Page 8 of The Billionaire Player

I looked away from her and went back to the matter at hand. It didn’t help that I knew she was attracted to me. Nothing was ever going to come of it. I could tell that she was there to do a job and wouldn’t want to get involved with her boss; especially one with my past and reputation. Not that it mattered as I wasn’t going to be getting involved with an employee or anyone for the foreseeable future.

If we weren’t going to get involved, I didn’t need the distraction of the woman who was too good looking for my own good, messing with my life and with my business. As enjoyable as the sparing back and forth had been with her, there was no way that I would hire her. The best way to avoid a situation was to not put myself into it.

“Thank you for your time, Ms. Ricci, but I don’t think you’re the right fit for the position,” I said.

“Position? What position?” she asked.

“For the host position. Isn’t that why you are here?”

She laughed, a deep throaty laugh, and while I wanted to think she wasn’t directing it at me, she was or at the very least the situation.

“No. Not in the least. I would never work for you or your restaurant. I’m from The Paps, and I’ve been hired to do a story on you.”

Chapter 4

Alexandria

“I take it you weren’t told that I was coming,” I said.

“Oh, it was mentioned but that was as far as it went. I told my assistant under no uncertain terms was I going to do this,” JD said.

JD put his hands behind his head and glared at me. Anger, annoyance, resentment came off of him. If I was less of a woman, I would have been scared of him, of his look and how it was directed firmly at me, but I wasn’t.

“Why? Are you scared? Afraid of what I’m going to find? Are you worried that people will get to see the real you?” I asked.

“I’ve had people looking, scrutinizing, and deciding who I was and my personality since I was fifteen years old. I didn’t come back to New York to have it brought back up again. I don’t want to do this. I’m not going to do this. If my father wants to do a personal favor for one of his oldest friends, he can do it without including me.”

“Maybe he thought it would help you out.”

The last fifteen minutes were starting to make more sense. I had been excited to think that JD was so willing and ready to talk to me when he brought me into his office. I thought he wanted to know my qualifications to do a story on a restaurant and that was why he asked me the questions he did. It never occurred to me that he had no idea who I was.

He had been wary of reporters before, but I thought that was because he wanted to control the narrative, to have it be seen first on his feeds and he wanted the attention. He looked more annoyed and angrier at the thought of me being there and it had me questioning him and his dislike of me and the article.

I had been wrong about him from the moment I walked into his restaurant, maybe I was wrong about this. He didn’t look like a man who was opening a restaurant because it sounded like fun, that it was a dare, or that he was bored. I could see he cared about it and that he wanted it to succeed.

That would have been enough of a dichotomy for me to deal with but add in the fact that he was easy to talk to, that I found myself opening up to him, telling him stories about my parents’ restaurant that I hadn’t told or even thought about in years, was not what I had expected.

I could see he was a man who cared about how he and in turn his restaurant was perceived, for whatever reason, and there was one. I just needed to find it. I was curious about the man, what made him tick, what he was passionate about, what would it take to piss him off, and so many other things.

The spark, the heat that had been between us when we had talked had been unexpected but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to use it, to a point. We had a connection as much because we both worked in restaurants and we understood the need and drive to make one work. It wasn’t for everyone, and I still wasn’t convinced that it was for JD Bennett.

There was more to it and I wasn’t sure exactly what to do about that, or what I should do. I wasn’t looking to get involved with someone and certainly not the man I was trying to get dirt on. Yet, I couldn’t deny there was something there.

I felt it when we were talking, and I could see that he felt it too. I could see it in how he looked at me, how he smiled at me, how he engaged me in our conversation. I had thought he was a player, a man who could and would get any woman he wanted. There was something about how he looked at me that made me think that he found me attractive as much because I could hold a conversation with him as anything else. It only made me more intrigued by him.

I couldn’t tell if he was being genuine. If he was actually interested in me, or if he looked at every woman that way. He was known for being a player, he might have no idea how to do anything else when it comes to talking to a woman. I could see how flirting, teasing, and making a woman feel special could come to him as quickly and easily as breathing.

Was he just doing that with me? Was that part of his charm? Was I going to be just one of the many conquests that he had from his restaurant? Was that why he had opened up the place, just so that he could have a revolving door of women that he could sleep with?

It wasn’t the impression that I got. My gut was telling me that he was a man that was trying to prove himself, not only to himself, but to his family, and to the world. He knew about his past, and he would use it to his advantage, but he also understood it would be an obstacle. He had hard work ahead of him and he was ready for it. Either that or it was the most elaborate scheme I had seen in a long time. Whatever it was, I would find out and either expose the man for the fraud that he was or show a redemption story for the ages.

The fact that he had no interest in talking to me and doing a story about him, only made me want to do it more. There was something he didn’t want anyone to know and I would find it out.

“I’m doing fine on my own. I don’t need anyone’s help. Least of all my father’s,” he said.

He shot me a look as soon as he spoke and I could tell he said more than he wanted to. I could have pushed him, the reporter in me was itching to. I also knew if I would get the man to open up to me, to get what was really going on with him, this restaurant, his family, and apparently, his father, I needed him to trust me. I couldn’t do that if I put him constantly on the defensive.

Also, I understood more than I should about what it meant to try to get out from your father or your family’s influence.

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