The Billionaire's Intern. Maisey Yates
while Addison sat at his desk, hands folded on the polished surface as she stared straight ahead. Rigid. Unmoving.
The sight of her made his clothes feel heavy. Made the weight of being civilized feel too damn intense.
She was such a stark reminder of what was expected of him. Of people like them.
Of all he couldn’t do.
The phone rang and she reached over and picked it up. “Mr. Black’s office. Yes. He’s here.”
Well, damn, that negated her presence. He didn’t want the phone passed to him.
He arched an eyebrow and she gave him a befuddled look. Then she cleared her throat. “Um…is he free to meet with you? Downtown? I don’t…uh…”
He took the phone from her. “Black.”
The voice on the other end was familiar, a contractor he’d been working with on his newest project. Converting a row of brownstones into a luxury boutique bed-and-breakfast.
“Mr. Black, I want you to come down to the site, if you’re available. There are some things I need you to see.”
Logan shifted, imagining what it would be like to go down to the brownstones today. No. The decision was made that quickly.
“I am unable to make it today,” he said. “We can hold a video conference if that suits you.”
“There’s a lot of damage to the pipes. We’re going to need to replace some. I thought you should see it for yourself.”
“I am busy,” he repeated. “It will just have to be handled.”
He hung up the phone and turned back to Addison, who was looking slightly shocked now. Finally he’d succeeded in rattling her cool.
He wondered how long it would take before he scared her off completely.
“What did I say about phone calls?”
“You said I was supposed to field your messages. You didn’t say anything about what I was supposed to do with the calls.”
He held in a growl and turned away from her, prowling across the length of the office. “Always say I’m too busy to take a call, even if I’m sitting in the corner playing a game on my phone.” Not that he even had games on his phone. “I don’t like to talk to people until I initiate it.”
He turned back to her, expecting to find an expression of wide-eyed fear on her face. Instead he saw nothing but serenity.
“Okay,” she said, keeping her hands folded in front of her, her shoulders straight.
“I don’t like things to be unpredictable,” he said. “I make the phone calls. People come to me. I prefer to do business on my own terms.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” she asked.
“What does that mean?”
“Everyone prefers to do business on their own terms. I mean, everyone prefers to live life on their own terms, but that doesn’t mean it’s possible to do all the time.”
“It is if you’re rich enough,” he said.
“Was that important?” she asked.
“Why?”
“It was someone with direct access to you, which I get the feeling you don’t give easily,” she said. “That leads me to assume it’s someone who might have important business with you.”
“And if it was?”
“Are you too busy to see him?”
“You’ve been here for two and a half hours. And for two hours of that time you were taking a nap in your room. What makes you think you’re qualified to comment on how I run my business?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I’m not. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to comment. Or ask you what’s going on.”
“You want to play question and answer?” he asked. “We can do that. But you’ll play too.”
“Well, that would be one way for us to get to know each other,” she said, smiling brightly. Too brightly in his opinion. Her top layer was starting to show cracks.
She was a funny creature, Addison Treffen. She made him want to tear the facade from her. She made him want to see what she was beneath the polished exterior. He had a feeling there was steel beneath the cream and silk on the surface. He wondered if anyone else knew, if anyone else had seen it. He wondered if Addison herself even knew.
He was fascinated.
And he was so rarely fascinated by people anymore.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Right now or philosophically?” She unclasped her hands and traced a circle on the wooden surface of his desk with one slender finger. “Right now I would actually like a coffee. On a broader scale? To make it through this. To come out the other side with some idea of what I’d like to do. I have almost finished my degree. Maybe I could be successful in this industry.” What she said about the industry seemed false. He doubted she cared at all about business. Not right now. What she’d said about surviving…that he believed. That he recognized.
“A dry goal. Survival.” She was so well trained. So bound by the chains of life. He knew what that was like. And he was free of them. Of course, now he was bound by chains of another kind.
Crushing guilt. Regret. Anxiety. Darkness, hot and wet with blood and sweat. Tears.
“And what is your goal?” she asked, cutting into his thoughts.
“Do I need one?” he asked. “I’m already a billionaire.”
“Right. Which means if you didn’t have a goal you could go off somewhere and never work another day.”
If only that didn’t sound so enticing. “Impossible,” he said. “I am the savior of Black Properties. The one who will continue to push the company forward. Who will carry out the legacy.”
“And the legacy matters?” she asked. “I’m sorry, I only press as one who recently discovered that her legacy is mud.”
“Let me tell you a story,” he said, wondering why in hell he was talking to her about this. One thing he didn’t believe in was giving explanations for himself. He didn’t owe his story to anyone. He used their discomfort at his inability to conform to his advantage, and he didn’t apologize for it. And yet something about Addison made him want to talk. And why should he waste a moment justifying that? Even to himself. “When I got on that yacht four years ago I was the despair of my father. And I deserved that. I was given everything from the time I was born, and with it I did nothing. Nothing but spend, coast through school, knowing I would get a pass because my father was David Black, and no one would dare fail his son. In my own mind, I was the damn chosen one, Addison. Nothing could touch me. Nothing was withheld from me. Invincible. A god. For no reason other than that I was born with blue blood and a full bank account.”
He watched her face closely, watching for a ripple in the calm. So far, he hadn’t managed it.
He continued. “I hate that arrogant man,” he said, “the one who walked onto a yacht four years ago for a weekend of drinking and sex. Who had never in his life spent a penny of his own money. I hate him. As far as I’m concerned he died on that island. Unfortunately my father died in Manhattan, while I was gone. And he will never know any other son than the one he had before. I was the son who made his mother cry, who left headlines that would shame his family. And now I have a second chance. Doesn’t my father deserve his legacy to be carried out? Doesn’t my sister deserve to have the company in good condition?”
“Does your sister want to run it?” Addison asked.
“No. But it’s the inheritance of future generations, and I’m sure she’d like to have children someday. Those