’re all in your corner, Sarah.” She reminded me. “Mom and Dad just have slightly different definitions of what that means.”
“It’s totally unfortunate,” I sighed, flipping back over and draping a hand dramatically across my forehead.
“What’s unfortunate are those bags under your eyes,” Katy joked. “Are you turning into an insomniac?”
“A workaholic, more like,” I grimaced. “Two days in and I’m already doing more than I ever have. Because I’m trying to keep busy so that he can’t—”
I had to stop myself from finishing the sentence and explaining to Katy that I’d had to keep myself busy, so Rhett didn’t try to kiss me again.
But it was too late. She already knew.
“I knew he had a thing for you!” She gasped. “No one offers an assistant three hundred grand a year for nothing!”
“Gee, thanks,” I interjected sarcastically.
“So, have you slept together?”
“Katy!” I gasped. “You little slut! He’s my boss.”
“So?” She leaped up and crashed into the hammock, cuddling up against my side like we used to do when we were children. “I did my boss once, in college. It was great. I got days off whenever I wanted. Paid ones, too.”
“I am not going to do that!” I laughed. “I thought you were supposed to be the responsible one here.”
“I still got paid, right?” She shrugged. “Who cares. You’re supposed to do that stuff in college. Get it out of your system.”
“Well, then, I guess I missed my chance,” I pointed out. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not in college anymore.”
“Oh, so what?” She poked me in the side, grinning like a maniac. “So, what did happen? Something happened, I can tell.”
I knew there was no getting out of this one. I was going to have to tell her the truth, or suffer through her poking and prodding for hours on end.
“Fine.” I gave in, telling her all about the mud fiasco and the kiss, and then about how I’d so terrifically avoided running into him for the entirety of my second day at work.
By the time I was finished, Katy was caught between absolute astonishment at my stupidity, which I couldn’t blame her for in the least, and total shock that I hadn’t yet quit.
“It’s a lot of money,” I sighed. “And… he’s kind of cute. Is that wrong to say?”
I glanced over to her, pleading for some sort of help. What I needed right now was my levelheaded little sister to slap me silly and tell me I was being an absolute idiot, and I needed to quit that job yesterday.
But, as often seemed to happen whenever I got my hopes up, I was disappointed.
“No,” she shrugged. “I don’t think you’re an idiot. I think you’re…”
She trailed off, biting her lip as she chose her words very carefully. I just waited patiently, knowing that Katy liked to make sure she was saying exactly what she meant whenever she spoke.
“Katy, what?” I demanded, narrowing my eyes at her. My sister was the world’s worst secret keeper. Whenever there was something that she didn’t want to say, it was always written all over her face.
“You look happy,” she finally said. “I don’t know if it’s the job, or if it’s Rhett, but I haven’t seen you look like this in a long time. Your skin doesn’t look like it should belong to some weird vampire anymore, either.”
“Thanks,” I rolled my eyes. “I’ll choose to take that as a compliment.”
Of course, the comment about my skin wasn’t at all what my mind wanted to focus on. Instead, it wanted to think about the fact that Katy had just said I looked happy.
With Rhett. At a job for him. Which anyone else might have attributed to the money, but Katie and I both knew it had to do with so much more.
“Oh my God!” I gasped when I realized that I’d completely forgotten something I had to do for my job.
Call Rhett. I’d been so caught up in attempting to defend my life choices to my family that I’d forgotten he had instructed me to call him at eight o’clock sharp. Of course, he hadn’t seemed to think that was anywhere outside the realm of normal work requests, but a guy like Rhett didn’t strike me as the type to think very much about those things, anyway.
“What?” Katy demanded as I sprang from the hammock, not so gracefully knocking her down in the process. “Ow! You know, you have been abusing me an awful lot today.”
“Get over it,” I called over my shoulder as I hurriedly yanked out my cell phone.
One minute past eight. So much for calling him on the dot.
I frantically opened my contacts and found his name, not pausing for a moment to think about the fact that I was acting far too desperate for someone who was just trying to convince her little sister that this man was just her boss.
“You’re late.”
“That’s really not the best way to answer the phone,” I quipped. “I hope you don’t do that to your clients.”
“Of course not,” he replied. “Just you.”
“So, I’m special?”
The words slipped out of my mouth before I could snatch them and stuff them back in, and I heard Katy snicker behind me. I turned to glare at her, waving my hand to try and silently shoo her away. But she just shook her head and sank back into the hammock, making it quite clear that she didn’t have any intentions of moving.
The little eavesdropping brat.
“Uh, yeah, okay,” Rhett replied, thankfully acting just as awkward as I was. “So, listen, I have something very important I wanted to speak with you about.”
“I figured,” I replied. “Have I been restocking the bathrooms with the wrong sort of toilet paper?”
“Toilet paper? That’s not your job.”
Francesca. Again.
“Noted,” I said, drawing out the “o” like the total loser I was. “What is it, then?”
I was so thankful this was a phone call and not a Facetime so that I could wince in private.
“I need you to do some research,” he replied. “I get the feeling you’re really great at it, you know, and it falls within your job description.”
“Which you have still yet to explain to me,” I reminded him.
“Right. Anyways, it would appear I am being sued.” I could tell from the fact that he wasn’t returning any of my snide little remarks that this was something big, but the last thing I expected was for him to tell me he was being sued.
“By whom?” I demanded. “For what?”
“A fellow real estate agent,” he sighed. “A celebrity one, too. He’s claiming my video on him held some false information, which is also not true.”
“What did you claim?”
“It wasn’t a claim so much as relaying facts to my viewers,” he said defensively. “The man’s name is Tony Gibbons, and he’s trying to claim he’s a man of the people, came up from the ground and built himself a business, and all I’m attempting to explain to people is that his parents gave him a rather hefty amount of money to start his business with. And three properties to develop under their name, which is essentially like free education.”
“Man, I’m so jealous of people who got that,” I breathed, forgetting temporarily that I was even on the phone.
“Tell me about it,” Rhett sighed.
I stopped for a moment, shoving down the questions that wanted to come pouring out. It was probably terrible of me, but given Rhett’s rather glib attitude around money, I’d just assumed he must have had it growing up.
Knowing that he didn’t, made me respect him more, I supposed. Not that he needed my respect.
But that warm feeling in my heart had to be that, right? It couldn’t be anything else.
“Anyways, the problem is I can no longer find my source,” Rhett said, interrupting my thoughts right before they trailed into dangerous territory. “So, to any court, it does look like he… well, it seems like I lied. Which I wouldn’t do. I’m not a liar, Sarah.”
He carried such conviction in his tone that it almost felt like he needed to convince me of this fact as if he didn’t already believe it enough himself. I couldn’t help but wonder if I was nothing more than the second judge on this case, the one who needed to decide that she was on Rhett’s side before he could change his mind.
I was supposed to be on his side, though. He was my boss, and that was all that mattered. My own opinion was moot. All I had to do was heed his word.
“Of course,” I replied with a nod. “Is there something you need me to do about this?”
“Well, yeah,” he snorted a bit as if that was meant to be obvious right from the very beginning.
I paused, but when he didn’t say anything after a moment, I sighed and prepared myself for whatever was coming next.
“What do you need?” Rhett had proven to be the sort of guy who blew more hot and cold than the desert winds. It was like he couldn’t make up his mind. One second he was genial and kind, giving me a job with a salary way above my actual pay grade. The next second he was asking me to do despicable things like pay someone off for their fake baby drama.
“I need you to research,” he responded as if it was obvious. “I need you to find out a way to prove that Tony’s the liar, so I can beat him in court and take him down once and for all.”
Rhett’s tone was absolutely ruthless. It sent a little chill down my spine, actually. He sounded almost murderous at that moment.
Isupposed that’s what big money did to people. They wanted so desperately to cling to their riches and their reputation that they’d do almost anything for it.
“Alright, I will do my best.”
“No, you won’t,” Rhett spat suddenly. “You’ll solve this for me, Sarah. You’ve got to.”
He hung up before I could even really register the pleading note in his voice, the worry in his tone.
“I’ve got to,” I murmured to myself. “Right. Because it’s my job. God, I can’t wait until the day I no longer have to have a job.”
One thing was for certain. I needed to find a nice, rich man to marry so I could leave Rhett and his twisted web of celebrity drama far, far behind me.
“I have to go,” I grimaced, turning back to Katy, who was still lying in the hammock with her hands folded across her chest as she stared up at the night sky.
“How did I know you were going to say that?” She joked with a cocky grin. “The parental units aren’t going to be so happy, you know.”
“Trust me, neither am I,” I sighed.
She was right. I was subjected to yet another lecture on whether or not this job was really all that important as I attempted to slip out the door, and I found myself wishing I could have put my foot down. The entire drive home, I kept repeating all of the things I could have said, over and over again.
I hated that I was like that. I could never think of the perfect, witty response until after the argument was long over. I knew my parents loved me and that they supported me, but I really wished they could just trust me for once. Trust that I knew what I was doing, and I wasn’t about to make a big mess out of my life.
Although, for three hundred grand a year, I didn’t think it was possible to make a mess.
As soon as I got back to my little apartment, I pulled out my computer, only to find that the internet was out.
Because I’d canceled it. Of course, in a perfectly Sarah move, I’d completely forgotten to call and tell the company that I wanted to keep my service since I was no longer going halfway across the world to start an entirely new life.
Luckily, I managed to guess the password to my next-door neighbor’s wifi. Sleazy Dave wasn’t exactly a tough nut to crack.
“Get internet back,” I murmured as I wrote yet another thing on my to-do list. It was about a mile long at this point. It turns out that when a woman packs up her entire life to move to a different country and start totally fresh, there’s an awful lot of shifting around she has to do when she decides that she’s not going one week before her plane takes off.
I couldn’t worry about those things right then, though. I forced myself to shift my focus back to the task at hand, and I typed the name “Tony Gibbons” into my search bar.
And then I read. And read. And read, and read, and read. All about how many millions Tony had in the bank, how he was well on his way to joining an extremely exclusive list of billionaires, and how he seemed to be the type of man who had decided that charity didn’t exist, and there was no reason for him to donate any of his money.
I loathed men like Tony. Despite the complete lack of evidence, I was getting ready to believe Rhett purely on instinct alone.
But then, around three a.m., I found it. My golden ticket. The diamond in the middle of the mountain. The precise thing I’d been searching for.
Tony Gibbons wasn’t actually Tony Gibbons. His real name was Tony Fitzgerald, and he came from a long line of rich white men who could, quite literally, trace their heritage all the way back to the British monarchy.
And Tony Fitzgerald was born into more money than most people had ever seen in their lives. This meant all of his claims about how much of a self-made man he was were totally false.
I’d found the diamond in the rough. Rhett was going to be so proud.