Billionaire Brothers 2 : Love Has A Name (2 page)

Trudy and I had engaged in a tug-of-war over her handbag in this vicinity when I’d caught her nibbling on Snickers, which she was prohibited from eating. She’d quickly tried to hide it in her bag and that’s when the tugging began.

Wrapping my fingers around the thumb-drive, I rushed out of the gym. When Trudy called me, the treadmill had barely come to a halt, so breathing was irregular and I was entirely soaked with sweat and in need of a shower and proper attire, but I had to get this cursed thing to Trudy without delay.

I’d watched her labor with the preparation of this presentation for over a month. But the presentation was the least of the matter. She’d tried for nigh six months to get her boss’s ear to perk in interest of a new idea she wanted to pitch. And I was pretty sure that with a company like that, this was a you-only-got-one-chance-to-prove-yourself-to-me opportunity for Trudy. If her boss liked her idea, well, Trudy could become a wealthy wench. She had brilliant ideas, but in a city like San Francisco that’s teeming with geniuses, the opportunity wall was rather difficult to break through.

Wearing only a pink tube top and a black workout capris with my pink and white
Shape-up
sneakers, I hopped into my jeep and pressed it to
Coded Solutions.
It was an eight-minute drive, but being an aggressive driver, I had the gift of getting to my destinations in record time. Patience and I were vicious enemies.

In five and half minutes I was in the parking lot of the building. My body lunged from the jeep, leaving the engine on and car door open — no, I wasn’t worried about theft: ghosts knew who to shout “boo!” at — and rushed through the revolving doors of the intimidating building. Before the receptionist could look up, I spoke through labored breathing, “Trudy-ann Green. It’s urgent. What floor is her meeting with Mr. Nelson?”

The brunette receptionist scanned my attire with a scowl, but then she blinked at me as if realizing somehow that I was of no harm, and gave me the information I needed with an added “Nice bod.”

The elevator ride to floor 42 took forever, but it granted me enough time to restore my regular breathing pattern. When the doors opened, I instantly became conscious of my sparse attire when the air-conditioner whispered across my bare flesh, turning my nipples to hardened nubs under my tube top. Oh dear, I didn’t think this through.

I was about to walk into a building filled with smartly attired, starched-collar whizzes in their three-piece suits and sharp seams, and I was dressed — if ‘dressed’ was the operative word — in a tube top, vagina-printing workout capris, sneakers and dry sweat. But if I stepped off the elevator, this could be a detriment to Trudy. So, I ate self-conscious for lunch and entered the arctic building. Why on earth was the air-conditioner on full blast in here? Weren’t these people freezing?

The receptionist for this floor apprised me of Trudy’s whereabouts as she made a sloppy attempt to conceal her disapproval of my attire. As I wove around rows of cubicles, ignoring the raised eyebrows and curious stares of the employees, I espied Trudy pacing outside the door I was searching for marked ‘MR 42’, while dialing on her cell with a worried frown marring her cute oval face.

“Psst,” I hissed.

Trudy glanced up and saw me and her shoulders visible relaxed, relief replacing her frown. She gestured for me to hurry while she grabbed the doorknob and opened it halfway. Wasting not another second, I ran to her and pressed the drive in her hand. “Go ahead and kick asses, best —”

My words tripped over a lust-pebble when the door jerked back from Trudy’s grasp and revealed a tall, dark-haired figure whose attention was partly directed to a tablet in his hand while his full, sculpted lips moved to form words. “Green, I’ve waited long enough. If I didn’t think your three-line pitch had potential, I wouldn’t have considered your proposal and arrange this meeting. I’m giving my blessed time and you’re
wasting
it. I think it is rather negligent of you to have the board convened here,
on time
, and yo —” His words tumbled over a cliff when he glanced up and saw me there, half-dressed with sweat that was now fine grains of salt, and I was ninety percent sure my nipples were pressing against the fabric of my tube top due to the high-blasting air-conditioner.

Had he been some
other
powerful figure, I would’ve been mortified, but never with this Lothario would I cower. Actually, it was the first opportunity I’d been given to see him in person. I’d only ever heard of him, or seen his face constantly popping up on Internet news sites. His reputation in the women department was not of a squeaky clean nature, despite his billions. The man was too wealthy for his age, too crude for his status, and cocky enough to make you detest him — well, at least that’s what I
heard
. But he had a brain that was worth more than his billions. He was known as the ‘wise-guy’, with his never-failing ideas in the world of social networking and software creation. There stood San Fran’s hottest, sexiest, wealthiest Internet billionaire, Lovello Nelson.

Good thing I wasn’t into men as pretty as this one, because,
my oh my
, the man was delectable enough to eat. He had inky-dark hair with a natural unkempt flair to it, his jaws prominently squared and angular, his eyes were a mischievous slate-gray that were surrounded with curled lashes. But the highlight of his face was those amazing, impossibly perfect peach-colored lips. That’s another thing he was famous for, more than his wealth and brains: his beauty.

Anyone who referred to this man as ‘handsome’ should be tossed in the fieriest part of hell, because that wouldn’t just be an understatement, it would be a sin against descriptive words and assigning them to their rightful places. He had to be called
Beautiful
. And not even that did him justice. His beauty could only be accurately described by the quill and ink of a skillful poet. New words needed to be created to suit him, because ‘beautiful’ simply didn’t cut it.

Sharply attired in a navy blue suit, he stared down at me from his height and I stared right back, not at all feeling inferior that I had to tilt my head up. His slate-gray eyes sparkled as they made a slow perusal of my body, unabashed, and came back to my face. Smirking, he said, “It’s pretty chilly in here, huh?”

Predictable. I’d been waiting for that remark. Plastering a smile on my face, I ignored his question. “Mr. Nelson, Trudy has worked really hard on this presentation. Her thumb-drive fell out of her bag at the gym this morning at
my
cost. I got here with it as soon as I could. Please don’t dismiss her, hear her out. She’s got talent. You’ll only regret it later.”

Although I tried to make it sound like a petition by adding the word ‘please’, I knew it came out as a command because Trudy shook her head at me with narrowed eyes.

Damn it. I needed to practice more on injecting emotion into my words.

Pretty Boy Nelson leaned casually against the doorjamb and crossed his legs as if he were lounging at a bar. He bit down on one side of his peach-colored lip and he glared at me. “Was that a plea or a command?”

“It’s a plea. I’m sorry if it didn’t
sound
like a plea, I’m not very good at pleading. I’m used to getting whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want,” I answered, matching his glare with equal intensity so he would get the message that I wasn’t one of those gushing, I-get-butterflies-in-my-stomach-when-I-see-you bimbos.

His lower lip got released from the grip of his teeth as he made another shameless perusal of my body before saying, “I believe it was a command. And judging by your choice of attire in my professional building, I also believe you’re one of those irreverent and uncouth bra —”

“Mr. Nelson, please,” Trudy cut in. “You have a meeting with Tarcel’s CEO in approximately one hour. If you will dismiss me now because of my negligence, then I completely understand.”

What was she doing? Giving up? No! I shot her a castigating stare, but when she narrowed her light blue eyes, I knew that she was pissed at me for toeing with her boss.

“Axia, thank you for trying to help. But it’s okay. You have an extremely busy day, too. We’ll
talk
later,” she continued, dismissing me.

Pretty Boy Nelson earned a withering stare from me — which was evenly returned with a smug smile — and I turned on my heels and walked off. A wolf whistle left his lips and traveled behind me, harassing my ears. Ha! It was my time to smother a smile in smugness. On account of my impeccable derriere, I was anticipating that reaction.

Once upon a time, I was a victim of low self-confidence. Every day I’d sadly wish I had a tall, sexy figure with curly blonde hair like those girls the boys pursued in school. But as I grew, my breasts swelled into perky perfection, and my derriere grew past the average size and more salient each year. By my college years, I’d managed to ensnare the most popular and lusted-after guy in school, and he’d aid in the growth of my self-esteem by making me feel like the only girl in the world.

Being the girlfriend of the school’s most popular guy, I automatically became the most popular girl in school, and ultimately the girl with the body every girl wished for. Then there was me being a fitness junkie, never allowing my body the chance to slant out of shape, which meant that I had conspicuous, hard-to-attain abs and toned, well,
everything
.

The mouths around me never ceased to remind me that I had a body that was like a gift to men on earth. It calmed me to know that I was no longer in the minority of women with low self-esteem. But it was also annoying when people stared at me as if they’d never seen a woman before. I know, I got a sweet rack, a tiny waist, perfect hips and a gift of an ass, but so do
lots
of other women. The attention became irritating at times, and when I showed my annoyance, I came across as arrogant.

It didn’t help that I was half-Hispanic with straight, sixteen-inch hair that was as dark as night, and a pair of pussycat-gray eyes accompanied by fluffy black lashes. No, I wasn’t conceited or overconfident. I merely practice to accept who I am. When I’d stepped up next in line to be fashioned by the hands of God, He decided that He wanted me to be beautiful with a great bod to complement. Why, then, should I feel bad for being beautiful? If I continued to feel guilty for being me, then I wouldn’t be showing my Creator any appreciation for His gift, and I would never want to be listed in His Book of Judgment as an ingrate. So, I grasped my gift with gratitude, honed it, amplified it, and flaunted it when need be.

Like now, I knew, without a doubt, that Pretty Boy Nelson was still standing at his doorway with his eyes glued to my ass. And I also knew that being the unrestrained womanizer that he was, his wanting to get a piece of this ass would galvanize him into giving Trudy another chance with her presentation. Yep, being sexy does have its advantages.

Feeling refreshed after showering away all the muck of dried sweat from my skin, I changed into fresh workout gear and began preparing for my ten o’clock aerobics class. The gym’s busiest was anytime after four o’clock in the evenings when people are retiring from a long day’s work. That’s the time I try to be off the floors. But then there were also people with odd schedules, so on some days I instructed classes throughout the entire day.

Proud Sweat Fitness Center was my sweetheart. I’d known since age twelve that what I wanted in life was my own gym. At around age eight, I used to join in with my motheras she dressed in bright-colored leggings, tanktop and sneakers and worked her body into a bucket of sweat in front of the television. I’d been fascinated with the whole concept of being active; the continuous movements that would have my heart pounding furiously in my chest. It was the most amazing feeling — still is.

Abnormal as it was for an eight-year-old to wake before her mother at six in the morning and wait in anticipation for her to get dressed, switch on the television and start working out, this little girl did. And as I grew, I became more enthralled with gym equipment, curious about the way every machine worked, wanting to try them all, until I fell into an obsession with fitness.

At sixteen years of age, I had abs that a celebrity would toss diamonds for. Once I hit the age twenty mark, I became a plague to my father, ensuring him that this was what I wanted. Though it was difficult for him to accept that I was now an adult, he’d granted me access to the account he’d opened for me since before I was born, and, with a thumbs up, told me to go ahead and make my dream happen.