Page 42 of The Billionaire's Temptation

She took a breath, then lifted her lashes, giving him a startling view of those soft, brown eyes. “I’m not good at business,” she started off.

He stopped her by a simple touch to her hand. “You’re notexperiencedat business,” he corrected. “Business isn’t difficult, contrary to what most people believe. It doesn’t take a genius to figure most things out.”

She smiled faintly, but the expression vanished quickly and she moved her hands out of his touch.

“That’s very generous of you, but if that were true, then you wouldn’t be in the financial position that you’re in now, would you?”

“Well…”

“And you’re only thirty six years old, Levi,” she told him, arguing with him for some reason. “You’re half my father’s age and yet, you’re net worth is more than double what my father was able to accumulate over his entire lifetime.”

He didn’t want to discuss his net worth. He wanted to talk about why she was pulling away from him now. He wanted to explain why he’d left so hurriedly that morning. And he wanted to vow to her that he’d never,ever, do that again if she would allow him to back into her life.

Patience, he reminded himself. Patience was the key. Clarissa was new to this world of cutthroat business machinations. He had to ease her into this world because there was no going back to her old world. Not anymore. She was an extremely wealthy woman now. She had to learn to live in this world.

If she was here, speaking with him, this was his best bet to get her to trust him again.

“So, how can I help?”

“My accountant, Ian Montrose, is going to suggest selling off several of my father’s commercial properties.”

“And you don’t want to sell them?” he offered when she hesitated.

She lowered her head, toying with the tassel on her purse. “That’s not it, exactly.” She sighed, her fingers becoming agitated. “I actually considered selling everything off to someone who knew what they were doing. Someone who could manage the enterprises in the way that they should be managed.”

“And now? I’m guessing that you don’t think you should do that?”

She shrugged. “I’m already in over my head, Levi,” she admitted. “Apparently, Ian Montrose is going to advise me to sell several of my more lucrative properties. My father had five commercial properties in five of the most profitable cities in the country. He’s going to tell me to sell them to a group of investors for about a hundred and fifteen dollars a square foot.”

“Don’t do it,” he snapped, his anger bubbling over. “First of all, there’s no reason to sell anything right now.”

She sighed, her shoulders slumping. “If I don’t follow his advice, he’s going to petition the courts to allow him fiduciary trusteeship of my assets, so that he can do what he wants with the businesses.”

Levi immediately pulled back, furious on her behalf. “What the hell?”

She leaned forward, earnest now. “And what’s worse, he’s one of the investors in this group. He has shares in the properties already through his investment firm, but no one is supposed to know about it. And he’s going to advise me to sell the properties to this group so that he can profit not only the sale of the buildings, but also in the future profits on the rents.” She stood up and started pacing. “He’s basically going to rob me of a large portion of my inheritance.” She spun around, glaring in his direction. “He plans to profit off of my stupidity!”

“He can’t do that,” Levi replied, leaning back and watching her carefully. “What can I do to help?”

She spun around, clutching her hands together now. “I want you to tell me how to stop him. And I want to fire him as my accountant.”

“You can do both. You have the right.” He stood up and faced her. “However, if you fire your accounting firm, you need to have another one in place immediately.”

“I know.” She sighed, then bit he lower lip. “I don’t have a new accounting firm in mind yet.”

“Let’s back up a bit. How did you find out about Montrose’s plan to swindle you?”

She looked a bit startled by his terminology, but there was no other way to spin what the ass was attempting to do.

“About ten days ago, I met the forty or so accountants who currently work on my father’s accounts. They were all in a conference room, listening in while Montrose explained everything to me.”

Levi stopped her with a hand in the air. “There’s no reason to have forty people sitting in a room unless they were contributing,” he inserted. “The only reason he did that was to bill you for each person’s time.”

She smiled briefly, but her expression quickly turned sad again. “I thought so too, especially since only four of them actually spoke during the meeting.”

“Go on.”

Clarissa shifted slightly, but she continued with her explanation. “Well, towards the end of the two hour meeting, I mentioned a charity that I wanted to establish.” She shrugged her shoulders, shrinking into herself a bit. “I asked if I had the money for this idea, and Ian told me to submit a business plan and he’d tell me whether it was viable or not.”

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