Page 41 of Hired For the Billionaire's Secret Son

But work, once his whole world and his solace, meant nothing when his thoughts constantly went to Ollie, wondering what she was doing and how she was, whether she missed him at all.

Helen was wonderful with Mat, but she wasn’t Ollie. Nobody was and nobody could be. Nobody made his house smell of roses. He missed hearing her laughter and her very off-key singing. He missed waking up with her, loving her at night—and in the morning, the afternoon and every minute in between. His life without her was miserable and bleak. When she left, she’d drained all the colour from his world.

He missed her. The guy who never missed anyone, who’d never allowed himself to feel, was pining for a woman.

It was no less than he deserved.

But, over the past few days, he’d realised that his current state of existence wasn’t any way to live. Being apart from Ollie had made him realise that he wasn’t his mother, cold and emotionless, that he couldn’t view life the way she did and that not everything was a transaction. Neither was he his father: Bo had tried to flit from woman to woman and keep his relationships shallow and that had worked until Ollie had dropped into his life with her sparkling eyes and bouncing curls, bringing happiness to his cold, barren life.

It was as though someone had switched the light on in his life and when she’d left—when he’d sent her away—the power to his world had been turned off.

He was tired of moping around, of being sad, hurt and lonely. If having her in his life meant marrying her, fully throwing himself into those waters, then that was what he would do.

Nothing was worse than being a walking, talking, flesh-and muscle-covered broken heart.

My girl’s not happy with you.

Bo pulled a face at Paul’s incoming text and knew he hadn’t made a great impression on the man he hoped would be his future father-in-law. He hadn’t even met the guy yet but he’d asked him via a video call—because he wasn’t a complete moron—whether he could marry his daughter. Paul, dignified and quietly spoken, had made it very clear that, if he hurt his daughter again, he would bury his body so deep that not even Satan would be able to find it.

Bo believed him.

Paul had also told him where Ollie was and for that he’d be in his debt for ever. As long as he had Ollie, he didn’t care.

The car approached the Cooper & Co building and Bo directed his driver to pull up before he reached it. As he did so, he saw Ollie flounce out of the building, irritation radiating from her face.

Right, she was mad. Well, she’d just have to get over it.

He got out of the car, slammed the door shut and leaned his butt on the closed door, folding his arms as he watched her fumble in her bag for her phone. He shoved his hand into the back pocket of his trousers and waited for his own phone to vibrate. Yep, there she was.

‘Olivia.’

‘Don’t you Olivia me,’ she yelled, spinning away from a man who gave her a dirty look for her loud voice. ‘What do you think you were doing, contacting my father and paying me an additional bonus through him? My parents aren’t expecting me to repay my education costs and I can buy my way into Sabine’s business on my own.’

‘Call it a wedding gift,’ he murmured but she was too angry to hear his heartfelt words. But, honestly, he couldn’t wait to call her his wife... If he managed to get to the point of proposing without her ripping his head off.

‘What do you think you were doing? How dare you contact my father? What do you mean it’s a wedding gift?’ she shouted so loudly that he could hear her from where he stood. Right, so much for the English sense of decorum. Olivia was missing that today.

Frankly, he didn’t care. He could work with anger. It scared him far less than a studied non-reaction. Ignoring him would have meant that she didn’t care enough to feel anything.

Heat was fine, cold was a problem.

‘Argh! I cannot believe I am fighting with you over the phone!’ she yelled.

‘Well, you can fight with me in person, if you prefer.’

‘I want to fight with you now and not have to catch a flight, Sørenson!’

‘Your wish is my command,’ he told her, lifting his hand to wave. He saw her look over at him, her eyes bouncing over the car before snapping back to look at him. She slapped her free hand on a slim hip and pushed her sunglasses up into her hair. Even from a slight distance, he could see that her eyes were narrowed. If anyone held a lit match to her, she’d explode like a Catherine wheel.

‘Are you coming to me or am I coming to you?’ Bo asked, keeping his tone reasonable.

Ollie looked around, her shoulders hunched up around her ears. ‘I’ll meet you at the entrance to the Italian garden in Cannizaro Park in twenty minutes.’

‘Why don’t you just get in the car and the driver can take us there?’ Bo suggested, frustrated at being separated from her for one minute more.

‘Twenty minutes, Sørenson,’ she snapped. ‘And, hopefully, that’s enough time for my temper to cool.’

Right, okay then.He knew better than to push his luck.

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