Page 11 of Recruited By the Billionaire

“Why can’t I come see you and you handle it? Why do I always have to go through Jerry?”

Robert turned around and gave his son that look.

RJ nodded. He knew his father was super-busy. But still! “I’ll go see Jerry,” he said.

And Robert left.

But as soon as he got back into his Porsche and was speeding home, he was on the phone with his son’s security detail chief. And he was angry. “Your asses work for me! You don’t work for him! And you had better never again leave my children unprotected, you hear me? If they don’t want you around, or if they talk about you can take the night off, you call me! I pay your salaries. You work for me!”

“Yes, sir,” the chief said. “I am so sorry, sir.”

“Get a detail over to my son’s house now.”

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir,” the chief said, and Robert ended the call.

And he rubbed his forehead. If he hadn’t been so damn rich, his children would have been able to lead a normal lifestyle and wouldn’t be so money hungry all the time. But he couldn’t ignore the fact of who he was and what he had, and he knew he had to keep his children protected at all times. And if they needed him he had to go see about them. He knew how to do that. He wasn’t turning his children over to the wolves. But what he didn’t know was how to be a good father. He did not know how to do that. In that, he was clueless.

When he arrived at his quiet home on millionaire’s row, he poured himself a tall glass of whiskey, plopped down on his sofa, and grabbed the remote that turned on the massive TV that monitored the stadium. It was after ten and almost all of his employees had packed it in and gone on home. Problem with him was that he only operated on two speeds: if he wasn’t partying, he was working. Or checking on the work.

All was quiet on the stadium side. He expected that. And on the side of the complex where the offices were located, he expected to see the faithful few still at it. And they were very few. A handful on the lower floors, and only two on the executive floor. One was Laine, he recognized, in her office. That was why he moved her from his publicity department to spearhead recruiting. She was a devoted employee.

The other lady, in the open office space in Recruiting, he didn’t recognize. But she was working furiously too. Reading a stack of briefing books she had on the table. Taking notes. Referencing other source materials online. Just as devoted as Laine although he’d never seen her before.

He pressed the button and moved in closer. He smiled at the cute little beret hat she wore on her head and the colorful reading glasses she wore. He also noticed the sleeveless blouse she was wearing that was tucked into a tight little mini-skirt that touched well above her knees. And the sexy brown legs coming down from that skirt. When she crossed those legs and started rubbing one, Robert’s dick became aroused. Just like that. It usually took a whole lot more than that. A whole lot more! Who was that lady?

And as he moved in closer and closer, to get a close-up and personal look at her face, he wanted to call Laine and ask who this new employee was that he’d never seen before. Because her face was affecting him almost as much as her legs were. She had such a strong look about her, a kind of prideful look, that it fascinated him. Her eyes were huge and almost catlike, and those luscious full lips made him lick his own.

Which was strange too. Especially since she was nowhere near his type. Just the opposite in fact. He liked his ladies tall. She was average height. He liked ladies with a lot of meat on their bones. She wasn’t skinny, she had curves, but she was overall small. And he usually preferred them much younger than she was. His preference was usually ladies half his age. Because the younger ones understood they weren’t in his league, would never be in his league, and they had better be glad he was bothering with them the one time he did fool around with him. Because it was always just the once. He never went back for seconds. He never wanted to. And contrary to his public image as this sex-starved lothario, he did not sleep around anywhere near as brazenly as they claimed.

But he knew the older ladies, the ladies thirty and up, would want more from him than he would ever be willing to give. They had hoped to be married by thirty and now that they were still on the market, some were desperate. Some were looking for a more lasting relationship than some one-night stand he would be offering. And he was certain that the woman working in his recruiting office fell in that category. Mid-thirties. Hard-working. Serious as serious could get. Not married- if her empty ring finger was indicative. Which meant she was, in a nutshell, everything he did not want in any lady he bedded.

But the more he looked, and wanted, the more he realized how much he did not want to hurt her. Why he felt that way, just from looking at her face on some security camera, wasn’t something he could explain. But that was how he felt.

And then Laine came out of her office, told the object of Robert’s desire that it was time to go, and the two ladies left. Leaving him with nothing else to see there. Leaving him empty.

That was why he pressed the off button, tossed his remote on the table, drank the last of his whiskey, and took himself to bed. Alone. Which, contrary to popular belief also, was almost always the case.

Then his phone rang with a screeching rang that upended everything.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The next morning and she was rushing out of her Pensacola apartment with her coffee and briefcase in hand, and she hurried down the three flights of stairs to the exit doors. She’d only been on the job three weeks. Which meant she was still on probation. Which meant she could not be late.

But she was running late already. And the last person she wanted to run into as she made it down those stairs was Colt Lindsey.

“My offer is still on the table, Frankie.” Colt was at the bottom of the stairs leering up at her with a grin on his round, pink face. “I’ll pay your rent every single month if you let me rent that body every single night.”

“Get lost, Colt. I’m late for work.” She pushed pass him.

“But I’m serious,” he said as he looked down at her shapely brown legs beneath her short skirt. “Wanna work something out?”

“Wanna drown in your own vomit?” she asked as she pushed open the exit door.

He laughed, yelleddang Frankie, you know how to ruin a mood, but Frankie didn’t give that creep a second thought. She hurried across the parking lot, hopped into her Audi 8, and took off.

Sipping her coffee like it was her tonic, she made her way through the early morning rush hour traffic of Pensacola, Florida like a woman who knew where she was going.

Two years ago and that wasn’t the case. After what happened in that motel room with Devin and his mistress, she suffered a miscarriage that ended any hope of a speedy recovery. She went down hard and fast and could barely function. Would not have survived had it not been for her girls standing by her. Devin’s betrayal and death were hard enough for her to bear. But to lose her baby too? A baby she had tried for years to conceive? It took the wind out of her sails for nearly two years straight.

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