The Gift: Book 1 (The Billionaire's Love Story) (5 page)

“Like daddy, you mean?”

Her heart thudded to a stop.

“Daddy used to be nice, until he turned horrible. I bet Mr. Stone isn’t as nasty as daddy.”

She nodded her head. “No, I don’t think he is.”

“I don’t ever want to see daddy again.”

“I know, honey. That’s why we’re here. We’re happy here aren’t we?”

“I like it here.”

She didn’t want to leave her son with any bad memories, the very things she tried hard to get rid of. “Did you know that I work in Mr. Stone’s company?”

His eyes turned huge, like hazel colored flying saucers. “You work with him?”

“I don’t actually work
with
him, Jacob. I’m just one of many people there.”

“And one day you’ll marry him and then we’ll be really happy. Isn’t that right, Mommy?”

“We
are
really happy, aren’t we?”

He nodded.

She shook her head, getting up. “Mommy just works there, Jacob and she has no plans to ever get married again. And anyway, Mr. Stone is already married.”

Even if he wasn’t, the idea was still ludicrous.

Chapter 8

Towards the end of the second week Savannah had worked her way through most of the boxes. Her work was nearly done and even though she’d tried to work at a snail’s pace and had tried to drag out the time on the last few boxes, the day came when she had nothing to do.

Luckily Briony seemed to have recognized her willingness to work and had lined up a few more tasks for her to complete but this meant moving into the office where Briony worked. She didn’t mind, though she much preferred having a room to herself. Instead she now sat on a small spare desk adjacent to Briony’s. She was inputting data onto the system; it was yet another tedious job but it was a change from filing and scanning.

“Ease up,” Briony told her. “No need to zoom through everything so fast. I suggest you make a real effort to slow down, Savannah. People are starting to wind down for Christmas, not taking off like a rocket.”

“Slow down,” repeated Savannah, sounding like a robot. She nodded at her boss. “Moms do this all the time. It’s second nature for us, multi-tasking and whizzing through things fast. I guess I haven’t fully switched off from mom mode.”

“How come you’re doing temp work?”

Savannah gave her a smile. “I moved to New York a few months ago. It’s hard finding full-time work and I have a little boy to take care of. I wanted the flexibility that a temp contract offers.” She felt more at ease working here now. Briony was friendly and Savannah hadn’t had the misfortune of running into Tobias Stone or his ice-maiden PA again. The fact that Briony had given her extra work to do gave her hope that there might be more work further down the line if she played her cards right.

“I’ll say it again. You’re a good worker, and I don’t say that lightly. I know how hard it is to find a good temp these days.”

“Thanks,” replied Savannah. “Do you think there’s enough for me to do until you break for Christmas?”

“We’re only here for two days next week,” Briony told her. “If you still want to work right up until Christmas Eve—which is what your agency has you booked here until—it will help us out. You would only be covering the office, taking phone calls and checking emails. I can find you little jobs to do, if you’re really desperate to do something.”

“It won’t be a problem.” Savannah told her.

“Great. I’ll run you through a few things, but it’s going to be dead quiet here. I’m not even sure if Tobias will be around. He usually takes off and goes somewhere hot for Christmas, Mustique or North Island. He doesn’t
do
Christmas.”

“No?”

Briony shook her head. “He’s a workaholic.”

“I didn’t know,” murmured Savannah, even though the man annoyed her, he still intrigued her. She’d noticed the way the others in the office sometimes spoke about him; in revered tones, as if they had a thing for him. Yet the talk was never disrespectful. It was what the women didn’t say that made her more curious. Savannah looked at Briony with a curious stare for a moment. She’d heard them talking about the office Christmas party next week and caught a few excited giggles about his attendance there. She leaned in towards Briony and asked her. “I get the feeling that most of these women have the hots for him.”

“Can you blame them?” Briony whispered back. “The man’s disgustingly rich; some think he’s good-looking, though I can’t see it myself.”

Savannah gave her a penetrating stare. For someone who claimed to have not much interest in the man, she was doing an awful lot of talking about him.

Briony made a face at Savannah’s unspoken accusation. “Oh, puh-lease! I don’t have time for men. Though I can see why people see him as a babe magnet.”

Laughter ran out as the others shared a joke but it was suddenly cut short as sudden silence swept across the room. Both she and Briony turned to see Tobias staring at them, wearing a displeased expression. His blue eyes glittered with anger.

There was pin-drop silence.

Savannah wondered how much of their conversation he’d heard.

“Briony, in my office, now.”

Savannah jumped, hearing the anger in his voice. Yet she sensed that he was, at some level, questioning her presence in Briony’s office.

“And bring her too,” he said, his eyes not once leaving Savannah’s face. Almost at once she felt the heat scorching her cheeks. She swallowed, unsure of the reason for his anger and what it had to do with her. He turned and left the room.

Briony stood quickly and glanced at her. “I don’t know what this is about,” she said, as if answering the question that Savannah had. “Hurry. Grab a notebook and pencil.”

Savannah did as asked and followed Briony to Tobias’s office.

“Sit down,” he ordered, his back turned to them as he stood, a tall and imposing figure, staring out of the window behind his desk. It wasn’t so much a window as a whole wall of glass. From top to bottom. Even though the nearest building opposite was a distance away, Savannah wondered whether he worried whether someone with a pair of binoculars or a telescope could see right into his office.

“The Dalton file is missing.”

The Dalton file
? Savannah tried to remember. She didn’t know what he was talking about. Briony looked at her first, then looked at him. “Missing from the system or the hard—”

“Both. We have old records. But it’s not been updated. Candace can’t find the folder either.” His voice was cold.

Briony turned to Savannah. “Do you remember a Dalton file?”

She’d worked through a lot of files, but she didn’t recall that name, although the reason her memory had gone to mush right now was because this man appeared to be blaming her for it.

“I made a note of all the files I scanned. I noted them in my notebook as I worked through them. Let me go and get it.”

“Don’t you have it there?” Tobias asked, gruffly, nodding his head at the thin green notebook she gripped in her hands.

“I had another one. A notepad. It’s on my desk. I’ll go and get it.” She heard the fear in her voice and fear that she’d messed up now engulfed her.

“Please go and check.” Briony replied and Savannah made her escape. Her heart pounded beneath her ribcage. Tobias Stone was furious and she didn’t understand the level of his anger which was disproportionate to what had happened. It was only a file. Someone else most likely had it, and she was sure it would soon turn up. They weren’t working on the latest cure for cancer. People weren’t going to die because a file had gone missing.

She’d had no idea what the papers she’d been scanning were, or what they pertained to. She’d done her job as she’d been told, and she knew she was conscientious. It hadn’t helped when the boxes had tumbled down and the papers had fallen to the floor like confetti at a wedding. But she was thorough, and diligent, and fast, and she’d soon re-organized everything back again. She ignored the sympathetic looks from the other girls as soon as she walked in, and instead grabbed her notepad and rushed back out again.

But as she neared his office she heard his raised voice.

“How do you know? She’s a temp. Someone you hired last minute, you told me yourself. She could be
anyone
.”

She thought she heard Briony laugh in surprise. “She’s a good worker, Tobias. She’s honest and I trust her. She’s not a spy.”

A spy?

Savannah’s nerves bristled at the suggestion of it. This man thought she was
spying
? She couldn’t believe her ears. His level of anger and his accusation suddenly made sense—in a strange and surreal way.

Before she walked in she scanned through her notes and checked. There was no record of the Dalton file here.

What, she wondered, would he make of that?

She knocked on the door hard, her anger spilling over into her fist. She clenched her jaw when he opened the door.

“I don’t have Dalton on my list. See for yourself.” She handed her notebook to him. “These are the files I scanned.”

Tobias pushed the notepad back at her, barely glancing at it. “So where is it?” His expression hardened as he hurled his accusation at her.

“Perhaps it was never in the boxes in the first place,” replied Savannah calmly.

“We have the files for your top one hundred clients, Tobias, Just as you asked. Matthias or one of the other board members might have it. Have you checked?” Briony suggested.

He walked towards the window, rubbing his forehead with his hand. “Candace told me she had checked.”

“You could double check with Candace,” Savannah suggested, icily. “Because I haven’t stolen it or sold it to one of your competitors.”

She remained standing, looking at him as if she wanted to throw the notebook at him. From her peripheral vision she could make out Briony looking at her as she absorbed the cool look Tobias Stone now gave her.

“Briony, could you go and check with Candace again?”

Savannah spoke up. “Can we please check—because I hate being accused of something I haven’t done.” Her body was rigid with anger, the same way she felt when Jacob told her about children who laughed at him because of his inhaler. That same spirit now shot forth, even though the situation was different. She was answering back to a man who had the power to take her job away with a snap of his fingers.

She gritted her teeth together.

“Let’s check.” Briony replied, giving her a you-better-get-the-hell-out-of-here look. She turned to follow Briony out of the door.

“Not you,” said Tobias, looking at Savannah. “You, sit.” Briony threw her an apologetic look and rushed out.

Savannah didn’t like the way he’d ordered her to sit, as if she was a dog, but she thought better of standing up to him, and instead forced herself to work on calming her temper.

“What agency are you with?”

“Lakestar Recruitment.”

“And what did you do before?” He walked towards her slowly with his hands in his pockets.

“I don’t see how this is relevant.”

“Answer the question.”

“I moved here in the summer. This is my first proper office job in the city.”

“Proper?”

“I was working at the supermarket, in Sunnyside.” She felt embarrassed telling him this as if the work she’d done prior might take away from her work credentials.

“Interesting.” He commented, watching her like a hawk. She felt as though he was about to pounce on her any moment if she gave him the wrong answer.

“And before that?”

Before that? Why did he need to know what she had done before?
She swallowed, doubly surprised that he was asking her such questions, taking her back to that place inside her she’d tried hard to bury; a place filled with black memories.

“Why would you need to know what I did before?”

“Do you want to keep your contract?”

Was that a threat?
What she wanted to do was to tell him what she
really
thought of him. And after that she wanted to tell him to shove his contract up his ass. But she needed this job badly, and so she said nothing. Working for this asshole meant that she and Jacob would get to have a good Christmas.

“I lived with my aunt in Pennsylvania.”

“Your aunt?”

Savannah closed her eyes. “I don’t see the…” But a knock on the door silenced him.

“Come in,” he said, curtly. His eyes narrowed as Briony walked in with a file. It was green—like the others she’d been working with and she prayed it was the Dalton file.

“Matthias had it. He apologizes.”

Savannah turned her attention and stared at the man before her with hatred spilling out of every ounce of her body. She was curious to see what he would do now.

“Matthias?” His lips moved together in a tight line, and the muscles in his face hardened. He stared at Briony. “Thank you. That will be all.” He nodded at them both.

“I think an apology is in order,” demanded Savannah, as she sat waiting expectantly in her chair.

“We should go,” she heard Briony’s voice behind her but it was Tobias’s gaze that kept her pinned to her seat.

“You may leave, Briony. It seems that Ms. Page has something to say.” She heard the door close and didn’t need to turn to see that it was now only the two of them in the office. She was so drenched in anger that she could barely speak.

“Where is it?” she asked him, trying to control the pitch of her voice. She hated bullies. First Colt, then the children from school. Now this man.

“Where’s what?”

“My apology.”

His right eyebrow lifted slightly; the movement was so subtle that she’d have missed it if she’d blinked. She got up slowly. “The word doesn’t exist in your vocabulary, does it?”

He stood with his arms folded over his chest, watching her but his non reaction fueled her rage further. “You’re a bully, Mr. Stone. An arrogant, self-centered, big bully. I teach my son to stand up to people like you. It’s the sort of behavior I expect to see in a school playground, not in a grown man’s office, and certainly not in the office of a so-called billionaire. But maybe a country girl like me expects the good in most people. I was mistaken for thinking you might know better.”