Page 58 of Billionaire Romantic
“If she was, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
Colton laughs knowingly. I throw a pen at his head, which he catches. He’s well practiced at this point.
“Can you stop being a complete ass for one minute, Cole? Seriously.”
“Unfortunately, he can’t,” Cash answers for him. “It’s not in his nature.”
The comment doesn’t even land on Colton. “When are you seeing her again?”
“Soon.”
Fucking Colton pounces abruptly on my lack of specifics. “You haven’t made any plans?”
I rake a hand through my hair.
Which Colton reads correctly as third degree angst. Unfortunately for me, my brothers know me very well. “Don’t tell me you didn’t get her real name.”
Cash groans. “Oh, fuck. You idiot.” The same thing happened to him, when he met Dusty. They met at a beach bar in Hawaii, gave each other nicknames, had the best night of their lives together but when he woke up the next morning she was gone. He spent months looking for her before she turned up as our newest junior analyst—which in his case, turned out to be the luckiest coincidence of his life. “I thought you would have learned from my mistake.”
“I should have,” I admit. “I didn’t think she’d leave without saying goodbye this morning.” My fucking brothers always get the information out of me, whether I want them to or not. “I’ve got her number though.”
“Thencallher.” Colton gives me aduhlook.
“I have. Several times. She’s not picking up. She has a busy day at work ahead of her. She’s probably in a meeting.”
“If you need to track her down,” Colton says, “get Jake in IT to trace her phone location.”
“Don’t you have a million girls lighting up your phone incessantly?” Cash takes a seat at the head of the table. “I’m sure she’ll answer.”
A few days ago I might have appreciated the observation. Right now it only makes things worse.I don’t want them. I want her. And why isn’t she answering my calls?
Cash starts leafing through some paperwork. “Noah, you were obviously busy over the weekend, but I tried to call you a dozen times, to brief you on the meeting this morning. The CEO of Ashton Holdings will be here any minute. Her name is L.Emerson Ashton. You’ll just have to wing it. But you’ve done all the homework so it should be fairly straightforward.”
“Her?” Colton helps himself to a donut from the buffet table that’s been laid out.
Some little inkling of a sixth sense tweaks somewhere behind my brain.
She works in finance.
She has a high-powered job.
Her father had a lot of heavy expectations.
He recently died.
But L. Emerson Ashton doesn’t ring any bells beyond the Ashton Holdings’ spreadsheets.Unless…
Surely not.
“Yes.” Cash confirms. “L. Emerson is a woman. I spoke to her last week. She sounded young. She wasn’t happy with the number I gave her. She said Abundance had also made an offer.”
I walk over and grab a coffee cup. “A much lower one, I have no doubt. There’s no way they offered more than fifteen. Probably more like ten. If anything, we should go lower. We’re not fucking budging on fifteen. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that company is worth even close to that much. Not at the moment, at least.”
I’m pouring myself a cup of coffee, my back to the door as I rant.
Cash says something.
That’s when I hear another voice.A voice I’d know anywhere. The sweetest voice in the world.“Hi, I’m Lucky Ashton.”
