The Gift: Book 1 (The Billionaire's Love Story) (4 page)

Briony shook her head. “Next time call maintenance on 1111 and get someone to lift the boxes onto the floor for you. Or come and see me if you need anything. I’m in 222.”

“I will. Sorry,” the temp mumbled.

“Let me introduce you both,” said Briony. “This is Tobias Stone, and this is Savannah Page. She’s with us for three weeks.”

They looked at one another and exchanged forced smiles.

“That will be all, Briony,” Tobias said, turning to Briony and watched her leave the room.

“It wasn’t her fault,” the woman insisted, adjusting her clothes once more. Tobias kept his lips pursed together. “You shouldn’t jump to the wrong conclusions so quickly.”

“Jump to the wrong conclusion? That’s rich, coming from someone who thought I worked at the department store.”

“It’s even worse that you didn’t work at the store and spoke to my son. I’ve taught him not to talk to strangers and you should have known better than to tell him to come inside.”

“You were so busy on the phone, you didn’t seem to be paying him any attention.”

He could see that she didn’t like the sound of that, the way she narrowed her eyes at him. He stepped towards the door and opened it, then turned around.

“Jacob—how is he?” No matter how much she tried to smooth her hair down, there was a curl that always fell forward into her eyes.

“He’s fine. Why?” She looked at him as if to ask what business it was of his. The way she stood with her hands on her hips, it was obvious that she couldn’t wait for him to leave.

“I was just wondering, that’s all. I saw he needed his inhaler.”

“Too much unnecessary excitement over toys.” She made it sound like an accusation.

He hadn’t known asthma to be brought on by excitement and chose not to reply to her comment.

“Candace tells me that you’re working here for a few weeks.”

“Until Christmas. What are you doing here?” Amusement filled the smile he gave her and he watched her brush the dust off her sleeves.

“I work here, too.”

Displeasure twisted her features and she looked away, as if considering what impact this might have on her. “Nice to meet you, but I have work to do.”

“As do I,” he said, sliding his cell phone out of his back trouser pocket. “If you’ll excuse me.” She bent down to pick up the papers that had fallen everywhere as he left the room.

Four hours of back to back meetings this morning had left him feeling tightly wound up and maybe he’d slot Naomi in later this evening.

Chapter 5

“If you’ll excuse me.”

She shrugged, relieved to see the back of him, and bent down to collect the papers. When she had tidied everything up, she left her office and knocked on Briony’s door.

“You don’t have to knock,” said Briony, when Savannah walked into the large one-room office where three other women sat with a desk in each corner, all of them facing the middle. Savannah braced herself and walked over, ready to make her apology.

“I’m sorry about what just happened.” The last thing she wanted was to displease Briony and she couldn’t afford to get off to a bad start. She needed this contract and hoped that many more offers of work would follow. “I didn’t mean for you to get into trouble on my account.”

Briony chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. Tobias is not the easiest of people to work for.”

“He’s your boss?”

“He’s the main man,” Briony replied. “He owns the company.”

“Which company?” Savannah asked, thinking she had misheard.

“Stone Enterprises.”

“
He
owns this
entire
building?”

“Yes. Didn’t you know?”

Savannah shook her head. She had no idea that the hard-faced and cold man she’d met was even capable of making friends, let alone running companies as large as this.

“How long have you been in New York, Savannah?”

“Since summer.”

“And you’ve never heard of Tobias Stone? Or the Stone building? Which is this one, by the way.”

“My son said he’d seen him on TV.”

“Your son is way more clued in.” Briony laughed “On a more serious note, if you need help to get the rest of the boxes down, you must call maintenance. You can’t risk hurting your back or incurring some other injury.”

“I will. I’m sorry it happened.”

Briony got up and put her coat on. “You’re a fast worker. I like that.” She nodded her head approvingly. “We need people like you, just don’t injure yourself.”

Her praise brought a smile to Savannah’s face.

“Call maintenance when the others need shifting.” Briony reminded her.

“I will. Thanks.”

“Now that you’re here, would you mind going to the tenth floor? I’m going to lunch but you could go and ask for your security badge at reception there. This way you’ll be able to walk right in tomorrow morning without me needing to come and fetch you from ground floor reception.”

“Thanks.” She left Briony’s office feeling happier, only to find the elevator doors had opened. She rushed to get in and it was only as the doors shut that she saw the elevator was going up.

Damn.

Seeing that the button to the 30th floor had already been pressed, she decided to wait until the elevator arrived at the 30
th
before she pressed the button to descend again.

“Where are you going?” The moment she heard the voice, she instantly regretted getting in.

Trust her to get into the same elevator as Tobias Stone. She stared up and looked into his narrowed eyes which were now the color of slate.

“I—uh—I’m going up,” she replied, trying to keep her voice level. Knowing who he was suddenly made her tread carefully and she didn’t feel as well equipped to shoot off snarky comments.

“You’re coming to my penthouse? With me?” His voice was laced with a mocking tone and yet his words sent electric shivers down her spine.

His
penthouse?

On the 30
th
floor?

There was no way to get out of this except to come clean. “Seeing that I didn’t know you had a penthouse on the 30th.”
Seeing that I didn’t even know who you were until a few moments ago.
“I think we both know that I need to go down.”

“Go down?” His lips curled up, and it was the first hint of a smile, albeit a very naughty smile, that he gave her. She sensed that Tobias Stone was a man of hidden meaning and innuendo. But it didn’t explain why it made her stomach dance as though the wings of a butterfly had brushed against it.

“I—I—” she cleared her throat. “I need to collect my security tag from the tenth.”

He said nothing, but even without looking at him she felt him giving her the once-over. She suffered in silence the awkward and slow ride to the topmost floor and kept her attention on the elevator buttons, avoiding eye contact with Mr. Stone. Yet heat prickled slowly along her skin. Something about him, about being in a confined space
with
him, was causing her body to react and in a strange way.

The door opened and he walked out, leaving her to slowly exhale and slump back in relief against the elevator wall.

If she was curious for a glimpse into his penthouse, she was disappointed. She saw only a hallway, carpeted this time in light gray, with black wallpaper. At the end of the hallway was a door. She continued to stare as Tobias Stone reached the door, her heartrate accelerating like wildfire. He paused before it and she wondered if he would turn around.

Her mouth fell open and crazy thoughts swirled around in her head. She knew that he knew she was watching him, and she quickly forced herself to press the button to close the doors. She leaned back against the elevator wall and hit the button to the tenth.

She was overcome with relief as the elevator slowly descended. What was it that had sent her heartrate rocketing? Was it the idea of what lay beyond the doors to his penthouse, or the smell of power that automatically came with so much wealth?

She didn’t want to know. When the elevator stopped at the tenth floor she walked out, encircled in giddiness.

It reminded her of the early days when Colt had first kissed her, way before his fist left blue marks all over her body.

Chapter 6

Tobias walked into his penthouse and poured himself a shot of whiskey.

He didn
’t usually drink in the afternoon. But he’d just heard that this morning’s negotiations had fallen through and it didn’t look as if they were any closer to doing business with this company. It always pissed him off when a multi-million dollar deal slipped through his hands.

He loosened his tie and threw off his jacket, letting the dark, grassy taste of whiskey slide down his throat as he stared out of his high-rise penthouse. He saw nothing but small specks of dirt down below; people scurrying around like busy ants. Instead of looking down, he much preferred to look out at the New York skyline, to see the city lying before him and to know that he was in the upper echelons of it; he who had been a poor dyslexic child whom most people had been convinced would amount to nothing.

And look at him now. He had everything.

Almost everything.

There had been a time years ago when he had believed he had almost everything. But no more. He’d lost it in the blink of an eye. Had lost them.

He poured himself another shot of whiskey since he had no meetings or any other business lined up in the afternoon. Walking around the cool white marble floor, he stretched out his neck, trying to get the muscles to loosen up. It was peaceful here. The wide open apartment gave him a sense of solitude when he craved peace. When he’d bought the building, one of the designers had laughingly suggested that he could have the topmost floor as a penthouse suite. It was an idea that had excited him and he’d decided to go for it much to the surprise, and delight, of the designer.

Though he never slept here, it was a good, open space,
his
own space to escape to. Or when he liked to screw. Excitement coursed through his body and he considered whether to call Naomi over tonight.

His was the type of tightness that she was good at releasing, and paying her by the hour meant he didn’t have to go through the rest of that romancing crap. He didn’t even have to talk to her. Staring at his watch he tried to estimate whether to go home for the day. Losing the deal had ruined his mood…he could do with Naomi setting the world to rights for a few hours whether she came here or to his private residence. She didn’t even ask any questions. She just serviced him. That was the best thing about their arrangement.

She was the only other person who had the key to this floor—it was the only way to get here and since the employees only needed to go as far as the 29
th
floor, there was no chance any of them would ever go as far as the penthouse. He found it amusing that the new temp had managed to catch a glimpse of the floor that very few people had access to.

When his cell phone rang, and he saw Candace’s name on it, he was tempted to ignore it. But he knew she only contacted him if it was an important matter. Reluctantly, he answered it.

“Yes?”

“Where are you?”

“In my penthouse.”

“Tobias, you have a meeting in an hour’s time with Oliver Rothschild.”

Fuck. He’d forgotten. It had only been arranged this morning.

“The driver’s coming for you in ten.”

“I’ll be down shortly.”

Oliver’s meetings often ended up in a strip joint once the business portion was over, and he had no desire to go there. He drained his glass and knew he needed mouthwash. After the heavy meeting with Oliver Rothschild he knew he would need to call Naomi to his private residence later.

Chapter 7

“Mommmeeeeee!”

Savannah ran out of the kitchen and almost tripped as she rushed to the living room. Jacob sat, excitedly pointing to the screen.

“What is it, Jacob?”

“Look, Mommmy. I told you.” He smiled his widest, cheeriest smile.

“The billionaire hedge fund wonder kid, Tobias Stone, lost the…” She stared at the screen still wearing her rubber cleaning gloves. There, in all his glory, was Tobias Stone. A journalist had intercepted him as he was walking towards a building. Watching him, she could see that he barely looked at the screen, choosing to look away, and his responses were concise, to the point. He barely smiled. The all too brief clip showed him then disappear through the revolving doors of the building. The sub heading mentioned a multi-million dollar deal falling through and then the next TV clip showed Tobias Stone with children around a Christmas tree. It looked as if they were in the toy store, the night she had met him.

She stared, speechless.

“See, Mommy. See, see. Told you, told you.” He started to sing.

Savannah walked over to him and sat by him, slowly taking off her wet gloves. “So you did, honey. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”

“I like him.”

“You don’t even know him.”

“I know he’s kind.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he let me come into the toy shop. He said I could pick whatever I wanted.”

“He did?”

Jacob nodded.

“That’s not really a good reason to like someone, Jacob.”

“Why not? He was being kind, and nice and you always said be nice to people. I was nice to him and he was nice back.”

“But you don’t know him.”

“I do! He works in the toy shop.”

“That’s just it, Jacob. He doesn’t.”

“So why did he tell me to pick what I wanted? Was he lying to me, Mommy?”

“Ah-no. Sweetie, he was…uh…he was—”

“Was he lying to those other kids too? One of them told me that he was going to get a present from him, too.”

Savannah’s eyebrows pinched together. “He wasn’t lying, honey. Mr. Stone was going to buy all those children a gift and I think he must have decided to buy you one as well.”

“So he’s really nice then, isn’t he?”

She stared into space, wondering how to explain.

“Isn’t he, Mommy? He’s really nice.” Jacob insisted.

“I guess he is. But you still don’t know him. And you shouldn’t be talking to strangers. You don’t know what people are like. They act all nice to you and then you might find out they’re not so nice after all.”