Page 19 of The Billionaire Player

“It’s coming along. I promise you. I’m making progress,” I said to Georgia.

“Then why haven’t I seen any results? This is a magazine. We print an issue every week. Which means we have to have something to fill said issue every week.”

Georgia spoke to me as if I was a child and I didn’t know anything about the industry. I had gotten a degree in journalism and spent the last three years working at Paps. I might not have been in the field as long as she had, but I had a basic understanding of how things worked.

“If you wanted something by the end of this week, you should have told me that,” I said.

“It was implied,” she stated and sent me an exasperated look.

“Do you want it done right or do you want it done fast? I can’t give you both,” I countered.

“If those are my options, then I want it fast. Can you give me something by the end of the day?”

“No. I’ve done some research but I haven’t talked to JD.”

“Only his friends call him JD. Have you two gotten closer than you let on?” she accused.

I could tell she was looking for some juicy gossip on JD and if it included one of her employees even better. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction.

“No. We have been nothing but professional with each other. He’s wary of reporters. I’m sure it has to do with the scandal at NYU when he was there. He didn’t want to talk to me, at least, at first, but he has agreed to meet with me tonight.”

“A clandestine meeting. We can work with that,” Georgia said and got a faraway look in her eyes.

“It’s not like that at all,” I defended.

“Then what is it? Why does he want to meet with you so late at night? Why not do it in the middle of the day? Or over a drink at a bar, or even over dinner?”

“You’ve never worked in a restaurant or know the first thing about running one, do you?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything we’re discussing here,” Georgia said, clearly offended.

“JD is getting ready to open up a restaurant. It takes a lot of time, energy, and hard work. He doesn’t have time to go have a drink with some reporter and certainly not dinner, that he’s even taking time for me is a huge win,” I said.

“You should have done it sooner. We should be farther along than we are. Which from where I’m standing is nowhere.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her if she was so worried about getting the article done then she could do it herself, but that was the last thing I would say. I was worried if I even suggested it, she would take me up on the offer. She wouldn’t do the story justice; she wouldn’t treat JD right.

Not that I should be worried about how one JD Bennett would be treated. He certainly hadn’t cared about me and barely talked to me only to be perfectly happy to meet with me when I confronted him. He didn’t seem like a man who backed down from a fight, nor did he seem like a man who changed his mind easily. I couldn’t figure out what caused it, but I would find out tonight.

“If you want the story done right, and I think we should, then it’s going to take some time. I’m going to need some leeway with him with what I do and how I go forward,” I said.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure yet. JD Bennett and the entire Bennett family are not your typical billionaires. I can’t just walk up to them and ask to do an interview. It’s going to take some time to build up their trust and get them to want to talk to me.”

“We don’t have that kind of time. My bosses are breathing down my neck to get something good now. This is what we need.”

“I’m not going to give you something just to give you something. I get that you’re under pressure, believe me, I feel it too. But I’m not going to compromise the story just to get it out. There’s something big, something that no one else has ever gotten from them, I can feel it, you just have to trust me,”

“What is it?” she asked.

“Anything. JD and his entire family have been very tight lipped. Even Mac who runs PR for the company hardly puts out any press releases about them. Anything that is, is very limited and definitely skewed. I don’t think that Remy Bennett is the tyrant that they’ve made him out to be. They’re very good about the optics they present to the world and I want to get underneath it.

“I want to know why JD left and went to Italy when he did. Why did Bailey go with him? Why did she disappear for three weeks after her friend's engagement? What really happened to her in Time Square last spring? Why did JD come back when he did? What is his motivation to open up the restaurant? Why didn’t he follow his siblings into the family business?”

“Don’t we all?” Georgia asked.

“The difference is, no one has ever been able to get the answers, but I think I can. You just need to give me more time.”

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