Page 7 of How to Undo the Proud Billionaire

Radd lifted his brows at her shocked expression. “I can pay you twenty-five thousand in rand if you like.”

Brinley sat back, folded her arms and shook her head. “You’re mad. Who charges that sort of money for a day’s work?”

“Apparently celebrity London-based florists,” Radd responded, his tone super dry. “Can we agree on the currency so we can get moving? Rand or US dollar?”

Brinley narrowed her eyes at him. “Oh, I’m not an idiot. If you’re offering US, that’s what I’m taking. And it’s thirty, not twenty-five, because I made up my mind in a minute.”

She was smart as well as beautiful. Beautiful was easy to dismiss, but brainy? Not so much. “Fine.”

Radd closed her door, bid a smiling Marcel goodbye and, gesturing to her car, wished him good luck.

Marcel, with the familiarity of a staff member who’d taught him to ride a bike, then a motorcycle and a car, grinned at him. “I think you’re going to need that good luck more than me.”

And what, Radd wondered as he dropped into his seat,the hell did Marcel mean by that?

The bathroom on Radd’s jet was almost as big as the one in her flat back home, but a thousand times more luxurious. Brin washed with the expensive toiletries she found in the cabinet, amused to find the air steward had left a glass of ice-cold Prosecco in the bathroom for her when he had went in to lay out some towels.

Brin, with one of those soft, huge towels wrapped around her frame, stepped into the master bedroom and eyed the massive king-size bed, covered in a blue-and-white duvet with a bold geometric pattern. Another glass of icy Prosecco stood on a coaster by the credenza, and her suitcase was already on a stool in the corner, ready to be flipped open.

Brin eyed the suitcase as she sipped her drink, yummy bubbles popping on her tongue. It was the bigger of her two suitcases. Why had Abby packed so much for an overnight trip? Shrugging, Brinley opened the lid and looked down at the hastily scrawled note on top of her clothes.

I had no idea what to pack for an overnight trip to one of the most luxurious places in the world, so I packedeverything!

Woohoo! B, by next week you’re going to have enough money to open Brin’s Blooms! Feel free to spoil me.

Seriously, I’m happy for you.

Have fun. Love you!

xxx

Brin sat down on the bed, suddenly overwhelmed. This morning she’d left for an afternoon at the beach, and now she was on a jet, flying northeast, accompanied by the sexiest man she’d ever met.

And, provided she didn’t mess up, she’d have more than enough money to open up her own florist shop, to pay the deposit and several months’ rent, to buy stock.

Hell, she’d even probably have enough left over to buy a new car. Sorry, Betsy, but locks would be great, and air-conditioning even better.

Could she do this? Brin’s fingers clutched the cool cotton of the bedcovers, hanging on for dear life. Oh, the dream of owning her own business was, in theory, lovely. It was easy to dream big when the possibility of success was remote but if nearly a half-million rand hit her bank account, she’d have to act, to put her money where her mouth, or her mind, was.

Brin gulped. Would she succeed with little to no experience? So many small businesses failed within the first year, would hers be any different? And was she cut out to be the boss, to make the decisions? She’d always worked in the background, taking orders rather than giving them, implementing someone else’s visions and decisions.

Could she make her own?

But what choice did she have? She’d rather stab herself between her eyebrows with a rusty fork than go home, admitting to her mom and sister that she couldn’t cut it.

If she did this, she’d have totrustandbelievein herself.

Take a deep breath, Brinley.All she had to do was arrange some flowers and put up with Mr Arrogant for a day. She’d worked for Kerry, the definition of difficult, for years, so she knew she could deal with a bossy, arrogant, emotionally unavailable man with shadows in his eyes.

Brin sipped her drink, the cool Prosecco sliding down her throat as she considered the man sitting in the lounge area of this flying palace. He was driven and determined and, yes, autocratic, but he intrigued her. Oh, within two minutes of meeting him she knew he was emotionally distant and naturally cynical. But Brin sensed that he was, under his can’t-be-rocked exterior, turbulent. She saw it in the way his one index finger tapped a hard bicep, in the changing shades of blue of his eyes, in the way he hauled in air as if to calm himself.

It was as if finding a floral designer was a bother, beneath him, and…well, she supposed it was. He was a billionaire businessman, ruthless and, it was said, intolerant, so why was he the one running around organizing a floral designer for a pre-wedding week at his ranch? That was normally a task that would be delegated to an underling.

Brinley wasn’t complaining, she was glad he’d offered her the job, but why was he bothering with what should be a minor detail in his life?

After racking her brain, there was only one reason she could think of that explained why he was involved in the minutiae of this wedding.

He was the groom and this was his low-key, possibly secret wedding. It was the only explanation that made sense.

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