TheBillionairesPilot

The Billionaire’s

Pilot

The Billionaire’s Pilot

By Suzanne Graham

The Billionaire’s Pilot

Copyright © 2013 Suzanne Graham

Copyeditor: Venus Cahill

Cover artist: Fiona Jayde Media

Published by Quality Book
Services

Warning: All rights reserved. The
unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain,
is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison
and a fine of $250,000.

Print Release: January 2014

This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and occurrences are a product of the author’s
imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places or
occurrences, is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 1493630725

ISBN-13: 978-1493630721

To D.J. – I thank the gods every day for bringing you
into my life.

Chapter One

Cassie Maynard tightened her seat belt
and went through the helicopter’s pre-flight checklist a third time while swallowing
her first-day-on-the-new-job jitters. With anger rising up from her gut, she
looked at her watch yet again.

Her copilot shook his grey-haired head.
“You better get used to it,” Ron said. “We’re on his time. Whenever he shows
up, that’s when we leave.”

A gust of wind buffeted the helicopter
waiting atop the Manhattan skyscraper, raising the hair on her arms. Spring was
coming in like the proverbial lion this year. Another reason she was anxious to
take off. Plus, it was hard to ignore eight years of military training. Sitting
on this rooftop in the middle of a bull’s-eye like a target in a shooting range
was winding her up.

“My directions were to have him in the
air forty-five minutes ago. There’s no way I can deliver him to Boston on time
now.” Through her aviator sunglasses, she glared at the rooftop access door as
if the force of her stare could make him appear.

“We just do the best we can.” Ron folded
back the next page of the newspaper in his lap then glanced at her. “Do you
want to do the crossword puzzle while we wait?”

Taking her eyes off the closed door, she
faced him. “No, thank you.” Her words sounded more clipped than she’d intended.
It was hard for her to shake off the brusqueness she’d learned in the Army. It
was only under the hand of a Dom that she could truly relax and soften, but
ever since her last failure, she’d made a permanent retreat from that world.

Ron studied her for a moment. “This must
be a big change for you from the regimented time of the military. Is this your
first job in the civilian world?”

“It’s my second, and my first boss never
showed up more than fifteen minutes past scheduled departure time. Is this why
my predecessor left the job? Did he run out of patience?” she asked, trying for
a lighter tone with her words.

Ron chuckled. “No, Jim retired after
thirty years of flying for Mitchell Industries.”

Cassie liked Ron’s laugh. He reminded her
of her father, and also of her regret over their current estrangement. “How
many years have you worked for him?” she asked, to keep her mind off of her
personal issues.

“For Evan Mitchell? Only since he became
president after his father’s death five months ago, but I worked for Frank
Mitchell for nearly twenty-five years.”

She tapped her watch. “Was Frank
habitually late too?”

Shaking his head, Ron said, “Not really,
but you gotta give the kid a break. He’s new to all this, and I don’t think he
ever wanted any of it. But from what I’ve heard, he’s thrown himself headfirst
into learning the business.”

“Kid?” The image of a spoiled twelve-year-old
brat flashed through her mind. She’d been so desperate to get this job after
being unemployed for six months she hadn’t done much research before accepting
the offer from Mitchell Industries, the parent company of many well-known
household brands. “How old is he?”

Ron refolded the newspaper and stowed it.
“He’s thirty-one, but I’ve known him since he was seven or eight.”

At thirty-one, he was four years older
than Cassie, definitely not a kid. “What did he do before taking on the family
business?”

Ron grinned, deepening the creases in his
sun-browned cheeks. “Quite a bit of a player, he was. Fast cars and even faster
women.”

Cassie groaned inwardly. Evan Mitchell
sounded like a playboy, and Ron sounded like he admired that about him. She
hoped this company wasn’t run by womanizers like her last employer.

Maybe she’d be better off looking for a
different job before she got herself in another awkward situation, but before
she gave notice, she’d make sure she had a new position lined up. She couldn’t
jump without a parachute this time, not with the financial trouble she’d gotten
herself into.

“Is Evan a lot like his father?” she
asked, fishing for more information about her new boss and his company.

“As a kid, Evan idolized his father, used
to dress up in a suit and follow him around like a mini-me. But then in his
teens, he went through the usual rebellion, which seemed to last all the way
through his twenties.”

Sounded a lot like her relationship with
her father, though she chose not to see herself as a rebel, rather more like an
independent thinker. “Did he reconcile with his father before he died?”

Ron lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “I
don’t know.”

“I hope they did,” she said quietly. She
rubbed at the ache under her breastbone at the idea her father could run out of
life before she reconciled with him.

In front of her, the roof access door
flew open, and two men carrying briefcases rushed towards the helicopter with
their heads ducked. The shorter one with white hair was Dan Jacobs, the
executive assistant who’d made the final decision about hiring Cassie. He ran
with a slight hobble, but the taller, dark-haired man moved with the grace of a
natural athlete. His long legs ate up the distance in a heartbeat.

His black suit jacket spanned wide
shoulders and tapered nicely at a narrow waist. With his eyes cast down, she
couldn’t get a good look at his face, but his jaw line was sharply cut. He had
the same hard look as the men she’d been surrounded with growing up as the
daughter of a career Navy man, then during her years as an Army helicopter
pilot.

Evan Mitchell didn’t look anything like a
soft, pampered rich boy, and she had to readjust the mental image she’d created
before meeting him. Unfortunately, he had the kind of fit body that always
revved her throttle.

But she was here to do a job, she
admonished herself firmly. She would not dabble in pleasure while working, and
besides, she’d sworn off all men until she dug herself out of her giant hole of
debt. From here on, she was going to keep those two aspects of her life
separate with an earthquake-proof wall. Disguising her femininity in this
masculine suit was sure to help keep her safely in non-dating territory. Not
that she ever really dressed girly in the vanilla world. It was only as a sub
that she’d ever let herself shed her protective outer shell, and that had ended
badly, strengthening her resolve to thicken her shell.

Her lack of feminine style was one of the
points of contention between her and her traditional father. Their relationship
was tangled, and now that she was back in the civilian world, she was going to
have to make time to unravel it. She missed being close to him.

Ron had jumped out of the helicopter to
assist the two passengers. With the businessmen aboard, he got back in his seat
and put his headset on.

“Belts and doors latched,” he said into
the microphone.

From the seats behind her, she heard the
low hum of the men’s voices, but without mikes, she couldn’t hear their words
over the noise of the engine. She glanced over her shoulder to confirm their
conversation had nothing to do with any changes in their flight plan.

The quick look was enough to give her a
better picture of Evan Mitchell. Under the thick black slashes of his eyebrows,
his dark eyes scowled as he spoke urgently with his assistant. Evan had the
presence of a man who knew how to be in charge, and his intensity momentarily
took Cassie’s breath away. For a brief second, she wondered whether or not he
were a Dom.

But she wasn’t going there.

Rebar-reinforced concrete stood between
her professional and personal lives now. She was not about to fall for any
man’s Prince Charming act again, although Evan Mitchell certainly wasn’t trying
too hard to win over his new pilot by making her wait for close to an hour.

That was good. Remembering how irritated
she was to be kept waiting would help keep her focused on work and not on his
potentially complementary sexual identity.

With her mental wall firmly in place, she
turned her attention back to the helicopter controls, checking the fuel gauge
and testing the clutch warning light. When she’d finished her last minute
preparations, she glanced at Ron. “Ready for takeoff?”

“Yes, Captain,” he replied.

She raised the collective lever in her
left hand and adjusted the yaw with her left foot on the pedal. As the
helicopter lifted from the helipad, she enjoyed the lightness in her soul she
still experienced with every takeoff, and she ignored the longing in her gut
reminding her this was the closest she’d ever get to experiencing subspace since
she’d walked away from the lifestyle.

* * * *

Hating that
he’d been delayed in order to deal with a supply problem at one of the
manufacturing plants, Evan Mitchell dashed across the rooftop-landing pad. He
jumped onboard the company helicopter with Dan Jacobs, his father’s long-time
assistant, at his side. When the company fell on Evan’s head after his father’s
sudden, fatal heart attack, Evan had been grateful for the older man’s
knowledge of the inner workings of the business. Evan hated feeling out of control,
and having his family business thrust on him was immeasurably worse than any
oil slick he’d ever hit on the racetrack.

As they buckled into their seats, Dan
gave Evan a disapproving look. Unfortunately, along with his valuable
knowledge, the man also came with a truckload of these censorious glares.

“What is it now, Dan?” Evan asked,
leaning close and speaking loudly to be heard over the helicopter engine.

“While you were finishing your call with
Fletcher, I took a call from Miss Linders.”

Evan fought the urge to roll his eyes. If
he hadn’t needed to appear at this upcoming schmooze-and-deal weekend with a
lady on his arm, he would have ended his relationship with Vivian Linders weeks
ago. But with the hours he was putting in at the company trying to get a handle
on its complexity, he barely had time to take her to dinner once a week, let
alone find a suitable replacement for her. So, he’d been forced to bear her
growing demands.

“How much will it cost me this time?” he
asked Dan.

The older man cleared his throat. “I’m
afraid it is going to cost you your date for the weekend.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked,
wishing his assistant would get to the point.

“Miss Linders called to express her
deepest regrets. Though, I must say she sounded a bit too bubbly to be truly
remorseful.”

“What did Vivian say?” Evan threw some of
his Dom firmness into his tone, hoping his assistant would get more succinct.

Unruffled, Dan spoke in his
well-modulated voice. “Apparently, a former beau has shown up in her life and
proposed. She will not be joining you in San Miguel, nor will she be accepting
any future dates with you.”

“She dumped me?”

“Yes, sir.”

Cursing under his breath, Evan pulled out
his cell phone. “I can
not
show up alone. Xavier made it very clear that
this was to be a couple’s event…as if that’s going to buffer the business side
of this weekend.”

He searched his mental Rolodex of
ex-girlfriends. There had to be one willing to accompany him as a friend on an
island weekend getaway. He would have to make it clear that even though they
were going to pretend to be a couple; he really wasn’t in the market for a
relationship. He simply didn’t have time to accommodate a woman in his life.
The rare times he did get a free evening he’d rather spend it at the club than
cultivating a vanilla relationship for the benefit of the image of the company.

“I’ll call Pamela Hardricks.” He decided.
“She took our breakup well. You can send the helicopter back to pick her up
after you drop me at Nippon Securities.” He searched his contact list for her
number.

Shaking his head, Dan laid his hand over
Evan’s phone. “Not a good idea.”

“Why not?” Evan attempted to pull his
phone free, his irritation rising.

Dan held firm. “Pamela’s father is also
gunning for Xavier’s business.”

Evan stopped resisting. “Since when?”

“Since you broke up with Pamela.” Dan
dropped his hand.

“But she seemed okay to me afterwards.”

“The best saboteurs have good poker
faces,” Dan said dryly.

Evan bit back another curse and scanned
his contact list again. He was down to his last few names. “What about Ashley
Walsh?”

“Another bad idea,” was all Dan said.

Evan waited a beat, but when Dan didn’t
look like he was going to continue, Evan was forced to ask, “Are you going to
tell me why?”

“Miss Walsh is currently vacationing in
St. Lucia with another man.”

“Damn. How do you know so much about my
ex-girlfriends?”

Dan straightened his cuffs under his suit
jacket. “It’s my job to ensure this company runs smoothly.”

“I thought that was my job.” Evan could
hear the petulance in his own voice and berated himself for acting like a
bratty sub. It was just so damn exasperating to be the person in charge of this
massive corporation and feel so out of control. There was too much he still
didn’t know about the details of his father’s enterprise.