Page 11 of Surprise Baby for My Enemy Billionaire

“What?”

Ivy leans even closer. “Give the dog a bone.”

CHAPTER5

BRAN

“She’s here.”

I bite back a smile forming at the corner of my lips.

“Let her in,” I tell my secretary. “And hold all my calls for one hour,” I add before replacing the receiver.

The door pushes open, and Georgina Harris strides in. I rise to my feet, attempting to ignore the knot in my stomach. Taking her in with a single glance, I note how different she looks in her work attire. Her curls are haphazardly pinned in a bun atop her head, and she dons a simple white blouse and knee-length skirt.

As my mind wanders, I imagine the sensation of running my fingers through her hair. Shaking off those thoughts, I walk around my expansive mahogany desk. Gigi remains one of the most striking women I've ever encountered, and if our circumstances were different, she might very well be perched on my desk, clutching my shoulders as I lose myself in her.

Butshe is Georgina Harrison, the owner of the poisoned pen that has bothered me for the past two weeks. And while there’s every chance that the image of her gripping onto me while I ravish her willhappen eventually, I need to play the long game.

“Thank you for coming,” I say, extending my hand for a handshake.

She looks up at me. “Like you gave me a choice.”

I note the flare of her nostrils and her square, stiff shoulders. “You’re angry.”

“Which is exactly what you want,” she says, her eyes narrowing. “You’re trying to piss me off. And I must admit, it’s working.”

I bite back another smile.

I like challenges.

My face is a plain mask when I say, “I have no idea what you mean.”

She snorts. “Really? You didn’t send an offer to my bosses, an offer too generous to turn down,so I’d have to come over here and ask you to leave the magazine alone?”

She’s smart. Disturbingly so.

I lean against my desk, my arms folded. Everything I say from this moment counts, and I need to be vigilant.

“No,” I say. “You were being a menace, so I wanted to buy the company to shut you up.”

The pure outrage in her eyes fills me with a glee I did not think was possible to have. I watch in delight as her fists begin to tremble. I can almost see what’s going on in her head, how she’s struggling between reining in her anger, persuading me not to buy her precious little magazine, or calling my bluff and screaming at me.

“Tell me,sir,”she says, forced politeness in her voice, “does the public know how much of a wealthyassyou are?”

She chose option two. Good.

I cross my arms. “Well, maybe they don’t,” I say. “But I have a feeling you’re going to be writing another article about that soon enough.”

“You're buying this magazine just to silence me,” she accuses, her tone growing more agitated with each word. “And you're the CEO of a media corporation! How can you not grasp the concept of freedom of the press? Who does that?”

I relish in the moment. This is even more gratifying than I anticipated. It's almost worth enduring her relentless attacks for the past two weeks just to witness her lose her composure like this.

“According to you, all billionaires are monsters,” I remind her. “And yet, you seem surprised that I would use my wealth for convenience. Shouldn’t you be gratified that I’m playing into the very idea you have of me in your head?”

I expect her to be stunned into silence for a few seconds, at least. But Georgina doesn’t even miss a beat. “Well,” she says, glaring at me, “maybe I’m just disgusted by the new levels of low you plummet to every day.”

Ouch.

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