Page 19 of Recruited By the Billionaire

Frankie was surprised he knew her nickname. But she was also confused. “Does it matter, sir?”

Robert didn’t respond. Oh yeah, he thought, she’d really been whipped around. There was nothing easy about Francesca Clark. He wasn’t going to be able to snap his finger and she just fell in line and fell in bed with him, that was for damn sure. But any mountain could be conquered. And Robert was certain, before the day was through, he was going to conquer that mountain. He was going to fuck her brains out.

“My friends,” she said. “My friends call me Frankie.”

“What does your husband call you?”

“I don’t have a husband.”

“What about your children?”

Frankie hesitated. “I don’t have any children.”

Robert saw her hesitation. A touchy subject best unmentioned, he figured. “Why are you here?” he asked her.

Frankie was shocked that he would ask such a crazy question. “Because you told me--”

“Why are you in Florida?” he clarified.

“Oh! Because I was offered a job there.”

“Working for Laine?”

She found that an odd question considering he was the actual boss of all of them, including Laine. “Yes, sir.”

Robert continued to stare at her and then he abruptly began looking out of the same window Frankie had been daydreaming out of when she wasn’t reading her briefing folder. She didn’t expect the conversation to end on that note, but it did. Robert didn’t look her way, nor say another word to her as the five-hour flight was well on its way.

Two hours later and Frankie had dozed off. She woke up to the sound of Jerry’s voice. “Robert,” she heard him say. When she opened her eyes, Jerry was leaned over Robert, who appeared to have dozed off too.

“Hey,” Robert responded, getting his bearings back.

“We’ve got a situation,” Jerry said.

“What situation?”

Jerry glanced at Frankie. It was obviously a private “situation.”

But Robert wasn’t going along. “Just tell me,” he said.

Jerry exhaled. “It’s about RJ.”

When Jerry said those words, Frankie could see a worried look appear in Robert’s eyes. And then he got up and he and Jerry disappeared in one of the side rooms. Conference was written on the door.

Frankie wondered if they would have to return back to Florida. Which would have been fine by her. But it was never determined. Robert and Jerry remained in that conference room for three-plus hours more. Until the plane finally touched down in Portland.

CHAPTER TEN

They piled into a waiting limousine and began the drive to wherever they were going in Portland. Like before, Frankie and Jerry sat on one side of the limo, while Robert and his assistants sat across from them. Only Robert sat next to the window staring out as if his mind was a million miles away from where they were. Was he worried about this RJ person Jerry had mentioned?

His aides tried to make little nothing conversations, to get him to comment, but Frankie could tell he wasn’t trying to hear a word they said. He had something powerful on his mind, she felt the change in his energy. And even Jerry looked concerned when he was usually the happy-go-lucky one.

But Frankie kept taking peeps at Robert. She kept wondering if he was going to be okay. Which was crazy given that he was the same man who respected her so little that he didn’t even bother to ask if she wanted to go to Oregon. Why should she care if a man who had that kind of sense of entitlement was okay? But it was a fact. She cared.

The fact that he socked that reporter just from pushing her down gave him a few brownie points with her too.

“Are you okay, Mr. Marris?” she found herself asking before she had a chance to regret it.

Everybody looked at her as if she had just cussed him out or did something equally disrespectful. Robert even turned his eyes away from that window view and looked at her.

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