Despite the Gentleman's Riches: Sweet Billionaire Romance (For Richer or Poorer Book 1) (3 page)

BOOK: Despite the Gentleman's Riches: Sweet Billionaire Romance (For Richer or Poorer Book 1)
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"Oh, you poor thing!" my mentor exclaimed, making as if to give me another hug, but stopping short when she saw the don't-touch-me tension in my shoulders. "But maybe it's a blessing in disguise," she added. "After all, you're too smart to work at Food City. Maybe you should take your time finding another position, wait until something shows up that's worthy of your talents."

Usually, Ms. Cooper's pep talks buoyed me up, her faith in my abilities shoring up my own. But now, the teacher's words were yet more proof that even my mentor had no idea what it was like to be entirely on my own with no safety net to fall back on. Ms. Cooper regularly overflowed with praise for her niece, who was teaching English as a second language to kids in Bolivia, but I couldn't even imagine how I'd buy a plane ticket to a gig like that. I couldn't spend time shopping around locally for a better job, either, not if I wanted to keep a roof over Florabelle's head. Instead, I had to take whatever position I could get and count myself lucky if I found another minimum-wage position before my landlord tossed me out on my ear.

This
was why I persisted in calling my ex-teacher Ms. Cooper instead of Claudia. But the distinction between my lifestyle and that of her relative was too hard to explain, so I used the only defense I had and contorted my face into that fake smile that no one ever seemed to see through.

"Sure," I agreed. "Of course you're right."

 

 

Chapter 3

Three long days later, I hadn't found a job, but I
had
used my last twenty bucks to fill up my gas tank anyway before heading over to the high school to help sway the community over to Cuadic's point of view. I was doing my darndest to yank the huge posters I'd decorated out through the tiny door of my car (how had I gotten them in there in the first place?), when a large hand landed on my shoulder.

"Here, let me."

"Mr. Fish Sticks?" The embarrassing words were out of my mouth before I realized I was actually speaking instead of just thinking. And even though I mentally berated myself for the slip of the tongue, I was glad that I'd gone for
that
title rather than for some of the more flattering ones that had rolled through my head as I dreamily fingered the stranger's business card over the last few days.
Your Highness
.
Mr. Beautiful
.
Hunky Guy
. Yep, I would have been truly mortified if I'd let one of
those
monikers slip.

It had seemed safe to let my imagination wander on lonely evenings since I'd known that a man like this wouldn't spend much time in our tiny, rundown county. The movie-star look-alike had to have been merely passing through, never to be sighted again, so why not turn him into a European prince in disguise or a Silicon Valley millionaire? Except, here was the enigma in the flesh, looking at me quizzically as my face turned beet red.

"I guess the nickname is my own fault for failing to introduce myself," the stranger replied after a minute of silence, during which I tried vainly to think of a way to build a time machine that would let me take back my words. The posters I'd created were now leaning safely against the outside of my vehicle, having been disinterred by Mr. Fish Sticks while I was lost in thought, and I tried to force myself to latch onto the excuse to walk away and deliver them to my compatriots. Instead, the stranger stuck out a hand, remedying his error and gluing me more firmly in place. "I'm Jack," he said.

"Ginny," I replied, social conventions forcing me to shake the guy's hand even though I knew before the tingle hit that the touch of his skin on mine would do nothing to diminish the red filling my cheeks. When I thought of how many times I'd brushed Brett's hand while working on Cuadic projects together, with so little effect on my body, I realized that the crush I'd nurtured for our organizer was a mere childish infatuation. These strange yearnings I was currently feeling were more like...trouble.

"You never called me," Jack murmured, not letting go of my hand. I tried to tell my brain to pull the offending appendage away, but neurons must have misfired because my fingers instead tightened their grip on Jack's palm. "I've been wasting away on pizza and beer for days and days," he continued when my mouth refused to spit out any words in a timely manner.

"You got me fired," I answered, finally remembering that Jack and I were not best buddies, just in time to break the enchanted silence between us. "I've been busy looking for a new job."

"I'm sorry." The words sounded strange coming from his lips, as if Jack might have forgotten that apologies were possible until this instant. Then the corners of his mouth curled upwards into an unbearably sexy smile. "So let me make it up to you with a meal at least."

"I'm busy right now," I evaded, still having a hard time remembering that simple, two-letter n-word when Jack was standing right in front of me. By way of explanation, I waved vaguely over at the cluster of Cuadic members peering my way from the entrance of the school. I had a feeling half of the middle-aged ladies were already picking out a wedding present—they kept trying to set me up with their kids and grandkids and were endlessly miffed (although politely so) when I repeatedly declined to cooperate. Talking to this hunk in plain sight was probably enough to make the ladies program their minister into speed dial.

"Fan club?" Jack asked, seeming to lap up the ladies' attention as if it were his due. I was ninety-nine percent sure my companion shifted his feet as he spoke, angling his body so the women could get a better view of his strong jaw and patrician profile.

"Protest group," I countered, finally getting up the courage to slip my hand out of his. Belatedly, I regretted the action, my digits unbearably cold when they were no longer cupped in Jack's massive paw.

"Hmmm," he said by way of reply. "But that meeting doesn't start for an hour, and I have something I want to show you."

Turning away, Jack started walking toward his car as if sure I'd follow. And maybe I would have if the vehicle in question hadn't seemed so crazily out of place in our rustic county, the passenger door Jack opened to entice me inside folding skyward instead of out like any ordinary portal might.
Strange car doors and fancy suits
, the rational part of my brain warned.
He's out of your league. In fact, he's probably playing a different game than you are entirely.

"I don't think so," I called, hating the way I had to raise my voice like a fishmonger to reject the guy's advances now that he was several yards away. I knew that I'd be hearing about this exchange for weeks from the Cuadic gossips, who would likely phone Jack themselves in an effort to force me into joining the handsome stranger for a romantic dinner. I'd definitely have to burn the business card that I kept transferring between different pairs of pants like a lucky charm if I wanted to keep it out of Ms. Cooper's match-making hands.

"Of course," Jack agreed, changing gears easily as he walked back to my side. "You don't know me from Adam." As he spoke, Jack was quickly moving my posters again so that they were held up by a handy telephone pole, one that I wasn't so sure had been present before my companion needed it. Did even inanimate objects jump to fulfill this guy's every wish? "We can take your car for safety," he said breezily. "If I turn out to be a psychopath, just club me over the head and push me out the door. Should we stop and buy a baseball bat?"

"We only have an hour," I muttered. Then I realized, when Jack smiled, that I'd conceded the debate. Mr. Fish Sticks sure did know how to get his way.

 

***

 

Although pushy, Jack was far from predictable. I was too shell-shocked by his charismatic presence to try to speculate about what he wanted to show me, which was a good thing since I never would have guessed our destination in a million years. What Jack wanted to share was...his kid sister.

"
Half
sister," the fifteen-year-old growled when Jack led me into the immense sitting area of a ridge-top mansion that I hadn't known existed before today, even though the residence was located a mere ten-minute drive from town. "Statistically speaking, we're supposed to share, like, twenty-five percent of our DNA," the girl continued. "But it could be as little as zero percent."

"Or as much as fifty percent," Jack said easily, the warmth of his current smile entirely different from the expression I'd seen on his face previously. I realized now that my companion had only been playing at hunting down a date with me, but that he was completely serious about his love for his sister. While the thought should have made me feel slighted, it actually forced me to like Jack a little bit more. (I could just hear the resident math whiz telling me that a little bit more than nothing was still very nearly nothing.)

"I'm Ginny," I said instead of commenting on Jack's show of affection, holding out my hand to the girl as if she were an adult. At least I'd learned something from my companion's aggressive behavior—how to trap the unwary into forced contact. Like me, his little sister took the bait, and my hand.

"Lena," she mumbled, her eyes on the floor.

"You must have Ms. Cooper for biology," I continued, the girl's lack of enthusiasm insufficient to prevent me from trying to build a connection between us. There was something about the teenager that drew my focus, giving me a much-needed break from the sexual tension zinging between myself and her half-brother. Even though Lena was clearly a rich kid with access to every doodad she desired, her heart still seemed as wounded as mine had been at that age, and I couldn't help wanting to know the girl's story. I itched to see if I could coax a smile out of her morose face; I yearned to help Lena plant her soul into an apple tree the way I had done so that expanding tree roots could help her human heart flourish. So I tried to build on what we had in common—a shared interest in biology. "She's a great teacher, isn't she?" I continued.

Or maybe we didn't have any interests in common after all. "Only
losers
go to public school," the girl retorted, looking up at me with pure disgust evident on her face. I backpedaled in my analysis of the situation. Perhaps I wasn't seeing a wounded heart, but was instead falling prey to incipient sociopathic tendencies. Given that Lena shared twenty-five percent of her DNA with Jack, the latter
did
seem more likely.

"My darling sister recently got kicked out of a Swiss boarding school," Jack said lightly, as if his sibling's obvious pain was a joking matter. I opened my mouth to take her brother to task for his tactlessness, but Mr. Fish Sticks' raised eyebrows made me pause just long enough to allow Lena to fill the conversational opening instead.

"I
quit
boarding school," she corrected.

"Quit?" I couldn't help asking. How does one
quit
boarding school, exactly? Drop out, maybe. Flunk out, certainly. But
quit
?

"Stole a jet and flew to Paris," the teenager elaborated with a shrug, and all I could do was blink. I wasn't sure which surprised me more—the kind of lifestyle where someone could steal a plane and not be stuck in prison in the aftermath, or that this scrawny little girl knew what to do with the controls in a cockpit.

"Well, that showed them," my mouth said without my brain's permission. Drat! Definitely not the way to respond to obviously bad behavior. But Lena smirked in reply and Jack's face lit up as if we'd won the lottery.

"Well, we'd love to stay and chat," he said, tousling his sister's hair to her evident disgust (but possible hidden enjoyment). "But Ginny here has a meeting to attend. See you later, alligator."

"Not if I see you first, asshole." Obviously, Lena's knowledge of childhood goodbyes was either absent or was squashed beneath those sociopathic tendencies.

Despite myself, I stared back at the confusing teenager as Jack took my hand once again, dragging me out the door and into the front yard, where my car seemed to have shed half a gallon of rust over the immaculate brick driveway during the five minutes we'd been inside. "
Now
you understand," he said, although I definitely didn't think I
did
understand. "Say you'll take the job."

The boyish charm that Mr. Fish Sticks had turned on so hard in the grocery store was once again in evidence, but I understood my companion well enough by now to see a hint of Jack's real personality hidden behind the charisma. The subsurface Jack was worried about his sister, although what he expected me to do about the problem was not so clear.

"So, you didn't drag me up here to ask me out to dinner, you dragged me up here to put me to work?" I asked, buying time to disentangle my protective feelings toward Lena from the pure stupidity that seemed to flood my body whenever Jack touched my bare skin. He still held my hand and I was having a hard time thinking of anything else.

"I
want
to ask you to dine with me," Jack replied, his eyes boring into mine. "But I won't, not yet. You'll just say no, and if you turn me down three times in a row, the gentleman's code of honor says I have to ease the hook out of your gills and let you loose." His thumb began to rub slow circles across my palm, making my heart rate pick up and my cheeks once again turn red. If I didn't know better, I'd think I was coming down with rosacea.

"I don't get it," I said at last, coughing out the words in an effort to take my mind away from the feelings flooding my body. "What's the job? Lena's too old for a baby sitter, or a nanny."

"Of course," Jack agreed. "And she doesn't need either of those things." Then, in an apparent non-sequitor: "This is the first time she's smiled since I tracked her down in Paris."

"
That
wasn't a smile. It was a smirk," I corrected him. Talking about Lena seemed to have a calming effect on my libido, or perhaps it was the way, when Jack's attention turned to his sister, Mr. Fish Sticks stopped pouring his charismatic energy into me, providing a scant iota of breathing room. "And I don't think 'loser' and 'asshole' are terms of endearment."

"Four grand a month plus room and board," Jack replied, "to be my sister's companion for forty hours a week."

The amount of money being bandied about so liberally was breathtaking, but I had to keep my head straight. "I can't live here," I disagreed. "I have a trailer, a cockatiel, a garden."

"Move them," he demanded.

"I
can't
," I said, as firmly as I could. Yes, maybe I
could
move my trailer and Florabelle if Jack advanced me a couple of months' pay. But if I was crazy enough to even consider working for a rich guy who exuded sexuality and danger, I
had
to maintain some measure of independence. So I kept my argument simple. "You can't dig up an apple tree."

BOOK: Despite the Gentleman's Riches: Sweet Billionaire Romance (For Richer or Poorer Book 1)
8.69Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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