Despite the Gentleman's Riches: Sweet Billionaire Romance (For Richer or Poorer Book 1) (12 page)

I almost staggered back a step, but kept my game face on with an effort, knowing the camera might still pick me up at the edge of its lens. Suddenly, Crystal's fancy car made more sense. This was the Señora's daughter, whose other parent was the richest coal-mining magnate in the area. I couldn't believe Ms. Cooper hadn't shared the girl's identity with me...and at the same time I was glad for my previous ignorance. Would I have given Crystal a chance to prove her obvious worth if I'd known about her pedigree? Which also made me wonder whether I'd been giving the Señora a bum rap all this time by refusing to look beneath the surface.

Beside me, Crystal was nailing her interview in yet more proof that the girl had an iron backbone hidden beneath her girlish exterior. "I'm excited to get to attend Stanford in the fall," she was saying. "But I'd like my neighbors to have the same opportunities I received. I've been trying to talk Dad into diversifying into cleaner industries, maybe planting chestnut trees and hazelnut bushes on reclaimed strip mine sites as a way to rebuild the land while also producing food. That's what I want to study in college—restoration agriculture."

"A lofty goal," Cora agreed. "But was Virginia right? Would a coal-fired power plant make you less likely to move back to our region after graduation?"

I could see Crystal trying to decide how far she wanted to tiptoe out onto the limb she was navigating. The girl was walking a fine line, not yet having come out against the industry that paid her bills, and she paused to shoot a quick glance in my direction. I smiled at my companion, trying to let her know that I understood if she couldn't provide a verbal slap to her father's face on local TV.

But perhaps Crystal read my facial expression differently, as encouragement to take an unpopular stance that we both believed in our hearts was the right one. "Yes," the teenager said at last, her eyes now firmly trained on the camera. "I love our mountains, but if this power plant goes through, I'll move somewhere else, somewhere cleaner and safer."

Ms. Cooper's beaming face was a benediction for both of us, and I was glad when the camera powered down, allowing me to pull Crystal into a heartfelt hug. She'd nailed it.

Jack's envelope of cash provided more than enough funding to pay my monthly lot fee, but I opted to wait and beard my landlord in his den Friday morning rather than hunting him down during my two days off. I hoped that, if I had an appointment looming, Mr. Reed wouldn't be able to harass me for long. Plus, since my neighbor usually slept in, I might be able to simply slip the rent envelope under his door, then skedaddle without speaking to my skeevy landlord.

No such luck. Weather-stripping around the door made the endeavor harder than I thought it would be, and I had barely poked the first edge of my lot rent into the gap when the door swung open in front of me.

"I saw you on TV the other night," Mr. Reed said by way of greeting.

My landlord's words hung heavily in the air, and I peered up at his looming form. I was crouched down in an accidental grovel, and the unusual vantage point made it even more clear how drastically I was outweighed by the man I was forced to deal with on a near-daily basis. Usually, I just found Mr. Reed's presence annoying, but the way he was obviously relishing my abasement sent a trickle of fear down my spine. So I shot to my feet as quickly as possible and responded as eloquently as I could muster: "Um."

"You know, my daddy and granddaddy and great granddaddy were all coalminers," Mr. Reed continued, his words companionable but his tone much more menacing than the simple sentence would have suggested.
Of course
my unsavory neighbor would be on the other side of the power-plant issue. But I wasn't quite sure where he was going with this trip down memory lane.

"I'm
proud
of my heritage," my landlord continued, taking a step toward me and closing the gap that I'd opened up. I wanted to retreat further, but knew I'd fall off the edge of the porch at some point, and I didn't dare take my eyes off the man in front of me in order to look behind and gauge the distance. Abruptly, I wished that I'd mentioned to Jack that I intended to drop off my lot rent on my way to his house this morning. If I didn't show up on time, would my employer come looking for me? And was Mr. Reed really far enough off his rocker to take the step from verbal intimidation into outright physical violence?

"I brought the lot rent," I said inanely, waving the envelope between us like a peace offering. And, to my surprise, the distraction worked. Mr. Reed plucked the money out of my hand and immediately began shuffling through the bills, his lips moving as he counted in his head.

Although leaving now would be rude, I was quite willing to take this opportunity to escape, so I turned away rather than waiting for my neighbor to finish his math. I'd already reached the steps leading down to the street when Mr. Reed's words stopped me in my tracks. "You're short."

For a second, I assumed he was referring to my height, and I turned, puzzled by the non sequitur. But my landlord was waving twenty-dollar bills in one hand, and I realized he meant I hadn't paid enough. Which made no sense.... "There's two-hundred dollars in there," I started, but Mr. Reed didn't let me finish.

"I told you last week that I'd been giving you the friends-and-family rate," my landlord responded, a smile I didn't trust spreading across his fleshy lips. "If you only pay two Benjamins, then I expect other...benefits." He leered and I shivered despite the warmth that was already beginning to fill the morning air.

Any other month, I would have been stuck, having barely scraped together enough funds to hand over the two hundred I really owed. But not this time. Jack had been extremely generous in remunerating my efforts while he was absent, and my wallet was now brimming will bills. "How much more do I owe you then?" I demanded, opening my billfold and yanking out another five twenties. "Is three hundred dollars per month enough to perch on a half-acre of land in the middle of nowhere?" I was too angry to be scared now as I strode back across the porch to thrust the money into Mr. Reed's hands.

Greed and lechery warred on my landlord's face, and, to my relief, the former won out. "For now," Mr. Reed answered, snatching the bills. Without a farewell, he retreated back into his house and slammed the door in my face.

***

"Are you sure you don't mind watching Florabelle while we're gone?" I asked, entering the Reynolds mansion with bird cage in hand. Jack had promised that his housekeeper would feed and water my pet in our absence, but I didn't feel comfortable abandoning Florabelle without some reassurance from Shirley herself.

"I have five grandkids and thirteen great grandbabies," the kindly matron said by way of reply, plucking the basket of food and supplies out of my grip. "Between them, they own ten dogs, a dozen cats, three goldfish, a hamster, two guinea pigs, and a pony. I pet sit for every one of those children. Don't you worry, sugar—your bird will be fine."

"I really appreciate it," I said, accepting her credentials and shooting the housekeeper a grateful smile. "If you have trouble, you can call us and I'll find a way to get back early...."

"Sugar, Mr. Reynolds isn't going to let you out of his grasp one minute sooner than he has to," Shirley replied, pursing her lips in what almost looked like suppressed glee. I wanted to ask what she meant by that curious statement, but we'd already reached the closed door at the end of the hall, which caused my thoughts to skip onto another track.

"Does Jack really want Florabelle to stay in his office?" I asked, daunted by the polished wooden portal. This was the one room on the ground floor that I'd yet to enter, not wanting to impinge upon Jack's privacy. I had to admit, though, that I was curious. Would Jack's workspace look more personalized than the rest of the house, or would Mr. Fish Sticks' surface elegance reign here as well?

"It's the least drafty spot in the whole house, sugar," Shirley said confidently, making me wonder which Reynolds had researched the air-quality requirements of cockatiels. "Mr. Reynolds said to show you right in as soon as you arrived." The housekeeper pushed the door open as she spoke, then abandoned me to enter the room alone. I shot a beseeching glance at her retreating backside, then took a deep breath and stepped into Jack's domain.

"...I'm on top of it," my employer was saying into his phone as I crossed the threshold. Jack seemed intent upon the call when the door swung open, but his eyes immediately sought out mine, and he quickly motioned me inside rather than waving me away.

Unsure of my welcome, but equally unwilling to disobey a direct order, I took a few steps forward and set Florabelle's cage on the floor while I surveyed the room. The books on Jack's shelves appeared to be in use, unlike the ones in the mansion's main library, and I could just make out a photo of Lena wearing old-fashioned pilot goggles, the front of the picture angled toward Jack on the edge of his messy desk. On the other hand, the piece of furniture that these items rested upon was huge and gleaming, made of a dark wood that I suspected had immediately recognizable financial implications to the upper crust, and the rest of the room was decorated with similar opulence. His office, in fact, reminded me very much of Jack—richly handsome on the outside but perhaps a little more interesting underneath.

"Yes, it
is
surprising that a little podunk town could muster such quality opposition," Jack said after a pause, and my gaze shot back in his direction. I suddenly knew that my employer was talking about Cuadic, and any pleasant feelings I might have been harboring about Jack's office abruptly vanished as I remembered that my boss was doing his level best to increase the cancer rates in our region and to line his own pockets in the process. Maybe this college tour (and the kiss that had preceded it) was a very bad idea.

But Jack's blue eyes held mine with such intensity that I was forced to recall the spiraling pleasure of our embrace, and I felt my body relax into the memory. Nothing that felt so good could be entirely bad, right?

"I agree—she looked quite enticing dressed in mud," Jack said into the phone, and his smirk suggested that the sentence had been uttered for my benefit as much as for whoever was on the other end of the line. "Don't worry. I'll get her off our backs," my employer went on.

Once again, my heart rose, only to plummet into my feet, making me feel a bit nauseous from the speed of my changing emotions. "Enticing" sounded good, but it pained me to think that Mr. Fish Sticks was so confident about his strategy to take Cuadic down that he would plan his tactics right in front of my nose. Did my employer think he could simply command me to bow off the battlefield and expect instant obedience?

But Jack's brow had lowered as he took in my pained expression, and the businessman was now scrawling on a sheet of paper even as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the line. My employer nudged the finished missive in my direction, entreating me with his eyes to pick it up, and, despite the urge to grab Florabelle and run as fast as I could in the other direction, I instead took the ten steps required to reach Jack's desk and read his note.

Stop thinking of me as Mr. Fish Sticks
, he had written.
Talking to dearest Dad. Will explain shortly.

"I'm well aware that it's my job," Jack continued, still speaking into the phone. His words were more tense now, as if his father had moved on to a topic that was nearer and dearer to his heart, and where Jack was less confident of his footing. "But don't you think that Lena's just a tad more important than getting this plant pushed through a couple of weeks early?" A pause, then: "Yes, you
are
her legal guardian, but I'm assuming you want my sister to go to college?" Another pause. "I
know
you can get her admitted into any university you choose, but Lena isn't a robot. If you don't want your daughter to drop out of the next boarding school you send her to, then you need to give me a few days of leeway to build Lena's excitement about her future."

Jack was drumming his pen on the desk so loudly now that I thought he might dent the surface, and I put my own worries on hold long enough to walk around the wooden expanse to his side. It felt unbearably bold to reach out and begin to knead my employer's neck muscles, especially in light of his extreme reaction the last time that I'd offered a reassuring brush of the hand. In fact, I was slowly coming to understand that, even if Jack had enjoyed the attention of dozens of glamorous women in the past, he may never have been touched by someone who simply cared about him as a person.

So I was unsurprised when my boss's already tense muscles tightened further as I began my massage. But then Jack angled his head to shoot a glance up at my face. Whatever he saw there must have reassured him, because I was instantly rewarded by a loosening of the tightness in my companion's shoulders. Jack's pen stopped striking the desk, and I could now just barely make out his father's voice emanating from the phone.

"Lena will do what I tell her to," the older Mr. Reynolds was saying, his voice entirely calm, without a trace of the emotion that filled his son's. "This plant is a very strategic initiative for Clean Power's future growth, as you well know, and it requires your full attention. But I guess a few personal days won't put us too far behind schedule." The man sighed, as if Jack's plan to take time off for his sister's sake rather than pouring every waking hour into taking over the world was simply the cross that Mr. Reynolds senior had to bear. "Go. Have fun," Mr. Reynolds continued. "I'll talk to you next week."

Without a farewell, Jack clicked the end button on his phone and carefully set the device down on his desk...before sending his pen flying across the room with such force that it gouged a hole in the far wall. "Fuck!" he exploded, the pent-up rage that my employer had been carefully hiding from his father coming out in the single word. Florabelle responded with an expletive of her own as Jack's head dropped onto his desk.

But as quickly as his rage had arisen, it disappeared, and Jack's usual calm demeanor returned. "You look even more enticing all cleaned up," my employer greeted me, swiveling his chair around and tugging me down into his lap. The move startled a laugh from my lips, and even though I was terrified at the thought of being caught in a compromising position if Shirley or Lena walked by the open door, I allowed myself to lean into his warmth.

"I want to kiss you until neither of us can breathe," Jack whispered huskily into my ear. "But I know I owe you an explanation before my sister shows up." And, to my dismay, my employer barely allowed his lips to brush across the skin of my neck before he set both of us onto our feet.