Page 40 of Hired For the Billionaire's Secret Son

He frowned at her mum, who was staring down at her nails. Paul cleared his throat, and her mum finally lifted her head and nodded.

It was a huge concession and Ollie knew how lucky she was to have parents who loved her beyond reason.

‘I’m still not happy about you not joining our firm,’ Jasmine told her, lifting her chin. ‘You’d earn a huge salary and all the perks that come with a corporate job.’

‘What makes you think I don’t have that now?’ Ollie asked. ‘I earn a very good salary, Mum!’

‘You earn a good wage, darling—professionals earn salaries,’ her mum snapped back.

Sighing, Ollie tapped her phone, pulled up her latest wage slip and pushed her phone across the table. Her father grinned when he saw her take-home pay and a touch of pink touched her cheeks. Right, that should shut her mum up for a minute—maybe two.

‘So what’s the plan, Olivia?’ her dad asked her.

‘Why do you think I have a plan?’ Ollie asked him, surprised at his perspicacity. If still waters ran deep, then her dad was a mile-deep aquifer.

‘Because we didn’t raise a fool. You’ve always had a plan—you’ve always thought ahead. So, what is it?’

She shrugged. She might as well tell them. ‘I want to buy into Sabine’s nanny business. If you are being serious about me not needing to repay you for the cost of my education—’

‘We are,’ her dad assured her.

She sent him a grateful, tremulous smile. ‘Then I can buy a quarter-share of her business. It will take me a while but I will eventually, hopefully, buy her out.’

Paul nodded and scratched his chin. ‘Right. And how much would you need to buy this business?’ he asked.

Ollie told him the figure and waited for him to flinch. When he didn’t, she was reminded that her father dealt with huge figures and numbers all the time. ‘Ask her to send me her financials: I want to do a deep-dive into her books. I’m not letting my daughter buy into a company if I haven’t inspected the company financials.’

It took all of Ollie’s willpower not to fling herself across the table and hug her dad. Instead, she sent him another tremulous smile and blinked away her tears. Hegother. He sent her a small wink and spoke again.

‘And you won’t be buying a small share. With what you have to spend, you could buy half her business,’ Paul added.

Ollie stared at her dad, wondering if this was the moment when he’d lost the plot. She spread her hands out. She didn’t have that sort of money. ‘Dad, what are you talking about?’

He smiled at her. ‘I received an email from a Bo Sørenson earlier this week.’

Bo? Her Bo? What was happening here?

‘He transferred a hundred thousand pounds into our trust account, with explicit instructions that the money was to be used any way you wanted to. He explained the money as being an additional bonus for looking after his son. You weren’t joking when you said that your clients were wealthy, sweetheart. That’s a huge bonus...’

‘But why did he send it to you?’

‘He wanted to bypass the agency—he wanted this to be between you and him—and he didn’t think you would send him your bank details if he asked.’

No, she wouldn’t have, because he’d already paid her a bonus via Sabine, the standard amount Sabine had suggested as per the contract he’d signed. He’d paid her more—and for what, exactly?

She was going to kill him. She really was.

What?

Are You?

Playing at?

Bo grimaced at the three messages that had dropped into his phone a few minutes ago and felt the heat of Ollie’s anger across the miles that separated them. Right, talking her round was going to take more effort than he’d thought.

Sitting in a taxi on his way to her parents’ accounting firm in Wimbledon, Bo ran a hand over his jaw, wincing at the scruff beneath his fingers. He hadn’t had the energy to do much over the past week, and shaving hadn’t been high on his list of priorities. Neither had been eating. Sleeping had been impossible.

He’d spent time with Mat, and his little boy had kept him from climbing into bed, pulling the covers over his head and pretending the world didn’t exist. But he had a company to run, an example to set and a son to be responsible for.

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