A Tropical Rendezvous: A BWWM Interracial Bad Boy Billionaire Multicultural Romance (African American Romance) (25 page)

“The truth is I just don’t want to be here anymore. My passion for the job has waned, and I’m ready to sell.” Christian Sweeny’s blue eyes scanned the room, taking a careful look at each of the top executives in his company. He knew they wouldn’t be happy with his news but quite honestly, he just didn’t give a damn.

“But why? The business is doing great and the past eight quarters have produced steady profits. The board is pleased, and you get big fat checks for your hard work, what’s the problem?” Glen Evan’s was his Vice President of Operations and the real heart and soul of Sweeney Global. And he was unhappy about Christian’s decision, to say the least.

“Because I’m sick of working ninety hour weeks, Glen. I want a life, maybe even a wife and some tykes running around that giant house of mine.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but Glen was a family man so Christian knew the man would understand, and his understanding smile said he did. Leaning back in his oversized executive chair, Christian released a long breath loaded with tension. “I can tell this news has unsettled many of you and for that, I apologize.”

Glen cleared his throat to draw all eyes to him. “Maybe you can take a sabbatical of sorts, step back from the day to day running of Sweeney Global, so you have more time to yourself, and so we don’t have to fire thousands of employees.” That thought weighed heavy on his soul. Sweeney Global employed about twenty thousand people worldwide, and they would all join the ranks of the unemployed if Christian has his way.

Christian shook his head, flicking a blonde lock from his forehead. “This conversation is becoming tedious, Glen. I was put in charge of a company I have no desire to run, to own or have anything to do with, and now you want me to put my life on hold, so a few people don’t lose their jobs? I don’t think so.”

“A few? Try twenty thousand, Christian. Maybe you don’t want to run the company, but I’m sure you love those quarterly checks that allow you to live the life of the one percent.” Everyone knew about his private jets, the island he owned and the lavish estate on the outskirts of town.

Blue eyes shot daggers in Glen’s direction. He loved Glen more than he’d ever given a damn about his own father, but he would take insults from no one. “Of course, I do. And selling the company will give me a big fat check up front that I can live on for the rest of my privileged life.” He stood and raked a hand through his hair. “My plan is to sell off the portfolios to other companies and shut the company down. If you have something better, I’d love to hear it.” He took another glance around the room, waiting impatiently.

“Excuse me, Mr. Evans your daughter would like a moment of your time.”

Glen leaned over and pressed the intercom button. “Send her in please, Sally.”

Moments later Brandy Evans entered the large conference room, looking like his idea of a wet dream in a sweet white sundress that showed off long brown legs and those wedge things on her feet showed off the athletic tone of her body. A pink sweater gave her an innocent schoolgirl air, but that lush mouth said she was begging for a man to show her how to be naughty. “Hey, Dad. Mom asked me to drop off lunch for you on my way to class, but I knew if I didn’t tell you about it, you’d eat garbage so,” she held up one of those insulated lunch bags that had the entire room groaning in appreciation.

Glen smiled big and stood to wrap his thick arms around his daughter. “Thank you, princess.” He pecked her cheek and walked her to the door. “We still on for dinner tonight?”

Brandy smiled. “You bet, Dad. Bye guys,” she waved to the room at large before bouncing out of the room like a fading burst of sunlight.

Glen turned back to the room with an embarrassed smile. “My wife and daughter do like to spoil me,” was his only response.

“Yeah that’s great, Glen but we still have business to discuss.”

With a curt nod, Glen turned to him, a thread of steel coursing through his caramel eyes. “Right. I think we should meet with the board and see if you can be bought out that way. Send me an offer of what you’re willing to accept and let’s see what happens.”

Christian didn’t like it. Not one little damn bit, but he
had
asked for alternative ideas. “Fine. Don’t get your hopes up since I doubt the board can afford what Stanton Financial or Rigsby VC offered.” Each executive at the table nodded and rose, a blanket of melancholy settled over the room, before exiting the conference room. “Everyone get back to work. We’ll talk again soon.”

Glen stood and grabbed his lunch, reminding Christian of his beautiful daughter. “Tory, I’d let to set up a meeting so we can talk about Billy Bankfield’s portfolio.” The woman nodded and scurried out of the room when she caught a glimpse of Christian’s black look.

“Glen, a moment please?”

“I know you’re not happy with my decision, and I’m willing to work with you to a degree, but that’s not why I wanted to speak with you.”

Glen felt a strange sensation creep up his back and steeled his spine. “Then what is it you want to talk about?”

“Your daughter. I find her very appealing.” Wasn’t that the understatement of the day? He’d taken one look at the woman and knew he had to have her. Make her his.

“Okay,” he answered warily.

Christian smiled, this was the part of business he enjoyed most. Springing a trap for the unsuspecting prey before they realized they’ve been trapped. “She is quite beautiful and seems to have a calm temperament, which I greatly appreciate in a woman.”

Glen didn’t like the direction of this conversation. “Make your point.”

“My point Glen is that we both have something the other wants. Let’s negotiate.” Taking his seat at the head of the table, Christian dropped his six thousand dollar Italian loafered feet on the heavy mahogany conference table.

“My daughter is not a thing or a possession.”

“Maybe not, but I do want her. Badly enough to make a deal that is not in my best interests.” He let that sink in for a moment before he went in for the kill. “I’d like to have your Brandy as my wife. You get her to agree, and I will sell my shares to you personally, giving you a controlling interest in Sweeney Global.”

Glen thought it over. His daughter would be furious, she might even hate him for this, but he had tens of thousands of workers to think about. His wife, however, might divorce him over this. But he had to do what was right. “Fine. Draw up the contract and let’s suss it out before the day is over so I can speak to my daughter about this.”

Christian smiled. “I know you can be very persuasive when you want to be, Glen.” There was also the matter of Glen’s ridiculous soft heart. The man acted as though every single employee was his personal responsibility and therefore he had a very big weakness when it came to negotiating. “Let’s talk again before you leave for the day.”

“You mean before you leave, don’t you?” It was well known that Christian no longer spent whole days at the office, usually walking out the door by three each afternoon.

“Either way,” he waved a dismissive hand as Glen marched out of the office.

~

“You did what?” Brandy Evans took several deep breaths to calm down, but it was impossible with the way the anger and shock coursed through her blood, firing her up and breaking her heart all at the same time. “How could you even consider such a thing?”

Glen’s shoulders sank at the pain he saw in his daughter’s eyes. “Honey, I’m doing this to save the jobs of twenty thousand mothers and fathers trying to take care of their families. Can’t you understand that?”

Brandy pushed away from the table, grateful now they’d postponed dinner out for a family dinner at home. “Oh so twenty thousand
strangers
get to have a good life, and I get saddled with a rich playboy with no work ethic for the low low price of you finally making Sweeney Global yours. Great Dad, just fucking wonderful!”

“Brandy your language, please!” Her mother Marla put a hand to her chest, surprised at the uncharacteristic outburst of her daughter.

“My language, Mom? Dad is trying to sell me off so he can be the head of the stupid company he obviously loves more than me. And what about my life? I’m half way through medical school and last time I checked, the wives of billionaires didn’t work. So I give up everything and what do I get? Tell me, Dad what is in this for me?”

Glen sighed heavily, feeling like a million different types of trash. “Nothing, sweetheart.”

“No, don’t call me sweetheart. You’re selling me off so don’t play the role of loving father.” She crossed her arms and took her seat, guzzling the wine from her glass. She listened as her father outlined the details.

“You’ll get married within ninety days of the contract being signed. If you cheat on him, then the company gets sold. If he gets you pregnant before you marry, then you don’t have to marry him, and the company is still safe.”

“You mean the company is still
yours.
If you’re trying to convince me to do this, at least be honest.”

He nodded, hating the disgust in her eyes and her voice. “Okay fine, if he gets you pregnant before the wedding, then I still get the company, and you don’t have to marry him.”

This time, when she pushed away from the table, the heavy chair fell to the floor with a loud clatter. “So the only way out of this is to whore myself out to my slave master? Great, Dad. Thanks. I’m glad I’ve worked my ass off to end up no better than my ancestors.” She stormed out of the dining room.

Glen listened as his daughter, his only child and the apple of his eye, fled the dining room holding back tears. He cringed when he heard her wine glass slam against some hard surface before the shards fell to the ground. “Dammit.”

“What did you think would happen when you brought this up, Glen? That our independent and sometimes too strong for her own good daughter, would marry a stranger to save a company for you? Really?” Marla shook her head in disgust. “You should sleep in one of the guests room tonight,” she said softly and left the room in the exact opposite manner as her daughter.

Glen sat at the table for hours, polishing off nearly two bottles of wine before climbing the stairs and falling into the first guest room he found. The women in his life hated him, and he was beginning to wonder if it was all worth it.
Of course, it is
, he thought as he drifted into a restless sleep.

~

“I’m finishing medical school, my residency, and a fellowship no matter what. If that’s not agreeable to you
gods,
then I don’t care the deal is off.” Arms crossed, Brandy glared at her father over the breakfast their housekeeper had prepared.

“I don’t know if Christian will agree to that, hon-, Brandy. He wants a wife and he wants kids, and you’ll be busy with school and work for the next decade.”

Brandy chewed and leaned back in her seat. “I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t think you’ve heard me. School is non-negotiable. I will be a doctor, that much is certain. Whether I will marry this despicable man is still very much in the air.” She’d lain awake most of the night thinking about what her father had asked of her. It was a lot. It was too much, and she was only considering it because her dad had given everything to this stupid company. Including time with his family.

Glen sighed heavily. “I’ll have to talk to him, but maybe you should do it so you can get to know him.”

“I have no desire to know this man, Father! I am about to give my whole life for what, a building, money, power? Trust me when I tell you I don’t want to interact with him or you any more than I have to.” She stood and slammed her napkin on her empty plate, brushing past her mother on the way out. “Morning Mom.”

“Morning Sweetheart,” she said, sending angry daggers her husband’s way. “I guess she’s going to do it, then?”

Glen shrugged and kept his eyes on his plate, hardly able to look his wife in the eye. “Her one condition is that she finish school, her residency, and a fellowship. I doubt he’ll go for that.”

Marla took her seat, looking every inch the lady of leisure in her pale lavender pants and silky white blouse. “Then you better make him. If she has to give up medicine as well her chance to fall in love and have the family she’s always wanted, the least you can do is preserve her career.”

Glen sank even further in his seat. It might be a deal breaker, but he would do it because it was the only way to preserve his relationship with his little girl.

“Christian, this is a surprise,” Glen answered when he entered the great room where the man waited.

Leaning back in a plush white chair relaxed with his ankle resting on his knee, Christian looked like a man who had won. He felt like it too, which is why he’d come here today. “I thought it was the perfect time to claim my bride to be.” He had a whole day planned to romance her, starting with shopping for an engagement ring.

“You really should have called, Christian. Brandy isn’t one for surprises.” Especially any that involved the man before him.

He laughed, loud and deep as he rubbed his hands together, an unconscious sign of gloating. “Trust me, she’ll like this surprise.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Brandy answered from the doorway, startling her father. “What brings you by, Mr. Sweeney.”

He frowned. “Please, Christian. We will be married after all.”

She scoffed loudly. “Since we are strangers I think Mr. Sweeney is fine. Now why are you here?”

He stood with a charming smile that brought most women to their knees and moved toward his woman. “I’ve come to see you Brandy and take you out.” He frowned when she didn’t smile and felt his anger rise when she stepped away from his and extended her hand to him.

“Then you should have called ahead because I have plans today.” He didn’t need to know those plans included hitting the books for most of the day. She watched as his handsome, no
gorgeous
features twisted into a scowl, a wicked delight filling her at his unease.

“We have ninety days to get to know one another Brandy. We can’t do that if we don’t spend time together.”

He stood tall, trying to intimidate her, but he would soon learn she didn’t intimidate easily. “You and my father may have cooked up this ridiculous scheme to benefit you both, but I’m not getting a damn thing here so you are on my time. Next time you want to see me, call ahead of time and
ask
.”

Christian frowned as if he’d been slapped.
She was getting nothing?
“You get to be the wife of a billionaire, darling. For most women, that’s plenty to benefit you.” Leaning forward he ran the back of his hand down her cheek. “But if you want to play hard to get, I’ll bite.”

Goodness, but the man was as arrogant as can be. “Well I’m not most women, but you’re welcome to go out and find them. I will have my own career that will more than take care of me. Since I won’t have a loving husband and family, billions seem unnecessary.”

He turned his dark scowl to Glen. “I thought you said she was on board with this after I agreed with the ridiculous career stipulation.”

“
She
is on board,” Brandy answered bitterly. “But she isn’t happy about it. You’ll get what you paid for which is a wife. The rest of it, you’ll have to earn if you can.” With those words, she turned on her heels and exited the room without another word.

Christian left moments later feeling completely unsatisfied. What kind of woman turned down a good looking billionaire? Brandy didn’t seem to like him at all, and he couldn’t figure out why. He was a decent guy, and he always made sure his women were taken care of. He got what he wanted and so did they, it was a transactional relationship, and he appreciated it. This relationship looked as though it wouldn’t be quite so simple.

On his way home he stopped at his favorite jeweler and picked up a ring. He chose the biggest rock he could find, knowing no woman could resist it. Not even Brandy.

~

“Thank you, Christian, it’s lovely.” Brandy knew he was expecting more when he slid the ugliest ring she’d ever seen on her left hand, but the thing was an eyesore.

“Lovely? You make it sound like your grandmother’s pearls.” He scoffed and shook his head, trying hard to keep his temper in check.

She shrugged, wishing she could have put him off another week. But the day after his last visit he’d called to tell her he expected her to move into his mausoleum the following weekend or he’d challenge the contract. As much as she wanted that to happen, Brandy knew her father could lose his fortune. “My grandmother would never wear something so…flashy.” She hated his pompous attitude, always acting as though she should be grateful for his attention.

“Seriously? Most women would be tossing themselves at me feet or undressing after getting that ring.” He turned and glared at her, those blue eyes trying hard to push her to submit.
Never
.

“As I told you before, you are more than welcome to find one of those women. I don’t see why you’d want this arrangement anyway? Like you constantly remind me, plenty of women would be happy to marry you.” She was sure that
plenty
would dwindle to
a few
once he opened his mouth.

He turned a smile on her that sent chills through her body as he moved closer. They sat in his living room with the television off and the French doors open wide, gauzy curtains blowing in the breeze. “But I have you, so why would I need them.” He moved to touch her again and she dodged his touch. “You’ll have to let me touch you some time.”

Brandy shook her head. “I don’t believe that was part of the agreement. But I understand a man has needs, so feel free to satisfy your desires…elsewhere.” She saw the moment his anger flared, but Brandy didn’t dare back away.

“You will be my wife so if I have any
desires
you will be the one to fulfill them. Got it?”

“Unless you’re planning to satisfy your desires by force, I hardly see that happening Christian.” Brandy sidestepped his big body and went to look out at all the vibrant colors of the gardens, lit up beautifully by the moon. “You couldn’t have possibly thought I’d be happy with this ridiculous arrangement.”

“Ridiculous? Women would kill to be here where you are, and you act like it is a chore.”

She scoffed. “Because it is. I’m here aren’t I, so you’re getting exactly what you want. If you wanted someone to bow and scrape to you and be happy with shiny trinkets, you should have bought a different girl.”

“Shiny trinkets? That ring cost more than the GDP of many nations!”

She nodded and stared at the ugly rock. “Good for you, but if you knew me at all, you’d know I hardly wear jewelry. But you don’t because you don’t care to. The women you date only care about what you get them so all women must, right?”

Christian was angry now, the rage spilling into every part of his body until his vibrated with it. He closed the distance between them until they stood toe to toe. “If you’d act little more like a woman who wanted to be here, maybe I’d take the time to get to know you.”

Brandy laughed bitterly. “Or you could have acted like a human being and just asked me out. But no,
Mister I can’t risk rejection so I buy everything
, couldn’t do that. Instead, he held twenty thousand jobs hostage, so excuse me if I don’t
act
like the simpering idiot you prefer, but I don’t want to be here!” She knew she’d hit close to home when his jaw clenched.

He stewed because what could he say? She was right. Still, she didn’t have the right to say such things to him. He was Christian Sweeney, mega-billionaire and most eligible bachelor on the planet four years running. “I don’t give a fuck what you want!” He pushed her, barely registering the way her eyes widened and her nostrils flared.

“That much is painfully clear, and I’ll thank you for keeping your damn hands off me!” The next seconds slowed and happened in slow motion. Blue eyes flared like the hottest flame, his anger at full throttle. His hand rose high in the air, and Brandy knew he meant to strike her. “Go ahead big man. Hitting me will make you feel better, I’m sure.” Taunting him probably wasn’t the smartest idea, but that one move proved to her he was exactly the type of man she thought he was.

Christian screamed in her face before walking away. Long seconds later she heard a door slam in the distance.

One thought crossed Brandy’s mind.
I need to get the hell out of here.
She waited—four hours and seventeen minutes—time she spent packing the few items she’d come with. She would send for the rest of the boxes and only grabbed her messenger bag and purse as she crept out of one of the beautiful if overdone guest suites and down the stairs. The giant house was eerily quiet as she tiptoed through it, disabling the alarm and stepping through the large front doors. And she smacked right into six plus feet of solid, black covered muscle. “Dammit.”