Page 102 of Her Billionaire Boss
“This is it.I know it doesn’t look like much...”His voice died away.Then, with forced cheerfulness, he pushed open his door and said, “Come on.Let me show you inside.”
It wasn’t much better on the inside.We entered a fluorescent-lit foyer with a cracked tile floor and two elevators with lumpy coats of paint.
“It’s going to take a lot to get this place...”I abandoned the thought entirely.I couldn’t hold back, anymore.“This isn’t going to work.I have no idea why you chose this over the site we recommended, but I can’t see how this matches the vision, at all.”
His eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline, and an expression of horror washed over his features.“No!Oh my god, no, no, this isn’t that building.You thought I was going to turn this place into Ascend Manhattan?It’s only five stories, there isn’t nearly enough room.”
The weight of my relief made my shoulders sag.
He went on, “I wouldn’t screw with your project like that without you knowing.This is my own thing.This is where my foundation will be headquartered.”
“Your foundation?”It was the first I was hearing about any foundation.
“For childhood epilepsy,” he explained as the light above his head flickered.“Free testing, meds, specialists, the whole deal.I’m throwing down the initial costs and funding it independently for ten years, but Catherine is helping to set up an endowment that will enable it to keep going in perpetuity.”
“Catherine?”My voice went high and thin.Since when had they been able to be in a room together long enough to even sign the form?
“Turns out my ‘meddling’ in her life didn’t have the disastrous outcome you anticipated, huh?”He didn’t disguise his self-satisfied grin.But it was quickly replaced with the excitement over this news.He hit the elevator button and said, “Come on, I’ll show you my office.”
“You already have an office?How long have you been working on this?”Without telling me, I mentally added.
“Oh, about a month.”He gestured for me to enter the elevator ahead of him, then hit the button for the fourth floor.“I wanted everything to be set in stone before I told you, so you wouldn’t think it was a pipe dream I wasn’t going to follow through on.”
“Why would I have thought that?”
“Because I’m a billionaire.And as you’ve pointed out several times, billionaires don’t do things that don’t make them richer.I wanted to be sure this was all going to work out before I told you about it because I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me if we hit a roadblock.I didn’t want you to think it was an excuse or...here we are,” he said as the doors slid open.
As much I wanted to hear more about this foundation, I needed to make something good and God damn clear between us.I took his hands in mine to stop him as we stood in what appeared to be a vast warehouse of empty cubicles.“Why would I have doubted your follow-through?You jumped through about a million hoops to pay all those medical bills off.You finished that project.If you’d told me about this, I would have been your biggest cheerleader.”
“I didn’t need a cheerleader, though,” he said, and lifted our joined hands to his lips to kiss the backs of my knuckles.“I needed some tough love.I needed reality.And you gave that to me.If you’d never called me out on my rich guy bullshit, told me about how the actual world works?I would still be running around spending money on a needlessly lavish lifestyle, trying to please people who can damn well please themselves, and fucking everything that moved.”
“Let’s not stop doing that last part,” I interjected.
“Never,” he promised.“But I don’t need to make people’s fantasies come true.I need to make their realities not suck as much.”
My heart ached at his excitement over the project, over his new direction.His enthusiasm was almost childlike.
“So, this is your new hobby, then?”I joked.“Not making people’s fantasies come true, but making people’s lives measurably better?”
He shook his head, dead serious.“It’s not a hobby.It’s my mission.”
I gave his hands a squeeze and released him to wander a few steps into the space.“So, the location is intentionally close to the hospital.”
“We’ll be working with them on referrals for clients in need.I thought about making it open to anyone, but Catherine pointed out, rightly so, that rich people can take care of their own medical issues.”
“Rich people,” I reiterated.“Not middle-class people.”
“Exactly.The income limit is going to be set a lot higher than Catherine would have liked.”He walked with me, peeking into a few of the cubicles.“Hey, free pen.”
“You’re already reaping the rewards of your good deed.”I paused in front of another one.“Ooh, a calendar with puppies on it.And it’s from 2020, so it will be good again in, what, eight years?”
“Better hang on to that,” he quipped.“Come on, over here.”
Matt’s office was behind a plain door with a wood grain surface that seemed suspiciously plastic.He opened it and clicked on the light.His headquarters weren’t sprawling or impressive at all.The single window started at waist height to make room for an ancient radiator, and there were still indents where a desk’s legs had made round impressions in the generic gray carpet.There was an unoffensively blue-gray sofa along one wall, and an abstract watercolor print in a thin gold frame above it.It was the kind of place styled to look like every other office building.
“We’re going to give it a makeover, obviously,” he said, watching my expression.“But I’m not gonna knock down walls to expand it to prove that I’m powerful and important.”
“Because the mission is what’s important,” I finished for him.“Fuck...Matt, this is such a shock.”
