Page 2 of Dirty Nasty Billionaire: Part 2

“Well I’m here, my name is still Delaney, and I don’t plan on going anywhere.” The venom oozes out of me, and I want to pat myself on the back for my courage. “I may have made a mistake yesterday, but I’m here to stay, and I’m here to compete. I’m sorry if that derails your plans of being a Grade A Bitch, but you’re just going to have to get a new plan.”

Jenna’s eyes grow wide at the same time Amber’s narrow. She opens her mouth to reply, but I hold up a finger to stop her.

“Colin,” I say, emphasizing his name, since Amber hasn’t bothered to learn it, “you can fill me in on what you’re working on, then I can take that task over. And after lunch, we’re going to have a team meeting to divide up projects equitably. Despite attempts to usurp the role, no one here has been appointed team leader.”

Amber stares at me hard for several seconds that feel like an eternity. I don’t expect her to go down without a fight, so when she mutters a terse “fine,” I know I need to steel myself for more. There’s no way someone like Amber is done.

The good thing is, neither am I.

* * *

I’mmidway through research on a recent Stanford grad running a startup app that creates custom road trip pit stops (it’s cool, but the design could certainly use some work, maybe a quirky graphic designer to put a unique spin on it) when Nixon finally makes his appearance.

I sense him in the room before I see him. It’s as if everyone has taken a collective breath in, and though everyone is trying not to act awed by him, you could hear a pin drop in the room. Jenna quickly lowers the volume on the obnoxious EDM playlist she’s been blasting. Colin yanks his earbuds out with such force that one whips back around and hits him in the eye. Only Amber is able to act normal, which for her, means leaning over onto the conference table, her perky double Ds on full display. Of course, she’s sporting a button up shirt with more than a few buttons missing.

“Good morning,” Nixon says, his eyes sweeping around the conference table. I steady myself for his gaze to fall on me, perhaps even ready for some kind of knowing glance to pass between us. Yesterday he had my nipples in his mouth, after all. But his eyes never even make it to me. He pretends I’m not even in the room. I’m a ghost to him.

If there’s any comfort, it’s that he doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to Amber’s breasts, either.

Coldcomfort.

“Today I’m going to have you all down with the research team down on six. I want you to see how the professionals operate. You’ll each be shadowing a Scour employee. Randi will fill you in.” And then, without ever once letting his eyes come even in the vicinity of me, he turns and strides out.

And it doesn’t escape the notice of Amber, who is positively giddy to see that I’m still on the outs. She must already be thinking about how she’s going to decorate her future office at Scour. And from the way she kept giving Nixon fuck me eyes, I’m guessing she’s imagining how she’s going to redecorate his house.

Well, she’s going to have to go through me, first.

Still, I’m unnerved by Nixon’s freeze out. If he keeps this up, it might have been better for me to just remain the hapless idiot intern who can’t figure out the appropriate place to talk about her orgasms, instead of the one who can’t figure out the appropriate place to have one. At least before he spoke to me, he acted like I was actually alive.

Randi comes in soon after to lead us down to the sixth floor, where the research team works. There’s about two dozen people in the department, all of whom spend their days (and probably their nights) doing the work that we’ve been tasked with over the summer. The researching of startups, visiting tech conferences, interviewing coders and investors, and basically trying to predict the future.

It’s their work that determines where the Scour money goes, and what companies, apps, and devices they should acquire, either because they want to incorporate the technology into their portfolio, or because they want to shut down the competition. Based on my research, I know that after the coders, the researchers are the most prestigious employees at Scour. Their recommendations chart the course of Scour … and its stock value. It the perfect job for me, a library nerd with a keen attention to detail. I’d want to work here even if it wasn’t the prize at the end of the internship competition.

Randi gives us a quick orientation to the floor, then starts passing us off to various members of the research team. Amber and Jenna both wind up with bookish-looking women in glasses. Colin is paired with someone who looks like he could be a brother, or at least a distant cousin, right down to the matching hoodies. Which leaves me with —

“Brent, this is Delaney,” Randi says, walking me up to the desk of a sandy haired guy with trendy, horn-rimmed glasses and a smile that looks like he moonlights in ads for a dentist’s office. He stands and flashes it at me as he shakes my hand with just the right amount of pressure. I try to match it. There’s no worse first impression than a dead fish handshake, my father always says.

Unless you want to go ahead and tell him your orgasm story, I think to myself, but I manage to beat the thought away and return a nice, professional smile.

“It’s nice to meet you, Brent,” I say.

“Back atcha, Delaney. You want to take a seat?” He pulls a rolling chair over from a vacant desk and sets me up right next to him, so I can see his laptop screen over his shoulder. We spend the next hour deep in conversation. He’s generous in answering my questions while I furiously take notes. He shows me Scour’s checklist for evaluating potential acquisitions, but is quick to tell me it’s really just the bare minimum. Then he moves into his own personal system, which involves a series of spreadsheets and documents. He pulls up his notes on Scour’s most recent acquisition, a mindfulness app, that was his recommendation. I’m so busy furiously taking notes and asking questions that at first, I ignore the goosebumps on the back of my neck. But pretty soon I’m sure I’m being watched, and when I glance up, I see Nixon in a conference room. Randi is holding a tablet and flicking through something, her eyes focused down, but he’s looking through the glass and straight at me. Not sweeping the room. Not evaluating the interns.

Staring.

At me.

The only time his eyes move is to flick over just slightly, like he’s trying to Jedi mind trick Brent straight out a nearby window.

For someone who pretended I didn’t exist this morning, suddenly he seems to have a lot of interest in looking at me.

And you know what? Fuck that.

I immediately slide my chair a little bit closer to Brent and lean over towards his laptop screen. I point at something in one of his spreadsheets.

“So how do you reconcile these two fields?” I ask. “Forgive my Excel ineptitude. I’ve always considered the program an instrument of torture.”

He laughs, and so I laugh, too. And while I’m definitely not flirting, and Brent seems to know I’m not flirting either, when I glance up at the conference room window, Nixon seems to have no idea. In fact, I can see the tension in his jaw from here.

I turn to Brent and smile again, but really I’m smiling at myself. Nixon said we were going to be boss and employee, not boss and invisible woman. If he wants to play games, I’m more than happy to join in.

Game. On.

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