Page 33 of Recruited By the Billionaire

“Very good, sir,” Andres responded, the maître d collected the menu from Frankie, and with their staff they left them alone.

Robert began pouring Frankie a drink from the bottle of champagne on ice at their table and Frankie had never felt so well taken care of on any date. Although she was nobody’s fool. She knew why Robert brought her to his home. She knew, although he had a better spread than even a restaurant, his reasoning was no different than all those other guys that took her on all those other dates. He wanted bed action from her. That was all they ever wanted from her. And that sexually-charged energy in the room wasn’t helping.

“You were married,” Robert said as he handed her a glass of champagne.

It was an odd question to kick off the night with, Frankie thought, but Robert was an odd kind of guy to her. “Yes,” she said.

“Devin Clark.”

Frankie nodded. “That’s right.”

“You were at that motel when it happened, weren’t you?”

Robert could tell Frankie was surprised that he knew that much about her. But then he also could tell that she quickly realized a man like him wouldn’t just bring somebody into his home without background checks galore.

Frankie nodded. “Yes, I was there. He was cheating, my friends caught him red-handed, and his mistress didn’t know he was married.”

“Oh my,” said Robert. “Sounds like the perfect storm of crazy.”

“And that’s exactly what it was.” Then her face displayed a pain that touched Robert. “And I was pregnant too,” she said. “Had just found out I was pregnant.”

Robert had been told about how she miscarried right at the crime scene. Her cheating husband shot dead and she miscarried their child. “I’m sorry about your loss,” he said.

Frankie looked away from him. “Devin’s death was hard,” she said as she looked back at Robert. “Especially the way he died. But I could deal with that, you know? He was nothing like I thought he was and it kind of lessened the pain, if that makes sense.”

“It does.”

“But to lose my unborn baby,” she said and started shaking her head. “It’s still tough.”

Robert didn’t know why he did it, but he reached out and touched her hand. And then they looked into each other’s eyes. And when Frankie saw a softness in his eyes, as if he could somehow relate to her pain, she felt that same connection to him she felt when he set up Bevis Dent’s family for life. He was a decent man. He treated her shabbily on his plane after he got what he wanted from her, but the way she saw it every man treated her that way. That didn’t mean he wasn’t decent with everybody else.

She withdrew her hand. “Your people have you well-acquainted with my background,” she said to him. “What about yours? Since I have no people,” she said and he laughed, “what’s your story, buster?”

“I was married to a drug addict for several years,” said Robert. “We had two children, a son and a daughter.”

“That’s what I read. Robert, Junior and Everly right?”

“RJ and Everly, yes. Both of whom view me as a little less than roadkill.”

Frankie stared at him. Although he smiled when he said those words, as if it was some joke, she could see the regret in his bright, emerald eyes.

“Both of whom I adore,” Robert added.

Frankie was touched when he said he adored his children despite how they felt about him. “They blamed you for their mother’s death,” she said. “At least that’s what I read.”

“They blame me for not taking her bullshit longer than I took it. They blame me for everything wrong in their own lives. She conditioned them to blame me, and they do it well.”

“But yet you adore them.”

“They’re my children. My flesh and blood. I’m all they have. The fact that we did a lousy job raising them is on me.”

“When will it ever be on them?” Frankie asked.

Robert smiled a smile that did not reach his still-anguished eyes. “When they’re six feet under. Then it’ll be on them. But it’s my heart’s desire to be long-gone before that happens.”

Although that was an odd thing to say to Frankie, she was touched by why he said it. He did not want to outlive his children. He was talking as if it would kill him if that happened. Even though his children hated him? He was definitely a different breed of man, she thought.

And that was in large part why, after they ate what turned out to be a great dinner, and laughed and talked for hours more, until it was after midnight, she allowed him to escort her upstairs. To his bedroom.

---