Working Him: A Billionaire Romance
Read Working Him: A Billionaire Romance Online
Authors: Amara Chase
WORKING HIM
By Amara Chase
Copyright © 2016 by Amara Chase
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including scanning, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission from the author. Brief quotations are allowed for use in reviews of the book.
Cover Artwork – © 2016 L.J. Anderson of Mayhem Cover Creations
Contents
Chapter 1: Rachel
“Rachel. I got a job for you.”
I looked up from my computer screen and reached for the file that my boss, Brian, was dangling before me. He pulled it back just out of my reach, earning a glowering look from me in return.
“First, tell me what’s going on with the Wells case,” he said. “Then I will give you this one.”
“The Wells case is wrapped up and in your inbox,” I replied, placing my elbows on the desk. “What else do you want to know?”
Behind me, the air conditioning kicked on, blowing cold air against my neck. It was sweltering in Jacksonville as usual and despite my sleeveless dress and my hair pulled up into a messy bun, my skin still felt sticky from the heat. The air was on the fritz and Brian had been reduced to installing window units until the air was fixed. Well actually, Brian was fighting with the air company over the price of the repair, but he swore that was not the reason.
“No need to get pissy about it,” Brian answered. “I think this entire office has lost respect for me as their boss.”
I smirked, thinking that he was half right. We respected him a great deal, but not one of us thought of him as our actual boss considering he was the same age or only a little older than most of his employees. The office itself was a small place, a short square building in a decent part of town. Inside though, the interior was sleek and modern and the firm itself was home to some of the more elite accounts from not only the surrounding areas, but a few all over the country as well. There were only a handful of employees that made up Brian’s team, including me, Rachel Tyler, a twenty-seven-year-old accountant/private investigator. Yeah, you heard me correctly. My odd profession hadn’t been my original intention, but the plan had literally fallen into my lap and I had run with it.
“So,” Brian continued, still holding the file. “I talked with Wells this morning. He’s still surprised that his son was behind the whole scheme.”
I thought about the older man from the business I had just finished investigating and couldn’t help but feel bad for him. Mr. Wells had built that floor business from the ground up and through my investigations into his accounts, I had seen a trend that had warranted some undercover work on my part. In the end, I had been forced to turn in the owner’s own son, who had been skimming money off of the top for years. I always hated exposing a family member as the culprit of a financial disaster, the end result full of disbelief and hurt. But the world sucked sometimes and I just had to be the one to deliver the news.
“He’s tough,” I finally said. “He’ll get through it.”
Brian handed me the file, a pensive look on his face. “I am sure. Do some research on this one, will you? Looks like you will be heading to Miami for a few weeks.”
“Really?” I asked, surprised. It had been a long time since I had done a job that required a field trip.
“Yeah, really,” Brian said, arching his eyebrow. “Don’t get used to it. You will be the new receptionist for this place. If you are asked, the temp agency sent you, okay?”
“A receptionist?” I asked slowly, thinking that I had never been one in my entire life. “Why can’t I be something cool, like a new client with a load of cash or something?”
“Because you don’t have a load of cash and I’m not willing to give you access to any of mine,” he said with a frown. “Besides, how hard can it be to answer a few phones? You do that here.”
I wanted to point out that Jeanne did a hell of a lot more than ‘answer a few phones’ but I kept my mouth shut, knowing that I wasn’t going to win this battle. “Fine,” I finally answered. “Receptionist.”
“Jeanne will give you everything you need,” Brian finished, turning to walk away. “Don’t screw this up, okay?”
I rolled my eyes as he walked away before looking down at the file, the familiar thrill of a new case soaring through my veins. New cases meant new bad guys to catch and I always thought that this had to be how a cop felt like when he was close to catching a killer.
“Hey, what did Banks want?”
I looked up to find my best friend Christina at my desk, her lean frame stretched tightly as she attempted to pull back her curly blonde hair into a ponytail. I loved her hair, a steep contrast to my straight brown hair. Christina and I had been friends ever since our first day in college, bumping into one another in the library. From then on, we had been through a lot together and I wouldn’t know what to do without her. “I just got another job, a sleepover at that,” I answered finally, smoothing my hands over the folder. “Did you talk to Banks today or just stare at his ass in those pants?”
Christina punched me hard in the shoulder, her eyes shifting around to see who else had heard my statement. It was a joke between us, more on my part than hers. She really did have a crush on our boss, but was unwilling to jeopardize her job to see if he had any feelings for her. I couldn’t blame her. This job was the best one I had ever had and the last four years working for Brian had been pretty awesome. Though he was a stickler for details, we pretty much could do whatever we wanted within context. Brian had been a private investigator first, unlike Christina and myself, and realized quickly that it didn’t pay well enough. So he went back to school, got an accounting degree, and decided to combine the two. Christina and I had thought we were in for a long career of crunching numbers, but Brian had taken us both and molded us into PI licensed, undercover accountants.
The firm also took on other accounts from various larger firms when an investigation was warranted, but for the most part we stayed busy enough with the accounts Brian actually managed.
“Shove it, Rach,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest with a glare. “I do not ogle our boss.”
I laughed and held up my hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m paid to observe, remember?”
“Well, I wish he would throw a case my way,” Christina said instead, irritation written all over her face. “All I’m doing is babysitting accounts.”
“Well, I don’t know what I got here,” I replied, opening the file. “But it must be big for a trip to Miami.”
“God, you’re so lucky,” she sighed as I glanced over the standard fact sheet that every file started with, neatly typed by Brian’s assistant, Jeanne. The sheet contained the name of the business, the owners, and an address as well as what the problem was. As I scanned it, a familiar name jumped off of the page, one that I hadn’t seen in a long, long time. Oh boy.
“What?” Christina asked, causing me to realize I had spoken aloud.
“Nothing,” I said quickly, closing the file. “Just looks complicated, that’s all.”
She gave me a look that told me she really didn’t believe me but she didn’t say anything and walked away. I breathed a small sigh of relief, glad that I wouldn’t have to explain myself just yet.
Swallowing hard, I reopened the file, reading the fact sheet closer, a knot forming in my chest. The business was Louden Real Estate, a mega successful realty business based on the numbers I could see. With the housing market in Miami, I wasn’t too surprised. It was expensive to live there. The business was co-owned, but one name stuck out to me.
Garrett Louden.
It was like a blast from my past, a name I hadn’t seen or thought about since I was thirteen, a gangly kid who was socially awkward and shy. Garrett had been my next door neighbor, both of us living along with the rest of the middle class on the outskirts of Jacksonville city limits. Both of our families were part of the working class, our fathers working to make a living in the same paper mill. I remembered growing up in Garrett’s living room, his mom babysitting the both of us while my own mom worked her tail off in a factory that made boats. So Garrett and I had grown up together, making me a bit tougher than your average girly girl being around a boy so much.
It wasn’t until the hormones started to kick in did I see a difference in my best friend, both physically and emotionally. I had actually started to notice and feel things about Garrett, taking in his wavy brown hair and laughing blue eyes more so than I ever had. Of course, every other girl in school had started to notice him as well and on more than one occasion I had been forced to pass along a phone number or a note to him. Between the two of us, I doubted he ever saw me in any other light than his buddy, for I was far too awkward and flat chested, the beginnings of a few bad years of acne setting in.
Then horrible things started to happen in both of our lives. First, my mom lost her job and filled that void with a bottle, causing her and my dad to fight constantly about everything. Garrett’s dad suffered a heart attack while driving home one night and died, leaving his mom behind to pick up the pieces of what had been a great life.
And picked up she did. In a years’ time, his mom had found a handsome, wealthy new husband and no longer was the middle class neighborhood good enough for her. I remember the day he told me they were moving and how I had cried in my bed that night, thinking my life was over as well. It was devastation to lose your only support system at the tender age of thirteen.
Shaking my head free of those thoughts I had forgotten about, I closed the file and ran a hand over my face. Suddenly, this job didn’t seem so exciting after all. Would Garrett remember me? What would he say, what would he look like? More importantly, what if I found something against him?
***
The workday seemed to drag on after the arriving of the file. The rest of the day I spent eyeing it on my desk while I finished up the rest of the work on another case I had neglected to turn in, wanting all of the information finished up as I was heading to Miami in just a few days. Jeanne had already booked my flight and I was going to stay in on one of the many rental holdings that Brian had around the country. I wasn’t sure why he had them, but that was one of the many secrets I did not know about our boss.
As the clock approached five o’clock, I grabbed my stuff, including the file and walked out with the rest of the crew, headed to my little car in the staff parking lot. My phone rang as I was climbing into my car, and I fumbled around in my Hobo bag until I found it, pulling it out of the dark hole that was the inside of my bag before looking at the screen.
Mom. Eh. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my mom. After all, she raised me and supported me until alcohol became her best friend and I was no longer her number one. At thirteen, it was hard for me to not have a mom who was totally invested in me and when my parents divorced a year later, I made the decision to live with my dad.
My mom was what they call a functioning alcoholic. She could hold down a job to support herself, but once those hours were over, to the bottle she went. Recently though, she had found a pretty decent guy named Bob, who was a recovering alcoholic and he had started to take her to those AA meetings. I hope that he’ll be the push she needs.
Pressing accept, I lifted the phone to my ear. “Hey mom.”
“Hi, honey,” she said back cheerfully. “I’ve got some news, really great news and I wanted you to be the first to know.”
“Um, okay,” I said, turning the engine over so that I could get some cool air in my face. “What’s that?”
“Well,” she answered. “Bob and I, well, we are getting married. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Haven’t you only known each other for three months?” I asked as I pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road. “Don’t you think it’s kinda soon, mom?”
“People do it all the time,” she replied, a slight bit of anger in her voice. “Well, except you of course.”
I rolled my eyes, thinking that I should have known that she would take a jab like that. I had come close to marriage and the like a year ago, when I thought I was spending the rest of my life with this wonderful person that I could call my soulmate. It turns out, he wasn’t the wonderful guy I thought he was. “Mom,” I began before she cut me off.
“I’m sorry, honey, I didn’t mean it. But I love Bob and he loves me and I think he’s the one. Don’t you like Bob?”
“Of course, mom,” I said, thinking of the tall, balding man that clearly doted on my mom. How could you not like him? He gave her everything she wanted and he was trying to get her off the alcohol, which made him top number one in my book. “When’s this wedding going to take place?”
“I don’t know, maybe a month or so?” she answered. “Won’t it be fun, us two girls planning a wedding?”
“Yeah, sure mom,” I said as I turned down the street where my condo was. I couldn’t tell her that I would be in Miami. While she knew I was an accountant, she definitely didn’t know about the undercover work. I couldn’t have her telling everyone and their brother that I was an undercover agent. “Sounds like fun.”
“Alright, well, I have to go now,” she finally said as I turned in my driveway. “Bob and I are going to our meeting. Love you, honey!”
“Love you,” I said back before she ended the call and I parked my car, cutting off the engine. I was happy for her. She had seemed to take a real turn for the worst when my dad got remarried a year or so ago to Peggy, my stepmom, so I was glad that she was moving on with her life as well.
With a sigh, I grabbed my stuff and climbed out of the car, checking the mail before walking inside my cool condo, stepping out of the heat with a breath of relief. After dropping everything on the kitchen table, I walked to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine, reaching for a glass and pouring myself one. After the shock of the day today, a glass of wine was clearly needed. Kicking off my shoes, I grabbed my laptop and jumped on the couch. I wanted to do some research on Garrett, to find out his habits and what was going to be my best plan of attack. I had a funny feeling that he would remember who I was as soon as he saw my name, and based on what Brian had told me earlier, I was going to be awkwardly exposed because of who he was.