Page 1 of Faking It with my Small Town Billionaire

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Orson

My grandfather sits behind the huge mahogany desk in his no less lavish study. He’s a gnarly old man who, in my opinion, has become more bitter with age. But hey, maybe that’s my fate. I’ve heard people say I’m already gnarly, though I don’t have the white hair and wrinkles.

He’s been watching me with those piercing brown eyes as I pace back and forth over the thick plush carpet. A family trait, apparently. The brown eyes, not the pacing. He may be hurtling toward his seventy-third year, but he’s still as sharp as a knife. And I don’t mean your dollar store cheap and nasty one, either. We’re talking Master Chef here.

“Why don’t you sit, Orson? You’re making me dizzy.” The old man gestures to a leather chair across from his desk.

“I don’t feel like sitting,” I reply.

“No. You just want to wear a hole in my carpet.”

I doubt if I paced for all the years he’d been living, I could manage to do that. It has a pretty thick pile.

“You’ve brought me up to the house, Pops. What is it you want to talk to me about?”

I say “house.” What I mean is the sprawling hundred-acre estate that incorporates a huge mansion, a golf course, stables, a training ground for the horses, a collection of classic cars, pools, tennis courts, and a whole lot of other things the average Joe doesn’t have in his backyard. It takes me five minutes to get up the driveway.

This is the family home. The place where my grandfather, mother, and father live permanently—when my parents are not jet-setting around the world, that is. You see, my family has a legacy that will soon be handed down to me.

Donovan Enterprises was my grandfather’s vision when he was in his early twenties. Life wasn’t as easy back then, and he worked tooth and nail to get his business off the ground. When my father was old enough, he joined the business, expanding it further than my grandfather ever could have imagined possible.

I’m thirty-four and already a billionaire. Contrary to what everyone says, I didn’t get a cushy job the minute I walked out of university. My grandfather believes a man ought to earn his stripes, and that I did, and more. I did what everybody else had to do and started at the bottom.

I now run a large department that deals with restructuring and plenty of other things people don’t fully understand. The business is huge, with more departments than I can count. I love my job.

“We need to talk about your next project,” my grandfather says. “There’s been a change of plans.”

I stop pacing and frown at him. “What do you mean, a change of plans?”

A moment ago, my hands were stuck in the trouser pockets of my five-thousand-dollar suit. Now, they’re placed confrontationally on my hips.

“Will you just sit down so I can talk to you properly, son?”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to sit. I drove for two hours to get here. I’m tired of sitting.”

The old man screws up his face. “You’re as stubborn as your father.”

“I wonder where he gets it from,” I quip back.

The old man chuckles. “It’s that tenacity that made this company, Orson. Don’t knock it.” He heaves a sigh and looks at me for a long moment. Then he says, “You’re not taking the Wilson account. I have another job for you.”

“But I’ve already put all the details together,” I counter.

“I don’t care. There’s something else I need you to do. In fact, it’s a requirement if you want to inherit everything I’ve built.”

I hate it when he says that. He didn’t do it alone, and he knows it, but he takes every opportunity to tell me that, like I’m being handed this business on a plate. Like I haven’t worked every hour God sent for the last two decades to get it where it is.

“So?” I press, wanting him to just get to the point.

“You’re going to Willow Creek,” he says, his eyes locked on mine.

“What?”

I must be hearing things because I know my grandfather did not just tell me I’m going back to the place I hate with a passion. Willow Creek is the last place God made. I should know. I was raised there. My grandfather was born there. The Donovan name is well known there, which is the very reason I hate it.

Why do I hate it? Well, it’s simple. The townsfolk don’t like people who succeed. My grandfather made a name for himself, by himself. Try growing up in a town where the people hate you because you happen to be the grandson of the guy who made it. My life was miserable there. I swore that once I left it, I would never go back.

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