Taming Graeme (Taming the Billionaire)

TAMING GRAEME

(TAMING THE BILLIONAIRE

  BOOK ONE)

BY

KATE BRITTON

COPYRIGHT 2013

One

 
Graeme Browning was not a happy ma
n
. Oh, you’d never know it to look at him, but since he’d relocated back to London from Geneva to take the position of Vice-Chairman at Browning’s Mercantile Bank, a very important part of his life was missing.

 
Graeme was used to having a woman in his life, a particular type of woman. Attractive, intelligent and compliant. Obedient. Devoted to his wishes and whims. His wife had been such a woman, but he’d been a widower for eight years now, since Carrie had been run over by a stolen van. He’d devoted four years to his teenage daughters, helping them to adjust to life without Carrie.

  Once they were settled into University, h
e’d taken the position in Geneva to get away from London and the painful memories of Carrie’s death. But now he was back.

 
Graeme would have stayed in Geneva, enjoying his position as Head of European Operations for The Browning Group but his uncle had summoned him back to London to take over the administration of the flagship of the family business, The Browning Banking Group. Uncle David was not getting any younger, and at seventy two with three heart attacks behind him, he was determined that his heir be on hand in London, ready to take over full control of the family’s banking empire. Uncle David would officially hand over the reins to Graeme on January first, five months hence.

 
Graeme had found companionship in Geneva, at the private club he joined. She was called Francine, and she suited him. Francine was twenty seven to his thirty eight, tall, sleek, beautiful, and part of his lifestyle. He called her his panther and for two of the four years he was in Switzerland, they spent time together discreetly enjoying a lifestyle the stuffy banking community would have frowned upon.

 
Francine, cool, beautiful, compliant Francine, had been eager to accompany him to London, hopeful that he would marry her as he had Carrie. He may have been content to do that, but Julia and Louisa hated Francine. Totally unaware of the nature of their father’s relationship with the young Frenchwoman, they saw Francine as a greedy gold digger, looking for a platinum plated meal ticket. Julia in particular made her feelings very apparent, and sighing, Graeme had not asked Francine to accompany him to England.

 
Coming back to England, he’d established a new home and moved his old Aunt Betty into the thirty three room family seat in Buckinghamshire.

 
He’d known a year ago this move back was inevitable. Louisa had delightedly helped him find a spacious four storey townhouse near Sloan Square and found him a contractor, overseen the renovation since he was still in Geneva, and shopped for new furniture. By the time they’d finished modernizing the Georgian home, he’d spent close to a million pounds on the renovation, installing an elevator, rewiring, re-plumbing, gutting and replacing all four bathrooms and the kitchen, putting in triple glazing, and modernizing the basement from servants’ quarters to a space devoted to his own particular interests. The basement had been done after he’d arrived back in London, supervised by Graeme himself, by workmen from another of Graeme‘s business interests.

 
He missed Carrie still. Certainly he’d loved her, whatever that meant, and he was very fond of Francine. He’d had a comfortable existence with both of them, and was hopeful that he would find a suitable companion in England within the next year or so. Until then, there were a number of women at his London club who pleased him for an evening’s entertainment, but none that he wanted to invite home. The basement conversion sat ready, unused except for a week in April when Francine had come to visit him.

 
Tonight he was at the Bank’s Anniversary Party. Over a thousand guests had RSVP’d they were attending the event. The Bank had rented the Ballroom of one of London’s leading hotels, and by eleven p.m. there were still over four hundred people celebrating the 250
th
Birthday of Browning’s Mercantile Bank.

 
All the staff had been invited, the major clients, the elite of London’s financial community and high society. It was a very successful event. Wine and liquor flowed readily, the buffet tables were brimming with delicious food, and the bands were excellent. The speeches had gone well, and now everyone was concentrating on enjoying themselves.

 
Everyone but Graeme, who was keeping a keen eye out for the pleasure of all his guests. His Uncle had gone home an hour ago, at ten o’clock.

 
Most of the single women who’d been invited had come over at some point to chat to the handsome enigmatic billionaire who would shortly be the head of one of Britain’s wealthiest private banks. That he resembled David Beckham (except he was dark where Beckham was fair and had no tattoos) and extremely wealthy made Graeme one of London’s most eligible bachelors. That he dated very little made him all the more desirable. He flirted with them all at the party, and asked none out.

 
The female staff of course did not come over to flirt with Graeme Browning. They were all in awe of him. He was very strict, did not tolerate fools gladly, and most of them had felt the sharp edge of his tongue when they made errors he considered stupid. He was fair though, and if they made a genuine mistake, he understood, but he did not tolerate foolishness.

 
Four of the young women who worked in the Secretarial Pool at Browning’s stood together near the bar, chatting. He glanced at them idly.

Amanda was the youngest, and Graeme’s second cousin. She was enjoying her summer job before she went off to Cardiff for her third year at University. Amanda was bright though immature, Graeme thought, with a very loose lip, but she was family and he felt obliged to take her under his wing. Perhaps by the time she finished University she would have grown up enough to be useful. At the moment, her prime value to him was gathering the gossip she loved. It helped him to keep his finger on the pulse of the Bank’s Head Office.

 
Linda, Rose and Olivia were full time employees, all in their early twenties he estimated, all attractive girls who had been at the Bank for some time.

 
Linda was very sexy, dressing to accentuate her best features, lively, outgoing, with a great deal of verve. Graeme’s keen eye could see beneath the facade. He saw the uncertainty she felt about her future, how she needed direction. Linda’s self confidence was mostly bravado.

 
As was Olivia’s. Olivia was without a doubt the cleverest and most skillful of the three of them, and beautiful, very beautiful, if you ignored the unflattering hair style and lack of makeup skills. She was totally unaware of how attractive she was, with her pale blonde hair, classic features and lapis eyes. She was shorter than he preferred, perhaps only five two or three, but still, her legs went on and on in those stiletto heels she wore tonight..

 
However, Olivia had a sharp tongue, and usually spoke before she thought. She was critical of her peers, and didn’t hide the fact that most were not as quick to grasp an idea as she thought they should be. She’d had run-ins with a number of the staff, and Stan Smith, the Head of Personnel constantly passed her by when it was time to promote the girls from the secretarial pool to a P.A. position as he felt Olivia was too blunt for most of the men she’d have to work for.

 
In fact, two of the managers she’d told off had mentioned to Mr. Smith he should let her go. Stan Smith knew the comments were based on the fact that Olivia had caught these men making some serious, stupid errors as she’d typed up their work, so he’d ignored them, but still passed her over for promotion.

 
She’d developed a bitterness about being passed over, and had begun to deserve her reputation as a bitch. Her prickly exterior hid her vulnerable, shy personality. Olivia had grown up with old, cantankerous grandparents, who saw no reason to praise her, only to criticize her, so Olivia believed her behaviour was perfectly normal.

 
She also thought she was quite plain, too thin, and moderately stupid. She’d been told she was all her life.  Under her bravado, Olivia considered herself to be very fortunate to have a job in the secretarial pool, and thought that it must be her skills that held her back from promotion. She never for one moment considered that perhaps if she were more diplomatic, she would get one of the coveted P.A. positions.

  Olivia’s
grandparents had been sarcastic and extremely critical. She’d only been living on her own for a few months now, and didn’t have a circle of friends. They had never allowed her to play with other children, or even have a best friend. The only girls Olivia really knew were the ones she worked with.

 
Rose was…an English rose, with her creamy complexion and dark blonde hair. She was a little older than the other two, and calmer. She was the only one of the three who was married.

 
Graeme had noticed the three of them when he came back to London. His P.A., Mrs. Hall, was due to retire shortly, and he had decided to pick his own assistant, based on his observations rather than the recommendations of the Personnel Department. After all, the woman he picked to become his personal assistant would be, on January 1
st
, the P.A. to the Chairman of the Bank, and he wanted someone who would be with him for many years.

 
He stood alone at the moment, looking over at the four young women. His cousin was going back to University, and, anyway, she was out of the picture. Amanda didn’t have the skills or the discretion the position would require, but he would choose one of the other three. All of them had the technical skills he required, and he’d given enough assignments to each of them over the last seven months to know that any one of the three was proficient enough to do the tasks he would assign them.

 
Rose had the inside track at the moment. She was very pretty and always immaculately groomed in a very conservative manner. Rose was also married, so Graeme would not have to deal with an unwanted crush. He’d had to deal with that often, and since both Linda and Olivia were single, he thought Rose would be his best choice. And he’d just arranged for Olivia to be transferred to the Currency Trading Desk as their reporting clerk. She’d start down there Monday morning.

 
God, Olivia had great legs. Why hadn’t he noticed those legs before?

 
Just after midnight only about a hundred people were left in the vast ballroom. Graeme had downed three glasses of single malt since ten o’clock. He rarely drank much at company functions, but tonight he felt frustrated, and a little lonely. Maybe he would call Francine in the morning and have her fly over for the weekend and come to New York with him on Monday when he went for that Conference. He wished he hadn’t agreed to be a Speaker.

 
What was it he wanted to do before he left? Oh, yes, give Olivia a few words of encouragement…and perhaps tell Rose she was going to be his P.A. as well. He looked over at the girls.

 
Olivia was getting just a little drunk, he thought. Her hair was up in a messy bun tonight, not hanging lankly about her face. He looked with approval at her long legs, looking even longer in those sexy stiletto heels and short blue mini dress, the first short skirt and high heels he’d seen her in, come to think of it. She had a nice ass, and not bad tits, he decided, as much as he could see anyway. Her clothes were always a size too big, and that mini was no exception.

 
God, he was randy.
It had been a couple of weeks since he’d had a woman. He could just imagine those long legs wrapped around his neck. He imagined Olivia naked, except for those sexy stiletto heels…hmmm…that would be an enticing sight.

 
Amanda’s boyfriend came up then, and led her away, and Linda and Rose drifted off.

 
A couple of the Bank’s clients came up to Graeme, and for the next fifteen minutes, he was involved in conversation with them. Finally, they left.

 
He glanced over toward Olivia. She was talking to a young man Graeme didn’t recognize who was trying to look down her dress. Graeme smiled and put his empty glass on one of the nearby tables.  He’d go over and rescue her.

 
Graeme came up behind Olivi
a
in time to hear the young man offer her another glass of wine.

 
“White, please,” she told him and handed him her empty glass. He went off to join the line in front of the sole remaining bartender.

 
“He’s trying to get you drunk, Olivia, so that he can take advantage of you,” said Graeme softly in her ear, his hand stroking her back.

 
Olivia stilled. She was afraid of Graeme Browning. He was so handsome, so masculine.

 
So dominant. So clever.